A memoir of exile and rebellion—
from the Soviet underground to Portland’s streets
UKRAINIAN MONSTER
AN AMERICAN STORY
Viktoriya Volkov
At the end of a warm summer day, our sliver of Earth slips into the
night with a cool breeze wafting in through the window over my
desk, gently lifting the heat and gravity along with it…bap, bap, bap…
“I think those were gunshots,” Jack says behind me, breaking
our strict code of silence.
Are we in danger?
The shots are far enough away.
Mmmh... I don't turn around as I shrug back at Jack. I close all the
windows to quiet the police sirens and return to my desk to write.
Jack pulls his llama blanket back over his knees and goes back to
reading Carl Jung.
Some time later a thin silence prevails, and with it, finally—my
curiosity. I whisper to Jack, “I’m leaving,” and step out of his
bungalow, cut through his garden, and approach the flashing red and
blue lights on 82nd. The familiar calm washes over me—
you can’t think, and you can’t feel—you’re just here.
Neighbors are gathered in front of the yellow “POLICE LINE DO
NOT CROSS” tape. I circle around them to see what’s going on
across the street, but rows of police vehicles block the view. I’m left
with my neighbors, not knowing any of them.
A group of Russian-speaking[1] mechanics stand in a circle in front
of their salvaged auto repair shop.
My dad is with them—he beams at me, eyes glinting—let’s see how
you do.
“Zdravstvuite,” I give the formal Russian hello.
They hear their native language—but they see an American. Their
eyes drop.
“Privet,” they respond casually and return to their conversation.
I walk on.
In the parking lot of the Mexican tire shop sits a proudly derelict
American-made pickup truck with a kid perched on its open tailgate
in greasy clothes, talking and laughing with my sister Inna, her pink
baseball cap flicking back and forth with her usual high-strung
awareness—
The back window of the kid's truck reads LOCALS ONLY—
This is the first time I’ve seen my sister acknowledge anyone on our
street before in my life.
“Do you guys know what happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know…” Inna replies, throwing a hard side-eye at the
standoff.
The kid pitches in, the baby fat on his ruddy cheeks bouncing,
“Maaaan, whoever tryna shoot the cops—they cooked.”
He looks down at us expectantly.
My sister looks back up at him, bursting with an indignant giggle.
I leave the two be.
At the barricade, a man in a light blue golf shirt leans out the window
of a black Chevy Malibu, laughing with an officer as he tries to find a
way out.
They finish talking and I approach the open passenger window,
reminding myself—around here, it’s a delicate dance between the
classic Portland “I genuinely care, no matter who you are” and
“I can fuck you up six ways to Sunday.”
“Hello…”
“Hello!” The man returns a relaxed smile.
“Do you know what happened?” I ask.
“So, I’m told the guy tried to shoot the cops up ahead there,” he says,
his voice low, sardonic. He gestures to Tire Empire across 82nd.
“Then he took off up the street…” He hugs his wheel, craning his
neck to the right—“We're blocked off all the way down to Division,”
and looks up like he’s sailing in the sunshine.
“Looks like I’ll be here all night, waiting out this moron.”
We get to talking. “I was a carpenter for twenty-eight years. Then my
doctor tells me it's time to seek lighter work. So, thirty years ago, I
became supervisor at the trailer park and moved in, right around the
corner there—” He points down 82nd.
That’s just a few hundred feet around the corner from where I'd
grown up since 2001, but I’d never heard of him, and never stepped
foot in his trailer park.
Though from a certain spot on the street, I’d always see flying
high over one of the trailers,
a weathered Gadsden Don’t Tread on Me flag—
and the fresh TRUMP WON flag.
The man raises his hand to greet a man and woman walking up 82nd.
The couple stops and talks to him. But their eyes dart and bodies
twitch—saying one thing: “Everyone else can go to hell.”
This is exactly the type you avoid around here.
“You can still get back into the park—” he tells them.
“Oh, ok... ” they give a nod, say goodbye, and walk away.
We keep talking—his laughter explodes like a firework, he keeps a
grip on his door handle, as though to remind himself he's still on
Earth—
I crane my neck to follow our winding conversation through the
open passenger window.
Finally, I ask if I can sit in his car.
“Of course… please, sit,” he replies.
“This is how we build community around here!”
“That’s right—thanks to that genius!” He throws his head back
with laughter—every combed white hair staying in perfect order.
“James Sleeper,” he introduces himself.
As we keep talking, the police box truck unloads a tactical robot.
It glides up Cooper Street, disappearing into the standoff. Cars pass
by, seeking detours. The crowd thins.
Behind the flashing lights, a full moon rises over the dark Clackamas
hills.
James looks out beyond our street, tapping his chest. “I got a
defibrillator implanted right here. It’s brought me back to life twice.
It sends these electric currents to my heart, when it stops beating...”
He gently grips his gear shift. “A couple weeks ago, I took a fall
in the shower, dying—and it shocked me back to life.”
Our conversation keeps winding. I tell James I write, and he startles
as though his defibrillator went off again—“I’ve always thought artists
solve everyday problems.” He pulls back with a rueful smile,
tapping the gear shift, the worn silver in his watch catching in the
streetlight. "My nephew is a painter, and he’s constantly reimagining
things at home—solving problems no one else could.
“I think a lot of the time we don’t even see what our problems are...
It’s like asking a fish, ‘What is water?’”
He exhales slowly, as though he’s measuring his breath. “Hell, we do
what we want, but we don't ask, What do I want?”
He looks out again, his blue eyes flickering.
“We don’t even know how we got here. How was the universe
created? That’s our last big question… and we’ll never know.”
We keep talking, no, dancing with the language—as though we're
asking one another: Where do words even come from? What's hiding
behind them?—What lies beyond them?
Hours go by. We don't notice until an officer walks back across 82nd.
James grabs onto the overhead handle and swings out. He slings one
arm over the door and the other over the open moonroof, calling
out—“Did you get ‘em?”
The officer responds with a withdrawn nod, “Yes.”
“Next time, you can give him to me—I’ll line him up in front of my
car!”
The officer hangs his head and turns back to help other cars get back
on the road.
James grips the roof and swings back inside.
We say our goodbyes.
I start walking back, my feet readjusting to the ground.
“Make trouble, but don’t get into trouble!” James calls after me.
I turn—he’s leaning out of his window, grinning.
I throw a salute as his sleek black car disappears around the corner.
The cool night settles over Cooper Street—still—crisp—almost pure.
❧
The next day, the shooting made the news.
Jeremy Rivers was on the corner of 82nd Avenue and Cooper Street,
selling meth as Portland Police closed in to arrest him on warrants for
gun charges and sexual assault.
As officers approached, Rivers pulled his gun—and police opened
fire. He shot back—fled up the street—and barricaded himself in the
lobby of Hernandez Auto Repair.
Inside the shop was Manuel Mendoza, a Mexican American
grandfather from Texas, waiting for his blue Mini Cooper to be
repaired.
Manuel ran and hid under the small kitchenette
in a fetal position.
Jeremy kept shooting at the cops and police returned fire—
spraying the front lot, Manuel’s car included.
Video surveillance caught the gunman pulling on his meth pipe—
pacing around the shop in a red t-shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis
shoes—while police negotiated with him for several hours.
Manuel thought, I need to kill this guy before he kills me. How am I
gonna get him?
The gunman kept pacing and started yelling into his phone—“I don’t
care if I die—I want to die.” He began kicking holes into the
drywall, trying to escape, only to hit a brick wall—
and found Manuel.
“Man, I’m dead,” Manuel whispered.
“C’mon man, I’m not gonna hurt you,” came the gunman's reply.
Manuel saw his chance. He’d caught the name from the phone call.
“Jeremy, are you ready to die?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you die tonight, is there a guarantee you’re gonna come to
heaven?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you walk out that door and you don’t have Jesus in your heart,
you’re gonna go straight to hell, man...”
The gunman thought about that—bowed his head—and set his gun
down.
“Bro, I’m not gonna let you die,” Manuel promised. The two men
prayed.
Jeremy took a few last drags from his meth pipe and surrendered to
the police.
No one was hurt that night.
[1] Many Russian-speaking immigrants in Portland are Ukrainian by origin.
Before the war in Ukraine escalated in 2022, “Russian” and “Ukrainian” were
used interchangeably—by choice, by habit, or to keep things simple.
Felony Flats
August 17, 2022