the most final
concluding work

_{~ ~ ~} My Universities: Part Two

That was exactly the moment which I never allowed myself to dream of in those 2 years when in the morning I woke up not from the bellow of an on-duty jerk but because of a female embrace, that of Olga. She came home from work, lay atop of me, hugged thru the blanket, and I awakened to answer her kiss. Our talk somehow did not come out well, if an exchange of one-word clues could be called a talk at all. And we looked at each other in such a manner that my mother, who was on her vacation, promptly took our daughter Lenochka and went to Bazaar…

Everything in life is surely repeating itself. What was, will be there again. The difference, if any, is slightly made by circumstantial details… For instance, that my mother returned from Bazaar (and not from a store) without oranges, and that nothing restrained me this time… As for the hieroglyphics left on my wrist by the claws of that hotel sadist, Olga, sure enough, marked them well, studied attentively and read their message, but not out loud. Actually, I did not insist on her sharing the obtained information.

A week after the demobilization, the two-year eternity at the construction battalion becomes tattered scraps of memories pinned onto a point in the past. The flow of ever-moving life carries all those points off, to hell or whatever other destination, and it does not matter where exactly, because you don't have time to ponder on such matters but have a more urgent task – to get along the streaming flow of life….

When bathing, there are two ways of entering the water. Following the first, you go into it step by step, your shoulders pulled up, rising on the tiptoes as the bottom grows deeper. The other way is to enter until the water is knee-deep and with a shriek (the element’s not vital and might be left out) plunge headlong forward… It was time for me to dip into civilian life…

Overseer Borya Sakoon died neglecting his promise to retire in 4 years.

The Arkhipenkos moved to the Kamchatka Peninsular, which, reportedly, was Fishermen Paradise where fish jumps into your skiff of their free will.

My brother and sister graduated the Railway Transportation School and were sent to work off for their diplomas by exploration and construction of railways somewhere in the Urals between Ufa and Orenburg.

Vladya and Chuba returned from the army half-year before me and had time enough to acquire streamlined conformity to the concurrent life-flow. Skully had developed a solid bold patch over his head and looked for becoming 27, which age ended draft liability of a USSR citizen. He was exempted from the army as the only breadwinner for his single mother with her single mother, God save them both until his coming of the right age!

I was not much amused at my re-appearance in the Konotop polite society. We gathered at the Vadya's, I stuffed a joint, yet my friends did but a couple of drags each, just for civility's sake… From Vadya's khutta we ventured to the Loony park where The Spitzes were playing dances. When passing Deli 6, Vladya farted at a lighted match held by Skully close to his ass. The emitted ammonia flared up in a blue bunch of flame. It did not delight me though, having seen all sorts of suchlike tricks in the construction battalion, I did not care for the commemorative improvising.

In general, my way of getting on high wasn't fine with them, and theirs didn't turn me on. We remained friends but in the course of our subsequent lives, we flowed, basically, in separate parts of the stream…

I borrowed The Adventures of Captain Blood from the Club library but couldn't read even a half of the rubbish which once upon a time was my regular thrill…

"What do you keep in the newspaper atop the wardrobe?" asked Olga.

"A spike condom. Wanna try?"

"Nah!"

I was sure though she had checked it before asking, or did I overestimate her?.

At our having a walk, she introduced me to an unknown squirt in the running by civvy commonality—her co-worker from the brick factory who we met near Deli 1. A mujik over 30 said his name, I answered with mine, and we immediately forgot the just heard sounds. I did not like his smile that bared the over-worn gums receding to the teeth roots. Besides, some uneasiness about him made it clear that the meeting and new acquaintance was no good news to him, I regretted we had come up to him at all…

And on the other side of the Under-Overpass, near Deli 5, it was already we to be approached by a half-acquaintance Halimonenko, handled Halimon, who demanded of Olga a private talk. She asked me to wait and walked with him 4 meters aside on the same two-step porch in front of Deli 5. Some scraps of words in their conference: "militia", "get not a little" were reaching me. It was unpleasant to stand pushed aside that way, but so I’d been asked.

Their conversation ended and she returned to me followed by his owner-like "I told you!". Olga explained that someone attempted at stealing Halimon's motorcycle from his khutta's shed and he mistakenly concluded she had anything to do with all that.

Olga suggested going to the Plant Park on Saturday, where the dances were played by The Pesnedary, a group from Bakhmuch. Their native town was the fourth stop of a local train in the Konotop-Kiev route, so it took just a half-hour ride to get there. What kind of group could be from such a backwater? Yet, Olga said they still played well, besides, at the dances, she'd introduce me to Valentin Batrak, handled Lyalka, the brother of Vitya Batrak, handled Slave.

The lahboohs from Bakhmuch sounded very good thanks to their keyboard player – a long guy sporting the hairstyle of Angela Davis. They quite decently performed "Smoke on the Water" of The Deep Purple, as well as "Mexico" of The Chicago band. Then we were approached by Lyalka and Olga introduced us to each other.

Tall and skinny, with the long fair hair slightly cocked up at his pate, he had a same-colored nail-beard à la Cardinal Richelieu. A single look at each other's enlightened eyes prompted us that we needed a more secluded place than the dance-floor. Such a place was found and there we exchanged the credentials and reached consensus in the estimation of the sampled weed's quality, which contributed to establishing relations of friendly cooperation in the years to come…

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