A Russian kid in Kansas (Chapter 1)

I don’t think long stories fly well on Medium, but who cares! Besides, I didn’t write this specifically for Medium. Some years ago I drafted a book about my various international travels and experiences but never finished it. Maybe one day! This is the opening chapter.

1993

“I want to talk to you about something,” my father said, his boots crunching in the dirty snow. We were walking our bull terrier in the Moose Island forest. These long weekend hikes in the forest near our home had become a chore, boring the hell out of me. On that particular day Mom had stayed at home.

The words, “I want to talk to you about something” sounded a tad ominous.

Oh, it’s that conversation. He is going to educate me about my penis.

Curiosity and discomfort mingled in my mind. I was thirteen and had been wondering when and how my parents would handle my sex education. Not that I needed it. I had learned enough on my own by chatting with friends at school and reading the anatomy articles in the abridged Soviet encyclopedia in our living room.

I was, however, caught off guard by the life-changing conversation that followed. Nothing around us in Metrogorodok, a drab, unremarkable district on the eastern edge of Moscow, called for anything life-changing. On rare sunny days, the snowy forest looked picturesque, but most often the trails we roamed were gray and dirty, like the low-hanging clouds above.