PRECOCIOUS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

PRECOCIOUS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
UEVFENT YEVTUSHENKO


In 1944 I was living alone in an empty apartment in a small quiet Moscow street. Chetvertaya Meshchanskaya.
My parents were divorced. My father was somewhere in Kazakhstan with his new wife and their two children. I seldom received letters from him.
My mother was at the front. She had given up her work as a geologist to become a singer and was giving concerts for the troops.
My education was left to the street. The street taught me to swear, smoke, spit elegantly through my teeth and to keep my fists up, always ready for a fight-a habit I have kept.
I realized that what mattered in the struggle for existence was to overcome my fear of those who were stronger.
The ruler of our street. Chetvertaya Meshchanskaya, was a boy of about sixteen who was nicknamed Red.
Red’s shoulders were incredibly broad for a boy of his age.
Red walked masterfully up and down our street. His legs wide apart and with a slightly rolling gait, like a seaman on the deck of his ship.
From under his peaked cap, always worn back to front his forelock tumbled down in a fiery cascade, and out of his round pockmarked face, green eyes, like a cat’s sparkled with scorn for everything and like a cat’s sparkled with scorn for everything and everyone crossing his path. Two or three lieutenants, in peaked caps back to front lime Red’s trotted at his heels.
Red could stop any boy and say impressively the one word money. His lieutenants would turn out the boy’s pockets and if he resisted they gave him a real beating.
Everyone was afraid of Red. I too was afraid. I knew he carried heavy brass knuckles in his pocket.
I wanted to conquer my fear of Red.
So I wrote a poem about him.
By the next day the whole street knew the piece by heart and relished it with triumphant hatred.
One morning on my way to school I suddenly came upon Red and his lieutenants. His eyes seemed to bore through me, ‘Ah the poet’ he drawled smiling crookedly. So you write verses. Do they rhyme?
Red’s hand darted into his pocket and came out armed with its brass knuckles; it flashed like lightning and struck my head. I fell down streaming with blood and lost consciousness.
This was my first payment as a poet.
I spent several days in bed.
When I went out, with instinctive fear but lost and took to my heels.
I ran all the way home. There I rolled on my bed, biting my pillow and pounding it with my fists in shame and impotent fury at my cowardice.
But then I made up my mind to vanquish it at whatever cost.
I went into training with parallel bars and weights and after very session I would feel my muscles. They were getting harder, but slowly. Then I remembered something I had read in a book about a miraculous Japanese method of wrestling which gave an advantage to the weak over the strong. I sacrificed a week’s ration card for a text book in jujitsu.
For three weeks I hardly left home-I rained with two other boys. Finally I felt I was ready and went out.
Red was sitting on the lawn in our yard, playing Twenty one with his lieutenants. He was absorbed in the game.
Fear was still in me and it ordered me to turn back. But I went up to the players and kicked the cards aside with me fool.
Red looked up, surprised at my impudence after my recent flight.
He got up slowly. You looking for more? He asked menacingly.
As before his hand dived into his pocket for the brass knuckles. But I made a quick jabbing movement and Red howling with pain rolled on the ground. Bnewildered he got up and came at me swinging his head furiously from side to side like a bull.
I caught his wrist and squeezed slowly as I had read in the book until the brass knuckles dropped from his limp fingers. Nursing his hand Red fell down again. He was sobbing and smearing the tears over his pockmarked face with his grimy fist. His lieutenants discreetly withdrew.
Hat day Red ceased to rule our street.
And from that day on I knew certain that there is no need to fear the strong. All our needs is to know the method of overcoming them. There is a special jujitsu for every strong man.
What I also learned that day was that, if I wished to be a poet, I must not only write poems but also know how to stand up for what I have written.