Playette

A photo of Isadora and her family hang on the wall. I remember them all clearly. It’s hard to forget something like that. Not that I hadn’t been around killing before, but in the manner where my father didn’t care, I hadn’t noticed that in him before that fateful day. He laughed when he shot Isadora’s mother, then smiled when he shot her father.

Isadora looks like her mother, she has the same green eyes as well as her hair. But her face is more like her father’s. I take the picture from its frame and step out of the room. There’s nothing else here other than clothes and a mattress on the floor.

Walking into the next room, this one has a mattress on the floor as well, but what is different is it has more. Clothes and more pictures, but these pictures consist of my mother, Max and Isadora. This shit makes me angry. There’s not one picture of the person he’s supposedly revenging. He did it all for the wrong reasons.

I don’t like Isadora’s actions, but I’m no one to judge. I’m worse than she will ever be. Stepping out, I light a match flicking it on the floor before I walk out.

From the front, I watch as it goes up in flames and continue to watch while the whole fucking place burns to the fucking ground.

And with it the memory of my father.

“You listen, son, and you fucking listen good.” My father smacked the back of my head hard. I’m in his room after he just killed another man for no fucking good reason.

Carter stepped out of the room as my father’s voice raised, and knew full well what kind of man he was about to be.

“When I order you to kill the little guy, you fucking kill him. Do you understand me?” He pointed a finger in my face, flashing around his gold skull ring.

“No,” I argued back.

That wasn’t going to happen. He should be locked up and put away for being the asshole he was. But he owned every crooked detective and every dishonest lawyer in this town. No one would dare touch him.

“You ungrateful little fucking shit, you’re meant to be a man now. Did you lose your cock when you fucked that last whore?” he spat, slapping me across my face.

I loved him so much once. He’d changed, though. I guess, in my story, they all do. It was the sad reality of life. No one stayed the same.

“You’re getting bad in your old age, old man,” I seethed back at him.

That was the last straw.

Kill the little guy, because he walked in on my father after he’d killed his father and stepped over his body and screamed.

Kids. I don’t do kids.

It’s not their fault they were born into this awful fucking world.

“You think ‘cause you’re eighteen now you’re a man?” My father’s head fell back as he laughed. “No. You aren’t,” he said standing tall. He removed his gun, placing it on his bedside table. Fuck, this place was like a museum. It’s all fucking gold, and I hated it. “What could make you a man is something you will never accomplish. You’re your mother’s boy. What a fucking shame.”

He hated her, but when she wanted something, he was the first to do it for her. Their relationship was fucked and something I never wanted for my future.

“I’ll be more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Son, that you will never be. And I hope one day you fall in love with a woman who fucks it all up for you. Just as mine’s done for me.” He turned, walking to his dresser, then back to his bed. Removing his clothes, he sat on the edge to pull off his shoes, and that’s when I knew what I had to do.

It had to be done.

The bastard had to be killed.

No matter what.

No matter the consequences.

Raising the gun in my hand to his head, he looked up at me, and with laughing eyes he went back to what he was doing.

“I raised you right, but you do have your mother in you, after all. So crazy runs in your blood, but you won’t kill me, son. That would mean you will have to take over the business, and that’s something you don’t want.”

He was right. I didn’t want that responsibility this young. But I had more respect from his men then he did, and the ones who were loyal to him I planned to kill anyway. They were just as fucked in the head as he was.

“You can’t keep doing this,” I said while shaking my head slowly.

“Wrong! I can and I will.”

I didn’t say anything back to that, and I didn’t drop the gun either.

“You think the power won’t go to your head? It does. People like us can’t help ourselves. It’s in our damn blood, son.”