The First First of May Episode

The first of May, probably as an effect of the very reactionary attitudes of my entire family, I always considered as the most horrid day of the year. It was after all the holiday of a hated establishment, boisterously celebrated by decided enemy, a weird, foreign to us orgy forced upon us. 

One time, in the year in which I graduated high school, through crafty extortion I was recruited into this wretched paranoia, and it almost ended tragically. 

Well, on the street this May Day parade was coming together and after both my attendance and the presence of a colleague from my class, son of an Anders man, one Marek Rożynek, had been confirmed several times we were each given, unknown to us why, a so-called szturmowka. 

With these we were to approach the grandstand waving joyously. The szturmowka was simply a two-plus meter long stick, something like a stick from a broom, only much longer, with a nailed in sizeable piece of bright red calico. 

Its shape was reminiscent of a banner or streamer. For some time we obediently carried these communist symbols, when finally we fell into what we considered a great idea. 

Among the different insignia carried in the parade we noticed a great amount of balloons, in turn either in the color blue with the word “Peace” and the visage of a dove, or in the color red with the word “Stalin” and the characteristic profile of the bearer of the world revolution. 

When the parade, which happened frequently, momentarily stopped, Rożynek and I each repurposed the sharp nail of our szturmowka for use at the outward end. 

The game was super, because marching, we could, accidentally, hitch the nail to the balloon and boom!—that was it for balloon, and for the next one, and for the next, once Stalin, once Peace, Stalin, Peace, Stalin, Peace, Stalin… boom… boom… boom… 

We managed to eliminate from the parade no more than forty balloons, when three UB-men pounced on us. Of course they were in civilian clothing, but even from a distance they were easily recognizable. 

Unfortunately working in a state of amok we didn’t notice. Even politely enough they showed us their legitimization and informed us that we were arrested. 

They took away our szturmowkas, of course, examined them briefly and commented on the purposefully mounted nails, and then they took us into a side street where the cheapest whores often loitered. This day however the whores had probably been ousted. 

Instead several elegantly parked paddy wagons stood there and we were packed into one of them. The UB-men on this day had to have their hands full with work, because without checking or confiscating any of our documents, they immediately closed the door behind us and quickly went away, probably in search of the next class enemy and saboteur. 

We became commiserative because we realized that we could each earn even several years, but most of all however we were upset that they ruined such great fun for us. We found ourselves in an amusing situation. 

We did not have, despite desperate attempts, any chance to open from the inside the doors of this horrible wagon, and when it began to sink in that we could spend the rest of our lives rotting in some UB pillbox, we began to be overwhelmed with black melancholy. 

Somewhere after fifteen minutes however the doors opened and with the words “Get in and no discussions,” the next three clients were shoved inside. 

Two were in trolley uniforms, and one was in a ragged gray sweater, some suspicious type. We did not have time even to exchange words. These I anyway avoided, knowing that apparently always into the cell they packed one canarying confidante. To us the suspicious type fit that mold well. 

Time passed, we sat in silence looking each other over, and only the two conductors whispered something among themselves. 

Suddenly the doors creaked open and appeared the cheerful face of another guy, also in a trolley uniform. He was good and drunk, but seeing that his colleagues were in trouble, in a manner known only to him he got the doors open. 

“Everybody out,” he yelled in a Lwowian accent, “go on and get, through the gates and then straight ahead of you.” 

No one needed this order repeated. 

We ran to the gates and bolted through the rubble, until we finally had to be far away because the sounds of the Soviet holiday marches barely reached us. 

And the fastest was this suspicious type, who zoomed like Zatopek, and it was clear that already a few times he had had to run for his life. After this teachable May First moment, for a long time Rożynek and I were nervous that one of these UB-men might nab us somewhere about town. 

For some time we both even began to comb our hair different and just in case we grew out youthful mustaches. I decided then, that no matter what was happening, I would always on this day stay home.