An Eye for an Eye
by Bob Brongiel
“They ain’t gonna do it to us, Man” the thirteen-year
old, named Louis, said to fourteen-year old,
Douglas. “You know they’re not.”
They were standing in an empty apartment
on the seventh floor of the west wing of
the Cabrini Green Housing project. When they spoke, their voices echoed throughout
the room. The door was closed, but couldn’t be locked
because someone broke the door frame awhile
back. A bored beat cop stood just outside the door
preventing the kids from leaving.
Grafitti and gang symbols covered every wall
in the apartment. The top frame of the window they looked out
of was so dusty and dirty that you couldn’t
call it a window anymore. The lower part was opened only because the
glass was no longer in it. Only little ragged shards remained around
the dirty wooden frame of the window that
they used to throw little nine-year old Richard
out of just a week ago – because he wouldn’t
let them have a knife he got from his father.
“Bullshit they won’t,” Douglas began. “Just a month ago, they threw gasoline on
the face of the guy who burned his own kid. Then they lit a match and threw it at him. Did you see his face on the TV? He looked like a ‘crispy criter, his face
was so burnt you couldn’t even figure out
what was his nose and what was his mouth. And a few weeks ago, they beat that guy that
killed his own kid because he couldn’t finish
saying the alphabet. They beat that guy to death, Louis. Even used the same brick he used on his own
kid. Don’t tell me they ain’t gonna do anything
to us.”
“But those are a-dults,” Douglas said. “They ain’t gonna touch us cause we just
kids, Man.”
“Oh, no? Then, who’s getting out of that car down
there?”
They looked through the broken window at
the plain brown wrapper that pulled into
the lot, and the two burly detectives that
got out of it and walked toward their building.
“Does’t this job ever get to you, Bob?” Detective Mark Brooks said, as they walked
up the decrepit staircase because the two
elevators in the place no longer functioned. The whole place had a musty smell to it,
but in the stairway, you could make out the
strong scent of urine combined with alcohol
and bug spray.
“Somebody’s got to do it, Mark,” Detective
Bob Davis said. “Don’t forget, if it wasn’t us, it would
be someone else. And some of ‘em deserve even worse. I still think we should have made that guy
who killed his kid suffer a little more. He was dead after the first blow. He beat his kid with his hands, a belt and
a tree limb before he finally used the brick,
Mark. We should have taken our time with him.”
“Boy, you’re one nasty dude, Pal. They found the right guy when they chose
you. But these guys up there are just kids. They probably didn’t even know what they
were doing. They didn’t live long enough yet to know
the meaning of dying.”
“Yeah, but that little nine year old didn’t
even live long enough to know the meaning
of living, or dying.”
They reached the seventh floor, nodded to
the beat guy, and walked into the room. The two kids were cowering in a corner opposite
to the window, looking very much afraid.
“Go easy on ‘em, Bob. They look scared to death.”
They walked quietly toward the kids.
“If it was only that easy, Mark,” Bob said
under his breath as they moved even closer.
“Don’t worry, guys,” Bob said to the kids. “We’re not the ones who do the dirty work. We just want you to tell us what you did
one more time. Maybe something you say will give us an excuse
to tell the other guys not to come here.”
Louis glanced sideways at the dicks, his
mouth slightly ajar.
“That guy out there by the door said that
the guys that “even thing out” are coming
here today,” Louis said.
“Well, they were going to, but one of your
parents talked to the judge and he said we
should come and try to find some way to get
you out of this. You know, just maybe go to jail for awhile,”
Bob said.
Louis still looked suspiciously at Bob.
“That must have been my Ma,” Douglas said
his eyes brightening, stepping away from
Louis and looking less frightened. “She was crying the last time I talked to
her. She says she was gonna try to help us.” He looked at Louis. “I told you she was gonna do something.”
“See what I mean,” Bob said. “Now get over here and tell us what happened.”
Both kids moved closer to the detectives
and began to tell their story. About how they used the place as a gang hideout
and smoked and did joints and shit like that. Richard wanted to join their gang, but they
wouldn’t let him in until he stole a few
things for them. But when they asked him for the knife his
father gave him, he wouldn’t give it to them. So they threatened to push him out the window,
but he tripped and broke the glass and fell
out of it accidentally.
“So you guys didn’t push him, huh?” Bob said. “Show me how it happened.”
Douglas was the first to move towards the
window. Louis moved slower, but, finally stood next
to Douglas. When they both had their backs to the dicks,
Bob grabbed them by their necks and threw them against
the busted frame. Both fell to the pavement below amid a shower
of rotted wood. Mark walked to the opening where the window
was and looked down at the two little bodies
lying awkwardly in the parking lot. He turned to look at Bob.
“Let’s get out of here,” was all Bob said.
He sat at the small round table in the kitchen
at his apartment, and took another
swig from
the half-empty bottle of Killian’s
Irish
Red and stared at the picture
of the horses
head on the label. He lied when he told Mark that it didn’t
bother him. It did bother him. It bothered him a lot. And, it bothered Karen a lot, too. That was why her clothes were missing from
her dresser and the closet. And the bathroom didn’t have anything lying
around in it that belonged to
her anymore,
either. She left him that night – as she said she
would. She told him if he went through with it,
she was going to. He did, and she did.
He put the bottle to his mouth and pored
what remained down his throat, then threw
the bottle at the garbage can. He got up, opened the fridge, pulled another
bottle from the twelve-pack, twisted the
cap off and threw it at the garbage can,
too.
He walked into their bedroom. She had taken everything, even the pictures. Well, what was he to do? He had a job. He was taught from the earliest of age that
“Duty, Honor and Country” were all that mattered. Then, when he was in the Marines, it was
“Semper Fideles.” You always did your job.
He was taught that anyone who comitted a
crime should be punished. And the new “Eye for an Eye” law enacted
last year seemed like the perfect solution
to end the wave of rampant crime that hit
the city. And it was working. No doubt about it. Crime statistics showed that within the last
six months, major crimes dropped twenty-five
percent, almost five percent a month and
still dropping. So, what he was doing was good for the city,
good for the country -- since other cities
were forging their own similar laws -- and
good for him. Made him feel like he was making a significant
contribution. That is, until now.
He walked across the hall, into the other
bedroom – Douglas’ room -- and the tears
poured from his eyes. Table of Contents
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