And now, finally, the long-awaited way out of the canyon. The last time the river dispersed our catamaran to "supersonic" speed, and with all its foolishness struck a granite rock; So much so that the front crossbeam of the frame was cracked and cracked in half like a match. And all - here Sandy - as if "turned off" - from the turbulent mountain river, she suddenly turned into a calm flat river. There was absolutely no sense to go farther. We pulled the catamaran ashore and began to collect things.
At this very time a shepherd of an indefinite age with a black face from an eternal sunburn rode up to us on a horse. Right on his stocky, powerful Mongolian "powerful" pectoral muscle, he drove to Oleg with words full of threats: "Eh, little one, and now give your wetsuit!" Wetsuits that we with great difficulty, honestly, borrowed from Lena Yadryshnikova - also a waterman, and with a very decent experience - to give, of course, no one was going to. I calmly lifted my ice ax from the ground and walked with an imposing gait to the rider, having a sincere desire and a very serious intention to cut off his leg. Apparently, there was something in my glance that made him turn and quickly retire.
Only when I arrived in Barnaul did I understand what exactly had frightened this unfortunate shepherd. When my mother opened the door to my apartment and came to Barnaul to visit her grandfather and grandmother, she screamed in horror at me with the words: "My God, Seryozha, is this you?" "And what's the matter?" I was surprised at the unexpected Mother's reaction. "Yes, look only at whom you looked like!" - and I rushed to the mirror. From there I was staring at a horrible, scabby, scabby from the merciless mountain-Altai sun, a hideous face of completely incomprehensible age and sex. As a result of the constant action of the "lens" of water and sun, all the skin on the face and hands turned into an absolutely non-elastic parchment, and the hands - so generally swelled up to incredibility and under the effect of maceration of the skin very much resembled the famous "death glove" from the drowned man.
That's how I "happily and at ease" went to his last campaign of his happy youth!
Two days after returning from Gorny Altai, I looked in my mail box and found a summons there in the military registration and enlistment office. "Well, everything, the ice has started, gentlemen of the jury!" - I thought gloomily, looking curiously at a sheet of gray paper, where I was invited tomorrow at 10.00 in the 16th cabinet. Arriving on the following morning at the military registration and enlistment office of the Oktyabrsky district, I looked into the 16th room - there was nobody for some reason, and on the table there was a cardboard box with the personal files of the recruits. Some unknown force (now I know for certain that it was Ra) pushed me in the back, and I confidently, in a farmer's way, went into an empty office, quietly shutting the door behind me.
Considering the box with the cases and the inscription on the side "Team 23 - Chernobyl" (in April 1986, he just "rumbled" to the whole world), I found in my weighty pile my personal file and another matter of Yuri Pavlov, a student from the Economics Faculty, With whom we together in 1986 played in the ensemble of the club VRZ (auto - car repair plant) and to which I immediately called, informing about "unpleasant news".
I am still very far from the idea that an empty office in the military enlistment office was a mere coincidence. Apparently, my service in Chernobyl was not at all part of Ra's plans.
My mood fell below the "waterline". When I got home, I told my mother everything, which was extremely upset. Striving to somehow dispel my painful thoughts, my mother and her own sister, Rita, often took me to the city beach - the Bulyginskoye reservoir (the so-called "Pioneer Lake").
In one of these visits to the city beach, I met with the charming investigator from the Oktyabrsky District Department of the Internal Affairs of Barnaul Irina Sheveleva. Ira was two years older than me, and we liked each other so much that she immediately gave me her home address. I went to the army a couple of times to visit her, but the novel did not work out for us. Yes, and what kind of "hot" novel, tell at the mercy, can develop from the relationship that arose on the "brotherly sexual grave" - on the city beach ?! Unless "Notes from the Crypt" - and nothing more!
Everything changed dramatically, suddenly, when Oleg Korobkov came to Barnaul to resolve the issue with the military enlistment office of the Central District (he decided to join the army with us from Barnaul to get into one team). "Sergei, are you a cretin? Do you want to become impotent and work for a lifetime on medicines? He persuaded me passionately. "Do not fool around!" Tomorrow, go to the military registration and enlistment office, withdraw from military records and go to the distribution of this "fucking" Pankrushi. And then, in October, we'll all leave for the army, from one recruiting station! "
I am very grateful to Oleg for that sensible advice, and for "the coffin of life" owes him! The next day I did it - I withdrew from the military register, presenting the military order with an order to my distribution to the glorious village of Pankrushikha of the Altai Territory, and for the whole 2 months I fell out of the
