8

Sash banned drugs for a reason.

Drugs had poisoned Oleg Paraskevich’s mind and led the brooding Czech to give the police Nikola’s name before skipping out on bail. Niko served ninety days for fencing, which was not much of a sentence to an outsider, but being a foreign national, it left Niko with two strikes before deportation.

It had taken Sash some time before he found Oly, holed up in a silver trailer near Double Trouble State Park in New Jersey. There, hidden from prying eyes in the pines, the wily fuck housed five teen boys who cooked crack for him to sell in Atlantic City. Breaking the trailer door’s lock proved more challenging for Sash than killing those boys.

Oly had returned to his trailer on foot that day, taking a shot at Sash before fleeing into the woods. That fucker knew those trees better than Sash, and they’d played cat and mouse for hours until Sash thought he’d lost the man for good.

Sash found the abandoned car after sun-up; someone had popped Oly a new asshole in the back of his head.

Nikola’s laughter dragged him from his thoughts. The lanky fool was high on freedom, inhaling hot concrete and bounding like a prideful hawk with a cute twink under his arm.

“Ryker’s was a ride, huh?” Sash asked.

“Three meals a day,” said Niko. “No work, plenty of television,”

Doing time in this country was heaven compared to the misery factories back home. Prison had Americanized them more than living a decade in Brighton Beach, where the people and their shops felt like less complicated versions of Eastern Europe.

Niko passed him on the sidewalk, and the twink’s pale blue eyes peered back at Sash when he pressed his thumb to the key fob. The boxy four-door let out a beep before Sash stole another glance at the twink’s wavy blonde locks.

“Fancy ride.” Niko whistled at the vehicle’s blue-cloth interior and touched the long shift lever between the front seats. “Where’d you get this thing?”

“I’m not keeping it.” Sash settled into the driver’s seat, his foot touching the oversized clutch pedal. “Makes shit mileage on the Parkway.”

Niko’s dark eyes found him in the rearview mirror.

“How is Oly?” he asked, before the twink joined him.

“He became someone else’s problem,” he replied.

Sash didn’t wait for the Explorer to idle before charging onto the street. Speeding down a car-curtained Brighton 14, he circled the triangular park at Corbin. He cruised onto Brighton 15 and slowed near the place to spot Cyril rising from the curb with a pillow under his arm.

The old man had protected Sash in the Warsaw prison where they met, keeping the thirsty hawks at bay while teaching Sash how to defend himself. Nothing sexual ever transpired between them, odd, considering the old man’s taste for teen boys.

These days, Cyril preferred dominos to dick.

“I want cheese sandwich, Andrej,” he said in broken English, climbing between the boy and Niko to reach the rear seat.

The boy’s closed-lipped smile dented his cheeks.

Radeki yanked open the back door and climbed in beside his brother. The Czech seemed a harmless man of little words and new jacks underestimated him at their own peril. Sash had witnessed the gaunt man’s brutality while serving with him in a Rostock prison. It took a lot to set Radeki off, but when triggered, no one was safe. Not even his ex, Tadeusz Skucinska, who slipped into the passenger seat stinking of cologne.

“Tadeshi, did you fall into a vat of Obsession?” Sash ran a finger along his own jawline. “All you need is a little slap here. No more, no less.”

The sassy man grabbed his crotch.

“How about I slap you with this, Glass Eye,”

Flashy yet vulgar, the svelte Pole had met Sash by offering his ass for protection while incarcerated in the same Rostock lockup as Radek.

Despite their jovial reunion, no one talked business this night, not when a young stranger sat among them.

Sash stared into the rearview at Andrej, whose pale, rosy complexion spoke of a life spent on the sea but never in it. Those pouty lips had attracted Niko, but then again, who wasn’t a sucker for cherub lips? This boy had washed in with the tide, nothing unusual since strange tides were what this country was all about.

The waters here had reunited Sash with these men despite not entering the country together. Radek had been serving six months in a Canadian prison called Kingston when he met Tadeusz again. Their jailhouse romance began like any other, blow jobs for protection, but it ended when Radek finished his sentence.

After that, Tadeshi transferred his affections to a newcomer named Miro Walkiewicz, a Polish-born behemoth caught selling drugs outside a high school in Toronto. Miro spent a week in Kingston before returning to New York to finish serving his sentence, and that’s where Sash met him and learned about his brother, Konni.

Around that time, Radek met Cyril in Philadelphia. The brutal man earned cash kicking the shit out of deadbeats for a local loan shark operating out of Port Richmond. That shark was Cyril’s cousin, a Gdansk transplant still bitter at Radek for joining Cyril in Brighton Beach.

Queers of their ilk stuck together because that’s how they lived longer.

That’s why, after finishing his stretch, Tadeshi accepted Miro’s invitation to live in New York. The pair reconnected with Sash and Radek at a bathhouse, and following a night of insane sex and lousy vodka, they had formed a gang with Cyril.

The old man pooled their funds, and Sasha drove them to Virginia, where each took turns purchasing weapons at gun shows. Once they’d acquired a sizable collection, they sold the merchandise to warring gang leaders in the city. Flush with cash, Radek brought his brother Nikola into their group.

Like them, Niko had acquired easy entry into the United States.

Blinded by racism, this country barred good people from entering based on their dark skin but let Caucasian criminals enter without question. Such blindness came on credit, as three crimes always lead to deportation.

Out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Sash turned onto West Street and drove up Canal toward the Bowery. The twink stared out the window as if bored. Aware of the boy’s ear for language, Niko spoke a fusion of Russo-Polish they learned in prison to avoid English snitches.

“Sam-Sam says Miro’s in lockup,” he said.

“He says Miro called his momma three times,” Cyril added from the back.

“How do you get three calls in lockup?” Tadeshi wondered.

Sash turned north onto Delancey. “Let’s go get Konni and ask,”

“He’s inside, too, right?” Radek asked, turning to Niko.

“What?” Sash started.

“I found out from Sam-Sam,” Niko said. “He told me about the bust,”

Cyril sat up. “What bust?”

“He showed up in Konni’s car,” Niko leaned back, prompting the twink to edge closer to the window. “Radeki was driving,”

Cyril then spoke in pure Polish. “What happened with Miro?”

The blond boy’s eyes shifted.

“Cops busted Miro with some stolen stereo equipment,” said Radek in Polish.

“How did they know he was fencing?” asked Sash.

“Sam-Sam says they got film of Konni loading stereos out of the van,” Radek told him. “They tossed Konni’s place.”

Sash punched the brake with his foot, jogging everyone forward.

“What the hell?” Andrej hollered.

After putting the vehicle in park, Sash jumped out.

Frustration boiled his guts. After two years of traveling and straw-purchasing ammunition, their hefty stockpile was gone within hours. Radeki joined him before the others appeared alongside him, except for the boy, Andrej.

“Tell me our rounds weren’t at Konni’s,” said Tadeshi.

Cyril’s glasses fogged anew from the heat.

“Do we know where Konni was when the police tossed his place?”

“Konrad was there.” Tadeshi lit a cigarette. “But they didn’t bring out any ammo,”

“Did anyone scout the place after Konni got picked up?” Sash asked.

Radek nodded. “Sam-Sam and his friend cleaned it out,”

“His friend?” Tadeshi jerked an upturned thumb. “That twink-bitch?”

“Calm down,” Cyril advised. “The boy knows nothing.”

Suddenly, a thumping bass pulsed through the vehicle’s closed windows, where Andrej lay between the front seats, fiddling with the radio.

“You see,” Cyril added. “He knows nothing, nor does he wish to know,”

“I doubt it,” Tadeshi argued. “Him and Sam are too tight for having just met,”

“I talked to Sam-Sam,” Radek said. “They took blankets, games, and little shit,”

“Little shit?” asked Sash, staring at his car and the boy inside.

“Okay, we calm down,” Cyril said in English before returning to his native tongue. “We have a surplus that I bought in Delaware. We can still make a deal with our black friends in Queens,”

“Thank fucking Christ,” Tadeshi growled.

“Procuring new stock will drain our cash,” Cyril added.

Sash tore his attention away from Andrej.

“We must find out where Konni is,” he said.

“We know where he is,” said Tadeshi. “OCCB, ratting us out.”

“No one does anything just yet,” Sash said. “Cyril, call Kotwicki and find me a job.”

Bored, Andrej began watching passing cars. Sash figured him not a day over eighteen, so why was he in Brooklyn? His mother wouldn’t toss him out for being queer, most Slovak women didn’t carry that brand of hate.

“Tadeshi, visit Miro. Take Samil with you, find out if Konni showed up in holding, but don’t let Miro think you’re fishing. Let him think his little brother is coming.”

A new arrival from Atlantic City felt like too much of a coincidence, but this boy was too fucking young to be a cop—or was he?

“If Konni ratted us out, he’ll show up in a few days with some bullshit story about shaking the charges. Nikola, be Konni’s friend and report everything he says to Cyril.”

Sash strode back to the vehicle, the others falling in behind him. When he opened the door, the boy leaned up and turned the music down. Cyril returned to the rear while Radek now sat in front. Niko placed his arm protectively around the boy’s shoulders when Tadeshi joined them in back.

After slipping into his seat, Sash paused.

“Did you hear our conversation?”

“I heard most of it,” said the boy. “Until I didn’t want to,”

Tadeshi sucked his tongue.

“One thing you’d better know about me is if you ask a question, you get the truth. I won’t lie to, or for, anyone,” the boy declared. “If that’s a problem, I can walk home.”

If it was a problem, you wouldn’t be walking anywhere. His mother likely warned him about lying, but she failed to teach him about outright disrespect. Lack of respect was a shield that meant you had something to hide.

What was the boy, Andrej, hiding?

♪

Cyril complained he was hungry, and this time, he wanted pizza.

“I’ll eat what you eat,” said Sash, heading north on Broadway.

“Is that so?” Tadeshi leered.

Turning onto Broadway, he headed south toward Times Square.

Spry for his age, Cyril hopped out as Sash slowed in front of a Pizza Hut. Radek rolled down his window when the old man appeared to ask everyone what they wanted. Tadeshi wanted only a large root beer; Niko wanted a personal pan with sausage, while Radek wanted his with sausage and mushrooms. Sash wished for only mushrooms.

Niko teased, “Kosher boy,”

“Your cock is the only circumcised one I’ve ever sucked,” said Tadeshi.

“I forgot you’re cut, Glass-Eye,” said Radek.

“Fuck all of your asses with a crucifix,” Sash groused.

All laughed except for the oldest and the youngest.

“Really?” spat Andrej.

“Sascha Stasiak,” Cyril scolded, lips pressed together tight.

Admonished, the four men fell silent.

“You want food, Andrej?” Cyril asked.

“Just a cherry coke, please,” he said, reaching over with a dollar.

The old man frowned at the bill and left without taking it.

Silence blanketed the vehicle until Tadashi, an attention-starved prick, proved unable to resist. “So, Andrej,” he said as if on cue, “You’re a Cath—”

“-Yes,” the boy cut him off. “I’m Catholic.”

Tadeshi sucked his lips into his mouth to stifle his laughter.

“Are we going back?” Radek asked with a grin. “Samil waits for me,”

Sash shook his head. “Can’t let me stand in the way of you getting some ass,”

“There’s a lot of it to get,” cracked Tadeshi.

Everyone laughed, and even Andrej smiled.

Cyril returned with pizzas and drinks, and Sash made sure to eat all of his before driving out of Times Square.

“I’m tired,” he said in English, and then in Polish, he asked Niko if he needed some privacy at the place. Before he could reply, Andrej answered in Slovak.

“No, he doesn’t. You can drop me at Astor.”

Everyone was smirking, except Niko.

Sash sped through the Bowery, empty but for the homeless this time of night. He turned off at Cooper Union and slowed at the curb. Andrej got out, but when Niko made to follow, he spoke dismissively. “I’ll see you around sometime.”

Niko hopped out. “You sure you don’t want to come back?”

“Listen, I like you,” said Andrej, “But I don’t know you that well,”

Niko begged. “It’s been a long time for me,”

“Spare me.” Andrej folded his arms. “There’s plenty of ass in prison,”

Tadeshi laughed behind his hand.

“Yeah,” said Niko, touching the bricks above Andrej’s head. “But it’s not your ass.”

Tadeshi gasped, Radek rolled his eyes, and Cyril chuckled.

Andrej moved away from him. “Goodnight,”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Niko took his hand and kissed it. “We’ll visit the boardwalk.”

Andrej pulled his hand free. “I get off work at four,”

Niko returned and slammed the door shut, but their mockery didn’t begin until Sash pulled out into traffic.

“What’s wrong with you, Nikola?” Tadeshi asked. “You can’t close the deal?”

“Fuck you,” said Niko.

“Well, if he won’t fuck you,” Sash teased. “Perhaps he’ll fuck Cyril,”

The old man hummed his approval.

Radek spoke in broken English. “Maybe he clean sheet,”

“Oh, that would be sweet,” Tadeshi goaded. “You haven’t licked clean ass in over a year, huh, Niko?”

The long-haired Ukrainian groaned.

“A tight white sheet,” Sash mocked. “You wouldn’t need a rubber.”

“Let me out,” Niko yelled. “I’m going back,”

After the laughter died, Tadeshi declared that he failed to see the allure, telling them that Andrej was too bitchy. Sash and Radek exchanged looks with Niko, all three marveling at the man’s utter lack of self-awareness.

“I like them at his age,” Cyril’s voice rose from the rear seat. “They’re so bashful until you suck and toy with their tits. Then they go crazy,”

The others leered while Sash chuckled, having witnessed the old man’s ability to turn innocent young men into whores with nipple play alone.

“I don’t think he’s a virgin,” said Sash. “He just didn’t want to fuck his first night of knowing you,”

“I don’t know who’d want Nikola’s dick on any night,” said Tadeshi.

“Your father,” Niko cracked. “And your maty watched.”

The others howled, and Tadeshi finally shut his mouth.