The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life)

I lay for a while in the narrow darkness not scary at all, filled with the pleasant smell of fresh shavings. Then I wanted to move the lid off, but it did not yield to my pushes, supposedly, fixed by the weight of the guys who sat upon it restraining their happy giggles.

I did not scream nor knocked against the lid. Familiar with the proceedings, I knew that any scream or shriek would only ring the coffin with an additional iron hoop, just like the Ilya’s smiting sword was adding them around the box which trapped Svyatogor. Silently, I waited in the darkness and then without any effort moved the lid aside into the desolate quietude of the deserted yard. No wonder the brace of those nincompoops felt spooky straddling the ominously silent coffin and fled…

When I returned to the crossroads, everyone was already there and the kidnapped girls too, because it was time to go back to the camp for the midday meal…

I did not stay there until the end of camp shift though because Senior Pioneer Leader got a telephone call from the Konotop City Komsomol Committee informing her that I had to go to the Camp for the Komsomol Activists Training in the regional center, the city of Sumy.

On the last night before my departure, some local Shchorsian guys came to the camp to give me a beating. They even showed up in the bedroom ward windows to clarify with their gestures that I was a dead man already. Probably, I had flashed with an arrogant retort to one of them when bathing in the river under the bridge, or else some of the local girls, who also enjoyed the camp shift, had complained to them of my being too snobbish. The guys did not climb in though because of Senior Pioneer Leader’s presence. Later, she escorted me to the barrack of the platoon with my sister and brother to say goodbye before leaving early the next morning…

~ ~ ~

At the training camp for Komsomol activists in Sumy, we, 4 guys from Konotop, lived in a tent with 4 iron beds on the sand floor, and 2 of our compatriot-girls shared one of the bedrooms in the long barrack-like building nearby.

Besides that building, there was also a separate canteen and an open stage in front of rows of benches bounded by immature but already half-dead, cob-webbed Pine trees.

Each morning we sat on those benches, taking notes of the lectures read to us – I am damned if I remember what about. And in the afternoon we idly lay upon the cloth blankets over our beds in the tent, which was just a tent with no shows of the magic shadow theater on any of its walls.

(…we do loose worlds when growing up…)

I was the youngest in the Konotop group and just listened when the elder guys gave out their chin music about in what way the latest make of Volga was better than the out-modish Pobeda, and how to rightly break a motorcycle in, as well as about a guy in their neighborhood who got married at the age of 18. Imagine that moron! Married, when he still should be playing football with the guys in the yard…

Stretched on my bed, I had nothing to add to their confident discussions and just watched the Baturin highway dashing under by my “Jawa” taken there for the maiden ride or saw the grassy field by the garbage enclosure at the Object and us, ball-chasing kids, with our vain shrieks, “Here! Pass to me!” And I inwardly scoffed, recollecting ludicrous childish tales we told, in turn, each other about a hero footballer and the red band on his right knee because he was forbidden to kick the ball with it and umpires followed him closely otherwise goal posts were smashed to splinters by his cannonball hits and goalkeepers taken away on the stretcher.

Nah, sharing such prattle wouldn’t be welcome in the dampish cave of the tent with Komsomol activists dropped around over their beds…

One guy from our tent could play the guitar which he borrowed from somewhere in the long low barrack building. All in all, his repertoire comprised just 2 songs: a ballad about a city the road to which you’d hardly ever find, and people there were straightforward bringing up whatever they had on their minds, and they preferred their lovers’ hugs to the comfort of apartments, followed by a lively rock about skeletons walking in a file after enjoying some good stuff.

However, even with so limited number of songs, he always had an audience; the guitar strumming attracted guys from the nearby tents and the girls from their bedrooms in the long building.

I asked him to teach me guitar playing and he showed me the 2 chords he knew and how to beat out the rhythm of „eight“. Deep furrows from the guitar strings disfigured my left-hand finger pads. It hurt, but I still wanted to learn it so much…

In the CJR game against the team from the Sumy group we lost, but not in the contest of greetings for which I didn’t plagiarize a single line from anywhere. We acted aliens who had lost their way.

“It was Mars we were going to!
Yeah-yeah!
It is you we’ve come to!
Yeah-yeah!..”

~

~

The Youth

After that summer many of my classmates were not around anymore, they moved or went to different technical and vocational schools. Kuba entered the Odessa Sea School, Volodya Sherudillo became a student at the Konotop Vocational School 4, aka GPTU-4, which institution among Konotopers bore the unofficial name of "Seminary" turning its disciples into "the seminarians". Skully endeavored to enter some Mining School in Donetsk but eventually landed in the Konotop Railway Transportation College.

The parallel class also suffered heavy losses and, even though one of their girls bore a baby at the vacations, leftovers of 8 “A” and 8 “B” were, nonetheless, unified into the single ninth grade…

On the first school day, after the ceremonial line-up concluded by the traditionally endless bell signaling the start of the first lesson in the academic year, our classroom was entered by Valera Parasyuk, handled Quak. He was a blonde tenth-grader running after some girl from the former parallel and popped up on the pretext of a casual visit just, like, to hello the guys.

The Ukrainian Language teacher, Fedosya Yakovlevna, handled Feska, with the straight parting in her colorless hair braided into a pitiful crown, came the second having ceded Quak about half-minute. Yet, full of sporting spirit, she indicated the door and ordered him to leave the classroom. Without much a-do Quak satisfied her demand, yet chose another, his own, way; he climbed onto the windowsill and departed in a jump off into the schoolyard. His black, well-polished, shoes flashed in the flight, a kinda bright goodbye.

Not for nothing the Chemistry teacher, Tatyana Fyodorovna, handled Hexabenzyl, was in the habit of bringing those his shoes to our attention, "If a guy's shoes shine that means he's looking after himself. Follow the example of Parasyuk whose shoes are always polished!"

So, Fedosya Yakovlevna, aka Feska, closed the window left open by Valera Parasyuk, aka Quak, and called the class to pay no attention to his antics because he didn't belong here anymore but transferred already to School 14 (which was the other of two schools in the Settlement) as long as he dwelt next to the mentioned school location and from now on he was the resident headache for teachers over there…

The best way to learn the worth of new acquaintances and getting rubbed along with each other is doing some mutual job… After a week of classes, the senior grades at our school were instructed to report present in the schoolyard on Sunday morning equipped with buckets because we were going to help the kolkhoz in the Podlipnoye village with harvesting their crop.

The day was glorious – a warm September day enjoying the bright sun in the blue sky. The clamorous column of students reached the edge of a cornfield and we were tutored on the technique of harvesting at hand. Tear the ear off the stem, shuck and drop it in your bucket. When the bucket’s filled up, take it to the common cob of ears and pour your share into it. The entirety of so simple actions becomes the process of "patronage assistance to a collective farm".

Each patronizer was put before a row of corn stalks to go along and harvest the ears on their way to the other end of the field. And off we went in one united push, mingling the ear dubs at tin buckets' bottoms with yells of cheerful juvenile, and the sagacious admonitions by caring teachers, and tangent yet loud bangs of thunderflashes thrown high in the cloudless sky…

It did not take long before I noticed my lagging behind the general progress. So, hauling another filled bucket to the cob, I paid attention that not all the cornrows were fully clear of corn ears. It seemed, the instructors failed to be explicit enough and emphasize that our objective was not collecting all ears in the field, but to select best of the best, the most gorgeous cream of ears, so to say.

Correcting my working practices accordingly, in no time I caught up with the main body of the patronizers, then got ahead, and overtook the avaunt-garde party which now grew to 4 advanced shock-workers.

Being ahead of the common mass of laborers has a number of advantages. First and foremost, you don't need to go back to the common cobs of the harvested corn ears. As soon as your bucket gets filled, you just pour the ears on the ground, becoming the founder of a new cob for pending contribution by those coming later.

A couple of guys from the avaunt-garde party chose the path of least resistance, throwing the ears from their rows in all directions, so as not to bother with shucking them. I did not follow their best practices though because the field edge could already be seen in the distance.

We went out to a fallow field, and for another half-an-hour lay prostrate in the grass, more fatigued by waiting for the general mass to join us than by our super-productive efforts…

In September, the Arkhipenkos moved to Ryaboshapka Street near the RepBase who allotted to a turner of theirs, Uncle Tolik, together with his family an apartment in a five-story block. The mode of life in our khutta turned more convenient because our parents went over to sleep in the kitchen…

Soon after, there appeared a new tenant in the khutta, Grigory Pilluta who had served his ten years for murder, and came back to his home sweet home. The slick forelock of dark hair screened his forehead and shaded the eyes in their steady stare down or aside. Silent and sullen, passed he the khutta’s yard from the wicket to his porch way.

His return from jail did not put end to the Pillutikha's concerts thru the wall. Although one day, passing under their kitchen window, I heard his rude attempt at shutting up her stream of execrations pored against the whitewashed kitchen wall….

In the dead of night, I was wakened by Father looming above me in the scarce light of the desk lamp. Mother stood in the doorway from the kitchen, and Sasha and Natasha looked sleepily out from under their blankets.

Father told me that Pilluta was breaking our entrance door armed with a knife, and I had to climb down out of the room window and bring 2 axes from the workshop in the lean-to. There was no time for dressing up – thru the blackness-filled kitchen there came sounds of heavy blows at the door on the porch, and thick drunken cries addressed to Mother, "Open it, bitch! I'll get your guts out!"

I quickly brought the required tools and together with Father went to guard the door quaking under the blows accompanied by the animal howl of Grigory Pilluta. How long would the rim lock last?

We stood at the ready in our underpants and tank-shirts holding the axes in our hands. "Sehryozha," said Father in a keyed-up voice, "when he breaks in do not hit with the blade, use the butt!" Though scared, I at the same time wanted Pilluta to break in, the sooner the better.

He never did it. In the dark yard sounded Pillutikha's wails and assuaging male voice. It was Yura Plaksin, Grigory Pilluta's childhood chum from the khutta in Gogol Street, opposite the water pump. He led the drunk away with him… We left the axes by the door and went to sleep on.

In the morning, I observed the deep scratches left by knife stabs in the gray paint-coat in the entrance door. Good news it did not happen in winter, with the additional window frames inserted for warmth, those had no hinges and just sealed the whole of the window from inside, so how would I get out to the lean-to, eh? Then Yura Plaksin came on an early visit pleading not to inform the precinct militiaman about the incident…

One of the axes stayed in the veranda for a long time, until Grigory Pilluta moved somewhere in the city from his mother's khutta so as to keep clear from the harm. Stupid indeed of his mother to wind him up, and then run after Yura Plaksin’s assistance, to save the obedient sonny from getting locked up again. Maybe, Grigory’s departure had other reasons as well, how could I know? Another guy's life is a dark abyss for those outside. Later, I sometimes met him in the city but never more in the yard of our khutta…

With the Pillutikha's death, the population in the whole khutta grew drastically because Grigory sold his parental home to some newcomers from Siberia.

That fact did not mean at all that they were Siberians themselves. You could go there from any Republic, just get recruited for work and – full ahead. The so-called "chasing the long ruble" was mainly steered in that direction because salaries in the uninhabited Taiga places were much higher. Folks were coming back with their suitcases packed with money to the gills, so were the rumors. If they could manage it, of course, I mean to return at all. "The longer the ruble, the shorter the life-span" became a popular byword and not for nothing, you know.

One guy from the Settlement recruited to a mine beyond the Urals and in just 6 months they sent him back. There, in that mine, he was in charge of the machinery and equipment repair. Something stopped working, they switched the faulty contraption off and he crawled in to see what's up. At that moment the switch was turned on (they had forgotten he was inside or something) and that machinery chopped him so finely they had to sent his tenderized leftovers back home in a zinc box, kinda here you are, receive your canned sonny, please