the most final
concluding work

The management of SMP-615 found a way to, at least partially, smooth out the fact of keeping around a bricklayer with a diploma. I was appointed one of the Assessors at the Comradely Court.

Such courts considered minor, insignificant misdoings, offenses not addressed in the articles of the criminal code or, if envisaged there, not bearing excessively grave nature, like, some petty vandalism or, say, theft of trifles. The Comradely Court was rather a means of moral upbraiding than a punishment dealt with all the legislative rigor.

The position of a Comradely Court Assessor provided no payment and was electable by vote. However, it's not always possible to draw a clear borderline between election and appointment. The words "Who's for?" during the voting at trade-union meetings was not a question addressed to those present but rather the drilled-in command, kinda sounding the bugle to signal it was time to raise their hands. That unanimous show of hands might serve an illustrious demonstration of a secondary reflex, no less indicative, but not as repulsive, as the use of a Pavlovian dog dropping saliva thru the glass tube.

The very same responsive reflexology ruled at Komsomol meetings. Actually, thru all the years of my work at SMP-615, there occurred just one such meeting caused by an unexpected visit of an inspector from the City Komsomol Committee. It's highly unlikely that he came to the assembly hall on the second floor of the SMP-615 administrative building on his own accord, he sooner was charged to check how high the life was running among enthusiastic youth under the age of 28 engaged in the construction sphere.

So our Seagull made an extra round to bring us to the base, yet knowing there was no pay awaiting there diminished our enthusiasm usual for the rides at this time of day. The pitiful lack of the puniest interest even in the most pressing issues of our time demonstrated by the busload of us brought to sit thru the meeting, which rolled, with catastrophic swiftness, to its end, filled the cadre with bitter indignation which made him forget the rut of protocol and ask another question, both stinging and exotic, "How could you be so passive?"

At so unfamiliar sounds the folks simply did not know what to do with their hands, that’s why I had to get up and respond rhetorically, "And who, I wonder with your kind permission, would the active lead if there were no acquiescent passives, eh?" Still and all, that f-f..er..I mean, forlorn diploma keeps you obliged to follow a certain line of conduct.

The inspecting functionary was unprepared, in his turn, for such a counter-question, and the meeting got safely closed…

So, the SMP-615 management decided they would show a proper respect to the system of higher education in our state by making me, a carrier of a diploma for such an education, an Assessor of the Comradely Court which required one Chairman and two Assessors for the period of one year, until the next report-and-election meeting of the trade-union.

At the Assessor position, I discovered a latent tyrant lurking inside me, who used to come up with suggestions of the most draconian punishments. For example, a month of solitary (sic!) correctional labor for the plasterer Trepetilikha, in the northern, far-off parts of the SMP-615 grounds. Whereas, for her, a day was lost, if at the bus ride from the station to At-Seven-Winds she would not yackety-yak a couple of colleagues to coma.

Of course, from the SMP-615 production building (the place of the supposed correctional labor) to the check-entrance house by the gate, there was a distance of merely 200 meters, and the check-entrance house was the seat of Svaitsikha the watchwoman, whose tongue was also in no need of oiling. However, the court did not heed my proposal and sentenced Trepetilikha to be removed for 3 months from the position of straw boss in the plasterers' team, which meant the cut in payment to the amount of 10 rubles for each penalty month. Anyway, she got off lightly because her offense could easily have a political resonance.

The trial revealed the following chain of events:

Trepetilikha peeked out of a window in 110-apartment block and saw that the accountant of SMP-615 was going home.

Well, and why not go? She lived in the At-Seven-Winds area, and it took her about 15 minutes of a leisurely stroll to get home from the SMP-615 administrative building. And the time was already twenty to five. Her gross mistake was in answering the question of Trepetilikha who drooped out of the window, "Well, well, and what's there to be carried?" The plasterer meant the cellophane packet in the hands of the passer-by.

"Fish," responded the dimwit of an accountant.

The word "fish" served the detonator for what followed. Trepetilikha went to pieces, collected the women of her plasterers' team and, with prolonged intonations, informed them on the unfair distribution of life's good things, despite the era of developed socialism, "They're sitting there in the offices! Made themselves warm and cozy! An electric heater under each bitch's asshole! And we a getting stiff from cold! And when it's fish, it's for them?! Enough, girlfriends! Collect your spats and hawks! Yes, and even so brazenly she mouthed, 'It's fish I've got.' But do we have no families?!"

The fact is that our Seagull bus at times brought food from ORS, aka the Department for Workingmen Provision. Once, when we were on the 110-apartment block, they brought fresh buns, and on the 100-apartment block, it was mineral water in glass bottles of 0.5 liters.

When and what was meted out in the administrative building of SMP-615, I had no idea, but the following day the women on Trepetilikha's team did not start working and that, from whichever viewpoint, was a strike.

I never knew whether they had brought them fish or some other equivalent, but the finishing work was, after all, continued and Trepetilikha stood before the court. That is, our Comradely Court. The SMP-615 management could not turn a blind eye to the fact of idle time with a political lining to it, especially when the deputy chief technologist wore a tie with the imprinted sickle and hammer. Which says a lot. Yes, my cloth scarf bore a pattern of Kremlin tower on top of the five Olympic Rings and the inscription "Moscow-80", but I had nothing to choose from, while the neckties at the Department Store were fairly diversified with crisscrossed, striped, and even dotted pattern…

On a mature contemplation, it can’t but be admitted that rejecting my proposal to transfer Trepetilikha to the SMP-615 base, the Comradely Court made a wise decision. Keeping her there would tantamount to playing with an open fire atop of a powder keg. Had they brought there something of which she did not get a share, she'd blow up the whole base.

"There are certain women in the settlements of Russia…"

Without false modesty, I have to note that in the villages of the Konotop district one might come across even more cool females whose potential could only be measured in megatons or even by the Richter scale.

"Phui! What brazen folks I have to get along with! The whole of the village was out to hassle me! I’ve barely managed to bark them off!"