I threw the bottle of 151 at the concrete wall of the building, watching it shatter into a dozen jagged pieces of exploding glass and liquor.I bellowed as loud as I could, the horrifying sound of my voice echoing through the complex of run-down buildings of the public housing project I lived in, all around me. I lay back in the unkempt grass, tears streaming from my eyes, choking on my own tears and bile. I was sixteen years old, and having the very first bottle of 151 I had ever had, a bottle that now lay in pieces on the side of my home. The lights were off inside. Nobody was home.
Nobody was ever home anymore.
Not even
me.
I rolled over into the red dirt and pulled my knees up to my chest. I had no idea what was about to hit me. I'd never had 151 before... but that night, when I bought the bottle, I wanted to drink myself into oblivion and 151 was the strongest liquor that Jimmy had on hand. I had no idea where pulling out the flame arrester and drinking half the bottle at once would take me.
It felt like somebody had punched me in the gut. But I didn't care. I'd been punched in the gut endlessly. By Derrick. By Anton. By Tee. And all the other guys that used to beat the shit out of me until I learned to fight and knocked one of them out. I wanted this though. I wanted to feel this.
I was numb.All I could think about was Katie in Peter's arms. Wherever they were, in the backseat of his fancy car. The fucking BMW that his dad bought him for his sixteenth birthday that cost more than my entire family would make in two years. Peter, who treated her like shit, who belittled her, who tore down everything that I built up in her, who she loved so much that she just took it. Peter, who sent her crashing down; but whose smile and words could brighten her day when mine had no longer had effect. Peter, who took my Katie away from me.
I knew what he was doing to her. Every time I saw her, she looked worse and worse. And yet, with everything she did to please him, I knew he still didn't really care.
I'll wait for you, Katie. It meant nothing.
The swirling maelstrom began to overtake me. I felt like I was melting into the earth in endless repetitions of counter-clockwise motion.
I'll make something of myself, Katie. We'll run away together, Katie. I opened my mouth and coughed up bile into the dirt.
Am I dying? I couldn't breathe. I didn't care. I was a puddle of flesh on the dirt now, slowly melting into the ground.
It was my fault. I should have been a man. I should have told her. I tried to say her name. I couldn't.
I stopped breathing.
*****
Illyana was everything Katie wasn't. Everything good about Katie, Illyana was the opposite.Illyana was the only person I knew who was possibly more fucked up than I was. She was mean to me, called me a pussy, and liked throwing things at me. But she understood me better than anyone else ever did. Katie accepted me. Illyana
knew me.
I opened my eyes, and watched Illyana doing a line of coke off of her marble coffee table. And I closed them again, sliding one of her Persian sofa pillows over my face.
I opened my eyes, and felt Illyana's hands on me, dragging me out of the grass and onto the back seat of her Mercedes-Benz. And I closed them again, as she clenched my jaw with her hand to stop me from vomiting all over the leather.
I opened my eyes, and felt Illyana's arms around me, holding me snugly from behind on the floor. And I closed them again, realizing that she had placed a faceless, legless amigurumi bear in my hands.
I woke up with a jolt, feeling ice water splashing on my face. I opened my eyes, and through the haze I saw the blurred sight of the projection TV repeating the laserdisc movie Illyana and I had been watching earlier in the night. She was crouching in front of me in her lacy black
Yves Saint Laurent dress, her sharp knee touching my forehead, so close I could see the intricate stitching in the lace against her pale, thin thighs.
"
This is why you have problems." Illyana said, her long black slavic hair falling down her jaw and in front of her exposed collarbones.
"
What?"
"
Who taught you this shit?" She cracked back the slide of my .45 halfway and tilted it at me, exposing the empty chamber.
My mouth agape, one eye open, I stared up at her. She pulled back the slide all the way, chambering a round, and dropped my nickel-plated pistol on my forehead.
"
Rudy." I told her, grabbing the pistol. I ejected the magazine and removed the round Illyana chambered.
"
Your mister Rudy is мудак." Illyana said, bending down and kissing my forehead, before telling me the best metaphor for the harsh cruelty of life that I would hear for fifteen years.
"Life is like this. You always be ready to shoot. Always one in the chamber. No safety. Life has no safety. Someone about to hurt you, you shoot first. You get opportunity, you always shoot first. Maybe you regret later, but you cannot regret when dead."
I looked up at her. Illyana was everything I hated in this world, but she was right. Illyana never coddled me. She kicked me in the gut and gave it to me straight. Whenever I tried crying to her, she threw something at me and told me to shut up.
"
I don't know why you like American so much. American cars shit. American guns shit. American girls shit."
I exhaled and rolled over away from her.
"
Your American girl... she does not know quality." Illyana whispered in my ear.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I wanted to tell her.
And for some reason, as if Illyana had read my mind, she did. The rest of the night, I only heard one more word out of her mouth, breathing in my ear from behind as she fell asleep. All I wanted to do was sleep now. To fall asleep drunk, trying to convince myself that Katie was with
me, not with Peter. That the demented faceless, legless
amigurumi bear that Illyana knit for me, in my arms, was Katie. That the thin arms of this crazy Russian girl that held me from behind were Katie's arms.
For the first night, like a night twelve years later in the midst of the two most painful heartaches in my life, Illyana was there with me, with no bullshit... with just her understanding and the company of cold steel.
"
Zaichiki..." She whispered in my ear.
