Another Evening Out

When Sokal entertained himself in town and I knew that in the evening he would play in the café, the thought never even crossed my mind not to go there. 

On Sunday at eight in the morning I went only for an hour long training to Plebanczyk, and the rest of the day I spent in bed. 

Around six, I left my house. I did not take the car. By foot I made my way for a late supper at the restaurant, and actually an eatery, located in the lobby of a department store building, where, not even talking about the many tables, by the very long bar itself you could pretty quickly and not so badly eat. 

In the context of the total Sovietization also there, as after all almost everywhere, licenses to sell and serve liquors were widespread. Still in high school, my colleagues in their super rich program of alcohol experimentation very often had taken advantage of this locale. 

The experiments were actually childishly simple and were based mainly on the mixing of liquors. These were not, God forbid, any thoughtful or refined bourgeois cocktails of a cosmopolitan tint, but simply mixing beer with vodka, or even better—porter with spiritus. 

Because drinking this kind of mixture goes very arduously and requires a really immensely strong will as well as a bit of self-sacrifice, after long experiences and discussions my colleagues fell upon the following idea. In their inside jacket pockets they brought half-liter bottles of spiritus in threes, they occupied some out of the way table and ordered for example six porters. 

Discretely and fairly they poured all the spiritus into three mugs, then filled them to the top with the porter. This was horribly disgusting, almost undrinkable. They however never drank this all at once, they would only look at each other deeply in the eyes, straight and quick taking five large mouthfuls. 

Again they filled the mugs with porter and again they took five large mouthfuls. This time already it wasn’t as bad. They poured again the porter and so on, until at last this was drank like some orangeade. Of course each such session, always and without exception, ended with overall, total intoxication. 

The other attraction at this locale was the almost daily inspection by a certain combatant. Dressed in military pants, some small jacket and a field peaked cap emblazoned with an eagle, this exceptionally cheerful person cruised between tables. 

When he saw, which happened often, that on the table stood a bottle of vodka, he came up slowly and looking at the seated, but mainly at the bottle, he saluted to the tip of his field peaked cap, in a certain sense officially conveying military honors. Then usually he was poured a glass. 

This veteran during the war had to get it pretty hard at one of the numerous fronts, because the whole lower part of his face, beginning at the eye sockets, was bereft of bone, like his jaw, his lower jaw, his cheekbones, not to mention even his teeth. 

All of this for some important medical reasons had to be surgically removed in one of the military field hospitals, under Monte Cassino, Lenino, Tobruk, at the Pomerian Position, Atlantic Wall, in Siekierki or Kutno or not to mention already the famous field hospital in Benghazi. 

The disabled combatant respectfully took the glass poured for him, lifting it always as if for some celebratory toast, into the air, after which irrespective of his capacity he drank it in a second. 

And now came the most interesting moment, for which everyone who knew him, and almost everybody knew him, waited. It was always entertainment. So after gulping down the vodka the combatant drew his face in such a way, that after a while it was actually gone. 

Left was only the peaked cap, and under the bill large, bright, sad child eyes—and nothing more. The neck, lower the torso, and of course the butt and legs, but no lips, nose, chin, cheeks or mustache. 

He wasn’t at all pushy and even very cheerful, and when he already satisfied his body’s momentary need for alcohol, he quickly disappeared, to in a few hours appear at some other locale. Being a living advertisement of the tragic results of war, I never heard that this person received some award from one of the so many international peace committees, or maybe even the peace prize from, for example, Alfred Nobel.

And returning to my matters, this day I was not already so elegant like yesterday or the day before. I put on a canvas American army coat with a warm lining, dark blue wool US NAVY sweater and, as always, rubber soled shoes, colored stripe socks and unique pants, bought maybe two month ago from Leo. 

They were awesome: very fat, but not stiff fleshy canvas in a beautiful blue-navy blue color. They had large stitched pockets and each was stitched not only very strongly with a thick, invincible white thread, but were also strengthened with solid copper rivets. The zipper, which was then a great rarity, was closed with a massive copper zip. Above the right back pocket there was a stitched leather rectangle, on which was emblazoned the logo and name of the firm that produced this wonder. 

I remember that Leo took from me a horrible amount of money, recompensing me a little for this expense with a present in the form of a bright red wide webbed belt with a leather buckle on a normal spring with the words WEST POINT between two black American stars. 

No one in this large town, anyway you looked at it, had something like this in their lives yet seen, so my pants evoked the most different averse emotions. The nation, which so horribly in a relatively short time moldered, spontaneously taking up peasant habits and manners, held these pants very much against me. I think that even if someone had pants like these, out of fear they’d never put it on their ass, because wearing them they would feel as having committed treason against their socialist country and communist matters. I’ll add, that this was not at all my only demonstration when it came to pants.