Dispair and inaction

      Chips were falling from the table he had overturned, and he could have predicted which side they would land on, when they would fall, while he was dragged across half the room. Having bumped into a pillar with the back of his head, he will understand through intoxication that blood is flowing down his neck. He could have defended himself with haki: both from the pillar and from the shoe punch flying in his face. The punch was thrown by the brave security guy to make him finally pay off the debt has been sinking into with flying colours.       He can tell you which side up are all the fifty chips scattered on the floor. Of course, he could also tell you in advance what number to bet on to win those unfortunate few thousand. But he bet on the other on. The one next to the winning bet, so that the bitterness of losing would be as real as when players usually explode, beat the table with their fists and exclaim: “I almost got it” or “damn, it was close!”       Only there was no bitterness.       The ball simply jumped to the number that had been floating in the subconscious since the croupier had touched the table, his bet on the adjacent number safely went to cover the payouts, emptying his already empty pockets. The guards, who had been watching him for a long time from another corner of the hall, slowly began to move the crowd with their hands to get closer.       What did Rayleigh have to tell them?       “Go try me, you bastards, if you’re tired of thirty-two bones sticking out of your gums.”       No, this verbosity was typical of the captain. It should be more succinct and honest: “come and get it, bitch.”       Or in his old way of saying nothing.       But he said something else:       “Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don’t have much luck today, but I’ll make it up, I’ll make it up.”       The first time he was hit in the face, he knocked over the table, the chips rained down, and the next blow dragged him somewhere to the side. Now, leaning his head against a pillar, he watched as he was forced up by the collar of his shirt, then dragged somewhere in the direction of the administration offices, where the conversation in the language of fists would continue.       But Rayleigh won’t be participating. He will be listening, mostly. He will be paying attention. It doesn’t really matter if he ends up crawling on the floor — that’s the best-case scenario. But there have already been hundreds of such cases. They weren’t enough. When will this scenario shoot a bull’s-eye? When will the man in the suit, whose croupier he is losing to, stop listening to him and already do something to him? Rayleigh’s ready for anything. Anything rather than getting sober.       When the security guards are done beating his ribs, when the owner of the gambling joint finally pokes in his bruised face, yells something about money, about debt, about slavery, and splutters saliva, Rayleigh has nothing to say. He stands there, smiling.       “Why are you grinning?”       “What a life,” Rayleigh says, almost pleased. “Couldn’t have dreamt of that.”       Ths face expression must have imprinted on his face like an obelisk. No matter if beaten, squandered by life, completely artificially brought to the state of crawling on all fours and taking blows, no matter how hard you beat, no matter how much you torment, it will still hold the condescension of a man who knows all the truths of the world. It’s like an inscription in granite, you can’t do anything with it. That face caused Rayleigh a lot of trouble. This face could have been wiped off the face of the earth, rotted in a coffin, burned in a crematorium, but for this it was necessary to take one particularly serious step, and Geighly had no strength for serious steps. He had sworn to himself, long ago, completely and irrevocably, exactly one year after the captain’s arrest: from now on, he would relinquish all responsibility for any decisions he made. Fuck it. He didn’t care.       Then they prescribe another direct hit line on that very face, and Rayleigh wakes up in a puddle of slop in a dark alley. A tall woman is standing over him, smoking, holding an umbrella over his face. Rayleigh reaches up to her feet, kisses the ankle bone above the black leather elegant shoe, touches it with his hands, laughs.       “My darling.”       “How much this time?”       “No idea.”       “You liar.”       Rayleigh rolled onto his back, looking up at Shakky. She was standing with a cigarette, and the ash from the butt of the cigarette fell at her feet.       Put out your cigarette on me, honey, what else am I good for?       He remembers the chips perfectly. He knows math basics. As soon as he was sober enough, his mind would start “minding” against his will, putting things back in their proper places: the places where Rayleigh hadn’t wanted to see them in fifteen years.       “Three hundred and twenty-eight thousand six hundred and forty-three belli,” he reported and reached for her leg, just to run his hand over it.       “Not much this time,” Shakky says.       He could hear the disappointment in her voice. Not with the fact he’s lying in the slop, and the puddle is stained with blood from his face, but with the fact that he didn’t manage to loose at least a million. Shakky had taken his change for granted long ago. She said it once: you’re still the same, but in reverse. Whatever that means. Rayleigh didn’t want to investigate, didn’t want to think, and it would have been easier if this woman had finally left him and lost all respect for him.       “I was stopped early,” Rayleigh said in his defense. “And you paid him for the last time,” he said.       There was but a hint of dissatisfaction in his voice. If Shakky hadn’t paid off his debts from time to time, his life would have done something to him by now, except for the decrepit fists of these clueless people who call themselves punching boys. Children’s babble. But when it comes to slavery. Slavery can be fun. Nothing is expected of a slave, no one is interested in them, and the cruelty of the slave owners, they say, knows no bounds.       “No idea what you’re talking about,” Shakky snapped.       Fine, maybe it’s not about respect. This woman never respected him, never made any expectations, she just watched him. Perhaps that’s why when he’s downcast, battered, and showing the worthlessness of his existence by writhing like a snake at her feet, she doesn’t care. He doesn’t break her expectations. That’s why he can’t get rid of her. That’s why she took his declared war on his pride for granted and watched the outcome of its episodes. Rayleigh fought hard and very seriously, but this was a battle he lost badly, miserably, and mediocre.       The stub is no longer suitable for continuing tobacco inhalation, and she lowers it in her hand. She squats down on her heels, holding the umbrella between her neck and ear, brushes Rayleigh’s hair out of his face, looks at the spreading hematoma, the blood from his nose, the split eyebrow, and checks for teeth with her thin fingers. Rayleigh reaches for her hand — where there’s still hope of being an ashtray, and she follows his direction with her black eyes, stubbing out her cigarette in the puddle.       “Your cruelty is boundless.”       “Get up. "       “I was determined to spend the night here.”       “As you wish.”       Rayleigh closes his eyes and pulls his hand away from her ankle, letting her step out of the alley and expecting to expose his face to the large, cold drops that are now hitting the umbrella. But the rain still doesn’t want to fall on his skin, burning from the steaming intoxication, and all he can hear is the click of her lighter again.