Rudolf Laine

I was born in midsummer on the outskirts of Helsingham City Centre into a middle-class, middle-income, and rather mediocre family- middle, as later times suggested. I don't know the effect of all this on my character, which is steady yet has great impulsive enthusiasms that often subside just as quickly – or nearly as quickly.

My father worked as an office rat in a medium-sized company in middle management as the second head of the billing department. My mother was a part-time hairdresser-makeup artist at Loulou's Beauty Salon.

If I had to introduce my character in one short play scene, I would choose a snippet from the first hormone storms of my youth. At that time, open rebellion against authority, the prevailing social system, and leveling up became fashionable among young people, and I went crazy.

Overnight, I, a mediocre kind schoolboy, became an antagonist of the system with spitting, swearing, and disruptive behavior. I remember feeling bitter towards my parents for not really giving me any reason to be bitter and rebellious against them.

On my third night of rebellion, an elderly gentleman, tired of my behavior, asked how things should be arranged, how they should be. I found that I had no idea about it. He said: "Boy, in a functioning democracy, there is always a dictatorship of mediocrity in power." There, wearing a second-hand, black leather jacket bought with my father's money at a flea market, not really knowing what I was opposing and, above all, defending, I suddenly felt like a fool as my enthusiasm dropped like my leather jacket to the bottom of my closet after a few uses.

This handsome song is definitely not the only or the first sample in the symphony of my impulsiveness. I let the pondering and weird, pointless realism drift away when inspiration strikes. For example, much earlier, as a boy, I watched what was happening on the sports field. I got carried away. On the side of the pitch was the Helsingham Athletics Club barracks, and I quickly headed there to register as a member. I was asked what sport I had in mind, and only then did I realize I had no idea about it. The experienced coach who happened to be there laughed sweetly at first and then said, "But then it's obvious. The boy is going to be a decathlete."

I did mediocrely. One time, there was an intra-club competition, and during the 1500 meters, one of my annoying competitors pushed me into a bend so that I fell. I lay on crushed coal for a while. I calmly lifted. I started running the track in the wrong direction – and when this pusher of mine came across me as he was stacking his final sprint, I sneered at him with the strength of the shot put (this is how I got my nickname Rude). 

I later felt remorse for what I had done, which, thank God, had no major consequences, not because my athletics career ended there but because my enthusiasm waned again. However, what stood out most to me was the almost distorted face of the coach's rage as he shouted at me "This is athletics, not boxing. Go to Fat-Sam's Boxing Palace. It's the right place for you."

So I went. Fat Sam's place was anything but a palace, but I was charmed by its dilapidated pillars, the musty smell of decades of sweat, the scaly paintings on the concrete walls, the bags piled up with tape that some still gushed with fillings, the squeak of boxing boots against the canvas, and the testosterone-saturated air around it all.b

Fat Sam wasn't exactly surprised by my enthusiasm. I didn't think I was the first 12-year-old to push himself to become the future champion of a series. He wanted to see my blows, noticed that a heavy sack was moving from the strength of my inched and helpless but athletics-stained arm, and suggested that I come with my father after a while to talk about things.

My father, for whose kindness I would therefore feel unjustified bitterness for a few years later, brought me to the Palace in a week, expecting that my enthusiasm, as is well known, would fly very quickly. But boxing became another thing in my life that I could continue for quite a long time. I started as a passer boy who drenched sweat off floors, emptied buckets, delivered errands, carried water bottles, and received random instruction in correct punching techniques, dodges, strategies, gaining strength and stamina, and most importantly, footwork.

Boxing became a sport where I broke the curse of mediocrity. As I grew up as a young man, Fat Sam allowed me to start full, goal-oriented training. I did quite well in training matches, thanks to my many years of introduction and overcoming the horror of being in a tightly roped square for the first time. The chances of success in the sport knocked on my shoulders, rubbed my forehead, tickled my nose, and tickled my big toe as it pushed to give the blow a little extra force. Until Michael Bison.

Michael Bison was two years younger than me, a shorter, lighter, and less trained skipper who had moved to Helsingham recently and was admitted to Fat Sam's Boxing Palace directly because of his previous coach's undoubtedly praising letter of recommendation. Unfortunately, the letter was correct.

In our first practice match, Bison pushed me however he wanted. He dodged my blow, so I didn't even understand where his head disappeared from this universe. Bison suddenly pounded me right, left, and front. Demonstrating the difference in power between the hammer throw and shot put, he knocked me out three times: twice in the ring, and once in the dream of reaching the top of boxing. Call me a loser. Call me a donor. I call myself Christopher Columbus, who discovered a continent called Realism. This continent is new to every human being at some point, but, in reality, inhabited for tens of thousands of years by millions of people.

Shortly after, I became fascinated and infuriated by the black and white strips. My grandfather used to take photographs and, in the darkness of his bathroom, do things that seemed more like voodoo to me. I understood that he was pulling photographs – but what did it really have to do with those stupid and even off-putting-looking plastic pieces that had something to do with it?

When I finally understood the negative, the whole idea of photography flooded over me even more powerfully than Michael Bison. And impulsively, I decided to learn everything about the industry. For some reason, I combined photography with a long, white jacket – apparently in the image of a photography laboratory technician – and I was able to scrape together something at least there, a white poplin jacket, with my Melker's Melon running boy earnings. As I stepped out wearing a new coat from the clothing store, Sheila bumped into me with an open mug of cocoa in her hand, like a cliché scene from a love movie.

After the usual updates, horrors, and apologies, he directed me to the Ultimate Luxury Laundry, whose vice manager, commonly referred to as a Tailor he knew, and offered to pay for washing my coat. The Tailor witnessed how the pains in front of him began to hiss between me and Sheila.

Sheila was the actual packaging, and I borrowed my grandfather's Leica to take a few photos of her. Somehow, I felt how she had to be placed at the right angle in the light of the evening sun falling from the window of her apartment. I even photographed half a roll while she posed brilliantly, and I brilliantly guided her.

The pictures were a surprising success. As a result, Sheila was hired by a modeling agency, and I started as a photography assistant and intern at a larger photography studio.

We both had rocket-like success in our careers. Rocket-like.

This may have saved my life, as I was recruited for the Korean War – military intelligence, not combat operations. My job was responsible for the technique, development, and printing of battlefield photos performed with balloons.

While I "enjoyed" military provisions, lodging, and male company, both living and dead, Sheila enjoyed modeling life, dinners, champagne, hotels – and male company in my country. Very lively one.

Even in the heyday of our love, we had never had children. That was really good because when I came back, we were complete strangers.

When I got home, I found my poplin jacket again and thought it might be best to wash it: I would have an important meeting the following week, and it was my most representative accessory at the time. In honor of the old days, I took it back to the Ultimate Luxury Laundry, where the Tailor I remembered had eventually become the owner of the entire place. He also remembered me well: his laundry was popular with Helsingham's high society, and Sheila, who visited it often, had told me about me when she still cared. Tailor and I stayed to talk, found ourselves on the same wavelength, and finally sealed our friendship by drinking at Hayakawas Bar & Grill for a very long time.

After two days, I was already feeling great, so I went to claim my jacket. Tailor didn't want to pay a price for it, but I pushed payment on him – I didn't want to take advantage of our friendship in any way.

The meeting I mentioned was with the photography studio owner in the studio, where I had worked before the war. He told me I was more than welcome back. The owner said he was already old and retiring but wanted to leave his studio in good hands. He told me that most of all photographers, he would like to leave the glory of his life's work in my hands. Would I like to buy a studio?

I knew two things. I would still have some big clients who want my skills, and my savings were quite good – but not to buy any kind of studio. The owner told me that it could be done through a bank manager he knew,if I could get a few guarantors – he could be one himself. And that's when my impulsive nature took over me. I would become the owner of a photography studio.

The loan that required a guarantee was not so large after my savings that I would not have dared to ask my quite solvent parents about it. The matter came up with Tailor soon after, and he too said that he could consider investing in it - with sufficient interest from the future profits.

Everything worked out. I became one of Helsingham's most successful advertising photographers. My parents not only kept their money but also received a bonus on top of it. Tailor received his agreed rate. And I had landed for good days.

However, there is one – at least for me – interesting detail in all of this. When I stepped out of my studio for the first time, my mind bubbling with enthusiasm, I realized that every time I wore this same poplin jacket, new or clean, I was at the heights of the joy of my life: amazingly great, wonderful things happened to me.

I'm not exactly superstitious. I wouldn't even want to admit to myself that I feel like this jacket is like some security rag of Linus van Pelt... but I do. I'll keep this up until the last twine, at least in situations where I'm insecure or scared. Fortunately, my friend Tailor knows my relationship with the jacket and has taken care of it with his professional skills all these years. When I'm wearing this, everything works out in the end. It makes me lucky. There is a mystical feeling that we are one.