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

life of the polite circle in local society. We visited Loony, where the demonstration gladiatorial performance was staged on the parquet in honor of her visit, I even had, just in case, to block her off with myself nearby the stage. Then Lyalka led us to his sidekick's who, in his treasure box made of a human skull, kept the high-quality Gimp’s weed, named so after its meritorious producer.

The sidekick lived on the fourth floor with his cat, whom he grabbed regularly to hurl against the wall or anything at all. Not everyone brings up their pets by unsystematic fondling. He shared that sometimes at night he got waked up by a gentle touch of her fangs at his Adam's apple. She did not spoil the throat skin though, just held it in a kinda soft reminder who was the midnight commander in the place they shared…

When we were about to leave, Eera discovered the loss of her gloves. The sidekick swore he had not seen any. Burning with shame, I began to speculate about the gloves being forgotten at Loony, yet Lyalka insisted on the search to go on until they were eventually spotted, behind the floor mirror in the hallway. Some cats are more cunning at theft than even such attested pilferers as magpies…

In the staircase, there was, naturally, no light, and I walked first, groping for the steps with my feet, and did not even hold onto the railing, like the brave tin soldier or the one-eyed leader in the gang of the blind from the "Eulenspiegel" movie, because in the pitch dark I had Eera's hand on my shoulder, and Lyalka was holding on hers. So we descended…

At that Eera's visit, we spent the night at Skully's, who had already become an Adoptee and lived in a fairly big khutta where two "Jawa" bikes stood in the garage – one for him and the other for his wife's younger brother.

Eera and I were left in a separate bedroom and, going out, Skully and his wife significantly hung a terry towel on the back of the bed… When we lay down and from the "Spidola" receiver there sounded the introduction to my favorite "Since I'm loving you" by Led Zeppelin, I realized that nothing better could be provided even by Las Vegas…

On another occasion, we even visited Decemberists 13, in the daytime, naturally, when there was no one there. After champagne and a joint, we got in a deeply playful mood so that auntie Zina in her part of the khutta panicked, ran to our front door, and kicked up alarmed drumming at it. Probably, the echoes of our frolics passed thru the partition wall making her think of bloody murder in the canonical traditions of the post-war bandit period in the history of the city because it’s highly unlikely that the old innocent lady had any notion of hardcore scenes and stuff…

So, Eera met my brother and sister at the Loony dances, and she knew Lenochka unilaterally from the pictures shot at the photo session around Rabentus' dovecot, which I later pasted on the wallpaper over my bed in the Hosty…

Apart from Eera coming to Konotop to meet my parents, Slavic also was taken along. He and my sister measured each other with guarded looks but skipped sniffing. And that was correct because I brought Slavic for another purpose – I needed him to be put on the alert.

(…"the most powerful force is the force of habit" or something like that was said by V. I. Lenin in one of his works from the 58-volume collection, and, quoting the colonel of counter-revolutionary Whites from the movie "Chapaev":

"Yes, it’s where the Bolshevik leader is right."…)

Consider me, for instance. I have an ample plantation of cannabis to keep me lavishly up to the following season, even with generous largesses to those two tail-clinging bros – Slavic and Twoic. On the other hand, I am in the habit of plundering other folks' plantations. Who'll bite the dust – sound reason or deep-rooted habit? Make your bets, gentlemen!

(…it's sometimes hard to refute the truth in Leninist theses…)

And what else, apart from the habit, smashes up all of the chop-logic reasoning? What drives us on and further on? What pushes to the new, the unknown?

Hope – what if the luck would have it?.

Faith – but there should be, there is somewhere!.

And Love, of course, the love to knowledge and change…

All that summer whenever riding a streetcar along May Day Street, I watchfully kept track of the cannabis growth stages in the Buttuke's khutta yard, and I dreamed of, wished and hoped for it's being of some nonpareil quality, as heavy-duty stuff as was the kif shared by Rabentus for the deeper comprehension of that unforgettable lecture by Scnar.

Once upon a time, Buttuke was the legend and role model for the youth not only in the Settlement but all over the city. Everyone knew Buttuke who did not care a damn for the traffic-officers from State Auto Inspection, aka GAI, and all the militia in the bargain. They just couldn't catch up with him to fine for riding his bike without a helmet, wearing only his long windblown hair.

What? Drunken driving? You have to catch up and prove it, first!. Two patrols ambushed him at night in Zelenchuk Area but he made his "Jawa" leap between the poplars and shoot away along a gleaming railhead in the streetcar tracks. The word "biker" plodded to Konotop much later – we had Buttuke…

And suddenly thundered the news that shook the guys like the Tower of Babel – Buttuke died!

"Bullshit! Alive, but in the reanimation ward."

And the speed was a mere 60 kph, well, plus that of the counter-moving bus whose radiator Buttuke rammed with his head that chanced to have a helmet at the moment.

"See, dudes? The helmet is a good idea, so they do not need to scratch your brains off the asphalt, the shit stays in the helmet neat and tidy."

Buttuke survived,