“Hijo calvo de una perra!”
You bald son of a bitch. Real original. His breath was ragged now, shoulders slumping, face glowing with sweat.
Gang-bangers these days aren't in very good shape. I blame TV and junk food.
One final punch—a half-hearted smack to my broken nose—and then I was released.
I collapsed face-first in a puddle that smelled like urine. The three Latin Kings each took the time to spit on me. Then they strolled out of the alley, laughing and giving each other high-fives.
When they got a good distance away, I crawled over to a Dumpster and pulled myself to my feet. The alley was dark, quiet. I felt something scurry over my foot.
Rats, licking up my dripping blood.
Nice neighborhood.
I hurt a lot, but pain and I were old acquaintances. I took a deep breath, let it out slow, did some poking and prodding. Nothing seemed seriously damaged.
I'd been lucky.
I spat. The bloody saliva clung to my swollen lower lip and dribbled onto my T-shirt. I tried a few steps forward, managed to keep my balance, and continued to walk out of the alley, onto the sidewalk, and to the corner bus stop.
I sat.
The Kings took my wallet, which had no ID or credit cards, but did have a few hundred in cash. I kept an emergency fiver in my shoe. The bus arrived, and the portly driver raised an eyebrow at my appearance.
“Do you need a doctor, buddy?”
“I've got plenty of doctors.”
He shrugged and took my money.
On the ride back, my fellow passengers made heroic efforts to avoid looking at me. I leaned forward, so the blood pooled between my feet rather than stained my clothing any further. These were my good jeans.
When my stop came up, I gave everyone a cheery wave goodbye and stumbled out of the bus.
The corner of State and Cermak was all lit up, twinkling in both English and Chinese. Unlike NY and LA, each of which had sprawling Chinatowns, Chicago has more of a Chinablock. Blink while you're driving west on 22nd and you'll miss it.
Though Caucasian, I found a kind of peace in Chinatown that I didn't find among the Anglos. Since my diagnosis, I've pretty much disowned society. Living here was like living in a foreign country—or a least a square block of a foreign country.
I kept a room at the Lucky Lucky Hotel, tucked away between a crumbling apartment building and a Chinese butcher shop, on State and 25th. The hotel did most of its business at an hourly rate, though I couldn't think of a more repulsive place to take a woman, even if you were renting her as well as the room. The halls stank like mildew and worse and the plaster snowed on you when you climbed the stairs and obscene graffiti lined the halls and the whole building leaned slightly to the right.
I got a decent rent; free—as long as I kept out the drug dealers. Which I did, except for the ones who dealt to me.
I nodded at the proprietor, Kenny-Jen-Bang-Ko, and asked for my key. Kenny was three times my age, clean-shaven save for several black moles on his cheeks that sprouted long, white hairs. He tugged at these hairs while contemplating me.
“How is other guy?” Kenny asked.
“Drinking a forty of malt liquor that he bought with my money.”
He nodded, as if that was the answer he'd been expecting. “You want pizza?”
Kenny gestured to a box on the counter. The slices were so old and shrunken they looked like Doritos.
“I thought the Chinese hated fast food.”
“Pizza not fast. Took thirty minutes. Anchovy and red pepper.”
I declined.
My room was one squeaky stair flight up. I unlocked the door and lumbered over to the bathroom, looking into the cracked mirror above the sink.
Ouch.
My left eye had completely closed, and the surrounding tissue bulged out like a peach. Purple bruising competed with angry red swelling along my cheeks and forehead. My nose was a glob of strawberry jelly, and blood had crusted black along my lips and down my neck.
It looked like Jackson Pollack kicked my ass.
I stripped off the T-shirt, peeled off my shoes and jeans, and turned the shower up to scald.
It hurt, but got most of the crap off.
After the shower I popped five Tylenol, chased them with a shot of tequila, and spent ten minutes in front of the mirror, tears streaming down my face, forcing my nose back into place.
I had some coke, but wouldn't be able to sniff anything with my sniffer all clotted up, and I was too exhausted to shoot any. I made do with the tequila, thinking that tomorrow I'd have that codeine prescription refilled.
Since the pain wouldn't let me sleep, I decided to do a little work.
Using a dirty fork, I pried up the floorboards near the radiator and took out a plastic bag full of what appeared to be little gray stones. The granules were the size and consistency of aquarium gravel.
I placed the bag on the floor, then removed the Lee Load-All, the scale, a container of gunpowder, some wads, and a box of empty 12 gauge shells.
Everything went over to my kitchen table. I snapped on a fresh pair of latex gloves, clamped the loader onto my counter top, and spent an hour carefully filling ten shells. When I finished, I loaded five of them into my Mossberg 935, the barrel and stock of which had been cut down for easier concealment.
I liked shotguns—you had more leeway when aiming, the cops couldn't trace them like they could trace bullets, and nothing put the fear of god into a guy like the sound of racking a shell into the chamber.
For this job, I didn't have a choice.
By the time I was done, my nose had taken the gold medal in throbbing, with my eye coming close with the silver. I swallowed five more Tylenol and four shots of tequila, then laid down on my cot and fell asleep.
With sleep came the dream.
It happened every night, so vivid I could smell Donna's perfume. We were still together, living in the suburbs. She was smiling at me, running her fingers through my hair.
“Phin, the caterer wants to know if we're going with the split pea or the wedding ball soup.”
“Explain the wedding ball soup to me again.”
“It's a chicken stock with tiny veal meatballs in it.”
“That sounds good to you?”
“It's very good. I've had it before.”
“Then let's go with that.”
She kissed me; playful, loving.
I woke up drenched in sweat.
If someone had told me that happy memories would one day be a source of incredible pain, I wouldn't have believed it.
Things change.
Sun peeked in through my dirty window, making me squint. I stretched, wincing because my whole body hurt—my whole body except for my left side, where a team of doctors severed the nerves during an operation called a chordotomy. The surgery had been purely palliative. The area felt dead, even though the cancer still thrived inside my pancreas. And elsewhere, by now.
The chordotomy offered enough pain relief to allow me to function, and tequila, cocaine, and codeine made up for the remainder.
I dressed in some baggy sweatpants, my bloody gym shoes (with a new five dollar bill in the sole), and a clean white T-shirt. I strapped my leather shotgun sling under my armpits, and placed the Mossberg in the holster. It hung directly between my shoulder blades, barrel up, and could be freed by reaching my right hand behind me at
