Penny Max and the Runaway Lottery Ticket: Hilton Head Chronicles Part 1

IV. In Which Victor Sobieski Feverishly Chews Gum

Warm up: "Daddy Lessons" by Beyonce

Hot as hell" said Victor Sobieski to himself, as he used a handkerchief to wipe the back of his neck. He would never get used to the humidity in the American south. As he felt the sweat soak the back of his shirt, he snapped his gum, an annoying habit he had picked up in the U.S. to try to quit smoking. A tall man, just a little over six foot, his beet red face stood out as he waited on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store. Wearing pants, a shirt, tie and jacket didn't help any.

He looked out across the parking lot, waiting for Alexi, his business partner, to bring him what he'd been waiting for. He fiddled with something in his right pocket, flipping it over and over in his hand. Then finally. He finally spotted Alexi across the parking lot, right near a pile-up of shopping carts. Alexi was moving the carts and looking down. For a second Victor felt cold. He snapped his gum and added another piece to the sticky mass he was chewing. Victor stepped off the sidewalk toward him. As he headed toward Alexi, a dog barked, which seemed odd in the entrance way of the grocery store, but he didn't pay attention to it.

"Alexi, what the hell is going on" yelled Victor grabbing the short young man by the shoulders. A quick look at his face and Victor felt the same cold feeling descend. "I can't find it," said his cohort. "What do you mean? Dubiina!!" said the Russian, falling back on his native tongue as he began spewing curse words and demanding Alexi to tell him where he had been. He then shoved Alexi on the shoulder and told him to keep looking in the parking lot. A few folks walking toward the grocery store paused as they heard the verbal harshness being expelled. 

Victor stopped short and stopped talking and just pointed repeatedly back toward the parking lot at Alexi, then he turned and entered the grocery store and began trying to retrace steps he wasn't even sure he had actually taken. But desperation was taking over. And as Alexi paced back and forth between car aisles searching the ground between vehicles, Victor began looking around the grocery store. 

As he passed the flower stand and headed toward the service counter, he paused and wiped his forehead sighing. He found himself thinking of home and involuntarily reached into his right pocket again grasping an item he carried. "I should never have left," Victor thought wearily to himself as his thoughts circled back to St. Petersburg again.  He paused inside the grocery store and stood still, staring off into space. And his memory, which he tried to push down, took him back in time.

He was just a soldier who had been conscripted by the Russian army. When the call came in that an emergency situation was occurring at the Dubrovka Theater, he went immediately, along with his fellow soldiers to provide back up for the Russian security services that were already there. He didn't even question it. He was a good soldier.

The sight around the theater, taken over by Chechen separatists, and its surroundings, taken over by Russian security and Russian armed forces, was surreal. Barely 25, Sobieski took the scene in and geared up to back up the team he was standing with. Later he heard there were more than 100 hostages in the theater and close to 50 separatist terrorists who coordinated the siege, but he wasn't sure the information was accurate. 

As the Russian armed forces waited hours and then days, the teams were told to be prepared as they were taking the separatists out with a form of aerosol gas, later discovered to be a form of fentanyl. The forces moved in and started taking the Chechens out with gunfire, basically anyone that moved.

The aerosol gas, which was never formally identified by the Russian government, ended up causing the death of most of the hostages and some of the separatists, with gunfire and arrests taking care of the rest. As the hostage situation settled into a search and rescue, it became more of a body count as the Russian soldiers carried out hostages and Chechens alike.

Than the sight that never left him, that paralyzed him in thought at random times, where he lived in his mind to this day, was the sight of his sister, his only kin, on the floor of the theater. Though he knew she lived nearby, he had no idea - nor would have, that she was there, surrounded by a couple of her friends. He kneeled down beside her, and held her hand, despite shouts for quick movement around him. He pulled her into his arms, holding her close to see if there was breath in her. 

Then cradling her in his arms, he lifted her up and carried her outside to a medical cart. He stayed with her as they worked on her and  then watched as they covered her body, her face. He held onto her keychain - a gift for her 21st birthday from him - that was engraved with words that translated to 'My Beloved Sister'.  He put it into his pocket and went back to the theater to continue carrying people out. He was a good soldier.

Alexi watched as Victor stood just inside the Kroger's entrance. He shook his head while he watched Victor stand there and turned to look around the parking lot across the sea of cars. He shook his head again and began walking around looking at the ground. As he paced the hot asphalt, he missed the flicker of paper on the ground behind a vintage Buick Skylark, and just kept walking, finding nothing.

Victor's cell phone buzzed, which shook him out of his reverie and he grabbed it out of his coat pocket. When he saw the caller, he stared at the phone and then put it back in his pocket and began swearing under his breath. Then he answered it. "What. What. No. What??!! No!!" he ended the conversation loudly then put the phone back into his coat pocket. 

He looked around the store to see if anyone looked like they had found something. He noticed an old woman pushing a cart with a dog and remembered the dog that barked earlier. He looked at them for a second, then wiped his forehead. He began walking up and down the various aisles, watching the ground carefully. At one point he almost knocked down a display of canned soup. 

As he worked his way back to the front of the grocery store, Victor stopped at the coffee shop in the front of the store, ordering a shot of espresso with cream and vanilla syrup, getting the mix steamed into foam. He took a hot sip, and felt his blood pressure lower. He headed toward the service counter and checked if anyone had turned in an envelope.

As for the envelope, it just laid on the ground. It had been in the greasy pocket of a pair of pants that hadn't been washed in a month, so it didn't take much for it to slip out. Maybe if the envelope could think for itself, it might have known it was holding something valuable and decided it wanted to share it with someone who knew how to wash clothes more often. Maybe the envelope had a plan.

In the meantime, the envelope slipped out of the pocket and the wind flipped it around a bit in the parking lot. As the wind subsided it landed near an impeccably spotless Buick Skylark, the kind of clean that a month-long wash embargoed pair of pants would not necessarily drive. It did one more flip and landed right behind the trunk. A spot of oil held it to the ground while it's now becoming previous owner walked past. The wind seemed to make a corner of the envelope flap one of it's corners in an unintended, and perhaps, ironic, farewell. As the envelope opened up, a couple lottery tickets slid part way out.

Within half an hour, the car owner rolled a cart over the envelope and stepped right on top of it and the tickets. The envelope stuck firmly to the sole of the sandal. After a couple foot shakes, a brightly manicured woman's hand reached down to pull the envelope off her shoe. Within a few minutes, it was picked up and tucked into a plastic bag and then a tote bag and put inside the immaculately clean car. 

Once inside, a little black nose pushed it's way into the tote bag and sneezed twice. Then that same little black nose pushed the envelope and the plastic bag down down down into the back seat area. The envelope was now in a clean location away from sweaty hands and smelly clothes. And thus the envelope and its valuable cargo were relocated.

Want more? Dig into a little background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis