Before Sergey Returns

“Fffrrrgh! Hmmmmngh! Rrrrr, rrr!”

Pan Zielinski glares at me as I finish putting the duct tape on his mouth. His angry bloodshot eyes remind me of Papa, though I haven’t thought about him for a long time. I straighten up to look down at him, tied to his chair, and he keeps pointing his ugly face up at me, glaring with nasty dark eyeballs. So I take one last long piece of duct tape off the roll and slap it over his eyes. When he yanks it off, it’s going to tear the shit out of his eyebrows. If he tears it off.

I sit back down on the broken car seat we use for a couch and don’t think about Papa and I don’t think about Sergey and I definitely don’t think about what Pan Zielinski just said. I put that shit clean out of my mind and I turn the game up to watch Bolsinero make another crazy-ass pass to Márquez… but of course he misses. I sit there during the commercial break fuming that I had to be the one to babysit. Sergey’s the one that grabbed him. Sergey—the Kidnap King of Donbass.

Pan Zielinski started talking to me and I don’t know why Sergey didn’t tape his mouth shut because it’s hard to not to think about what he said. And I don’t want to think about it. I just want to watch some soccer. This Márquez guy is a joke and I’m glad he keeps missing because Papa always hated him.  Papa took me and Galya to a game once and we spent most of the time laughing at Márquez, the only reason he was on the team is because he was some big shot’s brother.

I didn’t watch soccer for a long time after Papa died. I had to go live in the garbage dump with Galya. Shit, there were a lot of kids who lived there. Maybe a hundred. So we were all excited the day Sergey’s gang came there to pick up cash from a drop. And then we all shit ourselves when the police cars came screaming in and there was a big shoot-out. The cops were shooting everybody, not just the bad guys but us kids too. Galya… her head was… by the cops. The fuckers.

I came running out to grab the gun from a dead cop so I could start shooting at the rest of them but instead Sergey grabbed me. He called me a hard ass and he told me to come live with them.

And now here I am. Now I sleep on a real bed and eat cooked food. And we all talk all day about how much we hate the cops.

I also hate the rich guys—the bogati. The svinya, Sergey calls them, the guys who run everything and pay all the cops to shoot us and stuff like that. That’s why Sergey kidnaps them.

The soccer game is almost over; it looks like we’re going to win.

Pan Zielinski is crying or something. Like I care! If Sergey doesn’t get the ransom money, he said I have to shoot Pan Zielinski in the head. If I was man enough. “Yeah, you bet I’m man enough,” I said. Because that would be a chance to get revenge for Galya, against the cops and the bogati who own them.

Only when we started talking, Pan Zielinski told me he’s not even from Ukraine. He’s from Poland. So he could be paying our cops to shoot kids? And now he’s crying again. Shut up, Pan Zielinski! Can’t you just shut up?

I’m part of the reason he’s here—I ran out in front of Pan Zielinski’ car and pretended that they hit me. His driver didn’t want to stop because he knew it was a trick. I could hear Pan Zielinski yell at him and when he got out to take a look at me, that’s when they grabbed him.

It busted my arm when the car hit me. Vanya took care of it. That’s why I got this tape all over my arm.

Anyway I figured out a while back that Sergey wasn’t an angel or anything, he makes me run out in the gunfire for the money bag, he makes me jump in front of the mark’s car, shit like that, so I was already thinking he wasn’t so great, even before what Pan Zielinski said to me.

One time Sergey even thought I was killed, and left me where I‘d fallen. But I was just knocked out. Something hit my head in that shootout. I woke up on the side of the road and finally made my way home and Sergey looked surprised. And actually he didn’t look happy either—just surprised.

The shoot-out that killed Galya was with this cop, Bronsky, who’s been after Sergey for a while. Maybe he’s even out there waiting for Sergey right now. He’s got a super rifle team and they shoot anybody who even looks like Sergey, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they get him tonight.

This Pan Zielinski guy is supposed to be worth a million million. He made the mistake of coming to Donbass for some kind of deal. We grabbed him from under the noses of twenty armed guards, right outside his hotel. No wonder Bronsky wants to get Sergey so bad.

But damn it, I can’t get out of my head this thing Pan Zielinski said. I try to watch the next soccer game but his question is still swimming around up here, driving me crazy. I think I’m going to give Pan Zielinski the knife.

Sergey should have been back here by now anyway, he never takes this long for a pick-up. Maybe Vanya ratted on him. Or maybe Bronsky finally shot him. If he did then he and his officers are probably on their way up here to rescue Pan Zielinski. And I’m as good as dead.

Pan Zielinski had asked me how I joined the gang, and I told him. And then he asked “Why did Sergey lead the cops to the dump?”

That’s when I slapped the tape over his mouth. But now I can’t shut up that question.

Sergey’s a bastard but he’s not as bad as the cops—that’s what I used to tell myself. I’m stupid and I almost got killed twice, and I used to think maybe Sergey cared but just didn’t want me to know it so I wouldn’t get soft.

Only Pan Zielinski didn’t even know me and he shouldn’t have stopped the car but he still cared more than Sergey did when I broke my arm.

The only reason Sergey was able to grab Pan Zielinski was because the dumb Polish bogati made the driver stop for me. Tough luck for him. Only now he asked me why Sergey led the cops to the dump? And I can’t get that awful question out of my head. But he’s right. Sergey knew we were there. The only thing that makes sense is that he wanted to use us kids as a human shield. And yes, I know, the cops didn’t have to keep shooting, but there’s no way around it: Sergey’s as much the reason Galya’s dead as Bronsky is.

A noise outside. At first I thought it was Sergey coming back, but it’s just a dog. That’s when I caught myself wishing I’d already done something.

So now I’m going to do it. First the kitchen, and then to the Pole.

“Here’s a knife, Pan Zielinski. I’m putting the handle in your hand. Cut yourself loose and get out of here before Sergey comes back.  And don’t look for me. I’ll be long gone.”