05-VIII-2005.
Hopped to downtown in the morning, don't remember whether I needed something or just for a stroll. I recorded, in pixels, a visit to DBA.
The guy on the left, some Šoškić fellow, overlapped with me just a couple of months back then, when he was Carp's apprentice. Nena is in her top shape, what with the pointy shoes such as are worn on the other side. Though I haven't seen whites there. The american sense of color consists of denial. Sale (right) same as he always was. Not sure whether he had any breakfast, and whether that would have been on an empty stomach. Came across as in moderately merry mood. Everybody was happy to see me, specially Grgi when he dropped by, some time mid coffee. I think I also met Milka, the others were out in the field.
The furniture has been moved, as I see. The block to the rear wall used to be a partition in the middle of the room, making it possible to pretend it was two rooms.
By lunchtime I was with my folks, and then the telephony started. Boća called from his mobile, said he and Piton are stuck on Pančevački bridge, the column stands budges not, and he's in horrible need of a leak. Well, I said, get out and aim it over the fence. Well there's an idea, not bad at all...
They made it somehow, and it took dad just two sentences to talk him into handing me the keys, no need to drive that last bit when he's so tired, so they could drink a shot (I first typed „as hot“, obviously getting under Škrba's influence; same thing happened when I typed the serbian version). Dad seemed quite taken with my pal being a Šumadinac, nostalgy attracts...
So I drove it to Kikinda. The Golf just ran, not that it didn't, it's just that I never had the shift with the reverse to the left of the first, so I took me about ten starts until I acquired the sense to hit it without a few misses. I found the house easily. Kikinda is one of those austrohungarian places where the floorplan was designed with a fork on mashed potatoes - two sets of parallel streets. Just catch the first one to the right of the main, because the main is interrupted by a pedesetrian zone in the middle, and keep so until behind the hospital.
That evening we sat in the kitchen/study, so the music flowed from his desktop. I handed (... 19 words...) to him what I promised - the „Lord of the rings“ that I bought five years ago, and forced myself to read it and it just didn't sit well with me, it's not SF, deus ex machina is not proscribed, here the guy can keep inventing trick as he goes, to the very end. The rifle doesn't even need to exist in act one to be fired in act five. He got all bleary eyed, and pulled out two best brandies he had, „can't“ and „want nothing“. Which are the two usual phrases when one refuses a drink, to which he jumps in with „I got exactly that!“.
The jar with Nescafe Kenjara (crapper) appeared, there's a shot of me posing for an ad. His pal Lorand also came by. He used to be staff in an UN mission in Sierra Leone, so recounted a few events from there.
We sat until rather late. Boća got the daughter's bed, me they put downstairs, where Škrba's brother and mom live.
Next morning, when we got up, Škrba and his wife already put the table out in the yard, sound system ready. I grabbed an opportunity to, under his name, log into oldwave:
Early morning in Kekenda, still waking up from a lastnighter, i.e.BoćaKKKK still hasn't and even I did so only because of the antibiotics... and the villains lie that they don't go well with booze...
This is my modest attempt to get used to Škrba's tatastura (which'd welcome a squirt of njd-40), after now almost ten days without any typing at all.
Greeting from sGradlj no a. vacation in the old end, beginning etc.KKM
(the „Kekenda“ is a mock reference to the way Belgraders try, unsuccessfully, to emulate Banat speak; the njd-40 is wd-40, passed through a converter from juski cyrillic; the KKKK is emulation of the line noise which was common in the early years of sezam; „tatastura“ is „tastatura“ (keyboard) as mispronounced by some user in 1990)
Boća brought his laptop with music. Then Kunta came and started simmering his kettle. The recipe is quite simple, onions, beef, pork (with tendons), chicken in equal amounts. Simmer one for 40 minutes, add next. This meant that we took turns by the table and as stokers, further down the yard, under the walnut. Stoked, sipped the rakija, took pictures. I amazed Piton with my usual finger yoga (I can bend my thumbs far back and far down). Škrba used the occasion to vanish somewhere with the card from my shooter, and returned with a roast CD with all the shots so far. I formatted the card and started afresh.
When the gulaš was done, more people showed up, even their daughter, now really a fully grown chick, quite cute and spread out just like her mom (and what happened with that folklore tour... well never mind, something's amiss but irrelevant), had quite a company.
Lorand came again, too, and... well nothing, we ate as much as we could, it was good, and I hoped I'll need Kunta's recipe at least once in the future.
We kept on sitting and sipping late into the night. Boća stayed awake, but Škrba dozed off in his chair, halfway, so he was fully aware that I took two shots of him, with flash, but kept sleeping just the same. As they say his soul's asleep, but he's tthe host, can't leave first. After one more cigarette we found some mercy for him and went to sleep, so he can too.
Nobody counted how much we drank that day, we kept at it, little by little, all the time between the first coffee and hitting the hay.
Mentions: Aleksandar Raskov (Sale), Božidar Sokolović (Boća), DBA, Dragojlo Kuntić (Kunta), Ferenc Gereg (Grgi), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), juski, Milka Petrov, Nevena Žaja (Nena), oldwave, Piton, rakija, sezam, sGradlj, Tasa Radenkov (Carp), in serbian
24-V-2023 - 25-III-2026