The Purgatory chapter 3

Background

In the mid to late 1920's, prosperity and happiness was coming. But with it was the Great Depression. This is the time period that little Eddy Johnson was born into. On January 14th, 1927, Eduardo " Eddy" Johnson was born in Trenton, New Jersey. His parents were 30-year-old Jill Ramirez, a secretary and Corey Johnson, who was a hard worker who was a lawyer in the state of New Jersey.

Eddy grew up in a small family, the third-oldest in a family of six. Eddy lived in Trenton until he was five. Lucas, Eddy's older brother had difficulty at both home and school. Jill and Corey didn't know what to do about Lucas.

Jill had thought that a change of setting would do the kids good. Corey agreed with her and soon, they were looking for a new home. By then, it was 1932 and the Great Depression had taken place.

As a result, the Johnsons couldn't really afford anything large as much as they wanted. But they did know this: they did not want to stay in the city. The reason was because most cities had a large quantity of people and many dangerous occurrences happening in it. They thought that was what caused Lucas' change in attitude and temper. So they decided that they would go to a town.

One with a suburban feel and a close-knit community that would provide calm, peace and comfort. Peach Creek, at the time, perfectly fit the bill. The children were not informed about the move and when they found out, none of them were very happy about it.

They found a decent-sized house a few miles outside of town and moved in almost immediately despite the children's protests. Only the two youngest children, Melinda and Jay had managed to be calm shortly after moving in. All the other children were not happy about it all and to prove that, gave Jill, Corey and the kids the silent treatment for a week straight.

After a while, any normal person would just assume that the kids would relax and settle down in Peach Creek. If you did, you would be partially right. Melinda, Jay and Rowan had settled in Peach Creek. Catherine had provided some resistance but she eventually settled down like the others.

However, things were different with Eddy and Lucas. Eddy was enrolled into a elementary school a few miles away while Lucas attended second grade at Peach Creek Primary School.

Neither of the boys had enjoyed being at school, Lucas in particular but both of them managed to stay in school. When Eddy was seven years old, he was then moved from Hollow Creek Primary School to Peach Creek Primary School.

The only reason that Eddy was moved was because his parents felt that it would be better if Eddy went to a school that was closer to home. Both Eddy and Lucas never adjusted to living in Peach Creek and expressed that in different ways.

Lucas had gotten into many different fights with other students at school. Lucas would be sent home so very often that his mother would be shocked when he didn't come home early. He also got into gambling, which was playing cards and games for money. He often won which left many young children wanting his blood.

Unfortunately for them, Lucas was practically untouchable. In school, teachers paid extra attention to misbehaving kids in that time and if you were one of them, you couldn't get away with even whispering an insult or a rumor. Out in the schoolyard, Lucas had a gang of classmates that would fight for him. Often, the gang would win and that meant that Lucas actually was untouchable.

Unfortunately for Eddy, they decided that if they couldn't go after Lucas, they'd go after his siblings. But they would need a reason or an excuse. Enter Eddy's way of dealing with the move. Being that this was during the Great Depression era, a lot of people were wanting money so they worked. Even if it was something small like dancing in the streets. Eddy was no exception to that.

Eddy would usually pull a "scam" to get money from his fellow students. These weren't like the small-time, disastrous scams Eddy pulled in the cul-de-sac. These were genuine, good plans to strip people of their money. Very often, these scams worked. But it also gave the classmates an additional excuse to give Eddy hell because of his life and family.

Sometimes, his uncle and aunt would come into town and that's when trouble would start. His uncle was cruel and treated the children horribly. He actually treated Eddy the worst out of all the six because he thought that Eddy was greedy, stuck-up and manipulative. Eddy may have been manipulative but he was not greedy and he certainly wasn't stuck up.

However, he wasn't able to confront his uncle until he went into the afterlife. But we will talk about that later. Now, Eddy used to look up to his uncle and think of him as ' his hero'. The reason for this? Well, once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Ramirez who had a wife named and a daughter named Martina.

One day, Jack and his wife, Cindy were driving back home with Martina. At a intersection, another man was driving extremely fast and he was also intoxicated. Now, this was 1930. Prohibition was going on at this time and during that particular year, it was coming to a climax.

Jack hadn't cared about Prohibition until that day. The driver of the other car had managed to hit the car that Jack, Cindy and Martina was in.

Jack received mild injuries from the crash that he recovered from. Martina had gotten moderate injuries. However, Cindy did not survive. She was next to Jack when the cars crashed into each other and was flung out of her seat. She died instantly.

Jack felt unhappy, angry and sad at the fact that his wife had been killed. But he was happy that he had his daughter, Martina. It wouldn't be for long, though. Unlike her father, Martina did not recover from her injuries and was sent to Peach Creek County Hospital. On the morning of June 30th, 1930, Martina was found in her hospital bed, screaming and convulsing. Doctors tried to save her, but to no avail. She died only seven days after her mother.

As if Jack had not had enough agony, there was another problem. The driver of the other car had to face trial in front of a jury. Jack was smiling as he entered the courtroom on that day. He was hoping for justice. However, it didn't come.

The driver was found not guilty. As you could predict, Jack was unhappy that the killer of his first wife and only child went free. He became a shell of his former self, drinking, being abusive and manipulative. Jack had remarried to a woman named Dot who was just as vicious as he was.

Jack had begun to bully and manipulate the children whenever he and Dot visited, Eddy in particular. He had taunted, hurt, abused, bullied, intimidated and manipulated Eddy. Even in the cul-de-sac, Eddy couldn't get away from his uncle.

Eddy's mind would lead to his demise, somewhat. On April 9th, 1940, Eddy had the idea of a soccer game. But there would be certain rules, such as that you have to pay a dollar to get in and extra money if you want to bet or that if one member of one team is sick, a member of the other team has to play. So kids were unhappy.

Eddy watched the children play soccer. Blues versus Reds. It was hilarious and great seeing all the kids paying attention to this when they probably wouldn't have. But why would he care?

After all, he was making a killing off this game. 30 bucks already and it's not even halftime yet! So as he smiled and put his hands back on the table, he watched them play. Life wasn't too peaceful lately with the violence overseas and all. But he didn't need to worry. As long as the US stayed out of it for the most part, everything would be OK. Or so he hoped.

10 minutes before halftime, one of the Blue players kicked the ball out of bounds. In fact, it was so out of bounds that it went off the field.

A spectator shouted " Oh great, the ball went into the street!"

Eddy replied " Well, who's going to be the one to get the stupid thing?"

A Red player said " It should be Randy. He's the captain of the Blues, after all."

Randy replied " Me? It's my team but that doesn't mean that I should be the one to get it. Let it be Jake. It's his team who caused all this."

Jake shouted " No way! It should be Carlton because he kicked the ball out of bounds and he's on Randy's team."

Carlton replied in a annoyed tone " Why should I do it? If anybody should get that ball, it should be the little geek over there." then he pointed to Eddy, who stood up and glared at Carlton.

Carlton continued " He's the one that set this game up and he's the closest to the street so he should get it, right?"

The spectator shouted " Will you morons stop arguing and have somebody get the ball, already?"

Eddy replied " Oh, I'll get the stupid thing." as he left the table to go cross the street and grab the ball.

Now, just before Eddy gets the ball out of the street, there's a car with a drunk man inside and his wife. Can you guess who that man is? His uncle Jack and his wife Dot. Jack was driving so fast that he couldn't see where he was going. The car was spiraling out of control.

Eddy grumbled " Dang ball...this shouldn't take long." as he grabbed the ball from the other end of the street.

Eddy couldn't see the car approaching quickly but the spectators and the players could. They tried to warn Eddy as he dusted the ball off.

Jake shouted " Eddy!"

Eddy looked around. Who just called his name from over there? Who knew? There were so many people so it could have been anybody. But he didn't care at that moment. He just wanted to get the ball, dust it off and go back to the field and the soccer game.

Randy shouted in shock " Eddy!"

Eddy turned to the group. They were motioning to him. He couldn't tell what they were signaling to him so he tried to dust the ball off faster.

Carlton yelled " Eddy!"

Eddy turned to the group and shouted " What?"

They pointed to the car. Eddy turned back and looked at the car. He tried to run but it was too late.

Eddy woke up, screaming in fear and horror. After he calmed down, he realized that he was in a room. A bedroom that seemed to be his, to be exact.

Eddy said " Man, what a horrible nightmare!" as he got out of bed. He changed into a yellow T-shirt and jeans. He went downstairs into his kitchen to find something to eat.

He saw a radio on the kitchen table which he decided to turn on.

" Yesterday afternoon, a crime was committed in Peach Creek. A man by the name of Jack Ramirez had run over his nephew, a 13 or 14-year-old boy near the intersection of Harrlet and Green. The nephew had been the instructor of a local soccer game and was retrieving a soccer ball when he was hit head-on by the car. The man and his wife, Dot are currently still at-large."

Eddy turned off the radio before he looked around for something to eat.

He thought " Oh, man. That poor kid...Ah well." before he shrugged and grabbed a box of cereal.

Afterward

Eduardo Jackson " Eddy" Johnson had died on April 9th, 1940. He was hit by the car intentionally as Mister Ramirez had regained control of the car when he hit Eddy. Now, if Eddy had just been a little bit faster, he could have gotten away alive. But, sadly, he was hit head-on by the speeding car.

The impact was so hard that his body nearly shut down. A spectator ran to get a doctor to send Eddy to the hospital. But by then, it was too late.

A memorial was made near where Eddy was killed just two weeks later. It still stands there today. His uncle, Jack Ramirez and his wife, Dot were found three weeks later. They were hiding in the abandoned basement of a neighboring house.

On April 23rd, 1940, Jack and Dot Ramirez were arrested on the charges of intoxicated while driving, two counts of murder in the second degree and several counts of assault and attempted murder.

The two counts of murder in the second degree were of: Devon Wates, the man who killed Jack's first wife and daughter ten years earlier and Eddy Johnson, his nephew.

The counts of assault and attempted murder were of: the soccer players and spectators.

Jack and Dot were found guilty of all charges and were sent to separate prisons. Dorothy " Dot" Ramirez nee Dane was sent to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women and sentenced to life in prison. She died just three years after being released.

Jackson " Jack" Ramirez was sent to Sing Sing Correctional Facility for life in prison without parole. Jack died in prison at the age of 87.

Eddy's grave was not far from Jonny's but it was good enough to be close to the graves of the next victims.

Eddy's grave read " Eduardo Jackson Johnson: Beloved Son, Brother and Friend: January 27th 1927- April 9th, 1940."

That makes Eddy our third victim. So who will be next to enter the Purgatory?

Benny: I have no clue and I don't really care.

Of course you don't, Benny. So today is the last day of the London Olympics. Congrats to all the countries that participated and especially to the US, who got 104 medals!

Benny: I'm surprised that they didn't get more.

They might. It's not over yet. Read and review, everyone!