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

The word "fish" served the detonator for what followed. Trepetilikha went to pieces, collected the women of her plasterers' team and, with prolonged intonations, informed them on the unfair distribution of life's good things, despite the era of developed socialism, "They're sitting there in the offices! Made themselves warm and cozy! An electric heater under each bitch's asshole! And we a getting stiff from cold! And when it's fish, it's for them?! Enough, girlfriends! Collect your spats and hawks! Yes, and even so brazenly she mouthed, 'It's fish I've got.' But do we have no families?!"

The fact is that our Seagull bus at times brought food from ORS, aka the Department for Workingmen Provision. Once, when we were on the 110-apartment block, they brought fresh buns, and on the 100-apartment block, it was mineral water in glass bottles of 0.5 liters.

When and what was meted out in the administrative building of SMP-615, I had no idea, but the following day the women on Trepetilikha's team did not start working and that, from whichever viewpoint, was a strike.

I never knew whether they had brought them fish or some other equivalent, but the finishing work was, after all, continued and Trepetilikha stood before the court. That is, our Comradely Court. The SMP-615 management could not turn a blind eye to the fact of idle time with a political lining to it, especially when the deputy chief technologist wore a tie with the imprinted sickle and hammer. Which says a lot. Yes, my cloth scarf bore a pattern of Kremlin tower on top of the five Olympic Rings and the inscription "Moscow-80", but I had nothing to choose from, while the neckties at the Department Store were fairly diversified with crisscrossed, striped, and even dotted pattern…

On a mature contemplation, it can’t but be admitted that rejecting my proposal to transfer Trepetilikha to the SMP-615 base, the Comradely Court made a wise decision. Keeping her there would tantamount to playing with an open fire atop of a powder keg. Had they brought there something of which she did not get a share, she'd blow up the whole base.

Without false modesty, I have to note that in the villages of the Konotop district one might come across even more cool females whose potential could only be measured in megatons or even by the Richter scale.

"Phui! What brazen folks I have to get along with! The whole of the village was out to hassle me! I’ve barely managed to bark them off!"

And the welder Volodya Shevtsov would even get exiled, had the court played along with my suggestion.

He was a very professional welder who had worked for 20 years at the KEMZ Plant, and there was some kind of hereditary intelligence about him. Maybe, that's why he was drinking like a fish.

When looking at his crisp curly hair, I somehow had associations with the City on the Neva. There was some intelligentsia flair in Volodya… elusive feel of the white nights in Pete-Town… subtle allusion to the Peterhof fountains… But he got tanked up like any other boozer, especially on paydays.

At the court session, the Chairman described the case as follows, "We get off in the station square after work and, by reaching the next from there traffic-lights, Volodya manages to get plastered in full."

Well, it was he who slept – from the station to the traffic-lights by the Under-Overpass there were 2 delis plus the Rendezvous bar in the station square.

At that point, I suggested deporting Volodya to some countryside where there were no traffic-lights tempting simple innocent souls by their unhealthy satanic wink, which would take away the reason for Volodya to booze until he's steaming.

The court rejected such inhumanity, and Volodya himself took offense at me, without emphasizing the sentiment though. And that's a pity, I did miss his classy refinement, "If you would like to go and fuck yourself, please?" at which splendidly worded suggestion, you felt the refreshing gust of breeze from the seafront of our Cultural Capital…

SMP-615 was based in Konotop, but it had several branches operating at other places: a pair of jacks in Kiev, a construction team plus a truck crane in Bakhmuch, a team with a BELARUS tractor in Vorozhba… The third case was that of the overseer at the Bakhmuch branch. They finished somewhat building there and were leveling the adjacent area with a bulldozer borrowed from a local organization. The overseer noticed that a pile of the moved earth was about to bury a defective bridging slab left over after the project completion. So he took the slab into the yard of his friend or, maybe, relative to cover the earth-cellar pit. The building was safely delivered, and then some rat reported a plunder of the socialist property.

At that court session, I had only one question for the criminal, "What would happen to the cracked slab had it not be taken to cover the earth-cellar?"

He gave a discontented shrug and replied, "Would get buried in the ground. What else?"

I demanded to declare public gratitude to the overseer for his contribution to raising the general welfare of the Soviet people. It did not matter who was whose relative, but all of us were one united family.

Due to the general monotony of life, that proposal was also neglected… At the next year's report-election trade-union meeting, no one mentioned my name for election to the Comradely Court. As if I had never had that f-f..er..I mean, fully worked off diploma in my life…

~ ~ ~

After you turned one year old you came on a visit to Konotop, briefly though, for a week or 2. That summer there were frequent thunderstorms. After one of them, I drove you for a spin in your carriage. My mother and Eera were against it, but I did not want to sit in the house and wait for the next teeming rainfall. Finally, Eera conceded for our going out, and they went back to