I fell asleep. Or I dozed off for hell knows how long before the lack of shock absorber of the taxi pulled me back to reality along with a sudden stop in front of the Central Park entrance.
"23 and a quarter." The cabbie hissed through the plastic board with modified corners between us. I check my belongings one more time and if the violin case was moved before throwing the last of my change through the gap below.
It took me till I got off, slammed the door and the driver already gone with the southern wind, tires protesting against break to realize he had dropped me off a block away from Kirov St.
The street of upper Noch is as discomfit as ever, straying from the sinister and glamorous fiesta of Lesnaya and the sense of class and proper city design with building layout of downtown. This place feels like a hibernating resentment, a thin wall between your mind and the noise of another world. You can hear and see the trails of noch here as well, just not as blunt as the rest.
A couple of yards by the tiled path of Central Park, a bench under a lamp pole is the only noise louder than the distant sound of bike exhaust pipe roaring in the radius. A small group is shooting the shit under the lamp light, with their feet on the bench handle or with their back on the rear.
I stepped on the sidewalk and was about to cut through the park but one of them, the one lying on the bench with a jacket over his face and torso stopped me. The deep blue and dark green militaristic shoreline jacket looked damn familiar. I didn't see any silver bracelets but still, I turn right and walk along the park.
No need to test neither of our temper.
Walking under the night and a half asleep neighborhood sure as hell gives you time to focus what to do with yourself, more precisely, what to do with dinner. Just as the idea connected to my empty stomach, I see a couple of trailers by the old entrance to the marketplace on that small plaza on pavement that leads to a dead end. Surprised they hadn't been clamped by the uniforms in the past months.
***
7:40 I bump my front door open, the damn thing was bind in place as tight as a priest's mouth during confession before immediately threatening to tear as it swung wobbly like cardboard.
Sense of enervation hits when I shut the door behind me. The compressed wooden floor creaks with jaded and distorted screams as the sensor lights up every ring of the spiral stairs.
With each floor up I can feel my muscles unbinding my bones, easing up the tension that's been piling up all day long while my right arm, shoulder, and thighs ache.
The violin case is half empty but feels heavier than ever as the stairs squeal and crepitate through hollow space.
3000k lamp lights above every doorbell in the building illuminates warm yellow lights at the top of each round, encouraging me to go just a little further or have someone build an elevator at the well.
A black panel door with bronze knocker is the most common feature of any apartment in euforia but the sight of your own doorstep always hits you with intuition. Like seeing a friend that never ages.
I twist the knob and push open the door with fortified layers in between. Pitch black and the steady beeping came as soon as I step in, leaning the violin case by the closet and go as usual.
Typing in the code illuminated every corner of the open space with white lights from the modern chandelier in the air, aluminum twigs sticking out at 90 degrees with incandescent bulbs at the end.
The place is as much a mess as I left it at noon. I locked the door and picked up the case. Kicking my shoes off on the porch, I put the case by my TV and made my way upstairs.
Throwing all my things on the table is really becoming a problem, I thought to myself while shoving my knuckle brass, daggers on my arm and my ankle, the 357 rings from uncle, Maurizio's card, empty wallet, mags, watch and pack of cig on the window side table.
Putting the shades back in, clearing all my pockets before I hung the heavy bomber jacket on the coat racket. By accident, I found a spot under the armpit that had been worn from black to white just like all the other lines by its sleeves. Some might even think it was a design choice. I feel a twitch by my lips as I think about how it used to look like.
The shoulder holster to the closet, colt rests by the nightstand as always. I bent down to pull the box of 45 out the corner of closet to top off that one bullet spent in little kabukicho and pulls out the Pardini swinging on the holster.
I thought back on the earlier experience at Glasgow this morning to deem the new piece lacks adjustments above any of its traits. I place it by the violin case before turning left to the bathroom.
***
I strip the dirty laundry into a basket and turn on the shower. Steam flew up and spread across the ceiling till my vision turned to a blur, hot water drips down the glass door and onto the tiles before I stepped into the space.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Hot water padded over the misfits I've done to my body years back, after the red turned black then green. Dribbles rolled down my abdomen where the slash wound on my rib had healed up nicely in the past weeks but in contact with splashes still stings an indescribable feeling, like a needle grazing your subconscious.
This is the first time I could cleanse myself after returning to Faust, and as the water runs down my skin, with ink or without, proving they're no different, it soothes my rugged mind for the first time too, and not by assisting substances.
It feels like letting go. Burning a yarn ball, cutting off a knot on a dogwood tree. It's not easy, not as it used to be. Sometimes I went to sleep and woke up with half of my body aching and curled in a confined pose, other times I couldn't even remember closing my eyes.
Sweat, vapor, dry leftover scent of cigarettes hits my nostrils before running down the drain. The old scars twining on my back itch as if from flaking skin with the actual pain on my left thigh and rib. Like I said, cuts always heels faster than the pain.
I close my eyes, thinking about the events happened since last night before shedding them off like wiping off the grease and stain. Feeling only the water against my cheeks, the splashes that bounce off my shoulder. And for a duration of thought, I was at peace. Not even registering the hot water climbing down my torso and my wet hair.
Opening my eyes, I turn off the shower head and step out of the cubicle. Drying myself up in front of the mirror, I open the faucet and cup the cold water to sink my face in till I can feel resistance when rubbing my cheeks.
I wipe off the condensate steam on the mirror and bring my line of sight upwards.
The front of me is a twisted mess, covered by scars and ruined ink. A loose picture of a card game with features added over time for my unreasonable expectations and a false sense of understanding. Markings of what I have committed to.
A skull with a blank of ribbon twirling through the eye sockets while its jaw hinges in an abnormal laughter. The italic words on it grow into a grayish and non-continuous mix.
Carpe Noctum.
Funny how the first is always the most longevity. But it doesn't matter if you did it because of circumstances, after careful consideration or by impulses, even by pressure and force, there's no such thing as 'only doing one'.
The skull stretches down into a full skeleton with a blooming rose and a spider resting upon it while wire-like thorns spread across the ribcage, clinging to it. A folded card between each slim bone of the hand with a beetle of long legs on its carpal bones.
Against the skeleton, on the other side is the devil, its head on my right shoulder savagely grinning with its sharp fangs. Except for the terrifying outlook, its posture completely mimicking the skeleton facing. With an elbow on the table and a stack of cards in the other hand, holding them downwards.
On the round card table just above my bellybutton, lie three cards of the two-headed king in frivolous armor, each hand sticking a sword through each head. At the far end of the card table where the dealer should be, close to the chest notch is a scale with a feather on the devil's side, and a bullet at the skeleton's.
The image starts at my shoulder where their hollering heads are, to a few centimeters below my nipples where they hold cards, till slightly above my belly where the open cards are.
At least it was.
Now it's an incomprehensible mess. A thin wall infested with skin-color worms and centipedes, a poster which got scribbled by kids with crayons. Unrecognizable of what it was.
A slash from the side of my rib to below my right chest had severed the images under the devil's skull on the right. Stitches from surgery operated at the back of a taxi station to remove a shrapnel left a horizontal scar under my chest that covered the third K on the table, a patch of my skin close to the collarbone, and millimeters away from the skeleton's skull......
Machete, daggers, and lead. Slashes, cuts, shots, whipped, battered, and some motherfucker wearing cleat.
The most anyone could make out was the skull of the skeleton on my left chest, the devil's hooves, and the scale at the center. The rest is just small lines and blocks of grayish ink between smooth, newborn skin. A traumatizing portrait, from afar it'll look like I got buckshot at close range and the wounds got dragged across my torso over the inks are dried, black blood.
Good, save me the trouble of removing. Ain't nothing to begin with, only what I was caught up with and one too many convictions.
Over the years or within 20 minutes, they stacked on me weightlessly. If my memories fail, they'll take the role to remind me everything and just how stupid I was.
Pick what makes you sleep at night and wake up in the morning. When it fails, pick a new one and don't look back.
Some ask me why don't I get it redone, others are curious if I ever spook a pussy off my bed. The former I shrug off telling them tattoos on old wounds might lead to infection, the second is a no so far.
***
I dry off the remaining drizzle on my leg and hang the towel flat on the hanger before opening the door and kicking the laundry basket into the hallway. The steam came floating out of the bathroom, concealing the slits of seam of the white wall on top of the door frame as I walk out.
A smirk curled up my lips while I think back on the time Viviane jokingly said I could fake any background I want into this mess which sent the conversation spiraling into an argument about a post-Soviet political prisoner or Alexander of Macedon is more believable..... which reminds me.
I put on a loose white shirt, drawstring trouser and picked up the flip phone on the table, strap the .45 back on my waist before heading out with the full basket of laundry.
***
Just past 8. The street's as quiet as it gets at this hour. When the ones inside stay inside, and the others won't be back till sunrise.
My leg hooks the gate behind me close. A steady breeze coming from the west pushes me towards the east.
The square tile-plated white floor reacted to my steps with applause amped by a 20-square-meter space. The laundromat next door is of your standard image, open storefront, ferns dappling on rows of washing machines by the wall, stainless steel with the door half shut and some still has vapors on the frame. Not to mention the indispensable feature of bright as-shit LED light. Seriously, I bet it ate most of the electric bill.
Three wooden benches that look suspiciously alike with public property lined together and separated the cramped space which is empty by the moment.
I crank open the fifth washer on the left with an 'out of order' sticker on the lid, dump the day's worth of clothes in with detergent and spin the wheel to 'wash+dry'.
A small bang happens like a plastic bag filled with air got popped, before a frightening screeching noise starts appearing. This went on for about half a minute before the water started visibility pouring in as normal.
The machine was busted a long fucking time ago, the coin slot is always blocked, and the water detector inside is cracked so the door requires some extra effort to open at the first time. But besides those, it's perfectly functional and free of charge.
As the sound of wet shirts and trousers falling over and over in the drum became a rhythmical wave of ocean on shore, I flipped open my phone and fast dialed Viviane’s number.