the most final
concluding work

They were a couple of first-year students, who entered my life at the Hosty to substitute for Fyodor and Yasha. Slavic was from Chernigov, he matriculated the English Department and even lived in the same room with me. And he had also served in a construction battalion, but being a member of the well-to-do society stratum, he spent his hitch in the capacity of a warehouse manager. I mean, he came from a family wealthy enough for keeping successful negotiations with the Commanders of his military unit.

To the construction battalion, he also got because of some sight problems hidden behind the smoked lenses in his glasses. The long forelock of straight chestnut hair slid across his forehead – from edge to edge alongside the glasses rim, and he did not shave his upper lip, saving soft female tendrils trimmed with scissors…

The guy, schooled at his hitch in a construction battalion, knows the meaning and origin of the all-forgiving mellowness and omni-comprehension in the optics of his roommate returning after a short absence to the nearby Count's Park. A former conbatist will find in himself enough determination to ask a direct question and, after a direct response, to beg for a joint. In the enlightened circles, it is termed as "clinging to the tail".

Weed cemented us and made, practically, inseparable. I recollect the case of a winter empty suction, when bang in the middle of week I rushed to Konotop, by 3:15 local train – there and by 19:05 back to Nezhyn. So, Slavic kept me company because of being such a sterling loyal friend.

In Konotop, we went to Lyalka’s who asked me if I remembered that bastard on a visit from St. Petersburg.

How not to remember? I liked his boots right away, obviously weighty, you could see at a look it was some sturdy footwear. Lyalka then was at conquering the visitor with the sweep of lifestyle in our provincial backwater. The Petersburger was taken to the host’s section in the basement, where weed was reaching the condition; we sparked there – not bad it was, some real stuff for high flights in circles of any height…

"So 2 days ago," sez Lyalka, "that bitch bombed my basement. Broke the door and took it out. Sehryoga the King saw him at the station getting on the Leningrad train with a backpack."

Yea, that's what you call a cleanly done job because St. Pete had always been the cultural capital of our country… In short, Lyalka forked out a couple of heads, but warned that the quality hadn't been tested yet. Then I, just in case, dropped on 13 Decemberists and found one or two twigs in the attic of the brick shed.

On the train back, it became completely unbearable, and I stuffed a joint from Lyalka's donation in the car vestibule, while Slavic acted a make-believe screen around me with his fur headgear on top… We sparked it right there, smoked, entered the car and got seated on the benches, opposite each other. He looked at me, I looked at him, in the hope, so to speak, maybe it's just that I didn't have time enough to feel the touch?. But it's all bullshit. If you start cultivating wishful expectations of that sort, then the stuff has no more dose in it than clippings from a kitchen broom.

We arrived in Nezhyn, each one full of glum and dismay. By the time we reached the Hosty, it was completely dark. But, just in case, we walked to the Old Building… Night. Desolation. Winter… I stuffed one from the grabbed in the attic. Sparked it. Slavic was standing by, but manly restrained himself.

I took another drag and said, "Slavic…" (…and from the marble plaque on the corner of the Old Building with the inscription “N. V. Gogol studied here…” my own words echoed back to me…), "…it's not in vain, that we have ridden three horses to death today." So said I, and passed the joint into his craving claw…

As for Twoic, he was a guy from Bakhmuch named Sasha whom I renamed into "Eternal-Two-Getter" because "two" was the poorest mark for school kids, but then the handle was shortened to Twoic. Reciprocally, he dubbed me with the handle of "Hooey-Pricker" derived from my half-tabooed warcry by which I answered any kickbacks in life, "We'll prick any hooey thru!"

In fact, he was not from Bakhmuch itself but from a village adjacent to it. On account of that, he liked to pass for a naive child of nature and acted a simple-minded peasant yokel. Each weekend when he started back to Nezhyn his parents collected him a generous "torba" with ample grub. On the whole, it was a bulky farm boy.

Man's nature is best reflected in their laughter. By Twoic it was a sharp yank of his moon-like broad face up to chortle two-three squeaks out, with his eyes shut tightly, and then, as the round face was lowering back, the pair pin-sharp pupils would frisk thru the portholes of his squint, checking the current situation: what's how? Just so a recklessly cautious character…

Studying at the Biology Department, he, naturally, lived on the second (the Bio-Fac's) floor at the Hosty. Twoic was another "tail-clinger", though not as keen as Slavic. The main factor to turn us into an inseparable trinity was Preferans which is a great game if you take a closer look at it. Poker, Snore, King or its reduced version – Eralush, are just a contest in actor skills, while Preferans is an intellectual game of mind. Only I had constant bad luck at it… I tried to break that tendency and tame the fortune, and, because of that, I kept taking desperate risks. "Bluish" misers became the trademark of Hooey-Pricker.

It was clear as day that because of the crimson tablecloth stolen from the redhead dembel, I had fallen out of grace by Luck, so I tried to overcome that status quo, whatever the costs, and gain back a grip at the fortune's forelock. As a result, getting 2 or 3 "throw-ins" or even a "train" of them at playing a regular "bluish" miser, I sat, deject, indifferent, and languid, in a bummed-out prostration until the end of the "pool of 40" in progress…

I was paid the regular student scholarship of 45 rubles a month. Almost every weekend, my mother gave me 10 rubles before I left for Nezhyn. All the money went to my card debts, well, plus the havvage at the canteen. The tall bottles with dry wine forsook me; I switched over to the healthy way of a sober life. Although constant being down-and-out was f-f…er…I mean, flatly bending me out of shape.

Besides, Twoic and Slavic played "a mutual paw", that is as a team, having conspired, which means forget the hope that your seconded King, or Queen backed by two lower cards, will ever bring you a trick. United efforts of 2 playing "a mutual paw" would strip the single-handed opponent of a trick, or a chip at 50 percent of the games in the pool. Such is the law – severe, but just: there are no bros at cards; shut up your driveling gape when among pals.

Of course, I noticed their "mutual-paw pedal system" of scratching their eyebrows and pulling themselves behind the earlobe, under the guise of reflexive body movements, but I did not care a damn. It was not them but my fate I vied to vanquish in the single combat gambling, even if it chose to wile using the pair of tricky pawns… Knowing that "they play" in Room 72, Preferans lovers from other Departments also came to us. With those, I was breaking even, I would have stayed in the win, but for the adamant propensity for unreliable—"bluish"—misers…

In addition to being always ready to play cards, Twoic served a source of useful acquaintances. With his mediation, a pair of cute, educated local fags paid a couple of visits to our room. One of them told "pinkish" jokes, "Then get, you naasty fascist, a grenade from a Soviet homoseexual!" With much gusto and very accurately, he emulated the fey droll of fairies. And Dr. Grisha shared how visiting the beach of Golden Sands in Bulgaria, he screened his partner, who was lifting the golden watch from the clothes on the sand left by an Englishman taking a swim in the sea… We laughed again.

No, Twoic was not a homo. And I hadn't met a single one at the institute. What's the point? To matriculate and land among a group of girls? So the gay guys just flashed by like a funny episode. However, Dr. Grisha was useful indeed. Once he arranged a twelve-day sick leave for me, writing some bronchitis in the diagnosis. Such a cute little man; he had very beautiful hair, though the word "hair" wouldn't suit it, I'd rather say – a wavy chevelure. And he was handsome of face too, only that a little short. But his brown soft briefcase was large, as well as his hips which he rolled in his gait. I was on friendly terms with him, despite the difference in orientation; nothing like it was in the case with Tughrik. By the way, Dr. Grisha was also married and had two children, boys both of them…

But a three-day leave for acute respiratory disease, aka ARD, I could easily procure without Dr. Grisha’s help. Behind the Old Building, there stood the institute’s one-storied hut of the medical center. You come there in the morning before classes, and they give you a thermometer and, if there is the temperature, you receive a stamped slip of paper for ARD which meant 3 days of freedom. Only you needed to warn the headman-girl of your group not to smear the log with "absent" marks, in 3 days she'd have the reference.

Twoic, as a biology pundit, shared that the temperature significantly rises in the area of strained muscles, but the armpit is a bunch of muscles. Placing a thermometer in there, I started to intensely strain and relax that area muscles under the clothes, until the doctor, handled Pill, would say, "Enough!" And the result was never less than 37.3 degrees centigrade.

My falling ill so often perplexed Pill, where was my immune system, eh? Later on, her bewilderment transformed into angry suspicion, and she used to check me with two thermometers at once, one for each armpit. So the difference was only one-tenth: 37.3 and 37.2 – all the same ARD.

And then Pill went amok, "Enough! Here's a referral for you – go to the hospital!"

But I did not retreat, and went there, and lay in the hospital for a week and a half, for no reason, actually, just for the principle's sake…