Chance
I’m using all my strength to get my goddamn feet free from these zip-ties when Giovanni pulls his gun. Anger like I’ve never felt before gets inside me when I see someone pointin’ a gun at my woman, anger like fuckin’ lava, like all the anger in the world has been concentrated inside of me. He’s pointin’ a gun at my woman and my baby. That psychotic old fuck…it’s one thing if you wanna try to kill me. Fine. I’ve lived the life. Some’d say I had it comin’. But to point at my woman and child? My hands are bleedin’ from yanking on the zip-ties, but I manage to get both my feet free, fingers throbbing and bloody and biting from where the ties have bitten into me. I’m about to start on my other hand—I did the legs first just in case I needed to move—when, bang.
You can be the most seasoned bastard in the world and when a gun goes off in a little room like this and if you ain’t ready for it, it’s gonna fuck with you a little. But I was ready for it. Always gotta be ready when someone’s pulled one. I’m only dazed a bit, my eyes hurtin’, but still able to see. The anger, which was already damned vicious, explodes when he shoots at Becky. I don’t think, can’t think. I drag the chair behind me as I leap across the room, usin’ the zip-tie to swing the chair around and slam Giovanni in the head with it. The fat sack of shit falls like a ton of bricks, and then I fall on him like another ton of bricks, gripping the chair like it’s a knuckle-duster and layin’ into his face, seein’ red, just blood-red, thinkin’ of Becky and my kid and how this asshole might’ve killed ’em, but that’s a far-back thought, ’cause really there’s nothin’ but this rage. It’s like one of those time-lapse videos, what happens to his face. First there’s a face and then the chair crunches his teeth and eyes and nose and cheeks and the face turns into somethin’ else, somethin’ messy, until there ain’t a face at all, just a caved-in piece of meat, and then even the meat turns to mulch, spreadin’ out like a watermelon dropped from twenty stories. Only once it’s done, and the Boss in the suit is just a red splat with a suit next to it, I fall back, pantin’, and turn around lookin’ frantically for Becky.
“Becky!” I roar. I’m still seein’ red. A red mask has been pulled over my face. “Becky! Where the fuck is Becky? Where the fuck is she?”
Someone’s hands’re on my shoulders. I turn on ’em, grab whoever it is and lift him off his feet, chair and all.
“Wait.” It’s the old guy, I see, as the red begins to clear. Tapping my hands ’cause he can hardly breathe. I lower him to the ground. A thought hits me: Where did all this blood come from? Then I remember. I stumble. Can’t hardly fuckin’ move. “She’s there.” He points to the floor.
The floor…But when I turn I see that she’s alright. Her old man took the bullet for her, a flesh wound in the shoulder. Might turn fatal if he don’t get help, but I think I’d plug him again if I’d done the first. Not likely to do much all on its own, but a good warning shot.
“Becky.” I kneel down next to her. “Goddamn, Becky.” It shocks me like fuck when I feel it, tears creepin’ up my throat. Becky’s cryin’ like mad and her old man is mumbling sleepily like folks do when they take a bullet. I look around and see that the men are goin’ into the bar area, most likely tryin’ to get help, one of the Family doctors. I cough back the tears, can’t let ’em slide up my throat like this, can’t let ’em cripple me. “Becky,” I repeat. Then a single tear slides down my bloody, throbbing cheek. I growl, wiping it away.
“He got shot, shot for me and now he’s bleeding and—he’s bleeding and he’s shot and—Chance, you’re safe—you’re safe. I love you, I love you, I love you. Tell me you love me, Chance. Tell me it’s true.”
I’m afraid she’ll flinch away from me when I take her face in my hands, since I’m slick with murder, but she doesn’t. She smiles shakily and leans into me, kissing my hands, and then brings her bloody lips to my face and kisses my wounds tenderly. “Is it true, Chance?”
I feel like I’m standin’ at a crossroads. One of the roads leads back to my old self, where I can be cold and mean and not let feelings get in the way of bein’ the man I’ve always been. The other leads into the land where feelings can’t be ignored. ’Cause if I tell her this, I’ll never be able to ignore them. But I can’t lie to her, neither.
“You know it’s true. You know I do. I—” But saying the actual word is too damned hard. “I’ll never let anybody hurt you. I want you safe so bad I’ll cave in a hundred more Boss’s heads.”
She glances at the chair, the zip-tie twisted around my skin. “Come here.” She helps my hand free just as one of the men shouts.
“The fuck?” someone roars. “The fucking police’re on their way!”
“How’d you know?”
“One of our boys just texted me. They’ll be here in two. Fuck.”
Becky looks at me, soft-eyed. “It was me,” she says. “I made Nate promise to call them if I texted him. It was back-up, you know. I’m sorry, Chance…”
“Hush,” I say. “Don’t be sorry. But I’ve gotta go now. You understand that. I’ve gotta go otherwise I’m goin’ down for a long damned time.”
From the bar, I can hear the men filing out, sprinting onto the street to their cars before the police arrive. I make to stand up, but Becky holds onto me, staring into my eyes. “Please come back to me. Please.”
I swallow. Police sniffin’ around. Who knows if I’ll ever be able to? The old Chance would just laugh it off or shrug her hands away and tell her not to be such a weak bitch. The old Chance would think nothin’ of leavin’ her. After all, she’s just a sweet piece of ass, ain’t she, just a piece of ass to be felt up durin’ a shower?
“I’ll come back to you when I can,” I say.
To myself I add: I’ll try, at least.
I wanna stay and kiss her goodbye—damned strange, that desire, even now—but I can’t, ’cause if I do that I won’t be able to leave. So I stand up as quick as I can, spraying drops of blood all around me, and look down at her for a couple of seconds. “I should take him with me,” I say. “Even if he’s shot, the police’ll try and get him on somethin’.”
“Let them,” Mikey says, eyes fluttering open and closed. “I’m done with this.”
I shrug. “Alright. I don’t reckon any of us’ll be back workin’ for too long, anyhow. Becky…”
“You have to go,” Becky says. “But you’ll come back.”
I turn away from her, feelin’ like another tear might slide down my cheek but managing to fight it off, and sprint from The Italian. I reckon for other Family men this might be a big moment, leavin’ the Family compound after havin’ caved the Boss’s head in. Maybe killin’ the Boss is a big moment. Maybe that’ll change me. But leavin’ this place don’t mean shit to me. This was never my home. These people were never my brothers. I’ve always just been a fuckin’ tool to them. I’ve never had a family. The only family I have is sittin’ in the back room, holdin’ onto her daddy.
I’m limpin’ by the time I get to the end of the street, but I can’t stop ’cause now I hear sirens. I duck down an alleyway, head low, blood sprayin’ all around me with every step I take. I’ve been tooled over before, it’s true, but I haven’t had it this bad since I was a kid and my dad went at me with a trashcan lid. That’s funny that thought comin’ into my head now, almost like my brain needs to let me know that even when I had a family, I never really had a family. I think of Becky back there, probably talkin’ to the police now, and I want nothin’ more but to go back and be with her. I remember thinkin’ she should go with some artist type’a man, and for the first time in my life I wish I was a civilian, some borin’ fuck, ’cause at least borin’ fucks ain’t forced to leave their family when shit goes down.
I end up in some back alley between a strip club and some abandoned apartment buildings, sat on my ass on the dirty concrete tryin’ not to think about what I might be sittin’ in. I’ve been runnin’ for around an hour, but even so every time I hear a siren I flinch and get ready for more runnin’. My throat is burnin’, my body aching. All I wanna do is collapse into bed with Becky and get some rest. Two feral cats are fightin’ off to my right at the end of an alleyway, underneath some graffiti with the latest political protest signs. One of the cats is ginger with a scar down its eye. The other is black with no scars, quick, fast, and makes short work of the ginger cat. I get to thinkin’ that maybe I was the black cat for most of my life, but the only way I was able to be the black cat was by blockin’ out anythin’ that makes a person a person. No love, no affection, no friendship, no family, no life. Just a black cat roamin’ the alleyways doin’ bloody work.
And then I get to thinkin’ how fuckin’ strange it is that I don’t want that anymore. ’Cause that’s who I am, who I’ve always been. All my life, I’ve been the black cat, ever since I was a kid and I went into that room with Becky’s dad and he told me the look in my eyes was too bloody, too mean. Since then I thought it was a cruel joke that I’d ever not be the black cat.
“And now I’ve found her,” I whisper to myself.
I think back to when I first met Becky, thinkin’ of the man I was back then, how I groped her in the shower and drilled her into that bed. I just saw her as a fuck-hole, somethin’ to be used and thrown away, and yet somehow she broke through all my bullshit so that now I know I would never be able to just see her as a fuck toy again. No damn way.
“I should’ve told her I love her,” I mutter. “I should’ve just said the words.”
I sit here until the blood dries and then stand up, knowin’ that it might be some time before I get the chance to say those words to her. I’ve gotta lie low, wait until the police move onto somethin’ else. Might be a month, might be a damned year. Maybe it’d be for the best if she never saw me again.
I’m about to turn away when the black cat pads over to me, starin’ at me with luminous eyes, purring softly. I kneel down and give it a stroke behind the ears, hopin’ that maybe this is the end for both of us. “You’ll be alright, girl.”
And wonderin’ if all this blood has gotten to me more than I thought, kneelin’ here and talkin’ to a cat.