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

and I were riding the back steps in the Settlement streetcar, getting fanned by the strong counter wind. And when the streetcar rumbled along Bazaar, I suddenly turned my head and glanced across the road into Suvorov Street. Not that I had any reason for that, yet not far from the corner, two girls were playing badminton. Sure thing, I immediately recognized Natalie's long straight hair.

"Bye, Radya!" And I jumped off without answering his, "Where to?"

Yes, no mistake – it was she. Her partner also turned out to be my former classmate, Natasha Podragoon, who, as well as Natalie, went over to School 12 because of the Math and Physics specialization there.

Of course, I immediately fired up some yakety-yak about providing free masterclasses to share proper skills for taming their shuttlecock. And then—could you imagine!—one more chance passer-by turned over the corner. Radya obviously jumped off before the stop at our school, although he had been going to visit his Grandpa.

Natasha Podragoon went home soon, because both Radya and I talked to her so too little, if at all, on account of her being fat. Natalie invited us into her khutta's yard, where, on a table dug into the ground, lay a stack of Czech Film a Divadlo magazines. I got carried away with perusing the pictures, and Radya snapped up the conversational initiative.

But then from the neighbor garden, two missiles of dry earth lumps whooshed, though missing under. Natalie yelled at the boy she would complain to his parents, but for Radya that seemed not enough, and he ran to the garden fence to whip the snotty fool up with an elder guy's lecture. Or maybe, he wanted to show off his sporting bearing, because he, after all, had been attending the volleyball section at the Youth Sports School for two years.

Either Natalie somehow sympathized with the ten-year-old Othello of her neighbor, or Radya, despite all his training, crushed some of the potato bushes on his run, but while the jock was bullying the boy behind the fence, Natalie told me to come on Thursday because she had more of those magazines. So we started dating, me and Natalie.

Perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that she was dating me because I did not know the way of doing dating. I just came to 8, Suvorov Street, on the appointed day, greeted her mother, sat on the couch and turned the pages of another Film a Divadlo magazine. Some people know how to live! And where only could them folks manage to get such magazines from?

Then her father came home from work on his motorcycle with a sidecar. He had the same round chin as Natalie, and he gave her his permission to go out for a walk till ten, but no later than half to eleven. And we went out.

She talked a lot, yet not for just to flap her chops like many others. Natalie became my enlightener. Despite the long years of reading addiction, there was so much I did not know yet… That the coolest candies were "Grilyazh", only they were not on sale in Konotop. You had to go after those sweets to Moscow or Leningrad, and even there it's not a snap to find the treat… That the most delicious sandwich was bread and butter with layers of sliced tomato and boiled egg. And it should be rye bread, of course… And that Louis Armstrong had the hoarsest voice of all the singers in the world.

Following her lead, I borrowed a book of poems by Voznesensky from the Club library. I knew where it stood on the shelves but always bypassed because it was poetry. So that's what the real poetry meant!.

But immeasurably more than for filling my educational gaps, I needed her for the giddy thrill swoons. For example, when we were walking to the Peace Movie Theater and she allowed to hold her arm. Gee! That's impossible to describe! I felt the delicate skin of her forearm because she had a summer frock on and I held her biceps gripped tenderly. Although girls have no biceps to talk of. And because of all that I was on a full flight, I swam in thrill starting from under the bridge over Peace Avenue, past Zelenchuk Area, and almost to Peace Square. Before we reached it, she explained that it would be more correct when the girl herself holds you by the arm, and we went on walking the way she shared.

Also nice, though not quite the thing before that… And then I got hit by a ball-lightning because, walking as freshly explained and absorbed in the conversation, she half-turned to me and—O!—her tight right breast pressed lavishly to my forearm…the bliss that stops your pulse…

So, I had what to think about by the stoves in the Vegetable Base yard, while practicing chords on the missed but eventually found klepka of mine…

It's hard for those enlightened to abstain from sharing the light of truth they've seen… I attempted to bring the revelation over to my sister. We were walking along Forge Street towards Club when she said, "Come one, I'll take my brother under the pretzel!" and she took my arm.

"Listen, Kiddy," said I because we, my brother and me, and our friends, and all ours rarely called her by name but only "Kiddy", or "Red-Haired" by default. "Wanna me teach you a trick that any dude would be yours in no time?."

"O, really?" my sister said in answer, "Is that what you're talking about?" And she half-turned to me while we walked on touching her breast to my forearm.

What an arrogant innocence! Such a naive arrogance! How could I—for a split second—imagine there was something I would ever be able to learn before my younger sister? I had to apologize, and all the remaining leg to Club we laughed like mad at what a self-confident patsy I was.

But no happiness goes on forever… At one of the evening going-outs with Natalie, some