Joey Suka sat and sipped his vodka alone in the little office at the back of the club and could tell by the lack of laughs that someone was bombing on stage. The man with the gun came in and sat down across from him. He did not speak. That was normal. It used to unnerve Joey - him coming in and sitting quietly. It stopped unnerving him when he began to think that was the whole point. Now the man with the gun smiled at him. And that unnerved the hell out of him.
"Vhat? Vhat do you vant?"
"Please. Do you even know what the word 'suka' means in Russian?"
"Is vone ov de most feared criminal organizations in Russia dating back to the Great Patriotic War."
"Don't you mean 'Var'? As in 'Var Var 2'? Isn't 'the Great Patriotic War' what WWII was called by the Russians?"
Joey sipped his vodka. The lie was on the tip of his tongue. Maybe the vodka washed it away. "I know full well what 'suka' means in Russian. It means 'bitch'. Stalin freed prisoners who were willing to fight the Germans in World War Two. When they went back to prison they were everybody's bitches just like they were for Stalin. Until they banded together and killed any and every single person who looked at them funny."
The truth had an invigorating quality. Or maybe it was the vodka. "I liked the story. Taking the insult and making it a badge of honor. Forming one of the most feared criminal organizations in the world and having the audacity to call yourselves by the insult everyone else threw at you - embracing the term 'bitch.'"
The man with the gun got up and fixed himself a glass of vodka with two cubes of ice. He took a sip and you could see an idea come to mind, "Do you even like vodka?"
Joey smiled. "I hate the stuff. I hate the stupid accents and I hate what I do."
"Then why do it?"
"Have you ever looked in Jamie's eyes? I mean, really had a moment to look my brother in the eyes? There's nothing there. Nothing really there. Like he doesn't even have a soul. An empty shell. Who looks exactly like me."
The man with the gun squinted. It was an answer. But it didn't answer anything.
"He killed his first human being when we were 13 years old. Not a bully or a self defense kind of thing. Lured an eleven year old boy into the woods and killed him. And not quickly. He hurt the boy. Explored. It looked like someone trying to figure out a how a clock works by removing all the gears. Just a whole lot more blood."
The man with the gun sipped his vodka.
"By the time we were sixteen I got him to focus on bullies and the abusive. Mostly. At nineteen I gave up. I couldn't control him, I thought. I decided to kill him. I wasn't into knives or guns. I was just big. And strong. So. I decided to beat him to death."
"I hit him. And I hit him again. I remember the look on his face. Surprise. And I hit him again and again. I cried. I mean, great big snot bubbles kinda crying while I am just whaling on him. It didn't even register at the time that he wasn't fighting back. I just beat him until I was exhausted. But he wasn't dead. I couldn't kill him. I loved him. I couldn't understand him. Or forgive him. But I loved him."
"Everyone who's died and suffered since has done so because I loved my brother too much to kill him. That's why I got us into this business. He gets his jollies with people who come the closest to deserving it. And who knows, with so many thugs and scum bags with automatic weapons, maybe one of them gets lucky one day."
"I learned something from beating him so badly. I learned how important it was to him that we were identical. I should have noticed. Mother never tried to dress us alike. But there are all these pictures of us as kids in exactly the same outfits."
"Maybe that should have been a warning. I never saw it that way. Until he came at me with a billy club once he got out of the hospital. It was methodical. Didn't seem that way at the time. Just seemed like I was getting my ass kicked. No. That's too flippant. I thought he was going to kill me."
"He beat me systematically. Bruise for bruise, broken bone for broken bone. You see this scar? We both have it. His was because of a ring I used to wear on this finger. Mine was because of an exacto knife. He beat me down and then sat on me, with his knees on my shoulders and his left hand forcing my head to one side, carved the same scar under my right eye with an exacto knife. He pulled the skin from his carving with a pair of tweezers."
"So. We had to match. We had to match. That was an advantage. A small one. But an advantage. It took me years to figure out."
"So I tested it. We had to speak in wediculous wussian accents. We became grotesquely fat bastards because I could do that to him. I could do that to him and he could do nothing back. I did my best to embarrass him. To humiliate him. I can't kill him. But I can make his life miserable."
"But...what kind of life..."
"What kind of life did that leave you?"
"I haven't had a life since I was thirteen years old."
End Chapter Nine
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