07-XI-1969.

For weeks we'd be without power at 18:00, for maybe 30 seconds. The big power plant at Đerdap was near production, it was actually finished but the power grid needed some adjustment, so it was tested day after day.

And this is how we planned to use that: during the chemistry class, held by the famous Cink, when the power goes out, we'll flip the switch. Maybe the guy won't notice that the power's back and we're still in the dark. But no, the guys had a toy and played it all the way. Yesterday they went into the seventh grades' hall and jerked the fuses several times... so today we had the culmination and official investigation, including Ivka, the classmaster of VIII₁ and the oto teacher (not Lazar, the other one). He singled me out and I kind of negotiated an indemnity for myself, saying I was not the organizer, they just asked me about the technical side and safety. When we finished (I ratted on myself and three other guys), he came to the class with a proposal/ultimatum: who turns himself in, by coming down to his cabinet in the basement, will pay for five fuses; those who we know did it but don't come down, will pay for five fuses and get a written reprimand of the principal (or was it only of the classmaster, which was first degree; principal's was second, and the third was from staff session "before expulsion" - i.e. there was no fourth, you get kicked out into a different school). Ivka was not surprised about some guys, but was very surprised about some others. So... we got off cheap for now.

The payback came a week later when there was a parents' meeting. We got 51 aces (F marks, in translation) across the 30 of us. Who knows what horrors Ivka told them of us, but, luckily, dad came back with his favorite mechanic, the guy who was the chief of city's shit trucks - those would come with their thick hoses and suck out your shitholes aka sceptic (the mistake was not popular at the time, but much later) tanks for the following years. IOW, he was the chief of the city cleaners' machine park. He told a few long jokes (I wrote down a couple). Was a funny guy anyway, the workers called him Che, he was also a kind of workers' tribune in the unit. His wife worked with my grandmother in the nets factory. Small, wearing fashion as if she were ten years older, but still looking kind of sweet. They lived smack downtown, probably renting, in an apartment in one of the old houses, where they held perhaps third of the space. We visited them a few times. They had no kids so they kind of liked me, and I liked to steal the comedy tricks from the guy. He really was funny: "as long as people shit, we'll have something to eat". "I stand in front of a mirror and address myself by last name".

The next day they were to buy me a suit in Belgrade. My first. Dunno whether I'll like it at all. We're also taking the "4B" movie and another one to be developed in Cinephoto (I didn't write down why didn't we develop it ourselves - perhaps because the last two times didn't work too well, or what). The trip included visiting Zajač... where I met some distant cousins, seventh knee, far away enough to be of interest, who were both pretty girls and incensed with my stories about blowing fuses. The relationship goes over my paternal grandmother, whom I never even saw, she died in 1947. Never saw the girls again either.

Around that time I kind of dropped out from the company at the corner, Kale et al, and stopped visiting it altogether. Most of my classmates were on ruža, and it's not that far, just three blocks more. There's Zvojko, Rencika, Dragana, Oli Boj, Džimi the drummer (kind of dumb but manages), Đica and a couple of girls from her building, bunch of other guys, so this is where I hang out now. With Rencika I had some kind of a game, pretending that she asked me to meet her at the Fabrika station (which is not really near, perhaps 2km) at seven, to which I pretend to blush, then the next day we both ask each other "why didn't you come".

The separate story about the chemistry class in the dark.

The reason we wanted to do this in the first place is a bit circumspect. Not that we planned this from the start, nobody did, but it occurred to us that it would be great fun if we had a power out during the chemistry class. Now that it fizzled out during the winter semester, we still did it once while we were in 2nd shift and it was already dark outside at 18:00. Because that was the time when they tried out the new big power plant on Danube, in Đerdap gorge. They'd switch off the usual sources and plug us into Đerdap. I guess they switched back at some point overnight. This went on and on for a couple of months.

So when the stars aligned properly - we were in the classroom with Cink, it was already dark outside, and it was 18:00 and the power went out, we had perhaps fifteen or thirty seconds until it would be switched on again. Zvojko just memorized the position of the switch and flipped it off in the dark, and went back to his place. We were just two meters from the switch, so this wasn't hard. So we saw, through the windows (the wing with the cabinets and staff room was at an angle to the main building, so we saw it), that the power returned to the city, but Cink didn't. He didn't have a clue that this power out is beyond the usual half a minute. He kept on talking, and then when a few minutes passed, he sent the orderly to get a candle from the janitor. As a chemist, he always had matches in pockets of his blue smock (real chemists should wear white, but there's no way his would stay clean the whole day). He didn't notice that the corridor was brightly lit when the orderly left, nor when he returned. Another kid came to bring some announcement (probably something about the choir rehearsal or the end of semester), again showing full light in the corridor, and he took the notice and read it aloud by the candlelight, in his usual shifted accent (funny how those people from the south kept a different accent when reading aloud - starting with my kindergarten teacher - which I didn't quite understand at the time).

Eventually, after some fifteen minutes, I told Zvojko, my deskmate, to flip the switch again. "But he'll see me!" - "No, these are neon lights, they flicker for a few seconds, you have time enough to get back into your seat". And that part worked as well. Neither Cink nor anybody else never knew what actually happened. Only we know, and of course, those we bragged to.

Mentions: David Jamaček (Kale), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Đurđica Oraški (Đica), Emerencija Nerdelji (Rencika), Fabrika station, Gratislav Dragojević (Cink), Ivanka Tomašić /Čardić/ (Ivka), Lazar Josin, Olivera Stojanović (Oli Boj), OTO, ruža, VIII₁, Zajač, Zvonko Darišić (Zvojko), in serbian