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

Morning Dispensing and, after a brief farewell from Zampolit, or Chief of Staff, they march to the gate by the checkpoint, they go home. And when would my turn come?!.

After idling around to 3 o'clock at the location of VSO-11, I got in the cabin of UAZ-66 truck used for fetching bread to the Canteen from Stavropol. Under the canvas top of the truck back, climbed Lyolik and some of his buddies, also going to AWOL.

The truck left thru the gate and sped to the city along the asphalt road wet after the recent thunderstorm. The asphalt closer to the roadsides was all ruts and holes full of rain water so the white car that jumped out of the road turn was darting along the middle. The UAZ driver dodged, leaping with the right wheels of the truck onto the muddy roadside. The turn was rushing at him, he braked and slewed left. The truck jumped back onto the asphalt and skidded along in a free-style gliding.

The driver, next to me, was frantically spinning the wheel hither-thither and back again. The truck kept speedily crabbing along, changing the sides at her will, paying no attention to whatever the driver was doing to the wheel. In the end, we were turned in the opposite direction and, after traveling backward for some time, the truck capsized… The embankment was not too high—about two meters—so we reeled just a couple of times.

Tumbling under the slope inside the cab of a truck, you live thru a strange sensation as if you were a fish in a bowl. Probably, that is weightlessness. The driver, the wheel, the cab door, and once again the hovering driver are slowly floating past you… I landed on him when the motion died leaving the truck on her side. Yet, the driver was the first to climb out thru the window overhead. I followed him.

The buddies from the truck back were already standing by the driver. Lucky fellas… On the road, the Battalion Commander's "goat"-Willys squeaked its brakes. To simplify the assessment of the situation, I merged with the green foliage of the forest edge.

"Who else was that?"

"I dunno, some soldier from Separate Company asked to take him along…"

After two kilometers, the forest was over, and so was the tense tremor in my hands, when I entered the city. I went to a cinema to take off the adrenaline rush. It was "How to Steal a Million" with Peter O'Toole. Or was it "The Remarriage" with Belmondo?

Nah! After Belmondo, I met Nadya, a student of something there. We walked for a long time, hugging here and there, but when I went over to kisses, she bit my tongue. "I know what you're hinting at!"

Stuff it! What hints were there? It hurt so, I could hardly speak seeing her to the one-story house where she rented a room.

She dropped in and brought out a can of condensed milk, kinda emolument to the wrongly wounded warrior. I hugged her for goodbye but shunt kissing. When she left, I looked at the can in my hand then at the wall of the house. No stray nails… So I placed the can on the railing and went away bypassing the pleasure for my bitten tongue…

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