the most final
concluding work

Just only four dembels still stuck around in the construction battalion – I, Gray, Red from Dnepropetrovsk, and Alexander Roodko. I had already got myself a parade-crap, borrowing it from a pheasant in Third Company. Because of transference after one year of service to Fourth Company as a stoker, I missed then getting a parade-crap both at First and Fourth Companies…

Before the Morning Dispensing, there started up a round-dance by the sorteer. The eager on-lookers jogging to watch the entertainment informed hastily, that the night before Gray made a young truck-crane driver take him from a site to the battalion and, when they reached Separate Company, he got to the wheel himself and crashed into a pole. Nothing terrible happened, the dented truck crane did not really need a repair. However, Chief of Staff, when they reported to him on his arrival, went amok and wanted to kick Gray’s ass personally.

"YOU FUCKER!"

What a mighty hook! The major put every kilo of his stout body into the ramming wallop and!. Whoops!. Gray dodged. Hmm…boo, Major!..and I had always thought you were a boxer…

The soldiers helped Chief of Staff to get back on his feet. The on-duties convoyed beltless Gray to the clink…

At the Morning Dispensing that followed, Zampolit announced that Red was going to the demobilization, and the next day Roodko and I as well. I approached him in the Staff half-barrack.

"Comrade Zampolit, I need a testimonial."

"What testimonial?"

"For admission to the institute."

"You are an absolute son of a bitch, Ogoltsoff!”, blurted Zampolit out, “ Are you fucking sane? An alky, junky, gangsta! I'll give you such a fucking testimonial that no Zona will accept you other than the jug for lifers! Fuck! It's our oversight that you get out of here at all. But you wait! The society will deal with you, they’ll crush you yet and grind down to the finest powder!"

Then 3 of us were paid money at the Staff's accountancy. Wow! So I even had some earnings! 120 rubles for two years of honest work…

Roodko and I went to see Red off and to equip ourselves at the same go. When in the city, Roodko bought a sports-bag for his journey home, and I chose a "diplomat" briefcase, they were just getting in vogue then. The inside between the gleaming plastic walls got filled with dembel stuff: cellophane-wrapped pantyhose for Olga, a bottle of vodka for me and my father, and a crimson silk tablecloth with a fringe, for 7 rubles 50 kopecks, which Red bought for his mother and asked me to keep in the "diplomat" while we were sprinkling down the dust on the way home that he started. Besides, I loaded in the kicks bought by me – light and practical footwear with black corduroy tops for just six-fifty, because in the battalion I couldn't find high shoes for the borrowed parade-crap and went shopping in the pair borrowed from the Third Company on-duty Sergeant for just a day.

After the Red's way was sprinkled properly and our clamorous goodbyes were nearing the bus stop for him to set off to the railway station, I was not drunk and clearly remembered that crimson silk tablecloth inside my "diplomat". I did not remind Red of the gift he had bought for his mother. I stole it.

To give me one last chance, he sobered up, for just a second but completely, checking if I would tell him. His eyes met mine. The Red’s attempt at the last minute rescuing ran into my snooty poker face. In drunken submission to the inevitable, his head dropped onto his chest and he staggered on never looking back anymore. I watched the distance growing between us in the sunlit sidewalk – 10 meters, 20… But I never called out, "Hey, Red! You forgot it, buddy!"

Next morning, Roodko and I stood facing the ranks of VSO-11 and Chief of Staff announced that we were going to the demobilization. We both made the "to left!" Clutching the black plastic handle of my black "diplomat", I followed Roodko’s back and his blue sports bag, no thoughts, no joy, some odd emptiness. Just 2 dembels walking away, leaving behind 2 years amputated from their lives.

After a couple of steps we did, Battalion Commander spotted the corduroy kicks heading past him to the gate behind which the society lurked in ambush making ready to grind me down to powder at the nearest convenient moment. Battalion Commander made the last, desperate, attempt at saving the doomed, "What the fuck?! Watch the motherfucker in the fucking dancing pumps!" However, Chief of Staff cut short his fatherly protective impulse, "Let the fucker get the fuck out!” said he, "The motherfucker’s fucking motherfucked already all and every fucking one here!"

Good-bye and you, Fathers-Commanders…

~ ~ ~

But even 24 hours later I was still in Stavropol, at the city airport of plain rustic looks. Just having served "two winters and two summers" was not enough, you still had to reach home.

I had a flight ticket to Kiev bought from the city Aeroflot office, but when I arrived at the kolkhoz field of an airport, the flight was delayed for an hour, then for another hour and only by noon the piston-plane AN-24 ran along the takeoff strip, and beneath the wing of the aircraft, thru the muffled hum of motors, floated rarefied clouds over topographic landscapes. The construction battalion stayed in the past, but it still hanged about and I was thinking of the First Company Master Sergeant who stuck to me on a city bus last week.

And it was so stupid, did he really need it when clad in his civvy outfit? Because he was drunk, he wanted to show off what an important piece of shit he was, that's why.

"What are you doing here? Back to barracks! I'll report to Battalion Commander at the Morning Dispensing!"

"And I'll say you were drunk as a swine."

None was said by neither one to nobody…

And that major also was in his civvy, so how could I know?

"I'm a Major!" shrieked he, "How dare you?"

Who'd guess you were a Major when you have civilian rags on? Look at me – all's in full view; the black shoulder-strap clear of any yellow crap means clear conscience – a rank-and-file construction battalion!

It's because of that barmaid in the café that we came to grips. She was a juice sort and, at first, it was me who she addressed the purposeful swing of her ample breasts to, before he flashed his rank trump, or was he bluffing? Nah, you can't dupe such a woman…

I still belong to the Construction Battalion. Forever. Some part of it stuck in me. To the very end….

But I did not think of anything like that then, I was just a dembel flying home. Not home meaning "barracks", but home meaning "home". Although my mother wrote in her letter that they had sold their quarter-khutta in Nezhyn Street, and bought half-khutta someplace deeper in the Settlement. No fear, I got the address, I would find it.

But I couldn't think about Konotop for long, I got accustomed to thinking about other things and so I thought my usual thoughts… As we took the drummer from Pyatigorsk to the Military Flight School to show that he was real good.

There went 3 of us – Long, the drummer and I. We wanted the cadets from the vocal-instrumental ensemble at the Flight School saw for themselves that the drummer was a pro so that they would put a word to their zampolit to find him some position in the chmo by their School because he was to be drafted to the army. Such was the idea.

The cadets were, so too conveniently, rehearsing on the stage in the hall like a summer cinema, without the roof. They handed Long their guitar, the drummer sat behind the drums… Wow! The two dudes made a duet da bomb, a potpourri from Jimmy and Jimmy, they unleashed their souls in full letting them on a free flight… Poor fools! They sort of run a bulldozer over those rosy cadets in their blue shoulder-straps who needed a drummer of the kind that follows the pioneer banner next to the bugler with the red pennant on his horn:

du-du-du-dú! du-du-du-dú!

Not a chance they'd ever mention such a Drummer to their zampolit. So well-groomed boys, them those cadets; well-fed too…

Was it all over? No more evening roll-calls? Neither Zampolit, nor Chief of Staff, nor pieces… I was flying home; at home, everything would be nyshtyak! Not for nothing, I had been dreaming of it all those two years, or rather did not allow myself to ever think about home…

That was my first flight on an airplane; better than crawling endless 2 days by train. My wrist still hurt a bit; that fool of a bitch in the hotel the night before. She would give, only there was nowhere,” Let's go to your room,” said she. I asked the mujiks in the room, and they left.

So, while she was demonstrating her unbreakable virginity and maiming my wrist with her fingernails, they started to come back, one by one. The séance is over. But I didn't strong-arm her, she just grabbed my hand and started her claw-work. That Stavropol was just some breeding ground for sadist chicks, I swear.

Hopefully, Olga would not notice… but if she would, then what? You could get any kind of scars when doing your combat duty…