garage

after the bread

The line of miniature garages behind our building are a tiny city, circled by a landscape of broken cars that sit on flat tires never to be fixed. There are piles of bricks that tell no good story about how they got there and what they are for. Old men crack their heavy steel doors open at random hours and yank tools from shelves, banging and grinding and smashing things around, their hollow labor echoing around the courtyards and into the street. Sometimes a grandchild sits with them, bored yet filling the time.

There is one garage that was converted to a bread shop, with a stove pipe that climbs from the roof marking how different it is from the rest. Someone rented it and languished in obscurity for a few months making bread for the ghosts. I never saw a person buy a single shoti puri from them. It sat empty for years after that, the windows caked with dust, the sagging empty shelves sleeping behind it all.

And then, the unfriendly downstairs neighbor was there, directing workers. This sour old man that marks out his private Tesla spot and terrorizes anyone that encroaches on it is as harsh as they come. The insides of the bakery were gutted, the stove broken down and eventually dragged to the dumpsters in the street. Those shelves were reduced to bent chunks of wood and were piled on the roof for some impossible reason, ready to blow off and break a windshield in the howling wind that races around Tbilisi on any given day. The workers disappeared as quickly as they arrived that odd Sunday night. I watched it unfold from our balcony, predicting what might replace it and coming up dry.

A few days later, I noticed that the windows had been boarded up from inside. A light fingered through the cracks. I made a habit of craning my neck to peer inside each time I went to throw out the garbage, wondering if it was some ramshackle meth lab, or a grow room.

What was he doing in there?

I let it go, and thought maybe the lights were on because someone forgot to turn them off. Something as lazy and innocent as possible.

And then, one night as I shambled home from a wine festival, I heard a tv playing inside. Yes, as I leaned my nose against the boarded-up window I could make out a messy bed. Christ, someone was living in there, with no toilet, just a cold water sink left over from the bread makers. At least they had some electricity.

That old man with his broken Tesla, he is a real piece of work. He could easily be renting that place to a gastarbeiter (a foreigner, a migrant worker) and get paid cash. Maybe there were ten men living in there. I have seen it in Moscow, it is absolutely possible.

---

The broken-down shelves remain in a defiant pile on the roof. The old man clearly refuses to throw them away.

There is a beautiful story people tell about Georgian hospitality, that strangers can become dinner guests in a heartbeat, their glass never empty. It can absolutely be true. But there is another side to the coin - the man that has his own little fiefdom. He exploits anything that catches his mood. He creates his own laws, and screws the rest. If there was an opposite of generosity it is this man, and yes he is Georgian.

In this part of the world, there are mavericks, there are renegades, there are people that see themselves beyond the law, beyond common morality. They are often celebrated - as only the dumb criminals get caught, and the rest find some sort of salty heroism. If you can get away with it, you pat yourself on the back and laugh at the fools that scurry around you.