Tell It Like It Is
Chapter One
Life is now. It's here. Today. Every moment you're alive is a testament, a reason to rejoice, for there are so many who don't have the privilege for whatever reason.
Life is filled with people, with words, things to do and places to go. You breathe in and out. You remember to get up in the morning, to eat breakfast, to get ready to get back out there and do it all again. You go out into the world and live the best way you know how.
Whether you're on one side or the other. It is human nature to survive. To do whatever you have to, to make it through. Who can say why people do the things they do? How do you not justify crime even if it helps the down-trodden? The single mother who steals from the local supermarket so that her kids have enough to eat, down to the should-be hero who ends the life of a scum-bag pedophile when no one is the wiser. The laws of justice have been drawn. It is up to society to adhere to the rules. Let the cops do their jobs. But what happens when the very men and women who have been entrusted to keep society safe let so many escape through the cracks? Or worse, become the very thing they were sworn to protect society from?
The way I figure it, there is no difference between cop or criminal. We all do what we have to. That's what scares me the most. At what point did one line get blurred enough that it merged with the other so that I couldn't tell the difference between good and evil?
These are the points that I ponder while I get ready for work each day. As I get into my car, while I eat my lunch or take a walk. When I have my gun drawn and it's pointing at the enemy. It's him or me. And just who do you think I chose? This feeling I have? It's all consuming, like a brush fire that started with a small ember. It has grown in me, around me, through me. Until there are nights that I can't sleep.
It's the life of an undercover police officer. The lesser of two evils, that's what my boss tells me. If you have to do a little bad to get a little good, than the ugly stuff gets swept under the proverbial carpet and no one's the wiser.
Only I know. And the weight of that alone makes me feel like I'm suffocating at times. I wake up in the night bathed in sweat. My heart hammers against my ribs, each desperate beat reminding me not to forget the reason why I am here. I wonder if tomorrow will be the day that I get Made, and ultimately, the day that I will die. It's a burden that most people will never understand. If they did, they would know that it's almost impossible to be two people at once and to live a life of crime while trying to be the good guy just doesn't jive.
I know I'm supposed to feel good about what I'm doing for the people in my country. My fellow Americans, nameless faces, masses of people who will never know the extent to which I have gone to try and clean up the scum of society. They will also never know about the things I have witnessed and sometimes even participated in. The gun deals, the arsons, the murders. The darker side of my job, the countless crimes they will never hear about. A lot of these crimes have been done by my hand.
It is now early October and the air is still warm and pleasant, as it is in California most of the time. I'm wishing that I was at the beach walking in the hot sand or surfing through the waves. Or on a bike, on the open road, the feel of the wind rushing over my face. Hell, I wish I was anywhere but in Charming.
I never thought I'd come back here.
I would rather die than do this.
But it is the only way.
I am here and have been here for some time to gather Intel and evidence against the very club that involves family of mine. The members who I have grown up with, gone to school with, and now, robbed and killed innocent men with, all in the name of greed. The members with whom I attended child-hood birthday parties, sleepovers and summer camp. Whose mothers invited me in after school to share a snack or to stay for supper. I am like a wolf in sheep's clothing…and I feel it with every inch of my being.
It is my job to bury SAMCRO.
May God have mercy on my soul.