Writing for Fun
April 2016
Vengeance - Jenni Bowers
Someone had killed his granddad; he'd find them then they'd be sorry. He knew about the guns, had even seen his uncle Marco carrying one! Marco had quickly covered it up with an old towel but not before some of the kids spotted it and began to play act shooting each other.
They had found granddad lying in a pool of blood, playing cards scattered all around him; he'd been shot; why would anyone do this to him? he was lovely, kind and fun to be with, all the kids loved him, but of course they didn't really know him.
Christo began to listen more intently to the conversations around him; he had many relatives, big families were the norm back then and his prying ears caught amazing revelations about granddad after all. He was a card sharp (what was that?) and a gangster! Apparently that was when he'd first immigrated to America back in 1915 with many Italians who'd come to seek a better life and found they were treated as scum – even then immigrant was a dirty word.
Granddad couldn't get work, neither could many others so they formed gangs, performed robberies on small factories and industries which had large enough payrolls to make it worth the risk. Many gang members held firearms, weapons from the wars around the world which had been stored carefully for future insurance.
America, the Land of the Free, was known to be lenient about gun ownership anyway – it was their right to protect themselves and their families after all, so the immigrants were just becoming proud Americans too.
Christo learned about those early days of prohibition, when sedition laws and many other unfair laws had been passed by Congress, that many of the Italian family members were thrown in jail for no valid reason, without trial or evidence against them in many cases and this had only resulted in the formation of large, brutal gangs who actually had police on their payrolls. Some well known 'faces' began to emerge – among them Al Capone.
Granddad (Mario to his friends), had been part of a gang which had inflicted fear and violence on his patch of New York; this kindly sweet faced darling of the local ladies and their many children had in fact been a murderer. When his own son, (Christo's father, Enrico) had been found drowned in the river one dark night Mario had taken his henchmen, Antonio and Bernardo and cut the throats of 5 young men he suspected were involved in his son's death.
Mario couldn't believe that these youths were innocent of Enrico's drowning, their desperate insistence that he'd actually been drunk and showing off to them, had fallen to his death before they could grab him fell on deaf ears and he exacted his terrible revenge. Now someone had avenged them.
Every sudden death was met with shock and horror, then a discussion as to who the perpetrator might be, which gang was after which, especially as the Chinese gangs were even more feared now than the Mafia.
Christo grew up and became integrated into the gang culture, but he wanted a way out, to lead a normal, decent life, his respect for his grandfather gone but he lived in fear every day of Uncle Marco discovering his wish to leave the firm.
The only way out was to go to the police, shop Marco and his gang, his family, but how could he? Christo had been delivering A class drugs all over New York to the rich and famous including police officers, he didn't know who to trust.
He'd met a lovely girl, Betsy, and wanted to marry her, take her away and begin a new life – creeping into the church he knelt to pray, gazing up at the fabulous, ornate alter with Christ staring down at him, 'knowing every little thing I've done,' he thought. He prayed fervently, begging the Lord to forgive him, let him have his new life and he'd work for good even though he'd never managed to avenge his granddad. A calmness swept over him and he thought he heard a soft voice whisper 'Christo, vengeance is mine, go in peace my son.'
He managed to save enough and plan his escape on a ship carrying grain to England, where he and Betsy settled down to have a family. Christo joined the police force in a small seaside town, but always looked over his shoulder, even when pushing his children in their prams he expected the gang to have found him.
Times changed, the young men of New York were enlisting as America joined the fight against the Japanese after Pearl Harbour, among them several of the gang which had murdered Mario in revenge for their own relatives. They joined US 1st Army units and headed for Omaha Beach on June 6th 1944.
They never returned.
Vengeance is indeed mine sayeth the Lord. (Romans 12-19)