Ivan Pentchoukov

Summer mornings in Russia

Basically we went out to get some vobla and more beer. At the corner the beggar that spit close to Lesha’s shoes yesterday was standing. We sniveled at him and he pushed Misha so I hit him on the head hard with my fists. His head was hard as stone. We were trying to beat him so he wont get up, but he was like a zombie. A bottle of port fell out of his pocket so we pushed him hard off the curb and took the bottle. So we went by Alena’s steps to drink it quickly before going to the kiosk and what do you know the pharaohs show up. This young one he goes up to us and kicks the bottle over and calls us schenki. Zhenia gets up but fighting these swine would only make things worse so off we are to the detox. In the detox was Max we were talking to him he said there will be Shashlyki tonight out the canals behind the brick factory and that we should call up Alex and get him to call his sergeant friend. So Alex goes under the bench to use his cellphone and calls Denis the sergeant and he says we should all come drink with him for his mother’s birthday so we go to oblige him. We catch a cabby and its Leha we all ask him where the hell he has been and has he been drinking at beating his wife and he says no its been three years. Can you believe it out of all people Leha?  So he’s driving us to the birthday, but Max as always can’t go without a gift and Leha says Maria Alexandrovna has really bad TV receptions so we go by the flee market to pick up an antenna. Alex sees his little sister at the market with hoodlums and we chase them all the way to Aerodromnaya and that as we all know is not our neighborhood, but we keep running all the way to the center of the projects toward the playground where the hoodlums stop next to a bunch of guys on a bench. I remember that my uncle’s mistress lives somewhere here and look for her window and what do you say a rock hits me straight in the head, next thing I know Leha is driving us all beat up to Maria Alexandrovna’s and I have a split lip. What do you mean what day it was? Its still the same day. Like I told you we never got to the kiosk on wednesday. Denis is really drunk in the kitchen smoking ten thousand cigarettes with his shirt off and his army tatoos and his prison tatoos and his gang tatoos all over. Max is retarded enough to refer to him as Masha and Denis kicks him hard and down and straight to the floor. We all stand around silent. Then Denis wants to fight with me like the old days. I used to beat his ass but I’m all beat up and bleeding. His pushes me back to the manezh and his mom is all in tears and his little brother is scared by the chair. So I said lets take it outside, but halfway down the stairs he’s crying and hugging me so said lets go to the shashlyki, which is quite a trip but we get loaded and walk there. Me Max and Denis are ahead and Denis says why haven’t I gone to see uncle Andrey, don’t I remember he used to fix our bikes? Uncle Andrey’s is on the way to the karyers behind the factory so we stop by there. Lena was on the swings in the yard with a bunch of clean looking smoking guys. What do you mean? She was just there, she’s your friend isn’t she? Upstairs we see uncle Andrey, can you imagine it he died the next day? He gave us candy like back in the day and I got all teary eyed for some reason and Denis too, but Max couldn’t remember uncle as much, so he was a bit surprised, but I think he felt it to. I still have that candy. I don’t think I’m ever going to eat it. So we went through the village to the karyers and there was a lot of people that we didn’t know running around in the dark with sticks lit on fire. We tried to find for a while where the shashlyki was, but the lights were confusing us. I think a family of cats was following us because there was mewoying on all sides. We decided to give up and go for a swim. Remember Oleg said the water there is mile deep? They dig for clay and leave the holes there, mile deep. It was really dark and it seems the people with the fires all were really far. So me Max and Denis go in the water, it was really warm. I really wanted to sleep. We smoked cigarettes while we floated on our backs. Then Max and Denis wanted to go find where the food was, but I just fell asleep right there next to the karyers. I think the cats started sleeping next to me because when I woke up in the morning there was hair all over me. The first thing on my mind was that I still needed to go the store.