Between two kops

Chapter nineteen

Steven

It was exactly three forty in the morning when I opened my eyes by force for the god knows what the time tonight, with a sharp, uncontrollable jerk through my entire body. Another f*****g nightmare... I've been having them so often lately that it's become a routine I got used to a long time ago. After that, I'd just toss and turn in bed for hours thinking about all kinds of s**t, until the sun came up and forced me to get out of bed feeling completely worthless...

I used to genuinely pray to God to manage to string together just a couple of hours in a row for one single night and catch some real sleep like a human being. But, nothing.

It never stopped, over time, it only got worse, brother... You reach that pathetic state where you're dead tired, but your brain won't let you fall asleep. You hang out in the dark all night and stare at the ceiling like a retard. Naively thinking you might actually manage to drift off if you just lay still long enough.

So this morning, I got out of bed to get ready for school feeling like complete trash, pissed off at anyone who addressed me, or anyone who happened to or had a reason to look me in the face. Except this morning, some weird, unexplainable energy was pushing me to put myself together quickly and get to school asap. Bro, me, f*****g rushing to school? Can you believe it, bro...

I threw on a black Fred Perry polo shirt with white stripes on the shoulders, stamped with their signature laurel wreath. Dark blue denim shorts and black Adidas kicks on my feet as a full on ultras casual look. The outfit combo that always suited me best. These new kids today easily shifted their focus to Nike, Tech, and all those other trends. To me, all of that was just pure trash and posing with overpriced gear. Like everyone suddenly became runway models... Suddenly you're a fake hobo if you don't have Nike on you. And as for TN Nikes, better not even get me started on those, brother... Without them, these kids don't have the balls to show up in public.

And what I wear, that was just the casual culture I've loved repping for as long as I can remember. Even though cops and plainclothes narcs on the street, in the center, or in the neighborhood look at you in it like you're suspect number one. It instantly clicks in their heads. You're either a dealer, a hooligan pulling s**t, or a potential killer.

For the first time in my life, I threw a couple of blank notebooks and a few pens into my backpack, then darted out of the house without saying goodbye. I caught the first bus that pulled up at the stop and made it in front of the school in under half an hour maybe even among the very first. At first, I asked myself, What the f**k is wrong with me today? And then, like an ice cold shower, her name flashed through my mind. Christina. And deep in my soul, I knew I was in this much of a hurry strictly and exclusively because of her. I wanted to see her, grab her, kiss her, and feel that sweet taste of hers again...

I sparked a smoke right in front of the school entrance, waiting impatiently for Christina Veljković to finally show up on the walkway. And right after that one, I lit up a second smoke. This time, one that was supposed to at least somewhat kill the nerves that were slowly starting to build up inside me.

Where the f**k is she?! She should have passed by here a long time ago, bro.

And then, a bit later in the hallway, when I had long since given up on waiting and was getting ready to head to class. I spotted her walking fast and alone down a second, side hallway toward our classroom.

I stepped up behind her silently, wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, and pulled her in one move into the narrow janitor's closet right next to our classroom. Luckily, there was nobody inside at that moment. Thank God...

Christina looked at me in terror, right up until she realized in the dim light of the closet that it was me. At first, I clearly saw fear in her eyes, and then a faint relief. Like... like she was expecting someone else, not me.

"Steven... you lunatic! You scared the s**t out of me!"

"I could barely wait to see you, princess..."

I whispered softly into her ear, while genuine emotion rang through my voice, something I never used to show, let alone say directly to a girl.

What the f**k is wrong with me? Since when did I become so soft? I don't even recognize myself anymore...

"Oh, really?" she said provocatively, and then that smile spread across her entire face again.

"Mhm..."

I instantly pressed her up against the metal cabinet where various detergents and cleaning supplies were lined up. I cupped her buttocks gently with my hands and kissed her. Ugh, that taste of hers... How addicted I had gotten to it... It was more addictive than any nicotine.

And then... For some reason completely unknown to me, Christina abruptly pulled her lips back from mine, pressed her palms against my chest, and backed away slightly. What... what the f**k now?!

Did I do something wrong?

"Steven..." she said hesitantly.

I noticed tears slowly welling up in those beautiful, innocent little eyes of hers... She was on the verge of bursting into tears right in front of me. And that was ripping me up inside. I can't say it wasn't... Cause it was, s**t.

She tried to say something again to explain to me, I figure. But her voice instantly cracked shakily, forcing her to stop and take a deep breath.

"This... This between us has to stop."

My hands slid off her waist on their own. I looked her dead in the eyes once more. Why the f**k is she doing this now? First she looks at me head over heels, surrenders completely, and then... Just like that, out of nowhere, she rejects me and pushes me away?

"I don't get it? Did something happen? Did I do something wrong?!" I totally bombarded her with questions while my brain boiled with nerves.

"No... None of that happened, Steven. That's not the point at all..."

"Then what the f**k is the point, Christina?!" I raised my voice without realizing it.

"I can't tell you... I'm sorry... You won't understand, you simply wouldn't get it."

"I won't understand?!"

I laughed bitterly, forcing it... How the hell does she know I won't understand? Why doesn't she just tell me straight to my face what this is actually about? Nauseous and tense, I started pacing around the narrow closet, a step forward, a step back, trying to piece all the dots together in my head.

"Wait... Wait a minute. You... You were just playing with me this whole time, weren't you? Let me guess, bro... The point is you just want to make your Nick jealous, and I served as the perfect dumb i***t for that?"

"No! Steven, stop, it's not like that..."

"Bro... What a f*****g moron I am..."

"Wait, let me explain, please..."

"You don't have to explain a damn thing to me anymore! Everything is crystal clear to me now..." I paused for a second to catch my breath. "I'm just pissed... That I actually thought you were different from the rest of girls."

"Steven, please, listen to me..."

She tried in panic to grab my hand and hold me back, but I no longer had the strength or the will to listen to her, and even less to look at her looking all teary eyed and deceitful. I bolted out of the closet and slammed the metal door behind me with all my might. To my absolute luck, class had already been in session for a while, so no one in the empty hallway saw where I was coming out from or what kind of chaos had just gone down.

How f*****g stupid and naive I turned out to be, my dear brother... That's what happens when you give someone a chance to get close to you. I'm a total fool for even allowing myself to think that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't a spoiled rich brat after all... But they're all the same. There's zero difference there. They think the whole world revolves entirely around them and their dirty money.

I didn't turn around even when the teacher from the hallway yelled loudly for me to head right back to class. I just walked past him like he wasn't even there and kept going with determined strides through the empty corridors. I cleared those three steps at the main entrance in a single bound and bolted right out of the school yard, leaving the building behind me. f**k you too, school, and everyone inside... f*****g snobs!

With fast strides, I made it to my neighborhood in no time, but going home was out of the question. No way in hell was I heading back to those two lunatics right now. The exact same hell was waiting for me there, bro, identical to the one at school. I turned down the well known, overgrown path past the old company's abandoned warehouses and soon reached our old hideout. The abandoned houses we all knew so well.

Two semi ruined floors, a collapsed roof, piles of rubble, and tall, overgrown weeds sprouting between cracked concrete blocks on the walls. Right at the entrance, a graffitied wall greets you. "If you're scared of the truth, better run home." And then, after a few steps through a dark hallway full of trash, a second one. "The good die young."

All around are piles of m*******a drawings and our well known crest, the Delije North shield logo. And when you pass all those graffiti tags and step deeper into this wreckage, you reach the main room where everything actually started.

Two torn two seater couches right in the center and a wooden board placed across cinder blocks that served as our table. I used to come here so often with the crew back when I was just a kid, hiding from the old folks while smoking weed and arguing over those ridiculous problems we had back then.

A couple of years later, brother... Imagine, everything stayed literally the same, right down to this day. All those graffiti tags, all that busted furniture, and the same mugs with a joint in hand. Nothing ever changed here. As a kid, I used to hear stories that there's supposedly something after this life, up there when you die... That you go either to hell or to heaven. Funny story, huh? But then again, once you see and go through all these crazy things, you start believing in that something. That's when I started believing that my place had been reserved in hell for a long time. If that even exists...

Besides, some folks say that if you go up to hell, the exact same experience and the exact same scene repeat themselves over and over every single day. The one you messed up the most before God. Well, when I look at it, this room wasn't far from hell at all, considering we used to hang out and smoke weed in it every single night while other kids were hanging out downtown and in cafes bars.

This was our personal hell right from the start. The one we fixed up, cleaned, and claimed as our own.

"What's up, legends!"

I shouted from the doorway and headed straight toward the couch where John Ilić and his best buddy Crazy were already sitting. A brother who, whenever needed, hooked us up with the best quality fresh weed in town. Even though he was our age, the guy already knew all the crooks and dealers from Pančevo.

"Ooo, Steven! How come you're here this early, bro?" Crazy said and stood up first to give me a brotherly hug.

"Bro, don't ask me anything..." I said wearily.

I greeted John too, then sat down on the couch across from them. I dropped my head toward the floor and rubbed it hard with my hands, as if I could somehow force all this rage and bitterness right out of me.

"What's up, Steven?" Jovan asks.

I just silently shook my head.

"Gimme the joint, bro..."

Without a word, Crazy handed me a half smoked joint. Pure, without a trace of tobacco mixed into the weed. I took it from his hand and immediately took a deep drag. I closed my eyes and let my brain unwind, if even for a short while, while thick smoke billowed out of my nose like from an old steamroller.

"Are you gonna tell us now what's bugging you so much, Steven?" Crazy said, leaning forward.

"Bro... Some girl from school. She played games with me, and I turned out looking like a fool..."

"Ah, f**k her mother," Crazy whispered quietly, then leaned lazily back against the backrest of the couch.

"Is that that little Grobar chick from the bar?" John asks.

"Yeah, bro..."

I took another long drag and passed the joint on to John. We kept passing the roach in a circle, serial style, two drags each. It instantly reminded me of our younger days... Back then, we'd barely scrape together a thousand dinars for a gram of weed, and then we'd share it together down to the very last possible drag. The one right next to the filter, the drag that burns your fingers and lips the most.

"What's this, brothers. Passing the roach without me, huh?"

Suddenly, completely unplanned, Victor Tanasijević showed up at the door. This time he wasn't crazily upbeat like usual. I scooted over a bit on the couch and made room for him to sit right next to me. He brought along a glass bottle of Vinjak in a black plastic bag. Ah, my brothers... Vinjak and weed, the worst possible combo. And yet, there's no way in hell you turn it down when it's offered right in front of your eyes.

"Victor, Victor... my boy! I love it when you bring this Vinjak, I kiss your balls!" Crazy said with a wide grin.

"Just not the balls, brother loves you!" Victor answered him in his own style and pulled the bottle out of the bag.

"Well, where do you want me to kiss you then, my Victor?"

"Preferably nowhere."

They both laughed like lunatics, and honestly, I found it funny too. Maybe I would've even cracked a smile if I wasn't this pissed off and bitter toward Christina Veljković.

"Why are you two looking as gloomy as if your ship sank?" Victor asked, noticing my expression.

"Steven's got woman troubles. And Crazy and I are empathizing with him, so we're mourning together here," John says.

I looked at John and this time I genuinely couldn't hold it back anymore without showing at least a slight, sincere smile. What a lunatic, listen to them, empathizing with me.

"Well, thank God Vinjak is here! Now we're gonna wash that trouble right down our throats nicely!" Victor said.

After four of us smoked the joint down to the very filter, Crazy was the first to start chuggin' the Vinjak. As they say, he broke the ice. The bottle circled around after that, following the exact same system as the roach. Screw glasses and those fancy pants routines. We always shared everything brotherly, straight from the same bottle.

Even though my head already felt way lighter after the weed, the Vinjak wiped out the rest of the rage and disappointment I'd been feeling moments ago in record time. All of a sudden, I started laughing like a monkey along with the rest of the guys on the couch. Not because anything was actually funny, but because that lethal combo of Rubin Vinjak and a pure weed joint completely wrecked us and clouded our heads. For the better, of course.

Literally, if you held up a finger in front of our faces right then, all of us would've burst into uncontrollable laughter for no real reason at all, bro. I guess that was the only good thing about those damn substances... No matter how f****d up and broken you were deep down in your soul, booze and weed would always cheer me up for at least a single night, shut my brain off, and give me the fake strength to keep pushing.

"Bro, this stuff is hitting me hard, my brothers..." Victor said, completely wasted and slumped back on the shredded couch. He tilted his head back, his eyes drifting up toward the ceiling as he tried to hold down the punch of the Vinjak and weed.

"Hey, Steven, did you ever tell Crazy about that run through the cornfield?" John asked with a wide grin.

"Oh bro... Just when I'd finally forgotten about that s**t, you bring it up..." I said, as all that chaos flashed through my mind.

"What cornfield, bro?" Crazy asked, leaning forward.

"The undercover unmarked unit chased us, bro. That night when we were joyriding in that beat up Honda..." John answered him.

Ugh, fuck... Just thinking about that night makes my skin crawl instantly all over, bro. We had this old, rusted out Honda. Naturally, it wasn't even registered. Most of its key parts were totally shot, so registering that heap of junk was impossible even in theory. We drove it around town on pure risk, or as we in the crew used to say, "On balls, and whatever happens, happens."

"This smartass across from you..." John pointed his finger demonstratively at me. "He was redlining that Honda at 150 km/h, bro."

"Listen to this, me a smartass?! You were the first one in the car to tell me I didn't know how to drive. And I just practically demonstrated the opposite, bro. I mean... at least until our stinking tire blew out in the middle of those fields..." I shot back with a laugh.

"Well, honestly, I swallowed my pride. I shouldn't have been busting your balls that night, bro," John said, openly admitting his fault without shame.

Realistically, he was just as much to blame as I was. I shouldn't have been speeding in a broken car like that. But, f**k it... youth and wild madness, bro.

On the main road, right after you leave Pančevo heading toward Banatsko Novo Selo, some unmarked cop car caught us tearing down the road like wild animals. It pulled onto the road right behind us instantly, threw on the flashers, hit the siren, and started closing in on us at lightning speed.

To be honest, I can't lie and say a wave of panic didn't hit me that night. Because if we got busted the car wasn't registered, I didn't have my license on me, the car was completely broken down, and four of us were inside... Well, brother to brother, all four of us would've gotten insanely huge fines, not to mention losing our licenses.

Back then, it was Victor, Dean, John, and me in the car... And of course, every single one of us was under the influence of weed, which was another nice felony for our rap sheets. I knew the cops had an incomparably faster car than our piece of junk and that there was no way we could outrun them by staying on the main road. That's why I slammed the brakes with all my strength without a second thought and whipped onto a side dirt road. Full of deep potholes and dust, the kind that leads directly into the farm fields between the town and the village.

The unmarked unit was still right up our ass, of course, even though I was redlining the Honda over those potholes like it was the last thing I'd ever do. Our only advantage at that moment was the massive cloud of dust blowing up behind us, so the cops didn't have a clear view of the terrain to easily catch up and force us off the road.

So I naively thought we'd keep chasing each other through the dark and those dirt tracks until we hit a dead end or simply ran out of gas. But bad luck beat us to it, we ran over something sharp, and our rear right tire blew out in a split second!

That instantly threw the car sideways, and we crashed straight, at full speed, into a cornfield on the left side of the road.

That night, I thought we were genuinely f****d for the first time. That was it, prison was guaranteed... considering we didn't have that kind of cash to pay for all those violations we committed for a bit of teenage thrill. But actually, it was a blessing in disguise.

The night was pitch black, so you couldn't see a damn thing in front of you in that field without a heavy duty flashlight. We used that unexpected chance to our advantage. We leaped out of the car right away and left the Honda sitting smack in the middle of the cornfield. f**k it, there was no time to save it, because the cops had already seen where we turned off.

We ran for our lives through the tall corn. I don't even know where we got the endurance that night to sprint for God knows how many kilometers... I guess the adrenaline did its job.

At one point, Dean somehow clumsily tripped over some weeds and wiped out into the mud behind us. We turned around quick, hauled him to his feet, and barely managed to escape the cops, who were trying to corner us in the corn with flashers and spotlights. But, lucky for us and unlucky for them, we were faster, sharper, and way slicker than them.

Later on, they impounded the car, of course, and tried to trace us through the license plates and paperwork, but since the car wasn't registered to anyone living, we got off clean without a single charge.

"f**k, bro, to this day I still hear his screaming echoed in my ears while running. 'f**k your corn, f**k your Honda, and f**k your joyride through town!'" John said.

I couldn't help but crack up with all my strength listening to him recount that whole night to Crazy. And Crazy, completely blazed and drunk, couldn't believe what he was hearing. I mean, who the f**k would believe it?

The kind of crazy s**t we used to pull around town and still come out whole and free, sweet mother of God...

"What a bunch of absolute savages you guys are, bro..." Crazy said, wiping tears of laughter.

"Hey, at least I hit the edge of that field first, bro," Victor said, proudly thumping his chest. Realistically, the guy was by far the fastest among us. He always had that long, athletic stride.

"Oh yeah, sure... Hit the edge of the field first, where some furious old lady popped out of the dark holding a wooden stick, bro! The granny wanted to beat the living hell out of all of us right there, f**k my life!" Jovan added.

Fuck that crazy granny. I couldn't hold back my immature, loud laughter anymore, remembering that surreal scene... Bro, in the middle of a cornfield, past midnight, a granny with a stick.

"I never understood what that old lady was doing outside so late..." I said.

"Nah, there was some small house nearby. She probably heard the noise and came out to check what was going down outside..." John said.

"Shut up, bro... If we didn't catch a beating from both the cops and that granny that night, we never will!" Victor chimed in, true to his style.

"f**k my life... How did you guys even get back home after that?" Crazy asked, dying of laughter.

"Well, we wandered like morons through the fields and the dark for hours, all the way to the village. There, we barely managed to hail some night taxi that was about to wrap up its shift. Covered in mud, torn up, and filthy, the guy barely even let us into the car," John said.

My cheeks were hurting by now from all that non stop, uncontrollable laughing, but this time I wasn't the only one cracking up at the story. The whole room of the abandoned house echoed with our honest laughter...

A couple of minutes later, Luke Ilić, John's younger brother, burst into the room at a full sprint, instantly killing all our laughter and fun. He stood there completely out of breath right in front of us, and his eyes... His eyes were filled with tears and shock.

What the f**k happened now?!

"Bro... The Grobari jumped Paja, Dane, and Igor up by Lidl a minute ago!" Luke said in a shaky, broken voice.

"Are you f*****g kidding me, bro?! In broad daylight?!" John jumped up furiously from the couch, nearly dropping the bottle from his grip.

"They slashed Igor across the fingers with a machete while he was running from them... Their guy tried to crack him over the head, but he blocked with his hands above his head," Luke said again, wiping sweat off his forehead.

Yeah. Wonderful, bro. After every good hangout, some fresh s**t comes along.

In a split second, a dead, eerie silence fell over the entire abandoned house. The laughter, the Vinjak, and the high in our heads vanished as if wiped away by hand, evaporating in a millisecond. My blood boiled instantly in my veins. Is it impossible for a guy to rest for even one f*****g day without trouble and ultras s**t?

"Where are they now? Where'd they go, Luke?!" shot out of me while I was already on my feet.

"They headed toward the park, there's at least ten of them, all with bats and knives."

I didn't have a single second to think about the consequences. John grabbed a torn off wooden plank, Victor grabbed the empty bottle of Rubin Vinjak, and I unbuckled the belt from my jeans without a word as total dark descended before my eyes.

We charged out of the abandoned house in a full on stampede. With only one thought in our heads. To track down those bastards and wreck their f*****g lives.