Smoke loomed overhead, eyes fixed on nothing in particular as he prepared his mind for the next job. His job. As long as he got paid for it, he didn't care. It was a living, a way to get by. Only, there was always the nightmares, the guilt gnawing at him from all sides. Cracking his neck, he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs once more before slowly rising to his feet and paying the tab.
For as long as he could remember, this had been his life. Well, in truth, that was a lie; he preferred to state simply he had been born into this life and was forced to live it until it killed him. However, he could remember a time of general happiness, or at least being content. His mother was alive, her willowy figure still breathing, still full of life. Almost as if a memory instead of a dream, he could see his parents as they would be now, his sister as she would have grown to.
No. This wasn't his life now. Childbirth pushed his mother's small form too far, the child too weak to breathe the industrial smoke it was exposed to. The child's starved lungs gave way, as did Adamina Samson, her gaze far away, her ivory skin cold to the touch. So much for their happy life, the time spent where his father would sing to his mother, where they would dance around the livingroom, where they were so perfectly happy with each other despite the poverty surrounding them and religious persecution they faced for the simple fact they were Jewish. His life had been ripped away from him, torn out of his grasp with only a void to fill and an anger to direct somewhere, anywhere.
Heading out into the dampened, darkened streets, he dropped the cigarette an crushed it beneath his heel. As the nicotine and adrenaline pumped through his veins, it was all he could do to stomach what he knew he was going to do, what he felt he had to do. This was his choice, always been his choice, and for what? He didn't even know anymore. It was now blind habit, no longer had meaning. It was just a matter of going through the motions now.
What happened to the obedient little Jewish boy who hunched over his studies day and night all week without a complaint? The memory of him died when the child on the playground hit the brick wall, his face being punched repeatedly in retribution for saying "kike" one too many times. There was far too much space to be filled with vengeance with a reason he had lost years ago. It wasn't society's fault his happy ending was scratched before the beginning had even had a chance to get rolling, and it was no one's fault but his own that he was lost in an endless series of gang hits and paybacks.
He could still remember how it felt when Mallet Murphy taught him how to swing a punch, how to throw his knuckles into a guy's jaw hard enough to make his eyes roll back and make him swear he saw God. Hours were spent to prepare Joshua Samson for any fight he may come up to, and how to win it. All signs of weakness left him within months, and only a tendril of a conscience remained, perhaps the broken corpses of his faith keeping it company before they both withered away completely.
Almost laughing at the memories, Josh turned another corner, heading for the address given to him. Don't ask any questions, just do the job you were paid to do and move on. Simple enough. No, it wasn't that simple, there was so much more to it, so many more emotions involved that couldn't be expressed because the mere idea of it could get a person shot. Lighting another cigarette to calm the inevitable nerves he hid with an arched eyebrow and a sneer.
His friends for years had watched helplessly as he sank more and more into the life he had created for himself for a revenge that he could never grasp. Family and those that might as well be opened their mouths before their own thoughts shut them up again, knowing full well he had to work things out on his own, and hopefully before being the headline in a newspaper. They didn't know what he did anyway, the extent of it, the horrendous facts. Had they, more would have flown from their mouths than silence and the occasional sigh. No, he kept it hidden. Well hidden.
As he looked up at the worn, shell of what had been a factory at some point, he put the cigarette out on paint chipped walls and ducked inside. He was getting too old for this. His childhood had already been lost, so why continue until there was nothing left for him period? Simple habit, he supposed, as the broken glass beneath his boots cracked against the cold cement. What other reason was there save for simple routine, and ignorance to anything better at this point.
On the one hand, he had worked hard for the life he had now and the respect he had gotten. On the other, what life was this where the only respect earned was that of pimp, whores, and thieves? Murders bowed to him and yet he was supposed to see himself in high esteem because of this? The thought made him feel dirty, almost turn back and throw the few dollars he would get for this task to the ground and walk off. There was something keeping him, though. Something always keeping him.
Tied to a chain, his skin raw and bleeding from the ropes binding him there, sat another man with a broken word. Picking up the pipe from the ground, another cheap weapon to drive the point home, no words were exchanged. Even if the man's mouth hadn't been gagged, the Jewish child turned gang hitman wouldn't have known what to say, how to even start. Fingering the cold metal, the man's face blurred into dozens of people he had done the same thing to, depending on their crime toward the specific gang. It never mattered anymore, because it all ended the same way. No death, but a longing for it, on both ends.
Raising the pipe high, Joshua "Dusk" Samson brought the cold weight down mercilessly on the man's thigh, barely registering the yell that followed. Like he had said to himself so many times before, this was a job. His job. He brought it down for his mother and the pain her body suffered for only showing kindness to the world and bestowing naught but happiness to himself and his father. He brought it down for his sister who died in his arms two hours after her birth. Each hit resonated in the walls that held the broken equipment and gang members to whatever gang he was serving for the night.
He felt like a common whore these men were using, only useful for the dirty work he did for them. It was his fault, and he brought the pipe down again, seeing each one of their faces as they sneered at the victim and clapped at his progress. This was the life he had made for himself, and down came the metal once more in an effort to suppress that thought. As the man before him cried desperately, Dusk ended his assault, worn from the emotional battle that had numbed him to the actual task. Quick as it began, it was over. Just like that. Until the next night, the next job.