Remedy Z: Solo (30 page)

The truck managed the hill climb quite well, despite being half full of gear from the holiday park. The heavy-lifting vehicle was good, an easy one to drive and use, and I was happy to have had it. I pulled up to Samsonov’s property; an old white house on the side of a hill, surrounded by clear land and some trees. It was as I had recalled it from the loose memory I had of driving through that part of town many years before the Great Change.

I undid the old white-painted gate and drove in, leaving the portal open in case I needed a quick getaway. I knew the Doc’s people were onto me and if the Mouse was anything to go by, they were willing to shoot and ask questions later. I needed to shoot first, shoot bigger rounds and shoot well. Samsonov’s house was a vital objective in attaining the necessary firepower to achieve that plan. And I was there but with quite a Calvary yet to climb.

The road and my thoughts had me there in moments. At first glance, Samsonov’s home was colourless and isolated. It was perched on the side of that hill, all alone and on the windy side. On closer inspection, the white house of Federation-era vintage was meticulously maintained and had been modernised within the keeping of the original style. “Not quite what I was expecting of Samsonov,” I thought to myself as I got closer. I would find that looks were deceiving and the legend of Samsonov was not quite what people in the region had made it. The house was somewhat of a metaphor for the man himself, as I would find.

Made of weatherboard and painted a white with Federation Red trimmings, the home was lovely and in great condition given the circumstances. It was as though someone had done it up after the Great Change. It had charming little features like a whirligig, a stone chimney (likely an original) and rosettes below the gables. Samsonov must have maintained the original façade and the works were recent enough to have been within 5 years. “Hardly the behaviours of an impulsive trigger-happy nutter,” I thought to myself as I parked the truck out the front and slowly crept from the cabin, readying my rifle.

I was weary, feeling ill and still bleeding after the Alamo in Tantangara. That white house looked like a place of salvation, reminded me of Sacré Cœur. After a stalk and reconnoitre of the 180-degree arc at the front of house, I decided there were no obvious snipers or belligerents. Samsonov was nowhere to be seen but everywhere in the magnificent home he had left behind.

The nausea and feeling of shock reminded me I needed to get in and seek shelter. I needed a short-term harbour and haven to weather the storm: I knew a storm was coming my way. 

The destruction of the Doc’s squads and making Maeve look like a fool (not that hard), would all come at a price. “The sooner I get inside and get armed to the teeth, the better,” I surmised.

I checked under the doormat for a key and found nothing. I scouted long-dead pot-plants, nothing. The pot-plants and keys took me back to a memory from long before the Great Change. I remembered being a boy, coming home from school and retrieving my spare key from such a hiding place. 

I had been teased and bullied for being a little overweight during one period in school. There were larger kids and I wasn’t truly that rotund but the name Jelly Jesse was too good to pass up. In fact the ringleader of the teasing was fatter than I was. The older boys in sixth grade were really into me one day and I had run away from school early to come home. The day was as miserable as I was; rainy, noisy day and thundering. I arrived on my doorstep, keen to get inside with the thunder, winds and rain on me; the physical and metaphoric. I knew where the key was hidden, in the pot-plant and I was about to let myself in when one of the thugs from the older year had turned up. He and some of his cronies had followed me home. They had the ringleader’s dead-shit brother (a trade apprentice) and his friends, aged 18 with them too. The apprentice was at home with a couple of his mates given to bad weather closing their construction site. When they heard there was a chance to humiliate and exploit someone, they didn’t waste a moment. 

What happened next was over the top but it taught me a lesson: people would kick you when you were down. This incident and others like it had taught me to be self-reliant, resilient and nobody’s fool. As I retrieved the key on my front porch, I remember being shocked, dazed and unsure as to what had happened, much like at the Alamo.  

One of the older boys had come up, and with utter cowardice, had kicked me in the head from behind with a steel-capped boot. With the thunder and rain beating down on the metal roof of my house, I hadn’t heard them come up. I was just a kid trying to get in out of the weather and take a break from hostilities. I would not be afforded the shelter or dignity of such an experience. Sometimes you have to stand and fight and that’s what I did.

I had been cornered and had no choice but to fight or die. I turned around, on my arse and saw four leering faces taking great delight in my misery and injury. I felt worthless, ashamed and humiliated; a low point in life. They were clearly of the opinion that I wouldn’t fight back and they could have some sport, sadistic fun, at my expense. Nevertheless, I got up and faced the taunts, spit and humiliation and fought back. I pushed one of the apprentices off my porch and punched the little shit that had followed. The strike had hit him right in his fat gob. A punch came at me and I blocked it with a good boxing guard courtesy of my granddad’s teaching. Spit, more punches and taunts and obscenities flew, but they backed off a little and called me a “psycho” for my violent response to their actions. To them, fuck them, I was crazy. But, hypocritically, those cowards setting upon me was clearly fine in their view of things. “Such self-righteousness,” I recalled. 

The whole situation was an excessive and obscene example of how people think they can get away with things when no-one matters or they perceive no-one matters. I was watching them to see if another violent assault would come my way while fumbling with the key and instinctively putting the key in the lock by feel. The key went into my father’s belt buckle. The wind and rain and thunder had distracted us all; no-one had noticed the car in the driveway. My dad was working from home. 

Standing there like the God of Thunder himself, my father looked at me and then at my adversaries. His lone ten year-old son stood against four boys, all older. It touched a sore spot in him as he had said he had been bullied as a boy. He was a gentlemen and scholar in every way but he did swear from time to time and had trained in too many martial styles over many years to be a soft in this situation.

This time he said simply: “I will fucking have you!” and pointed at them with purpose. To my surprise and that of my father, the three dead-shits underestimated him and attacked. This was a further disrespect that would be dealt with savagely. They saw him in a shirt and pants and thought he was some weak, limp-wristed desk jockey. This was despite his obviously strong, fit appearance. Generalisations are fraught with danger, as they say.

The youths came forward and fronted on him with terrible boxing styles, bouncing around like idiots. They were the sort of fuckwits that were the toughest kids at a barbecue when bullying younger kids. These bullies were malingerers and cowards when the chips were really down.

My father was certainly no equal of theirs. He was way beyond their collective imaginations. Unafraid, dad welcomed the opportunity for justice. He bellowed: “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You come to my home, attack my son and now you attack me? Show some respect- how dare you!” His face said it all; he was red, fiery and going to war like Thor with his hammer. 

And it was on. As the melee erupted in front of me, I turned from miserable to happy. I mattered, dad proved I had mattered. I smiled with pride as my father laid out three strapping apprentices with extreme force. As they lay on their backs in pain, tasting their own broken teeth and blood, my father spoke. He said “If I ever see you near my home or son again, I will fucking kill you. “One of them then had the audacity to say “Are you threatening me?” Again, the line was crossed and a proud, good man had to set things right.

My father kicked him in the balls before the sadist could get up and said “Why yes sunshine, I am. In fact, that’s a promise. Now get out of here before I put you in hospital or in the ground.” They had been savagely humiliated and put in their place; they were nothing by their own hands.

As they gathered themselves up and fled like whippets, with their tails between their legs, I stared at the kid who had started all this nonsense; fear and humiliation were in his eyes now. I learned that it doesn’t pay to dehumanise people on that day. They crossed a line into a world of total disrespect and I decided, in that moment, that I would redouble all efforts to treat others with dignity. That was, until such a time where someone proved they didn’t deserve it like those fuckers. Then it would be “no mercy.”

My father had done a number on them and they more than deserved it. It was a good life lesson for me. After the trouble was over, my father checked me over, smiled at me, gave me a big hug and said he was proud of me. He told me to be better than those morons, better in every way. “Be smarter, be stronger, be tougher, be a survivor and most of all, be brave. Just when you think you will give up, with anything in life, push yourself further and it will make all the difference”. Those wise words, the pride and the love of my father, stayed with me. He helped shape me into the man, the warrior and the survivor I had become. 

I never saw those boys again. Word got around that “Jelly Jesse” was a “Psycho Stadler” and I was feared and respected for my humble efforts against those dickheads. They had underestimated me and my father. In fact, that incident had brought me the confidence to get into mixed martial arts in a big way. I wanted to be like my father. I smiled and shed a tear for that memory as I found a key to Samsonov’s House in the pot plant. “Thanks Dad,” I said aloud, smiling through the emotions. “I wish you were here.”

With key in hand, I glanced around to make sure no-one would ever catch me out on a doorstep again; clear. I called out a “hello”, cautiously and, without an answer, respectfully wiped my feet before I went in. I would respect Samsonov’s home like I hope others would respect mine. People may have disrespected and created rumours about this guy; I realised I needed to draw my own conclusions.

The front-door opened up to reveal a home with a warmth and comfort I found surprising. This home was stately in its décor and furnishings. This house was not what I was expecting from some reputed Russian hit-man or killer. There was fresh wood panelling and stone walls like a cross between a 1920s hotel and an exclusive ski-lodge. Trust me, it worked. It was precise timber panelling and tiling; true artisanship that had become impossible to find on the open market. Samsonov had done the work himself, by hand and with hand tools. There was a grandfather clock, black and white marble tiles on the floor. With a French-styled table, sporting curved leonine legs, there was an amazing vase of crystal, shaped in a large, elegant shape that was reminiscent of a pinecone or multi-layered flower. The crystal was of an extremely high-quality; the light projected through it with both a prismatic rainbow and a yellow and orange glow. Despite the long-dead flowers in the vase, I could see that the home had once had a woman’s touch. I wasn’t expecting that.

What was interesting was the mix of Federation to 1920s furnishings mixed with European and a distinctly Russian influence. The tiled floor had a Caucasian rug leading from the foyer into another room toward the back of the house. The wall also sported such a carpet; ornate and decorative. It was, in my humble opinion, an original piece of some Russian or Cossack design. It had lots of lively colour but the giveaway were the little windows with warriors on horseback with carbine rifles, curved swords, tall black fur hats and long moustaches. I looked at the stern but proud faces of the warriors depicted on the carpet and concluded this was an equally proud home. 

I felt a warm glow that was both physical and mental; light came in from a skylight and a warm glow emanated from the vase, carefully placed in its designated position to catch the light and do magic with it. The room did feel warm as well and I would later learn why.

The foyer made way for a staircase leading upstairs and a corridor back to what appeared to be a kitchen and meals area. There was also a door to the right, into what I guess would be a living area. “Hello?” I called again. There was a pause without a response.

“I mean you no harm and just want to trade,” I confirmed my intentions with a calm and even voice. There was no answer as I walked cautiously into that home and saw unexpected pictures everywhere on the staircase. I was cautious to keep scanning around me for danger while I took a glimpse into Samsonov’s world; a pictorial history of his life.

There were photos of a young special forces soldier in what I thought must have been Afghanistan in the 1980s. He had photos of himself in other military theatres and a host of pictures of him being decorated in medals. There was a photo of a little girl and a young woman that I surmised must have been his wife and daughter; he was happy. He had made a chronology of his life, from left to right up the stairs. 

The next event was clearly a funeral and with that, the photos didn’t feature his wife anymore. His broad smile and youth were gone. There were more military honours, including one of him being decorated by a blonde-haired, very tough former Russian President. As the photos progressed, his daughter seemed to grow up and she looked to be an athlete of some sort. He still had a smile of pride in the photos but I could tell he was a man with a broken heart; I knew that feeling.

Like her dad, Samsonov’s daughter was highly decorated, but not for war. She had competed in an Olympic games and took a number of honours there. The photos then featured another Olympian, an Aussie, without any medals. This young man did have a prize though; Samsonov’s daughter and he smiled with the same beaming expression Samsonov himself had once had. Further photos of a wedding in Australia (gum trees seen in the back-drop) and the birth of a little girl made it all clear. Samsonov’s broad smile was back but his youth and fighting days had well and truly marched on.