[Disclaimer: I own nothing!!]
The Story of My Life
Chapter 3
Kyle let me in the gang, and this time I went through an initiation. I had to rob a store at night and get away with it. He was very lenient with my initiation, actually. Some of the other guys were upset because they had had to rape a girl or beat someone up and I got away with being a burglar. He didn't care, though, and neither did I. I robbed a department store by breaking the glass doors and running around like a madman. I was scared to death of getting caught. I saw the security cams all over the place and I kept thinking that I heard footsteps. So I ran all over the store, gathering all the clothes that I could and rushed out. I heard sirens wailing in the distance and I was almost sure that I was caught. I expected Kyle and the rest of the guys to leave me there at the first sign of the police and that I would be left running towards the hideout all the way from town. But they were there, ready to go. I hopped on Kyle's bike and we sped off. I removed the ski mask I had been wearing and looked back, expecting the police to be in hot pursuit, but they weren't there. I laughed at the fact that I had gotten away with it and I was actually pretty happy about the whole event.
When we got back, I handed Jenny all the clothes that I had taken. They were all for her. I had even snagged a party dress for her incase she ever decided to go to an underground club with one of the guys. She was impressed with my haul and I think that was about the time she started getting crazed about shopping. Whenever we made some money and I got my share, I would split it with her and she would make me take her shopping for clothes and make up and all that kind of stuff.
I learned the ropes of the gang pretty quick and I became very good at handling different situations. I even surpassed some of the guys that had been in the gang for five years since the time it was formed. Kyle showed me everything he could about running it and all the tricks for escaping the cops. I kind of thought that he was training me to become the next leader. That was exactly it. Another two years after I joined, he held a gathering and told everyone that if something happened to him, that I would become their leader. Oh, no one has any idea what I went through after that. The guys who had been resentful before, absolutely hated me now. Whenever I was put in charge of doing something, like leading a robbery, one of then would mess up on purpose and would almost get us caught. Then when we got back and had to report to Kyle, I would be beaten because I couldn't keep my people in check. One time, I don't even remember what I was in charge of, but he messed it up so badly that we actually did get caught and spent time in jail. When we got out again, I was beaten to within an inch of my life and I was out of the gang until I recuperated. Jenny took care of me then and helped me around. I remember that they broke my knee and after that, it would always hurt every once in a while.
The guy who always messed things up for me was Dan. I hated him. He looked like a weasel to me and he acted like one too. He had squinty eyes, a raspy voice and bulgy eyes and was incredibly skinny for being in a gang. He looked like some homicidal maniac from a horror movie. All he really had was the ability to intimidate and scare. But he also had his hidden qualities too. He was actually pretty smart. I guess, talking about being a particular kind of villain in a movie, one would see him as the sidekick to a villain who was untrustworthy to any side, and was in some measures, smarter than the villain himself. And far more sneaky. That describes Dan perfectly. He was always suspicious of everyone, especially me, and especially after I really joined the gang.
Then one day, the unthinkable happened and Kyle was shot to death by a rival gang. He had been out alone with his girlfriend, Elaine, and they found him and overpowered him. We found Kyle outside our door the next day with his head on a stick coming up from the ground. Jenny had been the one to find him and she ran back inside screaming and crying. No one could figure out what was bothering her, some even thought that she had lost her mind. She was trying to tell us, but when she tried to describe what she had seen, she started throwing up. Alan, a newbie went to the door to see what she had seen and he came back yelling too. He told us about Kyle and we all went outside and buried him. And that's when I became their leader. I was the one in charge and if anyone bungled anything then, I could be the one to beat them and no one could beat me. I went out and bought my first gun that day and I always kept it beside me and slept with it under my pillow at night. Just because I was their new leader, didn't mean that all the guys who had hated me before would love me and be loyal to me now.
I remember that I didn't think it was a good idea to have everyone in one place, so everyone had to find their own place to stay. Whether they had to go back to living with their parents or not, I made them leave. The hideout was still our meeting place and where we would go back to when we needed to hide, but no one lived there anymore, and so there was less chance of being caught all together. For the three out of the eight in the gang that had been orphans, I bought them each a trailer to live in with the money that we had saved up, with still more than enough left for weapons and other things that we might need. I got my own little house in a bad neighborhood. It was falling apart and it needed some fixing up, but I bought it anyway and Jenny and I moved in.
I became more thoughtful and concerned during the time that I was the leader. I thought a lot about my mom at that time and I wondered how for being so gentle and caring she had ended up with such a brute and callous man like my father. I read and reread her suicide note daily as if it were a holy scripture that I had to recite. Addressed to my father, it read:
Roy,
It's been unbearable living with you. I think you know that. I don't know if you intended for life to be this way for us or not, but I sure as hell don't want to be here with you anymore. I have no where else to go but home, home to the sky and the stars. There is no way that I can describe how you have hurt me and have driven me to this point. After all that we have gone through, places we have been and where we came from, even after finding ourselves in the slums, how could this happen? It began so gradually and you used to apologize and I believed you. But now, this road has been too long and I don't want you anymore. I have been patient and have endured your drinking and your harsh words, but I just can't anymore. It tears me up inside because I remember how we used to be, how happy we were. Don't you remember when Bobby and Jenny were born and how you took time off of your job so we could both be with them? We used to live such a happy life and we were in a good neighborhood and everything. I don't know what could have driven you to drink, but I hope it wasn't me. So far as I know, I haven't ever done anything to hurt you or to turn you away. I've always tried to be a good wife through thick and thin, but you haven't returned it to me.
I want you to be a better father from now on than what you have been recently. I don't want to leave my children and I'm being selfish for barely thinking about how they will feel and react to this, but I just can't take life with you anymore. I hope my death teaches you something about how to treat women or maybe it will trigger what used to be in your heart. You remember how we used to go out dancing and went to parties, don't you? How much fun we had and how happy we were together? Perhaps now you'll see how far you can push people by drinking and maybe now you'll stop. For Bobby and Jenny's sake, I hope you do stop. The one thing I want to come out of my death is for you to change, to become the man that I married again.
Tell Bobby and Jenny that I love them very much and that I want them to be good for you. Tell them that I'll always be with them and even if I'm not physically there, my love and spirit will follow them through life and I'll been in their hearts. Make sure that you tell Bobby this because he'll be the one to be most shattered by my death.
And believe it or not, Roy, I still love you, but not the man that you have become. The man that is still inside of you, drowned in the alcohol.
Goodbye,
Natalie
At one of our meetings Cale, another newbie, suggested that we should get jobs since the gang hadn't been making a lot of money, even when Kyle was still around. We would have to give some of the money from our paychecks to the gang, that way we could build up our cash again. Mostly everyone was for it and so that's what we did. I became a bag boy at one of the local grocery stores where Jenny also worked as a cashier. She was freaked out that I would take her money too to donate to the gang, but I assured her that she could keep her money. It seems strange to me now how I used to live. I was almost like a comic book hero gone wrong: bag boy by day, gangster by night. It was full of stress, that job. No one would think so. I mean, how hard is it putting things in bags and then putting them in a cart? Very hard, actually. There are those who make it easy on you and don't care how you put the stuff inside. Then there are the really picky ones who want things put together perfectly. The refrigerated things must be together in one bag, things that go in their cupboards in another, then the things that you leave out of the fridge or cupboards in another. Again, something deceptively easy that just quite isn't. Why? Because some people put their fruit in the refrigerator and some don't. Because some strange people put their noodles in one cupboard and their cereal in another and want the bags to be separated by cupboards. Then, you get the ones who want their bags color coded. Makes me stressed out just thinking about all of that. So, by the end of the day, I was completely stressed out and I was slowly getting sick of the gang…and life.
Then one day I met Rachel. She was a beautiful woman. She was 18 and I was 16. She was my first for everything. I had raped a few girls before, but I had never taken any pleasure in it. Rachel was my first girlfriend, she gave me my first real kiss, and was my first real sex partner. I loved her. She became my girlfriend and we stayed together through thick and thin. I made sure that I kept her out of the gang, even though she had even asked me to let her in. She was very interested in what we did, but I knew that she had led a sheltered life before and would never make it on her own. The gang was no place for her. I could see Rachel actually making something of herself, like being a vet like she wanted to be. The least she could do was be a receptionist or something. She was classy and I'm sure that anyone would have hired her. She could be so nice when she wanted to be. And she also had a fiery attitude so that when she was doing business, you knew she wasn't joking around. She had dark red hair, it must have been dyed, but I never saw her dye it, deep green eyes, and porcelain white skin. She was a goddess in my eyes. I doted on her and bought her a lot of things, and in return, she let me live with her.
Slowly, I started to lose interest in the gang and we started holding a lot less meetings. Finally, one day Cale showed up at my door and told me that some of the guys were planning to take over the gang. I wasn't surprised by that. I think that maybe subconsciously I had been slacking on purpose to get out of it. But what did surprise me was that Cale had shown up and told me. He actually was loyal to me and trusted my judgment. He was still young and impressionable, but I never had the heart to beat him. He was just like a little four year old who always looked up to me like a big brother who would protect him. I guess it made me feel like how Kyle must have felt about me. I always wanted to protect Cale like he was my kid or something. I kept him with me after that and he lived with us. I let him go out and do what he wanted, but he always came back and we waited for the day that the rest of them would rise up against me.
In the meantime, I had gotten Rachel pregnant. Almost a year after I had met her, she came out of our bedroom one morning and didn't look too good. She was a little pale and when I put down a plate of pancakes I had made for her in front of her, she looked away and wouldn't even look at them.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
She slowly looked at me and it seemed as if she were trying to dig deep into my mind and find out my reaction to what she was going to tell me. "I'm pregnant."
I was in mute shock for a while. I guess those things really don't always work. But I didn't care. I wanted to have a kid with her. I had told her before that we couldn't have one and that I didn't want one, but as soon as she said it, I was happy. It was only a little happiness at first, but then it spread until I was consumed by it. I knew that the baby would be beautiful if it looked anything like Rachel and I couldn't wait to go and buy things for it and play with it when I got home from work. Rachel was overjoyed when I told her how happy I was and we celebrated all that day. I even called off of work and took her to a fancy restaurant to eat for dinner with money I had saved up for my own savings.
But all that was ruined when we got home. Our house was completely wrecked and I was reminded of why I hadn't wanted a kid in the first place. I could be killed any day and my child wouldn't grow up with me in its life. It would constantly be in danger too. We moved out and bought a new place to live. I left a note for Cale to let him know that we had moved, but I didn't tell him where we had gone. I didn't want to risk anything. I knew that I was losing my honor by running from them and just giving them more ammunition to get rid of me as their leader, but I didn't care. I wanted to just stay with Rachel and the baby and forget how my life had been before them.
Jenny came with us and we had to quit our jobs at the store. We both searched all over the place for new jobs, but no one would hire either one of us. Rachel still went to school to be a vet, and would let us have some of the money her parents sent her for her schooling. I hated the fact that she did that. I wanted her to be able to have money and live in a nicer house than the one we now lived in. I wanted to find a job as soon as possible so that I could give her back the money she had let Jenny and I have so that she could continue going to school. One day, Jenny came home holding an ad. She sat in a chair for over an hour mulling it over before she came to me and asked me if I wanted to do it. It was asking for a pair of twins that wouldn't mind being tested for medical research and given drugs that would enhance strength and mobility, blahblahblah. I didn't mind it. It said that we would be paid $100 for every hour we spent there. It seemed like a good deal, but in the back of my mind there was a little nagging voice that kept telling me that it wasn't a good idea and I shouldn't do it. But I dismissed that voice and decided to do it anyway, with the excuse that with that extra strength I would be able to defeat anyone who wanted to fight me, even the gang members.