Chapter 9

Sins of the Father 2

Of happy days and restful nights, it was all a man had ever wanted in life. He thought he could have that but the call of the violence was the only life he knew. He vowed to be there for his sons. His own father abandoned his mother when he was a young boy and Willis refused to repeat the man's sin.

It was all for naught as the gang life stole him from his family. It was stupid. Shooting someone in the back and yet his so called friends in the hood praised him for that act of cowardice.

The trial was swift and merciless. Willis was clearly caught on camera shooting the gun in addition with clear evidence of his fingerprints on the weapon. The judge threw the book at him - death. This was worse than an overdose or a drive by. Those were sudden and unexpected ways to depart this earth. On death row a man could only count the time he had left until the execution, and helplessly watch his mortality slip by. He ended up just like his father, leaving behind a single mother and sons to grow up without a guiding hand. He prayed to God they would not follow in his footsteps.

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All Luthor wanted was to follow in his father's footsteps. They say his old man was so vicious in a fight, not even claw marks on his shoulder could stop him from shooting someone trying to kill him. What a man to look up to! His father would never cower under the bed covers like a mouse frightened about the loud yells and gunshots that echoed throughout the neighborhood in the middle of the night. Luthor thought the gang could toughen him up so he could be strong like his father. Instead the thug life twisted all that was good in him into a shadow of a man. He shot someone for no reason at all and blindly trusted his "brother-in-arms" with the location of the weapon, only to be sold out for a lenient sentence. As the imposing bars closed in on the boy, and an older man in the cell beside him grinned menacingly, he prayed to God his little brother would not fall into the same trap.

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Samuel felt trapped. The boys in his neighborhood exalted in his pedigree. Not only was his older brother a revered name in the gangs, Luthor was also the youngest person on death row. How strong and tough a guy like that could be to shoot someone without any hesitation and to face The Man on death row without fear, they thought.

Samuel wanted to laugh at their assumptions. He remembered that strange night a year ago when his brother appeared before him like a ghost from his past. True to that story they read about in English class, the lessons from a ghostly figure from the past steered him in the direction of a better future.

His brother was supposed to die tonight. Claims for leniency fell on death ears. The convict had changed, the prison guards had said. He'd counseled the other inmates, talked of how death was not to be feared and whatever judgment fell on them, they deserved it. They should learn to forgive instead, and to prevent others from walking their damned path. A higher power not of this earth would meet them at the end to strip away any bravado they had of their macho and hardcore life.

The judge and governor remained unmoved, Luthor's execution still stood.

Before the angels (and how his life had been defined by that single moment!), Samuel and his mother had visited Luthor a few times in prison, but the boy sent them away after they were discomforted by the iron bars of the cell and the violent attitudes of some of the inmates. After spending some time in the pen after appeal after appeal was denied, Luthor knew some of the felons were putting on a front just like he did before his revelation. Others, however, were downright insane.

Samuel was comforted by his brother's assurances that the gang was not the way to go. His mother needed him, and he was the man of the house now. The truth of who his father was left him stunned at how similar Willis' and Luthor's lives ended up, how his life could have ended the same way.

"Live Samuel, live to be old," were the last words he ever heard his brother say.

Luthor was dead at midnight.

As Samuel overheard a group of dead-beat fathers in the neighborhood praising the deeds of his executed father and brother, the boy turned on them with grief and pain.

"No! Can't you see! It was wrong what they did. It was wrong for them to kill someone else! It didn't make them more of a man. I didn't need them to be men! I needed my dad and my brother. I want my father. I want my brother. I want them back!"

He broke down sobbing, not caring that a boy who cried at his age was considered a disgrace.

"Go home," Samuel begged them. "Just for one night, don't talk about violence. Call your children home and spend time with them. It's all we ever wanted."

The men shuffled their feet, uncomfortable at his words. They remembered their own fathers who either left them or were killed through gang violence. They thought of their own wives and children wondering where their daddy was as they wasted the days and nights away. If one day he'll walk out the door and never come back. They could see the cycle repeating itself in their generation and the next with their sons.

Samuel's uncle took the quietly weeping boy home to his mother.

And for one night, all was quiet in the neighborhood.