by Grace Risata
“I’m doing this as a one-time favor to Dottie. This will be the first and last time I’m helping you. If you call me one more time, I’ll go straight to the police,” Butch threatened.
What a dick! If I had any other option, I’d turn around and tell him to shove his doctor’s bag straight up his ass. I was getting ready to do just that, when Sergio spoke.
“Thank you very much, sir.” Sergio pointed to Rocky and explained, “Reggie got in with a bad group of people, but he’s trying to change his life around. He wouldn’t go back and that’s why they sent someone to punish him.” Sergio looked pointedly at me and said, “Isn’t that right, Violet? Reggie would really appreciate his help right now.”
Ah. So we were back to the fake names. “Yes. Please help my friend, sir. Reggie really is trying to go down the right path.”
Butch shook his head and said, “Sit him down at the kitchen table and don’t let him get blood anywhere. We’ll see what we can do.”
We helped Rocky over to the kitchen table and stood on either side of him while the doctor did his exam and Irene paced and wrung her hands in concern. I didn’t know if she was worried more about what the neighbors might think, or of “Reggie” bleeding all over her carpet. When this was finished, I was going to have a serious talk with Dottie about her choice of friends. Well….actually….if you take my new friends into consideration, I guess I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Nevermind!
“What hurts?” Butch asked Rocky.
“Nose broken. Eye. Hand bad,” Rocky replied, holding up his left hand.
“Ok. Let’s start with the eye.” He opened Rocky’s eye and looked at it with a flashlight. He pressed the skin around it. “You’ll get a nasty shiner, that’s for sure. No other problems like blood in the eye or changes to the pupil. That’s good. What else?”
Rocky stuck out his left hand to the doctor.
Butch examined Rocky’s hand and said, “Looks like a possible boxer’s fracture. You must have hit someone pretty hard. Bend the fingers and then make a fist.”
Rocky was able to make a fist, but not without wincing in pain.
“There are no open cuts on your hand and you can move it enough to make a fist. That’s a good sign. When you get home, put ice on it and try to make a splint to keep it steady. I don’t think it’s broken, although it is going to swell up some and it will be sore for a while.”
“Nose bad.”
“Yes, your nose looks very bad.” Butch went to touch Rocky’s nose and he flinched backwards almost knocking the chair over. “It’s swollen and crooked and I have no doubt that it’s broken. Is this your first broken nose?”
Rocky shook his head to indicate that it was not.
“You know what I have to do then. Do you want me to realign it?” Butch asked.
Rocky slowly nodded.
“Could you at least give him something for the pain?” Sergio pleaded with the doctor.
“Nope. He should have thought of the consequences of his actions. He got into this mess, he’ll have to suck it up like a big boy and deal with it.”
Butch gave Rocky a towel and had him blow his nose into it, to get out the blood and mucous. “This is going to hurt like hell,” he warned. He placed his hands on either side of Rocky’s nose and told him to take a deep breath. Butch dragged his hands in a straight line down from Rocky’s nose to his chin. Rocky was stoic, not crying out in pain, although his whole body had completely tensed up. “Irene, go get me some ice,” Butch ordered his wife.
“That’s all I can do for you here. Go home, take some aspirin, and try to get your head out of your ass so this doesn’t happen again.” Butch turned to me and gave me a lecture as well. “Violet, from what Dottie tells us, you’re a good girl who should know better than to get involved with riff-raff such as these two. They’re not worth this trouble. Frankly, I’m extremely disappointed in you,” Butch admitted while shaking his head. I don’t know who the fuck he thought he was, to be handing down judgement like that. I felt my face turning red in anger.
Sergio had the brains to say, “Thank you very much, sir. We’ll make sure you’re compensated for your troubles and we won’t ever come back again.”
“I don’t need payment. You can keep your ill-gotten money. Now get the hell out of my house,” Butch ordered.
We trudged out the door and never looked back, with Sergio and I on either side of Rocky to keep him from passing out. By some miracle, we were able to load Rocky back into the SUV and finally head home.
“I swear I had no idea that guy was such a fucking prick! If I had known, I never would have gone there. What a cock-sucking asshole!” I screamed in fury.
“No. Fixed nose. Helped. Ok.” Rocky whispered.
“No, it’s NOT okay. He was a giant fuckwad. He had no right to treat you like some low-life drug-dealing punk hoodlum. He can eat a dick!” I yelled.
“Violet. Calm down. Rocky’s okay. He’ll live. We’re safe. We can deal with doctor dick at a more appropriate time. If he wants to get nosy, he doesn’t have Rocky’s real name anyway. Let’s just get home and get Rocky some pain pills.”
“Fine. But there better be vengeance or else. He needs a major attitude adjustment.” I was making new enemies everywhere I turned this week.
We finally made it back to the brewery. I washed the blood off Rocky’s face, got him changed into some comfy pajamas, and tucked him into bed. Sergio handed him a pill to take with a glass of water.
“What’s that? Aspirin? How many milligrams? Did you give him enough? Why only one pill? Can’t he have two?” I asked, throwing out questions left and right.
“It’s an Oxycodone. Immediate release. It’s stronger than morphine and works faster than Oxycontin does. See? Sometimes it pays to be a drug-dealing punk hoodlum,” Sergio said while winking at me.
I threw my hands up in the air and scolded Sergio. “You better not turn him into an addict.”
Rocky closed his eyes and patted me on the hand. “No addict. One pill. Okay.” Rocky looked so pathetic laying there with the blankets up to his chest, pillows propped under his head, and ice pack resting on his nose.
“My poor baby. You look so miserable,” I said, while gently running my fingers through his hair. I was afraid to touch him at all, he looked so banged up. “You better never put me through that again. Are you sure you’re okay? No internal bleeding? Your organs still feel like they’re in the right spot?”
“Organs fine. Need a nurse. A nurse in uniform. Or maybe naked?” Rocky whispered, looking up at me hopefully.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I told him, smiling none-the-less.
Sergio laughed and said, “Hey, you know he must not be terminal if he’s talking like that.”
I nodded in agreement. Sergio looked extremely relieved that this was over with. I shared his relief, happy to be able to get on with our lives. How foolish we were. It wasn’t finished yet. More bad news was about to come our way. It literally marched right through the door two minutes later.
--------------------------------
Dmitry, Vasily, and Irina stormed into the bedroom. Sergio pulled his gun on them, ready to take immediate action.
“Put your gun away, dumbass. No one else is dying today,” Dmitry ordered.
“Thank God you guys are okay!” I exclaimed. “You would not believe what happened after you left. We tried to get to the SUV, but Dante blocked the way and threatened us. Rocky pulled out my hidden gun, but Sergio shot Dante in the shoulder before Rocky could kill him. Then we needed to get medical attention for Rocky, so I called a friend who called a friend who turned out to be an enormous piece of shit and treated us like we were scum. But he set Rocky’s nose and it all worked out in the end.” I paused to take a breath. “What do you mean that no one ELSE is dying today? Who died?”
Dmitry sadly shook his head. Irina put her hand to her mouth and Vasily wrapped his arm around her.
“What happened?” Sergio asked. Here we th
ought that we had all the excitement. It turns out that what we were going through was tame compared to what Dmitry had to deal with.
“The gunshots we heard before we took off. All the screams….” Vasily stopped, not able to finish telling us what we missed.
Dmitry picked up where Vasily left off. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to tell you what happened. Or at least what happened to the best of my knowledge. This is what I could piece together from everyone’s description of the events that led to the massacre. When we got to the source of the gunshots, it was a gruesome scene. Evidently Ursula stormed off after Alexei lost the fight. She was followed by Enrique, Eduardo, Natalia, and Leo. Enrique questioned her as to why she was so upset. He told her that she shouldn’t really care. Her ex beat up her brother but no one died.
“Enrique told her to get over it, that she should consider herself lucky that she still had him for a boyfriend. She laughed and insulted Enrique, telling him that he was under no circumstances to ever be considered her boyfriend. She was just using him as a pawn to spy on Rocky. She called him a loser with a small cock.
“Eduardo told her that she was a whore and was not allowed to talk to his brother that way. Leo defended Ursula and stuck his hand into his pocket. Eduardo didn’t know what Leo was reaching for, so he pulled out his gun and shot him. But he didn’t hit Leo.
“Ursula jumped in front of Leo to prevent her brother from taking a bullet. She got hit instead. Right in the neck. Natalia immediately pulled out her gun and shot both Enrique and Eduardo. They were head shots. They died instantly. Natalia rushed over to Ursula, but there was nothing she could do to help her friend. The bullet had severed Ursula’s carotid artery and she bled out in minutes. As she lay dying in Leo’s arms, we came upon the scene. Ursula’s dad, Mikhail, was irate. He totally lost his shit. He kept screaming for someone to help his daughter, to explain to him how this could possibly happen. Natalia got up and told him the story. Mikhail backhanded her across the face and ordered his men to shoot her. She got down on her hands and knees and begged for her life. It was hard to watch. He spared her life, telling her to get out of his sight and never come back. She slunk away, broken and sobbing.” Dmitry shook his head again, as if he still couldn’t believe it had all really happened.
Irina started crying openly. “Ursula was cruel to me, but she was still family. I wouldn’t have wished her dead.”
I was in shock. She had been a giant pain in my ass, but I wouldn’t have wished her dead either. I had never personally known anyone who had been murdered. All this death was so unnecessary.
“She had her whole life ahead of her,” I said. “It’s ironic that her one selfless act led to her death.” I shook my head in sadness at a life taken so young. “Maybe, given time, she would have changed and been a better person.”
“No,” a voice next to me spoke coldly. “Good riddance. Caused Luigi’s death. Wanted Alexei to kill me. Nothing but trouble and pain. Glad she’s gone,” Rocky groggily admitted. I was surprised he was so cold hearted, but he did have a point. If it was him that had died today, Ursula wouldn’t be crying over his grave. She’d probably be planning a party and trying to decide which extravagant shoes to wear.
Sergio shrugged his shoulders. Evidently he didn’t care either way.
“That’s not all that happened,” Dmitry continued. “Angelo approached Mikhail to give his sympathies about Ursula. Angelo vowed to Mikhail that they would join forces and use every weapon at their disposal to take down the Latinos. Angelo promised they would walk away from this stronger than ever. Mikhail was distraught, but he shook hands with Angelo and they cemented the bond between the families. Right about that time, Dante staggered up to Angelo and told him he’d been shot. He passed out before he could explain what had happened. Mikhail immediately told Angelo they would get the whole story and the perpetrator would be brought to justice.”
“Oh shit,” I said, looking at Sergio with eyes wide in panic.
Sergio immediately took out his phone to call Angelo and went in the other room for privacy. That left me to explain what happened with Dante and get the others up to speed.
“Like I said before, Dante confronted us as we tried to make our getaway. Sergio thought Rocky was going to shoot Dante and kill him, so he shot him first to disable him. Dante took a bullet in the shoulder. Will he be ok?” I asked.
“Not gonna shoot to kill. Only woulda shot him in the nut sack. Dumb fuck,” Rocky mumbled.
“He’s on strong pain pills,” I explained. I’m not quite sure if the “dumb fuck” was meant to describe Sergio or Dante.
“How’s he doing?” Dmitry asked.
“His eye is ok, just a shiner. The worst was his broken nose that the hack doctor realigned for him. His hand isn’t broken, but the doctor said we should make a splint to stabilize it. We haven’t gotten around to that yet.”
“I can make a splint for him. It shouldn’t be too hard. Get me a newspaper and some gauze and I’ll take care of it,” Dmitry offered.
Irina and Vasily went to look for the needed supplies.
“Dmitry, I have a job for you,” I said.
“I don’t want a job. I’m tired,” he replied.
“You’re the only one I can ask. Please?”
“What is it?”
“I need you to get revenge on someone. A prick doctor who thinks he’s better than me,” I bitterly answered.
Sergio walked in at that moment and said, “She has a one track mind, Dmitry. Once she decides she’s pissed at someone, it’s all over.”
“That doctor treated us like shit. We need to make sure he pays,” I demanded.
“Violet, you need to think about everything that’s happened these past few days, ok? Ursula was hell bent on getting revenge, too. She wanted Rocky to pay for daring to care about someone else. Where did it get her? Six feet under. Alexei wanted violence for violence’s sake, no other reason. Where did it get him? Stabbed in the thigh. Dante wanted Rocky to pay for making him look like a fool. Dante had to be Mr. Big Shot. Where did it get him? Shot in the shoulder. What do we learn from all this?” Dmitry lectured.
“Um….Don’t be a bad guy because it doesn’t end happily ever after?” I guessed.
“Exactly. Karma is a bitch. If you want kindness, then send it out into the world and it will come back to you. If you’re evil, it will return to you tenfold. It’s never too late to have a change of heart and give up your old ways. That’s what Rocky’s done and it’s what I’m doing too,” Dmitry explained.
“What about Sergio?” I wondered.
“He was never bad to begin with. Although now he’s shot someone. Maybe he’s crossed over to the dark side?”
“I HAVE NOT! I’m still a good guy. Always have been. I only shot someone to keep him from getting killed. Karma loves me. With a face like this, how could she not?” Sergio asked.
Irina and Vasily returned with the splint materials and Dmitry got to work.
“So where do we all go from here? What happens now?” I asked.
“We’ll go to the funeral in New York. I should go to be with my family anyway. I’m sure my mom and Katja will fly in. It will be nice to see them again. Until they get on my nerves and I have to leave. It will be a fun few days,” Irina answered.
Vasily shrugged and admitted, “I go where she tells me.” No surprise there.
“I talked to my dad and explained what happened,” Sergio said. “I told him that Rocky was going to kill Dante and I stepped in and saved the day. Angelo was furious that Dante acted without his permission. Dante’s in trouble. Carmine will have to keep him on a short leash for a while. Now my dad thinks I’m a hero for making such a wise move. He wants me to go back to New York. I have to go, at least for the funeral anyway. We’ll see what happens. I might end up staying. I miss my family. Even if they are crazy. And violent.”
“What about Angelo wanting Rocky to go back, too?” I asked.
“My dad is
beyond pissed that Rocky refused to kill Alexei. He thinks it makes Rocky look weak. When Rocky declared in front of everyone that he was no longer part of the family, that was more than just words. He pretty much went rogue and now no one will have anything to do with him out of fear of Angelo. You can denounce whatever you want, but family comes first. When you turn your back on that….well, it’s not good.”
Dmitry smiled at Sergio and explained, “I don’t think Rocky cares. In fact, I think that was his goal all along. He wants a quiet life. He wanted out permanently. That was the only safe way to do it. He’s a lot smarter than we give him credit for.”
“Won’t Angelo want to kill Rocky for leaving the family? Is it safe for him here?” I don’t want Rocky to have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of his life.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Sergio said. “Deep down, my dad still likes him. I think he hopes Rocky will get bored with this life and return to New York. Rocky still has a lot of friends back home. It wouldn’t be any good for morale if he got whacked. My dad will just wait it out and see how it goes. I don’t know why he cares so much. Rocky hasn’t been a part of his life for the past two and a half years anyway. Maybe this will finally make it sink in and that Rocky’s moved on.”
“What about you?” I asked Dmitry. “What’s next? Are you leaving, too? Mikhail seemed pretty happy to see you today, like you were old buddies.”
“Nah. He just respects me because he knows I could have killed Leo after he shot my ass. To show my appreciation for Mikhail taking me in, I refrained from executing Leo. I’m a classy guy. Mikhail treats me with the respect I earned. If he didn’t, I’d kill him.” Dmitry smiled. “I’m not going back to New York. There’s no reason for me to go to Ursula’s funeral. I despise that whole family. I was out a long time ago. I want to have my business, shoot my guns, and be left alone. Nothing will change for me.”
