“Yeah, I knew you’d love it. Verse forty-four’s my fave. It helped a lot with these weird nightmares I had. I was always dreaming about falling up into a black hole. Black holes, or the sea, but it was always up. I felt like I was coming apart sometimes, you know?”
Yes, I did know. You couldn’t work in my profession and not encounter it, that void of no-future. My father had fallen into it, and he had tried to drag everyone around down with him. “Indeed. Though bear in mind that black holes are often associated with feelings of guilt.”
“Guilt? Yeah, right. Anyway, off topic. I held off asking for as long as I could, I swear, but I gotta know. Are you still single?” He switched topics so quickly I almost lost track of his voice. “Do I have to keep worrying about you never getting laid?”
What I needed to say was technically a lie, albeit one with a kernel of truth. I had been preparing for this question for years. “Not entirely.”
“I’m not trying to pry or anything, but like I said, I… wait.” Vassily paused mid-thought, hand raised. His mouth worked as he struggled to process what I’d just said. “Hold on. ‘Not entirely’? As in, ‘No, Vassily, I’m no longer single’?”
“I know a woman.” Not knowing how to elaborate, I shrugged a second time.
“Is she… uh… is she real?” Vassily’s brow furrowed in concern. “Like, alive, and not a magazine cutout with a hole for your dick?”
I tch’d and rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a putz. Her name is Crina Juranovic. You met her a couple of days before you went to prison.”
“I don’t remember a Juranovic. She Serbian? Croatian?”
“Possibly. She speaks Ukrainian, but she grew up in Germany.”
“Well, I… huh. Right.” Vassily trailed off and began to twitch, drumming his fingers on his thighs. He hesitated for a moment before speaking again, voice catching. “That’s good, because guys like you end up in the Weird Obituaries section of the papers, Alexi. I worry I’ll come in and find you’ve choked yourself out from the doorknob with a pair of dirty stockings someday, and—”
“Vassily.” If I rolled my eyes any harder, they were going to burst out the back of my skull. “Please, give me some credit. The stockings would be clean.”
He busted up laughing. “Okay, fine, fine. Girl or no girl though, I’m glad you haven’t really changed much.”
“What do you mean by that?” I gripped the steering wheel and fixed my eyes ahead. I was surprised at myself, how immediately defensive I sounded. “I’ve worked my way to independence. Nic trusts me, Lev trusts me… I have a lot of work from them. The money is excellent.”
“I’m not talking about what you do, Lexi. I’m just talking about… you. Like the heart of you. It’s still the same.” Vassily looked back out towards the rush of gray and brown as we entered the gaping oven of New York City. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I mean, it’s good to get out and have at least one thing still be how it was, ’specially after all the hard news. You’re lucky you weren’t wasted when Lev took over.”
“I’m more worried about the Manellis,” I replied. “Lev does a good enough job. His maneuvering has the best interests of the collective at heart. I’d rather have him as Avtoritet than, say, Vanya.”
“Well, yeah. I’d rather see a dog turd as Avtoritet before Vanya.”
“Indeed. The biggest test will be how we hold against one of the Five Families,” I said. “This new Colombian cartel arrangement has been incredibly successful. Every yuppie from Miami to Boston is buying at the moment. Now that John Manelli knows who’s in charge, I have no idea what we’ll do. Lev hasn’t really talked about it. Nic has only fears. Unfortunately, I am no seer.”
I trailed off when I noticed Vassily had fallen uncomfortably silent, staring down at his hands. Unspoken was the same anxiety I had also nursed, off and on, for the past half a decade. His incarceration had driven us both to think about our friendship for the first time, how tenuous our freedom together really was. His release was already overshadowed by fresh violence, and both of us would have to be there when the shit hit the fan, parole officer or no parole officer.
After a few minutes of silence, he smiled, and I watched his light flicker back to life. “So, we’re going straight to Gletchik’s, right?”
“Of course.” I desperately needed food. My stomach had given up trying to tell me how hungry I was, and I imagined it shrunk down to the size of a bean, the walls of my gut gnawing at itself for sustenance.
“Thank God. I’m gonna hit that menu so hard.”
The idea was utterly perplexing. I frowned. “Why would you hit the menu?”
“For fuck’s sake.” Vassily rolled his eyes. “Alexi… I’m not actually going to hit the menu.”
“You order from menus.” I shook my head stubbornly.
“Fine. Okay. I will order from the menu. Everything from the menu.” He sighed. “Fucking hell. I forgot how literal you get when you’re tired.”
Ordering everything on the menu didn’t seem a whole lot more practical than hitting it, but I kept my mouth shut and focused on my driving. In any case, if buying everything was what he wanted to do, well… I guess we could make space in the refrigerator for it all, if we tried hard enough.
Gletchik’s was as good as usual. We ate as much as we could, but there was no time for rest. Vassily needed ID, a new bank account, new clothing, and all the other minutiae of mundane life after being released from prison. We returned to my apartment with far too much food for the old one-person refrigerator and wet food for Binah. My new cat greeted us enthusiastically at the door, and when Vassily stooped and picked her up, she stuck her head out, purring, and began to wash the bridge of his nose.
“Who’s this pretty little guy?” Vassily paused for a moment to check under her tail. “Girl.”
“Binah. She’s…” I almost said “Semyon’s cat,” but Semyon was dead. “New. I thought you’d like her. To replace Sir Purrs-a-Lot.”
“R.I.P Purrs-a-lot.” Vassily said mournfully. “But she’s great. I love Siamese.”
Once everything was put away, I left Vassily to play with Binah in the den and stumbled gratefully to my bedroom. I was delirious, dizzy by the time I was finally able to turn off the light, undress, and get into bed.
Sleep came easily, but it was not peaceful.
As I often did, I dreamed of the old Sokolsky house on Brighton 6th Street. Like an automaton, I walked up the foggy sidewalk and opened the gate. The peeling bungalow door was usually locked, as inaccessible to me as the memories of my teens. Tonight, the front door was open as wide as my hand, large enough for a cat to squeeze in. The cool air coming from underneath the entry smelled rotten and sweet. I knew I was dreaming but couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and pushing the door in. Couldn’t stop myself from walking inside.
This dream house had only one room. It was cluttered to waist height with the stacks of old paper my mother hoarded and trash bags full of the bottles my father discarded. The carpet was thin and dull, and the only light was from two sickly green lampshades in the corners of the room. The wide arch that would have led to the kitchen was bricked over, painted with a strange symbol. It looked like an eye with a cross where the iris was supposed to be. It was drawn in blood, pressed into plaster the texture of dead flesh. Crumpled face-first against the wall was a tall, white-haired, dark-skinned, sexless figure. Its fingers were bloodied stumps.