In New York, every day, I had to choose life. I had to make a conscious choice. I won’t say thoughts of suicide were constant companions but they were certainly frequent visitors. I thought of the many ways one could off oneself. Wrist slashing, pills, drowning, jumping off a building, hanging. All had their own particular pluses to recommend them but the surest way and the one requiring less time to think about it once you’d made the decision . . . was blowing my brains out. That was the one I felt was most compatible with my Okie soul. Problem was . . . I didn’t have a gun. 

“Yuri, my friend . . .”

“What do you want, Misha?”

“Why must I want something? Can’t I just talk to my friend, my pal, my mate.”

“Because everytime you start a conversation with ‘Yuri, my friend’ you want something. So, what do you want . . . my friend?”

“Xa! Ok . . . I need a gun.”

“You know it’s against the law to hunt in New York City.” Yuri thought himself quite the comedian.

“Hand gun . . . pistol.”

“You know it’s against the law to rob a bank in New York City.”

“You know you really should do stand up comedy . . . no really!”

“Ok . . . why?”

I showed him my chest scar and changed the story to make it a simple mugging. “Sometimes I find myself in situations where I could, you know . . . get killed.” I said.

“Do you even know how to use a gun?”

“I grew up with guns around . . . all kinds . . . so, da.”

“Why don’t you just go buy a gun . . . at a gun shop?”

“Umm, I’m not . . . a fugitive or anything like that . . . it’s just . . .”

He held up his hand in understanding. “Let me think about it.”

The way the warehouse was organized was there was one group of workers moving stuff into the warehouse in one area, Section A, the section where I started. Another group of workers moved stuff from Section A to Section B. “A workers,” who mostly spoke English, interacted little with “B workers,” who mostly spoke Russian. There was physical proximity but the language barrier precluded effective communication. That was, apparently, by design. Management did not want the A hand knowing what the B hand was doing, management being, well, gangsters. 

I’m not sure exactly when it happened but I gradually became Yuri’s lieutenant. As such, my job ranged all over the warehouse and I got to know A, B and C workers.

C workers were a harder looking lot than the B workers. There were a lot more tattoos of an unusual nature. I was tempted to ask Yuri about this, but remembered his warning about not being the guy who asked a lot of questions. The C workers were a quiet group of men when I was around. I heard them talking and laughing and cursing amongst themselves and slowly, after I’d worked there a few months and they’d seen that Yuri trusted me, they began to talk with me. My Russian cursing vocabulary grew rapidly.

“What the fuck, Yevgeny! I told you to put those fucking oblong boxes on the C1 pallets . . . No, I have no fucking idea what’s in them? . . . Xa! Well, fuck, yes, I too am hoping the motherfuckers won’t fucking explode . . .”

                                                                                    ***

It was the end of my shift and I was heading to my locker when Yuri appeared suddenly at my side.

“Misha, do you remember a few weeks ago you asked me about procuring a certain item for you?” Yuri was wearing a stylish, European-cut gray suit and a navy blue tie.

“Refresh my memory, Yuri. Was it a small nuclear device or a handgun?”

Yuri did not smile. He got very serious. “Misha, the people we work for are very serious people. The only time they joke around with you is just before they . . .” He made a move with his thumb that came very close to approximating a slit throat.

My smile faded. “Right . . . point taken . . . you mean like a cat playing with a mouse before eating him?”

“Something like that.”

“Ok, got it.” 

“Our boss has heard about you.”

The sounds of the world became muffled and I started to hear my own heartbeat, only it sounded distorted and like it was coming through a wah-wah pedal. “Umm, do I need to start running?”

“No, no, Misha. It’s not bad. He’s just curious about you.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Yuri.”

“I told him you were cool. I don’t think he’s going to ask you to do anything ‘gangster.’ He’s just curious about how you can speak Russian so well . . . nothing more than that . . . He would like to meet you before . . . doing you a favor.” Spreading his hands like there was nothing to worry about.

“When does he want this to happen?”

“Right now . . . my friend.”

I followed Yuri through the warehouse, onto a set of loading docks for trucks on the city side of the warehouse, down some stairs and out to a gorgeous, long black Lincoln sitting alone in the parking lot, a lot which could easily hold 50 cars or 10 trucks, and which was surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. As we approached I became self conscious about my work clothes which were dirty from the warehouse. It was dark, a little after midnight. The windows on the Lincoln were darkly tinted so the only person I could see clearly was the driver who was a big beefy guy, dark hair cropped short, wearing shades, a white shirt and a sport jacket. Beefy guy nodded at Yuri who opened the rear driver’s side door and gestured for me to get in. He closed the door after me and was waiting, his back to the car.

Sitting to my right was a big, muscular man with short, dark black hair, greying at the temples, dressed in a dark suit and tie. He, like his driver, was wearing Aviator sunglasses. We sat in silence for what seemed like an hour. Finally, “You are Mickey O’Taney?” Very thick slavic accent.

“Y-yes, sir.” I was petrified. It wasn’t just the situation. The guy gave off a vibe like a cobra. Not that I’d ever been that close to a cobra without there being a thick glass partition between us. It’s just I had the feeling he might strike at any moment.

“I understand you speak Russian almost as well as a Russian.”

“I . . . speak Russian . . . pretty well.”

He took off his shades and turned towards me and extended his hand. “They call me Alexei Vladimirovich Pokotilov.”

I turned and took his hand. His skin was like that of a snake. And I think I did a very good job of not staring at the curvilinear scar that ran from the left side of his forehead to his left cheek through the space that had been occupied by his left eye. “Very glad to meet you, Alexei Vladimirovich. They call me Mikhael Owenovich O’Taney.” 

“May I call you Misha?”

I wanted to say “You can call me anything you want. Just please let me out of this car with my scrotum still attached” but what I said was, “Of course, Mr. Pokotilov.”

“You are not Russian?” 

I shook my head. 

“How did an American boy learn to speak Russian?”

I decided it would be best to tell the truth rather than tell the truth after he’d pulled out two or three fingernails. I told him my story minus the violin and the Jew stuff. The violin was unnecessary and Jews did not have a happy history in Russia.

“Do you think maybe you were touched by God?” Going right for the jugular.

“I’m not certain but that is one very plausible explanation.”

He stared at me, unblinking, for what seemed like an eternity with his one eye. “Do you believe in God, Misha?”

I didn’t mean to hesitate, but I caught myself thinking what answer would get me out of that car intact. “I used to.” Then I thought, Why didn’t I use the fannings? Why am I such a fucking idiot?

“What happened?”

I called the fannings. They seemed to indicate all I had to do was tell the truth. “People who were dear to me . . . who I loved, were taken from me and it left . . . a gaping hole in my soul.” My voice had started to fail.

For a brief moment he seemed to collapse in on himself and his snake personna gave way in that instant to a terribly damaged human. But then the snake returned as rapidly as it had disappeared. “I see. That must have been difficult, da?”

“Da.” I could feel my eyes burning and looked away. After a few breaths I looked back into his . . . eye. I didn’t want him to feel I was disrespecting him. I really didn’t.

He spoke to the driver. “Pyoter, hand me the package, please.” He carefully unwrapped the paper, reached inside a black bag and pulled out a Sig P210.

“Woh . . .” I said, involuntarily. It was a beautiful pistol. 

“A beauty, da?”

“Da . . . very beautiful.”

He wrapped it back up, put it back in the bag and handed it to me. “This is a gift, Misha.”

I looked in his face again. It had seen a lot of mileage. The cobra had taken cover. 

“This is . . . ochen shedrah [very generous], Alexei Vladimirovich.”

He held up his hand and almost smiled. “It’s alright, Misha.”

I looked down at the parcel in my lap and smiled grimly. Then I looked back at him questioningly.

“No strings attached . . . Yuri tells me you are an exceptional young man, who knows when to speak and when to be silent. Probably best if you forgot my name.”

I nodded . . . solemnly.

He looked up at Pyoter who rapped his knuckle once lightly on the window and Yuri opened my door.

“Thank you, um . . .” like I’d forgotten his name.

He smiled briefly then the cobra returned. “You’re welcome.”

I was out of the car and following Yuri. Halfway through the warehouse I began to breathe again. I was a little light headed. Yuri, noticing, slowed, took my arm in his hand and we continued to the dock side of the warehouse where my locker was. I finally found my voice.

“Yuri . . .” I looked down at the bag in my hands. “Thank you, my friend . . . I hope I didn’t . . .”

“Yuri takes care of Yuri. Don’t give it another thought.”