the most final
concluding work

With the narrow gate unguarded for so long, the kids began to cautiously penetrate into the concrete circle of the dance-floor, yet keeping, just in case, close to the grating except for a couple of neglected toddlers cut loose to frisk happily hither-thither.

Three girls walked in to get seated in a short line on a backless bench by the fence… A young pair entered slowly, seems, belated to occupy the special bench in the grotto of bushes… Another hesitant couple… Welcome, there are lots of benches here…

The groundbreaking night saw no dancing; we, like, played to please ourselves. Then we shipped the equipment and instruments to the summer cinema ticket office on the first floor in the projectionist's booth.

Everything repeated itself on Wednesday. Yes! On Wednesday! We scheduled dances thrice a week: Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

On Saturday, a half-hour before we started, some unusual stir in the air was felt in the Plant Park alleys suddenly filled by too many people sauntering along, to and fro. We decided to wait no longer and climbed on the stage when Vitya Batrak, handled Slave, entered the wide circle of the dance-floor followed by his retinue from Peace Square guys.

The abundant curls of chestnut color poured over the shoulders of his long-sleeved silk shirt the color of the Jolly Roger. The collar, following the suit of the unbuttoned, loosely sweeping cuffs, disclosed his chest in a generous cleavage down to the solar plexus.

When in the center of the dance-floor, Slave kicked up a picturesque discussion with his followers about the wristwatch he wore. The wide strap of artificial leather got unfastened, the watch tossed up in the air, high and fair, to clatter back against the concrete floor. The disputants encircled and craned over —ticking or what?

Meanwhile, a stream of young people of both sexes began to flow in bypassing the pack of clockwork experts. That's it! The city believed that in the Plant Park they did play dances!

On Sunday everyone danced. In circles, of course. A circle of ten to fifteen dancers sprang up around two or three satchels placed on the concrete floor. Each circle danced in the endemic style of their own… The band stage served a good viewing point. In the circle on the left, they were busily twisting while in the one closer to the concha, the dancers imitated speed skating contest by shuffling their feet in gradual circles over the cemented floor with their hands clasped on their backs. And over there, near the gate, the guys were still happy with the ol’ good "seb’n-forty". At times, from one or another dancing circle there sounded a probing, on-the-sly scream…

Next Saturday, auntie Shura, the Controller in her eternal helmet-kerchief, pops up at the entrance to the dance-floor directing all who approached the gate after tickets, 50 kopecks apiece.

Vladya and I come up to auntie Shura, we burn with rightful rage. What the heck! These dances for free! Free dances!

Auntie Shura remains indifferently calm, she has Director's order.

Vladya, glowing in the twilight with his white short-sleeved turtleneck, yells to the nearing folks not to listen to her and come in because the dances for free! Free dances!

No one listens to him, they sheepishly plod on towards the summer cinema ticket office. Be like everyone else…

If for a couple of decades you keep folks without even a brass band around, they would readily put down 50 kopecks for a slip of blank movie-ticket with the "price 35 kop.” printed black on blue.

After the dances, when we brought the equipment back to the narrow ticket office, the cashier shared that she had sold 500 tickets that night. The following day Pavel Mitrofanovich ordered to remove all the benches from the dance-floor to cram more people inside. The merchant genes in his DNA surpassed all my guesses.

What did we play? Basically, instrumental pieces like in that LP disc by The Singing Guitars plus the songs we had prepared for the contest, however, without my third already.

At times, at the insistent request of the public, Quak would come up to the microphone to break all hell loose by "Shyzgara". He looked great with that long blonde hair of his and small mustache of albino color. It’s only that he made people wheedle him for so long, but then: "Shyzgara!"

And the bursting, eager response, the wild wail from several hundred throats:

"Vaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!"

And the masses grew more and more dense. When in the middle of the dances we announced a short break, it took a while to push thru the crowd and get out to a side alley towards the long booth of whitewashed planks, marked with "M" and "F" at its ends.

There was no time to idle because back on the stage Chuba was already dubbing random riffs by his bass guitar to set a-quaking the front of the huge loudspeaker borrowed from the summer cinema. Skully's current girlfriends with the girlfriends of theirs used the nook behind that loudspeaker for stacking their shoulder bags.

Yes, it was Skully who had the most frantic success among the girls in The Orpheuses bohemian milieu. (It's inappropriate to use 'groupies' when talking of VIA’s, right?)

What do girls find in all those drummers, eh? I, for example, had only one time seen home a certain blonde Irina. It's hard to say who of us cooled down quicker – she, having to wait after the dances while The Orpheuses were hauling all the equipment to the summer cinema ticket office, or I because of the alarming fact that she lived in the dangerous neighborhood of Zagrebelya.

Later on, she was picked up by Anatoly Melai who was smart enough to escort her by a taxi. Getting out of a car pulled up by her gate, Anatoly would ask the driver, "Chief, when the meter ticks up to one ruble, gimme a honk, eh?"

I know not if the driver, after the stipulated honk, got amused watching the Melai’s trot while fumbling with his fly or Anatoly accurately set his temporal limits. Anyway, Zagrebelya still remained dire straits for those in love.

In another development, I was approached by Kolya Pevriy. When at school, he kept bully-ragging me so that I even started to figure out for how long I still had to suffer before he'd leave after the eighth grade and enroll the Seminary. And now he came up with full respect and asked to step out from the dance-floor to his classmate Valya, who also was a year older than me. She was going somewhere to be operated from an inborn heart defect and wanted to talk to me.

I went out at the half-time break, stopped by her side in the dark alley. We both were silent, she kept sighing, and then the break was over. Some romantic date…

How did we play? That question I can answer with just one word:

LOUD!

Oh, hapless tenants of the two-story apartment block right over the Plant Park fence!.

~ ~ ~