Diary. June 15

Evening. Light as day, damn it all. These "White Nights" are a complete mockery. The embankment is buzzing, tourists are screaming as if they were in a zoo, street musicians are playing "Kalinka" mixed with some pop, "Ruki Vverh" I think. Drunk teenagers with "Baltika" in their hands are staggering, laughing, smashing bottles on the asphalt. And I'm walking, and this damn Halloween cloak of mine is catching on everything. My hat is slipping down over my eyes, my shirt is sticking to my back - it's hot, even though it's June. One passerby, his face red as a tomato, pointed his finger: "Heh, Count Dracula!" I answered him: "You're the Count yourself, moron!" He laughed, and I spat on the pavement and walked on. Let them laugh. I don't care.

I bought a Baltika at a kiosk. It was warm, damn it, but better than nothing. I sat down on the parapet by the Neva, opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress. Fireworks were going off, the crowd was screaming like at a fair. And I was sitting, drinking, smoking a Java. The smoke was bitter, but familiar. My head was all clouded up. Granny was grumbling again today, like, "Dmitry, stop drinking, you'll ruin yourself." Her borscht had gotten cold on the stove, and she was still droning on about Afghanistan: "You were there, and now you're wasting away at home." As if I didn't know myself. As if I was happy in this Khrushchev-era building, where the wallpaper was peeling off and the Rubin TV was blaring about Chechnya and Putin. She, Anna Ivanovna, still believed that I would "get out." And where to? To fix TVs for pennies? In the workshop Vaska started whining again: "Crisis, Dimych, no work, everything is lost." And I keep quiet. What can I say? I'm up to my ears in this shit myself.

The army creeps into my head, as if to spite me. 1987, Afghanistan, dust, heat, screams. That concussion is like a brand. The dreams come again: sand, explosions, faces of boys who are no longer there. I wake up - cold sweat, and a lump in my throat. Vodka helps, but not for long. Grandma sees that I'm drinking, crosses herself, wipes the icon with a rag. She says: "God will forgive." But I don't believe it. If He is there, then He has a sick sense of humor.

I sometimes remember LETI. 1994, my diploma, my project on EMP. Everyone praised me, saying, Sukhov, you're a star, you'll storm institutes in Moscow. Yeah, you stormed them. The crisis of 1998 finished it all off. My wife left, my friends disappeared, only Igor remained, and he was busy with his office. And me? I'm nobody. In this raincoat, with this bottle, I'm sitting by the Neva like a clown. Tourists are staring, they're raising bridges, and I'm thinking: why am I living? Grandma's right, I need to get out. But how? Who needs me?

I finished my Baltika, crushed the can and threw it in the trash. Of course, it missed. So what. I'll go home before the bridges are raised. Tomorrow I'll go to the workshop to solder these damn TVs again. Maybe God will send a sign after all. Although it's unlikely. It seems He forgot about me a long time ago.

I was just about to get up from the parapet when three people came. Young, about twenty years old, in jeans, sneakers, one in a cap, the other with a Nokia in his hand - a brand new one, 3310, probably bragging, the bastard. They walked, laughing, drinking beer, like I did recently. The one with the phone was big, with an impudent mug, his hair slicked back with gel, like a gangster from a TV series. He saw me, pointed his finger at me, and yelled: "Hey, Dracula, what, have you crawled out of a coffin?" The others guffawed, one of them added: "Where did you steal your cloak, from the trash, I bet?" I kept quiet, looked away, but inside I was seething. I thought they would pass, but no - the one with the Nokia came closer, waving his brick: "Hey, drunk, should I take a picture of you for a horror movie?"

I stood up. My coat rustled, my hat almost flew off. "Get out of here," I said quietly, but I clenched my teeth. He laughed even louder: "What, soldier, are you going to scare me? Go to your cemetery!" And he pushed me in the shoulder. Lightly, but brazenly. And then I got carried away. Afghanistan flashed in my head - dust, screams, a fist clenched by itself. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulled him towards me, eye to eye. "You, puppy," I growled, "I laid out the likes of you in the mountains in 1987. Do you want me to show you?" He jerked, but I held on tightly, like that time, on patrol, when I broke someone else's machine gun in my hands. His eyes widened, the Nokia almost fell out of his hand. The other two froze, their beer dripping onto the asphalt.

"Let go, you psycho!" he yells, but his voice is shaking. I hold him for another second, then push him back. He almost falls, trips over the curb. "Get lost," I repeat, and my voice is like a knife. He backs away, mutters something like "come on, what are you doing," and waves his cap to his buddy, as if to say, let's go. And they run, the three of them, along the Neva, only the sound of their sneakers. He shoved the Nokia into his pocket, the unfinished hero. I spat, straightened my coat. My heart is pounding, like in those years when I fought for my life. It was not in vain that I fought, apparently. Even though my soul feels bad.

I went home. The bridges were about to be raised, and I still had to get there through Vasilievsky. My head was all muddled, but one thought was clear: these brats with their phones, they were nobody. And me? I was nobody either. But at least I knew what it was like to hold death by the throat. Grandma would grumble again when she saw me. And maybe I'd grab some Putinki on the way. So I could sleep without dreams.

I walked through Vasilievsky, my legs carried me to the kiosk on the corner where they sell vodka. It was light, damn it, almost midnight, but it felt like daytime - those damned "White Nights." My head was spinning, I was still shaking after those brats with their Nokia. I thought a bottle would help, drown it out. I went into a store, a kiosk, or rather a plywood booth, that smelled of tobacco and shashlik from the counter next door. Behind the counter, a woman of about forty, with a face like a bulldog, was looking at me as if I already owed her. "Putin," I muttered, pointing my finger at the shelf. She reached in, put the bottle on the counter, and said, "Forty rubles." I reached into my pocket, and it was empty. Not a kopeck. Just a crumpled pack of "Java" and a lighter. I must have forgotten my wallet in the workshop, or even at home. "Damn," he blurted out. The woman narrowed her eyes: "What, no money?"