Garbage

Part 6

After five days, I have not discovered any sign of a gold pendant that looks like mine being sold. No buyer has heard anything, no matter how much money I offer. I’ve tried cajoling and threatening. No result, so I’ve started keeping watch over every shady shop. Still no result.

Some shop owners seem too suspicious to me. They’re definitely hiding something. Several times, I’ve watched their cash books full of tricks and deceptions. Once, I was kicked out, and another time, a shopkeeper called the police when he found me trying to steal the book. No result, again and again.

All these days, I haven’t been sleeping or eating. I couldn’t. I feel just despair.

Today is New Year’s Eve, and if I’m going to survive, I need to get some food.

I called an old hooker whom my goombah once helped when she was beaten by a client. The beldame rose through life later and became the wife of some foolish rich man.

After my goombah was killed, she would, from time to time, send me word of places where foolish men gathered – whispers passed down from her young stepson – so I could hunt without unnecessary risk.

The same bright dress clings to me, the same gold high-heeled shoes adorn my feet. I stand out too much for this party. No flashy costumes here – just exquisite outfits. Everything feels more subdued than on Christmas Eve. I'd even say the ladies look modest – almost deliberately demure – like prudish maidens.

On the other hand, among this crowd, I resemble a walking Christmas garland.

Awesome. What could be better? Damn.

If anyone attended the last big party, they would surely recognize me and start asking questions. That would draw far too much dangerous attention. They might begin to wonder who I am, where I come from, what family I belong to – risking my entire cover. If that happens, I’ll need to disappear immediately and abandon any chance of blending in.

If someone remembers me, I will lose my last chance to survive this winter.

Still, I keep smiling, my face betraying no shadow of doubt, carrying on the conversation as if nothing weighs on me. Tonight, I will have a full meal and a hot shower.

I notice a nondescript guy heading straight toward me. These types are usually dull – void of humor, mumbling all evening about their boring jobs, their boring little businesses, their boring families, their boring hobbies like board games or home yoga. They drone on about uneventful school trips with not a single interesting mishap. No alcohol, no drugs, no mistakes, no girls.

I am already bracing myself to die of boredom, just to endure a night of dull, predictable sex in his dull apartment and sleep dully – when I hear another voice behind me.

– Hey! Some more wine, princess?

I turn, and my stomach clenches. A familiar face. No, he’s not an actor, but the memories he brings back are too sharp to forget. Too sharp.

– Oh, hey! I didn’t expect to see you ag – ow!

I snatch the glass from his hands, hoping to mask my unease. I had worried so much about my appearance, but I hadn't thought about the real danger – someone recognizing me.

– Are we acquainted? – he asks, studying me with suspicion.

– No! – I answered too quickly, though just seconds ago I had almost blurted out his name. – Maybe from a past life.

He laughed, but I wasn’t joking.

– Are you alone, princess?

I glance back at the boring guy, silently pleading for his involvement. Right now, I’d rather suffer excruciating boredom than spend another second with this handsome but all-too-familiar face.

The boring guy is gone.

What a fucking coward! Where did he lose his balls?

– Unfortunately, – I mutter, not bothering to hide my disappointment.

– Lucky me! – My unwelcome companion twists my words to his liking. – My name is… I am from…

Yeah, yeah, I know all of this. Most likely, the only thing I don’t know for sure is the job title of his father – owner of a corporation involved in domestic coal extraction – is handing over to his son.

A department manager? A director? A head of something?

– I’m an executive at ABS-Group. Have you seen the road-ads?

– Oh, really? So young, yet managing a group of mining companies! My congratulations! – I say that, but at the same time, I want to say, “My apologies!” – And how are things going?

The man freezes for a moment. His eyes turn colorless, and his sharp features go doughy.

I don’t need words to understand what’s happening.

We were never close. We were never friends. Our families met from time to time – usually at big feasts – but his father never held a high position. Coal was never important in this country. The profit from selling it barely makes up half a percent of the GDP. So, the coal magnate’s son played with me a couple of times, but never for long.

After he pushed me – a four-year-old girl – calling me an “arrogant bitch”, and then blamed it on me when our parents came back running because of my cries, we avoided each other. Just a childish prank, maybe, but it showed me what he really was—a coward. Someone I couldn't deal with.

I suppose my father saw it clearly, and maybe it even affected the coal baron’s career. My father never forgave anything or anyone. He always…

No! I have to forget about that right now! Even thinking about it isn’t safe. Get it out of my head immediately!

– You look pale! How do you feel?

– Too much wine, I think. I need to eat.

I feel my head spinning, my stomach twisting inside out. I look around for food.

Just crappy canapés. The fucking moneybags skimped on snacks!

– You need to rest. Let’s go to my place, princess, – the coal magnate’s son offers, playing the caring gentleman.

I see the spark in his eyes. He’s hungry too. I can almost hear his balls ringing with tension. It grosses me out.

Of course, he doesn’t remember me – he only ever thinks about himself. He doesn’t see the obvious: how disgusting he is to me.

I start praying he’ll evaporate like smoke from the cheapest cigarettes when I meet the gaze of a young woman. I already know that look.

– And who the hell are you?!

Of course, the coal baron’s son has a fiancée. And of course, the bastard conveniently “forgot” about that fact!

His “true princess” starts acting like a true jenny-ass, screaming that I’m trying to steal her precious lover. She wails and shrieks so loudly that every guest at the party gathers around. I have no chance of slipping away into the crowd.

I don’t say a word to defend myself. Her future husband sings like a lark, using every trick in the book. In the end, he confesses that he “gave in” to the cunning manipulations of a “witch”. That witch being me.

Again. I got myself into shit again. I let myself be set up.

It ended with me leaving the New Year’s party, carrying two plates of canapés.

I spent the night under a truck selling hot wine near an intercity bus station. I caught a cold.

Part 7

– You need a doctor, “wife.” You look terrible, but I can’t help you. Nobody is selling the trinket. I can double-check – no new deals, same as yesterday. Drop this business!

– It’s mine. Why should I stop searching?

– You made a big mistake – drawing attention to the trinket. Now every businessman in the area knows you’re hunting for it. The price has already been raised, and you won’t be able to pay it.

– This hype is necessary so I don’t lose my possession. Every rat has heard that it’s valuable to me. None of yours will dare to sell it without my permission! Unless they want to find their store burned down, – I grin, and the merchant looks a bit alarmed. He gets my message.

I leave his shop, not without effort.

Almost two weeks have passed since New Year’s. These were the worst weeks I can remember. I couldn’t find a new den. I couldn’t earn money. I smell like a pile of garbage. I haven’t eaten in days.

I have two thousand dollars in my pocket that the Creaker gave me to buy back the pendant. But I haven’t found a single trace of it, as if it never existed. I haven’t spent a single coin. I’ve survived only on food I found in the trash.

During these weeks, I got sick, and it turned into bronchitis.

Today, I am truly homeless. And I have no way out. Not until my pendant is found.

My head is spinning. I start to cough. Sweat pours down my forehead. I lose my balance.

Will I die? Ha! It’s almost funny. I don’t mind… What could be worse?

– Hey! Did you find the jewelry?

I hear the voice as if from far away.

Who is it? Why are they teasing me?

– The head insisted on telling you what he figured out. The pendant is kept by a backstreet profiteer, not one of us. The head found out about it by accident.

– The Creaker, – someone’s words reach me little by little. – Did the Creaker recognize it for me?

– Of course! Doesn’t the head always indulge your whims?

– What a whim? What are you talking about? – It takes a lot of energy to focus on the man talking to me. He knows the Creaker and wants to help, but recognition doesn’t bring me any solace. – I remind you! The newcomer is the one who acted like a piece of crap! You’re Freddy’s bloodclaat! – I get irritated, and my cough bursts from my chest.

– Who’s whispering that, slut? You were even worse, and today you look like a piece of crap!

He looks more chuffed and cheeky than on the day of our first meeting.

– Shut up!

– I came here because the old man asked me to. If you’re not glad to see me, I’ll leave!

– Stop!

– Hah?

– Don’t go! – I plead when the cough leaves me for a short moment.

– Address me more politely, and maybe I’ll fulfill your request.

Son of a bitch! He’s practically commanding me.

– Please! I need your help! I swear I’ve never called you “a piece of crap”! I’m desperate! I can’t do this without you! Please! You don’t know how deep the asshole is that I’m in right now! If you help me get my pendant back, I can pay you later when I resell it! I’ll do anything you ask! Just take me to the profiteer! I beg you! Prithee!

The man looks down on me while I kneel before him. Freddy’s flunky is gung-ho about someone else’s humiliation – a Roman holiday! It’s as clear as the laws of the Universe! I see the excitement in his eyes. The prick has tasted the flavor of dominance. Today and from now on, he’ll keep looking for a new dose of that feeling. Bastard!

– Okay! Come with me. The picker is on the other side of the river. It’ll be easier if we go through the subway tunnels. A true rat like you isn’t afraid of haunts of vice, right?

– Kill yourself, a douchebag! – I exhale.

– Hah?

– Nothing!

The city tunnels are rarely used. It isn’t a safe way to get to another part, but it’s faster than crossing the bridge. Here and there, you can meet packs of rats, and they are not the worst – humans are.

I’d rather face a mad dog, a lion, or an alligator…

Stop! What am I saying? What crazy alligator would stick its nose in this frozen hell?

Is the fever coming back? Is my brain baking? Am I really flipping my lid?

If I’m going off the deep end, I still have a bit of time to get the pendant back.

The newcomer is pale. Even in the dim light of his hand torch, it shows.

He’s nervous. Why? I don’t think the rats scurrying in the dark terrify him.

We arrive at a fork in the underground corridor, and now the newcomer has to decide which path to take. Why is he hesitating?

If the Creaker sent him to help me, he must have explained the basics of the map and made sure the newcomer memorized them. Getting lost in these tunnels is a disaster! Several routes lead straight to the city’s waste reservoirs. Some of them are filled with poisonous fumes. If you take the wrong turn, the best-case scenario is making it outside the next day.

The newcomer’s face turns gray. I see sweat forming on his forehead.

Did this asshole forget the right path when every minute counts?

I feel irritation rising, and my coughing bounces off the moldy walls, echoing and scattering like whispers in the underground labyrinth.

– Enough! Stop it! Shut up! – the newcomer squeals. He looks like a scared little kid.

But the cough won’t let me breathe. I keep going, dropping to my knees and folding in half. No orders or persuasion can stop it.

– Your hoop is… You need to see a doctor!

I hear his voice as if from far away – too far. Darkness is closing in. Drops of sweat fall from my forehead straight onto the cold stones, where I rest my burning head.

– Oh, really? – I wheeze, still struggling for breath. – First, you take me to the seller.

We continue our mission after Freddy’s flunky finally recalls the way, but we lose about an hour.

– What’s your name? – he asked me after that. His sudden interest only annoys me more. Why – no idea.

– Honey.

– Is that what your dirty lovers usually call you?

– Yes.

– How did you become… – he searches for the right word. – Homeless?

– My stepfather tried to rape me. My mother knew and still kicked me out. And you?

– Are you telling the truth?

– Yes.

– I don’t believe you.

– Please!

– Bitch! Fuck you!

– My pleasure! When I find my pendant!

– Are you ready to shag for it?

I don’t answer. The cough finds me first.

Then I hear a strange noise. No rats. Those are footsteps.

I try to silence my coughing, but the more I suppress it, the worse it gets.

This won’t go unpunished. They’re already looking for us.

Part 8

I have to think dispassionately, but I feel the rising terror inside me. It is like a lump in the throat, but it is only heavy, deep, dark. I stop breathing, I asphyxiate. I have a couple of instances to choose a strategy on how to overcome the hurdle.

All of my routine tricks are a fat lot of use. My disguise didn’t work – they understood I am a woman as we ran across. I fail to sweet-talk the guys to miss us. It will rile up the twats. Mules like them have a passion for the agony of a victim. There is a highly sensitive horniness, almost jollies. They wouldn’t let us go without a hoo-per-doo show… or if at all they thought to let us something…

“Run! Immediately run!” – my inner beast thrashes about inside me.

I order it to shut up because breaking isn’t possible. Even if I leave the newcomer – like a sacrifice – it doesn't help me. I also can’t find my pendant all alone. The Creaker will be sad if some of the homeless perish.

The lump in the throat rises in me with pity, but the desire to cough is interrupted by a sudden phrase:

“You can go!” – The big one says it to the newcomer.

It means the light at the end of the tunnel for the young man and the end of my story.

– Piss off, boy! – Another hyena laughs wily.

And the newcomer goes out. He doesn't turn to me. I would behave the same. If I was in his place… I would run away through the dark to the light without any regrets! If I was him, I would be alive.

The cough breaks out of me with huge power. I don’t resist it anymore. I hawk out the sheet anchor to survive.

– What the hell?! Is it fucking blood?

– Ugh! Is the slut sick?

– What if it is tuberculosis? My uncle had tuberculosis. Is it contagious?

– Damn! Don’t breathe the same air!

– You are a pussy! It's bullshit! The bitch is crazy like a fox and thinks you are jackasses! She has just bitten the cheek to trick you, plonkers. The pretty girl will shag all of you. But she can’t fool me. I saw the same gimmick!

I don’t see who said this, but he just signed my death warrant recently.

– What have you decided, Billy?

– We are cleaners, so our hard work and sacred duty is to take out the garbage, – Someone – whose name is Billy, this name looks familiar – answers ominously and blurrily.

– Let’s punish her! – Another Billy’s mate concludes not without foretaste.

I don’t remember most of what happened further. It seemed like my clothes had been stolen. The men laughed and chatted with each other, either as a goat for sale or as a doll for presenting. I was touched by someone’s five-finger Mary or by every one of them – that which was going fuzzily.

I recovered from a strike on my face. I smell smoke – the bright evening dress is burning, the gold shoes are lost for me too. The smell makes me recall who Billy is. It’s he who destroyed all my calm life – he welded up the door of my den, he incinerated my things in possession, it was he who snitched my pendant. He had to know where my secret was.

– Be a good girl and do it! If you try to bite my big man, I will break your tiny neck. Have you learnt it?

I nod to Billy as clearly as I can, considering keeping his cook in my mouth.

– Do it with love! I want to see the amorous baby face like I saw in the photo. When I jacked off the last time to your image…

What about the photo he is talking about? When it dawns on me that he opened my pendant and found the inner picture where I was depicted with “him”, I can’t hold back vomiting – I am coughing with blood again.

I don’t worry about it. The fact that someone saw the photo burns and freezes my blood more. Billy is too close to solving my riddle. A bit much.

– Hey, Billy! The boy wants to watch the show! Do you afford it to happen?

The newcomer is white like when we went through tunnels. He wasn't afraid, didn’t beg, looked like he knew the situation… because he knew. All about this.

– He paid for it! He finked on the girlfriend, didn't he? Thanks! We found the money! Enjoy the show! Your turn will be at the end after us. You need to wait for a long time. She is a glad lad, but we just started.

Men are waiting for us because they compress it from the very beginning.

My pendant, the Creaker’s money, my body, my life – all are divided between the pieces of crap. I get sucked into wallowing in the big stinking pile of dirt because of the young chickenshit…

– Stuff it! Let me finish!

Billy grabs me without giving me a chance to breathe. He puts the cook in my mouth and I feel the salty taste of blood. I am almost choking when he squeezes my hand with his iron arms and shoots off a slug of minging semen. When he goes out, the cook is red from my blood.

This is not my day!

“Good girl!” – I hear it on the border of consequences.

– The rat says it wants back the money. It says the whore had stolen the common fund, – It is pronounced in a calm voice, but I catch a shadow of a wisecrack. – The rat asks to give all two thousand dollars. Did you get it, ha Billy?

– The rat missed the chance to give some money when it bought the ticket for the show with my big man and the little honey chile, – Billy respondes.

He looks like a fuck-sated cat and obviously is going to forget about me, but the new ingenious idea lit up his vision. I catch this petrified look on myself.

– I know what I will offer instead! – Billy smiles and takes out a small knife. – The girl got my big man by her own foul blood, so I will give her long hair! Rat can sell it and earn.

– The best idea, boss!

It is the worst decision! Not for me but for Billy.

Indeed! Has the fucking fortuna kissed me? I had almost lost hope. I come to terms that I would die a dog’s death here, exhausted and being eviscerated.

Billy begins to wail like a pig. One of his arms is seriously hurt. Now not my – his blood is splattering everywhere, coloring the unclean floor. He will be a lucky bastard if he can keep the majority of his fingers. Ate that!

I am jumping on – I see it like a devil’s slow motion – swinging and kicking Billy’s cock as strong as I can. He is staring in round-eyed wonder and is fainting away.

His mates are looking shocked, so I get a chance to escape.

I run fast through them and jump straight into the sewage behind the zonked newcomer.

After all, fate gave me the iddy-biddy shot to save myself, and I choose to use it!

Part 9

I am standing before a heavy red velvet curtain.

Today is a special day – I am sixteen years old, and now I am a true woman. I can be a bride, then a wife. I can have children. Of course, for that, I need my parents' approval, and that’s why I’m here – outside my daddy’s bedroom. I’m going to ask him.

It is almost midnight. Soon, he will finish his work. He has a complex and demanding job. So many people’s lives depend on his decisions.

He is like a god to people. When my dad speaks, others must obey. His word is law.

He is like a god to me too. But unlike everyone else, I am special. Dad has never made me cry. He has always loved me – sincerely. Only me. Because I am me.

I am waiting for him today because I love Daddy and want to prove it.

For this special day, I am wearing a pendant Daddy gave me as a gift. Inside it I put a little photo. Over it, I’ve put on a gauzy negligee embroidered with Tiffany diamonds, designed by Susan Rosen. I imagine how surprised Daddy will be when he sees me in this exquisite lingerie and realizes that I am ready to be his woman.

I am better than Mommy. She stays locked in her room on the far side of the palace. I have never seen my parents together. That’s no surprise – Mommy is sick and almost never leaves her bed. She doesn’t seem to like me either. The maids have whispered that I look just like her, and some even gossip that I “stole” her beauty. They say that’s why Daddy has grown cold toward her and stopped visiting her quarters. Now, all his attention is on me.

I became the first lady of the house. So, it is only natural that Daddy will be my first man. This has long been decided.

But why won’t these meddlesome servants just leave me alone? Go away!

The bedroom is connected to Daddy’s study, where he is working tonight. The door between us is slightly ajar, but I stay hidden. I want to surprise him.

While Daddy deals with his important work, I grow tired of waiting. My feet are cold, and my back aches. Suddenly, I hear voices.

– The workers refuse to continue, – a man says. – They’re demanding better conditions and higher wages. Their leader is threatening a mass strike, and most of them are ready to join. If it happens, we’ll suffer losses.

It’s the voice of Daddy’s secretary. What is he talking about? Does Daddy have problems?

– Nonsense, – Daddy replies, his voice deep, commanding, and velvety. It makes me tremble. “I have never suffered losses, only profits. My assets are secure. Gold mining has earned me over a billion this year alone. Nothing will disrupt my operations.”

Daddy’s voice is intoxicating. I can’t wait for him to notice me, to tell me to take off my negligee, and then…