On a sparrow's wings

Chapter 11 - A honest job

  Michael and Anastasia found their way out of the metro Aj following after them like a shadow, but a shadow that didn’t bother to use it’s ears or eyes. But he knew what they were up to all the same. Anastasia decided I should ask now, “When will we look for Ethan?”

“After the job.”, Michael was holding a quick pace.

“It might be too late then!”, Anastasia was getting mad by all this sidetracking. Ethan’s life is on the line and he is doing chores!

“Either we do this or he kills us. And who’ll look for Ethan then?”, Michael didn’t bother to look at her when he said that, as he always did.

“He won’t kill us. I mean not really, right?”, Anastasia said meekly.

Michael scoffed and kept on going.

  Anastasia found herself quicking her pace as well. her fingers twitched a little and she swiped the little sweat building up on her forehead. Okay, Ani you can do this. You are not getting killed today, no siree bob. Anastasia hoped from one foot to the other trying to get herself hyped for this. Maybe if she was all pumped it would have been easier. She stopped when Michael noticed, he didn’t seem to mind but his stare was enough to discourage her. She morphed her face into a frown and her steps into stomps as to mimic him, maybe mock him a little bit. But he didn’t care, not one bit, he kept his pace and didn’t bother with her.

  They were heading for the first person on the list. His name was Jeff Willow and his location was listed as an old pharmacy. Anastasia was in a pharmacy once, with her dad to buy cough medicine. She remembered the discolored white paint that hung from it’s cracked walls, and the smell, it smelt of when she went to get vaccinated. She recalled that long syringe pierce her arm and how it hurt. She didn’t like going to pharmacies after that. Michael seemed to know where it was so Anastasia followed him. There weren’t as many people as at the checkpoint or the metro but the streets themselves weren’t barren, although they were lonelier. And the faces that Anastasia did see had that familiar sourness and sadness written on them, it was as if shadows littered the ground, only remnants of people. It’s all the same everywhere, huh? The people were safe, they had roofs under their heads and food in their bellies in this city they should be content and yet. They weren’t. They still found something to despair about, something to pull them down. She felt like talking about it.

  “Why is everyone still so… sad?”, Anastasia lifted her big eyes towards Michael as they walked, but he didn’t respond with the same, “I mean they’ve got everything they need ,food, shelter, safety. What are they missing?”

“Everything they need not everything they want.”, Michael rumbled under his thick beard

“What do you mean?”

“People don’t want food and security. They want their old lives back.”

“But they are gone. Can’t they make new ones?”

“Yes, they are… gone.”, Michael looked at his hands clenched them into fists and kept going, “And we disappeared with them. It all ended that day, girl.”

“That doesn’t mean it can’t start again. But we have to want it to. We have to make the positive change or it won’t happen.”

“You can’t talk happiness into existence. It’s not that easy, kid.”, Michael stopped in front of the old pharmacy, “This is the place.”

  The pharmacy was run down but there were signs that someone was repairing it. The windows were boarded and the outside walls had been cleaned from the graffiti that once littered them, although stains of the paint still lingered on. The walls had cement inside the usual bullet holes that littered them. It faintly smelled of lavender and ginger, coming from the inside of it, she preferred that smell to the other. It was kind of nice, seeing people trying to rebuild for once. Anastasia wished more people would try to do that. She wished she could do that, maybe she would get to, after Ethan was safe. But not before.

  “Let me handle this.”, said Michael in his rumbling voice as he grabbed the door knob.

“Sure boss. Have your fun”, Aj said as he leaned against the wall.

Michael and Anastasia entered the pharmacy and went to the counter. They had herbal remedies and bandages for sale most of which was expensive but seemed to be worth it’s price, all clean and well made. Michael asked after Jeff Willow and the woman behind the counter introduced him as the manager of the store.

  He was a short man who had a thick moustache that scurried like a caterpillar on his upper lip. He had glasses that were duck taped in the middle what looked like to be a thousand times. His clothes looked ironed and his tie was a tad too tight around his neck, as if made to choke him.

  “How can I be of service, gentleman and lady?”, Jeff had a proud kind of smile. The one you would see on a person that loved what they were doing and thought it was important.

“Victor sent me.”, Michael stood as usual with his arms crossed and straight revealing his broad shoulders and strong arms.

The man’s smile quickly went away and it was replaced with Jeff taking a wide stance and crossing his arms at Michael, “I won’t pay.”

Michael’s hand flew across Jeff’s face, breaking his glasses in the process and sending him a few steps back. Even though it wasn’t a punch the force at which it flew made it seem like one.

  Jeff grabbed his cheek as it turned blood red. Anastasia gasped in surprise. For god’s sake Michael! We could have talked to him!

Michael grabbed him by the collar, it’s tie diggin even deeper into his neck than before, and lifted him upwards to Michael’s eyesight and raised his fist to hit him, harder than the last it seemed.

“Okay, okay! here are your f*****g cigarettes.”, the man reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, it was round and thick with cigarettes.

Michael let go of him grabbed the envelope and headed for the exit.

Jeff took a moment to center himself on his feet and rubed his cheek, “You are an asshole! You know that? You can’t go around tormenting people who are just trying to get by!”

Michael scoffed, rumbled and exited the pharmacy.

  Anastasia stayed behind a moment, long enough for it to become uncomfortable both for her and the people in the pharmacy. Jeff and the lady behind the corner turned to look at her. She managed to blurt out a half apology and scurried outside like a scared mouse. Michael handed the envelope to Aj and they headed for the second location. But Anastasia stopped him before he made a step.

  “What was that in there? Why did you hit him like that? That’s not not how you do things! There is a proper way to do this, a good way.”, Anastasia was covering his way only by slightly standing in his path

Michael threw her a half annoyed glance, scoffed and walked around her.

“Okay I get we have to get them to pay or we die and all. But you could have handled that better.”, Anastasia tried to keep up with Michael’s pace.

“How?”, Michael didn’t look like he carried about what the answer was, but Anastasia would answer him anyways.

“Well you could have avoided hitting him after saying hello! And then I don’t know! We could have… talked with him… reasoned with him.”

Michael scoffeed, and kept walking, “You are too young. You don’t know how the city works, let me handle it.”

   Anastasia crossed her arms and followed, half annoyed and half mad at him. She kicked a pebble on the floor trying to hit Michael’s boot, but missed each time, not that it would matter, he wouldn’t have felt it through his thick boots. I am not too young. He is too old! He only know how to use his fists and not his head. She followed him nonetheless even though she was mad with him. He was a stubborn old man but he was all she had at the moment.

  They came to an apartment building. Half of it was barely holding on to dear life, being supported only by the tiny wooden beams on it’s side so the wall wouldn’t fall down, but a good strong push would have sent it falling quickly enough. Trash littered both the outside and inside of the building, in the forms of bags and loose cans and plastics. It seeped from the ground and formed puddle so filth on the ground. Anastasia had to pinch her nose as to avoid the horrid smell. They came to an apartment door on the second floor. Michael knocked and a man showed his little rat face around the door. He had this small moustache above his lip, like it was drawn with a pen. And his thin hair fell down in front of his eyes, he had to move it to see. The eyes that were hidden behind it were small, dark and full of sleep.

“What do you want?”, the man let out a long yawn.

“Peter Andrews?”, Michael asked.

“Yep.”

“Victor sent me to get his money.”

“What money?”

Michael raised his fist once more to hit the man but Anastasia stepped in front of it and decided for both of them to talk instead of fight.

  “Look Peter my friend here is not very… patient when it comes to… everything really. You owe Victor some money and we came to collect that. So could you get it and we’ll be on our way.”

Peter went into a thought for a while but after a short while went into his apartment. Scuttering and the moving of stuff of different sizes was heard behind the door, books, lamps and furniture even. He came out holding a loose stack of cigarettes.

“Is this it?”

Michael grabbed the cigarettes and sighed, “You are short by ten.”

The man rummaged through his pockets, took out ten more cigarettes and gave them to Michael.

  Michael and Anastasia headed down the stairs.

“You see how smoothly that went?”, Anastasia boasted. She searched for approval, maybe praise but she knew Michael wouldn’t deliver.

“Then you wouldn’t mind handling the next one.”, Michael lit a cigarette and smoked it in big puffs of smoke.

“No, actually I wouldn’t.”, Anastasia felt confident she would do a great job with the next person. If this one was this easy how hard could the next be?

  For the third person they went to an old bar. It was still used as such all though the options were a lot fewer. Few people knew how to brew alcohol and even fewer had the equipment and resources to do it. So bars usually stuck to Kvass and Kilju as the ingredients were easy to find and it took little time to make. Anastasia didn’t like either so she didn’t care. Once Ethan had offered her some and she had to brush it out of her tongue with her nails, it tasted like stale bread inside a stale potato stew.

  They found four people inside, a woman was standing behind the bar cleaning glasses with a rag that looked dirtier than the glasses themselves. The other three were men sitting on stools opposite her. They were laughing and were visibly very drunk when they came in. One of them was even shaking in his seat, the other seemed happy to be drinking in the bar.

  They didn't notice them enter, they look like they didn’t notice much of anything. Michael took a sit on the bar at the end of the room. He took out a page off a book and a small tin of tobacco. He put the tobacco on the page.

“What are you doing?”, Anastasia asked him.

“Letting you deal with this.”, he licked the end of the page and rolled the cigarette.

“I didn’t know that there would four of them! And they are big and scary!”, Anastasia waved her hands in front of him but kept her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear her panic a few steps from them.

Michael ignored her and rested his arms on the bar. Okay, Ani you can do this. They are just people. Big and scary people who can kill me in an instant and probably wouldn’t even think about it, and they could… actually I think that’s enough thinking for now.

  She went closer to them but not so close as to gather too much attention, she needed to gather more courage before that, “Excuse me.”, she said in her meekly voice, sounding years younger than she was, but they didn’t react, “Excuse me.” and again but again there was no answer.

“Excuse me!”, she screamed at the top of her lungs, unwillingly.

All the heads in the room turned towards her with the exception of Michael who was looking under the bar for something to pair with the cigarette that was ablaze between his lips. With the faces turned and looking all stern the people became even scarier, with the exception of the last man in the roll who was shaking his head as a broad smile covered his face.

“Hello everyone… my name is Anastasia and Victor sent me.. us to collect the money you owe him. Please if you would be so kind to give it to us.”

The room burst into laughter, the last man in the roll took a few seconds to realize what was happening but joined in the laughter all the same. Anastasia reddened and retracted into herself.

“You better run along little girl.”, the man with the big beard said.

   “My turn?”, Michael said as he clutched a small bottle in his hand.

Anastasia meekly nodded and Michael put out the cigarette in the ashtray, got up and went in front of her.

“Better do as the girl says.”, Michael rumbled as he clutched the bottle hard.

The men rose from their seats and the man with the beard went to Michael’s face, the last in the roll barely managed to stumble off his stool.

“Or what?”, the room seemed to rise in temperature as he uttered those words.

   They entered into an intense stare down. But Michael wasn’t a patient man. The bottle flew with Michael’s hand and shattered across the bearded man’s head who stuttered and fell on the bar, as blood spit out of the newly formed words on his face. The other men attacked Michael and he fought them off. Anastasia ran to help him but was stopped by the woman who jumped across the counter and went right in front of her.

  “And where do you think you are going little lady?”, the woman lifted her hands and took a bear like stance and circled Anastasia.

“Can’t we talk this through? We don’t really need to fight, right?”, Anastasia also raised her hands but her stance wasn’t as good as the woman’s, it was more scared and uncertain.

  The woman laughed and swung at Anastasia. Anastasia moved to the side and vaulted behind the bar. The woman go up to the bar, trying to hit Anastasia’s head when she popped up from the bar, like a little mole. Anastasia fumbled under the bar to find something to fight back with. He hand went from shelf to shelf as she avoided getting caught by the women’s hands. Eventually her hand reached and grabbed a bottle and lifted it from the bar. The woman swung again and Anastasia dodged again. The bottle flew and Anastasia hit the woman on the head with it, she groaned but she fought on. Anastasia clenched her teeth when she saw and her hands became more unsure. The woman swung again and Anastasia dodged to the side and used the bottle to try and smash it against her head again. She almost missed, but the bottle made contact. It shattered and the woman fell to the ground, bits and pieces of shattered glass around her, and few stuck out of her face. Anastasia looked away horrified, she readjusted herself. 

  Anastasia jumped over the bar and turned to look at Michael. He was standing over the three men, breathing heavy. He spit out a bit of blood in the corner and crouched to search the men. When Anastasia looked at them she could see broken bones sticking out of their arms and legs, blood flowing like a river and the dark floor was glistening with it. Two of them struggled to take in air through broken rib cages, the air turned to wheezes and coughs. Anastasia almost vomited but managed to swallow it back down, as disgusting as it felt.

   Michael pulled out all the three men’s cigarettes and counted them. He sighed, put them in his jacket pocket and stood, “We are short by twenty.”

He went over behind the bar and searched for valuable things.

“We’ve done enough Michael. The bar doesn’t owe Victor anything.”

“We are short. If we are short we are dead.”, Michael continued rummaging until he pulled out a small wooden box and slammed it on the counter.

  He opened it and found a couple of torn up packs of cigarettes. He pocketed all of them.

“Hey we don’t need all of them! Take what we need and leave the rest, these people need to eat too.”

Michael threw her an annoyed glance as he stopped pocketing the packs, sighed and took only the amount they needed. The rest was left with them and the box returned below the counter.

They came out and found Aj leaning against the wall smoking.

“Took you long enough.”

“No thanks to you.”, rumbled Michael.

“And here I was thinking you didn’t need a babysitter.”, he threw his cigarette to the side, it landed in a small puddle and the flame died in it.

Michael turned around and headed for the last location.

   The last person was in an another apartment building. Much like the other one but this one only had trash on the outside of the buildings, barely an improvement but it was still something.  Someone seemed to care about the inside of the building enough to clean it. The walls and floors were mopped. No cobwebs hung in the corner and there was barely any dust covering the stone floor and railings.

  They got up to the fourth floor. Michael knocked on the door and the man showed his face through the crack. He looked on edge, looking around the door nervously as if there were people out to kill him and Anastasia could hear his fingers tap against the door on the other side, impatiently and scared. He had a chain on his door, most people didn’t, most people couldn’t afford one more like.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”, he barely showed his face through the door, his voice a nervous shrill. He would have used the peephole if it wasn’t shattered.

“Came to get collect the cigarettes you owe Victor”, Michael lit a cigarette.

The man though for a second, “Give me a second.”, he closed the door and went further inside his apartment, until footsteps couldn’t be heard anymore.

“Shit.”, Michael sighed, threw his cigarette to the side and kicked the door in.

Here we go again.

  Michael rushed in and saw the window to the fire escape wide open. He ran towards it. Anastasia decided to take a different route. She ran down the stairs and went out into the alleyway behind the building. She hid behind the full dumpster and peered with one eye around it. She saw the man jump from the fire escape and ran towards her. She pulled her leg out and the man tripped and fell face first into a pile of garbage bags, liquid seeped out from below it. The bags omitted a weird sloshing sound and Anastasia smelt the filth inside.

  Michael appeared a bit later, breathing heavily. He stopped in front of the man laying on top of the trash bags, “You had to f*****g run, didn’t you?”, Michael jumped on top of him. He hit him once and the man groaned. Anastasia grabbed his arm and held it in the air. Michael got up and dusted himself off of the filth and dust.

“Take your f*****g cigarettes and leave me alone!”, the man threw a stack of cigarettes at Michael and continued to lay on the trash bags, his face shoved in a trash bag as he cried.

  Michael and Anastasia regrouped with Aj. Michael handed him the cigarettes and Aj went off to meet with Victor. Night had set in and the moon and stars sat on top of the skyscrapers of Chicago. Michael suggested renting a room. Anastasia agreed and she followed Michael to the nearest place that rented rooms out.

  They rented a single room for both of them, they decided not to waste money on two. The room wasn’t spacious but it was warm and there were beds in it so Anastasia couldn’t complain. She layed out on the bed. It was soft and clean. A nice and welcome change from the roughness. Well they have clean beds I wonder… she went over to the bathroom. She nervously put her hand over the knob. She pulled and water actually came out of the shower head. Her smile couldn’t help itself.

  She closed the bathroom door behind her and took of her clothes. She jumped in the shower but the cold water made her jump at first. But only out of surprise, the streams and lakes she was used to bathing were all colder than this, she half expected it to be warmer. It only lasted for a short while before the water stopped flowing but Anastasia managed to enjoy it enough. She covered herself in a towel and came out of the bathroom. Michael was sitting at the table eating. Anastasia dried herself off, got her clothes back on and went to join him.

  They were having the usual can of mysterious stew with meat. The labels had been removed so what they were eating was a mystery, not a good one sadly. To Anastasia it tasted like every type of canned food so she couldn’t make a guess to the contents. After a long and awkward silence Anastasia spoke, “So they have running water. That’s cool.”

“I guess.”, Michael didn’t look up from his can to look her in the eyes as he always did. He quietly ate his food.

“Well it beats bathing in a stream.”

“Water is water.”

Another long silence followed. Anastasia poked at her food, occasionally eating some of it. This was the only time she found herself not able to think of what to say. And she had exhausted the running water topic so there wasn’t much left. This was weird for her, out of the ordinary. She always found it easy to talk to people but it was harder with Michael, for some reason. She couldn't place her finger on what it was yet, it was another mystery, at least for now. But she decided to give it more time.

  “Listen”, Michael spoke, “You handled yourself well today... I wanted you to know that.”, he returned to his food.

“You weren’t half bad yourself. Excluding when that guy outran you on the fire escape.”, Anastasia kid.

“He didn’t outrun me.”

“You don’t want to admit that my foot saved the day.”

Anastasia could hear the slightest chuckle leave Michael’s mouth onto his beans. Oh, I am getting through to him! Anastasia smiled brightly. After the quiet dinner Anastasia threw her can away and retreated to the clean bed. It was comfortable and she fell asleep fast, covered in it’s sheets.