Читать книгу Dead end - Влад Вас - Страница 8

I became calmer and looked easier to all things with the course of time. Being so emotional, impressionable and sentimental, I quickly became upset and made a big deal out of everything, but my grandmother helped me once again to come through a new difficult moment. She talked to me more often while she took away my attention from bad thoughts and sadness, thanks to her I didn’t manage to do any stupid things and soon forego from a sad state and negative thoughts.

Then I was redirected to another school, for difficult teenagers, because I was awarded a characteristic from a previous school… how to say softer? Very foul – quite the right word. Besides, I did not want to lose a whole year in search of a good educational institution. The new class brought hope with a negative value: all were dirty, grubby, untidy, rude. Nobody respected the teachers, did not listen to them, everyone snapped, were rude about any thing and without any reason, called each with rude names, organized constant skirmishes and fights among themselves, many of them used foul language, even more badly than many adults, smoked, and they not only smoke cigarettes, drank, there were even addicts who sniffed glue.

At first glance, we could easily be confused, since our appearance was not very different from each other. My clothes were second-hand, like others’ clothes, and I could not afford any new things. Although I was calmer and more attractive than the other guys, and I didn’t smoke, sometimes I also had squabbles with teachers; probably it shows the herd instinct. As it turned out later, our destinies had a similar character and story: the same childhood, or rather its absence.

By the end of my school studies, my personal record of success was: triple attempts to be expelled, and I was nearly left for the second year. Only thanks to the ability to negotiate and do what was necessary, when you need salvation, and also to say what the teacher and director expect to hear, even if you don’t want to follow the system, I managed to avoid problems, fix everything at the last moment and even go to the next classes of education. It was all due to the out-of-school yard (opened arms of) real life.

But before this stage, many more things happened, as well as many changes, both within me and in my environment.

Of course, bad company cannot but affect my development. First, I lit a cigarette, just for company’s sake and then often began to drink, with so called ‘friends’ commonly referred to as drinking buddies, alcoholic beverages of any variety and of the different degrees.

Of course, we had very little money, so we had something to steal, resell, share, some of our company even started selling, let’s say, illegal products to improve mood, in other words drugs. I didn’t get to it, but I also take things not belonging to me. So we earned and survived, because did not know or did not see the other options.

But this did not last long, until I was caught and brought to justice. Many times I was caught, but released, since the thefts were small and the age was also small. There were a lot of critical situations, but I managed to escape, so I can’t say that I was doing it only once. And they caught me stealing an expensive watch, I did not manage to escape from the crime scene in time and quietly get rid of the loot.

There was a trial, but they didn’t give me a real term, since they don’t give a term to minors, only a fine, a warning, a reprimand and a month of community service. In principle, then I stopped this activity, but not because of fear of the police, but still realizing it’s not good to take someone else’s. This happened because of one young man with whom I was in a ward, awaiting court. He just explained that people work really hard to earn for his family, to feed it, but then there are such zingers, who take away everything that is not theirs, thus deteriorating the situation and their family relationships. The thieves, meanwhile, do not become richer, because they do not know how to manage the funds. Thus, I will not become happier, but in the end everything will return to each of us and each be rewarded according to merit. Something like that he was telling me, this dialogue happened long time ago, I don’t remember everything word for word. How strange, maybe even funny it was that one criminal taught the other. Maybe it’s all the same; it is rightly, because to understand the other person, you need to understand his feeling and experience them, having passed a similar path.

At first, friends remained the same after that, and their work is also not changed, I still kept company with them. I didn’t even have to do anything, they gave me everything bestowal. And even though I stopped stealing and in this respect I became better, but from the other side began to change in the opposite direction from the good.

I started attending school less often. Sometimes I responded with rudeness to strong pressure from the teachers, and this disrespectful attitude to the elders seemed normal to me. The louder I argued with teachers, the better I became, as I thought, and cooler, and more authoritative in the eyes of my age mates. Sometimes I had to do lessons and homework, or rather, copy, not to be expelled. Devil-may-care attitude toward school was growing with powerful force, because at school I was not interested in anything, I went there only because of my grandmother and at her request. She wanted me to get a good education, got a stable, reliable work, became a decent man and to find my place in society. I didn’t care, I just nodded my head, the main thing was to get rid of all this.

My friends and I did everything we wanted on the street: walked, drank, and smoked. We did not return home for several days, spent the night, sometimes, on the streets, in doorways, sheds, attics, and everywhere else. In our company were present as well the small, to my deep sorrow at the moment, girls. Then we start to use drugs, especially since it was not difficult to get them, you just need to reach out. By the end of school I’ve tried so many things and seen such events that not every adult can even imagine, the more to boast or regret.

Many of our company, or rather everyone but me, was on the junk. At first I liked it a lot, since I dealt with it. Or maybe I could hardly distinguish the good from the bad, in particular, they did it all, and I didn’t want to stand out from the crowd, to be an outcast. But in the end, it became a wild bust for me.

Every day was becoming more and more frightful to see how the older guys helped to inject little thirteen year old girls. So to say, a mutual service, the girls gave them stuff, and then received an injection, without disdaining any used syringes, neglecting any hygiene, not choosing the injection site. No one thought about morality, decency, or sanitation.

The things were changing from bad to worse. When there was not enough money and there was a catastrophic lack of drugs, it even went so far that the guys were fighting among themselves, stealing everything from everyone: women, old women, children – it did not matter. My friends have increasingly transformed from ordinary young people into soulless bodies, zombies, with one low, rather low-lying goal – to receive intravenous pleasure. They no longer have anything human, no moral principles, sometimes it almost came to murder (I think that, unfortunately, it still did, but I, fortunately, did not have to see this). Many, who hardly exceeded fourteen years, though it is sad to realize, killed themselves from an overdose.