Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

A hug at the busy station. People streaming by. Clock the businessmen who roll their eyes, couples who elbow and remember when. Wait for the inevitable “Get a room!” The moron’s guffaw. Say nothing when Nadezhda stiffens. Say nothing when she pretends to be busy with her suitcase, leaves your roses on a bench.

Go to tourist spots you’re also seeing for the first time. Secretly think the cable car and Alcatraz are cool but pretend they’re dumb. End up giving some tourist dad the finger, his crying kids. Have no answer when she asks what’s wrong with you. Over dinner you can’t afford, get in an argument about Dave Eggers. Order the most expensive dessert just on principle, leave it untouched. Order cheap wine, one bottle and then another, don’t leave a drop.

Be yelled at while leaning against a brick wall.

Apologize. Admit you know you’re damaged. Make a joke about how Black Flag has an album called Damaged , so maybe it’s okay? Laugh at her not laughing. Mention that you’re writing a novel and that’s why you’ve been so preoccupied. Be startled by the pity in her eyes.

Have sex in the kitchen. Sort of wish you didn’t. Ask why women always have to cry after. Sort of wish you hadn’t.

Her on the futon, you on the couch.

In the morning, Nadezhda’s partially rehearsed lecture about all the ways you’ve changed. Soak it in over eggs Benedict at a place called La Flora, your coffee refilled by sassy waiters who make sympathetic faces behind her back.

Drop Nadezhda off at the bus station, help load the same battered Samsonite into the hold. Aim for a rousing, theatrical good-bye for the people already in their seats, and deliver. Whisper, “I love you,” in her ear, watch the people watching be surprised by her laugh.

Call a month later, be told by some guy with a voice like a flexed quad that she’s not there anymore.

“Said she was bored.”

“Bored?”

“Decided to move to Jerusalem.”

“Jerusalem?”

Spend that winter imagining an earnest kibbutz. Working in the fields, elaborate feasts, everyone in torn fatigues and sexy skirts. Dodging Scuds and making out behind piles of organic kale, idly leafing through the Pentateuch in the hottest hours. Flirt with the idea of adopting some kind of faith — in her, in human nature, in a bearded divinity floating on a gilded cabbage leaf, a god who loves the humble and hates random masturbators, a god who deigns to bless your inevitable gentile/goy son, a boy who becomes a man who becomes a great leader that drives some tribe into the sea at the end of a cutlass, but not the Palestinians, because, frankly, they’ve got some legitimate complaints despite what Zeki said around the fire the other night.

Stop drinking, get a better job. Write three chapters of a roman à clef about zombie symbology, think it’d be better as a graphic novel. Wish for the nine hundredth time you could draw. Take pictures that will never be famous or hung in the Whitney. Write poems that will never be read aloud or adjudged remotely poetic. Volunteer at a pirate store that’s really a front for teaching low-income kids to read. Meet other men with similar politics, meet other girls with clingy red dresses, have other complaints. Stare into a series of serious eyes, plunge between a series of unfamiliar legs, by the third date fail to be the person you could be for them if only you were different.

Lie on a recently reupholstered couch with a woman you don’t love. Watch Friends and the commercials between Friends while eating rigatoni.

Become a manager, button the top one. Fire people who don’t realize you’re actually pretty cool it’s just that someone has to enforce the rules. Get another tattoo, worse than the third. Buy an insanely expensive bike, stare at the broken lock on the sidewalk. Visit Texas, win a distance-spitting contest. Smoke PCP by mistake, feel irreparably insane for eight days, not so much on the ninth. Bury your parents within six months of each other. Argue with an uncle, shine off an aunt. Decide that no one can be told anything, that the world is a grand bargain, a fraudulent transaction, a complicity of bullshit.

Wake in the middle of the night, sure she’s thinking of you. Buy a ticket, get on a plane. Spend a month with a backpack and a water bottle searching the fertile crescent for the girl no one has ever heard of, the woman no one has ever seen.

Float on your back in the Red Sea. Get tan and then brown. Drink with on-duty women, armed men, dance in small, sweaty clubs until dawn and then noon and then midnight again.

Show Nadezhda’s picture around hotel lobbies, in bars, in spots where the homeless are being fed.

Tear up your visa, which expired anyway. Find an apartment, date a corporal, kill off another year. Turn thirty, something you finally have a diploma for.

Marry Rivka.

Have a child. Then another.

Push a stroller, buy ice creams, laugh with bearded dads in tiny parks, always on the lookout.

Even ten years later, as you drive Doron to school, as you sit through Gideon’s violin recital, as you stand alone in a tiled hallway during intermission, close your eyes and count to three, positive you will turn around and Nadezhda will be there, at the water fountain, chin wet, smiling.

The Old School was packed, rows of hard wooden benches arrayed above a makeshift stage. In the center was a ring, canvas spotted and gray, ropes actually rope. Torches hung from the rafters and smoke obscured the crowd, which swayed and howled in unison, like a single gaping mouth.

Nurse stood in Primo’s corner. She wore tight starched whites, a tiny skirt and heels, ignored the wolf whistles and catcalls.

“C’mon, Champ. Circle left. No, my left. That’s it. Now gimme some combinations.”

Primo punished the air until the Albatross’s handlers led him in. There were cheers and a smattering of bird calls. The Albatross danced, cooed, vinyl wings flapping as the crowd ate it up. Bettors yelled, “Straight Win, Albatross!” (2–1) and “Da Champ Choked Out Quick” (5–2), while Mr. Fancy recorded wagers and Abe Golem stuffed cash into the canvas bag chained to his waist.

The Albatross stepped in with arms raised, absorbed the cheers like fuel. Sweat rolled from his bald head, soaked his pink leotard. His real name was Darnell. He and Primo had trained together way back, but the Albatross had gone punchy after a tough loss to Kid Spastic and couldn’t really be talked to anymore. Or at least counted on to answer in anything but chirps and whistles.

The mic was lowered. Buddy Vox’s golden age of radio voice boomed. “Welcome, Gentlemen, to the final bout of this evening’s Spectacle. As always, there is to be no stabbing . Souvenir knives are just that. Souvenirs. Also, the pinching of Beverage Girls is forbidden to those who have not paid this month’s Fondling Dues. Ask your nearest server how to get your account in good standing. This is your last chance to wager. Why go home underbet? Also, why not have a steak? Contact your nearest server and tell her ‘Buddy Vox likes it so rare’ and you’ll get an extra 10 percent off. Once again, any stabbing will result in a lifetime ban from the Spectacle. And now let’s have some fun!”

Ding.

The Albatross charged with a combination of kicks and elbows. Primo dodged him easily. The crowd screamed or groaned, depending. Side bets, like “Next Left to Land” (3–1), “Slips and Almost Falls But Not Quite” (7–2), or “Da Champ Strokes Out, Cannot Be Revived” (40 — 1) got heavy play. The Albatross caught Primo with a few solid kicks, tried to reopen the gash on his cheek. Primo targeted the ribs. They traded jabs up to the bell.