THIS IS HOW you lose your life.
You’re a kid, you play baseball. You are better at baseball than a human being has a right to be at anything. You’re going to the pros, everybody knows it. But before it can become a reality, you hurt yourself, bad.
Things happen.
You wallow in your own misery and start hanging with the crowd of kids you would have nothing to do with before you shattered your leg. You do some drugs, break into some houses, get caught.
Things happen.
You trade baseball and petty crime for hot rods. You’re a big fucking show-off. You crash your Mustang and your best friend is in the car and he sails through the windshield and you get to see what it looks like when a teenager’s head explodes against a tree.
Things happen.
You go to college. You learn things, lots of things. You learn how things work, you learn some first aid, you learn some history and some books and some politics. All the things you didn’t have time for when there was baseball. You meet a girl and move to New York City to be with her. She dumps you.
Things happen.
You learn to drink. You tend bar, you develop a drinking problem that’s like the rest of your life: nothing special. Years pass. Blah, blah, blah. Boo, hoo, hoo.
Nothing happens.
Then everything happens at once.
A friend leaves something in your care, a cat. That is, you think it’s a cat he leaves with you, but it’s not. It’s a key, a key at the bottom of the cat’s cage. The key opens a door and behind the door is a prize, and lots of people want the prize. Who wouldn’t want the prize when it’s over 4 million clean, untraceable dollars? People come for the key. People threaten you and push you around and hurt you bad and try to kill you, and finally, they kill people you care about. Someone you love. And you kill back.
Things happen.
You stop drinking. You hide. You are severed from your life, huddled on a beach in Mexico, trying to pretend it’s OK being a fugitive, cool being on the lam and living on a beach. The mysterious Americano. But it’s not OK. It’s not cool. And then you meet someone, someone who knows who you are. Someone who wants the money. Threats are exchanged. He threatens you, you threaten him, he threatens your parents. He dies. You run. Back home, to your parents, back to protect them. Bad call.
Things happen.
You lose the money. Lose it like an idiot. Lose over 4 million dollars. Lose the only thing that can save your parents’ lives. You make moves. You play both ends against the middle, you make it up as you go along. You fail. Guns. Vicious dogs. Dead friends. Carnage, bloody and awful. You decide to die.
Something happens.
A man saves you. A man saves your life and offers you a new one. The money was his and you have lost it, but he has a use for you. He sees your talents. He sees the things you have done. He knows that you are better at violence than a human being has a right to be at anything. He has uses for a man like you.
Things happen.
But you don’t want to think about them.
And that is how you lose your life. Because this is not your life. It is the life that has been allowed you. You live it, but it is not your life.
And then things start to happen again.
MY HANDS SHAKE.
They shake so bad I have to stab at the release button on the glove compartment three times before I hit it and the little door drops open. They shake so bad they turn the bottle of pills into a maraca. I fumble with it until Branko climbs into the car, takes the bottle from my hands, twists the cap off and looks at the pills inside.
– What are these?
– Vicodin.
He looks at me. I hold out my hand.
– My face hurts.
– It is hurting again?
– It hurts all the time.
He grunts, taps two of the pills into his hand and drops them in my waiting palm. I keep my hand out. He shakes his head, drops two more in my hand. I toss the pills in my mouth and dry-swallow them.
He seals the bottle and puts it back in the glove box.
– David wants to speak to you.
I flex my fingers, curling and uncurling them.
– He’s in town?
– David is a man who likes to speak on the phone?
I shake my head.
– So where is he?
Branko jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
I look behind us at the reflective gold tower of the Mandalay Bay.
– Across the street?
– Yes.
He points at my hands.
– You can drive?
They’ve stopped shaking. Sometimes it’s like that, just swallowing the pills makes me feel better.
– Yeah.
I stick the key in the ignition, turn it, and the Olds pops to life. I pull us out of the parking space and Branko starts fiddling with the radio. I stop at the exit, waiting for a break in the traffic. Branko hits Lauryn Hill singing “Ex-Factor” and stops spinning the dial. He taps his finger on his knee, slightly out of time.
– I miss Hal Jackson.
His Serbian accent makes it sound like Hell Jycksin.
– What?
– Hal Jackson. Sunday mornings. WBLS. I miss him from New York.
I had a girl back in New York once. She liked Hal Jackson. Sunday mornings reading the paper, coffee and bagels.
I pull us onto The Strip. Branko is looking at me.
– Sunday Morning Classics?
She’s dead now.
I drive to the end of the block and stop at the light and wait for a green arrow that will let me turn left. Branko wants me to remember. He sings.
–
I get my arrow and turn.
– Yeah. OK. I remember.
He nods.
– Yes. Everybody knows Hal Jackson.
I have to wait again to make the left into the Mandalay’s drive. A siren sounds from somewhere up The Strip. I glance into the mirror and see an ambulance pulling into the Happi Inn Motel lot. I look at Branko. He shrugs.
– I call the 911.
He holds up his hands.
– He would have to dial with his nose.
He taps the tip of his own nose.
I turn into the drive and join the long line of cars and cabs waiting to pull up to the entrance of the hotel. I
