𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗖𝗞 𝗔𝗦 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 ⚔︎

1

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP—

the clock on the crate read half past five in the morning.

giovanni reached his arm out from under the blanket and smashed his hand on top of the alarm clock, silencing it with a thud. he sat up and hopped out of bed, not bothering to stretch, keeping his footsteps light and his pace fast but quiet. there was no chance he could risk waking up his father — it was a sunday, and being a farmer, ivan volkov liked to sleep in on his day of rest. the alarm's raucous squawk, like that of an annoying bird perched atop your roof, had been terrifying enough, never mind the way he would storm in and hurl a stream of verbal abuse at him.

he zipped up his rucksack and threw on a white t-shirt. his army green trench coat came next, shrugging it on his shoulders carelessly.

"carpe diem, zhit' odnim dnem," giovanni whispered to himself, tugging up his black pants. seize the day, seize the day.

once dressed, he ventured around his small bedroom: looking under the bed, peeking in the closet and opening a few drawers to ensure he had everything he needed for the long journey ahead, as his packing last night had been rushed and unthoughtful. a .44 was smuggled deep between his things, undetectable from police, a trick his cousin aleksander had taught him when he was just 12 years old — "vy dolzhny vesti sebya yestestvenno. lyubyye kapli pota na vashem lbu, i oni poymut, chto chto-to ne tak." you must behave naturally. any drops of sweat on your forehead and they will know something is wrong.

giovanni reached into the pocket of his trench coat to find the money he had stashed there the previous night. he took it out and counted it with a furrowed brow. 300 rubles. it certainly wasn't enough to survive on in new york, but it would have to do for his current circumstance.

upon opening one of the drawers in his closet, giovanni found a photograph of he and his mother when he was just a small baby. he looked at it close, holding it up to the light before squeezing his eyes shut. he hoped she thought he was making the right choice — she was the one who always believed in him. giving the picture a quick kiss, he tucked it inside of his trench coat and stood up.

he slung the rucksack on his shoulder and left his bedroom, tiptoeing down the hallway. the floorboards creaked painfully under his steel-capped boots. he slunk past his snoring father, asleep on the old couch, a trail of saliva on the cushion under his head and an empty bottle of vodka on the floor. what was left of the liquid slowly dripped from the rim like a leaky faucet.

giovanni stared at the scene in silence.

his father's brown hair was streaked with grey and grease and there was dried dirt on his hands and on his denim overalls — giovanni guessed that he had fallen asleep after a long day of shovelling pens for the new calfs and lambs that would be born soon. his dark eyes were closed but fluttering in his sleep. he knew that once the man woke up and found his son missing, all hell would break loose. but ivan would never be able to reach him all the way in america. this satisfied him greatly.

on january 10th, 1965, giovanni volkov was born to catholic parents, ivan and sofia — he an army veteran, and she a nurse. this was how they had met. at the time of his birth, the two had been on vacation in his mother's coastal hometown of portoferraio, located on an island in the province of livorno, southern italy. just a mere eight months before giovanni was born, they had quickly been married, in order to cover the hideous fact that giovanni was a bastard.

fortunately, ivan and sofia both managed to convince their religious families that their son was conceived on their honeymoon (it was already frowned upon that they were even together in the first place). a month soon passed and the family travelled to russia. they moved into a little house situated on fifty acres of farmland in berezenki, south of moscow, rather close to where ivan had spent his own childhood.