On 2nd went to Lesnina and met a couple of guys, then one told me that the whole gang is near Miljka's building at the stone (whatever that meant, probably a concrete cube that should have been a base for something, or an entrance into some underground shelter - all defunct, never finished, just a blob of concrete). Went to ruža and they noticed me from across the lawn. We moved to the center of the lawn then, someone had a battery operated record player, and then I heard the "Give peace a chance" and, later, "Bridge over troubled water". Singles, of course - battery! Soon, though, there was a storm, a real košava in the middle of a summer. We ran into the basement of a nearby building (I wrote down that this is where the K. sisters lived... hmm, I kind of remember they were riverside... nevermind). Turns out that they've made this basement a club, kind of a civilized version of the one we had last winter. With power, so we could have music, and real walls and flat floor and staircase with no rungs missing... There were crates and cases to sit on, everything was covered by huge slabs of corrugated cardboard, so it was fine to sit anywhere. Posters over the walls and windows - so it was dark inside, and the basement windows were never ever much and even less clean in any novogradnja, so why bother. Some of the posters were soft porn from Start (Zagreb) and Čik (Belgrade); there was even Korni grupa from Ilustrovana.
I borrowed the Lennon single for a week and took it home as soon as the storm passed. Came back in the evening. The whole gang was already there - Dragana, Rencika, Bosa, D.G., and those who were already there in the afternoon. It was fun, almost like a real party except there was no host. Well it is a club, a place to come to.
Tejka returned from vacation on 5th. Not in best mood. We walked around, visited Ivka and Gradivoj's dad, who seems a cool guy (freshly widowed, though). He gave us a vinjak - I tried half a glass, and forgot about it completely. Finding out that I actually did try it then was a surprise to me when I read the note in 2020.
On 7th visited the club again. Got there arond 19 and everyone was there already, in front of the building. Most of the gang was going to a movie, and had tickets already, and I didn't so I would sit somewhere away, so I stayed with the rest. They took off, with first raindrops already falling, and we went inside. Tejka burned a hole in her dress, the careless smoker, exchanged a few barbs with S., who was also busy kissing Rencika, and then three guys, adults, come in, looking at us as if we were thieves.
- what are you doing here?
- moved away from the rain.
- what rain?
- it may have stopped by now, but it rained when we came in.
- do you live in (any apartment entered via) this entrance?
- no
- so go to your own basement
me: - I can't
- why?
- I don't have a basement
- can't help you there, dig one.
- that's a bit harder to do
- so what are you waiting for, why aren't you leaving?
So OK, it wasn't as bad as I remember it. There probably was the usual gossip outside, about some gang of dirty junkies, drunkards or who knows they may even smoke in there... organize orgies and who knows what. We did see the wives outside, peeking in, which we considered rude, that's poking a nose in lives of others, but then we were always under everyone's scrutiny. S. has muttered a paraphrase of a, then popular, song which went "too bad you didn't grow at least half a span taller" as "too bad they didn't grow half a span shorter, they wouldn't have to bend" and we closed the window. Not nice to be spied on. So they went upstairs, roused their husbands (probably from a catnap or, it being after 19, watching the news on tv), told them the whole story, so blown out of proportion, and so it went.
As we were leaving, these wives were watching. Bosa was cursing aloud. I asked who let us in there in the first place. The house council did, but some were against it. And they waited for a chance to kick us out. Rencika: "So you stand at one entrance until they kick you out, then you move to the next. Fuck such life."
Next day, when Rencika and Tejka came to visit, I got the news that we may go to prison, as there's no chance we can prove we didn't do anything, they can pin anything on us. The fashion was on, some overzealous guardians may like to make a second case like those in Leskovac (drugs and what else). The phones are abuzz, they have lists of just about anyone who barely knew about the place, who had the right of entrance, and guess Rencika as the bursar would be fucked up the worst. And she even didn't want to be that, S. made her accept the duty.
So we exchanged jokes about the slammer, guessing how much we'd get... and then we went to ruža to hear the news update. Rencika already had a striped t-shirt, getting ready for it, eh? Generally, there was an air of fun and mockery - we knew we didn't do anything wrong, so why not. Too bad we got kicked out of that basement. That's because of what you were doing in there. Now I wish we did.
The date is picked at random, but should be approximately anywhere in this month, or July.
This evening the gang at ruža made an excellent prank on one of the buildings. It being a novogradnja, there were no elevators, and the staircase on this one was all in glass. The fuse box, one for the whole entrance, was unlocked, or rather the lock was broken long ago. So they knew which fuses are for what. They unscrewed the fuses for the doorbells first. Then they unscrewed the ones for the staircase light. Then one of the guys at the entrance taped all the bell buttons with the wide adhesive tape - which was probably brought from Germany, as we only had 2cm wide selotejp at the time.
Then they unscrewed the fuses for some of the apartments, at random, walked out and hid behind the bush and waited. The inevitable happened within minutes. Someone came out to see what's up, saw the staircase was dark, took a little torchlight (not too good in those times), and walked downstairs to check the fuses. Being relieved that the fuses weren't stolen, just unscrewed, he started screwing them back. At some point all the bells, at every apartment, started ringing.
I didn't exactly see this happen, but just as well - I heard the story from the participants the same or next evening, probably from Patak.