This is an excerpt from my novel What the Hell Ever Happened to Yuri Rozhenko? This work is the sequel to my novel Crash Shadow: A Tale of Two Addicts.

    In this excerpt, Skye finishes off her semester in the face of a major life change, and decides to waste some time in a crusty cafe’. This piece is an important crux of the story as a whole.

     Skye walked over to the Soup Cafe’, an anarchist cafe’ on a side street near downtown Oakland. Skye had just completed her last final at Laney College. The semester was now officially over.
     The Soup Cafe’ was in the basement of a somewhat disheveled house where a lot of musicians and punks lived. It wasn’t a legal cafe’ as it didn’t have a business license of any kind, but it still charged for coffee, beer, and vegan pastries. The cafe’ was named after the sleek black cat that slept in and zoomed around the cafe’. If anyone asked, Soup was the owner and manager of the cafe’, along with the big tabby cat Bashir, who the workers there insisted was the assistant manager.
     The interior was busy, yet interesting. No two chairs were alike, populated with seatery from plastic chairs to old wooden chairs to upholstered diner chairs and second-hand easy chairs, plus a few old yet comfortable couches as well as various second hand bar stools. Somehow all of their tables, asides from a few coffee tables that were in front of the couches, were all the same plain and square dark wood cafe’ tables, theoretically gathered at the same time. Skye assumed they had ground scored most of their furniture, and possibly obtained other pieces through less than honorable means.
     The walls were absolutely caked in graffiti and flyers. Virtually all of the flyers were for shows and political events, but if you looked around you could find various other notices, such as lost pet posters, offerings of poetry, and ads for alternative medicinal services.
     Skye used to frequent the Soup Cafe’ much more often, at least when she was younger. The cafe’ embodied the kind of scene that was both attractive and repelling.
     Overall the Soup Cafe’ was too much of a distraction for Skye. She knew if she went often enough during the semester she wouldn’t get as much homework done, and she would get distracted by too many invites to shows and events and God knows what else. The last thing she needed was some suave crusty talking her into a Marin County weekend outing to a show and vegan cooking class when she had essays to write and assignments to complete.
     But now that was all by the wayside.
     There were only a few crusties and neo-hippies in the cafe’ when she sauntered in. It was late in the morning and creeping towards noon. Old Eighties British dub was thumping quietly in the background. There were a lot more show and protest flyers than usual, and some of the tables had accumulated a lot more graffiti and scuff marks since she had last been there.
     She ordered a latte’ and found a corner table where she could read her Kim Acrylic book. That’s when a weaving bob of ratty bleached blond hair started moving towards her. She braced herself for an activist diatribe or a plea to attend some random punk show.
     “Hey Skye.”
     She was quite surprised to hear her name. Looking up, it was the gutter punk Shake, holding a pint glass of coffee like a scepter.
     “What up Shake?” said Skye as Shake sat down at her table.
     “Where the hell have you been? I ain’t seen you in a long time.”
     “Workin’ and goin’ to school.”
     “School? What, like art school?”
     “Naw. Community college.”
     “Fuckin’ a’.”
     “Hopin’ to get to a four year.”
     Shake shifted around in her seat. “Four year what?”
     “College.”
     “Oh yeah, brainwashing academy.”
     “Sure.”
     Shake leaned over her coffee. “So you really been jus’ doin’ the grind?”
     “Yup. I only been to a couple a’ shows all year. An’ I haven’t been to much a’ anything else. No parties, no get togethers really, except maybe a couple of times when my roommates had people over, and that was usually for stuff like a few beers and a movie.”
     “Damn. I can’t imagine doing that. I think I’d go crazy if I couldn’t make it to at least a few shows a month.”
     Skye leaned back in her chair. “You don’ ever feel like cuttin’ back?”
     Shake shrugged. “I”m doin’ what I wanna do. Sometimes I jus’ take a weekend to glop around.”
     “I usually run into you at shows.”
     Shake sat up. “Or places like this. Be careful. The manager is around here somewhere and I think she feels like attacking something.”
     “Right. Doesn’t Jess own that cat? It’s attacked my feet before.”
     “Jess is the kinda person who asks the important questions. Like, why is it the Hulk always rips out of his shirt when he gets big, but his pants don’t come off?”
     “Hm.”
     “And why doesn’t She-Hulk’s shirt come apart? Her shirt always stays on.”
     “Because boobs.”
     “Hulk shows off his rack. How come we don’t get to see giant green boobs?”
     Skye leaned back in her seat. “If you really want to see She-Hulk’s rack you could always draw them yourself.”
     “So why you hangin’ in here if you gots school work to do?”
     Skye didn’t answer for a moment.
     “Aint’cha’ got homework?” asked Shake.
     “It don’ matter no more.”
     “What?”
     “Dry Heave is shuttin’ down. I ain’t gonna have a job no more.”
     “Fuck. That sucks! I love that record store.”
     “Yeah. I could probably do a semester or two with the money I have saved up, but it’s gonna disappear unless I get more part time work.”
     “Did ya’ see that show the other day?”
     Skye knew she was changing the subject. “What show?”
     “Bat Feld and the Queen haters.”
     “Never heard of em’.”
     “Yeah you have.”
     “No I haven’t,” said Skye as she watched Soup the cat slink around the other side of the cafe’. “That doesn’t even sound like a real band.”
     Shake leaned back in her chair. “What, you think I made it up?”
     “I dunno. Sounds like you did.”
     “I first heard about em’ when Yuri introduce me to Large.”
     Skye sat up. “Yuri? When did you talk to Yuri?”
     “What?”
     “You mean my Yuri, right? My ex?”
     “A’ course your ex. This ain’t Moscow. They ain’t exactly a lotta Yuris runnin’ aroun’ here.”
     “When did you last see him?”
     “Right before he moved back to Portland, to stay at his ma’s house.”
     Skye lurched forward. Shake actually started.
     “When? When did you last see Yuri?”
     Shake sat up. “Like, maybe it was about a couple a years ago, I think.”
     “You think?”
     “Maybe a year. Why? He owe you money?”
     Skye sat back. “I almost tracked that fucker down, when I found out about his place in Berkeley, years ago.”
     “Yeah?”
     “I missed him by just a few days. I really wanted to find him.”
     “He must owe you a lot of money then.”
     “He don’t owe me jack.”
     “Then why you want to find him so bad?”
     Skye leaned onto the table. “You ever have the one that got away?”
     “Y’mean fish tacos?”
     “I mean partners!” bellowed Skye.
     “What? Boyfriends? Fuck, I never grabbed a got away in the first place.”
     “You’re the second person to mention him this week. I hadn’t thought about him for awhile. Now…”
     “I know about those whodunnits. I gots plenty a’ people I wonder about. Like what happened to Moto G and Screws the gutter punk. Thems people jus’ uped and disappeared.”
     “Hell yeah, I know plenty a’ people who dropped out.”
     “Most of em’ are in twelve step, that’s why we don’ see em’ no more, because we still get lushed out.” Shake looked Skye in the eye. “You still lush out, dont’cha’? If you’re a college student?”
     “Not so much anymore. I mean, I still drink, but I ain’t tied one on in awhile.”
     Shake leaned forward in her chair as if she didn’t know what to say anymore.
     Skye looked around the cafe’. Even though she had not been there in some time she still recognized every detail, even the things that hadn’t been there before.
     She felt heavy.
     She wanted to run.