The Ghost of Mishka

I was walking down a lonely street thinking about one of my friends, who just a few months earlier, was alive and well. Now he is resting peacefully next to his great-grandfather just outside of Moscow.  A shudder ran down my spine as I recalled that fateful November night when the world came crashing at my feet.

I received an urgent call. It was his mother. She told me I needed to go to the hospital at that very moment. I tried to question her, but she continued to shout, “My boy is dead. They murdered my boy.” Frantically I drove to the emergency room. I found his mother sitting in the waiting room, sobbing silently. I asked the doctor what had happened to my friend. “He was shot seven times in his abdomen,” was the doctor’s only reply.

His hysterical girlfriend, Sascha, ran toward me screaming that I was the reason he was there. Sascha calmed herself after she realized that she could not overpower me. We sat in the cold, sterile waiting room. The smell of death was clinging to our nostrils.

“We were strolling around the old neighborhood visiting with some of the older residents,” Sascha mumbled.

“Who shot him?” I asked.

“We were not looking for trouble.”

“Sascha, snap out of it,” I shook her lightly.

She kept babbling on, “We saw his mom’s best friend and her husband. Mr. Able was even out with his freckle faced grandson.”

“Sascha!” I shook her harder. She started sobbing loudly. Smack! Her head snapped back with the force of the blow. Automatically her hand flew to her reddening cheek.

“Why did you do that?” the shock still evident in her voice.

“Sorry, but you wouldn’t shut up!”

She removed her hand from her injured cheek. An angry red streak slanted across her cheekbone. “Sascha, please tell me everything that you remember.”

“Okay, we were walking.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. What else?”

“We saw your friend Lucien and some of his hulking, scuzzy buddies. Mishka wanted to stop and ask if he’d had any more trouble with his Mustang. I still can’t figure out why Lucien thought that car was so great.” She started straying from the subject and I was becoming irritated. “Anyway,” as she moved back to the subject, “Lucien said that his baby was doing better. She just had a touch of the flu.”

“Enough chit-chat, what happened when Mishka was shot?” I pressed her for more information.

“There was a girl that was sitting in the shadows of the darkened alley. I had not noticed her at first. As we were starting to leave, her husky voice rang out, “Lucien is going to kill you Mishka.” She leaped like a cougar and knocked me down to the scratchy asphalt. The next thing I knew, several rounds of gun fire rang out. The smell of gunpowder was so thick, it clung to my senses. I saw Mishka sprawled a few feet from my trembling body. All around me was blood and screams of agony. Lucien knelt beside the cougar-woman; he was the only person there with a gun.”

I could not tell you at what point in Sascha’s gruesome recollection that the hot tears started cascading down my ashen cheeks. “You’re trying to tell me that Lucien shot my best friend. The same man that took the heavy burdens of my life after my nephews died and placed these same burdens on his strong, relentless shoulders!”     

Who was I to believe? I have known Sascha for only about two years. In my heart I just knew that Lucien wasn’t so cold. Could I be wrong?

At about one o’clock in the morning I was allowed to see Mishka. He looked so different, several tubes sticking out of his body. Sascha could not stay with him, the police still needed to question her. I sat by his bed in a hard plastic chair. I refused to leave his side all night. Somehow I sensed that he knew I was there with him. As dawn started to peek over the horizon, Mishka began to fade. By the time the clock struck 12:00, Mishka had drawn his last breath.

His memorial took place on a miserably cold November morning. It seemed as if the entire world had come together to mourn the loss of such an amazing man who had been cruelly cheated out of his future.

The day following Mishka’s memorial Lucien was brought in for questioning. Sascha and I went to the crumbling police station. She stood trembling as the men in the line-up were herded into the little room. Sascha grabbed my arm and pointed Lucien out as Mishka’s murderer. I felt my insides grow cold and another piece of my heart die.

A muscular guard led the way through the dimly lit corridor; my trembling legs carrying me closer to the truth. The heavy oak door slowly creaked open. He would not look me in the eye as I entered the silent chamber. At that moment I knew I had been deceived. Lucien finally managed enough courage to look into my steely glare. He swallowed convulsively and squirmed in his folding chair. He stood to pace the width of the conference room.

“I never did like him,” I flinched when he broke the silence.

“That did not give you the right to murder him. You had no right!” I ground out through clenched teeth.

“Do you think I care if I had the right to do something? All I could remember was when I had just moved here. He vowed to make my life miserable for as long as I lived here because I slept with his sister. He made me go crazy. I vowed revenge and I managed it perfectly.” The satisfaction written in his deadly hazel eyes sent chills racing down my spine.

“I hope you are sentenced to death and go straight to hell,” I snarled at him as I left the room.

Lucien was found not guilty of the murder of Mishka Federov and was released back on the streets in January.

On January 21st, Lucien Alverez died a horrible, agonizing death. I stood watching through the haze of fog as he was forced to his knees and executed for the crimes he had committed. Everyone had tried to talk me out of watching him die. Lucien may have attained his revenge upon Mishka, but in a way I felt the satisfaction of revenge when I saw the wild look of fear in his eyes.

A huge black dog jolted me back to the present. The dog bounded from the shadows chasing a scampering little kitten. As I resumed my walk, I realized my footsteps had carried me to the hated alley in which Mishka had been cruelly shot.

Then I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned around, much to my surprise, I saw a guy in a black Stetson and shiny black boots. The guy looked familiar to me, but I would not believe who I was seeing. Then the wind started to blow, and he was gone.

When I heard the dog again, I whirled to see if he had caught the kitten. He was carrying a black cowboy hat in his mouth. Amazingly, the huge dog faded into the air. As I turned to make the return journey home, I looked around one more time. I thought I heard Mishka’s laughter and a dog’s bark from somewhere in the heavens.