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

Jew under the most Ukrainian of all last names. And Twoic sighed at this point in the best traditions of the Moscow Artistic Academic Theater.

Raissa Alexandrovna did not allow time for Twoic's grief though, she shouted from the phone in the veranda that he had to change into clean clothes because they were bringing an aspirant bride for the "evaluating look". The loving mother did her best to find him a good party from among local girls, for which reason they periodically were brought to Shore, otherwise, them those Kiev whores would surely bamboozle the dumbo of her sonny. Twoic said inaudible "fuck!" and went to change.

Soon behind the gates, a car was heard and a pair of parents led their elegantly donned girl into the khutta… I stayed alone on the porch way to the summer kitchen, but then a visitor joined me. Some old man bent literally into an arc. When standing, he couldn't see the face of a man before him, only up to the waist.

We started a desultory talk, and the old man confessed that once he was a young and well-proportioned rural clerk, sporting a military tunic and high boots. The collectivization began and, with the clerk's participation, they were making lists of those to be deported to the Siberia. Now he was not able to look into the eyes of people around him.

And, after all, all was to no purpose. The grandsons of the misers, who at that time got keys and seals of the village council, were now penniless drunks, and the descendants of the robbed and exiled returned from the Siberia and got prosperous again. Because on such a soil only a lazy fool lives poorly… Raissa never showed up and he left, leaning on two short sticks in his hands, gazing at the sand under his feet that walked the road.

(…as it turns out, the theft of a crimson tablecloth is not the worst thing that can happen to you, there are things for which you punish yourself much more severely…)

~ ~ ~

Then Sehrguey came up with the major project of paneling the khutta’s base with bricks, which he had prepared for several years already. It took me three-weekend visits because the khutta was not a small size. Twoic worked as a bricklayer’s mate preparing the mortar and fetching the bricks up… We finished on a Saturday. Next morning, I got up first and went out on the veranda porch. My shoes stood on the second step with their noses directed towards the gate, although in the evening I left them exactly the opposite.

(…some signs I can read easily –

"the Moor has done his job…"…)

I put my shoes on, walked out of the gate and, on reaching the end of the lane, turned to the windbreak belt because in its clearings a very slow freight train was clanging along. I strode fast, and then I had to run but in the end I managed to jump on the brake platform of the rear car.

(…everything turns out as it should when you have read it right…)

The freight train picked up speed and passed Bakhmuch station without stopping. People at the platform looked in surprise after the freight train. On the brake platform, I was standing happy and pleased with myself, my hair played with by the wind, sort of a tramp by Jack London…

In winter village chores come to a standstill and Twoic sent me a telegram only in April. We were turning dirt in the garden when his father brought the news about the Chernobyl explosion. The day was cold and windy, the gray clouds flew low. Twoic started a lecture about radiation but I did not care a fuck. What's the difference? However, the wind blew from East and did not let the radiation to reach the village. The clouds absorbed it and took over as far as Scotland, to the laundry hung there on clotheslines. Of course, the Scots had then to throw away that washing, so Morning Star…

But all that would happen later but presently Twoic, leaning against the wall by the payphone, dialed the number, and I scanned the endless flow of hustling crowd, which had no idea about the subtleties in relations between mafia bosses and their bodyguards. And I tried to figure out who of us was more interested in this friendship. Was it the would-be PhD Twoic, or I, his genie from a bottle?

It's a dumb thing to do psychoanalysis having no know-how from the trade… At Psychology lectures in the pedagogical institute, they, of course, shared that it was some mean presumptuous invention of the decaying West called to degrade and belie the capitalized name of Man which sounds proudly. A sad pity, the lecturers uttered not a word about methods in that indecency. Thus, we’ve got no other option but invent the content for the Psychoanalysis thing and work its methods out by ourselves.

Swing your arm, push your shoulder against it – we'll start this bitch of a collider manually!.

(…let's assume, the essence of such an analysis is to answer the dirtiest of all the questions—that of "why?"…)

So, why am I stuck with Twoic? For which reason? The healthy village food performed by his grandmother? Absolutely, yes. Carrying the flowers on a local train, I do look forward to enjoying the meals. Besides, there is one more alluring bait that I strive to with no chance of getting it though, like the ass ridden by Till Eulenspiegel. For any kind of ass, you'll find the sort of grass he will run after like a good little boy. So which one am I after?

The wild descriptions of sex orgies, generously shared by Twoic, keep glowing the embers of hope that I, his loyal servant, will get some crumbs off the master's bed. Say, some slut girlfriend of another whore of his. The dreams do not come true yet, but who says the ass should ever reach the grass? It's a smart ass, and