Fate's fresh hand

"YEV!"

I did not answer to the old fool; if he wanted to talk to me he could come see me.

"Yev you pile of shit, where are you?"

I concentrated very hard on drinking my drink and not smashing old man over the head as he entered the bar, "Yev I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Evgeny."

"What?" He said in that stupid tone of his.

"My name," I uttered in deep breathes, trying to keep my tone under control, "is Evgeny."

The old man scowled and pushed the crate he was carrying towards me; it was disappointingly empty of the precious nectar I was necking back now. "Go fill it up."

"I am not on shift today!"

"Yeah, but you owe me on your tab. Go fill it up."

I took the crate from him with a frown and took slow, deliberate steps past the bar, through the backdoor and into the cellar. Of course my steps were not deliberate because of the drinking; the drink was certainly not blame for my trip and fall to the bottom of the staircase. Picking myself up I dusted off my shitty clothes, took the shitty crate and went to the shelf to search for more of this shitty foreign beer. It tasted like piss and was just about as strong, not like the stuff back home. But if you drank enough you could forget anything in time.

I lifted a few bottles into the crate, taking time to open one and take a gulp. I hated this job, this dead end life. People would look at me behind the bar and say to themselves, "Is that all they can do? They come all the way from Poland or wherever and the only thing they can do is clean glasses and give drinks?"

Well that's fucking bullshit. I can do other things, I'd just rather not do them a lot. Sure the fucking pay is good, but killing nobodies for that two bit russian mafioso Vlad is just shit. He was such a moron that guy, such a waste of my fucking life. But when you're working in a dead end job perhaps it's good sometimes to rehash old skills and earn a bit on the side. Does that make me a bad person? Probably but you'd be a bastard if you'd had to do what I did in life.

Still at least I was safe at the bar. Ken was a cunt but at least he never threatened my life; he'd keep employing me as long as I kept standing because it's hard to find barmen who pull in the women as well as I do but can still beat the shit out of aggressive drunks. Before you go thinking I've got a big head I'm good with women for a reason: I got a reputation ever since I broke that guy's arm who was pushing himself all over that ill girl. Don't get me wrong, women have their place in the world and if she's going to dress like such a slut she's got shit coming to her but that doesn't mean it should happen. Besides the guy was really up himself.

I placed a few more bottles in the crate and felt a wet nose on my leg, looking down I saw that pathetic mongrel of Ken's. I say mongrel but Ken claims it's a labrador, I've never seen a labrador with fur that curly. Still it was a nice dog; I'd always liked dogs. I got one when I first moved here but Vlad went and fucking killed it because I screwed up on a job; I've never forgiven that fucker and he's got it coming to him one day.

I don't remember much about what happened next: I remember placing a bottle in the crate, remember hearing a roaring noise and then everything went black. When I woke up I was back in Georgia.

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South Ossetia has always being shit. I remember picking up a western guide book whilst living there once, when I was still learning english. I remember having to go to my teacher to ask what the guide book meant by, "Ethnically diverese, broad cultured area." I especially remember my teacher's response, "Evgeny, if this place is cultured then my dad's barn is a national heirloom."

If South Ossetia was the armpit of Georgia then Tskhinvali was the fucking sweat gland. I liked the place when I was a kid but looking back I realise what a shit hole it was: If it wasn't for the constant fighting then it would be the most boring place too. The only good the place did for me was killing off my Dad when I was still young; he was a major prick and nearly ruined my mum. I was a stuidous kid at school, interested in history and languages. I couldn't give two shits about sciences or maths but I loved being the best english speaker in the class: I felt powerful.

On the 7th of August, a whole month after my birthday, the war began. Almost everyone in Tskhinvali had been evacuated but I stayed: I wasn't going to let some foreigners invade. My mum stayed too, she reckoned she'd be safe in her flat right on the edge of the city. She was such a stupid woman but I still mourned her when that fucking shell destroyed her. I still don't know which side fired it.

I fought alongside soldiers for four days, killing my fair share of the fucking invaders. I remember clearly the first three kills but after that it becomes a blur. I still remember shouting, "Get out of my home you foreign bastards!" Looking back now I realise it didn't matter whether you were supporting the Russians or the Georgians, you still would have said the same thing. It was true for everyone; everyone was a prick in South Ossetia.

I still stayed there for three years. I fought as hard as I could but the longer I fought the more I realised there was no fucking point. Our small scale guerilla tactics were not working; the war for South Ossetia had ended on the elventh of August.

To this day I have never bothered telling people which side I fought for: I realise now that both sides were pricks.

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My journey to the cellar floor at Ken's is more complicated then people give me credit for. People in the bar just think I'm some nameless eastern european illegal and don't think beyond that: They don't know I've seen more then they ever will. When I left Ossetia the only thing I could do was kill and talk English. Before I knew it I was knee deep in some african bog, fighting for some fucking dictator or another. Sometimes it was for mega corporations: I never bothered asking who I was working for as long as they told me what to do and paid my check. By twenty five I'd earned enough to look at getting a proper life so I headed for the shores of Europe.

It was a fucking disaster; I applied for citizenship in four countries and was rejected from all of them. No country wants to accept a beat up looking eastern european guy who wants to come to their country to fucking learn. Our place is to do the shit jobs for them. Sick of being treated like a piece of shit I decided to screw my fresh start and went illegal. Getting into a country is so much easier when you're a illegal.

I bounced from country to country, doing shit jobs. I worked in care homes, in restaurants, doing cleaning of offices. I tried to get myself educated but I never had the fucking money because their tax on alcohol was always so fucking high. I got sick of it and just gave up when I landed in Ken's shitty country. I got shit faced at his bar and having no money worked to pay off my tab to him. It's what I'm still doing now.

So yeah, I tried doing it the right way. I tried working up the career ladder but there's no prospects when you've got a last name like Gelashvili. No one wants to do business with a Gelashvili. At least I never slipped fully into old habits: I only worked for fucking Vlad when money was really bad. I was prepared, not happy, to live out the rest of my life with the fucking pub. But then fate handed me a chance.

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I came to with Morgan licking my face, which tasted like dust when I breathed in. It took me a while to pick myself up but when I did I felt the world was not going to stop reeling: Most of the cellar was a fucking ruin. I'd been lucky enough that the main support beam had protected me from most of the debris, a bit of brick being the cause of my blackout. Like I said, fate.

I remember exiting the cellar with Morgan, I remember seeing the collapsed buildings and fires. But most of all I remember something my mum had once said to me; "Son, one day fate will play you a card. You just make sure you play it right."

Well fate had just evened up the odds for me. As I set off from the debris and to the nearest gun store with Morgan I remember the smile on my face: Things were looking up.