Orphan Love

by Nadia Bozak

  Slava grinned, making smoke come spilling out his nostrils. “What you call shit I call nothing but a little bit of turd and that means I don’t worry about it.”

  Eyes on Pickles, he ran his hand slowly down my back. Then he turned and swung away.

  When he was gone, Pickles sat back down. Sipped his beer.

  “Belly should have told you by now,” he whispered through his hanging hair.

  “Told me what? We’re just goddamn friends.” Said this to Pickles because it’s what Slava wanted me always to say. On account of him being older and Bellyache not liking the O’Rights was the reason Slava gave.

  “If that’s the truth, and I don’t think it is, it won’t be for long.”

  “Slava’s all right,” I said.

  “No,” Pickles said. “He’s an O’Right and that’s the only reason you need to stay away.”

  “Fuck, I can handle the goddamn O’Rights. Besides, I never see his brothers, just Slava.”

  Pickles pulled out a pouch of tobacco and papers, and I pushed the pack of smokes I had over for him to help himself. He took one and lit it.

  “It’ll get back to old Uncle Belly and you’ll pay for it, Betsy. You and that shitty bastard who I know is your goddamn boyfriend.”

  “And how will it get back to him? No one else around here gives a shit. Besides, I’m going to be leaving soon. I got my own intentions to go south.”

  “Plenty of fellas in the world and you go mess with that one.”

  “What world?” I said to Pickles. “This is no world but a goddamn shit hole and you know it. There’s no fellas here, just old men or rockers or retards. Not even friends here for me, Pickles. Not a single one.”

  There was a pause and a silence because Pickles knew how the whole of Black Dew Seat roughed me around for being the bastard and the orphan and the punk rock monster I was, fucked-up hair and black nails and The Goddamns painted on the back of my jacket. The only lonely Bozak apart from Bellyache, and he did nothing to help me, so he didn’t even count.

  “Except for Slava O’Right. I thought he was your friend.”

  “Sure,” I said. “He’s my goddamn friend.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Slava O’Right and me, we were not just friends. When we left Kate’s Place that night, Slava kept up being cocky, telling Kate to put all that Pickles wanted on the O’Right tab, and then kept his arm around me until I shrugged it off. Just on our way out, I turned and waved to Pickles. He was standing there, watching us go, and across the red glow of the smoke-stunk tavern I found Pickles’s eyes through his hanging hair. He was choking on something he didn’t quite know how to say, and I got scared because I knew he gave enough of a shit about me that he might rat me out to Bellyache. Pickles held up one of his hands, unfurled it like a baseball mitt. And I held my hand up too and that, plus a nod, was my last goodbye. Was sad to see him there, a skeleton man in baggy jeans and big boots and sheepskin, hiding out in his tent of lifelong grey-black hair. We both knew that if he didn’t die on the way, the city of New York would surely kill him, just like he wanted it to.

  Outside of Kate’s wet snow was still falling. Slava’s supply truck was parked across the street. Sitting on the hood and the runner were some men I’d never seen before. Slava saw them and paused for maybe a second, and then we just kept walking over to the truck, him acting like nothing and taking out his keys. The men greeted him only with nods, and the one who looked in charge stepped aside for Slava to open the passenger door.

  “Get inside,” he said to me real firm. “Just got to have a word.”

  In the truck I found the bottle me and Slava had going from earlier and I drank from it. Also I lit a smoke. Right in the middle of snow-slop Main Street, Slava was trying to calm these five guys who seemed pretty agitated, pointing gloved fingers at Slava and then the leader of them poked Slava in the chest. So Slava pushed the guy and there was a scuffle, and I just sat and watched because I’d seen Slava in that kind of shit so many times before. Slava was built solid, but not tall. Packed a heavy punch and was real scrappy, and everyone knew he fought crazy and mean. Slava had it pretty easy smuggling contraband booze and smokes for his six half-brothers, but he also dealt hash and acid on the side and that always got him into trouble with brothers and clients both. To the bored, the desperate, the cut off, that Slava O’Right would show up like a goddamn angel. He hit all the work camps, outposts, Indian reserves, and where there weren’t roads to drive, he’d hire an outfitter and fly the stuff in. He was a tough nut, Slava O’Right—shaved head and fierce eyes, real round and clear green, and though he drove truck for a living, he was leathered and jeaned and booted like a biker. Me, I was watching Kate’s Place because I thought I could see Pickles through the window, and it was making me sad and scared. Thinking how if I was a better Bozak, I’d be in Kate’s still, just talking to Pickles. Remembering when he’d visit, asking about New York. Lost like that, I didn’t even see the scuffle break up. Slava climbed into the truck and grabbed for the bottle. Wiped some bit of blood from his nose and spat on the floor.

  “Dumb fucks,” he breathed.

  Then he started the truck and we drove off together.

  * * *

  Each run to Black Dew Seat Slava brought music for me. Usually it was hardcore, the raw meat stuff, the dirty boy stuff, angry and fast. After taking off from Kate’s Place we circled the town. Slava had a tape going, something I never heard before.

  “Messy Divorce,” he said. “From New York.”

  “New York,” I said. “I’m going to go there. Pickles said it’s not as far as you might think.” Took a drink from the bottle Slava and me, but mostly Slava, had three-quarters emptied.

  “He’s full of shit, that one,” Slava said. Reaching under his seat, he pulled out a couple of beers. Passed them over for me to open. “Reminds me of a goddamn Indian Joey Ramone. So fucking tall and skinny. And those freaky goddamn feet.”

  We were yelling because the music was turned up loud and the booze was heating us up, and that night was pure emptiness and it belonged only to me and Slava. Streets dead and houses gone to bed, Slava drove and we both drank.

  “I think he’ll get there this time,” I said after awhile. “Even if he dies doing it.”

  Music was screaming and scraping to be heard through the sound of its own suicide. Didn’t have any lyrics and it didn’t have to—you’d still know it was about rich kids and bad murders and gone mommies and dead daddies.

  “And me too. I’ll go to New York.” Said this quiet, though, so Slava wouldn’t hear it and say good fucking luck or make me that promise again about how he’d drive me out of Black Dew Seat and take me south and east to Ottawa at least, that being round about where he lived.

  Then Slava reached over and put his hand on my knee, then it was high on my leg, and soon enough between them. We pulled over at Granowski’s garage, parked in the shadows just behind the main building. Slava turned up the Messy Divorce, coming on as hard and aggressive as he was. The music and the booze and the beer and Slava O’Right had the bottle in his paw and a smoke going in the ashtray, and I got my jeans pulled down just far enough I felt the vinyl of the seat against my bare ass. Held the bottle while Slava undid his pants and then groped in the glove compartment for a condom.

  “Don’t want any more retard O’Rights running around,” he said, like he always did, as he leaned back and wriggled his prick into that tight and dry and dust-smelling rubber.

  Pulled him on top of me and then held still under his muscled weight, sweating in the cool, cold of the truck, and it only took a minute of Slava grinding away at me before he got his rocks off, and then it was over and Slava moved back into the driver’s seat and we both were zipping up our flies.

  Slava fished out two more beers, and he lit a smoke and I changed the music. Put on something by Black Flag because it was just then my favou
rite. That and Bob Crater and the Goddamns, who were maybe closer to my heart than any one thing had ever been before.

  Sitting there, we had nothing much to say to each other. Just listened to the music and felt drunk.

  Slava belched. “I ought to get you back home to bastard Bellyache. Then I got to get this truck loaded up before morning comes.”

  “Sure,” I said. “And I got to sober up enough to finish my homework for Christ’s sake.”

  So Slava was just turning the key in the ignition and there came the sound of footsteps, scuffled, running through the gravel of the lot. We looked at each other and we looked out at the black night and saw shadows swirling, surrounding the truck, crouched and low, stealthy and creeping but holding weapons—bats, sticks, whatever. There was the smash of glass and we felt the thud of metal.

  “Fuckers,” Slava hissed. “Lock your fucking door.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said back. “They’re going to slash the goddamn tires.”

  Slava started the engine and shifted into drive, but the lights didn’t come on because they were all broken, and Slava tried through the dark and his drunk to drive down the shadows we could see fleeing Granowski’s garage and running straight down the middle of Main Street.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Slava was cursing and spitting and slamming his fists against the wheel. “My brothers are going to shit.”

  The truck skidded and spun as Slava and me pulled away from the gravel lot, wheels screeching as we hit the pavement. Turning left, away from Black Dew Seat, we got onto Long Dash Road and headed for Bellyache’s trailer.

  * * *

  The snow was drier now, lighter, more of a winter snow. Slava was driving fast through the dark night and there was no light except that coming from the moon above us. A big bright moon of blue, except when it was blanked out with licks of cloud and mists of winter thaw, and then it was as good to us as a burnt-out bulb. It was all we had to go by, that moon. But the road was more than familiar, so we kept going, me trusting Slava to drive me back home, though he was drunk and also blind, for that is what the truck had become without its headlights. So black and blank, out there in that truck, like being in a spaceship, with just a whole lot of no-gravity to hold onto and no guide for us but instinct.

  And I wanted to say for Slava to take me with him and please not to leave me there with Bellyache and bullshit and Black Dew Seat. But I said nothing because I knew Slava would say maybe some day, but not now. We were quiet, and Slava was calmer now and driving smooth and going faster than he should have with or without headlights. Me, I thought if we crashed and died, how mad Bellyache would be that I’d been with Slava. And at my dumb high school my desk would go empty, and no one would really notice since I skipped so much anyway. They’d just think I’d finally dropped out, and Bellyache would be happy to have them think that instead of knowing the smashed-up, bashed-in truth that a Bozak and an O’Right had died together, twisted up in some kind of fucked-up love. And as I was thinking that, and almost waiting for death to come, there came this big old smash and we hit something, hard and fast, shot out of the dark. Something not a tree. It was something alive, or had been, we could tell from the give of it. Struck it head on, and I saw something spin off and go flying through the moonlight.

  Slava slammed on the brakes and we jumped out onto the road. But there was nothing to see. Everything was hush and stillness.

  “Just a goddamn deer,” Slava said. He struck his lighter and held it up to the grill. Dented but not mangled, we saw red blood streaming, getting sticky.

  “Now you got a grill to go with those headlights. Not our goddamn night, I guess.”

  Slava spit. “Shit. This town is bad fucking luck.”

  Standing there all blind except for Slava’s lighter and the matches I kept striking, the truck’s exhaust gathered us into its stinking mist. Melting snow was running down our cheeks. Then from behind us we heard maybe a scrape and maybe a hollow sound like a sigh. Something got snuffed out right then, I could feel it. The air changed, becoming too thick for me to breathe. And also I thought I heard it whisper. Saying nothing real, that dead, cold air, nothing like words, for none were necessary. Felt then that my life was real now, peopled with demons, and I shivered and shuddered beneath the weight of knowing how all the stuff that was never quite right before was now even less so. Struck a match and started walking toward the sound we’d heard.

  Slava grabbed my arm, pulled me back. “It’s dead now, nothing we can do for it.”

  In the sky above, clouds peeled back and moonlight showed us a road sign and it said Dagger Moon Junction. Close to Bellyache’s now, I’d come by in the morning to take a look. Maybe I’d miss the school bus and instead go out roaming. Build a fire and tend to it until it was dark enough to go back home again. Bellyache would smell the woodsmoke on my clothes again, but he’d say nothing about it. That was the way with my uncle, Bellyache Bozak. He knew a lot about a lot, but stayed shut-up about most of it.

  Slava and me, we got back in the truck and turned up Black Flag and opened a beer to share. And then we went on.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Same place as where I’d met Slava is where I was let out, near the path that cut west through the Black Dew Seat woods and took me back to the trailer. We knew where to stop because in the window that was mine I’d left a lamp on, a warm yellow ball of burning. That way Bellyache would be more likely to think I was in my room all along and also it would guide me home, that handful of light. After being out with Slava, I’d always creep around the trailer, sneaking looks in the windows to make sure Bellyache was there in the front room, staring slit-mouthed at the television set. Waiting a minute, watching that he was set there good and still, I’d go back round, slide open my window, hop up, and then pull myself inside. With a towel I’d dry my boots, the floor where I’d stepped, then I’d undress and get into my bed. Put on a record, volume kept low. Right from the start when I’d met Slava, he said it had to be like that on account of the ill will had once passed between Bellyache and his dead dad Vlad. Keeping to ourselves, I knew Slava only at nighttime, on backroads, away from the world and from Black Dew Seat, from his six half-brothers and Bellyache Bozak both. We had done it time and time before.

  Jumping down, I stepped around to his side of the truck where he’d stuck his head out the window looking for a boozy kiss. He said he was going to lie low and so it might be some months before he’d get that far up north again. A record, though, he said he’d bring me another record album. The new one by snfu, though by the time he came back, it would already be old.

  Then Slava turned the truck around and left me in the night of wet snow and black-wash and moon coming through. Stood for a minute there, like I liked to do when I found Slava suddenly so faraway and gone. Alone like that, the sadness would fill up my chest like a goddamn balloon, but that night there was no time to think even for the witch trees behind me had eyes and I could feel them. On the back of my neck there was a breath, but no wind in the trees to go with it. Thought about not going in there, taking the road instead, going through town and coming back the long way, but I didn’t. Turned and went into the forest, and found the path again. In the few hours I’d been with Slava, it had become layered with snow, just enough to cover over the icy wet and dirt of the winter’s accumulation that had not yet melted. My bootprints were gone now, and in their stead I saw others, as big as they were fresh, and going out to the road from where I’d just come. And those big old prints could only belong to one man in my world. Pickles had gone to Bellyache’s to tell on me and Slava, and so I should have turned around and run far and fast from my uncle and from Black Dew Seat, but I didn’t.

  The wet of the snow and soft earth beneath made the going messy and slow. Started sweating, blood getting hot against the damp cold. Went on, hurrying as well as I could, and then I breathed a little free when finally I saw my good old handful of
lamplit light hanging in the distance. Kept toward it and it got rounder and sharper all the while, and then up ahead, some twenty metres maybe, the dark shape of a man stepped onto the path and blotted it out. Recognized that figure coming on toward me, so I stopped, still and frozen. And it was quiet enough in that bush, I thought, to hear the trees and their breathing. It was Bellyache. His long and limber gait, stooped and uneven, suggesting a miner with a shovel, a hunter with a rifle, though Bellyache wasn’t either of these anymore. One time Bellyache Bozak bragged at the strength of his frame, the hardness it could endure, but now it was starting to cave in, trapping him beneath his own sinew and bone. Bellyache was slowly starving himself. Had been doing it for years, ever since he’d come back from working up and away further north. What had been bulk was now picked clean, licked of flesh, sucked of fat, the result of self-doctoring whatever it was that rotted out his gut and made anything but hard booze and white bread hellish for him to digest.

  Seeing him coming at me like that, the heart in me dried out and curled up like a switch of birchbark. On my lips I tasted a flake or two of the snow falling through the sparse spread of birch and making the world so quiet. The paces left between me and Bellyache were growing fewer. The way he was walking so quick and stiff, it was like he was blind to everything in that bush and in that world save the colour of the blood that was shooting through the balls of his eyes. Bellyache had long legs and his steps were strides, so he was fast upon me and soon enough above me, my face to his chest. He swatted me—backhand, once, twice across the mouth, the third one catching me in the nose—hard enough that I fell down in the dirty wet snow. Slow. Sunk low. On my knees, face in hands, looking up as if to say “Please” or “Sorry” or both.

  But I said nothing—couldn’t have. My eyes I kept down, passive, not wanting to get hit anymore. A slippery warmth leaked steady and steamy from mouth and nose, and I leaned over and I let it come, and what didn’t dribble out on its own I spit.