Sweet Zulka

 

Revised and Updated

Previously published by Amazon 2014

In 1997 I had a stroke which knocked me on my ass, putting me in a hospital with a coma lasting three weeks. When I opened my eyes I had to relearn everything, including how to talk, eat, walk, wash, on and on, like a little newborn. Twenty-plus later I'm still learning, and little by little, I'm getting somewhere...Many years ago, 1970-80s, I spent my days staying drunk. But by the mid-80s, being stoned seemed to be going nowhere. I slashed my wrists, with no idea what I was doing. That got me into alcoholic therapy, which to me was worthless. But it did get me into writing, which I wanted to do for decades. Now being sober, I could now do it. So I put a stop to stupid therapy and started churning out novel after novel, story after story. I had a few publications but at least I was happy and keeping busy writing, after all, that's what I wanted to do...Nowadays I still write, though not as much, typing my tales with one finger of my left arm, one letter at a time, and paying attention to my imagination. Hey, it works for me...This is a story Sweet Zulka, she exists somewhere in the back of my mind. Wish I could feel and touch her...but all I do is write of her, and keep her in my imagination. Hope you like her too, Mick

And my other works:

Times Square Queer | Columbia Alumni Association

Two time winner of the Lambda Literary Award, Bisexual Fiction 2009 and Gay Literature 2011

Sweet Zulka

A Ukrainian Melody, Sort Of...

by Mick Mykola Dementiuk

One

Looking Back

Memory seems to come in weaves and wisps but it always lures you back to a time when you can actually see it in your mind. Old streets, old buildings, old parks, and old people as if they still exist. A memory drifts onto you but just as quickly fades and you ask yourself, Was it ever really that way? Or is my mind twisting itself with my some neurosis I'm being sucked into?

You pause and gaze curiously, shaking your head. Take another step, look around once more but always uncertain, still not sure…

A walk in the old neighborhood brings little evidence that it actually was that way, that it’s a real memory. But most of all that it’s changed, altered to a newness that is constantly being reborn.

But I suppose such is life, you just can’t hold on to the old anymore. Yet what’s really amazing is the rapid speed with which change occurs. A few years and a kind of zoommm... it vanishes forever.

What’s twenty-five, fifty, seventy years? What’s a hundred? When you really think of it, in the Grand Eternity, nothing at all…

You keep walking, taking another good look around because you know you will not see it again. Yet the story I will attempt to relate is not my need for nostalgia or the embarrassed desire of holding on to secrets, sexual or otherwise, but rather the story about my Ukrainian father tato from long ago, with the raucous secrets surrounding him; all of his own doing and all because he loved the young divchata girls.

This will be the story of one such pretty girl, Sweet Zulka, along with my accordionist tato, who drooled after her. Sure am glad the years have passed and dwindled by so quickly to be forgotten.

From my childhood, there’s isn’t that much to recall, as usual mama and tato were always fighting, arguing and accusing one or the other of being a tramp and a bastard or a lot worse as the years went by.

Oh, the things I used to hear!

Even on my last day living with them. I was moving to Astoria, Queens, just a short ride on the subway, but they already were going at it full force. From early morning mama screaming at tato and tato retaliating by doing the same to mama, shouting like a madmen. I slammed the door and got the hell out of there.

Still, over the ensuing months I did see them occasionally passing by on the street as I shielded my face and continued making my various street deliveries. I was twenty one years old and working as a messenger at Shazam Messenger Service, making stop-offs all over Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan and along the way I had to make a few drop-offs at the Ukrainian neighborhood of the Lower East Side, which I knew very well.

It was nice to be wandering down Second Avenue again and coming upon the old places, it was like coming home again, but gladly I hurried back uptown away from the Lower East Side. The past was over with I knew, that is until I was sent back the next day or week and I had to see it all over again, sort of like rehashing old frittering memories.

And the memory of my tato and his sudden vanishing still stands out very clearly. I see it whenever I wander though the Lower East Side like it just happened yesterday. But was it really such long time ago, years, decades?

Let’s begin…

Two

Skrypka, Accordionist

Ihor Skrypka, my tato, was a serious accordionist who made his living not only out of playing the accordion at dances but also teaching other young accordion players. Yet that wasn’t his real interest in life, or so it seems, tato had an uncontrollable desire for that which would destroy him in the end, molodi divchata young girls.

He drooled and loved every one he came across. And with the name of Skrypka, which means violin in Ukrainian signifying the classical music of Brahms, Chopin, Handel rather than the rowdy Gypsy melodies Skrypka was noted for, his renown and status in our Ukrainian neighborhood was added to immensely to and increased greatly.

Though when he had arrived in America he made sure the immigration bureaucrats understood his name was Skrypka, with a y rather than the Russian dandified Skripka with an i, which they almost shuffled him along as.

“Ya ne ya pan, ya Ukrainets! I’m not a gentleman, I’m Ukrainian!”

He stressed over and over again, before he got an immigration official who shrugged at the spelling and passed him on through.

Skrypka quickly began to working the auditoriums, dance halls, meeting salons for weddings, baptisms and every chance he could get where people gathered in a festive mood. And, of course, being a lover of beauty, as he saw himself, it got him closer to the molodi divchata which always gathered in such places. The dance halls were the favorite places of nubile young girls and Skrypka was certain to be there.

And he always lugged his accordion most every place he went to. Not only to show he was ready at a moments notice after all to spring out a merry tune. After all the accordion was his ticket in getting the musical dates and jobs, but most of all in getting closer and nearer to the attractive young women he so much desired and lusted after. And of course, the young girls seemed to drool after him, too. Or so he claimed...

It was the 1950s, early 1960s, on New York’s Lower East Side when hundreds of thousands of refugees were flooding into the area. Exiles from war-torn Europe, Ukrainians intermixing with Russians, Russians inter-marrying with Poles or Hungarians or Romanians and every other

Eastern European survivor-group until their blood lines were meshed and intermixed-up for the ensuing ages.

But the natural shyness of Ukrainian girls was incredible that I’ve always been amazed at my tato’s propensity in going after the young women. That and how easily he could get them. It seems that the ease and charm which he carried about him was incredibly mesmerizing to young girls. A smile, a word, a wink, and a gesture is all it took. And the girls quickly gave in to him, not to say he readily gave in too!

Or so I assumed or perhaps I was wrong. But I always looked upon tato enviously knowing I could not share what he was after or be much like him. I settled for just my disgust at him, sneering and scowling because our worlds were very different. But it’s inevitable that the women, the girls, felt his longing for them much as they longed for him, or so I imagined it to be so.

And in our tightly-knit Lower East Side Ukrainian community tato, with his accordion, had become a musical prince. Why hum the latest radio do-op tunes, the Shirelles, the Ronettes, the Crystals when tato could give them very private lessons at a moments notice in the Ukrainian favorite, the Hopak (Ukrainian dance) or any other tune, not to mention in the erotic seductive melody of himself!

Still, tato didn’t seem that fancy regal to me because I always was aware of his bastardly scumbag presence in and out of our family home.

Mama, Vira, his ex-wife, had angrily kicked him out after years of his womanizing. They finally divorced and separated a few years after coming to America. Nina, my young sister, and I, Danylo, trailed after mama, before I left home for good. Tato would shake his head in disgust, calling me a wimpy sissy faggot or mamyn synok mother’s boy or son, with mama just frowning and lowering her head.

Yet in our neighborhood, when they were still together, tato and mama attended our church Sviaty Yuri’s, Saint George’s Church, which held the community together in a strange land through hardship and confusion for so many years. It stood like a safe haven to which we gravitated towards. Being Ukrainian in a new land after the devastation in Europe, which many of us had gone through, it was certainly a relief to come upon these shores.

The little Lower East Side community, from Houston Street up to 14th Street, across to 3rd Avenue or Avenue D on the opposite side, had become our malenka Ukraina Little Ukraine. Ukrainian émigrés thronged the area. Store signs were in Ukrainian, butcher shops, vegetable and fruit sellers, fish mongrels all speaking Ukrainian, our language. Added with the carpenters, the lawyers, the travel agents, even a few of the policemen all conversed in our tongue. We were home, you might say, finally in our own enclave, our ridne selo dear village, right where we were. So why go and seek it any further?

It was in Sviaty Yuri’s school, the local Ukrainian academy, and while making a delivery that I overheard the rumors and giggles from the girls. All about my tato’s --they pointed me out-- flirtatious behavior with a girl from one of the upper grades, the 8th grade, and that he was getting very bold and audacious with her.

I shook my head. Foolish asshole tato. I thought.

Still I enjoyed walking through the old neighborhood, politely smirking at whatever rumor I was overhearing from the various shop owners. Don’t forget, it wasn’t only the Ukrainians I was making my messenger delivery to, but the shopkeepers of all sorts. Italians, the Swedish, the Germans and every ethnic community that populated New York’s Manhattan Island. Most everywhere I went I heard some complaint about an acquaintance or some resident. The neighborhood was ripe with complaints and gossip, as all city neighborhoods are. I’d smile, shrug, and go to my next stop/delivery where, of course, the sly whispers and innuendos about some local resident would start all over again.

And sure, men have always quietly made sexual comments about or to young girls. But tato stayed with them as if he was a young boy trying to get a date with a pretty young girl.

Well, at least he was trying.

Though totally inappropriate in his quest, that even some elderly onlookers mumbled as he’d pass but didn’t say anything too loudly. For after all he still was nash, one of ours.

Staryy naklykav bidu sobi The old man is calling for trouble on himself, as they shook their heads and watched him hurrying past.

And in the 7th, 8th grade the young girls were blossoming so openly that a few fist fights often broke out between the boys in the upper grades in trying to get the same from them. A touch of a girl, a feel, a stroke, a rub, and possibly even a lay, or a fuck! For who knows what a girl could or would do. At that girl's seductive age, any males would be in constant penis-hardening city!

But over the year or two back then, while I attended classes in Sviaty Yuri I more or less did not participate in this sexual game which my fellow students were learning and playing.

Many of the girls would shake their heads and openly point me out, “He’s a faggot! He’s not like his tato, he still has no idea what to do with a woman!” This from little teen girls...

And they’d laugh, puff out their tiny breasts, while facetiously glaring at me, nodding their heads and disappear laughing down Seventh Street.

I’d hatefully scowl, bitterly hating them but as usually wander the city following the streets wherever they took me.

But tato would be remain standing at some store window as the girls passed by going home from school. He’d be smoking a cigarette as they sauntered by, their skirts weaving back and forth in back of their knees. He adored girls in skirts, or in dresses, or gowns, or whatever he could ease off.

It was usually in Arka, the Ukrainian record store on Seventh Street, where he’d be hanging out and listening to the newest tunes with the store owner Mr. Zdibnyi, who always favored tato by playing latest musical release on the stores RCA record phonograph.

“Tse duzhe harna plyta, This record is very nice,” Zdibnyi would boast.

Skrypka would condescendingly look at the record Zdibnyi was holding and flipping over to the other side. Yet tato always favored to the newest tune.

After all, tato was still treated royally in this and various other Ukrainian businesses and establishments he visited throughout his day, such as Arka, Eko, Surma, Veselka and other shops along his way. But tato was interested in solely one thing, not the records that were sold in Arka or Surma, or the clothing material at Eko, or even the food dishes of Veselka, but in the beautiful young Ukrainian girls who wandered out from Sviaty Yuri’s to the street outside.

Tato could be seen open-mouthed swaying and rocking as their skirts fluttered past him on the busy street.

And, of course, on most days tato bolted from the store, hurriedly trailing after the girls, lugging his accordion case as if it was a gift from the Gods meant only for him, but which he would deign to share and savor by allowing some pretty young divchynka to rub her fingertips atop it.

Mamtsya always used to say that tato treats his accordion a whole lot better than he treats her and in time, when it came to decide of whether to part from him or not, she glaringly did so.

And tato went after his one true love, the accordion and some sweet young Ukrainian divchynka close nearby. He couldn’t live without either, the accordion or the young girls, so he separated from mama for good, though it’s still questionable whether he left or she threw him out on his accordion ass.

Chort z nym! The devil with him!

Just as he had lugged his musical instrument from the lovely concert halls of Kiev to his death-like trek across ravaged Ukraine and Germany the accordion never left his side. The war raged on only to have him end up in the sterile rooms of Displaced Persons camps of Western Germany after World War II, where Skrypka played his merry cheerful tunes, and brought a little comfort to the beaten and destroyed Ukrainians in the needy camps.

He was a good Ukrainian, perhaps politically naïve, but playing his tunes and hooking up with mama, yet still trying one or two or three others divchata girls, because that’s all that mattered to him divchata.

And after a two-years wait, he and his new wife, along with their child, me, finally came to America.

Oh, what a time of newness that was…

And on most days, tato would be stepping out of Arka record shop just as the girls were being let out of school and accidentally run into them as they walked down the block to First Avenue and Seventh Street.

At the sight of the girls tato would leave whatever shop he was in and chase after them. Tato seemed to lose his adult sophistication and know-how by turning into a young boy once again, a ridiculous boy, at that.

All sorts of Ukrainian shops were along the street, as the girls would giggle and blush at each other while laughing at tato, parting in different directions home.

And being in the 8th grade in Sviaty Yuri’s tato knew and suspected that the one who attracted his attention was discovering her young womanhood, and certainly tato would be there to show her it was only a natural state of life.

Tato’s conducive attempt at playfulness was his way of preparing the girls for what they would face in life, a young man trying to get nearer. And tato, though much older and wiser than they were, was more or less their first charmer, or so he assumed.

Not that he was crude or dirty minded but basically hinting at what was in store for them. That of holding hands, of kissing, of being close together, that is, of being a man with a woman, that is of fucking!

What could be easier and more natural than that? That’s why Boh (God) created them, man and woman, wasn’t it?

And there was one girl that caught Skrypka's eye, sweet Zulka, from the name of zozulka, lovely little cuckoo bird.

He repeated her name over and over to himself, growing more fascinated with each syllable and stress. A girl who seemed a bit more mature than others in her class, those who still looked a bit flat-chested, younger and immature. That is, Zulka seemed sexier, her growing larger bosom was more evident on her than on her childish classmates.

Tato knew that the refugees in those years who came from war-ravaged Europe were all lost and torn by New York’s newness. But with his walking and strolling next to Zulka he felt himself renewed, refreshed and erotically horny. As he himself was certain she rekindled by his presence, too.

A young girl will certainly feel that way next to a strong, sturdy man, tato knew, and he readily followed Zulka wherever she was going, that is, crossing Avenue A into Tompkins Square Park on her way home from grade school. Usually she continued on Avenue A till Ninth Street where she entered the park, but she shrugged and followed Skrypka into the park on 7th Street.

But at the Seventh Street park entrance, benches were teeming with elderly Ukrainian men jabbering and arguing, much as women would do over the events of the day.

Stalin did this, Stalin did that, death to Stalin!

Tato lowered his head, really ashamed to be seen walking with the young Zulka by his side, but red-faced he steeled himself as he nodded greetings at the gawking, pointing and whispering Ukrainian old timers.

Just as quickly he and Zulka strode past, both breathing a sigh of relief, as if they had crossed a dangerous gauntlet.

“I hate those old Ukies,” said Zulka, fluttering her lashes as the walked down a different path away from the old men. “They all think they’re better than me, well, they’re not!”

Ukie being a shortened American term for Ukrainians which tato frowned upon whenever he heard it, but he weakly smiled and shook his head.

“Those poor old men, they’ve been shattered by Stalin and Hitler. They’ve been through so much. A little kindness for our poor old men,” and he fluttered his eyelids too, just as she did or as a young boy would do.

Zulka blushed. “Oh, you’re not like them, they’re nothing but old farts,” and she blushed, turning back to look at the old men and looking back at him. “You’re special, you’re nice,” she quietly added, squeezing his arm.

Tato gripped her hand, “Zulka, doroha dearest, they’re old and feeble, and have gone through so much in the war.”

They had reached a quiet row of benches near the Avenue B entrance.

“Let’s sit down a moment,” tato added, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his brow. “I didn’t know it was so hot this afternoon.”

“It is?” said Zulka looking at him but pretending to shiver from the normal late Fall weather; it wasn’t hot nor cool.

They sat down on a leaf sheltered park bench.

“Too me I think it’s pretty chilly this afternoon.” She shivered and looked up at the weeping willow above her. “I just love these leaves; they’re so very secretive, don’t you think?”

Again she fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“It’s like you can do anything hidden under them, and no one will ever know. And I mean no one.”

She crossed her legs, pulling up one loose bobby sox on her foot, tato saw that it would soon droop back down. He gaped at her, rubbing the side of his accordion case and wiped his brow again. Zulka shrugged.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, shivering, “I’m freezing.”

She rattled her arms and chest, making her teeth clatter; tato was certain it was only in jest. But he put his arm around her shoulder and rubbed the shivering girl, and strangely feeling warmer and hotter sitting next to her as he cooed and tried to comfort her.

“Dorohesenka, it’s not really that cold, you’re overly stressed from your difficult day in school, that’s all.”

He whispered in her ear and nibbled her bouffant hairdo, breathing in her too much perfumed aroma.

What was he doing, he was a grown adult man with a young little girl?! Oy bozhe...

“Dear, dear…” The girl’s aroma was sweet and heavenly; tato desperately wanted to feel her.

Zulka dropped an arm on tato’s leg, moving her fingers close to his crotch.

“Oh my…” Tato gulped, looking at Zulka.

Her eyes were closed but her fingers inched still higher near his crotch, within an instant she would feel how hard he actually was.

“Oh Zulka, Zulka, I love you so much.”

Zulka blushed and opened her eyes, gazing up at him. “You do, how come? I’m just a little schoolgirl.”

“A sweet little girl is what you are,” and he kissed her cheek, “Doroha, kiss tato back.”

Zulka shook her head. “I can’t, you will think I’m doity for doing such a thing.”

Tato stared at her.

“Doity, what’s doity?”

“You know, doity, like in dirty little girl,” she shyly giggled and nodded her head. “You will think I’m a doity little girl and make me do doity big things,” she blinked her eyes staring at him.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing, I will think you’re a very sweet girl if you do them,” and he lecherously smirked at her.

“You won’t think I’m a doity little naughty girl?” she swayed on the bench, pushing herself closer to him; it was impossible to sit any closer. “You don’t think I’m doity, do you?”

“Of course not, you’re my precious little angel,” as she automatically raised and lifted herself up, springing onto his lap and falling atop his hard crotch.

He was discombobulated by her action, also by how heavy she really was but he slightly gagged as she roosted atop him staring in disbelief at her.

“My, my, you are full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“A surprise?” she asked, putting her arms around his head and shoulders. “What surprise?”

But his hand had already dropped to her thigh and was inching her uniform jumper up, exposing her garter strap and nylon covered leg. Yet with Zulka’s swaying buttocks atop him tato couldn’t help himself, he felt the tension quickly rising and he instantly ejaculated.

“Eehhh…” he squelched, his eyes clamping shut, his face distorted, his hands holding onto Zulka, “Oy Bozhe, Bozhe! Oh God Matir Bozha! Mother of God. Bozhe, Bozhe!” he whimpered, holding onto her, still reaching and straining past her garter straps for her what he assumed was her virginal vagina.

“Ay, zaraza,” he suddenly heard a raspy voice behind them up the trail, “Shcho tse?! Oh curses, what is this?”

Tato jolted his eyes open to see an elderly mustachioed man approaching and glaring down at them. The old man was a Ukrainian Cossack who had been discarded in an alien world he despised and hated as much as it seemed to despise him as well.

“To zh takyi ty muzykant? Nishcho inshe, yak svolota! So this kind of musician you are? Nothing but a scumbag!”

But by then Zulka had slowed her rocking on tato’s lap but her shivering had been as frantic as ever on his erection-hard wet crotch until she must have also orgasmed or melted also.

She dropped off his lap as if exhausted but immediately sprang back up, letting some books drop and glaring at the old man, cursing in English.

“What the fuck is this?” she spat out, reaching for her books. “Go back to Russia, you old fart!”

She gathered her books and without a word to tato began hurrying down the path which would take her out of the park, her skirt weaving behind her.

“Ptui!” the old man spat after her. “Russia be damned, I’m no Russian! How dare she call me Russian, I’m no Russian, ya Ukrainets, I’m Ukrainian, the hell with Russia!”

He looked back at tato, who was lifting his accordion case.

“You should be ashamed of yourself to be with a little cock-teasing suka bitch like that. You deserve to be in jail, the both of you. Oh, the hell with you!” and he spat out again, “T’khu! Chort z toboyu, sobaka! Go to the devil, you dog!”

Tato shamefacedly winced at him, looking sadly at the old Cossack but braced his accordion about him and pounced out of the park, trying to stop Zulka.

Three

Holy Taras

When I was a kid back in Sviaty Yuri one thing we were forced to learn in school was the life and poetry of the imprisoned exiled poet Taras Shevchenko. The measly poet had become more than just a man, the way he was revered and treated he was a mini-Ukrainian God himself. Up there sitting next to God the Father, God the Son, and, of course, God the Holy Taras.

When actually his poetry was detested by the kids in my class because it was required and enforced learning of every student in Sviaty Yuri.

Still, somehow, one of the students had found out that his poetry was not required in American schools like it was in our Ukrainian school. This caused much pouting and sulking among the Ukrainian students.

“But they're not Ukaintsi,” the good boys laughed.

“Shevchenko, hivna ne znaye!” I’d hear the bad boys complain. “Shevchenko, doesn’t know shit!”

Because Shevchenko’s nationalistic poetry seemed insignificant in this, our New World, yet who could make sense if the Dnipro River was always moaning and groaning, as Shevchenko professed? What difference did it make anyway?

For every single school day we'd sit with our Taras paperbacks, which the school had especially printed for our class, and of course our parents had to dole out a few bucks and so we could listen to a listen to the wise knowledge of the Poet of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko.

Attention! Tests later, boys and girls!

Shevchenko, who had been cast into jail for his writings putting down the Tsarist overlords, such as the today's evil Communists were still doing it to and ruling over their tired masses.

It seemed in this way he was more than a God, a Ukrainian God, so to speak?

His holy pictures were on almost every wall in Sviaty Yuri's and when you went to the Principal’s office his portrait hung regally up there as if it was the President of the United States. Of course, the President took up a smaller venue upon the wall. Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower were our saving leaders back in those days and who were to be thrown to the wayside over the years.

Yes, history certainly moves along…

And almost daily after morning mass we'd march next door to school, where we assembled and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, going directly to a poem by our master Tarasyk, the kids name for the Poet.

I recall I had trouble with one of his poems Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyy Moans and groans the wide Dnipro, my question being, How can a river moan and groan?

I thought my comment was witty and humorous but Sister Emilia had enough of my smart aleck crap and ordered I recite another poem, Meni trynadtsyatyy mynalo, ya pas yahnyata za selom I had just passed my thirteenth year and was tending sheep by our village, so the poet claimed.

Almost immediately raucous laughter, with hoots and catcalls broke out from the rest of the class, which instantly labeled me as a sheep screwer in back of the village.

“Baa baa!” the bad boys grunted and groaned at me after school. “You wanna fuck a sheep’s ass? Baa baa!”

They’d be running after me when school ended, whacking me in back of the head as they’d race off down the Lower East Side streets.

I’d curse after them bitterly but then recall what my tato once had said, reciting another ribald poem from his past, Koly panovi v hubi, to kuharevi v dupi! When the food is reaching the master’s lips, it’s already coming out of the cook’s ass!

I’d sadly smile and grin at tato’s bawdy humor, knowing you certainly didn’t need a Shevchenko to explain life!

Four

Zulka Hurries Home

Zulka scurried down Ninth Street, totally embarrassed by what had just occurred. She had orgasmed while sitting atop tato’s knee, a nice old man yet what would he start to think if he knew the truth about her? That she wasn’t a little girl, not in the way he imagined she was.

But what am I a slut?

She reddened, clutching her schoolbooks still tighter to her bosom but did turn to look back.

A flustered tato Skrypka hurried after her, calling her name and waving an arm, but the heavy accordion dragged and slowed him down.

“Zulka, Zulka, wait up, moya divchinka!”

She turned, glancing back at tato, a pinkish hue covering her cheeks, a warm and pulsing sensation coming over her again. She felt it in her groin. She melted again, oozing, and pushed herself back to lean against a parked car.

A look is all it takes in female orgasm...

Tato rushed past a group of Spanish children who had just been released from their school on Ninth Street near Avenue B but he suddenly seemed very elderly, the hair on his head askew, his clothes a little too tight. The accordion he lugged everywhere dragged him down that he seemed to look more tired and beaten than he actually was.

Zulka clutched her schoolbooks tighter to her bosom.

A winded tato made it her, dropping the case as he tried to catch his breath, also leaning against the car, half standing before Zulka.

“Dorohesenka dearest,” he panted, “Why’d you run away for? It was just an old Cossack, a very old man.”

Zulka snorted, looking at tato.

“Yeah, like you are, too,” she clutched her books to her chest, her purse dangling down her side and tried to continue up the street.

“Zulka, wait up, don’t be like that,” he came after her, again dragging his case. “Dorohesenka, you know I love you, don’t you?”

Zulka was very red-faced and confused but stopped in her tracks, turning and looking at tato.

“You love me? But how come, why is that?”

He squeezed her hand. “You’re so sweet and very lovable. You must have dozens of admiring boys after you.”

He set his accordion case down.

“Do you? Now how can I compete with them, I’m out of my league, aren’t I?”

Once again Zulka blushed and lowered her head.

“No one’s after me, if they are they’re just not doing it very well or else they’re after one thing.”

She thought about Petya, a big boy she herself was after, and blushed.

“Well, they’re not going to get it from me and that’s a fact!”

Zulka sighed and lowered her head.

“That’s the way to do it,” tato commiserated, “Keep them at a distance. Back off, malenkyy hlopchyk little boy. Stand your ground, don’t let them near. Boys are after one thing, you know that, you can’t let them take it!”

Tato stood nodding his head at her.

“And girls are not?” she asked, smirking at him.

“Dorohesenka, you’re a lovely lady, you do what you want to do not what some boy wants,” and he squeezed her hand, she felt his breath on her face.

“You think so?”

“I know so! Boys are just after one thing and girls have got to hold on to it.”

He moved closer, holding her hand and raised his other arm to her shoulder. Again his tired breath pulsed against her face.

“I have to go,” she suddenly said, stepping away and brushing his hand off but looked down the street, she turned back to him. “But I’ll be out later.”

He brightened. But he was certain she was flirting with him.

“It’s Friday,” she added, “and I don’t have to be home till 9 o’clock or so. If you’re not doing anything maybe we can meet for a soda,” she cunningly looked at him.

“Or something, or whatever you want to do,” she paused, red-faced and blinking her eyes.

“You know… we can meet somewhere.”

“Oh yes! I’ll meet you anywhere,” he had brightened. “You just name it, I’ll be there.”

She smirked.

“I know you will. Okay...,” biting her lip, pondering and thinking. “How about you meet me in the park, right on the same bench where we were just sitting, we’ll do something then, okay?”

“Oh yes, yes, I’d do anything with you, I mean…”

She laughed. “I know exactly what you mean,” and she turned and began walking down the street, her skirt swaying once again behind her, both bobby sox having fallen down to her ankles.

“But what time?” he called, “You didn’t say…”

She turned back and shrugged, “Around 6 or there abouts,” she winked at him and blew him a kiss,

“See ya then, tatku daddy,” and smiling turned the corner onto Avenue C.

He stared at her disappearing image, his breathing very low and shallow, but his penis hard and stiff.

Spanish school kids ran past him.

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe…” he mumbled, turning and walking back to the park, lugging his heavy accordion case.

Five

Smiling Ukrainians

Ukrainian people are very old fashioned in the way they act. Pretty much everything is secretive, outside of their door, that is. But I suppose the world is like that, we all have our little secrets, eh?

Many times I stood with my younger sister, Nina, as mamtsya went through the usual chit-chat before they got to the gist of what they’d been trying to discuss from the start.

I could never make sense of their intermixed Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian or whatever drivel they spoke. Politeness has a way of being nauseating.

Every conversation was as if Roosevelt was discussing with Churchill something of dire importance to the world while Stalin hovered nearby sulking, smoking and eavesdropping in before he muttered something that would shut their smart clever mouths up for good.

Slavic people have known this from birth. They were trained in this and Ukrainians were supreme, their gentle silence forcing millions into the Soviet gulags, besides that they obediently went to Nazi death/work camps during the War.

They went like sweet lemmings plunging into the bitter frigid waters.

Ukrainians are like that, they take the trophy cake.

See how delightfully they listen and obey, even with bright smiles on their faces.

Six

Job Offer

One day after weeks of the constant taunting I was getting for being a sheep screwer the rough bad boys ran off on Second Avenue, heading east down Seventh Street.

“Jerks!” I mumbled to myself, trying to brush their spit off me.

I was very bitter and angry, staggering up on Second Avenue. This had been going on for a many weeks with no respite before me. I was certain that Sister Emilia knew of the bad feelings I had about the boys, knew it and took perverted pleasure in it, too!

“Jerk creeps!” I again cursed after them.

“Chort z nymy The devil with them,” I heard a voice behind me.

It was a Ukrainian man on the corner near St. Marks Place frowning and shaking his head, who had seen the rough boys run away laughing. I had spotted him a few times before talking to tato before the Ukrainian National Home on Second Avenue so I knew he was okay in my books.

“What can you going do, they’re a bunch of idiots durni?” the man said, shaking his head and looking after them.

“Assholes, too,” I added, looking gratefully up at the man.

He waved his hand.

“Just forget them, one day you’ll grow up and they’ll be just little boys, a useless memory. Forget the assholes, they’re nothing but little worms really, don’t pay them any mind.”

“You’re right,” I weakly smiled but already was feeling better, “Nothing but little worms,” I repeated. I liked the thought.

“And we have bigger worms to handle, don’t we?”

But the way he blinked and smiled, with the dreamy way he was looking at me I immediately felt tense and nervous but at the same time felt closer and trusting. In a way it was as if I was melting. But strangely, I also felt my erection growing and getting harder in my pants.

Weird, and I was talking to a man!

“Well, see you,” I said, stepping across St. Marks Place at Second Avenue. Needless to say I was red-faced and embarrassed from the man looking at me.

He threw his cigarette away, the smoke leaving his mouth as the butt flew into a puddle of water. I stopped, looking at the water.

“Wait a second,” he called. “Ya znayu tvoho tata, ne khvylyuysya I know your father, don’t worry,” and again he smiled.

I stepped back, and he put his arm around my shoulders.

“I know,” I mumbled.

He took a few steps down the street; I followed.

“Let’s walk a little bit,” and with his arm on me we strode onto St. Marks Place, past book and record shops, gazing into barber shops and beauty parlors with a few clothing stores thrown in.

“I’ve seen you around,” he said, winking at me. “What's your name?”

I told him. “From what I know about your musical tato,” he said, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

We had stopped before one building and he was looking at me. I felt nervous.

In the building a glass door opened and an elderly man came out. I saw a high staircase behind him, the St. Marks Baths.

“Listen, you seem a very respectful young man, how you'd like a job?”

I blinked my eyes.

“Would you like to work for me? I lost my other boy...”

And he was talking but I had not heard a thing.

“I’m sorry, what…?”

He frowned but again repeated his offer.

“A few hours after school, plus in the mornings on Saturday, it’s fairly easy. How about it?”

Just at that moment I realized I did not know what he was talking about. A job! And working for him, is he offering a way out? Or had the tough boys disconcerted me so much I didn’t know what was going on anymore?

I stood in the doorway of the St. Marks Baths looking up the slim staircase, his arm atop my shoulders and felt my semen shooting and jolting in my pants. I had cum; shivering and turning very red.

The man licked his lips, still holding his arm on my

shoulder, and strangely looking at me.

Did he know or suspect my eruption?

I blinked my eyes and asked he repeat himself once more.

“Just nervous, you know,” I said, after he repeated the offer.

The man laughed.

“Understandable, at your age,” and he winked and patted my shoulder.

Strangely, I did not feel uncomfortable with his arm on me.

He again repeated his offer.

“It’s after school, 3 to 6 and Saturdays in the morning, how about it?”

The front door opened, once more revealing a stairway going up, a man came out, nodded at the man I was with and went towards Third Avenue.

“Want to go up and take a look, see how real men relax?” And he winked at me.

I bit my lip, gripped my schoolbag and nodded at him, as he held my shoulder.

And at that moment I saw Stefko, one of the Sviato Yuri’s rough boys who had run off with the other bad boys, coming up St. Marks Place and wickedly grinning at me.

Damn, I’m a goner!

I frowned, knowing Stefko was going to spread filth about me.

The man held me by the shoulder as we both climbed the long stairs of the St. Marks Baths.

Seven

Skrypka Hurries Home

Tato Skrypka was feeling rather happy and cheerful as he again stepped into Tompkins Square Park on Ninth Street.

Amazing how Zulka had revived his youthful mood!

He grinned to himself, feeling himself renewed. Amazing how she made him feel.

Sure hoped his hard-on would shrink down...

He walked along that wide straight street-like path from Avenues B to Avenue A on Ninth Street, dotted with benches on either side, grinning as he nodded and strolled past Ukrainians sitting there.

But Ukrainians were all over the park, though mostly on Avenue A and Seventh Street, but some sat scattered along the curling paths of Eight Street and Ninth Street that you would never knew when a Ukrainian would pop up anywhere.

They were reminiscent of the sunflowers of the Ukraine, a beautiful plant and which would spring about anywhere, mostly masses of sunflowers!

But Skrypka didn’t join in any of the conversations as he hurried along, just nodding and walking firmly, carrying his accordion case, which seemed lighter than usual, and headed in the direction of home.

Though Skrypka did stop once at the men’s room to relieve himself, mostly from the ejaculations he had from Zulka, yet what ecstasy that was!

He peed.

Ah, that felt better!

He dribbled and was about to leave when tato frowned and looked askance at the teen boy entering the toilet.

Cursed sissy boy, he thought.

But probably tato thought of me, his son, and wondering was he growing to be a sissy boy also?

He jiggled his penis, picked up his accordion and left, again looking back at the strange peeing boy sadly gazing after him?

Tato disgustingly shook his head and went out.

He left the park and continued along Ninth Street, still passing other Ukrainians, who looked up at him hoping for a conversation but he hurried past.

“I’m in a rush, you understand…”

And continued up the street.

On Second Avenue and Ninth Street was the Ukrainian National Home, a sort of headquarters of the community. It held dances, bazaars, conventions, meetings, everything that

wasn’t handled by or was too big to be accommodated by them. Large festivities were delegated to Sviaty Yuri’s, which had an auditorium just two blocks south from the Home on East Seventh Street and Hall Place, later to be officially named as Shevchenko Place, near Third Avenue, in honor of the Poet.

The Ukrainian Home was also the headquarters of Plast and SUM, two scouting organizations boosting youth groups which strengthened ties between the entire community. Being a member of Plast or SUM, though there was some rivalry between the two, but only showed we were all Ukrainians together in a strange, strange land, and our beloved Ukraina, still savaged and raped by the Communists.

Skrypka frowned to himself, but still happy that no one noticed him outside the Home.

He crossed the avenue, heading still further to Third Avenue and eventually to his Fourth Avenue home.

He liked his out of the way apartment, almost on the edge of the Ukrainian neighborhood.

It was surrounded by old bookstores and his likable 3rd floor apartment was pleasant where he could relax and take a load of his mind. Or enjoy playing his Ukrainian tunes, have students sit in on his lessons, or just gaze out his window at the throngs of browsers going through the books on kiosks on the street outside. He sure liked it here.

Bookseller’s Row they called this part of Fourth Avenue, some blocks west and north from the Ukrainian community, but this being New York just a few blocks stroll and you were in an entirely different environment with different moods, cultures and languages. That’s what made New York New York. In another part of the world they would be at each others throats but here, at least in the daylight, you could walk undisturbed with any destination in mind. That’s why he

loved New York City of the 1950s-60s; it made everyone who passed by on the street outside a vital, vibrant part of city life.

Skrypka scratched himself, ran his bath and undressed. His shorts were still damp from his early ejaculation. But he shook his head; that’s never happened before, well, not since he was a teen boy. Here he was at thirty-eight years old but still told people he was in his early thirties, and got away with it too, or so he thought.

And what was Zulka, since she was in the 8th grade wasn't she still a schoolgirl?

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe,” he could go to jail for that, couldn’t he? But was she really that young?

Who knows what the war was really like for her?

He muttered and sank down into the pleasant steaming hot water.

“Ooo, harne good, nice…”

The hot water was as if Zulka had melted onto him and covered over him with herself, reaching into his flesh and into every inch across his body, in and out, in and out...

And he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Of course, his ejaculation with her was a sudden surprise, at least at his age, what with her sitting on his knees and easing her skirt up showing off the garters and displaying her shimmering nylons.

Well, that certainly never happened before.

He had become a teenage boy all over again, spurting out at every instant and sensation. With Zulka he had lost his semblance of being a grown adult man and instead became a horny schoolboy once again, and cuming every chance to got.

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe…”

He squirmed, as his semen spewed out into the warm water around him, swaying in whoops and whirls, drifting about till it faded off and disappeared in the invisible liquid. “Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe…”

He shook his head and pushed himself up, washing off the cum and sweat with some soap and stepped out of bath, kicking the plug of the drain. The scummy water quickly gushed out in a whoosh…

Ah, feel better all ready!

He wiped himself, amazed that he had ejaculated twice that afternoon, once with Zulka on his lap and now in the bath water by himself, with imaged of Zulka constantly in his mind.

“Oy, kholera, chort znaye…cholera, the devil knows...”

There was something about her, he was certain that her school uniform jumper was much too tight on her, totally out of proportion for her body size and weight, firmly showing off her nice meaty bosom.

God, she had developed much too readily for her age and very quickly became a jerk-off dream for the rest of the boys of her class.

Am I also a teenage boy and imagining I was in her class, too.

He again shook his head.

Oy kholera! What am I in the 8th grade with her? I'm a grown man, in the prime of my life and ready for anything.

He snorted and wiped his head, looking in the mirror and wincing at the streaks of gray in his hair.

He dressed in a pair of fresh clean underwear and again stood at his window overlooking Fourth Avenue.

Trucks and cars streamed up the street while people walked along, pausing at the various bookstores. Some stood gazing at the books for cheap sale on the kiosks outside while others entered and disappeared with the books within.

A typical end of the day New York City crowd of book lovers and Bookseller’s Row was made for them.

Skrypka was very happy he had found an apartment last year in the building, after thoughts of moving to Philadelphia or maybe even the Ukrainian Village in Chicago. Two floors below were office space rented by different firms while the remaining two top floors were rented out to tenants.

The building was ideal, his beloved Ukrainians to the east and various goatee wearing Beatniks to the west, and he was in the midst of it all.

He picked up his accordion, strapped it on himself and tried playing a tune. But the damned thing was always so difficult to keep it properly tuned, in perfect musical order. He’d probably have to get a new one, if he could afford it.

A sour sounding chord broke from the instrument, a screwy melody that might pass by someone who didn’t know any better, thought he was playing a drunken Gypsy tune. Still, Skrypka knew that his notes were amiss.

He frowned, how quickly the blow holes lose their proper tuning and alignment. A slow melodic chord, almost funereal-like wept from accordion. But it was how he usually started his melodies, sad and gentle before he broke into the cheerful melodies of the Ukrainian Hopak, typical Cossack tune, quick and fast paced which would have them on their feet, dancing, shouting, hollering for more and more.

Whenever he played the accordion, it always brought out the house down. Ukrainian ethnic pride was very feverish and chaotic, an out-of-breath frantic dance that had them jumping like beasts, panting, biting, practically even copulating, if it ever got that far.

If the tune had been composed nowadays most likely it would have been banned by Sviaty Yuri’s as sacrilegious but as it was from olden times, the Cossack times, there was little they could protest about now.

Though young children were kept out of the dance halls, more or less, he was certain that everyone felt its erotic fervor. After all, it was a part of growing up and they would have to learn the erotic melody eventually.

Skrypka felt exhausted just playing the Hopak but whenever he struck it as a warm up melody he was certain that ears perked up, arousal's stirred, anticipation grew and chaos erupted.

He liked to associate the bawdy music with himself. Many times he heard voices proudly whisper after him, “Nash muzykant,” our musician, as he’d pass by along on the street, cheerfully smiling to himself as the people looked so warmly and gossiped after him.

Skrypka sighed and put the accordion back in its case. But what did people know that the instrument was out of tune, it still was an accordion with merry tunes expected and

tomorrow was going to be a great wedding night, he was certain of that.

But now it was time to get dressed, still, what should he wear? A nice summer’s evening outfit would be ideal for tonight. He frowned, if I had such an outfit.

He flicked through mostly empty hangers of old, weary clothes. Ever since he left Vira, he had no one looking after his things, his suits and shirts, socks and neckties, undershirts and underwear, down to the fickle objects such as a handkerchief for his jacket pocket.

More or less he had hardly had the funds to waste on frivolities such as those, living off the funds he received from his dull musical students, school kids really, or playing at dances, weddings or wherever he could get a few extra dollars. He always was barely just keeping alive.

Might even have to run away, he thought, but where are the places I could run to? Oy, kholera!

Yet little by little he somehow came up with the rent for the month, though a few times he let the electricity or gas payments pass by but it only got worse as the month stretched out into a new month with another utility payment once again overdue and swooping down over him.

Skrypka frowned and pulled out a yellow Ban-Lon shirt, draping it over his head. Perfect for the 1950s but here it was 1961 and still he liked the soft yielding synthetic material of the fabric. It didn’t feel like a shirt at all, it could breathe and adjust to whatever he was doing.

A pair of white slacks, white socks, tan shoes and he was ready anything.

Better watch it or I might get hard again, he sniggered.

His clothes were a bit frayed but who would get near enough to really see? He grinned.

Who else but Zulka?

Still, he gave himself a final look in the mirror and winced. Streaks of gray hair weren’t appealing at all; made him look like someone’s grandfather. And in an hour or so he would meet a pretty fifteen, sixteen year old little girl who wasn’t even his musical student.

Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe!

Well, let’s make her that! She is my potential musical student just about to learning her lessons. What could be wrong with that?

Again he smiled brightly and shut his door, skipping down the stairs.

Skrypka lived above a bookstore --Orion Books read the sign but the name Orion was of a newer style of lettering and marking than the older Books was. Seems that the new Books owner came up with Orion but kept the old Books sign with the additional new Orion lettering. Still, anyone looking up at the sign could easily discern that some of the paint had dribbled down the letters as the new word Orion didn’t stand up so clearly but was already smeared and smudged.

Skrypka always shrugged at the idea of the shoddy sign as he came down the stairs. But he walked past the Orion Books sign and turned east on Tenth Street, going by the artist galleries dotting the street and once again headed east to Avenue A and Tompkins Square Park.

He thought it would be better of approaching the park from that direction rather than coming down the usual Seventh Street which he always tended to walk on.

Because Seventh Street had become the Ukrainian thoroughfare par excellence, a sort of easy-going Fifth Avenue or a mini Champs-Elysees. Though definitely not as wide or show-offy as 14 or Houston Streets, but rather where the Ukrainian community could retain its tightness by strolling and bumping into each other, meeting and conversing, gossiping some filth as they did their shopping and got through their busy day.

People and stores filled Seventh Street. Barber shops, travel centers, bookstores with Ukrainian books and record shops with the favorite Ukrainian music. Along with churches and funeral parlors bringing up the rear. No Ukrainian resident of New York City could say he lived in the city without paying a visit to Seventh Street, to which the residents flocked and teemed to each and every day.

Throbbing and beating with so many different apartments and havens of Ukrainians that if you were a foreign stranger to the area you would instantly be recognized as such, and the crowd would frown but grow quiet, letting you pass.

To be on Seventh Street was to be in Little Ukraine, it was like being in your selo that is, of being in your village or home.

Skrypka knew he made a better choice in walking on Tenth Street rather than the peopled Seventh Street.

Why should I be recognized? Good that no one saw me here...

He strode past the Beatnik/artist studios on Tenth Street, the pawn shops of Third Avenue, regrettably he didn’t have any item to pawn, he sure could have used a few dollars.

He walked by the stillness of the fenced in St. Marks Church, which stood at an angle on Second Avenue, yet stood that way for the past hundred years or so. He glanced over at the grave of Peter Stuyvesant, who once owned the green lands of the area but now was buried and forgotten in peaceful repose.

Shielding his face from the Ukrainian Home, which could be seen from Ninth Street, he crossed Second Avenue once again, and heading still further east.

In his two or three blocks walk he did not come upon any Ukrainians. But sure, there were a few who lived in the houses along the street, yet luckily they were not in their doorways.

Skrypka wondered about this...

Why was I slinking down the streets like a thief trying to stay out of view? What had I done wrong? Absolutely nothing! Am I a silly teenager rather than the sophisticated man who had survived through the war years? Me and Zulka, now what's wrong with that?

But being seen by the old man Cossack certainly put a damper on things about him. He simply could not be seen with the young girl like Zulka resting on his knees. What would people think, of him with a fifteen, sixteen year kid?

Oy, chort… Must of lost my cool, he thought, if that's the expression...

He spat and stood looking at the park from Tenth Street and Avenue A.

Eight

Go-Fer Boy

Climbing up the stairs of the St. Marks Baths I already felt the heat from the steam rooms which permeated and filled the entire bathhouse. My brow quickly beaded in sweat as we

reached the first welcoming area of the lavatory.

A bald headed man in white T-shirt and white pants stood at the desk quizzically looking at me and Ilya, the man who had escorted me from the street.

“Kto on? Who’s he?” the bald man asked in Russian.

I knew he was speaking Russian, something like Ukrainian but not quite, a bit rougher and sneering than my own sweet gentle native language.

The Russian stood at the desk quizzically looking at me.

“Sergey, On nash paren He’s our young man,”

Ilya broadly answered, also in Russian, and smiled, though I didn’t know what the words meant I was sure they were talking about me. Ilya was grinning and rubbing my shoulder.

“Think he’ll be our little go-fer boy, doing the little things we need, eh?” and he smiled again at the bald Russian man.

I frowned. “What’s a little go-for boy?” I wanted to know.

Ilya and Sergey smirked at each other.

“It’s go-fer boy.” Ilya spoke up, stressing the fer word. “You go for a little of this, a little of that, whatever is needed by the Bathhouse clients. Simple things like coffee, tobacco, cupcakes, a magazine, or whatever a bathhouse user wants and desires.”

And he winked at Sergey who still was staring at me.

“The sight of a young man running around would be certainly ideal for the Ukrainian old timers. Usually you’ll get a tip when you get what they want, a dime or a quarter,

depending who they are. You never have to go far, like around the block to Gem Spa on the corner, or any of the Ukie stores on Seventh Street. Besides that you just stand about and look like you’re ready for anything,” they looked at each other, “for anything,” he stressed. “It’s very easy, you want the job?” And he bit his lower lip and nervously looked at me.

I looked at the two of them but grinned and nodded.

“Yes, I do. When do I start?”

They beamed at me.

“How about, right now?”

I beamed back at them, as Sergey stood licking his lips, while my little stiff wet penis was again pushing upwards in my pants.

Nine

Little Girl Zulka?

Zulka couldn’t understand why an old man such as Skrypka could be aroused by her. Well, of course she knew why, he was an old man but still a horny hard-up man at that!

She smirked cunningly and got undressed, her flesh tingling with the comfort of nakedness.

It was early Friday evening and the weariness of the long week was being replaced by the more spirit and certain aliveness with the certainty of the weekend. It’s as if the laboring community was being summoned to stir once more and wake-up anew.

Friday meant not only the end of the work-week but also the start of adult playtime. Bars and clubs were filling up, and more and more people sauntered the streets.

And as a young girl Zulka also sensed the difference that anything could be happening on a Friday evening. For as she stood in her bedroom undressed, stripped of her clothes, her vibrant femininity pulsing over her, she knew she was a true woman.

Gone was the fickleness of childish play, quickly replaced with adult flirting joy. At her age, no matter that her classmates thought of her as an 8th grader, 14, 15 years old, yet here she was a robust 19, 20 year woman booming out at them.

What little adolescent schoolboy could compete with that?

After the war, without any proof or ID papers showing how old she actually was, Zulka's mother professed that she was a certain age, but being so young and nearly famished from the hardship of the war years, that’s the age American Military wrote down on her papers.

Zulka became five years younger than her she was. Five years younger but starving little kids who had survived the cruel war looked like they were young babies anyway.

Still, as the years rolled by in America and she maturely developed people did wonder about her, taking a double-take at the large breasted Zulka. Asking each other could it be that she actually was that young? Yes, very hard to believe, still, what could they do about it? Immigration cards were immigration cards and proof was proof, and that’s all there was to it.

One day they would know for certain, wouldn’t they?

She breathed out as she stepped into her bath, sinking down into the bubble powder she had poured into the water.

Ah beautiful… Relaxation… Nothing could be better than this...

Beads of sweat formed on her face as she closed her eyes, savoring the warmth seeping onto her.

Ridiculous Skrypka.

How old was the old fart anyway, fifty, sixty?

Still she felt his erection prodding against her as she roosted on his lap.

Something hard and stiff was evidently there, she smirked.

Yet she tingled with a warmness rising up around her.

A man, a real mature man, and she was overdue for that. And Skrypka’s friendliness, his smile, his charm, his pleasant cheerfulness and playfulness was admired by all those around him. But when he looked at her she instinctively lowered her own eyes in shyness, lest her lust be seen by others. A fake shyness she was projecting but was it really that?

She shrugged and sighed.

Oy pane Skrypka, if you only knew… Knew what, my real age? That I had come through war torn Europe and survived while so many didn’t? Where is the little girl in that? Where is the laughter and cheer? Now we have good times on Friday nights but what did we have before? Hunger, pain, hurt, tears… Those were my Friday nights back then...

She pulled the plug and the water started to gurgle out as she stepped from the bath, drying herself and wrapping her wet head in a towel.

Nude, perfect. The hell with your clothes!

So I wasn’t the 14, 15 years as Skrypka assumed I was. So my mother had lied. Big deal! Who told the truth anyway in those times? So Skrypka doesn’t know how old I really am, what’s the difference anyway? Who in Sviaty Yuri surviving the war can still be a virginal little girl. Besides my little American born classmates though she have my doubts about certain of them? Times were very difficult back then, a war had just been waged, and a brutal war at that...

She sighed and came out of the bathroom, a towel on her head. Her blonde pubic hairs shimmering at her crotch and walked nude across the room.

She looked into the refrigerator. Good, her mother had left her a tuna fish sandwich. Better than borscht beet soup or kovbasa sausage and kapusta sauerkraut as there had been the day before.

No wonder I'm was putting on weight.

Zulka had a bite of the cool tuna fish sandwich with some orange juice. That was far better than the stupid warm borscht and kovbasa.

She rose from the table and stretched, admiring her large bosom, which would certainly be a handful for some lucky schoolboy, she knew. But she loved being naked; didn’t like clothes at all. She smirked.

Well, some clothes, at some times, anyway.

She put the orange juice back in the ice box and went to the living room. Glancing up at a portrait of Taras Shevchenko, the Poet, which her mother hung up. He was in every Ukrainian home.

She made a face and opened a large dressing cabinet mirror. There was little room in her mother’s or her bedroom for the clothes that they both needed so the cabinet was relegated to a corner of the living room.

Zulka didn’t like the idea of the cabinet being so out in the open there, with mustachioed Shevchenko hanging there and scowling down at her like a dirty old man but what could she do about it, absolutely nothing.

She pulled out a few garments out, spun around so the Poet could see her luscious bouncy ass. Jiggled a few times, and went to her room.

Certainly glad it was a Friday, no more school uniforms, I could wear what I wanted!

She stepped into a pair of pink panties and rotated a garter belt at her waist till the snaps were hovered into place at her thighs so they could easily clutch and clasp the nylons in place. Beautiful silky nylons went up her legs, each one held by a garter strap. She was already tingly hot, the certain possibility of teasing sex brewing and bubbling inside her that the dark nylons sliding up her legs were like a crescendo building up to her eventual satisfaction, which she was certain would be hers.

“Oy Bozhe!” she yelped, feeling the orgasm as it spread through her.

As a young girl orgasms were a natural steady feature of her life. Sitting and rocking her legs in class, walking down on the streets and avenues, eyeing a face she’d never seen before yet now instantly lusted after. At any moment of any time during the day the female human body is in the throes of a constant flurry of horny arousal. If a male could only see and witness and be aware of how many times a female twitch or tingle could erupt into the bliss of wet orgasm, boys and men would be like dogs on the street just sniffing and screwing every bitch they could get near to!

Zulka shivered and gazed into a mirror, as she slid her pants up. She focused on the tiny bumps of the garter belt pushing out through her pants. Certainly evident on the material.

She grinned.

But that’s the way I like it!

And put on her bra, a pink one too, with low-cut cups almost holding in her nipples and titties, the edges of the nipples peeking out from the fragile bra cups.

She sat down before a mirror. Now would come the most difficult and hardest part of all, putting on her makeup.

She didn’t apply makeup in the mornings, the nuns at Sviaty Yuri were much opposed to the idea.

But on Friday evening the nuns be damned, nothing but a bunch of scuzzy man-hating virgins anyway.

She applied the facial cream. It was smooth and thick, spreading evenly over her pores as if in a lather of pleasure.

Ooo, it was beautiful!

She sighed again.

How many times could she orgasm, ten, twenty times in a day?

Once she tried keeping a count of how many times that occurred but after six, seven times she gave up when she losing her count. But it was still early afternoon with the rest of the day before her. Not that her orgasms were so much of an explosive spasm rather more like a tingle, a shimmer, a stirring on the edge of an arousal that quickly faded as suddenly as they appeared.

Women get pleasure and satisfaction in this way, men simply don’t... Very, very curious…

She smirked, satisfied by her facial, the makeup, the eye-shadow and the lipstick applied just right.

Gone was the little girl of fifteen, sixteen which she pretended to be, replaced by the young woman of almost nineteen, twenty which the makeup certainly showed her she was. Ready to do what girls at that age do, namely fuck! Whoever they want, whenever they want, which she was

more than ready to do anyway.

She smirked again, definitely eager to meet the accordionist Skrypka, hoping he had a good place in mind. Like an out-of-the-way bar, besides sitting in that Ukie park.

Her heels pounded down the stairs.

Ten

Typical Nun of Sviaty Yuri

The nuns of Sviaty Yuri’s had many cases of frightened confused children. Not only those who had witnessed and experienced the horrors of war but also those smart-alecky American-born children who at times seemed as confused as the rest of their class.

No matter what category they fit into, confusion and loss were a part of growing up in the befuddled 1950s and the early 1960s America.

One nun, Sister Justina, ran her class pretty much like a concentration camp, with no talking or looking at each other during lunch lest they’d be punished afterwards by a belt which she had displayed hanging on the wall of her class.

Daily the belt was taken down and went flying across some poor child of a concentration camp survivor, usually a little fifth grade kid who unfortunately had the bad luck to fall into with the other fifth graders she had been assigned to teach that year.

But Sister Justina herself was a camp survivor, she had learned about physical suffering. Her religious beliefs had gotten her incarcerated for malcontents who had no place in the new Third Reich.

Her faith in God convincing her that survival was highly important to those who came after the despots, Nazi or Communist. It taught her to be stern with the Godless enemy at the end.

And now that the war was over her new enemy was, who else? Little children...

She treated them as Godless despots, who she was now assigned and delegated to teach. God is good, eh?

Eleven

Skrypka and Zulka

Tato crossed Avenue A and continued east on Tenth Street, the large Tompkins Square Park looming on his right. Older buildings with staircases were to his left, which was an unusual remnant from the 1880s. You hardly see this type of architecture in New York anymore. The small area of 10th Street seemed to preserve it.

Steps before buildings going up and steps going back down. Usually you do see buildings with a few short steps of two or three but not ten or eleven or twelve. Very unusual for a modern city yet a few such buildings can be can still be found on the Lower East Side with many more existing across the river in Brooklyn.

Skrypka lowered his head and held a hand before his face lest someone recognize him as he passed the stairs of the Ukrainian building about mid-block on Tenth Street, another extension of the SUM/PLAST building on 2 Avenue. It stood across from the park, with assorted classrooms and meeting spaces. Luckily, there was no one on the stairs and he quickly strode past.

Though he did recognize some Ukrainian teen boys walking after some Ukrainian teen girls coming out of the Tompkins Square Public Library, across from the park. The boys taunting the girls by boasting what they were going to do to them while the girls laughed and answered back.

“Mamyn synok, de tvoyi yaytsya? You sissy faggot, where’s your balls?”

The girls squealed and laughed as they disappeared up Tenth Street going west from where he had just come. But the boys also laughed and taunted by following right after them.

“Smokchy miy khuy, suko! Suck my dick, you bitch!”

Tato sighed.

Ah, to be young again… Oh, the unfairness of life, but the girls did seem to look to be the age of Zulka, fifteen, sixteen, maybe even her classmates. Oh, Jesus, what am I thinking? Still that young?

He shook his head and continued along Avenue B until he reached Eight Street, He strode along the weaving trail where he and Zulka had been sitting before being interrupted by the old man Cossack.

Skrypka scratched his forehead and sat down. The old Cossack should definitely be getting more respect from everyone he came across and not the dismissive behavior he had received from him and Zulka.

He lowered his head. As if they didn’t know any better. Well, at least they should have been more polite and aware of what was going on.

“Oy, kholera!” Tato spat and looked at his watch.

How many years had it been since I had last sat on a bench with a pretty young girl? Decades ago, that’s for sure.

Probably along the park benches of the Dnipro River in Kyiv where I was trying to impress a young divchynka girl with my velykoyu big strength. Actually, trying to seduce her.

And after which they’d be satisfied but scurry off from each other, ashamed, guilty, though very pleased over what they had just been doing.

Luckily, they weren’t spied on or caught by anyone like the old man Cossack who came upon them this time. And to think that old man Cossack had traveled all the way to America to see such a sight…

Tato Skrypka turned red and again glanced at his watch.

Almost 6 pm. He scowled and looked at the few people lounging on the benches, reading newspapers or staring into space.

Zulka did say around six, or there abouts, didn’t she?

Skrypka frowned; he certainly knew what these there abouts meant in the head of a pretty young girl.

There abouts meant whatever time she wants, that’s for sure! And I’ll be waiting and waiting forever…

Skrypka cursed and looked at his watch again, 6:15.

Oy, Bozhe, enough!

He stood up, about to walk away when he saw something that caught his eye. It was the figure of a young girl in tight pink pants and tight pink blouse entering the park from Avenue B.

He blinked his eyes, and noted that her blond bouffant hair was high on her head.

Would Zulka wear such a style?

The high-haired girl raised her arm, her bosom looming out before her, and waved an arm.

He turned to look behind him.

No, no one was waving back at her.

He looked back.

In stunned surprise he watched as she came closer. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, everything had been erased from him but he the sensation of his penis pushing upwards in his pants.

It was Zulka!

But how did she appear so seductively adult-like when the last time he seen her she was but a naive demure schoolgirl sitting on his lap? Yes, slightly older than her classmates, true but flirtatious also. Yet how had that seeming rabid hornyness come upon her, that you felt the steam and heat rising upwards as she drew nearer? Because that’s what it was, heat!

And as he watched her he desperately wanted her, no matter how old or young she may have been he simply had to have her.

“Oh, pane Skrypka, sorry I’m late,” she hissed, reaching up to his cheek and giving him a soft peck.

He was certain her wet smooth lipstick smeared his face but he was very happy some of it may have lashed onto him.

“You’re not late,” he stuttered, “Just on time,” and he uplifted his arms around her shoulder, his hard-on straining in his pants.

They fell down to the same bench they were sitting on before the Cossack interrupted them, Skrypka held his arm around her as she cuddled against him.

“You look nice in white,” she whispered, commenting on his bright summer clothes.

“As you do in your pink,” he nodded, his penis still pushing upwards. “Very attractive, I must say.”

“Hah, you think so?” she sneered as her eyelashes fluttered as she looked at him. “I’m not attractive,” she blushed, “I’m just a kid, still in the 8th grade, too.”

She said as if stressing her youthful age yet there was something cunning and coy in her spoken words.

“A beautiful kid,” he corrected her. “A young lady, really,” stuttering and not knowing what else to say.

She lowered her head. “Do you like me, pane Skrypka?” she asked. “Not ashamed to be seen with me?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Ashamed, why would I be ashamed? But you’re very lovely! I’m very proud to be seen with you.”

He held his arm tighter around her, his penis fully stiff now, but he still kept looking around.

They eyed each other, as their lips met, she holding onto him as he moved slightly over her and about to kiss her.

She pushed him off, also looking around and patting her hair down.

“Oh, pane Skrypka, someone might see.”

“Ihor, call me Ihor, please.”

“Okay, Ihorchyk,” she leered at him, as if fascinated by the name.

She had come twice already just walking up to him and never once gave an indication of what was happening. That’s the beauty which separates male from female, the fact that women can feel or not feel a thing while having orgasms or not having orgasms at any time. As for men they are horny all the time but hardly ever get it.

O, divine mystery of life…Bozhe, Bozhe…

He lowered his head and sadly said, “But my ex-wife called me that, Ihorchyk…”

She bit her bottom lip. “Oh, sorry...” Then she brightened. “In that case I’ll call you Ihornyk… You like Ihornyk?”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“No one’s ever called me that before, Ihornyk, I like it very much! Ihornyk…”

She giggled.

“You’re my little Ihornyk,” and they slightly kissed but again she broke off, seeming all out of breath, again patting her mussed hair.

A frustrated Skrypka gazed at her.

I knew I shouldn’t wear white pants, what if I cum again?

He scowled and adjusted his legs, trying to hide the bulge protruding in his crotch.

Zulka again patted her hair down and licked the side of her lips. She frowned.

“That man is looking at us,” she gestured to a group of benches not too far away. Skrypka looked in that direction.

“What man? No one’s looking this way.”

She frowned.

“He just turned away, just as he saw me looking back at him. There, you see, there he goes again...he just looked!”

Again Skrypka turned to look with the same result. This was either a playful girl or seductively very clever.

“I never liked this end of the park,” she mumbled, shaking her head, “Too many horny old geezers sitting and doing nothing but staring. A girl can never come here alone and just sit. Some man is always trying to pick her up. Like we’re just coming here for that very reason, to get picked up! Hah!”

She shook her head and scowled.

“There, you see!” she pointed in the man’s direction, “He just looked again. I knew it, that dirty old man is always looking at me, every time I come to sit in the park, he's sitting nearby.”

She shook her head, rocking her crossed pink legs back and forth. “I’m sure he always expects a hand-job, why else is he sitting like that and looking at me? Awaiting something...”

Skrypka again turned around and tried to see what man she was talking about but the few sitting there seemed either too old or too preoccupied with their papers. Still he knew he had best to humor her.

“Yes, the bastard,” he growled in the man’s direction. “He’d better not get any ideas if he knows what’s good for him.”

Zulka also nodded and gripped Skrypka’s arm.

“You’ll protect me, won’t you tatko, daddy?”

“Why, of course, I will. You’re my diva u bidi damsel in distress,” and he winked her.

“And I will be your hero. We were made for each other, you know that?”

“We were?”

He nodded.

“Just as one, you and I,” and he winked an eye again as he moved to kiss her once more.

“Oh, pane Skrypka…”

He pecked her cheek.

“Ihornyk,” he corrected and smiled.

She giggled but breathed out.

“Ihornyk…” and also leered at him. “You like being called Ihor, makes you feel like one, doesn’t it? A hor…”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Excuse me, what? I don’t understand…”

“Oh yes, you do,” she winked at him, “You’re my little hor, my own private little hor,” she squeezed his arm, and looked around. “Sure wish we had a place to go besides this dumb park.”

His eyes widened as he finally understood what she meant. He uncrossed his legs, certain he was going to cum again but he spread them out; the bulge now very evident.

“Why, what do you have in mind?” he leered.

She shook her head but blushed glancing at his bulge.

“Nothing really, I don’t care. Anything is better than sitting in this dumb old Ukie park.”

He had heard of the term Ukie countless times spoken by the young, shortened for Ukrainians but he didn’t really like it.

“Oh, c’mon, there’s not that many Ukies here,” he frowned in saying the term.

“On this side of the park it’s mostly Spanish and Irish, Ukrainians are more mostly on the corner of Seventh Street, a block away,” he pointed in that direction.

“Well, I always try to walk down Ninth Street when I go home from school,” she said, “and stay away from those old Ukie farts on Seventh Street. Let them gossip all they want about someone else. I’m a very nice girl and I know the lies that they spread about me,” she nodded her head.

“What lies, I haven’t heard anything?”

She nodded her head a few times more.

“All they do is talk, and they make up stories about what they want to do with girls like me. I know they do, don’t they, pane Skrypka?”

He brightened, leering to himself, what could be better than her, a flirt who didn’t want to be seen by his fellow Ukrainians, just as he was avoiding them, too. Simply ideal!

“We should go for a walk,” he said, rising from the bench.

“We should?” she asked but also brightened, standing up.

“Sure, that’s a great idea! Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s just walk,” he took her by the hand.

They went on the trail to Ninth Street away from the Ukrainians of Seventh Street, though they must have passed a few.

He was aware of his hard-on pressing and rubbing in his white pants, just he was certain her ass cheeks were weaving and bouncing behind her in those sexy pick pants.

Yet when they stepped out of the park on Avenue A Skrypka steered her away from continuing on Ninth Street and led her up to walk west on Tenth Street. There were a lot less Ukrainians on that block he was certain, at least not as many as on Seventh, Eighth or Ninth Street.

But as they walked Skrypka couldn’t help but notice the strange little lumps and bumps that had begun to appear on Zulka’s legs, up around her thighs, tiny bulges which pulsed in a soft pattern on each leg.

Bozhe, she’s wearing nylons and a garter belt! Is it so evident?

“What?” Zulka finally muttered as they crossed First Avenue. “You keep looking down at my legs, what do you see there?”

He reddened, coughed and let go of her hand, clearing his throat.

“No, I’m not, I’m not looking.”

“Oh, yes, you are,” she nodded her head as she again took him by the hand. “You can tell me, please?”

He cleared his throat and looked down.

“I can see what you’re wearing, nylons,” he blushed and pointed.

“All around your legs, and a garter belt holding them up. It's visible, see?”

Again she blushed as she looked down at her pink pant leg with his finger tip just scant millimeter from her thigh. The ooze of her covered nylon and garter strap seeming to desperately melt and aching to adhere to something.

“See, it’s this?” he stuttered, “It’s your nylon hose…”

He daintily touched her leg, as if trying to feel it.

“Oh…” she merely said, looking at him as he had suddenly uncontrollably twisted, bending down with a spasm tearing through his body, the ejaculation spluttering onto his crotch; second or third time he had cum that day.

“What’s wrong, pane Skrypka?” Zulka nervously asked. “You look very weird.” She bit her bottom lip. “Hope you’re not having a heart attack, are you?”

Skrypka wiped his brow and gripped her arm.

“No, I’m not having a heart attack,” he pulled her hand as they continued scurrying across the changing-light avenue.

“Don’t be silly, nothing’s wrong,” hid out-of-breath mouth said, taking a further step up Tenth Street. “Let’s just go, alright?”

He again wiped his forehead.

She shrugged as he tugged her hand, to which she obediently followed. They continued on Tenth Street, crossing Second Avenue and strode past the old St. Marks Church.

“We’re almost there, just a few more blocks.”

“Almost where?” she asked. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have to change my trousers…oh my God,” he stopped in his tracks, still holding on to the confused Zulka as he tried to spin her about.

But an enraged woman and a teenage girl were crossing Third Avenue. The woman was glaring at him and coming directly up to them.

“It’s not what you think,” Skrypka turned and stuttered at the woman.

“What I think,” the woman hissed back, “who cares what I think,” she looked at Zulka up and down.

“Skrypka you’re a moronic fool! Duren! Ty hivna ne zanyesh? Asshole, you don’t know shit!” she looked at his scum speckled pants.

“Let’s go, Nina. This is your disgusting ridiculous

sex obsessed father. Take a very good look at him. Don’t forget what a loser he really is!”

And she pulled the teen-aged girl along Third Avenue; the seemingly confused open-mouthed girl going after her.

“That was Vira, my ex-wife and our daughter,” Skrypka sighed and sadly said.

Zulka nodded and smirked.

“Yeah, I know, the little girl’s in Sviaty Yuri’s, I think in the 5th or 6th grade,” she grinned, looking at Skrypka who stood down-headed.

“Can’t wait to hear what she has to say to her friends on Monday, that’ll be fun.”

And she cuddled up to his arm as she pulled him across Third Avenue.

Oy Bozhe, what am I doing?

Skrypka shook his head.

“That’s right, you’re in Sviaty Yuri’s also.”

This is no good, no good at all, and in the very same school. Bozhe, Bozhe…”

Zulka glanced the other way but turned back to him, her face red and embarrassed.

“You know pane Skrypka, your pants are wet, you have a stain on your pants. It’s very visible, too. Hide it before someone sees,” she blushed and reddened.

“What…what stain!?” he erupted, looking down.

The semen stain had quickly moistened through the white material of his pants, leaving a wet splotch at his crotch; it certainly was clear what the stain was. That’s just what his ex-wife Vira was looking at.

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe, matir Bozha. Chomy tak ye?” Why is this happening?

He held his hand over the stain, turned the corner on Fourth Avenue, pulling the befuddled Zulka to his apartment building.

“This is where I live,” he said when then got there, prodding her into the door.

Zulka bit her lips and looked at him.

“Good,” she shrugged, “I gotta pee,” and fluttered her eyelashes.

He scowled but led her into his building as she mounted the stairs, her lovely dupa ass just a mere inch from his face while he followed her up, sniffing and making out the nylon and garter bumps lacing down her leg. And he desperately wanted to touch them, to maul them, as he almost came again, once more glancing down at his soiled pants.

Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe, shchto robytsya zi mnoyu? What’s happening to me?

At the door Zulka crossed her legs again and squealed, “Gotta go real bad, hurry up, c’mon!”

She bent down, rocking her legs, her arms around her belly as if trying to show she was holding it in.

“The bathrooms right there,” he muttered, swinging open the front door and pointing to another door where the john was.

He was in the way of her bustling in but she did pull the top of her tight pants down her belly and waist.

“Well?” she said, looking at him and holding onto a side zipper.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, getting out of the way and moving aside from the front doorway letting her pass quickly in.

He gripped the door and reluctantly swung it shut, not knowing what was happening to him, a confused look upon his face.

Through the closing door he could hear the ruffle of female clothes being lowered and the very distinct sound of a female peeing.

Psss...

A sound which he hadn’t heard in some time. He winced and rubbed his face.

Vira-kurva! Vira the slut! he thought about his ex-wife.

He walked across the hall to his living room.

That’s what she was, a no good stinking whore/slut for thinking who knows what.

How dare she make up things in her head about Zulka? What made her think we were together, just because I was holding her hand?

Zulka’s a very nice girl who needs her hand held, what’s wrong with that? Little girls need a protective father-figure around them.

She might even be a potential music student…oy kholera, tkhu!

From his front widow he could see that night had fallen but this being a Friday night more people appeared on the now busy streets. Fourth Avenue, Broadway, St. Marks Place and other crossovers were getting crowded early, which led the crowds into bars and clubs along the way, as more traffic had increased also.

He turned away from the window, listened in the hall and went to his bedroom. Just enough space for a bed and a small dressing cabinet but that’s all he needed.

He removed his white pants and frowned.

Shit, I had cum a few times in a row today, in my bath and out of it. Was I so hot and bothered just as a teenage boy? Or was it that she was so horny and reeking of sex, which she certainly was? At least that’s what it seemed like…

He shook his head, he didn’t know what was going on but he knew that he might as well toss the white pants in the trash.

Impossible of getting the scum stain out, at least the black pants could be salvaged but the white ones?

He shook his head again.

He heard a door being closed and someone walking across the hall.

Was Zulka done already? Better go out and see…

He quickly put on his earlier black pants, certain that no stain was visible or remained and hurried to the living room.

Zulka stood naked…well, almost naked…but she did appear nude in only her cute pink top, which was still on her.

She had removed the pink pants and garter belt, slid off the black hose she had laced on herself. She appeared to be somewhat naked in her pink panty, her skin seeming to jiggle and bounce.

His eyes widened, his mouth drooped open.

“You have a bag I can put these in?” she asked, holding up the errant garter strap and hose, blinking her eyes chaotically and shaking her head.

“I didn’t know they were so clearly visible, that you were seeing so much of me.”

And again she blushed but stood looking at him.

“Must have looked like...a hor, eh Ihornyk?”

An amazed, open-mouthed and discombobulated Skrypka licked his lips and just stood gazing back at her.

“Pane Skrypka, are you all right?” Zulka nervously asked.

He blinked his eyes.

“What? Yes, yes, a bag, you want a bag?” he stuttered, clearing his throat and scratching his face, going to a cabinet drawer, opening it and closing it.

“Oh yes, there’s bags in the kitchen, I think,” and he almost ran to the other room and almost instantly returned, holding out a large paper bag. “Here it is, got one.”

“Thank you,” she blushed, taking the bag and inserting her hose and garter into it.

She set the bag down and turned, starting to walk back down the hall, her panty covered buttocks swaying so lovingly down the hall.

“What’s wrong?” he coughed after her, blinking her eyes. “Where are you going?”

She turned.

“Going? Nowhere, I have to get my pants back on. I left them in the bathroom.”

“Oh…I see, leave them there.”

They looked at each other. She shrugged but shook her head.

“Be right out,” and she turned and went back to the bathroom.

He sighed in frustration, picking up the nylon filled bag and fell to the couch, nylons and garter belt peeping out at him, his penis hard and stiff again.

The black hose shimmered explosively in his hands as the white garter gleamed and shone, edging out of the paper bag. He couldn’t help but touch it, darting his finger on the soft, silky smooth feminine material.

Zulka returned, catching him in the act, a nylon seeming to have crept up and circled his wrist as he was rubbing and fingering the seductive garter belt.

She had pulled on her long pink pants, her face as pinkish as the material she was wearing. She stood looking at him red-faced.

“Can I have my hose?” she quietly asked. “It’s getting late.”

He blinked his eyes, as if coming to, getting off the couch.

“Yes, yes, your hose, it’s so soft.” He fumbled with it as he held out the paper bag to her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Think I’d better go now…”

“What, go where?”

“It’s getting late, it’s almost after eight and I have to be home before nine. That’s my curfew; mamtsya will kill me if I’m late. You understand?”

But he didn’t understand a word she was saying.

Curfew, what curfew? Nine, ridiculous!

“How old are you, really?” he blurted.

“You can tell me, I know the war just ended back there and there are many children in Sviaty Yuri who are not what they seem. You’re much older, aren’t you?”

Zulka slyly looked at him.

“Older, how much older do you think I should be?”

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “enough so that people don’t talk, you know. How old are you really, please tell me?”

She smirked, her body rocking back and forth, left to right.

“I’m in the 8th grade and will graduate next year. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

He frowned, “You sure about that?”

“Uh huh, ask Sister Principal, she’s also my teacher,” she answered, but it was as if she was trying not to laugh. “She’ll tell you how much it says on my immigration ID, there’s no getting around that, is there?”

They looked at each other as if awaiting something they both knew wasn’t going to come.

“Took it from the American ID they gave me in the DP camp just before we came to America. Did you pass through Immigration, too?”

He sighed. “Sure, we all did.”

“Mamtsya gave them the American ID she had and they took it. Who the hell knows how old anyone is any more. Maybe mamtsya knows but she isn’t saying. I’m okay with whatever the Immigration paper says.”

She shrugged and saw his watch hanging up upon the wall, with a photo of Shevchenko frowning down at them.

“Hey, I really have to get home.”

“Yes, yes, home, I’ll walk you,” he answered, going for his evening jacket.

“No, no, I’ll be fine,” she was shaking her head and going to the door, she stopped, looking back at him.

“You know, pane Skrypka, I have to attend a wedding dinner tomorrow at the Ukrainian National Home, friends of mamtsya. Perhaps we can see each other there. Maybe you'll be playing...that box you always carry with you.”

“You mean accordion?”

“Yes, that's it. You go there a lot, don’t you?”

“What, at the Ukrainian Home,” he brightened, “you’re kidding, right?” he looked at her. “No, you’re not kidding. I have to play accordion at a wedding right at the Home.

Strelsky, you know him, he's getting married?”

She shook her head.

“But I kind of know the woman he will be getting married to. Sophia, she knows my mamtsya, they work together, I think, or used to,” and she shrugged and again glanced at the clock.

“Hey, I really have to go, see you tomorrow, okay?” And she stooped and pecked his cheek, as he reached for her body but she squirmed out of his hold and headed to the door.

“Bye,” she called, winking back at him.

“Bye,” he feebly answered, hearing her heels pounding on the stairs and fading below.

The contours of his stiff dick already once again pulsed in his hand as he lowered his zipper.

Twelve

At The Bathhouse

And at the Bathhouse I couldn’t believe what an easy job I had by just sitting at the front desk with Sergey, the Russian attendant. Ilya was always normally out doing his own little thing, whatever they were but as the owner, or semi-owner, I’d didn’t dare to ask him what it was.

I just sat there folding towels, getting supplies until someone asked for something from outside, a pack of cigarettes or cigars, a newspaper or an egg cream or some such and I would have to go-fer it. A few short hours of being a go-fer and I didn't mind at all.

I’d get what they wanted from either Gem Spa, the corner shop and or another nearby store.

And I liked the pleasant men I was there servicing, mostly Russian, Ukrainian, or Eastern European men who were there during the day but in at the evenings after 6pm when a different crowd of gentleman came to the Baths.

Men who lisped and flirted with each other or walked funny as if they were feminine women, but that kind of walking was a normal thing upon wet tiles, such as there were.

But it sure stirred things up in me of which I knew nothing about.

I’d be off for the night and safely home masturbating to my hearts content, forced thoughts of women I desired that I’d see passing me by on the streets but always my thoughts reverting to the men of the St. Marks Baths smiling and leering at whatever their hinting was about.

My job gave me the sexual satisfaction which I was learning and feeling in my teen years. I certainly knew that Sviaty Yuri’s would have nothing to teach me about that.

But from my first week there, when Stefko saw me mounting the St. Marks Bath stairs, I knew my reputation was shot for all time. I'm sure he'd tell the other rough boys that he saw me. And he certainly did.

I became their sissy boy, their faggot honey.

Still, did I really care? They had been calling me sissy/faggot ever since I can remember.

But by then I’d steel myself, leaving school at the end of the day but not go directly to the bathhouse, which was so close by, that was totally out of the question.

Instead, I’d walk three or four blocks north, constantly looking behind me, and work my way around until until I'd slink back to St. Marks along Third Avenue.

I never saw any school kids on those blocks.

I'd breathe out, and do the job at the Bathhouse I was hired for, my stiffening erection tingling in my pants.

Thirteen

Ukie Boys at Tompkins Square

Zulka walked to St. Marks Place knowing she had pan Skrypka, little Ihornyk as he liked being called, right in the palm of her hand.

But all men were like that, she knew, either their brains were in their dicks or is it that they have dicks for brains?

Whatever, she smirked and continued down St. Marks Place.

The short two, three block long street had become one of the centers of the community with various stores, shops and restaurants populating the narrow thoroughfare. Even the groups of Ukrainian men who had drifted in from Seventh Street were certainly too old for her but they gazed so lecherously at her tight pants pussy ass; their rabid mouths drooling in anticipation of what they imagined they could be getting from her.

Ukrainka, they leered at her. Odna z nas She’s one of ours…

After all, it was a Friday night, which was very different from the daytime. A man’s eyes and thoughts were now of a woman as a slut, just giving it out to any man she came upon.

But Zulka strode firmly down St. Marks Place, her heels click-clacking and headed in the direction of home, still feeling the constant sensation of an orgasm with each step she took. Orgasms were everywhere, click-clack, click-clack…

On Avenue A she frowned, looking at dimly-lit Tompkins Square Park, but shook her head, crossed the avenue and entered the dark twisting park walkway on Eight Street.

Along the benches scattered through the dense dark park she passed men who sat or stood talking to each other but looking at her as her footsteps clicked along. A few times her heels misstepped on the concrete pavement, hitting a bump or a dip on the dark walkway as she momentarily tottered, accidentally bending her ankle but fortunately quickly recovered, resuming her walk through the dark park; the bumps seemed to be everywhere.

“Hey, Zulka,” she heard someone holler from a group she just passed, “Wanna suck my dick?” followed by explosive laughter and cackles.

She turned back to a bunch of Ukrainian boys standing around or roosting on a backbench along the trail holding bottles of beer.

They had been chattering, gossiping and cursing much as older Ukrainians had been doing in the daytime.

She instantly recognized Petya clutching a paper-bagged bottle whom she knew and liked very much by instantly recognizing his voice. He also had gone to Sviaty Yuri’s, a few years earlier than her, yet still hung around the neighborhood, for what else was there to do?

Supposedly he was more mature than the other young Ukrainian boys he was with.

Still, what was he doing hanging out with those stinking young kids, losers really, and already a bunch of boozing creeps?

“I’d suck your dick,” she answered, tapping her high-heeled foot and looking back at him, “that is if you had one!”

Silence…followed by explosive laughter with more hoots and hollers.

“You cunt!” Petya sprang up, taking a few steps after her. “You bitch, mother fucken whore!”

But Zulka had already sped to the Avenue B entrance and breathed out, glad that the dark park was rapidly falling behind her, she darted onto Avenue B.

Still she turned back and frowned; sort of disappointed that Petya had not come after her from his shadows.

She sighed and continued walking.

Click-clack, turning the corner onto Avenue C.

She breathed out, there was home.

It was 8:55, she had made it.

Fourteen

Little Nina

Tato Skrypka was in love. He knew it, felt it, was consumed by it. The recalled image of Zulka as she had trod bare-legged across the room had stepped right into his soul and heart. Never before had a woman so fully and quickly overpowered him.

When he thought of his ex-wife Vira, he was repelled, tkhu, oy kholera! He spat out.

Never had a woman have the power to overcome him as Zulka did now. He was enraptured, charmed, possessed by her. Zulka had taken over his life. And there was nothing to do but plunge headlong in, which he was doing so readily and willingly.

Whump, whump, whump… Just like a little boy… Whump, whump, whump…he masturbated furiously...

Oy, Bozhe…

He had been beating his dick off for close to a half an hour dreaming about Zulka and still nothing came out. But the pleasure of masturbation was just that, a constant on-going jerking off, whump, whump, whump…

But what was he a jerking-off teenage boy?

Around her his ejaculations were always so sudden, constant, unexpected, surprising, ecstatic and blindly pleasurable. They would spring out anywhere, at any time…except now.

Oy Bozhe, Bozhe, what has become of me?

Still unsatisfied he let go of his penis and rose from bed, going to the bathroom. A nice warm bath and early to bed, that’s the trick, that’ll do it.

But the clattering of the pipes and the expectancy of hot pleasant water quickly turned to unwelcome chilliness and coldness.

Damn, the pipes were stalled. No hot water...

“Suchyy syn! Son of a bitch!” he spat out and rose out of the cold disappointing bathwater.

He angrily wiped himself and left the bathroom when someone was banging at the door.

“Tato, tato, vidcheny dveri! Tu tam? Daddy, open the door! Come on, you in there? Tato tato!”

He speedily wrapped a towel around his waist, flinging the front door open. It was little Nina, his ten year old daughter, standing and looking so dejected, actually crestfallen.

“What’s wrong?” he blurted. “What are you doing out so late?”

Looking behind her but he knew that Vira should not be here.

Nina broke into tears, falling into his arms.

“Tato, mama went to the police station. They’re going to come and arrest you. Mama said you’re in big trouble. Oh tato! What will become of us, what are we going to do?”

Again she broke into sobs and wails.

“What police, what are you talking about? What’s wrong, how come?” he said, shaking his head but holding on to his daughter, again looking down the hall and downstairs.

“You know very well that mama can be very foolish and resentful at times.”

He shut the door after her.

Nina pushed herself from him shaking her head.

“Oh tato, the girl knows me from school. She's in the the 8th grade, but already she's a kurva slut, whore. That's what all the kids say... What are people going to say if they see you with her? That you’re after young girls kurvas. Oh tatko…”

And again she broke into tears, falling against him.

Somehow Skrypka escorted her to the couch in the living room, getting her a glass of water. She drank forlornly taking little sips, as she always did.

He recalled living with her, always taking little bites of food, never once eating a full meal, but sort of leaving a plate uneaten.

Foolish little girl, he thought of her but with the stupid rules that her mother imposes every day, actually stresses on how a lady should behave and act before a potential beau that she intends to spend the rest of her life with, that or live in her feeble solitude as an old maid.

A potential future mate, Skrypka thought, the girls only ten years old! What rubbish, what nonsensical crap.

Skrypka always tried to instill some difference in how Nina should view the world, that is, not according to her

mother Vira.

Little results, since Nina spent most of her free time with his ex-wife Vira. Utter stupidity.

Oy kholera, kurva!

So Zulka was fifteen, sixteen, as Nina just said she was.

But a little girl but by whose standards?

Yakyy hrin znaye? Oh, who the fuck knows?

Yet wasn’t his own mother given away at the age of thirteen and had six children, including him? The rules of behavior were a lot different in old Ukraina than they are here, that’s for sure.

America, America, stupid America, he blamed it all on America…

“We’re just friends,” he told Nina, a displeased look appearing on his face.

“That I might take on as a musical student,” he blushed from his lie.

“She wants to learn the accordion,” he continued and grimaced. “Your mamtsya is disgustingly perverted. She sees demons and ogres everywhere she turns.”

He stood up from the couch.

“Anyway, what’s it to her who I walk down the street with? Do I have to report to her who I know?”

And again he shook his head, running his fingers through his still damp thin hair.

“Your mother’s a nut, a basket case, that’s for sure.”

Still fuming he walked across the living room, glancing up at a portrait of Shevchenko then out his window to the street below.

With the bookstores closed at this time of night it normally was still and un-peopled but this being a Friday night, laughing, shouting hoards appeared now and then on the street below him making their way to St. Marks Place and other swinging streets.

He turned back to Nina.

“I’ll walk you home. Maybe we’ll run into your mother coming from the police station,” he said facetiously.

Nina just sniffled but did not get up from the couch. She bit her lips.

“You had a stain on your pants,” she blurted and blushed. “Mama says that proves it, you’re just using her because she wants to be used. Oh tatko, how could you?”

Again she dropped her head and started sobbing.

He shook his head but came up to her, cradling her head against his bare chest. She sniffled a few times, seeming to relax in his hold.

She looked up and tato weakly smiled looking down at her.

Perhaps Nina was coming near the same age as Zulka, Nina at ten, Zulka at sixteen, or there abouts. Anyway, what’s the big difference? For what’s an age, a mere number, a useless meaningless piffle. A number? Big deal! Just as Nina was a plain, flat-chested school girl, really unnoticeable from another, she simply didn’t stand out among the crowd, Zulka was totally different, a totally real woman.

But oh, what a difference!

Zulka was all filled out in the proper places. Her bosom, her buttocks, the sexy smirking smile upon her face showing only one thing, here was a sexual woman, no doubt about that.

Kloptsi, Boys, get your hands at the ready!

He stroked her head, kissed it then went to his room. He dressed himself, tied his shoes, took a jacket and came back to Nina, who was standing listening to shouts in the hall through the closed door.

“What if it’s the police?” Nina nervously whispered.

“It’s not the police, just my drunken neighbor.”

“Oh…”

Skrypka led her out of his apartment as the loud across-the-hall neighbor went into his own drunken tirade. You could still hear him through the walls viciously holding a discussion with himself as they passed in the hall.

Skrypka shrugged.

“Gets drunk and talks to everybody, that is, to himself. I’ve never seen or heard anyone with him.” He shook his head. “Takes all kinds, I suppose.”

They walked down Ninth Street onto Second Avenue where they passed the Ukrainian Home across the avenue with people standing about busily discussing one thing or another. But this late at night nothing of any real importance; the Lys Mykyta Sly Fox bar was right next to it.

Nina lived with her mother on Sixth Street and Second Avenue, a few blocks down, and just a block from the 9th Precinct police station where she had gone to complain about him. But she’s done that before.

Once, she protested to the police that she saw Skyupka looking up a girl’s dress as she climbed up on a monkey-bars in Tompkins Square Park. But was it his fault he happened to be standing at the exact playground when an already buxom fifteen year old girl recklessly began climbing the absurd contraption?

But once the police learned that she recently been divorced from him that was more-or-less the last they listened to her complaints.

“Thank you, ma’am,” they said, end of story.

But still she kept her accusations of him, her ex-husband, until it seemed she was out to get him.

“C pomenu moyi slova… Mark my words…” she always spat out.

It was almost 11pm but the streets were still filled with crowds walking and laughing while seeking hungrily or stepping in and out of bars or clubs which had infested the entire Lower East Side party area.

Skrypka didn’t like coming to the neighborhood late at night, and always hurried home after a musical job. It was a different crowd of people that took over the streets at night. Even though they were young teen Ukrainians they were more reckless and obnoxious in their behavior, picking fights with American or Ukrainian passersby. It didn't matter to then, and he didn’t care for them at all.

But happily no one bothered him and Nina as they hurried past.

Yet what if he had been walking along with Zulka, a rape inducement, that’s for sure?

Was she really the school-whore?

He shook his head when they crossed the avenue to her building.

There he spotted Vira angrily returning home up Second Avenue, mumbling something to herself as she flung the front door open of her apartment building. Angrily, she stalked in, with the door slamming shut behind her.

“Well, you’re home,” said Skrypka, standing at her doorway, yet biting his lips and shaking his head.

Nina didn’t say anything, just sadly looked at him.

“Dorohesenka,” Skrypka continued, “Now you’ll be alright, won’t you?”

“Come with me, please, tato,” taking his hand and shaking it. “She’s getting more upset and if she finds my bed is empty it will be murder, that’s for sure. Please tato...” blinking her wet eyes.

Tato didn’t want to because he sure as hell didn’t want to be seen by Vira yet he was curious as to why the police had been notified.

Probably the cops were fed up with the angry gossip and her hurried repetitive visits to them, seeing it as nothing more than constant rage from an irate frustrated woman?

Most likely that’s what it was…

“Sure,” he sighed and meekly nodded, taking her hand. “Let’s go.”

They entered her building. Climbing the stairs until he heard Vira shrieking from a floor above.

“Oy, dytyno, dorohesenka!” Oh, my child, dearest one!

Nina rushed up the stairs to the door, clattering her keys.

“Mama, Mama! Here I am, mama!”

For a moment Skrypka hesitated in going after his daughter but he steeled himself and stood on the stairs.

The door was pushed open and he saw his daughter’s black and white back as she stood before a frightened, weeping squelching Vira.

“Mama, mama, tatkoo’s out here. He can explain.”

But an angry outraged Vira pushed her daughter aside, holding onto the front door.

“The nerve of you for being on Third Avenue with that little whorelet! Probably trying to run into her whoring mother. They’re two of a kind and you’re always looking for that kind, aren’t you? Jesus Christ, don’t you have any morality? There are laws against those things; the country

hasn’t sunk that low. Well, the no-good police will get you, just you wait and see. Or I'll go to the FBI!”

She turned her back on Skrypka and saw Nina standing there. “Don’t look at him, skurvyy syn son of a whore!” And she slammed the door in his face.

Skrypka was stunned.

What the hell was she ranting about this time, always accusing me of one thing or another?

He shook his head but he turned in the hallway, seeing other doors opened, as curious people peering down the stairs or gazing up the stairs at him. He recognized a few Ukrainian and Slavic faces gazing at him but the faces quickly retreated and shut their doors. As he began to descend downstairs.

Jesus, what gossip will come out of this, oy kholera!

He stalked out of the building, flinging the front door open as it tottered shut behind him.

It was just like this when I last saw Vira, he recalled, always accusing me of going after some woman. Who was it last time, Katya, Oksana or Anya, or whatever their name was? Oy kholera! Who the devil knows anymore? Any woman would be cursed and blamed. But we divorced a year and a half ago!

He angrily marched up Second Avenue, stalking by the Ukrainian National Home and saw the front door of the Lys Mykyta bar opening and closing as drinkers walked in or were walking out.

Damn, I could use a drink too!

And he entered the Lys Mykyta bar.

Fifteen

Lys Mykyta Bar

The jukebox was blasting In the Still of the Night, an Oldies but Goodies favorite. He instantly felt better; he liked that tune.

As a musician he did not simply hear a song but felt it. He was actually playing the melody in his mind and soul, arranging it for his accordion, sensing it as it tore through his entire being. Musicians do not simply play a song they live it!

And that’s me, an accordionist, he mused, warmly smiling at the Ukrainian bartender who was smiling and nodding back at him. The bartender knocked twice on the bar, nodded again and turned from Skrypka, mixing his rum and Coke drink.

Skrypka looked at the other drinkers sitting or roosting before the long bar with a few who were looking back at him.

They were mostly young Ukrainians in their twenties. Some sat decently, others slouched with their shirts askew, or wobbled but they still clutched their drinks in hand.

The bartender placed a rum and Coke before Skrypka, and again knocked twice on the bar.

The drink tasted so good that he quickly drank it down. Cool and nicely mellow, with a gentle bite that reminded him of something but which he couldn’t quite place or describe.

That’s what makes alcohol so provocative and enticing, the cunning mysterious flavor.

He ordered another and gratefully had one more sip.

“Hey, Skrypka, de tvoya skrypka? Hey violinist, where’s your violin?” he heard behind him, as other Ukrainian drinkers at the bar joined in the chuckling laughter.

Skrypka glared. “Play accordion!” he stressed, correcting them but finally smiling at the laughing drunken Ukrainians. At least their jest was a typical nonsensical gibe rather than an insulting one.

Anyway, he mostly knew them from sight as he constantly passed by the Ukrainian Home.

“Hey, Bochka,” he grinned back at a man who had ribbed him; they were sitting together as he took a sip of his drink, poking his finger in Bochka’s big belly. “That’s a big bochka barrel/cask, you have there, eh?”

Uproarious laughter broke from the bar patrons but Bochka also joined in with the merry mood of the drinkers, and called for more drinks from the bartender for their dearest friend, pan Skrypka.

Though he wouldn’t say that Bochka was a friend of his he did recognize him from various functions he himself had attended and played his accordion at. Of course for a fee, weddings, baptisms and Christenings and some such. Good money makers, at that. Bochka must be very well known since so many parties invited him to their affairs.

Pavlo Bochka was a fixture of the Ukrainian community, working days, drinking nights, a permanent sight in the area that he seemed to be a vital part of the closely knit Ukrainian community.

Skrypka gladly took the new drink placed before him. The bartender winked, and knocked twice.

Ahh, nice, Skrypka thought to himself and swallowed…

“Haven’t seen you around Lys Mykyta before,” said Bochka, sipping his drink.

Skrypka wiped his lips.

“I hardly ever come in here,” he said. “I’m not a drinking man, you know. Just music at the Home is enough for me.”

“Sure, I understand, but sometimes even a non-drinking man needs a little relaxation to get over whatever's bothering his mind with,” he stared at Skrypka. “You know, like a woman...”

Skrypka bit his lip and stared back at the winking Bochka.

“It’s always some woman, isn’t it?

Bochka shrugged.

“What else is there? Women make the world go round and you have a really hot number, that’s for sure,” and he grinned, taking a sip of his drink.

Skrypka scowled looking back at him.

“What hot number, what are you talking about? I don’t understand...”

“Hey, it’s none of my business, who am I to say anything? Go for her, what does age matter? If you love her and want something from her who’s to say how old she is? Back in Ukraina all the women marry young. Moyiy mami bulo trenadtsyat My mother was thirteen. What’s the

difference here anyway?”

Skrypka wrinkled his brow. He had a headache coming on. “I still don’t understand who you’re talking about…?”

Bochka chuckled.

“Hey Zenon,” he poked another fat man on the stool next him. “Tell him how we saw them walking up Tenth Street before…”

Zenon looked at Skrypka and nodded.

“Yeah, it was him and dzyurka…”

Bochka frowned

“Him and Zulka, stop making up names.”

Zeno shook his head.

“Zulka, dzyurka, what’s the difference? A big dzyurka is a big dzyurka, a hole is a hole and that one looks like you’re falling right in. No, not falling, you’re jumping in!”

And he started laughing and gesturing to his other bar-mates sitting beside him. “Dzyurka, dzyurka…”

Skrypka had enough. Though his glass was half-filled he slammed it down, turning and started walking out of the bar.

“Proklyati svoloty! Cursed bastards!”

Skrypka spat and flung out at them as he left Lys Mykyta, the laughter ringing outside after him.

Sixteen

Bonanza on TV

Zulka was hot and bothered, actually horny, as usual. But dreaming and thinking of Petya’s cock what else could she be?

Oh yes, zapkhay u mene Shove it in me!

She had orgasmed twice a few times but as usual her days were a fuselage of orgasms, one after the other. As in the park when she had darted away from Petya and his drunken cohorts, she raced up the stairs, it being a few moments before she ran out of time. And of course, she was out of breath.

Her mother was watching the television --still a new commodity in many Ukrainian homes-- her face covered and creamed with Noxzema facial cleanser, the choice of beautiful women everywhere or so the advertising did say.

“Shh, Bonanza’s starting,” said her mother looking up at the clock on the wall as the Bonanza theme came up, Bahm debahm, debahm, debombom!

“You know how much I adore Purnil Robers,” she hissed, as the pounding melody played, making a mess of the actor’s heroic sounding name, Pernell Roberts. It came out in her voice as very feminine and girlish, lisping the p’s and r’s that they began to stand out almost sissified.

Zulka frowned, and panted before her, shaking her head.

“So why’d you have to get me up here so early on a Friday night. Jesus, mamtsya, to watch a stupid cowboy show?”

“No,” her mother shook her head, “we have to be at Sophia’s wedding early in the afternoon. Just wanted you to get your rest, and there’s nothing wrong with watching Bonanza.”

“Oh ma, you know I get enough rest… Anyway, I hate cowboy shows.”

“Hush, it’s starting.”

Zulka looked at the television, a wagon was barreling up a trail and young cowboy jumping off and rushing into the house.

“Pa, Pa,” he cried.

Hey, not bad, a nice looker, she thought for a TV Western.

But she shook her head, glancing at her open-mouthed mother and refused to hear any more.

Television shows held no interest for Zulka. Nothing but stupid cowboy shows, silly comedies, under-handed detectives, clever wise-guys, that she thought they all were assholes and boring.

Though she did watch occasionally when a romance played of a couple hugging and kissing. That was something she wished she could have done with Petya, too. She shook her head.

Or maybe even with Skrypka. She reddened, but it was coming to that, wasn’t it? Eventually, he would try something.

Hmm, wasn't he planning something at his house? But why did I go there anyway?

Still, he was certainly a laugh, she snorted. Cuming in his pants, she blushed and turned away. I know fully well knew how to handle those old timers, like Skrypka, ha!

She shook her head and went to her room, the sounds of Bonanza echoing behind her.

Seventeen

Father Echo

On the first Saturday morning I was working at the Baths I was thunder-struck when I saw Father Echo coming up the stairs.

Father Echo wasn’t his real name, he was known as Echo because of the two upper unfinished floors of the school building which the school had allowed their band, the drum and bugle corps, to use as their rehearsal place. Unfinished because construction had been stopped so funds to be gathered for finishing the job. The bare open space was cast as a rehearsal space for the band of the school, showing off an echoing sound from whoever spoke up.

It was like being in the Grand Canyon rather than on the streets of the Lower East Side. And Father Echo loved being up there in the cacophonous space when the drummers drummed and bugles bugled that in the quiet space that followed the barest sound turned it into a loud echo. That’s why the boys called him Father Echo because he loved to talk out loud to the boys who had just rehearsed.

“Good job, men!” he would shout and praise them.

Good job, men! his echo echoed.

He instantly became known as Father Echo that even the new name had been repeated and stuck by a few of the nuns who echoed,“Slava Isusu Khrytsu, Father Echo!”as they passed him in the school halls.

But I was thunder-struck in seeing him because he was without his priestly collar or the black pants and black shirt he always had on. He came up the stairs wearing an orange T-shirt and checkered pants, totally unlike anything I imagined he’d be seen in. But it was too late for me to skirt out of his way; he probably was surprised at seeing me at the Baths as well.

“Danylo,” he happily raised his eyes, “what are you doing here?”

“Slava Isusu Khrytsu Glory to Jesus Christ,” typical clergy greeting. “I’m working here now, Father. I have a job here. I’m their go-fer boy,” I blushed but proudly smiled though still embarrassed, looking away from his gaze at me.

“Is that right? Well, Danylo, that’s ideal. I knew I should go to the Baths more often,” and he winked, “And you are the perfect boy for this place, the St. Marks Baths, wouldn’t you say?”

All I could do was answer, “Yes, Father,” and bow my head as if we were at a church service and not in a bathhouse on St. Marks Place with Father Echo licking his lips.

Echo was a robust man, big, large, tall and wide enough but I never would think of him as fat. Being big was more in line with his demeanor of being a large muscular man, probably six feet and a half, if not more.

And that afternoon, after finishing my few hours of go-fering, going and getting anything that was wanted, I was back in my bedroom at home just dreaming and whacking off again.

Still, I couldn’t get rid of the image of Father Echo stripped of his clothes and carrying a towel around his neck, his torso bare of any other holy priestly material looking back at me and winking.

I guess, I winked back, not sure. But I noted his hard stiff penis was also very big. I blushed.

So not only was he a priest but very human, too. I masturbated more that day than any other day. Anyway, I liked Father Echo.

Eighteen

Whore on 3rd Avenue

Skrypka pounced across 2nd Avenue and about to head straight up Ninth Street when he noticed the door of the Orchidia Restaurant on the corner with people entering or leaving.

The restaurant/bar was a fixture of our neighborhood serving good Ukrainian/Italian food to the delight of the hungry pirogies/pasta eaters.

Ukrainian/Italian?

Who the devil knows how that came about or why geography works in the way it does. But it still was a tasty combination, enough to make you want to eat even more.

A group of familiar Ukrainians were coming out of the Orchidia, waving merrily at Skrypka and drunkenly calling out, “Hey, Skrypka, de skrypka!”

His name and the name of the instrument had become cliches in the Ukrainian community.

Skrypka cursed and glared, hearing their raucous laughter, and stormed up Ninth Street.

“Big dzurka,” he hissed to himself, shaking his head and cursing at them and the drunkards he just left at Lys Mykyta.

“In your head is a big dzurka, svolota bastards!”

He thought of his ex-wife Vira, the whore bitch, “Suka!”

Third Avenue at this late hour was night people-filled as much as the other streets of the rowdy neighborhood were. Everywhere you wandered one more person was after just one more drink, one more feel, one more grope, with hookers and johns almost everywhere you turned.

This was the Lower East Side and on Third Avenue, which was still an extension of the Bowery, anything could be gotten for a price.

Skrypka stood marveling at the sight before him, he hardly ever was out this late --it was after 1am-- and if he was on rare occasions he just didn’t see or was even aware of these things around him always hurrying home.

Funny how life steps in…

“Goin’ out, honey?” he heard from a corner doorway.

A young girl stood holding a purse and reaching for something while glancing at him.

Incredible how instantly she reminded him of Zulka, not the clothes she had on, a short skirt way above her knees and a tight white sleeveless blouse, but her beehive hairdo and the smirk about her lips.

It was Zulka all over again, no question about it!

He looked around. No, no one else was around.

Was she talking to me!

“Excuse me, miss, what?”

She frowned, glanced up and down the avenue, and brightened.

She had found what she was retrieving from her purse, placing the stick of gum in her mouth.

“Goin’out, sugar?” she winked at him again and lowered her voice. “Five or ten bucks, mistah, suck or fuck? It’s up to you.” She chewed her gum looking at him.

He approached.

“Gimme five,” she whispered, “In the hallway, in the back. Or if you wanna fuck, in the other hallway there’s a mattress on the ground, but that’s gonna cost a ten. What you wanna do?”

He stood looking at her, his head throbbing and tottering from the drink he had, well, a few drinks before that svolota started talking about holes, dzyurkas.

He rubbed his forehead and narrowed his eyes.

“I have a place around the corner on Fourth Avenue, we can go there, there’s a bed and everything you will need.”

The prostitute scowled.

“The hallway here or forget it, mistah! Take it or leave it?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking closely at her and frowning.

“Ty nasha You’re ours?” he asked. “Ty ukrainka You’re Ukrainian?”

The prostitute drew back, her mouth open in fright as she turned and hurried up Third Avenue.

“Kurva!” Skrypka spat out. “Het vid mene! Get away from me!”

He turned and crossed the avenue, a few more hookers calling to him from the other doorways on the other side of the avenue.

He bolted past and rounded the corner on Fourth Avenue, slamming open his front door.

Is it still Zulka’s perfume I smell? Could it have lingered for so long?

He ran up the stairs breathing out. The police were not at his apartment, as Nina said they would be. What foolish ideas the child has but where did that stupid idea come from, that they weren’t going to arrest him? Foolishness…

They should take Vira to the loony bin hospital, that’s for sure!

He shook his head.

Imagination is a hard thing to let go off especially when it’s so easy to summon and produce.

He cursed again and opened his front door, a light still burned when he had walked out with Nina, a few hours ago.

He undressed, turned out to light and tried to sleep.

To no avail, Zulka filled his mind, walking, smiling, and kissing her cheek…

God ,was he hard!

And the Ukrainian prostitute he had just seen reminded him of a teasing Zulka, if she was one of ours. She was simply too ugly and crude, certainly had way too much makeup on until she looked grotesque unlike the beautiful Zulka, soft, tender, erotic…

Oh God, there it was again, ejaculation!

He squirmed, twisting on the bed, the light sheet on his legs and body commingling in jolts and spasms. But the ejaculation was powerful and very satisfying. Of course it would have been better if he had done it to Zulka, pounded her body with his sperm, his cream, his rabid horny

self.

“Kurva!” he muttered again, rattling the bed but whether he meant Zulka or the Ukrainian prostitute it meant no difference. He fell back exhausted, squirming, twisting on the bed.

He smacked her lips, cursing and sinking in the blackness of the scum stained damp sheet about him...

Sleep came quickly after that.

Nineteen

Zulka and Her Mother

Zulka awoke into daylight and cursed.

Where does sleep come from? she wondered as she always was so tired and weary when she awoke. But she wasn’t tired when she fell asleep last night. Curious…

Out her window she could hear traffic on the street below but how much traffic could there be on on Avenue C on a Saturday morning? A car honked, a man was shouting, another man cursing back while a dog kept barking. Saturday on the Ukrainian/Spanish/Yiddish Lower East Side. It was almost 10am, and the day was quickly progressing.

Zulka stretched again and yawned. Sure was glad she didn’t have to go to any wedding rehearsals or practice like she did last year when Lyudmyla, her older girlfriend, had gotten married in the summer time.

The entire affair turned into a farce, a joke, at the rehearsals at Sviaty Yuri. There almost was no wedding because the groom-to-be was caught with the maid-of-honor in a side room with her top off. My my, hmm...

Lyudmyla had burst in and came upon them kissing. And it wasn’t a best-wishes kiss at that, they were going to lie down at any moment.

Well, Lyudmyla started screeching hysterically. The wedding was delayed by a few hours when a new maid-of-honor was selected and replaced.

But I don't have a pink gown, the new maid-of-honor kept complaining.

She was shrugged off to participate in her brown dress.

It's an emergency, the other maid's-of-honor stressed.

And what of the cheating groom? He just uncomfortably squirmed as he took his vows, but most probably still dreaming and planning to get together with the caught red-handed and shamed maid-of-honor. That is if he still could...

Oh, what a mess that was, Zulka grinned to herself.

She recalled her own make-out sessions with the groom-to-be. A few kisses and feeling each other up, what was wrong in that? Plus he wasn’t a bad kisser at that.

But the implications were ridiculous. Could that ever happen to her? Would someone step in and destroy her life?

Hell no!

She wouldn’t marry a cheater in the first place and none of her girlfriends would ever do that to her.

Or would they? Hmm…

She stretched again, getting up and going to the bathroom. She could hear the kitchen radio softly on: rain was forecast for later in the day, that evening. Her mother was at the sink shaking her head.

“Rain!” her mother loudly called. “Rain on your wedding day means sorrow throughout.”

Zulka yawned at her mother's shouting and closed the bathroom door.

Rain my ass, she thought, glancing in the mirror.

I’d love to get married when it's pouring, even with a snow blizzard out there and do my screwing right then! Hah!

She snorted and laughed. Peed, stared in the mirror and stepped out of the bathroom.

“I still think you should wear the green dress,” her mother said, “You look more mature in that.”

They had this argument for days; her mother always wanted her to look wiser and maturer, looking smarter than the rest. But Zulka always firmly resisted and took on a young girl’s stylish clothes on herself. Certain that being a young chic was very appealing and becoming.

“If you want to look older then you wear it, ma!”

Zulka shook her head.

“Not for me.”

She opened the refrigerator and stuck her head in.

“Where’s that apple pie that was here yesterday?”

“Gone,” her mother shrugged but blushed. “I had it last evening.”

Zulka slammed the refrigerator door.

“Damn, while watching Bonanza, I bet! Hope you enjoyed it,” she bitterly said.

“Was okay,” her mother shrugged her head. “But the peach pie we had the previous week was much better. Have to get more the next time we’re at the supermarket.”

“Yeah, you do that,” scowled Zulka, reaching for some jam to put on a slice of bread.

“Hope Petro is at the ceremony,” her mother musingly said as if to herself.

She turned to Zulka.

“You make a lovely couple. I have high hopes for you both.”

Zulka bit into the jam.

“Petya’s a drunk, always drinking till he passes out. He’s probably in the park with his bottle or sleeping it off, you know the kind. Typical Ukie bum.”

She again bit the bread, a glimmer of the jam spreading on her cheek, with another finger she wiped the jam off.

“He’s not a bum,” her mother scowled, shaking her head. “Petya has a window cleaning job and he’s in his twenties, just like you will be one day.”

Zulka scowled, looking at her.

“I’d could’ve been in my twenties just like he is but your stupid rules and regulations still has me at only fifteen, sixteen. When most everyone knows that I’m at least nineteen, twenty.”

She puffed out her chest as if to show her mother how grown up she was.

Her mother shrugged.

“You’ll thank me one day. At least it says so right on your birth certificate. It's official. So you have nothing to worry about there.”

“But it’s a fake, ma, you know that. And by now everyone must suspect it too.”

“What they don’t know don’t mean shit, I told you that before. Ty ne znayesh yaka bula bida You don’t know the kind of troubles we’ve been through.”

Zulka sighed and finished her piece of bread.

“I know ma, I’m whatever age you want me to be, or whatever age they assume I am.”

Her mother came to her and patted her head.

“Doroheska dearest, I’m did for you, you know that? The war was horrible to get through. Lucky you were born when you were. We just have to keep it to ourselves.”

Zulka looked up at her mother who patted her head again and stroked her hair, just like a little girl.

“Wear anything you like today, I know you will look beautiful in it, no matter what it is.”

“Thanks Ma, ya tebe lyublyu I love you,” and she pecked her cheek and went to her room to get ready.

Twenty

Hairy Tits

On Saturday I worked overtime at St. Marks Baths. Along with Bohdan and Petro, two cheerful but older employees who I helped out in the busy bathhouse.

Not until midnight was I let go –on weekends the Baths stayed open till the morning. By then I was all sweated and exhausted, yearning for my bed.

I hurried up Third Avenue towards home when I saw Lyuba, an older girl who I knew from school, standing on what the kids knew as Hooker's Boulevard.

Because back word that Lyuba was giving handjobs and blowjobs to older guys around the street, of course, for a few extra dollars. She grew up in the perfect profession, street-whore...

But it was Vasyl, another schoolboy who clued me in to what Lyuba was really offering, hairy sex.

“Huh, what do you mean hairy sex?”

He shrugged.

“She’s hairy, if you like that kind of stuff, sucking her tits is just like sucking a hairy dick, the hair is everywhere!”

And he grinned.

“You like that kind of stuff, don’t you, sucking hairy dick?”

I blushed but over the years there had been cruel words about me, my alleged sissy queerness which I dismissed and ignored.

“You’re nuts, so she has too much hair on her cunt,” I tried to laugh, “What’s the big deal in that? I’d fuck her hairy cunt.”

Of course I had never fucked anyone, but I tried to maintain whatever macho appearance I could.

Vasyl shook his head.

“No, not her cunt, she was hair even on her tits. It’s like a real forest in that bra.”

He sadly shook his head. “Born a freak, I suppose.” And he made a face and spat out. “I saw it once and no way did I want to see it again!”

I was very curious.

“You saw it, how?”

He shrugged.

“She was showing off her tits to some drunk big boys for a few bucks down on Eleven Street off of Third when I came by. She didn’t care, they even told her to show me more,” he shook his head. “And she did, offering me a lick, if I wanted. But her hairiness disgusted me; I got the hell out of there.”

Still, back school one day, and knowing this might be nothing but gossip I tried getting closer to Lyuba but it was difficult. She was in 8th grade, I was 6th. And she never seemed to walk home alone, always had some guy around her, either holding hands or kissing. Plus with some girls jabbering and giggling behind her.

Until finally I had my chance to get near to Lyuba at our weekly confessional in Sviaty Yuri’s. The school students after confession disappeared to say their penance in back of the church, or finally left for home or take a leak downstairs where the bathrooms were.

It was quite and very still down in the basement. You could only hear the generator humming.

I had gone there terrified but at the last moment I steeled myself, stepped into the ladies’ room with the drab basic gray stalls next to the sinks, nothing romantic or feminine about it at all.

I stepped into a cubicle, knowing Lyuba was going to be here momentarily, that is, after reciting her own confessional lies. Because how could she be telling the truth in confession? Probably to her priest that was leading her on and getting satisfied at the same moment he was sucking up on her lies?

But who knew what priests actually did with their students...?

I waited and soon heard footsteps approaching, click-clack, click-clack…

It’s Lyuba!

I eased my dick out, just waiting.

She came into the restroom, immediately going to the mirror over the sinks.

I opened the cubicle door and stepped out, my little dick a bit stiff and hard before me.

She looked surprised, but smirked.

“Is that all you got?” she asked, looking me up and down. “Anyway, confessions are upstairs, junior,” she shook her head.

At that moment with her perfume filling the bathroom, sweet and pungent at the same time, I heard a dribble of water dripping steadily from the sink.

“I want to suck your tits,” I said holding out a dollar bill, which was mighty big in the late 1950s.

She looked at the dollar, shrugged and took the bill, placing it in her purse.

She looked at me and smirked, “You want a hand-job, too, I suppose?” she asked. “Want it out here or back in the cubicle?”

I was terrified, my knees shaking, my mouth open.

“Just the tits,” I breathed out, “I wanna see 'em, please...”

“Hmm, just the tits, curious...?” she grinned.

She raised her blouse showing her white bra and reached into the brassier, pulling one bosom out and doing the same to the other. She let both of them hang out over the frilly, flimsy bra.

A mass of hairiness hung from them, springing from the nipples, and increasing as the hair sprouted out.

I gagged.

Long hairs sprang from the bulging meaty breasts rising around the nipples and easing near the top. At least the nipples were still clean and hairless, but around them, a forest of messiness.

I shut my eyes, opened my mouth and dipped my head.

Footsteps echoed in the hall outside.

I was terrified knowing for certain it was a nun but the door opened and another confessional girl, Varvara, burst in.

She saw me stopping, as a hairy breasted Lyuba stood smirking and looking down at me.

“It's nothing,” Lyuba said snidely, “He’s here for his weekly taste of Jesus,” she said, smirking at Varvara. “Part of his confessional ritual, ain’t it? Just like sucking a man’s pubes, right?”

But by then I felt very stupid and ashamed. All I could do was get to my feet and flee the restroom, the dollar bill hopelessly lost.

Lyuba and Varvara stood laughing as I bustled up the stairs and out of Sviaty Yuri’s bathroon.

But they both didn’t let me forget what had just happened, even told the other classmates, too. In a way, my rash boldness was good for me, it got the other rough boys off of me. Seems they now wanted I be their friend and tell then tales of what Lyuba did to me...

Well, at least, for a while they did.

Twenty-One

Instruction Time

Skrypka awoke and cursed. It was 10am and he had a student coming for lessons at 11, along with a mother who always accompanied her musically gifted son.

Oy, kholera, gifted my ass!

Skrypka thought otherwise about the boy’s musical abilities but tolerated the out-of-tune student. After all, it meant an extra ten dollars which he sorely needed and lacked.

He rose and went to the bathroom to run some water for his bath.

Good, the water hot this time of day!

He felt his somewhat hard dick rising again. But he shook his head.

No, I'm not going to do that, play with it. Not with Zulka around so near at hand who would love to do it for me!

He smirked.

After the wedding, which they would both be attending, him and Zulka both knew that wedding's were made for just that, hugging and kissing!

As much as the bride and groom loved each other, what would a wedding guest need but also another loving wedding guest partner. Not only to mimic the married couple in kissing the new bride with her new groom, but with every possible guest there to have a relationship with some other guest?

Isn’t that why there was always so much passion and lust at weddings, which was always so emotive of sex? For sure, there would be a lot more screwing tonight with different partners besides the bride and groom doing it to each other.

He kept smirking and knew which wedding guest partner he would have!

He shaved and got dressed.

At exactly 11am the student’s mother knocked on the door. He braced it open, holding his accordion at his chest as they entered his apartment.

“Dobryy ranok Good morning,” he greeted them, showing in the heavy set woman and her chubby son in.

The boy was around twelve, thirteen, but also fat just as his mother was, it seemed that he was her identical miniature little twin.

Skrypka always marveled at them.

Definite freaks of nature, he always thought, and as always both out of breath.

“You really should have an elevator,” panted Mrs. Tomashenkaya, setting down the boy’s accordion case. “You live so high up,” she stood leaning against a wall.

“Oh please, pani Tomashenkaya,” Skyrpka frowned. “Third floor apartments aren’t that high up.”

He shook his hand over his face, dismissing her thought.

“A mere piffle. I walk it four, five, six times a day and I’m never tired.”

But by then pani Tomashenkaya had collapsed onto a chair was withdrawing money from her purse.

The out of breath boy stood wheezing next to her. The woman shook her head.

“In my new apartment building,” she gushed, handing Skrypka his ten dollar payment. “We have elevators. It makes no difference that I’m on the seventh floor. I can just walk in, take the elevator up and be right home. That’s the cultured American way po-kulturnomu.”

Skrypka grimaced but took the money.

“Let’s get started,” he said, but the boy was still standing by his mother and hadn’t made a move of getting his accordion out.

Skrypka shook his head, looked at his watch and went to the other side of the room.

He glanced out to the street below. It was the usual dull routine with the boy, who simply had no taste or interest in accordion music. It was his mother who had pushed him to learn how to hold the instrument properly, right before his chest and not mimicking illiterate tongue-stuck-out Yiddish accordion players from the Ghetto, who held the instrument however they could.

She wouldn't have none of that. Rather than as the sophisticated cultured musicians from Kiev, her hometown, where Skrypka also was from, she was sure her class was evident. Though at times Skrypka, too, had become a mere organ-grinder, and he liked fiddling along with his Jewish friends.

Skrypka turned back and sighed. The boy had removed his instrument and held it at his chest, both hands awaiting Skryka's instruction.

“Let’s begin,” said Skrypka, and started playing. But the awkward melodic sounds emanating from the boy were a gross insult to Skrypka, who had steeled himself and tried to lead the boy’s musicianship.

Shaking his head for the next hour or so, really 45 minutes, Skrypka stayed frustrated and displeased but went over and over the easy melody he had selected for the boy.

Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman, or Ah, if I could tell you, Mother, commonly or better known as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

A meaningless air by Mozart, a simple piece the boy should have learned by now but as it was, three weeks later and the boy still hadn’t memorized a thing.

Skrypka had loved the piece once at a time, learning it back in his younger years but because of the boy's gruesome playing now couldn’t stand it.

Alas, finally the 45 music lesson had reached its end. Skrypka simply turned and began taking his accordion off.

“That’s all for today,” he sighed, but rather gratefully. “We’ll resume next week.”

The boy's mother seemed to have dozed off where she had been sitting, gently snoring and not hearing a thing.

Skrypka loudly cleared his throat.

“We’ll continue next Saturday!”

Pani Tomashenkaya darted her eyes open, looking bewildered and not knowing where she was.

“We’ll continue,” repeated Skrypka but knowing there was no hope for the boy or the heavy set mother. “See you next week,” as he tried to bustle them out of the apartment.

Pani Tomashenkaya was slow in getting up just as her son was very awkward in putting his accordion back in its case, inserting it the wrong way and forgetting the alignment on the instrument. Skrypka had to again show him the correct way, which he had done countless times before.

Still, Skrypka slammed the door after them breathing out a sigh of frustrating relief.

“Isus Khrystos,” he mumbled, but at least that was done with.

Now he could go to Veselka restaurant and have a nice American breakfast, even though it was near noontime, they

would serve him on a Saturday, he was sure of it.

Twenty-Two

Plast Youth Camp

By the next week Father Echo did try to suppress some of the rumors spreading about me and my employment at the St. Marks Baths.

“He’s a faggot,” the boys stressed among themselves, “Just like that queer Echo is.” They resorted to again spitting on me after school as I always got away from them.

“Remember Danylo, next year you’ll be in a different school,” Father Echo said after coming upon me on the street after the bad boys ran away. “You'll have with different new friends, new interests, and you'll have left the no-good rabble behind.”

He stood above me looking down, nodding his head. I think it was my growing and stiffening erection which comforted me, because Echo was absolutely right, I had just a few more months left.

But from where did I receive the rising sexual hunger I me, from Father Echo? I always associated the two together, Father Echo and my stiff erection. When I thought about it, there was nothing in his behavior that I would even suspect him of being a homosexual, just a very nice priest, that is, a decent human being.

Anyway, as the boring sameness of that winter turned into the pleasant relaxing spring time, winter coats had eventually been loosened and come undone. At the St. Marks Baths I even got me a pair of white painter’s pants at the thrift shop on First Avenue for 50 cents, a bit too wide but perfect for how I now appeared in a T-shirt and sneakers.

By the end of my first few months stay at the Bathhouse I just finished up my shift there one Friday evening, smiling and saying, “See ya,” for the night.

I traipsed down the stairs walking right into the rough bad boys of Sviaty Yuri just passing the Bathhouse doorway.

Their faces turned into wicked sinister smiles as they spotted me and circled round, blocking my path from getting away from them, either down the street or back upstairs to the bathhouse.

Two stood before me as two others edged their way to brace themselves on the stairs behind me.

I suppose it was my cowardliness which had created the position I was in, surrounded by my tormentors on each side of me.

“Can I get through?” I feebly asked, not looking up at them but taking a step this way and that.

The biggest boy, Stefko, put his leg up on the steps and was was rubbing his bulky crotch, a lump which he pulsed in his dungarees.

“What for Danny Boy, don’t you want to play with my pipes?”

Uproarious laughter broke from his three cohorts around me.

I again took a step but was blocked.

“Where you going Danny Boy? Don’t you want to treat us like you do with the gentlemen friends upstairs, something hard in your mouth?”

When pounding on the stairs from behind us came a loud thudding sound of boots.

I turned to look up and the two tough boys were also looking up.

A quizzical looking man gazed down at us.

It was Klotsyo, the butcher from Avenue C who had been in for his weekly sauna bath. When again I heard footsteps and a rustling to see Father Echo standing behind Stefko in the doorway.

“Nu, shcho tse ye? Well, what is this?” he angrily asked, his arms akimbo on his waist, his mouth grimaced and looking like he was ready for a fight.

Stefko squirmed, his mouth twisted, the inside of his jaw being bitten.

“We didn’t do nothing,” he tried getting away but Echo blocked his path.

“You know I warned you, didn’t I?” Echo glared at him.

Stefko was looking down, his mouth being gnawed on crazily.

“This is curtains for you boy, you know that? You’ve been warned about it and now Plast Youth Camp is going to get you, where you will be trained to be a man!”

Father Echo stood in the doorway, his strong bulky form seeming to tower out and over St. Marks Place.

“But you said to leave him alone in school, like we all did” whimpered Stefko. “Well, this ain’t no school, this is the street.”

“You heathen, you know very well what I meant. I told you to leave him alone and that goes for the rest of you, too. But since you didn’t do what I told you, you know what would happen?”

He paused, as if waiting for an answer but none came.

“For that reason, tomorrow you’re going to Plast, to which your parents have already agreed to ship you off at the first sign of wicked misbehaving. They know what kind of rabble you hang out with.”

He glared at the bad boys around us, turning to each one.

Klotsyo, still standing on the upper stairway, nodded his head.

“Plast is a wonderful environment. The camp will certainly train you to be a man. And in this world, you need to be a man.”

And he winked.

“Isn’t that right, Father?”

When in the doorway, an angry Stefko spat out.

“Fuck you, you faggots! I ain’t going to no Nazi Youth Camp. You’re all a bunch of perverted queers!”

And he bolted, pushing Father Echo out of the way and running out onto St. Marks Place towards Third Avenue.

Echo was stunned, shaking his head.

“Ah, duren asshole,” Echo muttered, as he kept swaying his head.

The other three boys also got out of the hallway and quickly disappeared down the street.

“The heathen, their days are numbered, there’s a prison cell for each of them. Mark my words...” He stood looking at me and repeated, “Mark my words, Danilo.”

I eyed butcher Klotsyo and nodded at Father Echo.

“Have to go, Father…Slava Isusa Xrusto”

“Yes, yes,” he also nodded, and winked.

“Home sweet home, eh…?”

I meekly smiled and walked out of St. Marks Bath, but certainly feeling better than I ever did before.

Twenty-Three

A Plate of Varenyky

At the Veselka Restaurant Skrypka considered an American breakfast --eggs, home fries, toast and coffee-- but when he saw one of the waitresses, Hanushya, carrying two armfuls of varenyky, he instantly changed his mind.

His mouth watered at the delicious thought of varenyky, those potato dumplings smothered in butter and sprinkled with slices of sautéed onions that hovered at a mouthfuls gulp and swallow.

Absolutely delicious!

He licked his lips again, nodding at a familiar looking man gesturing from across at the counter. Skrypka just waved back, not remembering who he was and glancing at the other eaters who glanced back and continued chattering away.

Most of the diners carried newspapers, the Novoe Russkoe Slovo (New Russian World) or Svoboda (Liberty), two émigré papers voraciously read by the large Lower East Side Slavic community, who pored over these and some other émigré papers.

He loved being in Veselka, the smell and sounds of food being consumed was everywhere throughout the restaurant, plates clattering, glasses clicking, forks and spoons rattling, it all simply was delicious!

Skrypka stood smiling recalling an Ukrainskyy joke poem from years ago: Zuby, zuby, daite mene shruubie Teeth, teeth, give me screws for teeth.

Ukrainian poetry, difficult to translate or to give the correct interpretation, that’s why the Poet, Shevchenko, amongst other Ukrainian writer/poets, is so little understood or translated, that is, successfully.

Skrypka smiled to himself and thought about joining the unknown man at the busy counter to find out he was when the overly stressed Hanushya came hurrying by again and gesturing.

“There’s a seat in the back, just was freed...”

And she was gone to the kitchen for more trays of Ukrainian food.

Skrypka turned and instantly headed to the crowded back room as an elderly woman was now just stepping out; one of his ex-wife’s friends, he knew. They politely nodded at each other, but the woman also was sternly looking at him. There was nothing in her gestures and he knew he couldn’t win his ex-wife’s favor with an old and bitter friend of hers, who looked down on him anyways.

Still other diners waved from the dining room, gesturing he come over but he just smiled and nodded, just passed them by, going to an empty table by a large window overlooking Ninth Street.

Veselka had another smaller window facing Second Avenue. But over the years its growth and expansion had forced the restaurant to take over other small bankrupt stores on Ninth Street, buying up space, tearing down walls and adding a much bigger and larger dining room. It now joined together the Ukrainian restaurant at the front with windows on Ninth Street on the side stretching down the block. Throngs of eaters thrived in at lunchtime.

Skrypka got to order his varenyky from Hanushya, who, with lunchtime finally passing by, no longer seemed so much overly stressed or overworked.

“At least the morning rush is coming to an end,” she gushed, wiping her forehead and ready to write his order down.

Skrypka grinned, drooling at her large bosom right before his eyes. He could make out her brassiere peeking out of her blouse just a mere inch from his hungry mouth.

He cleared his throat.

“A plate of varenyky,” he said, still staring at Hanushya’s big soft bosom, “and a nice glass of compote.”

He looked up from her breasts. Hanushya had reddened from his gazing eyes while writing his order down.

“Is that all?” she asked, looking at him.

“No,” tato winked, lecherously grinning, “I’d love to lick of those two melons you have there, that would certainly make my day.”

Hanushya grew even redder than she was but smiled.

“For you, varenyky and compote coming right up,” quickly turned and exited the dining room.

Tato grinned after her, it’s not that he was crude in his bawdy humor towards the female race but the usual sexual humor was the gist of our community. And it wasn’t so bawdy and daring but we had our own subtle feelings towards it. When we were with our own Ukrainians we joked and spoke openly but when strangers were amongst us, meaning non-Ukrainians, our speech and behavior was hushed and altered to where nothing was said which could be construed as being aimed at the outsiders. We certainly were polite to the outside world. Perhaps it’s like that in other foreign communities, I really don’t know, but in our enclave sexual humor and ribaldry was the norm, that is, And screw the rest!

Hanushya quickly returned with a plate of varenyky and a class of compote.

Once again he eyed the lovely bulky bosom but also greedily looked upon the food. He was starved for both yet knew he would take the food over the other.

Hanushya was a pretty Ukrainian girl who had arrived from Europe a year or so ago and had worked at Veselka ever since then. After the war many girls had come to American shores, the fact that they were young and seemingly unattached made them appear as prime meat ready for the taking.

Yet this was a New Country and the usual selection process, meaning natural bawdy behavior espoused by most Ukrainian men was looked down upon by the Americanized

Ukraintsi. So, of course, tato had learned to behave.

The restaurant had a few waitress/girls working various shifts since it was a 24 hour establishment with hungry Ukrainians and Russians stopping in for a taste of the Old World food and delicacy. And, of course, ogling the newest émigré waitresses, along with some American diners, also wide-eyed and drooling, looking over tits as well.

“Dyakuyu thank you,” he merely said to Hanushya and dove right into the tasty meal, shoveling the varenky in his mouth, now and then glancing out up at Ninth Street while sipping the delicious cool compote.

Skrypka ate heartedly, eyeing Hanushya whenever she came in from the front room with another plate of food for some newer diners but most of all concentrated on chewing the varenky and sipping his compote.

When he noticed an angry looking woman stalking up Ninth Street, her flowered dress certainly a remnant of the Old World fashion, with a beribboned hat atop her head and a thick strand of necklaces at her neck.

Outlandish, Skrypka thought, but typical of ethnic Ukrainians dress choice, would-be flowers all the time.

He shook his head and was about to turn back to his remains of his varenyky when after the irate woman hastily came a teenage girl looking so lovely and appetizing.

Unlike the woman with her old fashioned clothing the girl was dressed in an attractive fashionable powder-blue jacket and skirt, with white high heels on her feet.

Skrypka could almost hear her clicking from the street outside.

My God, it’s Zulka!

Skrypka leaped up and pounded on the window, even picking up a fork and striking the glass so he could be heard.

Zulka did hear the clatter and looked his way, adjusting her beehive hairdo on her head.

She instantly recognized Skrypka, a smile breaking out on her face, but she did look after the irate disappearing woman who had turned off Ninth Street onto Second Avenue.

Zulka shrugged at tato who gestured she come into Veselka, waving his arm at her.

Zulka nodded and turned, disappearing around the corner to Second Avenue.

Skrypka felt tense but very hopeful and happy, his sudden erection hardening and rising as he sipped his compote.

In a matter of moments he heard the loud click-clack of feminine footsteps bounding and approaching on the floor outside the separated dining room.

Click-clack came nearer to the back.

He perched nervously, still holding his glass of compote with the fruit remains at the bottom.

He turned as her high heels entered the back room.

Click-clack…

The surge of peace and satisfaction was overpowering as the erotic lust swept upon him. His penis was hard and he felt her hand clasping the top of his own as she sat down in a chair across the table. Her tight skirt rose up her thighs and he was certain he saw the edges of her nylon tops falling down on the other as she lifted one leg up, her white skin under the hose teasing and beckoning.

Oy Bozhe, can’t cum again, can I?

“Pane Skrypka, what are you doing here this early?”

Her sing-song melodic voice was soft and flirting, like a beautiful accordion piece summoning the joys of the summer season; it made him feel stiff and alive.

“Was that your mamtsya, I just saw with. Are you in trouble?” he asked.

“Oh, you know how mothers can be, first they have to learn how to dress.” she snorted. “I told her many times the war is way over. This is America, not no Ukraina!”

She grimaced but waved her arm, dismissing the thought from her mind.

“What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

“I told you I have a wedding to play at…”

“Oh yeah, yeah you did, and I told you I’d be there,” she said, winking and smiling, and rocking her leg, smiling at him.

“I also plan to do some dancing and...other things, you know...”

She winked and fluttered her eyelashes at him, then licked her red lips, reaching in her purse for something.

“Did you just have those delicious varenyky?” She again licked her lips. “I just love them!”

“We’ll get you a plate,” he said, “as soon as Hanushya gets back.”

“No, no, I’m not hungry. Anyway there will be more than enough to eat at the wedding reception. I’m sure there will be some varenyky, or else why would we be there, eh?”

He cleared his throat.

“That’s a very beautiful outfit you have on, what is that color, turquoise?”

She shrugged, looking at herself.

“It might be, but I think it’s called powder-blue. At least that’s what it said on the store label...you like it?”

She stared at him and winked, lowering her voice.

“But you should see what else I have on…”

And she blushed and reddened, looking back at the other diners then moving her chair so they wouldn’t see anything. She pulled out a small bottle of alcohol, quickly took a sip. Glanced at him and offered the little bottle, shrugged when he shook his head and refused, replaced it back in her purse.

“Guess what I have on?” she said again.

His mouth was open, his breathing very shallow. He shook his head.

“I have no idea,” he scowled. “But I know a young girl like you shouldn’t be carrying whiskey bottles around.”

“Aw, you’re no fun,” she sat back. “Anyway it’s not whiskey it’s gin, no big deal at all. In these quarter pint bottles they mix it with sugar, doesn’t taste like real alcoholic gin at all. It’s like soda, sweet pop.”

She sat back, looking about the room. A few people still kept eating and chattering.

“But it still has a little kick to it,” and she winked at him, her leg touch his under the table.

“I had gin last night,” he also clasped her hand as recalled the rum and Coke from last night. He reddened. “I meant rum and Coke.”

Her eyes brightened.

“So you see, we could’ve have had a drink together.”

He cleared his throat, licking his lips.

“Are you wearing those lovely nylons that you had on yesterday? Those were very nice.”

She blushed again but smiled back at him, nodding her head. “Nylons, black nylons, and something else, too… C’mon, guess...?”

He rubbed his forehead and his face.

“Please tell me, you know, as a man I really have no idea what a woman’s clothes are called, besides that of bra, panties, nylons, the rest are beyond my feeble manly mind. Anyway, you wear such beautiful and lovely things, that as a man, I can’t really say.”

A disappointed Zulka looked at him, her red lips frowning.

“As a man you seem to know little about women…” she pulled her hand away.

“Excuse me, what do you mean?”

“Oh, never mind… C’mon, guess what I have under my jacket?” they looked at each other. As if frustrated she weakened, “I’m wearing a bustier,” which came out in a whisper.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned to her.

“A what, say that again?”

“A bustier…”

“What’s a bustier?”

“You don’t know?” she looked around at the emptying tables, not many sat near them anymore. “A bustier is this…”

And she opened up the front of her powder-blue jacket showing off the bustier she had on. Tato was certain he was going to have a heart attack.

He gaped, his mouth drooping open and his eyes bulging wide. The bustier hugged and squeezed her waist and rose to the tops of her breasts, puffing her bosom and holding her body as a girdle would do. But it was more than just a girdle it was like a shimmering long high glove holding her flesh and breast privates in, but with the tops of the lovely breasts puffed upwards and barely exposed. He was certain he was making out the edges of her nipples and that he was going to drop.

“You like?” she asked.

Skrypka was flabbergasted, stunned speechless, but he breathed out, “Yes, I do, very much so.”

Zulka sat back, covering up the front of the bustier with her jacket.

“I knew you would,” she winked, taking tato’s compote and swallowing a sip; very little of the mixture remained but she did nibble on some remaining fruits at the bottom. “Ah, nice,” she smacked her lips, swallowing a fruit and rubbing smears of red lipstick on her mouth.

Skrypka glanced at his watch.

“Hey, it’s almost 2pm, the wedding reception isn’t set to begin till 5. How about we go to my place, I can show you more of my apartment,” and he winked, “I’m sure you haven’t seen everything there is to see in the daylight. How about it?”

“Aw damn, I’d love to but the wedding ceremony starts at 2:30pm,” she said, looking at her watch and standing up. “I really must be there. Mamtsya will be outraged if I don’t show up. Maybe after wedding we can get together,” and she fluttered her eyelids.

“One never knows what can happen then, can one?” She lecherously grinned at him. “You know what people do after weddings, don’t you?”

His mouth was still open, he rubbed his face, “No, what?”

She winked at him and whispered, “They fuck, what else?”

She fluttered her eyelashes, blew him a kiss and click-clacked out of the Veselka Restaurant.

He ejaculated, his eyes clenched shut, his mouth grimaced, until he opened his dreary eyes and sat open-mouthed, breathing chaotically almost certain he was about to have a heart attack.

Oy, Bozhe

Twenty-Four

Gone For Good

On Monday when I returned to school there was sudden silence as I approached my desk. As usual, the other kids were chattering but glaring at me. Silence fell on them as I took my seat. Sister Theodosia came in right after me and waved the class into order, not looking at me.

“Open your geography books, page 181,” she said, “where we left off last Friday. Oh, by the way, Stefko Turkenko, a friend of some of you, I’m sure,” and her eyes darted to various mean boys about the room. “Has gone to a hurried visit to Plast Youth Camp in Pennsylvania and will no longer be here with us.” She breathed out. “Now who wants to tell me why the free country of Vietnam needs to remain free and Democratic and not turn into Godless Communism?”

I heard kids groan as they turned to the selected page.

“Volodymyr, you in the back… Why are we in Vietnam?”

But by then I was no longer paying attention to what she was saying about Godless Communism. Stefko was out of my life forever. I was sure of it, though there were still a few weeks of school remaining.

I suddenly felt a great weight lifting and easing off my shoulders. How can snide taunting and threatening rule a life, as it certainly was ruining mine? But no more, my enemy had been removed, thanks to Father Echo. Come Saturday, his stop-over days at St. Marks, I would definitely see him at the Baths and I would gratefully thank him.

Oh God, yes I would!

So I sat there, pretending to take in what Sister was saying about Communism but glad to be sitting down so my erection wasn’t showing.

Twenty-Five

The Wedding

Skrypka sat aware of his scum slathered wetness but luckily he had worn his black pants and knew it wouldn't show that much. Plus anyway, he no longer cared. He was certain that Zulka was making herself available.

And tonight, too!

He sucked up the final remnants of a plum and a strawberry --Zulka had swallowed the last blackberry he was after-- wiped his mouth and left the dining room.

The outer space of Veselka was more packed than the rear was and he smiled at a few eaters, exchanged a few pleasantries, paid his bill --it was nice to have a few extra dollars in his pocket-- and walked out onto a sunny Second Avenue.

Zulka had gone to Sviaty Yuri’s for a wedding, it still was early afternoon but he might as well go there, too.

As usual the avenue was teeming with Saturday afternoon strollers, pedestrians all going to who knows where? Skrypka pleasantly smiled to himself thinking about Zulka.

She was a young ideal woman, feminine, playful and definitely erotic. He frowned but how old was she anyway, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen? Any woman who could make him ejaculate so many times was certainly his kind of woman. One he had to have in any way possible!

But this was America and not backwards Ukraina.

What was he going to do with her, an under-aged kid, elope and flee to Communist Kyiv to keep the adults away? What and live happily ever after in a Godless country? They both would be on their way to Siberia as soon as they entered the country, that’s for sure… That or something a lot worse.

Oy kholera, tkhu!

He spat and heard someone laughing nearby. He turned.

It was Zenon, sometimes called Zeno, whom he had seen last night at Lys Mykyta Bar but Zenon was dressed in a suit and loose tie and grinning on St. Marks Place, a block from Sviaty Yuri’s. The clothes on him looked a bit too tight and worn too many times, looking like they had been stretched and been fattened some more since Skrypka saw him last night.

But Skrypka didn’t say anything just ignored him and kept walking on Second Avenue, turning onto Seventh Street,

while a chuckling and ribbing Zenon trailed after him.

“You walk much too fast,” Zenon gushed, hurrying after him. “Wait up!”

“You go your way,” paused Skrypka, pointing down Second Avenue. “I’ll go my way,” and he continued on Seventh Street.

“Good,” Zenon said, “we’ll go to Sviaty Yuri’s together. Yurko’s getting married there, funny that he’s doing it in a church named after him, no?” And he chuckled, continuing and trying to keep up with Skrypka.

Yurko, Yuri, Sviaty Yuri, Skrypka grimaced, shaking his head.

The man’s a buffoon, they're all buffoons!

But of course, Zulka would know the couple getting married. They were obviously friends with Zulka.

Skrypka slowed down.

Hey, why not, what are friends for...?

And suddenly he felt cheerful as he walked merrily along with Zenon. Somehow the obnoxious Zenon had revived his mood and he was beginning to feel younger than he did before. The two men came nearer to Sviaty Yuri’s.

“Where’s your skrypka, Skrypka?” jested Zenon, pulling him by the arm.

Same joke from last night, Skrypka shook his head.

“Accordion!” He stressed again, “I play accordion!”

“I know, just fooling.”

“Well, my accordion is good and safe at the Home,”smiled Skrypka. “I left it there for safekeeping,” and he winked at Zenon who was looking up the high staircase of Sviaty Yuri.

Two thick and heavy columns stood before the church with a large stairway and people slowly making their way up the steps. An onion dome with a Byzantine crucifix stood at the top with four smaller domes also with crosses around it at each end. It was just like old churches were in Ukraina before the despots erased the nation.

Skrypka began to climb the steep steps but Zenon held back not going any further.

“Have it your way,” said Skrypka but at the top of the stairs he looked back down to see Zenon crossing the street.

Figures, he thought, that he would be going into McSorley’s Bar for a drink of ale...

He glanced at the historic bar, which stood directly across the street. It was from the 1850s, even much longer than the church was there.

Skrypka concentrated back to the church.

Who the hell makes church steps so high up? he thought to himself, after all, that’s why I hardly ever attended any services…

But Skrypka did try to attend now, climbing the huge steps, smiling, nodding and greeting whomever he recognized.

“Dobryy den,” he’d say to whoever looked familiar with the possibility of getting another gig, as the jazz musicians called a musical job in the area. He did wonder about playing jazz, but there were few accordionists who played jazz, or where there?

I have no idea...

He entered the cavernous church and the first thing that was different from the time he was last in Sviaty Yuri was that the huge chandelier, suspended from the ceiling almost at the center of the church glowed brightly. The stark brightness seemed almost like a shock, an alarm, and one had to blink a few times just to get used to its bright presence.

At the front of the sanctuary a massively huge mural painting engulfed the wall. It showed two figures sitting in chairs and looking out over the assembly, God the Father, God the Son and hovering in the air between them, God the Holy Ghost, which was just a little white dove.

Skrypka slightly grimaced and shook is head.

As if I could ever understand what that was supposed to mean. What Holy Ghost, what the devil were they talking about? Another mystery…

Before the mural was an altar with a lovely small onion-domed tabernacle, making it look like a mimic of real church around it. And throughout the church was a balcony holding more people to pray and worship.

When Skrypka had been last in the church, the balcony and church was packed with congregants greeting their new pastor, Father Patrick, who had come from a world away, namely Ukrainian Boston, roughly 200 miles, which was a gargantuan distance in the 1950-60s.

It was summertime back then and with the amount of people packing the church it soon became unbearable to the point where a few overdressed women in flowered dresses passed out or fainted from the clustered heat. That was when Father Patrick called for a hurried ending to the overheated service, shortening the mass and forestalling any rumors or gossiping which would certainly ensue once the women were sprawled, their skirts accidentally uplifted on the floor beneath where they had dropped.

Skrypka shook his head at the memory, his eyes suddenly coming to when he thought he saw Zulka, like a shining gem of salvation, his reason for being in the Godly temple in the first place... But of course, it wasn't her.

For all throughout Skrypka had only one reason for being in Sviaty Yuri’s, to glimpse Zulka.

He desperately had to see her one more time, her moving, walking, and twirling her sexy body around. He was certain his penis would automatically rise up again, if it hadn’t done so already. But as he suddenly imagined he glimpsed her, her pretty powder-blue skirt and top, with a flimsy girdle bustier beneath, again he realized it wasn’t her, just another teen girl in a similar looking outfit.

What did she call that costume she had on underneath? Oh yes, a bustier…

Skrypka was hard and stiff (and in church, too!) but frantically he couldn’t see her anywhere.

He made his way to the balcony.

Was my information correct, she was coming to Sviaty Yuri’s, wasn’t she? Or was she at another wedding at a nearby church?

Skrypka wanted to run.

Yes, a different church nearby! Oy, duren! Oh, you moron! Maybe Immaculate Conception on Eleventh Street, another Ukrainian Byzantine church, yes, that was it!

Skrypka pushed his way through the crowd shoving an elderly woman who almost tottered on her legs when Skrypka caught her just in time, profusely apologizing when out of the corner of his eye he caught a powder-blue image moving across the church.

My God, it’s Zulka!

A few hairlets hung from her messed-up beehive hairdo and the red lipstick on her face appeared to be smeared and faded. He glared.

Had she been kissing someone else?

Skrypka felt his anger and rage erupting. But as the powder-blue jacket hung askew on her, almost tilted at her bare shoulder which threatened to expose the bustier she had on beneath, she smiled as if to herself and straightened up.

Skrypka was certain she was thinking of him.

She was entering her row of seats when she shifted again and adjusted her jacket so it hung more evenly about her neck. She crossed herself, bowed, entering the row of seats, and wiggled her way to get to the seat that her still angry mother had saved for her.

Skrypka was down-faced, very sad, and positive that someone had mauled her body. But he brightened.

Why, of course, she had wriggled out of their paws and clutches, barely making it to the church on time.

Whew, what a relief!

But almost instantly he scowled again.

Like look at that boy who just came in, a certain late arriving usher, a member of the wedding party and coming in tardy and apologizing to the other smirking ushers. Simply outrageous! What was he doing with Zulka?

Skrypka grimaced no longer seeing only Zulka…

The slut whore, he thought to himself and turned red, recalling the Ukrainian prostitute from the night before…

But the ceremony had begun, and soon the vows were exchanged, rice was flung, and the marriage rigmarole was seemingly winding down.

He shook his head.

Oh no, what am I still doing here? I should be at the Home and getting ready to play accordion for the guests!

He forced his way past the people who had gathered on the church steps and were about to greet the newlyweds to a productive life with sprinkles of rice flung in their faces and eyes.

But he hurried to Second Avenue, looking behind him once to see Zulka flinging some rice at the newlyweds.

He stopped, glancing back at her, sighed then hurried on to the Ukrainian National Home, his penis still very hard.

Twenty-Six

Vira and Ninochka

Vira awoke angry, she had gone to bed pissed and got up just as pissed as the night before.

No, more so. The fool is always after the young girls. A ladies man, hah! Ladies man, my ass! He’s a child abuser! How old was the kurva anyway, fifteen, sixteen? He might be a Ukrainsky accordionist but he should play his music in jail!So what that this is America, the police are ridiculously stupid tending to look the other way. They should all be in prison! Oy, kholera, tkhu!

Even though Vira and Skrypka divorced a few years ago both their mannerisms and way of speaking tended to resemble the other, with Vira angrily exclaiming, “Kholera, tkhu!”

As Skrypka eased into muttering, “Tobi khuy For you a dick!”

Married people tend to pick these expressions up from their partners in more ways than just one. And it’s basically hard to get rid of them, it becomes their way of speaking.

Vira made herself a cup of Sanka decaffeinated coffee, waiting for the water to boil. One cup was more than enough for her since she was always under so much stress and tension anyway.

She sat down at the table as the coffee water heated up in a kettle. She worriedly rubbed her worried forehead. A frantic hiss escaped from the swooshing hot steam vent. She turned the gas off, picked up the hot water kettle and poured it onto the Sanka.

Ah, the smell of coffee always makes me feel more alive. It’s like you stand above and over your problems, still the problems will always be there.

Sadly, she took another sip.

Should she go to the wedding or not, as her friends were doing?

In the past week she often been told to come.

Who cares that Skrypka might be leading the band? Ignore him, come and have a great time! They all said.

Still, why was she getting so riled over who her ex-husband was trying to molest? The girl was nothing but a teenage snot-nosed little kid tramp with big knockers on her.

Skrypka is my ex-. Let him get what he wants, what’s it to me? I’ll get what I want!

But she grimaced at the memory of another wedding where Skrypka entertained at a few years ago where she had been invited to also.

Mr. and Mrs. Skrypka were still married back in those days. This was at the Dom, the old Polish Home on St. Marks Place, and Skrypka had disappeared for a lengthy amount of time.

No one knew what had happened to him when he staggered down the stairs looking all spent and tired, really exhausted. But coming down the stairs right behind him was an equally tired-looking young girl who seemed very embarrassed as she quickly disappeared from the reception area right after that.

Vira knew exactly what they had been up to, he had lied and been caught red-handed just as he had been so many times before, seen by her or others.

Vira downed her cup and slammed it to the table.

“Ach, kholerskyy khuy!” she cursed again, getting up from the table and rinsing the coffee cup again. “The hell with him, he’ll get what he deserves! Mark my words.”

She spat again and saw her daughter, Nina, passing in the doorway.

“Ninochka, what are you doing up so early?” she exclaimed, wiping her hands.

“Nothing, gotta pee,” mumbled the girl, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She disappeared in the bathroom.

Vira bit her lip. Ever since Nina was little there have been problems with her, she just wasn’t developing as fast as the other girls had at that age. Plus there wasn’t any real interest in things that would entice and arouse a young girl. She seemed to be content to just sit and stare, actually doing nothing with herself just looking.

Vira had taken her a doctor who examined her, shrugged and said, “People develop differently,” and left it that that.

Developed? Vira pondered, Develop into what?

If only there had been any real development but she just sat like she always did at the age of three years old or six years or at ten, with no change.

Whatever did she see in looking out at the world? Vira always wondered.

The bathroom flushed as Nina came out.

A bristle of anger came over Vira as she recalled the do-nothing police again from last night but she wasn’t going to let that come between the mother and daughter relationship.

Nina came out as sleepy-eyed and confused yet her panties were all streaked with blood.

“Oh, Ninochka, again?” said Vira. “Why didn’t you wear the Kotex napkin like I told you to?”

“It’s too big, and it feels funny hanging there, like a boy’s pee-pee,” and she blushed turning away.

Well, at least she knows that boys have pee-pee’s yet where did she learn that from? In school or from some girl’s gossip? I tell you, who knows where young people get their ideas from anymore? Sviaty Yuri’s would never be teaching that…

Vira looked at Nina. Ever since her daughter had started her monthly periods early but Nina wasn’t very surprised by its appearance just letting it flow, looking upon the blood as if it was a normal occurrence that was happening every day. As usual there was no amazement there, seeing it as an itch, an irritant that would quickly pass yet it didn’t pass but kept coming back thicker and bloodier month after month after month…

Vira led her to her bedroom where she again spoke about the female body and all the changes it goes through, actually is cursed with. The bleeding, the weight gains, the bloating, on and on not but actually suffering that a woman has to endure as if she was the victim while the man in life undergoes nothing. Zilch! Innocent as a little bird.

Choloviky, hah! Men, hah!

Vira shook her head and sadly started to prepare breakfast for her as Nina dressed.

They ate, as she smiled at the newly dressed female sitting before her, her beautiful daughter…

“Oh Ninochka, I love you so very much,” said Vira.

But still there was nothing but a bored look upon the girl's face.

“We’ll take a nice slow walk up Second Avenue, going to see Dr. Omelchenko,” for the girl’s weekly consultations.

“We’ll look into store windows along Second Avenue. You’ll like that, wouldn’t you?”

A bored looking Nina stared back at her but she stirred when Omelchenko’s name was mentioned.

The girl liked him, that was clear. He made her feel womanly whenever she talked about the boys at school. She certainly was growing up already, Vira knew, there was no doubt about that, her breasts were much bigger than when Vira was her age of ten.

Amazing, but she was ten!

And the yellowish dress accented her feminine appeal that it was certain that heads would turn, with snide Ukrainian comments which would follow.

Vira frowned but meekly smiled.

“Let’s go dytyno baby,” and they descended the stairs.

Twenty-Seven

A Ukrainian Memory

Zulka’s mother, Iryna was pissed. She was certain she had seen that kurva whore Vira prancing along Second Avenue and though it may not have been her, the old memories sprang

out as if it was yesterday, leaping full-force to haunt and torment her once again.

Back in Ukraina before the war, there were two little sweet girls, Vira and Iryna, in Stanyslaviv, which later came to be known as Ivano-Frankivsk oblast province under the Soviets, at the foot of the hory Karpaty Carpathian Mountains.

Each little girl was as pretty as the other was, but even back then Vira was smutty acting, loose and frivolous, a notorious virgin who pretended she was an experienced slut who was familiar with the boys and, of course, a man thrown in on the side.

But Vira knew hevno shit about boys or men. Iryna found that out one day when they met two boys, almost men, who went with them into the paths of bushes at the end of the village. Vira leading the horny boys on to the point of having them pull out their pricks but suddenly resisting, leaving the scared little virgin, Iryna, to face the two boys alone. Sadly, Iryna did just that, having two bitter and angry penises’ maul and rape her, one after the other and then doing it all over again.

Her father found Iryna the next day after looking all over and took her home where she recuperated in silence, giving birth to Zulka but never letting Iryna near her again. They lived a few short and angry food famine years until war broke out, shattering our selo village forever.

Where once the two once very close friends, they now were bitter enemies, only seeing into each other on the crowded streets of New York. The hateful image of Vira, still lurked everywhere, kurva!

Twenty-Eight

Ukrainian Shrink

Vira was taking Nina for her weekly sessions with Dr. Omelchenko, who every Saturday saw Nina at his office overlooking the Second Avenue Park on Fifteenth Street. The massive picture windows overlooking the park always made it appear so serene and lovely being there.

Vira enjoyed accompanying Nina for her visits to the doctor's office for her 2pm meetings. They felt special in just coming here.

Omelchenko was a Ukrainian psychiatrist Nina had been seeing for her problems --that is, wanting boys all the time; she was only ten. But Vira had been advised Omelchenko would help or at least assist the girl in her hungry constant longings for boys.

Because just as her father, Skrypka who was after the young girls, silent Nina was lured by and attracted to boys.

And at her young age the longings could shatter her well-being. A baby is nice to hold but not when it destroys your life. Vira knew if not for the war her life would have been shattered and destroyed, as it was she now had something to spend her life for, her young little daughter, Nina.

Dr. Lech Omelchenko was himself young, probably in his forties, an American Polish/Ukrainian but much respected in the field, with a mass of diplomas and certificates from various universities gracing his office walls.

And he came recommended by the Rectory’s Office of Sviaty Yuri’s, so everything must be legitimate and on the up and up.

Anyway, Omelchenko took only forty five minutes and Nina seemed to like being there, whatever they may have discussed, namely boys and sex.

Fancy shrink, huffed Vira to herself.

And of course, sex was an embarrassment in 1961 to proper people such as Vira. She did not discuss her private life and sex was more than private it was strictly taboo. Hushed and safely kept behind closed doors, such as the secluded Dr. Omelchenko’s psychiatry office.

One rainy drizzly afternoon before she started taking Nina for her visits Vira had stood across the street from his office to watch who was going in and exiting out. She noted the many people, men and women, always individually entering the building. The few tenants of the building couldn’t have that many visitors and she saw that every hour or so they came back out. She knew they were his clients, as Omelchenko was to call them.

Clients my foot, more like sleazy sexual perverts!

But Vira knew she had better keep her judgments of his clients to herself and let him do his job of treating her daughter.

Vira sat gazing out the window at the 2nd Avenue Park, by which it was known --not a park really just a tree-lined small path which stretched a few scant yards going uptown a few narrow blocks from Fifteenth to Seventeenth Streets, two or three buildings in width and no playground for kids to play in just a walkway and a water fountain, with an exact replica of the small park across on Second Avenue. Two exact parks with some peace in a seemingly busy crowded city.

Sex, how could she allow her daughter to be left alone with a man, even is he was Ukrainian, discussing sex in a fancy office?

Vira shook her head and sighed.

Well, he did come recommended by the Pastor of Sviaty Yuri, Father Josephat, so he must be very good. Plus Nina was always leaving his office with a smile on her face, which Vira did try and accept after being advised and warned by Father Josephat and Omelchenko to let the treatment take it’s course because there was no other way.

“Nina is like a little kitten,” Omelchenko had stressed one afternoon. “We must learn how to listen and answer her kittenish meows, but we must do it delicately, no? You can’t be a roaring tiger with a kitten just playfully going meow meow.”

And he stared at her with his wide open eyes that Vira immediately felt uncomfortable.

“Now can we, hmm...?”

If it was someone else Vira would certainly flee never to return but he was recommended by Sviaty Yuri’s, so what could be the harm in that?

Yet most of the time Vira didn’t know how to exactly how answer Omelchecko’s seemingly polite questions about her daughter. She always looked at him rather strangely yet knew he must be right.

She stood up; her daughter’s hour with Dr. Omelchenko was at its end. And Nina seemed to be more relaxed and at peace with herself but still as uncommunicative as ever.

What were they talking about? Vira wondered but said little though she did mention a wedding that afternoon at the Ukrainian National Home, the bride had a similar last name were they perhaps related?

“Perhaps,” shrugged Omelchenko, “but I’ve never been in the Ukraine. I know there are cousins and nephews with the same last name, but it would be as likely as Smith or Jones here in America. Omelchenko is a common name in the Ukraine, I suppose, it’s the chenko that starts the rumors budding and growing. Who knows how we’re related or if we are?”

Again Vira looked rather strangely at the doctor.

“But she’s marrying a Strelsky, I just thought...” but the doctor just shrugged again, then turned to welcome another client, a woman who looked like a loose tramp from Third Avenue. Vira frowned.

Nina just shrugged with her head lowered and they both left the office, walking by the park.

“You discuss anything of interest?” Vira asked, her face having reddened from looking at the tightening of her daughter’s face.

“Just my wearing a Kotex napkin,” Nina shrugged, “I told him it’s too big.”

Vira was in shock.

“My God, you discussed that with him? How could you? He’s a well known psychiatrist; you can’t discuss those things with him, especially a man.”

She huffed.

“We’ll see about you going back, I’ll have another talk about this with Father Josephat. I’ve had my suspicions about Omelchenko a long time,” and took Nina by the hand, turning the corner onto Second Avenue.

Nina didn't say anything; they'd been through the same conversation many times before.

They passed the park and reached the avenue, which was busier than Fifteenth Street, with traffic and people moving along on a Saturday afternoon but when Vira pulled Nina’s hand on Fourteenth Street the girl seemed to resist.

“Oh, just leave me alone, can’t you?” Nina squelched.

Again, Vira was in shock.

“I’m your mother, my God, what did Omelchenko do to you? Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe!”

Nina gritted her teeth.

“Why do you always say that? Omy’s a very nice man and I don’t care what you have to say. I told him you went to the police station last night to complain about tato and he agreed that was a ridiculous and very foolish on your part,” she smirked at her mother. “Called you ridiculous, mamtsya, foolish and ridiculous.” The smile continued on her face, “Ridiculous…”

Vira started cursing in Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, with a few Yiddish words thrown in as they moved down the avenue,

Nina walking ahead of her, with Vira following a step or two. They were right across the avenue from the Ukrainian National Home.

But at that moment Nina spied her father Skrypka exiting Veselka, right next door to the Ukrainian National Home; Nina remembered Sviaty Yuri’s.

“That’s right, I just remembered,” Nina said, nodding her head. “I want to see the wedding that’s in Sviaty Yuri’s, if there’s still time. Lots of people are going. Anyway, there’s my friends…” She pointed at a group of loud laughing girls, Nina’s age, crossing Second Avenue. “See ‘ya, mom,” and rushed over to join the giggling group.

Vira stood outraged at her daughter’s accusing words but also realized that the speed and difference of how Nina’s emotions quickly changed from one of accusing self-defense to utter indifference.

The emotions of a young girl, now who can understand them…

She angrily sighed, looking at her daughter meeting her giggling friends and pounced home down Second Avenue, still thinking about Skrypka.

“Skurvyy syn! Whore’s son!” she mumbled to herself.

Twenty-Nine

Petya in Church

Zulka left Skrypka at Veselka and traipsed down Second Avenue. She liked the silly old man for thinking he was such a ladies’ man and she didn’t mind his thinking she was his paramour in a way, it made her feel nice. Well, erotically...

A few girls in Sviaty Yuri were like that.

Katrina had old Stakh the fruit/vegetable seller, Marusya had Bobko the middle-aged electrician, and Soshia had…oh, who the hell knew who Soshia had, she went out with different geezers every week!

That’s what was so great about being in Sviaty Yuri, they took anyone in, if you were Ukrainka!

Zulka smirked to herself and saw Petya laughing with some men on the church steps. She scowled.

The fool was drunk in the park last night and probably was still as drunk this afternoon. What he needed was to do was confess his drunken sins, especially for calling her a stinking whore.

Hah, I’m not a park whore, I’ll show him!

But then she saw a woman in a flowery ensemble, much as her mother was wearing, going to the rooms below the church stairs.

She saw Petya looked after the woman, laughed with the men on the church steps, then turned.

“See you all at the reception,” he gestured. And headed to the church basement where the woman had gone.

A flowery dress, hmm…I wonder who would wear such an outlandish thing except for my mother. But she wouldn’t do it with Petya, or would she?

She quickly turned to the door leading down to where Petya had vanished.

A dimly lighted spooky mood pervaded the lower level, with the sound of a generator humming somewhere nearby, definitely seemed haunted.

More doorways in a long hall going to a still wider doorway to another closed room. Zulka shivered from the discomfort she was suddenly feeling.

She gritted her teeth, hearing high heels echoing from the street above her head and turned left, flinging open the Ladies’ door wide open.

The woman in a flowered dress stood before the sinks looking into a mirror and holding up a tube of lipstick before her. It was old pani Hrychka, a church constant who was simply too old or too ugly for anyone to go after her yet she still attended every function which was held in church.

Zulka snorted but was relieved Petya was nowhere near her. He was probably down the hall in the Men’s Room.

She reddened as heard a flush and gagging through the walls next door.

Definitely Petya...

Zulka embarrassedly stepped back from the doorway as a confused pani Hrychka looked after her.

Zulka let the door close.

She smirked to herself, inching down a few steps before the Men’s Room, and stood in the doorway.

Almost instantly it opened and Petya pounced into her; his face was flushed and he didn’t look any good.

“Oh, my God!” a surprised Zulka exclaimed. “What are doing here, you scared me.”

She made a pretense of at first being frightened and out of breath but she gripped Petya’s arm and held onto it, the smell of booze coming from him.

“Whew, sure am glad it’s you,” she continued, giving him a soft squeeze on his arm.

She fluttered her eyelashes as she stood looking at him but his glassy eyes stared back at her from somewhere far away, trying to focus and read correctly what was before them. He was still hopelessly drunk. She sadly let go of his arm.

The women’s restroom door opened and again came out pani Hrychka who merely gaped at them, muttered, “Ah hah!” Shook her head and went back upstairs.

A tottering Petya stood leaning up against a wall, as if totally unconcerned where he was or what was happening; at any moment it seemed, he would drop down to the floor.

Zulka gripped his arm, supporting him as best she could and shook it.

“We should be up in church,” said Zulka, “it’s about to start, let’s go.”

She pulled Petya to the stairs, him muttering, “Yes, yes, gotta go…”

They made it into the sunlight and began walking up the high steps of the church, as a Cadillac limousine pulled up in front, taking away the fat bride Sophia in a white gown that she looked out of place in, and her timid groom.

Zulka snorted.

Loser, I know I won’t look that ugly as if I don’t belong here on my wedding day, that’s for sure, hah!

But Petya wiggled his hand out of her hold, belched again and ran back down to the Men’s Room. She could hear him already vomiting before he even made to the bathroom.

Another loser, Zulka sadly thought but shook her head, adjusted her jacket with the bustier underneath and angrily went to Sviaty Yuri's Church.

“The hell with him!”

Thirty

Skrypka's Musical Band

Skrypka was relieved it was only after 3:30 and the party in the Home wouldn’t begin till after 5. He’d go over his music sheets finding tunes to play, though most he knew by heart, having played them dozens of times over and over again.

Music is my life, he thought, nothing wrong with that. Zulka must love music, too, he grinned.

Good thing he had come early, Pani Stetch was in her office.

“Ah, pane Skrypka,” she greeted him, “getting ready to tonight's festivities, eh?”

Pani Stech was the Ukrainian Home's administrator, handled their finances.

Skrypka shrugged and smiled.

“All I can do is play my accordion,” he said.

“And you play it very well,” she stressed, handing him an envelope. “It's for tonight and last week, too. With of course the payment for tonight's band, it's in a special envelope on the side.”

Skrypka was stunned, he had forgotten last week. That would be a total of fifty dollars, twenty-five for tonight and twenty-five for last week. Now he could do anything and go anywhere!

“Why, thank you Mrs. Stetch, thank you very much!”

He left her office a renewed man.

Money in his pocket, oh boy!

He went and stared out into the empty auditorium but a decorated hall, ready and eager to have the festivities begin. The rest of the band he had arranged for would come in at 4:00 and hold their first organized rehearsal.

First staggering through the door was Evhen, who already looked tipsy, must have had a few drinks on the way here.

Skrypka shook his head, but didn't say anything, he had worked with Evhen before. Tonight he would be playing drums, a cheap set that looked like it was about to be trashed but the Home had saved, since it served its original purpose of keeping the beat.

Vasyl, another local boy who looked incredibly sober for a change, would be playing the trumpet. Along with Tymofiy, another go-nowhere boy but who could play any instrument that was needed but today was serving as clarinetist. Skrypka rounded them out as accordionist.

A perfect quartet, Skrypka thought. Having played with them before he knew that each man had the musical ability with what was needed for the night, popular hits, dance tunes, or even the Hopak, always a favorite of the Ukrainian dancing crowd.

And the ten dollars a night per man they’d be receiving from the Home at end of the night was a good payment for each of them, plus any tips they got from the crowd.

Skrypka thought it wasn't bad at that and would nurture them become the perfect Ukrainian band for a perfect Ukrainian wedding, what could be better?

Still, Skrypka was leery and tense, the majority of his band was already highly tipsy and he knew how these things can go quickly awry.

But the rehearsal went ideally, though Evhen, the Ukrainian/Polish drummer, a few times lost his beat speeding into a frantic cacophony but a stern looking Skrypka slowed him down. Evhen, who would later become known as a speed-freak, but the term was still unknown in late 1961.

Skrypka was happy, smiling at his band, envisioning his name on some future drum set, The Four Hopaks, the band would be called. While someone would facetiously laugh.

Shouldn’t it be The Four Skrypka’s, no?

Still the public would be aware of his fame by then, as he nodded looking at his band playing.

Hey, a Ukrainian can dream, can’t he?

It was Evhen who interrupted his reveries.

“Hey boss, when do we get something to drink?”

And Timofiy right beside him, added.

“That’s right, I’m thirsty. We’re all thirsty.”

All three of them, nodding their heads and looking hopefully.

Skrypka scowled but the look in all their eyes was a rabid look of lust, not exactly for relieve of their thirst but for anything they could tear into and swallow down their gullets. It wasn’t a mere drink they were after but a barrel, a tub, an ocean of alcohol.

“When they open the bar,” a scowling Skrypka shook his head, “I’m sure there will enough drinks to go around.

Evhen and Tymofiy were pissed, Vasyl had his head down but they all knew they would have to wait.

Skrypka watched as they drifted to the other end of the ballroom, where Vasyl had found some kind of newspaper and was showing it to them. Probably something with a bathing suited girl in its pages, Skrypka knew. He could hear them as the three musicians joined together in laughter, most likely a ribald joke.

The constant possibility of sex between Ukrainians was eternal. If it’s true that Adam and Eve were Ukrainians, as he heard professed in Tompkins Square Park from a group of old Ukrainians standing around and discussing the latest news or

tidbit of gossip, then anything was possible.

Hmm, Adam and Eve as Ukrainians, he liked the idea…Ihor Skrypka and Zulka…Zulka…what the hell was her last name anyway? It doesn’t matter; there’d soon be another little Skrypka he'd be proudly showing off, maybe even call her a little Zulka, Number Two.

He frowned, shaking his head.

That is if her mother wouldn’t be certainly vehemently objecting?

Oy, what nonsense sometimes befalls me...

He looked around, it was almost 4:30 and early well-dressed but sweated arrivals were appearing at the door.

He clapped his hands to his band who had stood about now laughing at the just opened bar and gestured them back.

They scowled but bitterly carried their drinks, each with two glasses, mumbling to themselves. It was time to get started.

Raz, dva, tri (one, two, three…) and the band began…

Thirty-One

A Break in the Restroom

Down in the Sviaty Yuri’s bathroom where Zulka went to pee, vomit was strewn along the hall leading to the men’s room. Zulka instantly covered her mouth and gagged, running to the Ladies Room.

“Assholes, Ukie pigs,” she spat out, but then reddened as she recalled Petya racing down the stairs and exploding to puke.

Poor baby, she thought, it’s those loser pigs he always hangs out with, they make him drink like that.

She shut the cubicle door, lifted her skirt and sat down on the toilet seat. The pee came readily and quickly, a gush really but that always happened when she was drinking gin, seemed to make her pee a lot.

She opened her purse and pulled out her Gordon’s Gin. The little quarter pint bottle was perfect for a Saturday afternoon. It lasted long into the evening when she really didn’t feel like finishing the gin, so she had it for the next day, too. But here it was just before 4pm and the little bottle was almost finished. She downed the booze, smacking her lips.

Ah, that was a good one!

Yet knowing where she was headed to, a Ukrainian wedding, she was certainly ready for a hell of a lot more drinking. For what are the wedding traditions but to celebrate the joys and fervor that you are in love, with the old tradition of Ukraina that said it should go on for days and days. And that's certainly the few barrels of alcohol that was guzzled down!

Too bad the old traditions don’t hold up anymore but being in this new country. American old traditions are just that, traditions which were quickly forgotten and little respected by the new Americans, once known as Ukraintsi. What a farce! But gone was the ribald goosing and mauling, the open debauchery, the wanton taste of any party guest who desperately wanted a taste of you, too!

Oy, tradition, it vanishes so quickly…

She sighed and heard voices of girls descending the stairs also gagging and surging into the restroom.

“Disgusting!” she heard them. “Who would do such a thing, and in a Sviaty Yuri’s, too? It’s a sin!”

Zulka peeked out of her cubicle though an interstice of her door. Nothing but jabbering 5th and 6th graders. She smirked.

What could they know about getting married? It would be a few years before their prospects were at hand, that is, in his hands .

She smirked to herself and exited her stall, the little girls looking at her in alarm.

They were clad in typical little girl fashions of the time, pinkish dresses or skirts but one girl stood out with her makeup and beehive hairdo, looking like a little Zulka mimic.

Zulka huffed at them and walked in her loud heels across the floor, again glancing in the mirrors.

She lecherously smiled at them through the mirror, retrieving an empty little bottle of gin from her purse. She flung it in the trash can --one girl gagged.

Zulka loudly swung the bathroom door ajar and pounced back up the street stairs, retching from the vomit but knew that the little Zulka mimic was jealously looking after her, wishing she could be grown up too.

Out on the street families and well-wishers had pretty much dispersed, either disappeared or were on their way to the wedding reception.

A group of bigger teen boys stood on Seventh Street outside of McSorley’s Old Ale House talking shit, which all ale house drinkers usually tend to do anyway.

McSorley’s has stood on the site since the 1850s, and throughout has served nothing but ale or stout, with some good food to imbibe during the drinking. Unfortunately, or fortunately, women were not allowed entry into McSorley’s, a strictly male bastion, though over the years a few did sneak in with some disguise and were able to sip a glass of ale or stout before their charade was discovered and exposed.

Drinking at McSorley’s was a strictly male preserve and a macho ritual which Zulka could certainly do without.

But she needed a real drink, gin not ale or stout, and turned, trudging the few blocks to the Ukrainian National Home.

Thirty-Two

Petya Meets a Drinking Partner

Petya spat some more and shook his head.

I should go home and sleep it off, he thought, that’s what I should do.

But he staggered out of the restroom and was out on the sidewalk. He could see Second Avenue and people walking up or down the avenue.

Damn, I shouldn't have drunk so early. I'm still drunk from last night. I really should go home.

Again he spat and heard a voice behind him.

“Petya, wait up!”

It was Vlado who had gone to school with him, a typical Ukrainian guy, too lazy, too childish and too smart-alecky, and as usual, too drunk, just as Petya certainly still was.

Vlado worked nights preparing donuts and other baked goods at Moshe’s Cafeteria on Fifth Street and Second Avenue, a Jewish restaurant that for many years had shown that Jews and Ukrainians have one thing in common, they both love to eat, nu? Working nights had left his days for himself which he took care of by drinking gallons of ale. Having just finished a few stein glasses at McSorley’s, he now was headed for the wedding of Strelsky, another classmate of theirs.

“Good to see you,” said Vlado and burped. “Did you just get out of church?”

Petya grunted but didn’t say he spent the entire wedding in the restroom puking his guts out.

“I did too,” Vlado gestured, putting his arm on Petya's shoulders. “At the holy shrine of St. McSorley’s,” he winked and conspiratorially whispered, “We were here before you were born, as they say in their slogan. That’s our church, St. McSorley’s, eh?”

The two staggered along Seventh Street, turning onto Second Avenue, and making their way to the Ukrainian Home.

Thirty-Three

Ah, Gin...

Zulka didn’t care that she had to stop in and get another little bottle of gin to take care of her moods.

What’s a quarter pint bottle, a mere piffle, it will only wet your mouth.

The little bottle of gin she already had consumed was but a teaser to some serious drinking that she knew was certainly coming.

She walked past the Ukrainian Home, nodding at a few people out front and glanced at her watch.

“Be right back,” she mouthed and continued up Second Avenue. A liquor store is what she needed and there was one on Tenth Street, just a block away.

Ah, there it is. I feel better already...

On a Saturday she would’ve stopped in at the Avenue B Liquors for her little weekly supply bottle, which she did that morning but it was now early afternoon, anyway, how would it look if Hector, who ran the Avenue B shop saw her coming in again for second little bottle of gin?

Wouldn’t look good at all. He would get ideas I’m a low-life whore skank just giving it out. And he would certainly expect it too. No, I need another liquor store. And she knew where there was one.

“A quarter pint of Gordon’s Gin, please,” she asked, smiling at the gruff looking clerk at the Second Avenue Liquors.

At the other liquor store Hector was always cheerful wanting to talk but not this old geezer.

“Gordon’s, you want Gordon’s, a quarter pint?” he stood glaring at her from across the counter. “You have any proof that you’re eighteen?”

But Zulka remained standing and smiling, opening her purse and retrieving a form from her wallet, “How’s this?” she asked.

The gruff liquor store clerk examined the ID card, which showed she was legal. He looked at her again and passed the card back to her.

“Have to check,” he shrugged, “”It’s the law, you know. That’s Gordon’s Gin, right?”

She nodded, smiling and put the card back in her purse. She shook her head at seeing what the clerk was handing her.

“That’s a quarter pint I wanted,” refusing the half-pint bottle he placed before her.

“Yes, yes,” said the man, looking up from her chest. “My thoughts were elsewhere, you know,” turning red and replacing the little bottle on the counter before her.

“I can just imagine what you're thinking of,” she winked and smiled, paid, put the small bottle in her purse and went to the door.

“Come back any time, sweetie,” he called after her.

“Will do, daddy-io,” she winked at him, using the current Beatnik term and left.

Ever since she had swiped the ID card from the purse of a book user who had stepped into the stacks at Tompkins Square Library she had used the card just two times, each time when her age was in question, namely a drinking club on Avenue A and once at her Avenue B liquor store when the owner first asked her for proof.

Brenda Samuelsky read the ID, showing a high-haired blond at the age of twenty; she looked something like her, except for her nose.

“Napevno zhydivka Most likely a female Jew, nose is way too big,” she mumbled to herself when she swiped the card.

Now she felt better as she walked on sunny Second Avenue to the Ukrainian Home.

Thirty-Four

Getting Drunk

Skrypka was excited when he saw Zulka entering the dance floor in her clicking white heels and that lovely powder-blue jacket and skirt she had on. He could just imagine the bustier under her jacket, her nipples hard and stiff just waiting for his fingers to tweak them, his tender touch caressing, clasping, softly nibbling…

Oy, Bozhe, I’m stiff again. Better not cum again, but do I care? No!

His eyes were glued on Zulka and would never look away.

But Zulka hardly even noticed him, savoring the growing crowd, smiling and gossiping with whoever drifted by, and knew she needed another drink.

The music was going smoothly, that is whenever they played a Ukrainian melody, sort of. And what with the frantic beating of Evhen on his drums almost running away with the whole band as he pounded away. But an angry irate Skrypka always stepped in with his accordion and quickly set them back on track and beat once again. Evhen was definitely a nervous type.

Zulka found her guest table was near the bandstand and very close to where Skrypka stood playing his accordion. She blushed, but also grinned and nodded his smiling head at her.

Skrypka momentary lost the beat just lusting and dreaming what spending time with Zulka would be like. After that night’s wedding reception there would time for everything, perhaps even another wedding very soon after…but he blinked his eyes and came to. He shook his head again. But he smiled back at her.

More and more guests began to appear. Drinkers were already at the bar loudly talking, with Zulka getting her drinks from the bar counter and even flirting with the neck-tied elderly bartender.

What, twenty-five, thirty-five years old?

So what, he still was a Ukrainian, that’s all that mattered, right? One of ours, odyn iz nashykh…

After about an hour of drinking --gin, vodka, she no longer cared, they all tasted wonderful!

She staggered to the Ladies’ restroom and almost didn’t make it; a sprinkle of her pee spat out and cascaded down her black shimmering hose on her leg. But she was succeeded in lowering her girdle and panties, dropping down to the toilet seat.

Wow, that was close, she thought, as the welcoming satisfying hiss of pee echoed on the walls of the toilet stall, Psss...

Somehow she staggered back to the bar where she had a few more drinks, again flirting with another elderly bartender.

She circulated about the room, but always looking back at Petya and his other drinking cohorts sitting and talking of something important, meaning nothing but drunken bullshit!

Seems that drinking was the synonymous with these Ukrainian boys, always lifting a glass and just as easily pouring it down. Drinking was as vital to a Ukrainian as food was for someone else, they just couldn’t live without one or the other.

Na zdorovya! To your health!

And by eight o’clock Zulka was drunk and wasted, laughing and cursing but always drinking some more.

In the hoard of Ukrainians Petya was just as stoned, yet more tired and even more wasted. Still the alcohol passed down his plastered gullet and saturated his soul and mind that by nine o’clock the entire Home was wasted and fully drunk, just as good Ukrainians should be.

And every time Skrypka took a break, usually after forty-five minutes, with loud Ukrainian recordings taking his place, the other members of the band rushed over to the bar where they imbibed as much as they could before drunkenly staggering back and began playing their drunken Ukrainian melodies once more.

Zulka was always running into Petya on his way to the bathroom as Skrypka was always after her at break time. Of course, to little or no avail, she seemed to be everywhere. One moment her image was close and nearby, the next she had vanished in the rowdy dancing stomping crowd.

She danced with nice good looking young men, replaced by old men who hugged her and danced as if she was their wife, each of them holding tightly on to her as she clung to them as well.

What signal was she sending to the washed-up old men?

But what did she care what was being hinted at with their closeness; they could propose anything. She was game and willing to do whatever they had in mind. But mostly she laughed and clutched them then went off to be held by another as the frenzied drunken melody played.

In the dancing crowd Zulka again wandered into Petya just as he was came out of the Men’s Room. He caught hold of her and gave her a kiss, she did not resist, falling into his sway and melting into him. Even drunk she wanted him; all the kissing and hugs she had been receiving earlier meant nothing to her since they were not the kisses of Petya, just the useless sexual emotions from these equally useless groping hard-up men.

Still she didn’t care that they felt her up, if they could get away by not being seen by some girlfriend or their wives than it was fine with her. In a way, she adored these molestations as if every grope was leading to real love, namely with Petya.

But up the backstairs of the Home there was a shut room where they could be alone, that is, if they could get rid of drunken Bochka. He was a fat hanger-on from the Lys Mykyta Bar, along with Yurko, who just was drunkenly drinking along.

But Bochka ran the liquor supplies from the shut room up the stairs who was laughing and chortling whether something was funny or not. Zulka had agreed to go up and help them in getting more liquor.

Pulled up the stairs, each one holding their permanent glass of quickly vanishing booze, whiskey, gin or vodka, or whatever they were drinking. They staggered up the stairs. She was thirsty and ready for anything, so she clumsy followed.

Thirty-Five

A Nice Wedding

Nina hurried up the street after her girlfriends, forgetting her mother behind her on Second Avenue.

“Wait up, Soshia, Katrusya slow down!”

The little girls turned and gawked at her, once more bursting into loud laughter.

“Well, come on if you’re coming,” called back flirty Soshia. “You’re such a slow poke, you know, and I mean it!” Followed by giggling laughter.

Nina caught up to them as they scurried up the steep church steps amazed that the chandelier was lit up.

“Ooo, nice,” gushed Soshia, “I never saw it so lit up before, did you?”

The majority of girls shook their heads, agreeing with Soshia but Nina just shrugged.

“I did, seen it a few times, it was nothing spectacular.”

Soshia gritted her teeth.

“You’re a damned liar,” her arms akimbo on her waist showing off her little bosom at her chest and glaring down at Nina.

“Shh!” an elderly woman turned and hissed at them. “Shcho tse ye? What is this?”

Again the girls stood momentarily looking at the old woman, in what else? a flowered dress, that as soon as the woman turned back they broke into muffled giggles still trying not to be too loud.

Suddenly the church audience all turned, looking back and up, as the choir burst out singing a church hymn in celebration of the Holy Sacrament.

This was no pagan drivel of Here Comes the Bride, but a religious sacrament given to us by God.

So cross yourselves, you heathen, newly to-be-married people, hah!

Again, Nina was feeling discomfited, queasy, something she had been most of the day as if she was going to puke again. But the sensation quickly passed and she was once more swayed by the wedding procession.

Nina frowned; the bride was much too fat to be dressed like that, her dress was already stretching, seeming to tear at the seams.

Now where did she get the nerve to look like that?

Nina glanced back up the center aisle and saw the groom-to-be standing in his traditional Ukrainian shirt vyshyvana sorochka. An embroidered shirt with the sleeves and collar all flowered.

He was looking nervous and red-faced that his image looked as ripe as the symbolic fruit at the front of the shirt, red apples and glistening berries as the symbol of prosperity.

And the groom looked like he was going to puke.

The chubby bride-to-be came down the aisle, holding onto her younger brother’s arm --their father had been lost in the Nazi war. And she looked peeved that the groom was tottering as he stood awaiting her. She knew he had taken a few drinks already.

Still, Nina didn’t see any real flaws because of her heaviness. The bright light emanating from the chandelier put a glow above the brides head as if she was being blessed by dear Bozhe God.

A tear came out of Nina’s eye, as she sniffled and wiped it dry as another tear shimmered down her cheek.

The aura of the Holy Sanctimony does that to some people.

Nina sniffed again.

A few of her friends also wiped their eyes and almost in no time the bride and groom were marching away.

Nina thought of her tato Skrypka playing tonight at the wedding reception --so what if she wasn’t invited she was his daughter and she’d see a right to him wherever she pleased in the Ukrainian Home.

She hurried out of the church to see rice being flung at the newly wedded couple.

She traipsed downstairs to the bathroom with her gossiping chattering girlfriends who were alarmed by what they almost stepped into.

Someone had vomited!

They gagged but hurried into the bathroom.

“Gross! Disgusting!” they muttered, when a big girl from the upper classes --they all recognized her-- was about to leave but flung an empty bottle of liquor into the trash.

They were certain she had thrown up and they looked at her leaving, a bit tipsy on her legs, but again started laughing when Soshia reached in the receptacle can, retrieved the empty bottle and raised it to her lips, sucking up the meager remaining droplets and letting it fall again to the trash.

“Eww, that’s gross!” they all squealed at what Soshia was doing. But one girl did retrieve the discarded bottle and took a sniff.

“Gin, just what I suspected,” she said, “Mamtsya has this all the time, helps her sore bones.”

“Hah, sure it does,” the others laughed. “Your mamtsya's an alcoholic, that’s what she is!”

And they laughed and left the bathroom, sidestepping the smears of vomit, shouting and giggling onto Second Avenue.

Still, at times, a wave of nausea returned and swept over Nina, yet just for a moment, an instant, and disappeared so quickly that she wasn’t even sure that she had felt it. A shrug of the shoulders and she went on, boasting, squealing, whatever young girls do.

They made it to the Ukrainian National Home. Veselka stood on the corner attracting eaters and hangers-out, with the Lys Mykyta bar next to it. The girls debated whether to enter the Ukrainian Home or not.

“We weren’t invited,” some stressed as others shrugged and said, “Mey ukrainski divchata! We’re Ukrainian girls! They’d better let us in!” and they boldly went in. No one stopped them or asked to see any invitation. They laughed and felt good about being in the Home.

And very quickly Skrypka recognized his daughter Nina with her girlfriends but he just smiled and went on playing his accordion, as the evening wore on and on.

After a few hours of drifting through the vast room and others --Nina had thought of going home earlier, most of her girlfriends had already departed but Nina stayed. She was feeling extremely nauseous yet able to dart into a Ladies’ Room where she instantly puked into a toilet bowl.

Stupid period, she knew, wiping her mouth and straightening up.

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe…”

The front of her pretty yellow dress was smeared with huge red splotches of blood which had seared from her overly active period. The saturated Kotex napkin never having helped.

Nina raised the front of the dress, lowered her bloodied panties and wincing in disgust at the horrible red-covered and bloody-smeared sanitary napkin.

Napkin, more like a sodden one at that!

She winced but cursed again, successfully freeing the wet Kotex from the clip-on strap which hung from around her belly.

“Stupid,” she muttered, then saw her bloodied filthy dress again. She bit her lips and stepped out of her wet panties, unstrapping the Kotex belt from around her waist and tossing it aside.

“Dumb thing,” she scowled, and stepped out of the Ladies’ Room, dropping to a side bench near the door and more or less fell asleep.

Thirty-Six

After Sulka

Once more it was break time for Skrypka, who somehow lost his drummer Evhen, who just didn’t came back from the last break.

Probably being drunk and sleeping it off by himself, or else with some equally drunk Ukrainian girl.

But the available Ukrainian girls seemed to have dwindled down in size and readiness, either going off with some new boyfriend or sneaking off in some dark corner with whoever they could latch onto.

Skrypka was sore at the constantly disappearing Zulka, more and more he had seen together with Petro, holding his hand and smooching up to him. But at other times she was being held and kissed by some one else entirely, usually some old fart.

What the hell was happening? Old men, even older that I am, holding and dancing with Sulka, and getting a feel!? Didn’t we agree to be together afterward? Ah cholera!

And he was pissed.

So they lost their drummer, big deal, that crazy speeding up fanatic? Their music was lively enough without any rushing-away drummer.

Skrypka gazed around the hall. It was half-filled with marriage celebrants still drinking, the bride and the groom having departed and vanished long ago. Zulka was nowhere around.

Suddenly he saw a powder-blue dress moving through an end doorway. Those three street drunkards Petro, Bochka and Yurko were escorting her. Holding onto the wobbling Zulka as they passed through the door.

Oy, Bozhe, they were going to use her body for filthy purposes! Oh no, they weren’t, not with Ihor Skrypka still around!

He pulled off his accordion and angrily set off for the door the group had disappeared behind.

Thirty-Seven

A Masseuse for Father Echo

On Saturday morning I was a bit tense, after all Father Echo was going to be at the Bathhouse, where he had said he wanted to discuss something with me, he couldn’t do it in school and St. Marks Bath would be ideal place to do it in.

“You know,” he winked and rubbed my shoulder, “at the Baths it’s like being at home where we can do anything we want. Isn’t that right, Danylo?” And again he caressed my shoulder.

“Yes, Father.”

He frowned.

“I told you this before, in the Baths you don’t have to call me Father, we’re friends here. Call me Orest, okay?” and he winked at eye.

I looked up at him. “Okay… We’re friends...Orest.”

But it certainly felt weird to be calling him that, like being his little buddy. Still I had an erection growing as I walked away from him. But was he getting one too?

That morning he wore what seemed like gang colors, the Untouchables or the Dragons colors, both notorious Puerto Rican street gangs which controlled the area in those days. A dark purple T-shirt over some very tight black pants or what I knew was mere tights, the kind worn by ballet dancers.

But I really didn’t want to know.

Would Father Echo, I mean Orest, really wear such tights? I would have had to look lot closer. Maybe even put my hands on them…

I shook my head.

Ilya was at the front desk looking up at us but I didn’t hear a word they were saying to each other, my thoughts and hopeful dreams were far away.

Since I felt myself singled out among the boys of Sviaty Yuri, after all, I was employed by the St. Marks Bathhouse and they weren’t. And that made me feel very distinct and proud, all at the same time.

Again I blushed.

Can only imagine what it was he was choosing me for…

I grinned to myself, when I heard my name repeated a few times.

“Dan…Dan…wake-up, Danny Boy…”

I blinked my eyes.

“Wha…what…?”

They both laughed but glanced at each other.

“Where did you go, Danny?” asked Echo Orest, winking and grinning at Ilya. “We would love to go along with you.”

I was red-faced and looked away, mumbling, “Sorry, was lost in my thoughts, you know how it goes?”

Echo and Ilya looked again at each other that I had to wonder what was passing between the two.

“Yes, well,” Echo Orest said, clearing his throat, “I’m here for my usual,” and he stretched his sore muscles, “the stiffness is wearing me down.”

“You should get a body rub,” said Ilya, “that will certainly ease you,” but he shook his head. “Too bad, Koval isn’t around today, it’s his day off.”

“Yes, a pity,” answered Echo Orest, again sorely stretching around once. Koval was the St. Marks Baths best masseuse.

“But you know, little Danny Boy can do it for me. You've got to train him soon, in how to do a rubdown, no? That is if you don’t need him in the next hour of so?”

Ilya shrugged.

“It’s the morning and he doesn’t have much to do till the afternoon.”

He looked at me and shrugged.

“If he wants to do it, it’s okay by me.”

I was overjoyed but didn't want my feelings to be truly known.

“Sure, okay, I’ll help Father…I mean, Orest,” grinning and hiding my ecstasy, besides my stiff penis.

Thirty-Eight

Passed Out

Petro and Bochka pulled Zulka up the stairs as Yurko followed after them catching glimpses up under her skirt. She laughed a few times as she tripped and lost her high-heeled shoe.

Earlier she had quickly replaced her little bottle of Gordon’s Gin, it had disappeared hours ago, but she had easily traded it for real undiluted gin and tonics from the bar.

Weddings were great events to attend; you didn’t have to pay much for your booze, usually your contribution took care of what the hosts had in mind, at least a five or ten dollars contribution to the newlyweds was all that was needed.

And Zulka drank --slurped or guzzled it up is more the actual wording. Which was followed by Petro, Bochka and Yurko who had a few more peeks at her swaying droopy loose nylon legs.

And of course, Petro and Bochka got their feels off her, groping her ass as the other pawed her breasts.

And Zulka didn’t resist, she no longer felt or cared what they were doing to her, she just downed her drink wishing she had another.

“Damn, I got no more,” she blubbered to the drunken men around her, each one holding a tit or a whiskey glass.

“Have mine,” said Bochka, shoving his glass at her, spilling it on her bustier front, one side of which dropped down, practically revealing her nipple.

Zulka shook her head. “Let’s go back down stairs and get us a bottle. C’mon, how about it?”

“But that’s why we’re going upstairs for,” laughed Bochka, “to get more bottles of booze, c’mon,” pulling her up a few steps more.

“A bottle?” muttered Petya, climbing after them. “No one’s gonna give us a bottle. Did you see how they were looking at us, they just wanna close up shop and go home.”

Yurko shook his head with them and finished the drink he was holding.

“But who runs the supply place, anyway?” Bochka proudly said, clattering open the door.

“You know I have more booze locked up in the office like you wouldn’t believe.”

He flung open the door and clicked on the light switch. A desk with a bookcase behind it, holding various bottles of liquor, vodka, gin, rum and assorted other bottles stood at the ready.

“This is my office,” Bochka spluttered to Zulka. “Well, me and pani Stech, we do requisitions for the Ukrainian Home in whatever they need. It’s only part-time job a few hours during the week.”

He opened a bottle, went to a refrigerator, retrieved some ice and poured some gin or vodka in it.

“But they sure know how to keep me happy. C’mon,” he shoved the drink at Zulka, “Drink up!”

Zulka gaped around the room but grabbed at the offered drink gratefully, amazed at whatever was in there; gin or vodka, what difference did make, she felt better already.

Put a drink before a sleeping alcoholic and watch him wake up and come alive again!

“Oh boy, why didn't anyone tell about this room before?, she gushed, her mouth open. “The hell with the wedding we could’ve been here instead!” And she leaned back against a table top taking another swallow of her drink.

“Man, it’s hot in here,” she added, easing her powder-blue jacket off her arms and standing with her loose bustier having eased itself down her bosom.

She had another sip of the gin, her arm uplifted and the bustier slipped under and beneath one breast, plop! Out it surged...

“Oops, aw, damn!” slurped and giggled Zulka, looking at the two men.

Yurko was still crouched to his knees, eyeing her loose nylon legs.

“Aw, the hell with it, we’re all adults here, right?” said Zulka as she swallowed her drink, her exposed tit swayed before her.

Petya leered but tottered beside her while Bochka was rubbing his own hard crotch in his pants.

Zulka set her glass down and put her arms around Petya.

“You know, I love you very much, I always did.”

She turned to Bochka. “And you too, I love you both totally.”

She looked down at Yurko, down on his knees.

“You’re strange, Yurko, but I love you, too.”

And she messed up the hair on his head while kissing and rubbing against Petya.

Bochka was stooping down and pulling her skirt above her knees.

Petya began mauling Zulka’s breasts, pushing and forcing her down to the ground at Yurko’s level, her skirt hoisted up revealing her dark nylons held up by a garter belt.

Bochka had succeeded in freeing one nylon, the dark shimmering hose still swayed around her knee, as the other garters clasped and held onto the unloosened one.

Bochka also had his dick out as he was trying to rouse his feeble cock to erection; but it stayed limp.

Zulka pushed Petya down on her.

“Oh Petya, fuck me! I’ve been dreaming of this for ages, fuck me please! Screw my virginity now!” She fell on to him with kisses.

Petya raised his torso off her, lowering his pants and freeing his underwear, easing himself atop her. But as much as he tried he could get his limp meaningless penis in her. It was just a flab of jelly and no way could it have gone in on its own.

He tried again; no luck. Push as much as he could it still didn’t go in, it was too limp, wasn’t erect at all. He was too drunk to feel anything.

“Fuck you, you whore!” Petya spat out and pushed himself off and away, staggering to a corner where he sank down to the ground and instantly passed out.

Zulka lay still in an erotic exposure as if she was comatose in the middle of Times Square, showing herself to the rabid sex-starved world.

But it made no difference anymore. Virginal Zulka was comatose...

Bochka simply climbed atop her and lowered himself on her. The heavy bulk of his body pressed down on her as he lowered himself but he too was instantly motionless and still, heavily collapsing atop her.

Finally, Yurko struggled with Bochka’s passed out bulky body but he couldn’t move it when his need for a drink got the better of him.

He staggered to the bookcase lined with liquor bottles, still confused, his pants un-zippered and unbuttoned but held up with his one free hand. He was more than drunk he was bewildered, as he fell and passed out, too.

Silence, stillness, peace… Ah, the raucous sound of drunken snoring.

From below the echoes of a merry record player playing Ukrainian music, that no one was listening to anymore. It drifted up to the repetitiveness of three snoring comatose dreamers.

Bochka had fallen asleep on top of Zulka, who lay crushed underneath him. Petya was in a corner still holding on to his useless limp penis, all of them passed out drunk and none of them being sexually satisfied. Yurko was also passed out by the assorted liquor bottles by the bookcase.

Maybe five, ten minutes went by when in the doorway looking at crushed Zulka stood a discomfited frazzled Skrypka,

“Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe!” he moaned, his hands to his face. “Oy, Bozhe…”

Thirty-Nine

At the Bathhouse

Echo and I –though I now knew his real name but to me it was always be Echo-- sauntered to the dressing rooms. This early in the morning, 10am on a Saturday, the rooms were little crowded by men, many who would come in the afternoon.

I nervously undressed as Echo quickly eased his clothes off.

“Don’t be so shy,” he smirked, “We’re all men here, aren’t we?”

He looked down at my stiff erection. I looked at him and his erection slightly jolted; it was very big and stiff, too.

We quickly washed and stepped out of the showers as Echo took a towel and swung it at me, playfully striking me. What could I do but playfully swing another towel, striking his backside.

“Ouch!” he yelped but I had run off.

Damn, what have I done, oh no, no…what was I thinking?

But I saw in the sauna rooms his face shinning as came after me, a few steps more and I was in the sauna.

Heavy steam weaved around the room but since I had rushed in I thought that no one came after me or so it seemed. The steam hovered before me and at times I could not tell if anyone was in the room, though I thought I heard someone moving closer.

When arms grabbed me from behind.

“Gotcha, you little pussy cat, you won’t get away from me, Groarrrr!”

I instantly knew who it was but pretended a cruel stranger had come upon me.

“Oh no, please sir, no, I’m scared. Let me go!”

Echo giggled but he let go of my arms and spun me around. I felt his erection drilling into me, as I’m sure he felt my wee stiff one doing the same to his. For a moment we stared at each other, me nervously biting my lips, while he firmly was looking down. The sauna steam clouds twirling around our heads.

Then he sighed, stepped away and took a seat on a wooden bench which was around the room.

“Pour more water on the steam sauna, Danny” he softly said.

“Yes Father…I mean…Orest.”

“That’s alright, Danny, say what you want to say, call me whatever makes you feel comfortable. There’s no use in making believe anymore, now is there? We’re all men here.”

“Yes Father.” I blushed and shook my head as I went and poured more water on to chunks of red coal. Clouds of thick heady steam rose up from a sauna in the center of the room. It disguised Echo from my clear sight as I’m sure I had shifted in his vision too, too.

I tip-toed back to the wooden bench.

God, was he stiff and big!

A few more benches were around the steamy room.

“Do my back, Danny,” he said, spinning around, “it’s very sore, and coming to the Bathhouse helps to relieve the tension.”

“Sure, Father,” I said, picking up a plastic jar and squeezing out some lotion in my hands. It was Johnson and Johnson baby oil, the Bathhouse had gallons of it at hand. Part of my job was keeping the oil in visual sight around the saunas, we had more in the stock room, besides those and other lotions.

“Hmm, you have nice soft hands,” he said, as I rubbed the lotion in massaging his back. “A little lower, yes, that’s it... Ooh yes, wonderful!”

The cream went on his body as if it was sucked up, instantly vanishing into his pores. I love to feel the lotion on my fingers. It made me feel as if I was one with the baby lotion. I wiped my forehead, rubbing my sweat off but spreading the lotion onto my face.

By then, Echo had turned over and settled back upon the bench. The first thing I saw was his stiff hard penis reaching out towards me. My mouth hung open.

There were many men at the Bathhouse I had seen, skinny ones, fat ones, even deformed and twisted up ones, scarred from the war years, but Father Echo was not only big and large but at the same time his body was very soft. Something feminine about it, and I wasn’t frightened at all.

I rubbed the baby lotion into his body as I felt myself being babied, tenderized and softened. I looked in his eyes, he smiled at me.

“Rub it in, Danny, do my front like you just did my back.”

“Yes, Father…” I cringed, then asked, “What did you want to discuss with me?”

My lotion-softened fingers went on his chest as I trilled his skin into a greater vibrating softness, moving my hands up and down on his flesh, inching closer to his groin as his penis

reached eagerly towards me as well.

“You ever been with a man,” he asked, his eyes closed. “That you felt close to, a man you could trust?”

I looked at him and lowered my own eyes, continuing his massage, my finger-tips tweaking the tops of his pubic hairs.

I cleared my nervous throat.

“Who do you mean, Father?”

“Come on, you can tell me. Ever trust a man so much you would do anything for him?”

I sadly looked at him.

“I don’t know many men, just a few, like you. I mean the teachers and priests in Sviaty Yuri, you know.”

“And there aren’t any men you can consider yourself close to?”

I looked at him.

“Only you, Father, you have gotten very close to me. I feel I can trust you. And I would do anything you wanted.”

“That’s my boy,” he warmly smiled, reaching out to me as the thick sauna steam hovered between us.

When the sauna door opened and a man stepped in, both of us looking in surprise and frustration at him, glancing back at each other.

Like Echo the man was big but wider, no, not only big but very fat also. The flabs of his flesh were larded on so thickly that it began to seem very disgusting.

I hated him, whoever he was, not only for his intrusion but for stepping in where he wasn’t needed or desired. I angrily looked at Echo, who seemed to be smiling at the fat man.

“Lenchik,” Echo squealed, “What a surprise! I haven’t seen you in ages. Come in, come in, meet my sweet, dear young man, Danny,” and he winked, “He’s...just like us, in for his baths.” And he winked at me.

Lenchik had collapsed on a bench; you could even hear the wood creaking on it. He looked closely at me.

“Isn’t he the go-fer boy? I almost didn’t recognize him. Hmm, naked in the saunas, eh?.”

“Yes, the go-fer boy,” he warmly looked at me, “Do this, do that, do anything my little heart desires, isn’t that right, Danny Boy?”

I looked at him and sadly said, “Yes, Father...”

But by then I knew that my hard stiffness had receded into its usual soft placidity.

But was I reading the right impressions I was assuming I was getting from Echo? Were there homosexual connotations or was he just a happy priest in the sauna to soothe his tired and sore muscles? Was I reading this correctly?

I never learned.

I picked up a towel and wiped my face and hands, leaving it draped about my neck and looking at the two talking with each other. I knew with Echo I would now stay limp.

“Think I’ll get back to work,” I interrupted, “Ilya must be looking for me.”

Echo sadly looked at me. “Yes, you do that, Danny Boy. We’ll get together again, very soon,” he said, and went to talking with the fat obese man.

I nodded and left the sauna but unfortunately we never did get together again. Less than a week when it was announced on the PA that Father Echo was being transferred to the Ukrainian Church in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village near Downtown Chicago; I never knew there was such a place.

But I often wonder and am torn by Echo’s actions towards me, were his actions leading me on to a sexual conquest on his part which I was so readily and easily giving into by his by acquiescing and desiring of it, too? Or was I hopefully just imagining it was so? If only we had spent a little more time in the Bathhouse undisturbed, then who knows what may have happened or not happened, everything or nothing? Was he also one of the sleazy morbid priests who once preyed on the innocent naïve young boys or was I to become a willing and eager participant in my own budding desires, an innocent boy to be used by a clever mature abuser? Who knows?

I worked at the Bathhouse for about a year more but never did come upon a more robust, cheerfully handsome man than Father Echo was. I sure miss him…

All I can say is, Slava Isusu Khrystu! Glory to Jesus Christ!

Forty

Vira Pissed

Vira paced in her apartment back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Good thing that the downstairs neighbor was out or there certainly would be banging on walls in retaliation. But what did Vira care? She was alone and she couldn’t stand it.

Alone, damn!

Back and forth she went, back and forth she came, back and forth she paced, back and forth, over and over continuously. In the hall from the kitchen to the living room she walked, passing the tiny bedrooms and coming back in

the short hall leading to the front door, and back to where she had started from.

How horrible, she cursed, and they call this an apartment?

Apart, that’s what it was; keeping you apart and it was disgusting. Back in Ukraina we had one big room, everyone slept together on the pich stove. That was the life! Oy, de moye selo? Where is my village?

She cringed in disgust but was very pissed, also.

What the hell was this, it’s almost 10, and where the hell is Nina?

Vira grabbed a sweater and pounced down the stairs.

“I’ll show him!” she spat out, thinking about Skrypka playing his accordion.

“Hivna ne znaye! Doesn’t know shit!” and was out headed to the Ukrainian National Home.

Forty-One

Police Call

But how could it have happened? Everyone was probably thinking and saying to themselves…

A fight, oh my God, a fight! Just think of the shame when the community finds out. Oh my goodness, the shame! What gossip will start from this? Oy, Bozhe, Bozhe…

If it hadn’t been for just that, a fist fight breaking out in the rain at the front of the Ukrainian National Home none of this would’ve been noticed. But because of the jealousy and

possessiveness, the fists went flying into the other’s bloated face resulting in more blood and crushed bones.

Think of horrible shame, Bozhe, Bozhe…What will become of us?

Of course the cop car didn’t pull up fast enough to stop the fight --two drunken Ukrainians going at each other, their wives or girlfriends going at it, too, and shrieking hysterically.

A hairdo destroyed by the other's fancy hairdo, now mussed up also, as bone crushed bone, and a tendon ripped tendons that it’s amazing how fragile the human body actually is.

“Proklyatyi khuy!” Cursed prick! one screamed at the other to be answered. “Suchyy syn!” Son of a whore!

No matter what the words meant to the cops who broke the fight up as still more cops pulled up, squad car sirens blaring monotonously.

To Bellevue! To Bellevue! Blared the police scanners, as they sped to the hospital.

A few of the policemen went into the dance hall to look the arena over and instantly spotted a bloodied Nina lying on a bench near the Ladies’ Room, the front of her dress all smeared in blood.

“What the fuck is this?” the dispatcher overheard on his radio.

“Ten-Four, 10-4,” his gravelly voice finally acknowledged.

Oy, Bozhe Bozhe…Shcho tse? What is this!

Almost instantly the cops found another stairway leading upwards. Just to be safe than sorry, they knew, they went up the stairs feeling a few doors on along the way, opening each one or at least trying each door, and coming upon a half-dressed Zulka under a sleeping Bochka atop her.

Nearby Petro was passed out on the floor holding onto his useless cock. In another room Yurko had also passed out, still clutching on to a bottle and his penis with his other hand.

It was certain the group had been fucking and screwing and now had all passed out.

Oy, Bozhe! Bozhe!

Gang rape, that what it was! All these men trying to get one girl, is that how it's done in Ukraina, isn't it? The cops thought and smirked...

They roused the passed-out sleepers, waking the fat man with the female beneath him, dragging the entire bunch to the station house on Fifth Street, a few short blocks away.

And a drunken confused hungover Zulka was taken up to Bellevue Hospital to be examined for rape, as she feebly cursed at them and mumbled, “But I’m a virgin…I think…”

And the bloodied little girl, which the police assumed was also a rape victim, was transported to Bellevue Hospital in another ambulance for further examination.

What a mess this was, shaming our community in such a disrespectful way? Oy Bozhe, Bozhe…

Just at the same time a shocked and scared Vira came looking for her daughter inside the Ukrainian National Home. She saw her daughter being carried into the ambulance.

“Skrypka!” she squelched, “You bastard, you did it, Skrypka! Polskyy khuy! Polish prick! He’s the one! After little girls!”

But when they examined Nina at Bellevue it was quickly discovered that there had been no rape, her blood was a normal occurrence from a period; the doctor's all smirked.

As for Zulka the doctors just shrugged, “Unknown to say, for sure…But there was no penetration, but she sure was felt up and groped. That's about it...”

It’s also unknown whether Petro and Bochka shared that status with Zulka, loss of virginity, or if they were defiled by a drunken life themselves. And Yurko, what about him? No one really knew what he had been doing besides obviously masturbating.

Oy Bozhe, Bozhe…shcho z namy stanetsya? What will become of us?

Forty-Two

Skrypka Gone

And Skrypka, what about him? He was pissed, he felt shamed and ridiculed by Zulka.

“Khurva, khurva!” he kept repeating over and over.

He angrily stormed out on Ninth Street, coming back home, where he dropped his accordion and fell to the couch.

What the hell is in my pocket?

He fingered it the lump and reached in to feel what it was. His eyes widened. The envelop he had placed there earlier was still there.

“Ah holera, zabouv! Curses, forgot!”

A fifty dollars shone up at him, along with thirty dollars that was meant for the band. He recalled pani Stech in the office of the Ukrainian Home. Certainly glad that she came through. He jumped up, feeling so much better.

He looked around his apartment.

Nothing I really care for, except my accordion. Think I'll go to Atlantic City, catch a bus there. Been thinking about it, anyway. Get a room and try for the Miss America Pageant, I'm sure they could use another accordionist. Hope I'm not too late for it...if I am, there are other gigs I can join up with...

He was struck by his use of the word gig. Times are certainly changing.

He grinned to himself, look around the apartment, sighed and picked up his accordion and headed downstairs...

And simply vanished, disappeared, left his beloved Ukrainian National Home and dwindled without a trace.

Calls went out looking for him but to no avail. His apartment was checked and rechecked but after two weeks it was emptied and a new black tenant took over.

Difficult years passed on the Lower East Side, which some real estate flunkies began to call the East Village.

More years went by and someone said that a butcher on the Upper West Side had an uncanny resemblance to Skrypka; wasn't him. As did a carpenter in Upstate New York, trades which Skrypka had once learned in his Kyivan early years but these did not pan out.

Still, rumors did come drifting in, someone heard that tato was playing accordion once again in Newark. Or was it in Philadelphia? Maybe Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, wherever Ukrainians can gather, his ghost would be there as someone brought back false rumors of him.

Years further passed and eventually the old Sviaty Yuri was torn down, to be replaced with a Byzantine edifice, bigger and larger, had air conditioned, too --the old church-building had none but loud clattering fans.

But alas, as year by year passed, less and less people came out for the religious services at Sviaty Yuri on Seventh Street.

The neighborhood had dwindled, changing hands and being altered from an intellectual Beatnik laziness, to a rock and roll psychedelic hippie experience. Quickly falling into deadly narcotics until little by little it started coming back to a currently selling out of a new Yuppified New York, one with not only a newer look but with the money to go with it.

The yuppies loved living in old buildings, as long as they were properly remodeled and strictly maintained.

Rents went sky high, displacing the Blacks, the Puerto Ricans, the Italians, the Poles, and, of course, the Ukrainians.

Rents rose still higher until the people were gone, that is, the old people of the neighborhood, nashi lyudy znykly, our people have vanished. You can’t have a selo when the

very rich have their abodes very close by.

But who the devil really knows anymore! Chort znaye!

Still of course the Ukrainian National Home still stands, its rooms and offices rented out at exorbitant rent, I might add, to whoever can afford a lease, mostly non-Ukrainians.

The Lys Mykyta Bar is still in existence serving up drinks to a gay college crowd who get just as drunk and obnoxious, fighting each other as a typical and worthless crowd of Ukrainians would do.

But seems we always carried out the role of our existence as worthless. That seems to be our fate.

Growing up in the straight world of the 1950-60s was certainly weird but seductively enticing and appealing for me. Of course, I had no idea what the words or the restrictions meant: straight, pervert, sissy, queer, they were just words.

But at least I found that out on the streets I could fit in, that is to be satisfied and pleased by strangers. Up around 42nd Street and Times Square was certainly a Mecca in itself, better than Sviaty Yuri or St. Marks Bathhouse could ever be.

Forty-Three

Getting Rid of the Ukie Village

The city was distinct communities once upon a time, what was done in one community was sneered and looked down in another. Communities stayed separate and distinct from each other. Yes, we were one city but we all came from different places. Uptown, the Bronx, across in Brooklyn or Queens, we crossed into Manhattan to the Crossroads of the World, Times Square.

Still men like me, teenagers really in those days, had

to live secretly in the shadows, in darkness, in bathrooms or movie theaters or subway stations, so my quest for isolation and privacy was already inborn; I knew that I could never be a part of life openly. Not that I wanted to try anyway, secrecy had become my way of life.

And the Veselka Restaurant is still serving up varenky and fruit compote but to a younger yuppiefied American crowd who bring in their quiet, obedient, respectful children (what rot!) and who seem to like and enjoy the tasty Ukrainska food there, as well.

Oy Bozhe, Bozhe, yak vse zminylosya. How things have changed.

What seemed new and unfamiliar to the throngs of immigrants from war torn Europe now looks very blasé and old hat to their new born Americansky children.

For as they grew up and ventured further and further from their homes, away from their parents, they felt no need to revert to the old ways of out village selo.

Anyway, they certainly recalled and remembered what education was like under the priests and nuns of Sviaty Yuri, and they were sure as hell that their own children would stay well and far away from them!

Until they closed the almost empty Sviaty Yuri’s parochial school… Was there sadness?

Sigh, all I now is I'm near the end of story.

Oy Bozhe, Bozhe…

Forty-Four

The Passing From The Old

Times change and being Ukrainian now means very little in New York, just a historical émigré curiosity.

Where once surged Ukrainians through the hectic streets filled with Russians, Byelorussian, Poles, Lithuanians, on and on, now stands a One America, buying up the old structures, trying to put a newness to very ugly lifeless buildings, mostly for their children, with a definite sign of progress being made, or so I’ve heard.

Vira and Iryna, two bitter wives, sadly passed away. Maybe for the good, but who am I to say?

As for the lovely rape victim, our Sweet Zulka, the heroine of the story, along with her drunken cohorts attackers, what became of them? Well, I suppose normal New York lives were in store for each of them.

Petya quickly married a black girl he picked up as she was coming out of Washington Irving High School on Eighteen Street. But he died of alcoholism a year after the marriage, though he left behind a child, male or female? Little is known which; it’s like he had never existed.

Drunken Bochka was struck by a car on the Bowery as he staggered from one dive bar to another one Christmas Eve and instantly died, whether it was from the car crashing into him or from his inebriated bum state was never really learned, at least the accident wasn’t investigated any further, they just filled out the paperwork and it was simply forgotten.

But silent little Nina grew up and got married to a happy Ukrainian and they live in Pennsylvania with Nina’s married children nearby. Mamusya Nina still makes home made pyrizhky pirogies and sings the old Ukrainian melodies with a tear in her eye.

As for Zulka, the little heroine of this Ukrainian novella, she ended up with two husbands (one Polish, one Puerto Rican, with probably a few secret lovers in the wings) each one beating and smacking her around but she did have five kids, spoiled brats really, unknown whose they were but who quickly grew up and left her.

She now lives in a Single Room Occupancy somewhere outside of Newark, New Jersey, hateful and bitter in her old age, cursing at whatever memory remains. And bitterly screaming that for some strange reason she is actually five years older than she is because to her fucking mother!

But Social Security has a photocopy of her ID papers and there’s no going around that.

“But they’re you’re ID papers, aren’t they?” snidely asks a government bureaucrat. “Yuk…yuk…yuk…what’s a Yukreeneen anyway? Is that something like the Yukon?”

Zulka storms out.

Forty-Five

The Wide Dnipro

Ah Skrypka, de ty? Where are you? De moya Ukraina? Where is my Ukraine?

Definitely somewhere dead... No answer.

But whenever I hear an accordion playing a Hopak, I instantly think of my tato.

The memory takes me back to the days when the old neighborhood was flooded with Ukrainians. It really was a Ukrainian village, selo, back then. The shops, the bars, the churches, funeral parlors were all meant for them, Ukraintsi, the Ukrainians! And of course, Sweet Sulka.

Oy Bozhe, Bozhe…

Where did the neighborhood go to and where are my beloved Ukraintsi?

No answer…scattered across America, I suppose.

I wipe a moistened eye.

Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyy Moans and groans the wide Dnipro, sighs Shevchenko, and he sighs a lot…but who listens and who cares anymore? No answer...

The End