Page 11 of Genesis

I frown, looking down at my food. I should have lied. “Yes, ma’am,” I say.

“Good. Now finish your dinner. It’s your turn to do the dishes.”

I groan inwardly but continue to eat. Ma’s hair is transforming from brown to gray, and the skin around her eyes is wrinkling more each day. We lived a few streets over from Ma and Pa when my parents were alive, but they never came to visit, so my brothers and I would walk to visit them. Pa didn’t like our dad. Paul says he didn’t want Mom to marry him.

Supposedly, Dad was a bad man, but what’s a bad man? He made money; he provided for his family. So what, he didn’t go to a nine-to-five job every day? He got his hands a little dirty, and to me that was okay. I was a cactus around our dad and retained the advice he used to give me like water.

“Just because you want to live a different way than the rest doesn’t mean you’re the bad person. Maybe the motherfucker sitting at his desk job getting blowed by his receptionist before he goes home to the wifey is the bad person. I feel sorry for blokes like that. They’re stuck.”

I’d sit on the floor in his office when I was just a little kid and play with toy cars. Dad had business guys come in and they’d talk about whatever it was they had going on. I heard things likebookieandshylock. I didn’t know what those words meant, but I was pretty sure my dad was a bookie.

The guys called him “Pen” I’m assuming ’cause he always had a pen and notebooks in front of him. He always had the TV on sports and the phones were always ringing. Our house was busy, and it was always the same people moving in and out.

Our dad was the coolest. I looked up to him. He made his way of living seem fun. Who the hell wants to slide into a pair of slacks every day to go to a dead-end job that’ll only get you so much in life?

Our parents’ death was hard to handle. I still can’t shake Mom’s eyes while those men climbed on top of her. But it’s not fear I felt. It was rage. I was hiding in the closet, and Paul and Samuel snuck out the window, leaving me to witness our parents’ death.

Dad came home late from work and caught them. He fought hard, but in the end a bullet won. Both of their souls were taken right before my eyes. I knew right then my life would forever be changed and not because I no longer had parents, but in a different way.

I saw evil up close and it slithered its way past the hinges that held up the door I was hiding behind. It crawled––a cloud as black as charcoal under the gap I was looking out of with my cheek pressed against the dusty floor.

I felt it when it wrapped around my veins, snaking and fusing itself to me. That was the first time I had the urge to kill. And while it should have been a traumatic moment for a little kid, to me it was a lesson.

Don’t be the losing guy.

I don’t know why my parents were murdered, but right after it happened, I found myself outside in the yard surround by cops, being questioned about what I saw. I was like a deer in the headlights, standing there with blood on my hands and a shake in my bones that wouldn’t go away.

I wasn’t talking to them. I was staring at my brothers who were sitting on the steps, looking just like me, and then a car drove up and a man got out. He walked into the yard like he owned the place.

The cop that was talking to me stopped and went to him. Some words I couldn’t hear were exchanged. The cop looked back at me, and then he walked away from the guy in the suit. I was then approached.

“You’re Pen’s boy, right?”

I nodded.

“You know what the men who did this looked like?”

I nodded again.

“Don’t talk to these cops. We take care of our own around here. Once they all leave, you come down to where I’m located. You know the place?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Meet me down there.”

I did as the man asked, and after some weeks had passed, while sitting on the couch one evening, I saw on the news that a family was murdered. The man of the family? The same man who took my parents’ life.

A few days later, while leaving the corner store with a Coke and a candy bar, I was approached again by this man.

“Listen, kid. I had respect for your old man. He was a good guy. Loyal. And your mom was a good woman. Rest your head knowing their death was avenged.”

And it was then I knew. He took care of the people who killed my family. He then pulled out a card from his black suit jacket. “You ever need anything, you give Moretti a call.”

I took the card and he ruffled my hair before walking off. I watched as he strolled away and the two men with him followed like loyal dogs. I looked after them with a certain wonder until they all got into a car and sped off. I got the idea that this Moretti dude was in charge and the guys with him had his back. I remember wanting that.

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