the most final
concluding work

A couple of days later, a young from Dnepropetrovsk knocked in the tin-veneered door with his fingers eaten by plastering lime "dirt". The musician Alexander Roodko, who in his civilian life worked as a bass guitarist at the regional Philharmonics. That is how started up the creation of the VIA Orion in our construction battalion, based on the equipment and instruments left after the servicemen from previous years.

The guys went to the Stuff barrack, they talked to Zampolit of the VSO-11. Alexander was appointed Director of the Club. But he never got himself a "Pe-Sha" outfit, and he spent nights in the barrack of Second Company and stood at the evening roll-calls there…

He knew the musical notation; he played on anything that would turn up. He taught us the warm-up chant of "mi-me-ma-mo-mu" and he blinked, painfully and mutely, thru his cloudy blue gaze at my crap in singing.

He had a big nose constantly swollen with rhinitis, and he burred. But he was the Musician…

And I started to lead a double life. After the working day and havvage at the Canteen, I was taking the left turn, to the Club…

"May I join the ranks, Comrade Master Sergeant?"

"Why late for the evening roll-call, Ogoltsoff?"

"I was at the Club."

"And what do you, Club-goers, exercise there?"

In the ranks, sounds snickering supportive of the hint.

"We exercise solfeggio there, Comrade Master Sergeant."

The commander's face stiffens stupidly, he's never heard such words in all his life. Chuckles in the ranks increase in volume, yet now in the opposite direction.

"Battalion Zampolit is aware of it, Comrade Master Sergeant."

"Get to the ranks, suffle… sulge… Son of a bitch!"

But during the working day, I was like anyone else… We were transferred to the five-story building construction site in its concluding pre-delivery phase. Vitya Novikov and Valik Nazarenko called me to an empty apartment. They had a bottle of wine to share. We finished it drinking, in turn, from the neck. A forgotten buzz. Everything was gone before the evening roll-call because what was there for three of us?

At the evening roll-call, Captain Pissak sent the on-duty private to the Dishwashers' to fetch a washed-up cup for breath alcohol testing. Moving along the rank, Pissak selectively handed the cup those soldiers he cared to check, commanded them to exhale into it and sniffed the content. Soon, a couple of servicemen were ordered out of the ranks and face about.

When he handed the cup to me, I realized that I was fucked up beyond salvation even before the test. The uncontrollable waves of chill and heat were rolling, in turn, over, telling on me. For the loosened belt on my outfit, he had ordered me five fatigues, and now I was fucked up totally. Pissak sniffed out from the cup, sadistically downed his gaze and announced, "Well, I say, if a soldier hasn't drunk you can see it at once."

After the evening roll-call, Vitya Strelyany told me with a smile, "You were whiter than the fucking wall." As if I did not know that myself! Pissak, bastard! What the fucking games at cat-and-mouse?.

~ ~ ~

It was hard to believe, but there came another day-off. In the evening they showed a movie, some Polish one called "The Anatomy of Love" with certain hints at eroticism. Maybe in Poland, there were more than just hints, but before reaching us it had been shortened by repeated cut-outs. There was a whole pack with scissors, starting from the censorship down to acned projectionists, snatching out whole pieces of film wherever there flashed bare tits in a frame. For special friends and personal use. Fucking morons.

The next morning in the line of leak-takers alongside the sorteer runnel, I gave my cock the thoughtful shake to shed off final drops and silently addressed it in my mind, inaudibly in the general hubbub, "That's it, buddy, for the two-year stretch you're just a drain cock." And I buttoned the fly up.

At work, we were removing construction debris and excess earth out of the basement with the stretchers, it's called "doing the planning". All of the buddies looked somehow sullen, kept silently introvert, the after-effect, so to say, of that Polish film.

At a smoke break I, having nothing better to do, began to get at Alimosha. He did not talk back replying with brief fuck-offs but then suddenly jumped to his feet and pounced at me with his fists. I had to brush off as best as I could, yet, as always, not too proficiently.

Then Prostomolotov dropped into the basement and shouted to stop, so we again took up the stretchers. When doing my turns, I noticed that the pain in my right hand was not going to cease. Something happened to my thumb hit against the Tatar-Mongolian mug of Alimosha…

The next morning my entire hand was swollen, and after the Morning Dispensing the Assistant Paramedic from the Detachment Medical Unit (that same villager from our draft, but already in "Pe-Sha" outfit) took me to the Stavropol Military Hospital. We reached the city on some team-squad truck and there got on a bus because the city public transport served soldiers for free.

When we arrived in the hospital, he told me to wait and entered some of the buildings. The grounds looked quite attractive with a lavish garden of yellow Plum trees. Yet, I did not have the appetite for them because my hand hurt, so I just got seated on a bench in the green alley between the buildings and fell asleep. Opening my eyes, I got a smack bang close-up of some round muzzle with long cat-like mustache, right next to my nose. I startled, but the bench back safely kept me from falling. Another glance disclosed Captain's shoulder-straps on the cat. Everything got radiant clear – seeing a soldier dozing on the bench, the officer stooped for the alcohol breath test.

Then my escort came out and led me to another building for the hand check. They twirled my thumb, and I hissed like a gander and slapped my other hand against my left side, like a broken wing. From those indications they diagnosed a bone fracture, bandaged the hand, plastered it with gypsum and left me in hospital. Thank you, Alimosha!. Yet, washing the face with one hand was fairly inconvenient…

What could be better than a fracture? No jabs at all, just kick back and wait until the bone tissue grows over. In the dining room, there were square tables for just four persons and chairs instead of benches. The havvage also was much better than in our Canteen. Quite understandable though, because the hospital treated officers as well. Of course, all patients wore pajamas with no insignia, only the wards for officers were on the second floor and those for soldiers in the basement. Who cares if there’s a bed to sleep at any time of day? Besides, the dining room was nearer to us – in the end of the corridor.

The hospital was a quiet place and anything but overcrowded. In my wardroom, apart from me and a Georgian named Rezo, there were four vacant beds. The Rezo's black hair was long enough to be combed back, an obvious mark of a grandpa. He kept his left arm tightly pressed against his chest which attitude resulted from his patronizing help as a driver at wheat harvesting in some steppe kolkhoz. In the field camp, he started fooling around with the cook, and her husband stabbed him in the back with a large kitchen knife, and now the cook kept visiting the sufferer at the hospital. They usually went down the abundant garden, and coming back from there Rezo was offering me yellow plums from the pocket of his pajamas jacket, but I had no appetite although my hand didn't hurt already…