Blowing out a noisy breath, I swung my feet off the bed, sat up, and opened my nightstand drawer. My Bersa Thunder 9mm stared back at me. I took it up from where it was nestled among two grenades, eight copper bullets and a taser gun. Slipping my index finger on the trigger, I jammed the mouth of the Bersa up under my chin, closed my eyes and embraced the pain of hard metal digging on my skin.
I did this a lot. Tempted myself. But could never find the balls to pull the trigger. Just teasing myself with the possibility of death. Promising my soul freedom, then never actually delivering. Instead of pulling the trigger, I pressed the gun harder under my chin, and harder, until it felt like it would rip through my skin.
Pain was good. Pain was distracting. Pain was soothing.
When it became unbearable, I ended the tease and set the Bersa back into the nightstand drawer.
Fuck my life.
Easing off the bed, I plodded over to the dresser, selected a sweats and tank top, and then dragged them on. Shoving my feet into a pair of Adidas sports slippers, I grabbed my apartment keys and slammed out of there to get some air. Needing fresh air to breathe and think about a life I didn’t have.
My apartment complex, The Chess, was well-secured and safe. Residents of this secluded little place paid a fortune for the peace of mind, not the apartments. So at late nights I usually had no qualms about strolling about the well-maintained complex, which had a pool area, tennis court, basketball court, playground, and its highlight: a blooming, evergreen, wide expanse of a garden at the back, which had every colorful flower one could think of, and variegated trees.
Since I had nowhere to go on the nights I didn’t turn in at Empty Cage, I would mostly walk the beautifully designed, lush and inspiring garden. Although it would be better to appreciate its glory during sunlight hours, I only came out at night because I liked the shadows of the trees offering me fake security, the whistling of the wind through the leaves like a death ballad, a sweet lullaby to my ears.
I breathed easily in the darkness, held my breath in the light.
That’s why I walked the gardens at night.
Here, I had no friends or family—well, I had no family period. Back ‘home’, in Russia, at least I had a handful of odd friends, if I could refer to them as such instead of co-workers, considering they, too, were employers of The Voice.
Stepping through the glass double doors of the building, I threw my head back, inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, allowing the cool night air to stream through my nostrils.
Ah. Better already.
The Chess apartment complex had an exclusive hotel feel to it, with the glowing ground lights lining the walls all around, the towering palm trees, and gushing, lit fountains.
Sinking my hands into my pockets, I began the wandering jaunt. Seeing as it was almost nine-thirty, no one was out but me. Thus leaving the night still and quiet. Only the stars spoke, the moon, and the pesky night creatures. And I meandered, one foot after the next, like a restless, tormented ghost roaming the earth.
That’s what I felt like most times, anyway. Like a ghost within the world of the living, but unable to live. Unable to smile, love or dance a while.
Craning my neck slightly, I looked up the eight-story apartment building. Some of them were three bedrooms, some two, some one. Some of those apartments, had families, some newly-weds, some single, lonely suckers like myself. But the ones I envied were the three bedrooms with the immediate families inside. Maybe a brother and a sister who fought a lot. Maybe a teenager who thought his/her parents hated them for trying to guide them in the right path. Maybe a wife who didn’t appreciate the affection of her husband. Maybe a husband who never takes the time to compliment his wife. Maybe a newborn who cries all night.
It didn’t matter. They were family. Families who’ll never know the importance of each other until something terrible happens.
Family. Something I no longer had. Something that was cruelly taken from me.
Isabel Byrd, my mother, was never a good mother. She was a cold, distant, and enigmatic woman. And I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that whatever came down on our heads was on her account.
We were Americans, not Russian—well, my mother gave birth to me in Russia, but both my parents and my brother were Americans. My father told me that before I was conceived, my mother had gotten a job offer which would pay her big. The job was in Russia. My father said he loved my mother to the moon and back, and would’ve done anything to give her smiles instead of worry lines, so although he wasn’t on-board with the whole moving thing at first, he’d eventually caved, packed them all up, and migrated to Russia. I knew of no other family but them, no aunts or uncles or cousins.
A year later, I’d popped into the picture, and I grew up speaking both English and Russian—English the more dominant. Other tongues I was forced to learn during training.
Isabel being home with the rest of the family was rare. For days at a time she would be gone, sometimes weeks, and on rare occasions, months. With the kind of income she used to rake in, she’d asked my father to quit his job as a car salesman so he could remain home and do the parenting, while she made the bread. So he agreed and took on the mother and father role. Became the shoulder for me and Ricardo to lean on.
Andhim.
Chadrick.
Chadrick resided two avenues away from us. His father, a Russian, was analogous to my mother: always busy, never home, distant. And his mother, an American, was one big ball of depression, perpetually high on her medication drugs, and too caught up in her own desolation to be a mother to her son and two daughters.
Chad and Ricardo were best buddies, and he spent the majority of his time at our house. My mother had favored him more than Ricardo and me, and whenever she was away and called at home, if Chad was there, she would always ask to speak with him first. My father, on the other hand, favored none of us more than the other, and would cook, play games and watch movies with us. Sometimes even Chad’s sisters would come over and spend the weekends. Because my father was so sweet, kind and lovable, people simply loved being around him.
As time passed, however, Chad began to change. Half the time he was sad, downtrodden, and sometimes had questionable bruises all over him. One time he even came over with one eye so swollen it was completely shut and as black as tar. But whenever any of us inquired what was going on with him, Chad would only mutter “I’m fine” or “It’s nothing”.
Only my mother seemed to know what was up and down with him. Whenever she was home, she would take him into her office and they’d be locked in there for hours.
But when my mother wasn’t there to comfort him, Chad was afraid and terrified, sometimes paranoid. And in those times, his sneak-ins to my room to read became more and more frequent. Like he desperately wanted to get away from something.
