Then I came to Dick, I put my hand on the massive head the first and last time…. Goodbye Dick, goodbye friend, the best friend ever…
Trubilin pulled his small gun Stechkin (see “Terminology and Glossary”? Editor) out of his jacket’s pocket and made three shots, saluting in the air….
Temir monotonically murmured the same favorite song of Dick. He always sang this song to him…
…It is only when you feel a real pain from your torn soul compressed in your chest to the point that you cannot take a breath, that only then you start to look around and notic what others do, what they talk and sing.
In the early autumn of 1994, I arrived in Voronezh, a home town of a great Russian writer Ivan Ivanovich Evseenko, who invited me to stay at his house. This friendly family loves a literature, music. It was a house full of cats….
Despite my busy schedule, I had time to visit museums. The museums in Voronezh, unlike in my city Lugansk, are presented very well.
Once I was walking on the central New Moscow street and suddenly, from behind I heard “Glebych!” I turned around… and I saw a man with a clean shaved face, dressed in the latest fashioned brick-and-lilac jacket and trousers with a matching t-shirt in a black color, with fashioned shiny shoes and gold chains reflecting the sunshine. Wow! What gloss! What glamour! The figure of a typical underground New Russian, with a compulsory attached Beretta gun, BMW with dark-windows and an openly displayed muscled security, opened his arms and was ready to give me his greeting kiss… wow-wow… hold on! The last thing in my life that I wanted is to be kissed by a criminal representative of the new Russian economy… Sorry, it is too much for me…I stopped him with a polite but distant “Hello!”
The guy was seeking my eyes, twittering around me, trying to look into my face. He could not understand why I would not recognise him, nor praise him for his success or envy his money. I do not know him! I have not seen him in my life at all and that’s it!
With visibly evaporating self-confidence, the guy kept trying to reach my heart:
— How are you, Glebych? What business brings you to us? Where you are staying? How things are going?
I could not get it… He definitely knows me. I put my brain in a high speed trying to recall in which situation I could see him… But I failed… and our short conversation for the next two minutes reminded me of a reprise of two clowns in a circus but clearly demonstrated to the guy that I indeed did not recognize him. A resentment quickly appeared in his eyes but was immediately gone.
— Hey, bro, have you not recognised me? I am Lyoha Ruzhy! From the de-mining battalion…Remember — Ryzha!?
Ah-ah-ah! Well, of course, now I remember! We cuddled to broken bones! Forgive me, my brother, my wounded head plays with me from time to time.
Hugging, we started on a new tone of what, where, how… I could not resist to sarcastically pull him down:
— So, my friend, you joined the trend too? — I pointed at his “New Russian” fashioned outfit.
He got embarrassed and began to excuse: “You know… everyone is looking for life”, “now it is time for change”, and so on…
I understood: no need for excuses.
It is time to celebrate our reunion…
Two of us sat in a BMW but inside the car a heavy silence was a third passenger between us. In contrast to the past, we have nothing in common. His full of shit crew were mumbling about something meaningless and stupid. We drove for a long time. The driver was an illiterate half wit who obviously did not love his car. His driving was unprofessional and erratic: with no need he presses the gas giving to the poor car 5000 rmp, and then suddenly puts on the brakes. He did it all the time! Idiot! I got tired to see how disrespectful he was to the people from the other side of his tinted window. He was changing lanes without any signal, horning, beeping and torturing the transmission constantly. Maybe he got an idea that he should be the only one on the road and other people should be removed as an obstacle to his driving? It was typical, nothing new in this department, I had already seen this kind of behavior many times and it was no novelty for me.
Finally we have arrived. I did not know Voronezh at all. This typical city from the Soviet era, was presented by numerous unified and faceless suburbs, in which buildings were arranged in a way of marching solders. The ugliness of these Soviet buildings was contrasted to a soft beauty of the traditional houses you can find in some parts of Voronezh.
Members of the gang started their official ceremony of farewell. Slightly hugging each others, they mimic a kiss with their cheeks touching both sides of a face. It reminds me of the way how rhinos head butted among themselves. May be they adopted this cult farewell from rhinos?
Clearly embarrassed of his mates, Lyoha came closer to me. The latest 325 BMW like a black shadow, sped to a traffic light and again burned tires in an attempt to reach the green light, but suddenly changed its mind and brakes howled. Driving back at full speed, the car stopped at the point where the short journey started. Indeed, this is a good car but with a shit driver. I have got my satisfaction and sarcastically looked at Lyoha. The poor guy completely lost in his embarrassment, trying to find some excuses:
— Well, what can you do with these guys?!
Yep, indeed… what?
We decided to have a drink and went to a pub nearby specifically designed for this type of people. Apparently Lyoha was known in this place and received a full stream of respect. We sat in the corner and for a while we enjoyed food specially made by a chef and numerous drinks, until time for a topic “Do You Remember” arrived. And then Lyoha asked:
— Do you remember Fedor?
Of course I remember him! He is my bro! I am his army Godfather!
And Lyoha started to tell the story but it would be better if he kept silent!
Fedor already started to do crazy things in the regiment. With these “clicks” in his head, he left the army in some month of summer. When he returned home, he had a severe alcohol problem, drinking non-stop. However, his parents were taught enough to pull him out of this miserable existence. He enrolled to a university, got married, a child was born. However, when his army friend visited him, Fedor lapsed again with his drinking problem. Seeing this, his wife grabbed the child and left to the village she came from, forgetting to withdraw from a university where she was studying and even applying for a divorce.
The kid started to drink seriously in a dangerous way. He dropped his university and parents could not change the situation for the better. Lyoha said, that during that time, he visited Fedor quite often and was stunned to see with what kind of people, Fedor was socializing. They were the complete rubbish of the human race, total losers, outsiders of any social ends, “dead meats”. Lyoha told me that Fedor even sold his bravery medal “Red Star” for a cheap bottle of home brewed alcohol!
In the beginning of 90s, Fedor decided to make a visit to his son. Before the trip he got blatantly drunk, which he added to during the trip. Delusional by consumed alcohol, he got off at a wrong station and went the wrong direction, got lost and froze to death somewhere in the middle of vast fields, not even close to the village where his son lived. His body was found only in the spring fall when show melted and farmers started unearthing soil in the fields. His burial was simple. This was the end of Fedor’s life.
I could not believe what I heard but Lyoha assured me
— His grave is located in the St. Nicholas cemetery. His father erected a huge monument for him….
— Let’s go there!
— Not now, Glebych… Relax…
How can I be relaxed after what I have heard? Have you, Lyoha-asshole, forgot our army code? I will remind you then! In five minutes, squashed up, we were sitting in an old taxi that was taking us to Fedor.