The World Under

The name is Paul (Part 3)

***

Outside, an ash Chevrolet sedan pulled up opposite the building with the screech of tires. The driver, a man of average height and compact build jumped out from behind the wheel into the cold, winter night, looking sideways across the street at the onrush of oncoming cars before crossing the street in hurried strides.

For the black man dressed in wide-cut khaki pants and shirt walking snappily toward the snow-covered front porch of the detached house, today had been such a horrible nightmare. So much that he wished he hadn’t woken up today. So much that he regretted having flown from London and landing in JFK earlier to observe his family's New Year’s get-together rite. So much that he hoped all that has happened so far today was nothing but a dream, one he could easily shake off with the blink of an eye.

Just within the last twenty-four hours, his world had been torn into, and everything had been taken from him. Since daybreak, almost every member of his family had been sporadically wiped off the face of the earth.

The strange cataclysm had begun with the death of his brother, Cobi, who was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in an underground platform in Camden County, New Jersey in the early hours of today.

And had continued with him shortly after his arrival in the States in a drive-by shooting carried out on Long Island, Queens, New York City. He had been shot at three times from a minivan while coming out of a convenience store on 49th street and had close-shavely escaped the bullets, which have missed him only by inches and lodged into windows nearby.

Lucky enough for him, he had come out alive from the situation, but not without a scratch as he had suffered a minor wound from a bullet that has slightly grazed his arm.

Being someone who believed so little in luck, it had taken lying down there on the cold pavement with a runnel of blood thinning out from his wounded arm and scrambling back on his own feet after the shooting, for him to believe that a force greater than himself had intervened then and saved his ass.

Snapping out of the shock brought on by the incident, he had made a wild dash for his car parked some few paces away from the store’s front, fleeing the scene in his car, and breaking several driving rules on his way to his parents.

Getting caught by the police for exceeding the speed limit, or being fined? That had been the least of his problems then.

The vicious cycle hadn’t ended there alone. Much to his astonishment, it had continued at his parents’ Georgian home sprawled across two acres on the southeastern portion of Forest Hills, Queens. There, he had found both his parents and younger brother dead, and swimming in the pool of their own blood after his narrow escape from the jaws of death.

Standing there in the midst of the shambles, body shaking convulsively with tears, it had occurred to him then, that there were none of his father’s men in sight. This more than anything had him troubled the most.

My father had been sold out by one of his own, he had realized there on the spot with smarting pain in his heart, identifying at once the strange pattern to the rather unusual occurrences of the last twenty-four hours.

It was no hard thing figuring that out for him since he was raised and mentored with the right knowledge to lead the treacherous microcosm of the underworld. Even though he had chosen a path, world apart from his father’s in adulthood, he can damn well tell this was a rub out carried out by the mob.

No witnesses. No survivors. Just the mob’s typical calling card!

But, by who amongst his men? He later wondered, searching for a possible name or face to put behind the whole thing in his mind.

It was while he was standing there listless and rooted to the spot in deep thought and shock that the image of his sister; Angelina, who very much overlaps with him in strong will and spirit, and whom he hadn’t seen face-to-face in the past three years flashed in his mind. And even much later, before it finally occurred to him that she might as well be in danger since she was family.

Driven by the urge to save the very last member of his family, he had snapped out of the daze and headed straight for his sister’s home in Brooklyn, which was just on the other end of Queens.

Now, drumming his fingers impatiently against the door, which leads to his sister’s detached home after several unanswered raps, the man in Khaki placed his ear against the shimmery walnut door and listened for any sound from within the building.

Hearing the sound of a TV playing from within the house, and afraid the worst might have happened already, he tossed an anxious look over his shoulders and gave the door a solid shoulder-shove and kick.

The door refused to budge at his first few attempts. Material resistance played a big role then and served as a major hindrance. But after a few more trials, the door eventually gave in, affording him a passage through to the living room.

The sight that greeted him upon his entry into the living room was a gory one. One which makes him sick to his stomach and wants to puke all at once.

There, lying crisscross in front of the TV in a slathered mess of grumous blood that runs every which way on the vinyl floor were three bodies, all stiff and cold.

Standing there breathless and motionless at the center of the literal slaughterhouse with a lone tear running down his cheek, he stared longingly at his sister, who laid still on the floor, with her arms and legs spread away from her torso. Rebellious even in death.

Then at her high-school heart-rob turned husband—George, whom she had married against their father’s will and consent, who laid totally reposed at her side as if he was in a deep sleep.

His gaze lingered a little on a spot in his chest already stained red and hollowed out by the blast of the bullets that have done the harm. Before eventually darting over to the small boy just an arm’s length from his mother, who happened to be the first fruit of their union from five years ago.

He had been at their wedding, held on the shore of Manhattan Beach and attended by friends and family; save for their father, who had stayed true to his conservative nature and crab mentality, by forbidding the marriage of his only daughter to a Caucasian.

The wedding had come through without the presence or blessing of their father at the beach, which was chosen as the venue for both aesthetics and crowd-curbing reasons. Given the couples' atheistic beliefs and nature, they have both shunned the orthodox Church wedding, as well as the usual court wedding process. Opting instead for something simple, and frugal.

Thinking back on it now, he could have sworn he had never seen his sister happy as she was on that day throughout her entire life. She had radiated so much glow, beamed with so much joy, to the point that he had even made a solemn pledge to himself that very day that, if her husband so much as hurt her in their union, he would be the one to set his ass straight. Fortunately, enough, the man had proven him wrong in this aspect.

Now, all that seemed to him like it had happened to another at a different time in a different world, not only because of the distance and the time that had since passed. But because whatever clues and memories of the day that remained in his head were nothing but dead bodies floating in a coagulated lake of blood.

Standing there in what could actually pass as a daze, and preoccupied still with dreary thoughts, he heard a faint sound from somewhere in the house and quickly stood raptly at attention.

At first, it was hard to discern what the sound really was and the source of it. But after some time of pricking up his ears and attention, he was finally able to pick up the source of the sound and identify it as a cry.

However, at the realization of this, his face took on a rather bewildered expression as he struggled to make sense of the situation. Could that possibly be the sound of a baby crying?

Of course, it is, he agreed to himself with some conviction the moment a staggering thought hit him right there on the spot. How could I have forgotten about my sister’s other son so easily?

He was spurred into action an instant later just as a new wave of what he now assumed to be the boy’s cry floated into the living room once more, following the sound to the inner rooms.

Locating the room which the sound sprang from was no trouble for him, as was finding the boy, who laid thrashing around with both feet and hands in a crib.

Picking the crying boy up from the crib, he rocked him gently in his arms, trying to shush him and successfully doing so after a couple of minutes, when the boy’s cries eventually eased into soft sobs.

Now, holding the boy closer to his face, he couldn’t help but notice the striking semblance between the boy and his mother—who also happened to be his dead sister. Nor, the thought that bobbed up in his mind at his sight; So, here’s finally the boy I have heard so much about?

“It’s alright now, boy,” he muttered surly, stroking the boy’s back. “We will both live.” He added much afterward, scanning the room absentmindedly one last time.

Live! Well, that seemed the obvious thing to do when the heart still beats, he reasoned, before walking out of the room.