CHAPTER 3.
- He has obvious nephroptosis. No one will give you even 100 yuan for that kidney, so I don't see the point in taking out his other kidney.
- Well, what else is there to cut out? A liver or an eyeball?
- Young man, I'm telling you, the market is overflowing with scrapie organs. Even if I take him apart completely by parts and salt the blood, you won't even recoup the cost of the gasoline to take them to the nearest Ministry of Health and Horticulture. Age, young man, the age of the donor. All the organs are old and badly worn out. Your Semenych didn't have a donor 15 years younger? Of course, the best option is a child.
- What am I supposed to do with a kidney?
- Young man, you have a dog - so give it to him.
The conversation died down, footsteps were heard, and the door creaked open.
I mumbled, trying to get up.
- And who is that we have woken up, so cheerful and happy? Lie down, young man, lie down. You cannot get up now.
- What for? Why did you do that?
- Did what? Oh, you mean your kidney, don't you? Be thankful, young man, that we removed that rotten kidney - you had stones as big as an egg in there. If we hadn't removed your kidney, you might have died trying to pee in a couple of years. But I'm not asking you to pay for the surgery. Our kind-hearted deputy paid for your treatment. Yes, Fyodor Yevlampiyevich is a great man, he has repeatedly proved with his tireless care for people that he deserves the title of people's deputy.
The voice faded away and faded away, a red veil covered my eyes...
Fedka, biting off huge slices from God, chewed and chewed loudly.
- I want one, too.
- You can't. - The God you believe in requires your submission and humility, and the true God Kilbas does not like slaves, for slavery and kilbasa are incompatible. God Kilbas patronizes the rebels, and you eat your nettle chowder and kiss the chairman's feet for letting you tear your back on the Chinese, and on holidays double ration of bread from the maggots. How do you feel without a kidney?
- I don't know yet...
- How will you live now?
- Same as before, only without a kidney...
Fedya laughed.
- Aren't you afraid that tomorrow Semenych will lose your ass in cards?
- I'm afraid. Well, what can I do alone? It's not Semenych, it's life!
Fedya laughed out loud again.
- You're incorrigible. That's why the great Kolbas can't stand you and left your world... Don't you want to punish Semenych? Burn down his house at night, and put him on a knife or a stake?
- Of course I do. But I can't. My father said that power comes from God, and everything it does is God's will...
- What kind of will of God is that, to cut out a man's kidney and feed it to the dogs for no reason at all? What are you so guilty about?
- I don't know, maybe I got pride, maybe I committed adultery in my sleep, or something else I sinned with...
Fedka laughed again, tears came to his eyes.
- Does it mean that you became proud somewhere accidentally or in a dream you fucked a woman, and God punished you for it so cleverly that he made Semenych lose you in a card game? Does your logic suggest that God is an elaborate sadist?
- No, Father says that God is love...
- If God is love, then removing a kidney is an act of love?
- I don't think so. God would not have taken a kidney from me, if it had pleased him, he would have created me immediately with one kidney.
- So Semenych wasn't acting on God's behalf?
- So it turns out...
- So you didn't want to punish Semenych?
- I wanted to, but I have no right to punish. Semenych must be punished by God or by a judge.
- Well, well, but do not forget that the courts have long been abolished and the power of judges transferred to the deputies. Which deputy are you going to complain to? Wasn't it the one to whom Semenych lost your kidney in cards?
- Then God will punish Semenych!
- You're so fucking annoying! God fuck you and fuck you! He made you in his image and gave you free will. He finally made you an arm, a leg and a head. And if God gave you two kidneys, then you have to manage them yourself, not some Semenych! Don't you understand? And if someone steals your kidney, you have every moral right to take it from the thief. Blood for blood, kidney for kidney! Lawlessness should be punished by lawlessness!!!
- I'm not an outlaw, I'm a decent scraper! I will seek the truth, he who seeks may find! I'll complain to the leader!!! He's good, kind, he loves us and protects us from the ukranians and yankees!!!! He just doesn't know what's going on here!!!
Fedka clutched his head.
- You're such a dickhead... Are you going to Moscow?
- I won't get to Moscow, but I'll get to the governor for sure! Our governor is a man of God, appointed by the leader himself!
- Wake up, young man, wake up! It's morning, it's time for you to go home. I'm discharging you. Your stitch is strong - if you don't jerk or lift heavy things, it probably won't come apart. Put a plantain on it three times a day. If you get festering, tuck in the hem of your shirt and let the flies lay their larvae. The maggots will eat the rotten tissue and leave the clean flesh untouched. That way it'll heal. Here's a note for the chairman for two weeks release from work... Now go with God.
I slowly, with difficulty, sat down on the couch, with my legs overhung. Then I stood up, straddling the couch. My lower back ached with every movement. My legs were shaky and my hands were shaking.
- Doctor, could I have some pill to make it hurt less?
- Yes, yes, of course, young man. Our Russian pharmacological company recently tested a new super analgesic drug.
The doctor handed me a wooden stick
- Here, young man, clench it in your teeth and squeeze as hard as you can when it hurts.
- Doctor, it's a twig! Will it help me?
- Of course it will, young man. Do you really doubt Russian medicine? Practice shows that this remedy helps in ninety cases out of a hundred, and in just a week the pain will be gone like as if by magic. Unless, of course, you die. But if you do die - alas, as you must understand, no one is safe from death.
The weather outside was fine. The sun had just risen, and it was a little chilly. Sickelove broadcast the morning news from the loudspeakers. They live richly in the district center, they have loudspeakers on every corner:
- ...is reason to be proud of our achievements. The new T-16 hyper-armored super-armored tank has also been put into serial production. The new tank incorporates all the latest achievements of Russian science. The design of the T-16 took into account and improved all the defects of the previous model of the tank. The tank's muzzle became 49 centimeters straighter and longer, and the tank driver's seat was replaced with a supertechnological bio-toilet designed by Skolkovo.
Sickelove's speeches poured oil from the loudspeakers and honeyed the soul:
-...has a base of hydrocarbon fibers. Skolkovo scientists tested this material and declared: hobblers made of artificial bast will be more wear-resistant. The Moscow laptepile factory named after Dmitry Kompotov ordered the first batch of the newest material...
My eyes clouded over, then a tear of pride for my homeland dripped down my cheek and rolled down my face. I want to leave. I would have listened and listened...
How is that - the great leader raises the country, scientists make new discoveries day by day, plants and factories build new rockets and tanks, and all sorts of Semenychi cut out the kidneys of honest people and then even feed them to the dogs? This is an outrage!!! Our leader doesn't even know what's going on here in our Buttopolis district! That's it, it's settled. We have to go to the governor and tell him what the local authorities are up to! If God doesn't want to punish lawless people, the president will punish them for sure!
I walked, occasionally clenching the medical painkiller my doctor had prescribed me with my teeth. It really helped.
I had already gone a good mile and a half from the district center, when on the right side of the road from the bushes I heard:
- Shh-shh-shh, shh-shh-shh, stay where you are!
A Cockssux’s trooper jumped out of the bushes, looking around, and, kicking his boots, ran up to me:
- Scraper, that's great. What are you, from Flyfuckers, limping? What's up there, what do you hear? Have you seen any Cockssux? Who's talking?
- Olmnvmyhhmmm.
- Take your dick out of your mouth!
I took the painkiller out of my mouth, which I had completely forgotten about.
- Please forgive me, Your Highness, Mr. Coksuck. I wasn't talking to anyone today, I'm coming from the hospital.
- What's up, did you hear shooting in the night? Or screams?
- No, I'm out of surgery, I must have been stabbed, I slept like a dead man.
- I see what's wrong with you. You got anything to eat?
- Nah, I'd like to get something to eat.
- What if you're fucking around? Stop right there!
The Coksuck brazenly grabbed my sleeve, came right up to me, and started rummaging through my clothes, trying to find my pockets.
- No fucking pockets? Motherfucker! All right, get the fuck out of here, you sick fuck!
Coksuck went behind my back and kicked me in the ass. A sharp pain pierced my lower back...
- B-b-bitch," I hissed through my teeth.
- What did you cackle at?
- Nothin', mister Coksuck," I answered quickly, put painkillers in my mouth and, clenching my teeth, quickly hobbled forward. To mess with these Cockssux... He can whip you, and this one has a knife on his belt - he can stab you again.
Bitch, bitch, bitch! Where did that bastard come from? You can see he's not from around here. "Who shot him, who shot him, why?" There are almost no Cockssux in the district center, the cannibals thinned them out recently - there are five of them left. But they have nothing to shoot, they are not allowed to use firearms. Only the people's elected deputies can shoot. But who? The cannibals attacked Asslicker’s village? And what is this Coksuck doing here? It is not clear...
So... It's 200 kilometers to the provincial capital, if we go through the fields, straight ahead. But I can't cross the river, and there's a bridge only in Kneelup town. If you go through it, it turns out 250 kilometers - I'll have to make a little detour. I can't walk fast, but I'll make it in a week. These boots are still, would not fall apart.
Spring was in full force. The green grass was sprouting through last year's weeds, the sun was shining, and the warm wind was caressing my skin. I loved hiking in the old days. I had a hobo streak in my youth. Sometimes I'd go to the middle of nowhere, as long as I didn't have to work. But that was a different story back then. There were fish in rivers and ponds, it was easy to catch them, you just had to have a fishing line and a hook. You tied it to a stick, caught grasshoppers or worms, fished for an hour - here was your meal for the whole day. Or someone else's vegetable garden, there's no problem at all - you can climb quietly at night, dig up half a bucket of potatoes, pick some cucumbers and go with the good, just be a hobo. You roast them on the coals, and you're full.
There's no fish in the ponds and rivers now, and nobody plants gardens. About ten years ago, before the energy crisis, our government decided that the treasury needed more money to build hypersurface rockets. And there was nowhere to get the money, because the yankees and the gay Europeans put useful sanctions on the country. So our God-elected power found a righteous solution - first, they moved the retirement age by five years. Then they thought about it for a couple of years, and canceled the pension. But there wasn't enough money for the rockets, and the country had to be defended. Taxes were slightly increased, by about three times, but there was a problem - the tax can be taken only from the working man, who has an income. And in Russia at that time not more than 15% of the population worked. Our governme
nt made a move - all the unemployed declared self-employed and taxed. Well, for example, you do not work, but you live on something, right? So pay the tax. Garden residents and gardeners were equated to farmers, saying that they live richly and eat their fill, so they have to pay the state, otherwise what to build new rockets for? Is it necessary to protect vegetable gardens from the French? Yes, we do. So pay taxes.
Oh, those were the days... Many became hardened taxpayers, habitual debtors. They put them in penal colonies in whole villages. And in the colonies they have to be fed, bastards, and this again is a burden on the state budget.
That is when our leader made the wisest decision. He decided to collect the debts from debtors through donor organs. If you owe the state taxes - give a kidney, if you owe again - take out an eyeball or a spleen. And if you were a villain and stole a large sum from the leader, you could be completely dismantled for parts. There was a network of procurement offices of the Ministry of Health all over the country at that time - in every hospital, organs were cut out.
In the beginning there were even riots, because the people didn't like the new law. They liked to hide their taxes, but they didn't want to pay their debts. It was immediately obvious that there is not enough humility and spiritual crosses are weak, the enemies are plague. A lot of unreliable individuals went to the woods and wastelands, became cannibals. Some of them were boozing, but the Cockssux and Rosguardians quickly put them all to rest. I did not wait until I became a debtor - I went, trampled my garden, razed it to the ground, and in the fall I had very tasty silver fleece sprouts. The tax did not apply to silver fleece, but you could eat it up to your heart's content.
But now it is difficult with silver fleece and nettles - spring is early. Although morels should already come out, it is necessary to turn to the forest belt and walk there. I shall not die of hunger while walking to the regional capital.
Once upon a time, in times immemorial, the Soviet authorities paved the asphalt anywhere. From the city to the district center, from the district center to the village and so on - why, one might ask, no one even had cars then. So, the road builders had a habit of planting forest belts along the highway - where they put poplars, where they put fir trees, and somewhere just maples and shrubs of all kinds. Of course, there is no asphalt anywhere, but there are still forest strips. If you go a couple kilometers away from villages, there is a forest belt. The Chinese don't saw these strips, apparently they have enough taiga. So there are untouched trees - dense thickets, sometimes up to 30 meters wide! I turned off the road and walked under the crowns of giant poplars. Last year's leaves crunched underfoot, and dry twigs snapped merrily. Birds cawed happily in the sky. What a beauty... I even forgot that I had had a kidney cut out - my heart was overfilled with joy.
In a thicket of bushes I picked up strong maple branch, broke off thin knots. Here it was a staff, a traveler's friend. Walking immediately became much easier. Three legs are one and a half times better than two. I wandered and poked at suspicious heaps with a stick, stirred up leaves - if not, what if mushrooms. In the next heap the stick bumped against something hard. I pushed it again - it rang. I began to dig... Oh, my God, a treasure! This is a pre-crisis dump, the traces of a highly developed prehistoric civilization! A bag of cans, cans, bottles, a bucket!!! A fucking galvanized seven-liter bucket!!! Priceless artifact!!! It's a little battered, it's a little rusty, the handle is bent, but there are no holes. I'm a multibillionaire! My head was dizzy with such sudden riches, and I knelt down.... Now I'm not going to have a trip, I'm going to have a resort walk, because you can cook food in a bucket! I took two empty half-cups with corks and put them in the bucket. A shard of glass, a very useful thing...in there, too.
The bucket! What could be more beautiful and convenient for a traveling scrapper? You can carry valuables in it, you can cook food in it, you can put it on your head when it's raining acid! The owner of the bucket automatically becomes a rich man in any village - while you are carrying water in buckets from the well, this bourgeois, with his nose high up to the sky, carries home water in a bucket. And everyone looks at him with envy, whispering behind his back!
Yes, in the old days you could buy this precious container in any store. But after the energy crisis and metal reductions, it became impossible to find a metal bucket. Plastic ones were sold at first, but then disappeared from store shelves along with the stores themselves.
They say you can buy a bucket, a canister, and even some of the utensils in the city from a dealer, but the prices there are insane, in yuan. And it's dangerous to buy on the black market - the Cockssux will catch you, they'll see you to death and confiscate your purchases. The law forbids you to use the services of a drug dealer. If you need something, go to the Roscrappeprodstore, but everything there is on coupons. But no one knows where to get coupons.
Yes, it's a complicated economy in our country - nothing is clear. But Sickelove said that we have to be patient, the country is moving towards a developed Putinism, and soon everyone will be happy, there will be so many coupons for each scrapper that they will not fit into their pockets... what pockets? I cut them off a long time ago.
They're just annoying, they get in the way. When Semenych was appointed our chairman, he immediately decreed new standards for morning checks. So, every day at the morning meeting he made a search to see if we were hiding anything forbidden from Semenych and the Motherland. Maybe we had some surplus goods, or had found something metal. At first we all stood patiently waiting for Semenych to check our pockets. But then we just started unzipping our pockets and walking around like that all the time. Sometimes you forget, put your pocket back and walk around like nothing happened, and then suddenly you hear, "Hey, you, come here! What are you hiding, asshole?" And then the search begins...
God forbid, you'll find something, but you'll put it in your pocket and forget to give it back right away. And then Semyonich burns you and searches you? You won't be able to get away with it, he'll kick the shit out of you. Then you'll use a crowbar in the cold until your hands are bone-dry, and at night Semenych will please you...
I got fed up with it, so I ripped my pockets and sewed them up. That's what everybody did. It's convenient and practical. The main thing is that I could see that he was an honest scrapper who did not hide anything and devoted his whole self to his Motherland.
Crows were shouting high in the trees. Everywhere, here and there, there were black nests. It was too high for me, even with two kidneys I would not be able to climb up there, and now, after the operation, I would not be able to climb up even half a meter. And so would gather the eggs - m-m-m, delicious! And it's dangerous to climb alone. Crows are vicious birds, they can kick you so hard that you learn to fly. Well, not really fly - dive. In our house three years ago Kolya dived like that - he climbed for eggs and was beaten by a crowd of crows. Kolyan landed, but unsuccessfully. Since then he walks with a limp and receives half a ration. But how? He's an invalid, he can't make a full ration, why should he be given a full ration? I, for one, don't want to work him. It wasn't me who sent him out to get crow's eggs. He wanted a treat himself, so he climbed up the tree. I for one, too, would now savor the delicacy, but I do not climb - because I understand that if I hurt myself, no one will feed me. That's just it, yeah.
The sun has passed its zenith. How far have I walked? Not much at all, about ten kilometers. I'm walking slowly, I'm tired. My lower back was hurting even more, even the painkillers didn't help much. Now, behind the hill, to the left of the highway, there will be a sograh - there are springs there, I must fill up the water in a half-cup.
Half an hour later, I went down to the forest bush and found the spring. I got drunk to my stomach, filled the bottles with water, stretched out on the leaves, and covered my eyes - shhhhiiieeeet...
Semenych was sitting on a small stool with his feet in a basin of hot water. The chairman wore only underpants and a accordion. Semenych was playing something, at first quietly and out of tune, then suddenly he played some tune and bawled:
The clavicle key is broken in half,
And our grandfather Volodya had shrunk completely.
He's decomposed into botox, Rosneft and Gazprom,
And stability goes on and on and on.
Somebody stole the pipeline yesterday,
And everything goes according to plan.
And my scrawny soul wants to rest,
I promised it I'd stay out of the war game.
But on my hat there's a two-headed sickle, an eagle, a star.
How touching, oops, the bottle goes the wrong way.
And though the lantern is turned off for debts,
And everything goes according to plan.
And my wife ran off to China,
Said: "Keep drinking Boyar, watch Sickelove!"
I shouted at her: "Fuck you! "I wish there was no war!"
Then I caught up with her and kicked her in the ass,
I've got everything going according to plan.
Only drunken Yeltsin was a good leader,
And all the others are such crap.
And all the others are enemies and such fools.
Over my homeland, nuclear ash flew.
I bought Korea magazine - it's all good there, too.
There's Comrade Kim Jong-un - the same as ours.
I'm sure they have the same thing,
And everything is going according to plan.
And under Putinism, everything will be fucked up,
It'll be here soon, you just have to wait.
Everything will be free there, everything will be fun there.
Your parents won't ask you to give birth.
I woke up in the middle of the night
Everything's going according to plan.
Everything's going according to plan.
Everything's going according to plan.
Everything's going according to plan.
Semenych stopped talking and stared at me:
- Hey, you! What the fuck are you looking at? You got a pair of eyes?
Semenych stood up abruptly, climbed out of the basin and, slapping his wet feet on the wooden floor, came toward me.
- Let's poke one of your eyes out..." said Semenych in a kindly voice and poked me in the eye with his finger.
- What for, Semenych?! - I shouted and grabbed the chairman's hand. Semenych screamed in a shrill voice and started to pull my hand out, but I held it firmly by my fingers.
Suddenly Semenych disappeared. I opened my eyes. There was a crow fluttering in my hand, and I held it tightly by the neck. The bird was yelling and beating its wings on my hand.
- Hello! - I said, twisting the crow's neck.
The raw crow is not tasty, you cannot eat it without a knife - it is hard to bite. But it is very good when it is cooked.
I got up, found a rotten trunk of a birch, broke off a mulberry, picked up dry leaves. I put a half-cup of water in the sun at an angle so that a lens was formed, and the refracted sun rays were directed to one point. I put my palm up to it - yes, it burns. I put the corm there and sat down to pinch the crow. In some minutes the broom began to smoke. I blew it up by putting dry leaves on it. Here is a fire!
It is a good thing - a half-cup: to take water, and to make a fire, if the weather is sunny. Eh, a pity, now they aren't on sale.
Finished plucked the crow, gutted the carcass with a piece of glass, washed in the spring. Poured water in a bucket and put it on the fire. Oh, I wish I had some salt.
The broth boiled in the bucket, the crow boiled, and I looked around. Of course, there was little chance that anyone would pass on the road - today was a work day, there should be no loitering, but still my goggle played up a bit. Killing and eating wild birds can get you in trouble for at least 500 hours of community service. Poaching is harshly punished, yes. But that's what laws are for, to keep things in order. Otherwise, if you allow us, scrappers, to eat sparrows and crows, and catch insects without coupons, we'll quit working until we've eaten
