I have to believe I am perfect. I have to believe I am infallible, I am glorious, majestic, royal, incomparable; I am tough as nails, merciful when I want, divine, honest, intelligent, and above all, that I am God. Otherwise this thing called leadership? Wouldn't work. Couldn't. If there's one thing I've found out about life in my all-too-short sixteen years of living, it's that everyone needs a god. Whether it's the Christian God, Allah, or Zeus, or even just the belief that the sunrise will grace us with its presence each morning, everyone needs a god. For my boys, I have to be their God. The one thing they can believe in, the one thing that will never falter. The one to protect, discipline, and lead by example or force, I have no preference. I'm capable of shutting my mouth in a thin line and going on with my life until the boys realize I'm right, I am also capable of beating them to a pulp. I am Brooklyn. I am Spot Conlon. I am their god. And most of the time, I feel like a god. I'm g o o d at it.

I also have days that I can't take it anymore. I have days when customers shy away from me on the street because my boys have been acting up that day, and I can't keep the scowl from my face. I have days that I feel dirty, shamed, and wrong.

I can't have a conscience.

But I do. I do feel shame.

But as a leader, I can't send a boy to check up on that Bronx kid I soaked for encroaching on my boys' spots. I can't show that for each scratch on my bed marking someone's death I've somehow caused, I say a little prayer. I don't know who I'm praying to. Whoever's up there.

And I feel a horrible, twisting pain when a soul leaves this earth on my account, no matter how much I ask for forgiveness for this life I lead. No matter how many excuses I make. I have dreams of specters haunting my every move, their icy breath on the back of my neck and their clammy hands gripping my shoulders.

But I have to be God.

I can not be God.

You know, I should wake up someday and appoint a new leader. I have to get out of here someday anyway. Cause I am not the person I have to be to do this. How did I get here anyway? Oh yeah, that's another death on my plate. One day, I'm picking fights on the street, and the next, the old leader, Klyne, was dead of a brute from Queens.

I deserve this.

I don't want this.

There are days when I lie in my bed at night with tears streaming down my face, and I'm afraid to make a sound lest my boys hear me. I let the tears fall, but I never let the pain out. I know how the new leaders come to be here in Brooklyn. I've seen first hand. If I show just enough weakness, in they'll lunge like famished hyenas, forgetting everything I've done for them. They're animals, but what other choice do they have? It's called survival.

I want to go.

I could NEVER leave them.

And then there are the days that my influence and reputation get a boy his lunch. And there are always the looks of adoration that fill the young one's heads like shots of whisky, and just as intoxicating. There are days when I can do more good than harm; days that my extra papes I've sold give a kid a bed and a hot meal. What would these kids do without me? The immature imbeciles that I lead have no concern for others. I'm not supposed to. All of my gifts are anonymous or accompanied with threats to shut them up. They make me feel good, but they are just another excuse for some sort of god to let me into some sort of heaven.

Feelin' sorry for yaself again Conlon? Ya just a weak little boy wit a hard shell.

I have to stop thinking like this.

So now, I'll stop. And I'll pick up my mask, my divine, regal, smirk, and go on with my life. Which really isn't bad. No, it's not bad. I wonder if God ever feels this way.