Chance
I ought’a leave New York. I ought’a take what cash I’ve got stowed away and get the fuck outta here. That was the plan when I left Becky at Nate’s. I crept out of bed and I told Nate that he’d better make sure she gets home alright, that he better make sure she don’t get any stupid ideas like goin’ to Giovanni or anythin’ like that. But I just couldn’t leave the city. I tried to, stole a car and even got as far as I-87, but then I pulled up on the side of the highway and got outta the car and fell to my damned knees in the snow and tried to get a hold of myself. Sittin’ here today in my shithole apartment in this shithole buildin’ in Hell’s Kitchen, just down the way from Nate’s place, I still don’t know what happened to me. At the start of winter I was colder’n snow and nothin’ could get to me. Near the end of it I was kneelin’ in snow wishin’ with everything I had that all I had to do in this life was be with Becky, hold her and all that shit.
I came to this apartment so that Nate could warn me if anyone was tryin’ to sneak up on me. He’s set up hidden cameras all around the place, and I keep three cells on me at all times, so that whatever happens he’ll be able to contact me. At first, I spent the time watchin’ the TV news, gettin’ updates about the kidnapping. What was weird about it was that there weren’t any interviews with Becky, just shots of her walkin’ in and outta the police station. I reckon that’s ’cause her loyalty got the better of her and she didn’t wanna say I took her by force. Part of me was happy about that, but part of me was pissed, too. It means she ain’t distanced from me like she should be. But then all of it dies down, the police get their bullshit headline, life goes on. I get Nate to do some of his hackin’ shit on the Family and he tells me that Giovanni is startin’ to talk about me less and less, which is a good sign. He knows how good I am. Maybe he’s decided that I’ve run away and considers that good enough.
So why am I still here?
The apartment ain’t really an apartment, more of a basement full of dust without workin’ heatin’ and a refrigerator that only works half the time. The only thing that doesn’t mess me around are the free weights. I work out like crazy, mornin’ and night, enjoying the way my muscles burn. Despite livin’ on a diet of meat pies, microwave meals, and the occasional piece of fruit or chocolate bar, I gain eight pounds of pure muscle. I get Nate to arrange for a punching bag to be installed while I make myself scarce, and work on it every night, sweatin’ into the dust. And every day, I tell myself, is the day I’m gonna leave. Every day is the day I’m gonna decide that I’m done here and the risk ain’t worth it, even with Nate lookin’ out for me.
But I can’t get her outta my head. I just can’t. I work out, and she’s there, her dark eyes watchin’ me, her lithe body ready for me, her smile curled for me. I punch the bag and she’s just beyond it, arms folded, pouting sexily. I sleep and she’s next to me, body curved into mine like it was carved for the purpose. Sometimes I even wake up with my hand on my prick thinkin’ it’s her cute mouth, and even when I jerk over her, it ain’t good enough. I need her hand, her mouth, her cunt. Not this imagination shit.
I tell myself she’s better off without me, which is true. She’ll have the baby and raise it and live a good life and become an artist and go on to meet some other artist type, a fuckin’ writer or somethin’, someone who can talk to her all fancy-like about fancy things at cocktail parties in a suit jacket. Not a blood-bathed man, not a killer, not someone who’s only ever painted in carmine.
I know all of this is true. I know that Becky’s life will blossom without me. And with me, it’ll only turn dead and corrupt like my fuckin’ heart. And yet as I stow myself away in this place, I can’t help but obsess about her. She’s the only person I’ve met in my entire goddamn life who showed me any kind of affection, the only person I ever let myself be comfortable around, even if it was only a little bit. That don’t mean that I’m about to crash into her life and ruin it when I’ve already done the right thing by gettin’ out, but it does mean that I wanna say goodbye, even if it is a weak, warped, pointless goodbye. And then I’ll leave New York, and let myself fade into nothin’ but a vague memory in her head.
I call Nate.
“Who owns the motel where Becky and me stayed? Is it still the mob?”
“Let me check. I’ll call you back.”
After five minutes of me just starin’ at my cell, it rings. When I answer it, Nate tells me: “After the police raid, the mob abandoned it. It’s not owned by anyone at the moment. It’s abandoned. It’s going up for auction in the summer, once the red tape has been snipped through.”
“Alright.”
I hang up, get dressed in a hoodie and jeans, pull the hood up, and leave the basement. I’ve got my guns tucked in my holsters under my hoodie, but since it’s the middle of a spring day and the sun is shinin’ and it’s Hell’s Kitchen so there are people fuckin’ everywhere, I don’t wear ’em on the outside, even if that means they’ll be harder to get at. I catch the bus to Brooklyn. On the way, I stare out the window, spottin’ a couple’a places which hold memories for me, like a tree I once pissed against after gettin’ drunk for the first and last time in my life, the spot near a Chinese takeout where I used to go after a job just to calm down, back when I needed calmin’ down. I watch the city, watch the memories, and then catch another bus closer to the motel.
When I get to The Resin, I’m met with an empty, ghost-town place, the gate locked. I hop over the gate and walk past the emptied pool, condoms and literal shit stuck to the bottom, toward mine and Becky’s room. This is gonna be a poor goodbye, I reckon, a pathetic goodbye. But if I find Becky and try’n say goodbye to her face, I’ll end up not bein’ able to say it at all. I’ll try’n stay with her instead, and all that’ll do is make her life worse, her baby’s life worse. So I’ll go into the first room we ever fucked in, the room with the ruined bed, the room where I drilled into this scared shiverin’ thing without knowin’ she was a virgin and without knowin’ how much she’d change me.
The door is unlocked, swingin’ on its hinges. Looters’ve been in by the looks of it. The TV is gone, the ruined bed overturned, the shower ripped from its setting. I walk around the room, which seems damn small to spend a month and a half in now I look at it, and try’n feel somethin’ of Becky, try’n imagine that she’s here and if I say goodbye now, that’s good enough. But I feel nothin’, nothin’ but the urge to be with her properly, which I know would be a damned mistake.
“Becky,” I say, feelin’ like a fool. “Becky, I’m sorry I can’t be with you, alright? But it’s better this way. I’ve never been good enough for you and I never will be.”
I stare down at the bed, sighing, knowin’ what I said ain’t a match for how I feel about her, but knowin’ I ain’t gonna come up with anythin’ better, neither. So I turn around and make for the door.
That’s when he walks in, two goons at his shoulders, wearin’ a big fuck-off three-piece suit and smokin’ a cigar.
“Chance,” Giovanni says, suckin’ on his cigar. “I never took you for a sentimental one, but I’m glad I spent the men. I’m glad we pretended to be done with you, too. That hacker really is a pain in the ass, ain’t he?”
The two goons are holdin’ shotguns, aimed right at my face.
I ain’t got any choice but to do what Giovanni says.