>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 16 December, 2001 12:45 PM>

Jerry:

Johnny wrote me that you´re only rolling around on the beach and not doing anything.

Jerry, I believe you´ll pull out of it. start writing or you´re gonna be in deep shit, and even a golden shovel and silver barrow won´t help you then. I´m always stuck at work like a sticker that can’t be unstuck or like a little banger stuck in a hole. the only day I don´t have to go to the sweatshop, but not always, is on Saturday. working for a daily which cannot even be compared with an early capitalism – the work is an utter feudalism.

and jerry, you should swear a lot in Slovak. no one will understand it and it´s gonna help you. sacrifice half a buck for me and finally print out my stories so we can move on. I´m sending you something to keep in stash.

R.

 

>From: “Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Rastislav

>Date: 16 December, 2001 05:13 PM

Rastislav:

Half a buck is a lot of money, but I´ll try to do something with it.

J.

 

>Attachment

 

A MAGNI-FRUITED VERIPEDE

by Rastislav Dobos

 

It was a rotten day. Although Camil Brshleek was nominated for the Nobel Prize, in Sweden he was worth just as much as a eunuch on the International Sex Day. A fate of a beginner. A freshman squeezes among hundred-year old pros. And the rain. It only increased the aggravation. Wet, he fell on the bed. He looked like a neatly shaped mass of water. The dream of being a great writer has dissolved this year, and the next one will not be better. They will let him stay put for about twenty years longer in order to polish up.

And now the mail. A black postcard again. Anonymous. They have been coming in for several months already. They were cute and brightened things up for him by saying: I´m missing you and not your b.s.! I have to finish writing this postcard, because I´m afraid that I´ll end up writing better than YOU! P.S. You can bolden these exclamation points!!! And now another envelope. It´s all soaked from his wet body. While his eyes were flying over the lines, he exclaimed: “Is this a joke?“

We are sorry, but during a review of high school final exams from 1982 our review board found out that the chairman of your final exam board, Mr. Vrablik, has not even graduated from high school, and the university title Dipl.-Ing., which he was using, had been forged. Therefore, he was not authorized to be in charge of the final exam board. Consequently your high school graduation is officially disputable. Perhaps even your own university diploma may be questionable since you have finished university studies after not completing high school education formally.

We are sorry to inform you that tens of your class-mates face a similar problem. Please, contact us to rectify this problematic situation.

High School Final Exam Review Board,

Dubnica nad Vahom.

“What a blow!“ Brshleek told himself.

 

A sort of a British murky drizzly weather has not ceased for several days already. He showed an invitation to an old half-deaf and half-blind door-man, whose daughter used to be chased in the past by a half of the school’s boys. The door-man did not remember him and said: “Go on yonder upstairs!“

There was a sign “Final Re-Exam for 1982“ on the door. He knocked. An envelope with questions and blank papers was shoved into his hands.

“Do you have a pen?“ he was asked. He nodded.

“You have half an hour to get ready.“

“But for God´s sake, I´ve just come to get a confirmation that I passed the final exam eighteen years ago!“

He was seated in a classroom full of young female students. He got uneasy. It could be clearly seen on him.

“Be calm. It´s only a formality,“ a pleasant lady professor consoled him, who apparently was a boss of the review board. “Your questions are easy. Once again we apologize for taking up your precious time, but you know …“ she sighed, “we´ve got to do all we can for the sake of formalities. You´ll get a stamp that you have passed the exam which will be a legal proof. Consequently, all of us can forget this unpleasant experience. It will suffice if you answer well just one question.“

 

A bell rang. The commotion in the classroom ceased. He ripped the envelope open. What was the relationship between two outstanding contemporaries treading their way through the Slovak literature Peter Cada and Julius Lenko? Their attitude toward enthropism? Discuss the contribution of enthropism to the society in the 20th Century. An excellent question, Brshleek thought, who the heck was Cada? Entropy sounded familiar to him, but enthropism meant to him absolutely nothing. He learnt one of Lenko´s poems about a transparent birdie or Pissasso´s dove in elementary school. Reproductive cycle of the Magni-Fruited Veripede. What are its characteristics? Discuss. He did not bother to read the rest of the questions. He just looked over a couple of lines of goniometric formulas and Cyrillic Alphabet on the very bottom of the page. I must be just imagining this, he thought. I can no longer tell the sine apart from the cosine. Would that they rather wanted to talk about the drinking habits of Kafka or Dostoyevsky, but Cada and Lenko? Dammit, how about discussing some great literature rather than some poems!

The commotion by the blackboard increased. There was a young fox wearing a short mesh skirt. Pretty eyes. Her parameters were like an  integral of a circle. Very well rounded, but apparently she could not figure out any derivatives as she should. So there are two of us, baby! He started daydreaming. Oh my God, I´ll get locked up for pedophilia!

 

“No laughing,“ insisted the math teacher, and he was calling on everybody one after another flunking them on the spot. Now this reminds me of my childhood, thought Brshleek, a beautiful careless childhood, where the decisive measurement of values in life was an F. The paper with questions quickly brought him back to reality. He was not able to bite into any one of them. He wanted to get up and walk away with dignity when the math teacher whispered to him: “I know this is messy.” And with a few motions of his pen he solved the goniometric formulas. He made a grimace with his eyes. “But you should remember Cada.“ And he inconspicuously slipped a page torn out of a literature textbook into Brshleek´s pocket. “Everybody gets the same questions. When you´re done, give it back to me. It will come in handy again. I´ve heard that things didn´t go well for you in Sweden. All of us were holding our fingers crossed for you.“

Then he seated a female student good in biology next to Brshleek and mumbled to her: “I´ll give you an A if you write it for him.“

She was really good at it and in other ways too. She was a little too young, blushing a little, breathing heavy and drawing how something eats, transfers itself, multiplies in some hosts and that was it. “When it comes to the DNA, we won´t bother,“ she said. According to the funny tone of her voice he concluded that she considered it as a good joke. He smiled too, but felt uncomfortable. He could not remember anything. Not even that stupid Veripede. She did not even have decent breasts. Well, she could be my daughter, he admonished himself. Then I would have had to have her when I was ten, he consoled himself, but I am not that old yet. He was trying to think of something other than the pants that were nicely cutting into her crotch.

The bell rang. The boss of the review board, who was standing at the door, waved at him and said: “Mr. Brshleek, follow me please!“ Now being more at ease he could appreciate her better. A great voluptuous babe, he told himself.

 

They entered into a teachers’ room. He still remembered some professors very well. The class head teacher walked right up toward him and said: “The situation of the final exam is embarrassing, but don´t worry. You´ll make it.“ She was still wearing a strict look on her face. Then they shook hands.

“I hope so.“

“I´ve read your recent book. Not bad,“ joined in a lady professor of social science, while avoiding an eye-contact.

“I hope I´ll do well on that Cada too,“ said Brshleek to lessen the situation. His throat got dry again. His stomach painfully trembled. He had a lot to do not to pour out all his anger on these elderly ladies because of all this non-sense. But what for? He rather forced out a smile. In a while it will be over for him. He was seated in the corner. He passionately started talking about Cada, Lenko and entropy. To shoot his mouth off – that he could do really well. He could not make up more things even about Dostoyevsky. Who can prove to him the things are not so when it is he who says it, a candidate for the Nobel Prize? The lost self-confidence was back.

 

“And...?“ the boss of the review board asked him with a questioning look on her face. The evening was setting in. They were left in the teachers’ room alone, and she kept on pushing him to talk in more details about the reproduction of the Magni-Fruited Veripede. She was radiating with terror. Half of the questions she asked he did not understand at all. He felt totally exasperated like a little boy who is being forcefully fed a repulsive soup – a pumpkin soup. He hated that one from the bottom of his heart. A good old saying from school flashed through his mind: When you do not know what to do, grab the broad by her puss. His head buzzed, mind twisted and in fact he did raise her skirt under the table. He could not believe himself. Maybe he wanted to buy some time and shock her. Maybe he even succeeded. For a moment a choking silence set in. The hell with the Veripede and pumpkin soup, he thought. “I didn´t even think that the English language had such complex words in the natural science,“ he stammered bowed down. “Biology is not my forte.“

A slap brought him back to reality. At first he wanted to mumble something so as to justify himself for an accidental touch, but he quickly realized that it would be undignified. If you don´t want to gulp down the soup, then don´t do it, he used to claim all his life. He betted everything on one card. He pulled her to himself and forcefully fumbled his tongue inside her while lifting her skirt. What a pity I do not have at least fifty hands, flashed through his mind, but right after that his knees started shaking. What the hell am I doing? I will get locked up for a rape because of one official stamp. She was defending herself like a lioness, and he has never been a real hard man. You screwed it up, kept pounding in his head. In the end he desperately knocked down a few chairs. Suddenly someone knocked on the door. It sounded like a noon bell in a penitentiary.

“Miss Renata, is everything all right?“ The door opened. “Why are you here in the dark like this?“ A light appeared like a lightning. He barely jumped away from her. There was the old door-man standing right in front of him. Camil believed that the old man could not even clearly see a rhino through those ash-trays on his eyes, not to say his pants puffing up.

“C´mon, everything´s fine,“ she replied while fixing up her skirt. “This student just wanted to demonstrate the reproductive cycle of the Magni-Fruited Veripede to me.“ He had to hold on to something. He leaned against the radiator. There was leaking going on.

“Oh,“ nodded the door-man understandingly, but fortunately it was obvious that he did not understand at all. “If anything, call me,“ he said and closed the door.

She had exquisitely beautiful ruffled up hair, and her breasts were still heavily heaving. What a cute professor that was supposed to test just him. He started heading for the door. His hand was already on the door handle when her strict commanding voice stopped him: “Us older women don´t like to talk about getting it on too much!“ Oh my God, that was quoted exactly from my book, he thought. She turned off the light. She had a big beautiful well shaped round butt. He felt like a commanding officer on a white tank. “I adore fine screwing like this,“ she purred.

“You know,“ he whispered to her, “I´ve found out that something like marvelous broads in bed don´t exist. In time I´ve discovered that it is me who is so divine.“ And he turned the tank to the right.

 

“So my dear student,“ she said jumping down from her desk. She put a pantyhose on her slender legs, which was full of holes. “I´m giving you a B meaning above average. You still have to work on yourself a little, even though – it wasn´t the worst on the first try.“ Then she gave him a diploma for the repeated final exam. Clearly a big childish B was shining on it. He stuck it into his pocket. He was also getting dressed while hopping around on one leg in one pant with one birdie like one dodo. He felt less than a dog.

“Ever since I found out that you were a local student, I have wanted to get to know you. A famous writer, who doesn´t even stop by the school! I was interested in you more than your b.s.!“ she said and pushed him out of the door. “By the way, Cada’s my uncle and he´s not written even a single poem in his life. And the Veripede? That´s been my nickname all the way from high school,“ she added.