Homework Ona Korpiranta Feb 25 2009
Play: Chicago
Character: Liz
My name is Elizabeth “Liz” Kadushka. I’m sitting in jail for my boyfriend’s murder, waiting for the jury to decide my destiny. This is my story.
I was born in Moscow, Russia, to a very wealthy orthodox family. I was the second child. I had a bigger brother named Boris. In his leisure time Boris used to go hunting birds with his shotgun. I can remember how he held the gun on his shoulder and "BANG", one bird down. Boris always looked after me when I was little. I lived all of my childhood with Boris, my mother and my father, who happened to work in a bank. My father was called Frankie, and he is where I get my temper from. My mother, Elena, also had a full time job as a dentist. She was an amazing baker. My favourite was Russian breadpudding with apricose and chocolate. My favourite color has been orange since the first time I ate her pudding but I have never wore anything orange. I love to wear dark purple and black. My mom named me Volga, but I changed it afterwards.
It was a very happy family but then I turned 12 and everything changed. My father got in to trouble with the Russian Mafia. We all four were hiding for several weeks, for nothing. They found us and slaughtered my father and Boris in front of me. I remember two fat guys beating my father and brother with hammers until there was only one big pile of mashed flesh,.fat, bones and blood . My mother almost got away but they caught her and her took away, only god knows where. I never saw her again. The only thing I have left of my family is Boris' shotgun.
They left me on the street alone, crying. Nice old man found me and helped me to the police. I was transferred to USA, Washington DC to live with my aunt, Carmen Romanov. She was always busy but she did have time to teach me all the feminine things I needed to know. She was a big friend of meat and tought me how to make all sorts of meatdishes. So, I learned how to take care of myself and I became very independent and tough.
Few years went by and I got in to high school. I wasnÂ’t interested in studying at all. I wanted to be a star! I donÂ’t know if it was the lack of the parental care or what, but I was never satisfied without a boyfriend. During high school I had a lot of boyfriends but only one true girl friend. Her name was Lourditas and she was the one who introduced me to jazz which became my favourite music.We both shared the same dream to be a jazz singer and a dancer.
It never came true for her. She got into a car accident and got her both legs amputated on our junior year. She also got transferred to a handicap school in the opposite coast. I got really depressed because I wasnÂ’t able to see her anymore. I gave up my dream.
I got over it eventually but by then I had become coldhearted very tough young woman. I had also lost my faith in God. I started looking for comfort at weekends in hardcore parties which included drugs. And that was when I met Ethan.
He was a bartender who lived in Chicago, five years older than me. He told me he was single and we hit it off right away. He told me that if I’d go with him, he would make me a star. Then I thought “WOW”, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago. That was one of the most important decisions in my life and I made the wrong choice.
So, ‘I dropped out from high school, left my aunt, after all the warnings she gave me and moved to Chicago with my brother's shotgun and one bag of clothes. Then I also changed my first name from Volga to Elizabeth, because I wanted to have an international name. I fell in love with Ethan and we got engaged few months after. It was a year after when Ethan and I had saved enough money to start our own business. It was a small jazz club and we named it “5 Star Butterfly”. It wasn’t a great success but it paid for our 1 bedroom flat rent. I placed the shotgun on the wall of our living room, but never touched it.
Ethan used to host the nights and made sure everyone had something to drink, and I did the dancing. I also wanted to sing and I tried hard but I was lousy. We had a show every night and usually after that we had an “afterparty”, so we got to bed at about the next noon, after every night. After a while I was almost like a professional show-dancer, specialized in showing off my body on the dance floor. More and more people came in every night to watch me and other dancers on stage.
First it was so much fun and I loved it, but then I realized that itÂ’s not a career and I wasnÂ’t making any progress. WeÂ’d got ourselves wasted after every show. After a year I got already sick of it.
I got so frustrated that things started to go bad for me. I lost my interest in everything I ever wanted to do. I was always in the bad mood and did drugs every day. ThatÂ’s probably why Ethan and I never got married. We broke up exactly two years from the day we had met. He moved out but I still worked for him. I pretty much got myself together, although the anger inside me never went away.
I met Bernie three months after Ethan moved out. Bernie moved in within the next week. Bernie didnÂ’t have a job and he was just another way to comfort myself. I still worked at EthanÂ’s jazz-club all night long every single day and I was more tired of it than ever before. I missed those days of my childhood in Moscow. I would never cry though, even after the toughest nights I didnÂ’t cry.
I was so sick of Bernie too. You know how people have these little habits that get you down. Like Bernie. Bernie like to chew gum. No, not chew. POP. So I came home this one day, after a really tough night at work and a huge fight with Ethan, my boss. So I am really irritated, and I'm looking for a bit of sympathy and there's Bernie layin' on the couch, drinkin' a beer and chewin'. No, not chewin'. Poppin'. So, I said to him, I said, "you pop that gum one more time..." and he did. It was not about the popping anymore but how he didn't obey my word. That irritated me the most. I have always wanted to have control over everything and now I could by just killing him. So I took the shotgun off the wall and I fired two warning shots... ...into his head. I wouldn't have the guts to do it if I hadn't seen my loved ones killed before. Those two "BANG"s let out all of my anger and sadness towards Ethan, Russian mafia and myself . This was the first time for me to ever pull the trigger of that gun, but I do not regret it.
It was his own fault and he only had himself to blame. If you had seen it, I bet that you would have done the same.
Animal: Lynx
Because felines are independent, often dangerous and short-tempered. Lynxs are also separated from their mother quite young.
They might look cute but are ruthless carnivores. "Meow"