Forever Lies

29

14 Luca The first chance he had, my father walked away from us. There was something broken inside of him that made him weak. Made him incapable of understanding the concept of loyalty. Loyalty to his wife. Loyalty to his children. When times got hard, he turned his back on us for an easier path. A man who grasps loyalty and honor, not just the ability to recite the definition, but someone who truly understands the concepts, that man could never abandon his family. That was the conclusion I’d come to over the years when I’d wracked my brain, trying to figure out how my father could have left. From what I could recall of him, he was a decent father, aside from his tendency to bail at the slightest struggle. He would take me to get ice cream and taught me how to shoot dice, but there were also plenty of times he wasn’t around. I could only assume he’d been a s**t husband. I was only five when he left, which meant I wasn’t privy to the details of my parents’ marriage, but I would never forget the screaming fights he’d have with my mother. Their relationship must have been rough; there were countless nights I’d wake to the crash of glass breaking or my mother’s raised voice chewing him out for coming home late. One Friday night, he never came home. I worried endlessly about my father for the first few months, wondering if something awful had happened to him. My mother tried to reassure me he was fine, but I never could believe her. Not until I happened to see him walking into a restaurant years later with a woman on his arm did I accept he’d chosen a different life over us. My dad walking out had been tough, but it meant no more late-night fights, and Ari and I still had Ma. The woman had been a saint—not the Mother Theresa type—she was too tough to be that angelic. My mother devoted her life to raising us kids. She kept a roof over our heads and food on our plates, but more than that, she taught us respect and self-discipline. Ma never let us get away with anything, but she was also our greatest ally. She was our rock. Never in my teenage brain could I have comprehended how quickly she’d be taken from us. When I found my mother’s lifeless body on the sidewalk, a part of me died there with her. I crossed the bridge to manhood that day, but it wasn’t to become the man she’d been raising. I became something else. Something my mother had worked long and hard to eradicate from inside me. She might have been disappointed, but I was glad. The man I’d become had enabled me to arrive at this single moment in time. Months of discretely asking questions, getting myself into unsavory places, and talking to dangerous people—all to get answers. Those answers had led me to a small rundown house in Jersey City. Led me to vengeance. It turned out my mother had been killed by a gangbanger upset at a rival for allegedly hitting on his woman. A petty argument over a girl who probably spread her legs for money had cost my mother her life. I couldn’t allow the crime to go unpunished. I had tracked down the asshole responsible, learned everything I could about him, and now, I was there to dole out justice. I had wondered how I’d feel in this moment and was pleasantly surprised to find myself steady and determined as ever. I didn’t think I’d turn chicken s**t, but I had my father’s blood in my veins, so there was always a chance. I acquired a gun from a local pawn shop and had immediately taken it to a range to begin familiarizing myself with the weapon. I wasn’t about to run headlong into a situation that would get me killed or locked away. Ari was counting on me to take care of her. I was the only family she had left, and I had no intention of leaving her alone in the world. I watched the house for hours as I’d done on a number of other occasions. I watched as my target came home in his shitty grey Buick LeSabre, nearly lost his sagging pants as he exited the car, then walked inside the unlocked house. I wasn’t sure if he thought there was nothing worth stealing inside or if he was so confident in his badass reputation, he assumed no one would intrude on his space, but he was in for the surprise of his life. I waited until almost midnight. The lights were still on in the house, but the street had gone quiet, and my nerves were cool steel. I double-checked my weapon, taking the safety off and making certain the chamber was loaded, then stepped from the deep shadows and walked directly to the front door. As suspected, the door was unlocked. I helped myself inside and found the worthless gangbanger asleep on the couch with the television blaring, a bag of chips resting on his chest. Not wanting to take anything for granted, I silently maneuvered through the small house and checked for any other occupants. Once I had verified he was alone, I walked to the couch, pointed the gun at him, and kicked his foot to wake him up. He startled awake but quickly froze when his eyes landed on my gun, held perfectly steady in my firm grip. “Who are you, man?” His eyes darted around the room, searching for an answer. “To you, I’m nobody, just another man on the street.” “Then why you holdin’ a gun in my face?” he spat back, displaying forced bravado. “Because you don’t deserve to live. I’ve been watching you, Jacob Martinez, or should I call you Squeeze?” Night after night, I’d followed Squeeze to seedy bars and dark street corners where he did his business— sold drugs and pimped out girls, some that looked no older than Ari. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t possessed a single redeeming quality. Droplets of sweat beaded on his brow as Squeeze began to grasp the intensity in my gaze. “Yo, man, what d’you want? I got money, man, just put the gun down.” “Money’s not going to fix this, Squeeze. I want something you can’t possibly give me.” “Then what? You just gonna kill me?” “Yes.” The night air rang out with a satisfying blast as a bullet buried itself deep into Squeeze’s skull. Blood and brain matter splattered all over the sofa and nearby wall, just like my mother’s had pooled on the cold winter sidewalk. His life for hers. It wasn’t a fair trade, but it would have to do. I took one more casual glance around the room, stuffed the gun in the back of my pants, and left the scene just as easily as I’d arrived. This time, I left from the back of the house, sticking to the shadows as I rounded to the front and made my way to the moonlit sidewalk.