Simple Truths of Life - страница 11

Also, I could not live in reality back then, since I could not be the person I could be if I did not stutter. And I often began to think about justice in life. How is it that I not only never harmed anyone in my life, moreover, I was a friendly and cheerful person who loved nature and life in general, but in spite of all this I had to suffer so much from the age of five? Why do those people who commit the wildest crimes live happily ever after if they are never caught by the police? Where is justice in this life?

Soon my grandmother died. I was so immersed in myself that I could not feel any emotions. I understood what had happened, but everything was as if in a haze, and as if it did not directly concern me, it was something distant. I wanted to get rid of constant stress – and I managed to do it, but at what cost…

The school year was drawing to a close, and it was time for exams. Without hesitation, I decided to continue to study in school for the tenth and eleventh grade. I had good grades, except for the second quarter where I had two 3s because I first started skipping school, but since studying was not a big problem for me, I was able to catch up with the curriculum and close almost all bad grades I got during that period. There were two strict teachers who decided to put 3s in the annual standings, but this was not a problem, and I was taken to the tenth grade.

Speaking of truancy, my mother and I started quarreling in the ninth grade due to the fact that I started not wanting to go to school, because my life was crumbling, and so studying wasn’t the top priority for me. Once we quarreled so much that at midnight I went to my father's apartment with a full rucksack of textbooks on my back, but at a quarter of the way I realized how far I had to go and decided to return to my mother's apartment. I remember how then the police car made a circle around me at the turn to the Lokomotiv stadium, but then it drove further along the highway, where it was driving originally. Our quarrels began to decline, when after a couple of years we quarreled again, I looked at her and I was amazed to realize that she had clearly aged. She was missing some teeth. I do not know how, but I did not notice this before. Then my eyes began to open up slightly, and I tried to avoid quarrels with my mother so that she would not be nervous.

Alas, from time to time I also tried to get sick so as not to go to school. And sometimes I really managed to do it. So much the fear of speech dulled then my thinking…

Everything was almost the same in the village. Longtime friends created a comfortable zone.

Perhaps it was in that year that I decided to try drinking alcohol. Many of my friends started drinking beer and wine some time ago. I put up a fight for a long time, but in the end I could not resist. I do not remember how exactly this happened, and it does not really matter, the important fact here is that I drank alcohol with the rest, but I never touched vodka. It is worth saying that I never got drunk and knew the limits. Also, I always remembered everything that happened to me during alcoholic intoxication.

Many of us also had motorcycles and motor scooters that replaced quiet and clean bicycles. We often fiddled with our iron horses, repairing them almost every day. I had Voskhod 2M, which was given to me by my first cousin once-removed. I remember that I soiled my clothes with that motorcycle so much that it was no longer washable.