Die Tryin'

by Stavro Yianni

  ‘Why are you crying?’ he then asked, and Nick and Charlie glanced uneasily at each other. ‘I’m not angry, Maria,’ Tony said. ‘I said I’m not fucking angry!…Sorry for what? What are you sorry about?… I’m in the pub… Okay, I’ll be there soon. Just stay there and I’m coming.’ He then ended the call and stood up, draining the remainder of his pint.

  ‘What happened, Tone?’ Nick asked in a concerned voice.

  Tony took a second to answer while he polished off his drink. ‘I don’t know,’ he said and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘But she sounded bad. She’s at my mum’s, can you take me there?’

  Nick XR2 nodded. ‘No problem.’

  *****

  They got round to Tony’s mum’s in no time, all three of them eager and anxious to find out what was wrong with Maria. Tony rushed up to the house like a man who was late to the hospital for the birth of his first child.

  He opened up the front door and burst inside. ‘Maria!’ he shouted.

  His mum came juddering out of the front room, tears in her eyes.

  Tony went and grabbed her by the forearms. ‘What’s happened mum?’ he asked, his voice laced with both concern and anxiety in equal measure.

  ‘Bastard!’ his mum spat in reply, and for a split second, Tony thought she was saying it to him. But when she said it again, and kept repeating it over and over like a stuttering CD, tears streaming down her face, he quickly realised that she was talking about someone else.

  ‘Just calm down, mum,’ Tony said, interrupting her ‘bastard’ chorus. ‘Where’s Maria?’ he then asked, giving her a slight shake.

  His mum’s pupils dilated as she finally focused in on her son; it was as if she just now recognised he was standing in front of her. ‘In there,’ she said, cocking her head to the side.

  Tony glanced back at Nick and Charlie who had entered the house and stood by the front door watching on like a couple of lemons. Charlie felt like they should be waiting outside; family was family, and domestics should always be kept inside the family. But, when Tony told them to follow him in, he felt like he had permission to enter.

  They both followed Tony into the front room, and past his mum, who just stood there wiping tears from her eyes.

  Something bad must have happened, thought Charlie.

  And when they entered the front room, his fears were confirmed.

  Maria sat on the edge of the sofa, a tissue in her hand. They startled her when they entered, and her head flinched up in their direction. The first thing they noticed was her one puffed up eye like she had an allergic reaction to a bee sting, or severe hay fever. It shouted at them like an angry drill sergeant. Tony—being the experienced fist fighter that he was— knew right away what had caused it. It was the result of a punch, there was no doubt in his mind. The sight of it sobered him up instantly like a water dunking. He jumped over to where she sat and knelt down on the floor beside her.

  Once Tony cleared the way and Charlie could now get a good look at her eye, his jaw dropped. He stared at her in shock and awe, wondering how something so beautiful could be turned so ugly by the hand of another human being. He couldn’t help but question how bitter someone had to be to destroy such a thing of beauty.

  He watched Tony reach up and delicately touch her eye. She winced and looked away. ‘Who done this to you?’ Tony asked in a neutral voice.

  Nick and Charlie both expected to see Tony trash the room; smash the television; break the table in two; rip the curtains to shreds, but he seemed unbelievably calm. It was surreal, almost unnerving.

  ‘Who done this to you?’ Tony repeated in that same flat, patient voice.

  Maria wiped her nose as a fresh stream of tears leaked from her eyes. ‘Mario,’ she replied, and began crying again.

  Tony looked back at Charlie and Nick. Nick shook his head in disgust; Charlie nodded his in complete understanding.

  ‘Why-why did he do it?’ Tony calmly asked, rubbing his forehead at the same time. Maria didn’t answer. Instead, she continued to cry. ‘Why did he fucking do it!’ Tony then snapped, and suddenly the Tony who Charlie and Nick expected to be around was peeking out from under the covers.

  ‘Easy, Tone,’ Nick said. ‘Give her a chance to speak.’ Tony looked away, then back at Maria. He reached out and took her hand. He pulled it towards his lips and kissed it. Maria watched him with that horrible puffy eye.

  ‘Why did he do it?’ Tony whispered to her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, wiping her delicate nose.

  ‘Did you say anything to piss him off?’

  ‘No. I…don’t know. He came home… drunk, and he was angry… He…’ she trailed off.

  ‘He what?’

  ‘He’s not the person I married, Tony!’ She cried out, and it seemed to kick start her as she then started speaking with more fluency. ‘Once we got married, he changed. Almost straight away. Being aggressive, talking to me like I’m nothing but a piece of shit. He’s…moody.’

  ‘Probably thinks he owns you now that you’re married,’ Nick said. ‘Now his violent streak is coming out for you to see.’

  ‘Prick doesn’t deserve you,’ Charlie added, just as Tony and Maria’s mum came back into the room.

  She looked at Nick and Charlie. ‘Bastard!’ she then said, and spat on the floor.

  ‘Stay out of it, mum,’ Tony said, lifting his finger in her direction.

  His mum looked at him for a second, and then spat on the floor towards him. Tony ignored her and turned to face his sister. That eye now was like an invisible hand slapping him in his face. What was it Charlie called it? A con-doo-ite? That’s what it was to him—a fucking con-doo-ite for his rage. Every time he laid eyes on it, he wanted to hurt someone, and he knew exactly who that someone was.

  ‘This is why I acted like I did that night at the fair,’ he said to her. ‘This is why I always try to protect you.’

  Maria began to cry again and shook her head. ‘He wasn’t like this then. It’s only now…’

  Tony placed a finger over his lips and she trailed off. ‘Don’t make excuses for the prick, Maria. No real man does this to his woman, believe me. Only pieces of shit do, and I knew this fucker from the off. I mean you’ve barely been married two months, and he does this!’ He huffed. ‘I want you to stay here from now on, okay?’

  Maria looked up at him sharply. ‘You’re not gonna do anything to him are you?’

  Tony didn’t answer.

  ‘Tony!’ she snapped.

  Tony looked away and breathed in, trying his best to suppress the anger brewing inside him. ‘I’m not gonna do anything,’ he replied slow and calm. ‘But, you’re not going back to him. It’s over, you hear?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing!’ he said, abrupt. ‘It’s over, Maria! You’re not going back to him. Not after this shit.’

  He stood upright and glared down at her.

  ‘Tony! Please don’t hurt him,’ Maria pleaded. ‘He didn’t mean it…’

  ‘No? He accidentally lamped you in the eye did he?’ Maria just stared at him. ‘That was fucking clumsy of him wasn’t it!’ Tony added.

  ‘Just don’t hurt him, please…’ Maria urged, grabbing his leg. ‘Don’t!’

  Tony pulled his leg away from her and she almost fell forwards off the sofa. ‘I’m not gonna do anything to the prick!’ he snapped. ‘Okay? But, you’re not going back there. You’re staying here with me and mum, and that’s the end of it.’

  Maria stared down at the floor, her shoulders shuddering.

  Tony turned to face Nick and Charlie.

  ‘We better leave you to it,’ Nick said to him.

  Tony rubbed his head. ‘Yeah. I gotta sort things out here. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Maria,’ he then said, looking beyond Tony at her. ‘Tony will look after you.’

  Maria didn’t answer, instead just carried on staring at the floor.

  Charlie didn’t mind, he was used to
people not hearing the words that came out of his mouth. Instead, he headed for the door.

  Nick followed him. ‘Bye, Mrs Savva,’ he said on the way out.

  ‘Bastard!’ Tony’s mum retorted, nodding her head and spitting.

  ‘Change the fucking record, mum,’ Tony told her, and led his mates to the front door.

  THIRTEEN

  Nick Black lay on his bed, working his way through the bud he got off Nick XR2 the previous day, Tony’s vile racist shit ringing round and round his head like a fire alarm that had no ‘off’ switch.

  Nick recalled a moment not so long ago in his life—feeling guilty for getting Tony in shit with the police, the night they were ‘taking care’ of Taki. Now that guilt felt like nothing more than a distant memory. Things had gone full circle, turned on their head, and the performance in the pub was the last fucking straw. He didn’t want to see Tony any more; neither Theodorou, nor Charlie. They were bad news. They had got him into more shit than he needed. They were hateful—Tony with his racism, XR2 with his drug dealing, Charlie with his plethora of mental issues.

  He released a lungful of smoke, blowing it over the key to the storage unit he had clutched between his thumb and index finger. He put it up to his face, and stared at it the way a baby might stare at a bright yellow rattle; fascinated, transfixed, intrigued. This was the key to a fortune, just sitting there gathering dust; the key to paradise; the key to freedom; the key to escape. Escape from that hateful mob; escape from all the dark secrets they had buried; escape from the city; escape to happiness.

  And he held it in his hand.

  Could he really do it? Could he betray them? Tony, Nick, Charlie. Go behind their backs? Steal their gold? Could he—

  ‘Nick!’ his mum called from downstairs, snapping his train of thought in two.

  He quickly stubbed out his spliff, and went and opened his bedroom door. ‘What?’

  ‘Come and check on your yiayia,’ she said.

  ‘All right, Mum,’ he replied.

  He went back and checked his eyes in the mirror for red-eye. They was a hint, but nothing really noticeable. He went downstairs and popped his head into the kitchen. It was Easter, and so Mum and one of his sisters were in there making flaounes.

  ‘Go and see if she wants anything,’ Mum said to him, not looking up from the circle of pastry she was folding over the egg mixture.

  ‘All right,’ Nick replied and headed for the front room. He stepped in to find her sitting on the edge of the sofa, draped in traditional black dress, her head wrapped in a black scarf. She stared blankly at the television where an old school Greek film was playing—two moustachioed Greek men in vrakes were arguing with their wives, who were uncannily dressed the same as Yiayia. The argument concerned the lateness of their dinner, and why it wasn’t waiting for them on the table when they got back from work at the farm. He couldn’t tell whether it was a comedy or serious drama.

  He went over to the sofa and sat next to Yiayia. She didn’t notice him, instead she just wrung her hands over and over, her bottom lip trembling, that horrible blank stare eerily reminding him of Tony when the thing inside him rose to the occasion.

  ‘Are you okay, Yiayia?’ he asked aloud. Yiayia’s head snapped round at the sound of his voice and she stared through him, not at him, but through him. She let out a small groan, then turned her head back towards the direction of the television, and continued with her hand wringing. Nick shrugged and glanced at the television again to see the two moustachioed Greeks now dancing, and he concluded that it was indeed comedy.

  He let out a bored sigh, and turned his attention back to yiayia. ‘Do you want anything, Yiayia?’ he asked loud and slow.

  Yiayia just carried on wringing and groaning, wringing and groaning, staring blankly at the television. Nick wondered what was going on inside her head, wondered how this disease had eaten her brain cells away and left her in this state. Did she know who he was? Did she even know who she was?

  He sighed again, and then went to speak to her. ‘Yia—’

  Her head snapped round like she was Regan MacNeil, and now she was staring at him, not through him, but very much at him, and he saw that her eyes had suddenly taken on life; no longer was she staring blankly, but instead, her eyes now had vivid colour and lucid focus. Her pupils dilated and beamed in on him, and he felt his balls tighten and shrink right back into his body because he recognised the eyes he was staring at. They weren’t Yiayia’s, but, but, but—

  Her face scrunched up into an angry scowl, her top lip rising. ‘I’m gonna fucking kill you for what you did to me!’ she growled in a voice that wasn’t hers. Wasn’t hers at all, but like her eyes, just like her eyes, it was Marco’s.

  Unmistakably Marco’s eyes and voice.

  Nick locked stares with her for just a second, just long enough to feel the hatred emanating from her eyes. A flash of intense rage wiped across them, and then it was gone. They quickly glazed over again, and the scowl she had briefly worn melted from her features like her face was made of wax.

  And then she was staring through him once more.

  She slowly turned away and began wringing her hands in a manner that was so creepy it made Nick spring up from the sofa, his breath bolting from his chest.

  What the fuck was that? D-d-did I just fucking see that? Was that real? Wh-wh-what the fuck is going on? his mind gibbered.

  He wanted to swallow but his mouth was dry. He grabbed his chest, feeling like he was having a heart attack or killer asthma attack. He heard Yiayia groan again, and couldn’t take any more. He raced for the door, not looking back. He made it to the corridor, slamming the door of the front room behind him.

  ‘Is she okay?’ he heard Mum call from the kitchen.

  ‘She’s fine!’ he shouted back from halfway up the stairs, wanting to be as far away as possible from the front room. He made it to his bedroom and slammed his door shut. Now the walls of his room suddenly felt like they were closing in as a million thoughts crisscrossed through his mind, the main overriding one being: Charlie was right! Charlie was fucking right all along! I don’t fucking believe it!

  He grabbed his head and stared dumbfounded at the carpet. That was Marco I just saw wasn’t it? Yiayia was Marco! He has come back! Charlie was right all along and I never believed him even for a second! The poor bastard was walking around all day and night seeing and hearing what Nick just saw, and he tried telling them and they didn’t listen. And it suddenly dawned on him that now he understood only a sliver of what Charlie must be going through.

  Imagine seeing that shit everywhere! he thought, and he became very still for a second while he digested it—in his mind he saw Yiayia’s face screw up into a wrinkled bag of hate, her zombie like eyes flushing with spite, ultimately bringing that face to life, grotesquely reanimating it, just like whenever Dr. Frankenstein pumps his monster full of electricity to bring it back from the dead.

  I’m gonna fucking kill you for what you did to me…she then spat.

  ‘It wasn’t me!’ he said to the walls that were still closing in. ‘It was that prick Tony!’

  I’m gonna fucking kill you…

  ‘No you won’t!’ he said, and jumped over to his bed and picked up his mobile phone, almost spilling it in his haste. He quickly speed dialled Carla, perspiration now dripping from his forehead. He wiped it as he waited—

  For what you did to me…

  ‘Come on, come on…’ he mumbled to himself.

  Eventually, she answered: ‘Hi babe,’ she said.

  ‘Carla? Listen, I haven’t got time to explain—come by NOW and pick me up.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Nick. What’s up with you?’

  ‘I said I ain’t got time to explain. Just come by here, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘No,’ he answered incredulously. ‘Why would it be?’

  ‘Well, are you in some kind of trouble then?’

  Nick grabbed his head. �
��No. Yes. No.’

  ‘Well, which one is it? Yes or no?’

  ‘Neither. Yes. Look, no. Argh! Can you just get round here please?’

  ‘Okay, okay, keep your hair on! I’ll be round soon.’

  ‘Thanks. Actually, on second thoughts, I’ll meet you at the bottom of my road, I don’t want to be in here any more.’

  ‘Is everything all right there?’

  (I’m gonna fucking kill you for what you did to me)

  ‘I’ll tell you when you get here. But, we need to leave. Now!’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He clicked ‘end call.’

  He puffed his cheeks and spun round his room in a disorientated circle, still shaken up by what he saw downstairs with Yiayia, if that really was Yiayia in there…

  His skin crawled.

  He went straight for his Reebok rucksack and began stuffing it with his clothes. He grabbed his toothbrush, deodorant, shaving/washing stuff from the bathroom. He ran back into his room and grabbed his coat, his phone, his puff, and the key to the storage unit. He stopped and stared at it again for a few seconds before he gave it a big kiss. He stuck it in his pocket along with his wallet.

  All set, he left his bedroom, and raced down the stairs before Mum or his sister had a chance to come out of the kitchen and speak to him. He glanced at the door to the front room on his way, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck spring to attention. He didn’t dare go near that room and what he believed to be Yiayia sitting in there. Didn’t dare. Instead he headed straight for the front door, opened it and crept out, closing it slowly behind him so no one could hear him leave.

  Once outside, he marched away from his house as fast as he could, and he found—to his pleasant surprise—his fear swiftly replaced by excitement, as he had just taken his first step to freedom.

  *****

  Tony rolled up the garden path of 34 Grove Avenue, a crack house known as the Garden.

  He stepped up to the front windows and tried to peek inside, but the stained net curtains were offering sufficient subterfuge for all the heads inside. The doorbell was broken, so he rapped on the door.