Ferekeeko Lives & Conquers!

( Cont’d from Part I ) . . . V. E.’s size works against him.  He is unable to lower his center of gravity and thus has to grab Rhappy around the chest rather than lower down — that is, what would be beneath Rhappy’s center of gravity.  This makes V. E.’s task of getting Rhappy into the dumpster hard going, and, as such, Rhappy at length wins the struggle.  Winded, V. E. shifts his attention to our fourth character, the proud and poised Giorgi, “Gio” for short. Giorgi, the energetic young go-getter working his way out of hard times, is as stark a contrast to his peers as it is possible to be.  Each morning Gio brings delicious-looking baked goods to the supermarket.  Sober and walking tall, he delivers the delights with a quip and a smile not only for the drunkards but also for the ladies working in the store.  He even tosses V. E. a warm treat for free.  Thunderous lip-smacking and finger-sucking — and the jelly doughnut is promptly reduced to oblivion. Gio then holds the

I have a drinking problem.  That is, I have a problem with drinking in Georgia. At least five times a week I am awoken at various early morning hours by the so-called street boys.  It is usually a youngish crowd in their twenties barking in the street outside my flat. Some, admittedly, come home with an honest boozy glow about them: though their wits are dulled, they seem good-natured and maintain a modicum of respect for their sober sleeping neighbors. Others lack this restraint.  They yell at their friends’ windows ten storeys up.  Hanging all over one another, they cry out their friends’ names in drunken exuberance at the top of their formidable lungs: “Avto-o-o!” and “Lu-u-uka-a-a!”  They finish the lively conversations they must have been having earlier indoors, and they turn up their car stereos to the point where the bass grabs my window and throttles it like a can of paint in a mixer. Surely, all must be stolen away from dreamland at these times, no?  (I sleep