Ivanov woke up with a terrible headache. He was so sick that he couldn't open his eyes. It was as if hot desert sand had been poured into his mouth, after which cats had pooped there.
He felt a pleasant warmth in his right side. Groping with his right hand, he found a soft female breast.
The brain hasn't had time to turn on yet: it just gave out the blue screen of death yesterday, and it hasn't rebooted.
In the low, plaintive voice of a dying man, he said:
- Saule, my love, I don't know what happened yesterday, but I feel bad... Give me some mineral water, please.
The soft and hot thing stirred, and soon a void formed on the side, the bed creaked with springs. Vanya could hear the rustle of clothes and loud footsteps on the creaking floor, which reverberated like hammers in his temples.
Soon, a glass was thrust into his hand, which he grabbed tightly. Barely opening his eyes, he saw a blurred glass through small cracks and clung to it. A firm, soft palm helped him hold the water in his trembling hand.
After completely emptying the container, he whispered softly:
- Saule, thank you... Love you.
In response, he heard an unfamiliar hoarse voice that shocked him.:
"Stop calling me by someone else's name!" Are you confusing me with a Ledge, Ivanov?
Her eyes hadn't wanted to open before, but now they were wide open. This has not made the world any less vague. Groping with his left hand, Vanya found his glasses on the bedside table and put them on the bridge of his nose. He stared in amazement at the plump brown-haired woman, who looked nothing like his wife.
- Who are you, yogurt in my mouth? Where are we? Why were we in the same bed?!
"Oh, oh, oh..." the girl drawled. - Yes, Vanka, you're drunk. Don't you recognize me at all?
"Wait," he swallowed a dry lump and his eyes bulged in amazement. "Light?" Yogurt on the lips! Baranova?! But-Oh... Why are you so young and alive? You died in your thirties!
A wave of horror swept over Ivan. His brain hadn't turned on yet, but fear gripped him like a sticky wave.
"You're a sucker for a tongue!" Svetlana exclaimed indignantly. "I'm alive!"
"But I remember.".. My wife and I went to her brother's house on February twenty-third, and here you have forty days... I had to go to the wake.
- Hey, dreamer, one more such bullshit, I'll fucking rip your tongue out! Sveta said threateningly. - You've completely lost your cuckoo! You live in your own fantasy world. He spent the whole evening telling me his fantasies...
"Fantasies?" Which ones?
"Something about you going back in time.".. In general, he was talking some kind of drunken nonsense.
Suddenly, something clicked in my brain, and my thoughts returned to my skull. Abruptly, everything fell into place. Vanya remembered where he was - at home. Not in my cottage in 1945, but in Badgers in 2000! And he doesn't have a wife, Saule, or kids right now...
"Okay, wait," he massaged his temples, which were in pain. - I'm really talking nonsense. I'm sorry, Svetlana. You can't say anything drunk.
"That's better," a wide smile spread across Baranova's cheeky face. "And don't let that happen again!"
"Like what?" How was the night?
"No," Svetlana squinted with satisfaction. - 'Like at night' can be repeated. I'm talking about your nonsense about the future and death...
"Ah.".. Got it, I won't. Was there something between us?
- That's the stupidest question I've ever heard. Of course it was! Yes, it was... You were like a restless stallion. He drove me all over... Vanek, do you have something to drink and eat?
"Look in the fridge.
Baranova, wearing large rubber flip-flops, stomped into the kitchen and began to manage there, as if at home. Ivanov barely found the strength to get out of bed and get dressed. Soon he crawled out into the kitchen, and his gaze was glued to the jar of cucumber pickle. Until he had half of it, the whole world seemed to be put on pause. Only after that, the guy sat down on a chair and saw how the guest put a bottle of vodka and glasses on the countertop.
Immediately, Ivan felt sick. He almost returned everything he had just drunk. With difficulty, he managed to control the urge to vomit.
"Will you?" Sveta asked in a smoky voice.
"N-no, I'm done!"
"Phew..." she breathed out with relief, pouring vodka into a glass. "I will." I'll get more!
"I wouldn't be so happy if I were you." Cirrhosis is such a thing... And life is easier to fuck up.
"Don't teach me, scientist," Svetlana muttered in response. - Do you think that if you're rich, you have the right to teach others?
"Am I rich?" An ordinary person.
"Well, well, he's just an ordinary guy... Baranova snorted. - You have your own car, you built a new house, I even saw your cell phone! And you're going to tell me that you're not rich?
- Actually, not yet, but I hope to get rich in the future. Meanwhile, my finances are singing romances. Sveta, would you rather tell me how we ended up in the same bed?
Svetlana gulped down half a glass of vodka, bit into a piece of pickled cucumber, grimaced, and then asked:
"Don't you really remember anything?"
"Nothing."
- And how did a drunk come to me in a car?
"Me?" said Ivanov, horrified. "Drunk?" Driving?!!! I've never driven drunk!
- Ha! Congratulations, Vanek, yesterday was your first time... She winked playfully. - But I'm not talking about sex. You fucked me so hard that all the men would strangle themselves with envy!
- Well, thank you... He grimaced at the uncomplicated compliment. - Did I at least not crash the car?
"Nah," Sveta shook her head. - Normul mustache. We went to the store, bought some booze and a snack, and then to your house. You were showing me the new house, and then... mm... Then I liked it. We must definitely repeat it! You come to me if you need anything...
- Thanks for the invitation, I'll think about it.
The prospect of visiting Ivanova didn't seem to be attracted to the famous Barsukov slut and alcoholic. He was ashamed of yesterday. Not only did he allow himself to drive drunk, endangering the lives of others, but he also lowered his dignity below the floor by dragging a whore into his bed.
After finishing a bottle of vodka, a satisfied Baranova went home, leaving Ivanov suffering from a hangover.
Vanya didn't want to repeat yesterday's events anymore. He felt sick at the thought of what self-flagellation and alcoholism could lead to. He's alive and well, and that's the main thing. The rest will follow, just don't sit back.
We need a goal. The slowest person, if he has a goal, walks faster than the one who runs aimlessly.
Vanya has long wanted to move to a higher level. It's time to move away from the bucket business and start repairing badly damaged fresh foreign cars. It will take longer to restore such a car, but it will bring higher income than four domestic cars repaired in the same period. But to do this, you need to upgrade the repairman's skill, have a normal garage with the right slipway, and not the dangerous one that Ivan made himself last time and did not want to redo.
He knew a lot of tricks and tricks that he had seen from body repair bloggers like Kakhovka. But I always said to myself, 'Come on, it'll do, you can't redo everything.' As a result, crowbars, chains, and fasteners flew around his garage. And what did it lead to? That's right, to death!
It takes money to build a normal workshop with a good slipway and a paint chamber. If we add machines that can be used to make high-quality engine repairs, it will become even more expensive. It's all about money. Location doesn't matter. You can safely build a garage in Badgers. You will only need your own tow truck to carry the broken junk from the same Chelyabinsk. Or at least you need a trailer truck for towing cars. The latter is inexpensive and can be pulled by any passenger car. A tow truck trailer costs ten to twenty times more expensive, and requires a driver's license to drive a car with a trailer and a car with a powerful engine. A tow truck is the most expensive of all these.
As one character said, 'There's no money, but you're holding on.' And if there are none, then you need to earn money. The rolling stone gathers no moss.
Ivan didn't do anything about it that day. After lying down, he went to Chelyabinsk the next morning and began looking for a car for resale. And I found it. A five-year-old Volga GAZ 3110 with a hundred and fifty horsepower engine. The taxi driver's car is in terrible condition. But the price for such a year is extremely attractive - seventeen thousand rubles. The seller wanted more, but managed to get the price tag off. But to buy this pepelac, I had to take out a loan.
The seller hurriedly disappeared after handing over the cash, as if he was afraid that Ivanov would refuse the deal.
Vanya checked all the liquids, quietly commenting on the process:
"So, what's with the butter?" Oh! Even slightly above the maximum! A little cloudy, of course, but okay...
Looking under the engine, he found an oil puddle there. But the Volga had only been standing here for a little over an hour.
"Holy shit! Well, that's a record! There's never been so much oil running off any shit...
Looking under the bottom again, he summarized:
- The oil is a stream of horseradish... So it's there!
The next surprise was the driver's door, which didn't want to open at all. It was possible to get into the cabin only through the passenger door.
- It's okay, it's convenient... - he commented sarcastically. - Know-how from GAZ! Now you won't have to get bored through the driver's door, we've come up with a new attraction for you!
After putting the four in the paid parking lot, he spent an hour trying to start the Volga. I unscrewed and dried the candles several times. He burned out excess fuel from the cylinders, leaving the spark plugs open, and putting the candles on top of the engine. The process was accompanied by fiery flashes. And yet, in the end, the engine started up.
When it was necessary to adjust the chair, Vanya began to look for the twister and found it on the right side.
- Oh, yes, it's the famous Volga freak system...
The car started moving, which was good news.
"He's coming!" - He said happily. - What about the wipers?
After flipping the switch, the wipers started working.
- Come on! They're working! Oh, come on! Sarcasm and irony poured out of him. - This is generally shock content... For seventeen mowers, there's also a Volga with wipers! Tell me that the stove is working there...
Since it was already November, it was cold outside. Ivan's surprise knew no bounds when the stove turned on. He raised his palm to the blower and happily commented:
- Don't make me laugh - it's blowing warm! The best day of my life. This is the best purchase in English...
The car was rolling along the road on knee-length rubber. The car was going well, but unpredictably. Very unpredictable... There was no collapse, convergence, or suspension, but the brakes worked acceptably. The rear axle was crunching.
- What about the handbrake? Is he there? He stopped and pulled the handbrake. - Yes, yogurt for you, Vanechka! You also wanted the handbrake to work for seventeen grand...
- What about our blood pressure? There is and does not heat up, it pleases. The light? It's there - it's totally chic!
Vanya somehow got to the village. How 'so wonderful' The Volga did not fall apart along the way, only random knows. I got there on my own, and not even all the oil spilled out.
Fixing a car on the street in the cold season is a separate kind of perversion. Vanya did not want to get prostatitis at a young age. So he decided to build at least a temporary semblance of a garage.
The next day, he took a bus to Chelyabinsk to pick up his foursome. There he toured advertising agencies. One of them happily sold Vanya a couple of huge old banners for pennies.
It took him a week to build a wooden frame made of planks that were used for formwork for pouring arbolite. He stretched advertising banners on the frame. I put an extension cord under the awning from the house, put a heat gun and hung up the carriers for lighting. It's not exactly comfortable to work in such conditions, but it's acceptable. It's better than outdoors.
He spent two weeks restoring the car. I poured thirty thousand rubles into it. But in the end, it turned out to be a candy with fresh paint, a whole body and all the working units. Normal winter tires, painted wheels under silver hoods, a well-cleaned interior. A peach, not a car! Well, where can you go without a twisted mileage for a five-year-old car?
The next day, the Volga was sold on the Chelyabinsk car market for one hundred thousand rubles.
After paying off the loan, taking into account the money spent on gasoline, banners, travel and entry fees to the market, the net profit amounted to fifty thousand.
It's a pity that such cars are rare.
But he got a penny from under his grandfather, who had owned it since the seventy-eighth year. The car was sold by the heirs, and before that it had been in the garage for seven years. Naturally, everything turned sour there and it wouldn't start. The owners were stubborn and did not want to bargain in any way. But the price tag was also small - five and a half thousand. Except they made it a condition to pick up the car right away. Naturally, Vanya bought the car without thinking. Even without documents, she would have spent a little more on spare parts, and she had the documents.
The only thing he did was pull the wheelbarrow out of the owner's garage and, with the help of the former owner, dragged it on a rope outside the garage cooperative.
After that, he immediately went to the points selling trailers. And the second time, I bought a trailer truck for towing cars for seven thousand.
Oh, how much he had to make love to put a penny on a trailer alone. As a result, the car was dragged to Badgers and abandoned near the yard.
In the evening, he had no strength left for anything, but in the morning he went out, dug out the snow paths, froze and began to examine the remains of the structure he was thinking of as a temporary garage.
People say that there is nothing more permanent than temporary. This is often the case, but not in this case. The canopy turned out to be too flimsy. There was heavy snowfall at night. The frame could not stand it and tilted dangerously, the awnings sagged under a pile of snow.
Vanya realized that he couldn't work like this. He waited for the postman, who brought newspapers and magazines with advertisements several times a week. It was worth flipping through the first newspaper and reaching the heading "I sell garages", as the third ad from above pleased me.:
The garage is metal welded 3×6 m, without space. 7.5 thousand . Auction
Vanya couldn't leave this announcement without a comment.:
- Yes, it's just some kind of holiday. Just think: seven and a half mowers, and bargaining! Yogurt on the lips! I'm so lucky today that at least I can go to the casino...
It was a shame that the village still doesn't accept cell phones. So Vanya dropped the shovel and hurried to get to the nearest landline phone.
In the evening, a crane was installing a metal garage on Ivanov's property. The owner himself was out of breath, as he had to urgently clear the snow from the garage.
Of course, the garage cost him a little more, at ten thousand, because he had to hire a truck and a crane to load, deliver and unload the garage. But generally acceptable. You can't think of a better temporary home. At least, there is no fear that the structure will collapse from the snow.
No sooner had the crane disappeared from sight than a fellow villager from the far side of the village approached Ivanov. He looked like his age: average height, solid build, with a bald head trimmed with a typewriter. He was dressed in dirty dark blue overalls. Looking uncertainly at the owner of the house with brown eyes, he nodded affably and began:
- Ivan Ivanovich, hello...
- Mishka, you're healthy! Why are you so formal? You're ten years older than me.
"Eleven o'clock." I'm sorry, Wan, I just wanted to be respectful.
- Bullshit war - the main thing is maneuvers... Have you been in the village long? I haven't seen you here. I thought they said that you work in Chelyabinsk.
- I was working. My mother has become very bad, she needs to be looked after. I would have taken her to the city, but my wife, two children, and I lived there in a rented one-bedroom apartment. And I worked at the factory. With my salary, we would not have been able to afford either the purchase of a hut or the rent of a two-room apartment. I had to move to the village.
- Unexpectedly. But a mother is sacred. I didn't have time to say goodbye to mine because of the service. While she's alive, she should be happy.
- That's what I'm talking about, but there's a problem with work. She's gone! I tried to get a job at a sawmill, but everything is busy there. I've been pushing for a month now, as hard as a tank. Does you that... The guys said you could get a job. I can do anything: my arms grow out of my shoulders.
"Aren't you drinking?" Ivanov narrowed his eyes.
- No! What are you?! I do not drink. I have a family. To be honest, I've seen enough of the locals - it's terrible. There's no work, everyone's drinking. As for me, it's only on holidays. My Lubka doesn't like this business.
- Mish, can you fix cars?
- Well, that's it... He shrugged his shoulders. - I fix my own Lada. The kid was sorting out a motorcycle.
- Kefir for me in full glasses! Ivanov drawled happily. - Yes, today is just a day of luck!
"I don't understand," Mikhail frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
- I've been rushing to buy lottery tickets since morning. Mishan, if you're ready to turn the screws, then there's plenty to do. Will six thousand a month suit you?
"Six thousand?" Mikhail's eyes gleamed with joy. - Of course! I got the same amount at the factory. And the men at the sawmill are paid two mowers each. Where can I sign in blood?
"I'm not the devil to buy souls." And I'm not an entrepreneur to enter into contractual relations. If you take my word for it, come back tomorrow and we'll fix this trough.
Vanya nodded in the direction of the Zhiguli he had bought.
"I'll be there, make no mistake," a joyful smile did not leave Misha's face. - Lubka will be so happy!
- Mish, I take it that you have a license?
- Of course, I drive by car. Do you need to go somewhere?
- Not yet, but in the future it will be necessary to drive. To drive cars, to sit behind the wheel on the hitch, to go to the city for spare parts. If you're ready, I'll give you gas and bonuses.
"Damn, you're asking!" Of course, Vanek! I'm all for it. No question, I'll do everything.
"See you tomorrow, then."
You might think that the work is done twice as fast together. Perhaps this is true for some diggers, but not in car repairs. Two people fix cars three to four times faster than one. Where it would take several hours to remove a heavy spare part alone, two people can do it in a matter of minutes. Besides, when you're alone, you work slowly, take long breaks, and you get more tired mentally than physically. It just gets boring. The work is going better in the company. Behind the jokes, the mood improves and the working capacity increases.
Ivan expected to spend a couple of weeks restoring the penny. It was too painful for her to be in a depressing state. But I managed to meet the deadline with an assistant in three days, after which I drove the updated car for sale. He earned ten thousand from a penny, which has already paid off the assistant's work.
The bucket business has started up with renewed vigor. So far, I had to suffer and overcome in a garage without a pit. It seems that money has started to appear, but building in winter is another kind of perversion. Moreover, Vanya decided to make a garage out of the same materials as the house. This means that you will have to knead a lot of concrete. There is a lot of concrete. But once it's filled in in winter, the garage will start to crack next year, and in five years it will require rebuilding from scratch.
So I had to overcome it. A heat gun, plugged cracks, and a blanket hung on the gate saved him. Without the heater, both of them would have been sick.
The electricity bills, of course, were not encouraging, but they were not cosmic either. Nevertheless, the air was not heated in vain, but for work, which brought a good profit by village standards.
Ivan earned no more than before, about the same as in Chelyabinsk. It seemed that more cases could be done, but the salary paid to the assistant and related expenses ate up the difference.
The funds that came from renting apartments in Chelyabinsk made a good profit. Vanya went to the city every month to collect rent, combining the trip with business in the bucket business. These funds were used for household expenses. All profits from the bucket business were put into the piggy bank or put into circulation.
There were often two or three, sometimes up to five, cars parked in front of the yard.
It's easy to work in Badgers. Here you can not be afraid of an unexpected visit from racketeers or cops who decided to check the box in the disclosure of the case of illegal entrepreneurship.
In January, Ivan finally moved to live in a new house. He spent his free time arranging his lair. He did not buy most of the furniture, but made it with his own hands from wood, which he bought inexpensively at a sawmill. They were crude crafts that fit seamlessly into the interior. Stained and varnished or simply burnt wooden shelves, cabinets and shelves evoked the atmosphere of a rustic house. Not that dreary squalor with old Soviet furniture and carpets on the wall, but the modern home of a hand-made lover.
He even made the double bed himself. Only the mattress had to be ordered. The wardrobe and computer table, the dining room table - everything was handmade. The only exceptions were chairs. They are easier to buy than to make yourself. But new ones are expensive in stores, so Vanya found used ones that were given away for free, and restored the lacquer coating with upholstery. Good Soviet chairs, if you don't jump on them, last for decades, or even a century. And the question is: why pay more if you can get it for free?
By the end of April, Ivanov had saved up five thousand dollars and started building a garage.
Mikhail has already gotten his hands on car repairs, adopted many of sensei's techniques, and even learned how to fix dents and paint. Only welding work has not been given to him yet. While Vanya was engaged in the construction of the garage, Misha was tinkering alone with the restoration of the old five. On his own, without prompting or determining the front of work, he was twice as slow as the more experienced Ivan. But the main thing is that the bucket business did not stop, but was ready to bring at least some profit.
Once again, lines of Kamaz trucks with building materials went to Badgers. The large-scale construction of the century began to boil over. The garage promised to be slightly smaller than the house. Just a little bit. After all, it was designed for four cars, if you count the stocks. The gates will be located on both sides for the convenience of entering the slipway if other cars are parked in front. Embedded pins with rings were immediately mounted into all the walls at the masonry stage at different heights. In the future, a chain for body extraction will be attached to these rings. An oven is provided for heating in the cold season. Ivanov considered it expensive to carry gas to the garage as well. He barely had enough money for construction anyway, because prices for everything had increased significantly over the year.
On the other hand, the rise in real estate prices was partly encouraging. Ivan's one-bedroom apartment is already worth at least ten thousand dollars each, despite the fact that his income has not changed much in three years. He praised himself for his foresight. If he hadn't bought an apartment back in the two thousandth year, he would have had great difficulty acquiring it now. Things will get worse in the future. Real estate is becoming less accessible to the public every year.
The garage was being built at a rapid pace. Unlike the house, it did not need any finishing or utilities, with the exception of electricity. Basically pour the concrete, pour it again and put the blocks. The filling of the arbolite belt this time took place simultaneously with the construction of the walls, which is somewhat more convenient than the phased construction. Once again, local drunks who wanted to make money made a big contribution.
As a result, the garage was completed in mid-July, which is very fast, no matter how you look at it. Two and a half months for such a large room by one person plus a floating number of drunks is powerful.
Ivan made the slipway himself, which took him two more weeks. Mikhail provided him with all possible assistance in this. I had to carry heavy sheets of five-millimeter foil, which is not easy even with an assistant. The winch and the anchored hooks in the walls helped out. With the help of them, you can deliver a heavy load to any point in the garage without breaking your back. At the same time, the mortgages were tested for durability.
By the beginning of August, the garage was fully ready. Ivan still has chains, fasteners and exhaust jacks from Chelyabinsk. They needed to be replaced with more professional tools of a higher class, but they were still ready to serve their owner.
The two thousand and third year was marked by the arrival of the Beeline cellular operator in the Chelyabinsk region. By summer, a stable cellular connection appeared in Badgers. Ivanov did not fail to take advantage of the chance to gain greater communication mobility and soon became a subscriber to this operator. A new stage has begun - the transition from the bucket business to the restoration of foreign car junk.