Young Writers Society

Legacy

I learnt long ago, that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I learnt it the hard way. O yes I had seen all the wonders anyone can in life, and I had even uncovered my own mysteries from time to time. I had perfected the recipe for chicken soup in my early twenties, way back when I was a small man without much aspirations. Not a life achievement I know, but something I was proud of.

I had never got enormously far in life; each new day brought a new ounce of pain, and each night, a young woman to take it away again. I tell myself now that it was all worth it, a drifter through life, a steady job brought a steady income, but I never had a promotion, never good enough for that.

Quinn. That was my name, it used to be placed with dignity and hope on each new document, a pencil pushers pride is the elegant signature at the end. It used to be. I was born into a wealthy family, born into arrogance and businessman like stature. Born into a world of hurt really, be it that my mother was rich and my father greedy, they were doomed from the start, up until he tried to kill her, unaware that I was watching it all unfold in the kitchen.

I saw him place the drugs in her drink, and I watched as she fell to the floor. Not dead, no, she was always so stubborn. In the end she began to mouth silent prayers. I like to believe she was without pain, but the contours of her forehead and the lines on the chin depicted agony. I too watched him raise the knife. From my place on the stairs, the great grand ones that filled a room with elegance, I saw him slice her throat. This was the first time I saw her admit defeat.

Now at the eve of my 60th birthday I find myself recollecting about my life. An epic failure really, but somehow I know, It couldn't’t have happened any other way. I was tired now. My battle hard body had begun to fail me. The doctors could find no physical ailment, but I know, and really always knew, what was wrong with me. I was evil, and it was slowly corroding me.

I may have been a wealthy child, but my father’s untimely death from years of drug abuse destroyed that. His estate went to his mistress, soon to become my mother. She left as soon as she had appeared, with lightning like tendencies. I had wept for him, but only because he had left me with nothing. At 16, I had seen all the dark sides of humanity, and was seeking to take them for myself.

My mother had left a sizable fund in a bank account, the auditor had told me. Though it could only be used for education, both to a private school and to university. I had elected to join my father’s footsteps, criminal, but criminally wealthy and happy.

At 17 I had my first arrest, selling class B drugs on college premises. I was thrown out of 6th form faster than I could think. Thankfully, the judge presiding over the case was partial towards me. This being primarily because he had lived in my fathers back pocket for the last few years of his life. The jury, well, what money can’t solve, threat and intimidation can. But after all this, I never returned to education, smarter than the average crook, and miles smarter than the average police officer, I left school behind me, with 9 A’s at GCSE.

Skipping the more grotesque and horrifying chapter of my life, the gang leader of my faction ‘died’ and I took his place. In the time leading up to his ‘death’ I had assumed mass respect on the streets, as well as in most businesses. I took a job as a well, but not to flashy paid, accountants. I lost that job when I tried to bribe the boss, with money that had materialised in my back pocket. I tried life as a professional salesman, all the while secretly using the sources I was ringing and harassing to traffic the drugs from one place to another. That job at Highlander made the foundations that my criminal empire was based upon. I had established deals with well paid businessmen from all around the country, and each was eager and willing to earn a little more money than usual. The computer manufacturer placed anything inside computers hat I wanted to be sold into the huge orders from my clients. The businessmen then got a strait 60 – 40 cut, but I was selling them short, by selling the then unwanted computers back to the highlander company, only under a different name.

At twenty-four my career as a salesman ended. Lying on a wellspring of money made me cocky, and days of sleeping in, caused a stir that not even money, fear, nor intimidation could solve. But I tried, and that landed me in prison, without a moments notice. My underlings had secretly been informing the police. Even the ones I had known I'm my teens, has succumbed to the professional intimidation of one police officer in particular. His name was Julius J Keenu. PC Keenu had had a major quarrel with me for the last 10 years of my life. As it turns out, my father’s mistress, the one who got all his money, was married to the PC. When she came home one day loaded and lathered for cash, the PC arrested his own wife for crimes she did not commit, only to steal it off her himself. He had used the money to buy his way into the knickers (if they were wearing any) of prostitutes. (Ones which were in my personal back pocket as well). The 2 years of fun loving ended when he decided to atone for his crimes. He had attempted to free his wife from prison by conjuring up evidence that swayed the case in her favour. But unfortunately, one of my personal people had been locked away by the PC in an earlier case, and she was very pissed off about it too. So much in fact that she killed the PC’s wife in prison. Keenu blamed me. And right to. I was the one that told her that she may as well do it, she was already in prison, and I was going to make sure she stayed there.

I spent the next 17 years doing hard time in prison. And I spent all but 2 of them trying to bribe my way out. I was 42 years old by the time I was released. I had no money; all had gone on bribery and contraband while in prison. I would have got out earlier, but the seriousness of my crime, and the fact that I was a repeat offender, caused the judge to look the other way and keep me in that hellhole. Not to mention the judge was under investigation himself, and wouldn’t take any of my offers, just to save face.

The next 3 years I spent earning an honest living for a change. Or should I say for change. I had been so far in the red all my life that minimum wage always seemed like money a man would find in the back of his settee.

I worked for a postal company (you can almost taste the irony) a series of corner shops, in which 3, I distinctly remember robbing in my teens, and finally working part time at a community centre. I was forty-five by the time I had any savings at all. And that’s when the PC showed up again.

I had only seen his face once before, and that was at my hearing, posing as an elderly member of the community, he had strolled into the centre with a cane and a perfect set of false teeth. His hair had greyed; either that or he had stopped dyeing it. I failed to recognise him in time. He said a simple set of words in the middle of my meeting, a set of words, which made me fill with hate and sorrow at everyone in that room.

“That mans evil” he had said, waving a long brown walking stick. He was as angry as I was, only his hatred formed in a smile, and mine in a snarl. This man had cost me 17 years of my life, my respect, both from other people and for myself, and all my hard earned money.

I had never committed murder. There was no blood on my hands. For sure, I had paid others to do the deed for me, and they had done so, most willingly. Now though, I had hatred the likes of which I had never felt before. Something dark in me was stirring, and it was the most pleasant, head clearing emotion I had ever felt. A new emotion, not anger or hatred, not chaos or vengeance… but something else. That emotion got unleashed.

I murdered that 62-year-old man in a room filled with children and elderly people without a moment’s hesitation. While I was making him swallow his own cane I remember he was smiling. And when I remember that failing, and trying to strangle him, I remember his smile. And I remember the last set of words he said before the last flicker of life diminished. Another set of simple words that carry such great power.

“You have a son” he whispered. And without time or sense to stop strangling him, he died in my arms. And the people in the centre succeeded in pulling me off his corpse. And the last image of him I can muster is that body, smiling from ear to ear.

Most comic book villains, they drop a bombshell like this, to make the main ‘good’ character cry. Luke moaned when he found out about Darth… Arthur about Mordred… I always assumed these were ill-devised plot lines. The twist you don’t see coming. I most certainly didn’t, but hey, I’m not a good guy. Maybe, when super-villains with long capes say ‘I am your father’ they don’t always mean it. Maybe it is just a attempt to get the good guy to surrender.

But this was the other way around. The P.C had no reason to lie. The good guy tells the truth till the very end. That’s how I knew he was telling the truth, because I both felt it was true, in the bottom of my soul, and because I know that the P.C would have wanted the last laugh. A fact about him, I always admired, even if I did try to have him killed.

I shook of my community-captors and ran away. A burly muscled-man, with bald-spots and a dodgy eye tried to stop me. I jumped onto a table and went around him, Saturday-morning cartoon style. I ran far away before the police arrived. My year as a postie toughened my legs, and my arms were strengthened by the numerous fetching and carrying of carts and boxes. Whatever connections I still had which were few and far between, I squeezed dry. Once again I fought the justice system, and once again I had them all chasing there tails like dogs. Somewhere out there I had a son. ‘Somewhere’ being the key word.

He would be a teenager by now, probably from one of my many late night visitors. I knew where they all used to live, and armed with that I pulled more strings and squeezed more connections than I thought possible. Once again, I had resorted to blackmail, bribing and bullying to get my way, using the last remnants of my mothers money, the one designed to put me through university and a bit further, and all the hard earned scraps from my poor paying jobs.

The police got wise. They knew my intentions, after all, a former PC found out, and so did they. A few close calls over a period of a month made me re-evaluate my decision. A few unsolved cases from my past were catching up with me, investigators from all areas of the globe were getting wise about the things I’ve done, and the murder of a well respected P.C initiated a manhunt. I met my son, sitting surrounded by armed police at an all too familiar metal table. I had given myself in just to see him.

He was everything I had expected. He had my black hair, and his mother’s nose. I he had my long eyelashes, but his mothers cheeks and chin, he was also covered in spots so numerous, that I could have played dot to dot there and then. 17 years ago, his mother and I had shared a rough two months together. She worked at the delivery company I had bribed to transport the computers. But as it turned out, she had one more delivery to make.

The police offered me three hours a week to spend with my son, but only in that room, and only with guards present, armed or otherwise. He was a dark kid; he admired my lifestyle, and understood my original reasons for choosing a life of crime. But his mother had taught him to have a conscience, something I had never learnt. I gave him a hug each day, and parenthood made me both happy and depressed. The one thing I felt ashamed of is the knowledge that I would hardly see him. If I had known 17 years ago, what I know now, I would do things so differently. I can only hope my son develops a sense of righteousness. He wouldn’t want to follow in my footsteps…

But he did want to. He wanted the glamorous lifestyle I had. That’s why I told him I would do things differently, so he doesn’t mess up like his old man. And that’s why, on my 60th birthday, I gave my son a list. A list of contacts. I knew, and I know now, there was no light at the end of the tunnel for me, but who’s to say there won’t be one for my son?