“All right, we’ll fix it up, come back tomorrow,” the mechanic said, apparently in consent. Of course, no sooner had the client disappeared around the corner, than the furious Kolya jerked the car up on the lift. He did replace the transmission, but personally dropped cat feces (“dregs” as folks around here call them) into the new transmission oil. The gears shifted smoothly, Spitsyn drove out of the shop triumphant.
In a week, he came back.
“When it’s cold, everything’s fine, but once I’ve driven around for an hour or so, the stench in the car is unbelievable. What did you slip me? I give up – replace the transmission again, I’ll pay cash this time.”
He put a bottle of cognac on the hood as a peace offering.
The client’s always right, as they say. Perhavko replaced the transmission with a used one; it creaked but worked. Since then, not a single person in Stargorod has called Spitsyn anything but “Dregs” behind his back.
Of course, the rules of the plot demand revenge. As luck would have it, Spitsyn heard that Perhavko was invited to an upcoming wedding as a friend of the groom; Spitsyn sent him a box with a present, making it look like it came from a friend of the bride, and enclosed a note asking Perhavko not to open the box until the big day. The box was delivered at lunchtime, after Perhavko had imbibed a respectable amount of vodka and was about to take his repose in the storage room. Intrigued, he untied the colored ribbon that held the box shut, and lifted the lid. A howling, catnip-mad female cat was instantly catapulted from inside the box and onto the mechanic’s face. The cat’s claws marked him for life, and the hero of this tale, as could only have been expected, was immediately christened with the name “Raggedy-Cat,” whose first part was subsequently lost.
Spitsyn went on working hard. When a chance presented itself, he bought two more cars, and then a few more. He now sells imported cars. All his cars are insured and repaired in his own garage.
Once, during a break at the meeting of the “Friends of Stargorod” society I overheard Styopa, the director of Timber Concern No. 2 complain to Vassily Andreyevich about the 450 dollars Styopa had to pay at Spitsyn’s garage for a routine oil and filter change on his new SUV.
“You bought yourself peace of mind,” Spitsyn replied. “Everything’s according to the law and your warranty contract. Or you could go to the Under the Bridge garage if you don’t care about your car.”
“But they say Cat now works for you,” Styopa needled him.
“Cat, once he started to earn real money, forgot about his drink. We’ve reformed that fellow, and we’ll change others too.”
Styopa had nothing to say to that. They rang the bell, and we went back to the meeting room. Spitsyn railed at our businessmen for not contributing funds for the beautification of the main square and the monument to the architect Barsov, which was in need of repair. And you know, he shamed, squeezed, and banged the three million he wanted out of them – although not until he put his own million in the till.
It’s been a long time since I heard anyone call Spitsyn “Dregs.” People like to make fun of his love of cleanliness, some even call him eccentric, but they still respect him.
After the meeting, Spitsyn and I went downstairs together. All of a sudden, he grabbed my lapel and whispered, “Let’s go get wasted – I’ve had it with them all, to be honest.”
I was in no position to refuse Vassily Andreyevich, and really didn’t want to. If I’m being honest.
How a Soldier Saved Himself from the Army
Not so long ago, there was a debate on TV: should people of creative professions be required to serve in the army? Folks from the parliament took it up with the intelligentsia. They got quite worked up, I thought for sure there’d be a fist-fight, but they cooled off in the end and pronounced their verdict: the Army needs to professionalize, but until that happens, everyone just has to live with the draft. And one rather well-known politician publicly promised one well-known choreographer a deferment for all the guys in his troupe – struck a deal with his opponent, basically, as politicians are wont to do. Those guys got really lucky – like in a fairy tale. Although, we in Stargorod have seen our own share of fairytale luck.
Once upon a time, there was this soldier who decided to go AWOL. Before he got called up for service, he studied at an art college, but then he angered one of his professors: the boy didn’t want to paint still-lifes; he only wished to do landscapes, en plein air. His mother earned little, and his little brother was ill with asthma and needed expensive drugs. His father watched a parking lot at night and read mystical books about reincarnation. He did not help the soldier’s mother any, seeing as he’d taken such offense at her having divorced him. And they all lived in a tiny two-room apartment in a barrack-like apartment block. So it came to pass that our hero quit college and decided to serve his country. He went to the enlistment office and asked to be a Marine. Instead, they shaved his head and sent him off to the chemical weapons brigade, where they taught him to be quick and limber in a gas mask. And things would have just run their course, and he would have come home in just another six months, but as luck would have it, new winds came a-blowing through our good old army.
A whole bunch of new contracted privateers got sent to the soldier’s brigade: every single one of them had done time, and was used to going about life not by the book but by their “notions.” These privateers set to breaking in the rest of the enlistees, in order that they, too, would sign up as contractees. If everyone in the brigade did, Central Command promised them a ton of bacon. Some gave in; our soldier was the last hold-out. When the beasts promised to give him the blanket treatment after the evening roll-call, he called it quits and did what he’d been planning – dove out through a hole in the fence, and headed not to the village but out into the steppe.
So our soldier walked along the rail line and thought about putting a leg under a train – but when a train rolled along, he got cold feet, and didn’t go through with it. He walked some more, and then kept walking, thinking his sad thoughts, until he came upon a great big palace where a general lived with his daughter. The general’s daughter sat high up in a tower, watched “Animal Planet” thanks to a satellite dish, and thought sad thoughts. The general had a mind to get her married to the solicitor general’s son, but the boy had bad breath. The general himself did not care all that much for the solicitor general, but knew he had to make the match for his daughter; it was the politically correct thing to do.
The general spotted the soldier at the gate; he thought they had sent him a denshchik (a day worker) – he’s actually just asked for one. So he called out at the soldier, and ordered him to get the banya heated by 1600. The soldier went to work: chopped some firewood, got the fire going, and soaked the birch-bunches to bring them to life. Then the general’s daughter showed up – brought the new denshchik bread slathered in lard to snack on. He ate tidily, then they worked over a handful of sunflower seeds, and took a great shine to one another. The girl went back into the house to do her nails, and the soldier sat down on the stoop of the banya to have a smoke.
And the general, it must be said, kept fancy black-cocked chickens from a distant land. So, one of these, the boldest hen, came up to the soldier, stood there and looked at him askance, but he was nice to her – didn’t shoo her or throw a boot at her, and instead gave her some bread crumbs. The hen, for his kindness, gave him a magic grain. At 1600, the general’s guests rolled in for their banya: it was the solicitor with his son. In they all went; the soldier slapped and whipped the birch-bunches on the solicitor’s back – the solicitor only grunted, he liked it so much. He started asking the general to sell him his banya expert. The general wouldn’t do it – he hadn’t had his fill of him yet.