Superstar, Michael Jackson, murdered his father Joe Jackson on the eve of Christmas, 1979. What drove him to commit such a passionate, heinous crime? Money? Greed? Fame? Th Jacksons and their reputation are sent into a spiral.
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Sorrow. Disbelief. Relief. The emotions gave him a stomachache. He dropped the knife and crouched beside the body. Joseph appeared to be in a bloody slumber; nothing like how movies portrayed death. His eyelids had fallen over his sockets and his mouth didn't close completely, but the gape was not as dramatic as before. It relaxed, realizing that it had to accept its fate and that it had no more to give.
He wondered if he should have stayed with Joseph until morning came. There was a conversation that he wanted to have. There were questions that he wanted to ask, but there was no reason anymore. Their relationship had been sealed and no matter how hard he prayed or wished, nothing could be changed beyond that moment.
Michael lingered on his father's face. He thought of his childhood years and Joseph's short haircut. A smile played at his lips and he thought of the times that Joe expressed joy. It was only after a flawless performance, but to see the unappeasable man not fight the corrupted love that he had for his son, if it was only for a brief minute — pulled at Michael's heartstrings.
He fell back on his palms in the sand and stretched his legs out, kicking one of Joseph's shoes with his own. The dead man's slippers were halfway off his feet.
Michael lifted his chin and looked at the stars. He searched for the one that glowed the brightest in the sky and casted his burdens onto it. It was like the sudden crime pulled at his core and made him regurgitate the things that he tried to suppress because all he wanted was a father.
One that taught him how to ride a bike and to perfectly knot the ties on his suits. He wanted a father that encouraged the act of falling in love instead of displaying infidelity to his many, impressionable sons. Him and all of his brothers were tied up in sheets instead of love and when Michael had the urge to give it, nothing sparked.
He should've been able to ride with Joseph in tranquility. They should have been sitting on the lid of the Chevy and pinpointing memories.
He thought back to when he was a preteen and when he blatantly said that he wouldn't cry at Joseph's funeral. He meant it with every bone in his body and now he was ready to weep, not over the cooling corpse, but over the fact that not one thing about it changed. Revulsion didn't make his skin crawl.
His eyes stung as they rested on his father. He resembled Joseph in the face, but it was not that. It was that he felt a piece of him had gone away with Joseph. Blood reddened Joseph's medium brown skin at his chest. Michael's eyes studied his fingers and he saw that Joseph wore two golden rings; his marriage band on his ring finger and a larger ring with an emerald stone on his pointer.
A rush pushed him closer to the body and he lifted Joseph's hands, wondering if his skin or hair had gotten under his fingernails. The night barely granted him any light so he touched his neck instead, where he could still feel Joe's heavy touch, and he felt around for scratches. There were none.
