My Gang of Hitmen

Chapter One - The Drug Deal

Chapter One - The Drug Deal

"Alright. That's it. If you can't face your own damn responsibilities, then I sure as hell don't have to either."

I wasn't sure how long I was going to withstand living this way with this man who claimed to be 'father'.

A couple months, maybe, at the max. Every little thing was driving me insane and, honestly, I just couldn't take it.

I walked calmly to the door, knowing my father wouldn't be able to stop me. I opened the door and without a second thought, I just started walking away.

"Get your ass back here, you filthy, little..." he slurred. I could hear something crash against the front door, but I didn't even flinch anymore. Too many things thrown to know what was going to hit me and what wasn't. I'd just have to clean it up later.

I was out of the house and not coming back anytime soon. No way, no how. Not after what I'd just said. He would have me beaten to a pulp if he still remembered the next morning. This was why I couldn't stay.

My father, for one, was always drunk. Always. I couldn't remember the last time I saw him sober. It could've been five months ago on my birthday when he'd asked what I wanted and I told him a day without alcohol. He'd laughed in his drunken stupor, but had set the bottle of gin down on the counter to contemplate my request. I remember thinking that he badly needed a shave. He'd shrugged and stumbled off to his room to most likely fall into an alcohol-induced nap.

I had stared at the half-empty bottle for a good two minutes before deciding to pour it down the drain and place it somewhere else around the house. I had learned the hard way to not actually throw the glass bottles out. He knew when he found them in the trash, that I had wasted his liquor. This way, he would find the empty bottles on his own and believe that he had finished them himself. Saved me from ducking a glass bottle to the head.

My father wasn't a naturally violent person... only when he was drunk.. and lonely and bitter and depressed. Which happened to be all the time now. But he wasn't like that when I was really young. I've seen old videos of him holding me as a baby, playing peek-a-boo and airplane with me, cooing at my chubby cheeks, blowing raspberries on my tummy, and teasing my Michelin baby legs. Mom was always behind the camera, never brave enough to show her face to the world. I'd heard from friends that she was always depressed about everything, but that I was the light in her darkness.

There was one time, however, when my dad had stolen the camera from her and chased her around our house until he'd cornered her. She had shyly turned to the camera. Laughing, she had urged him to turn it off, but he declined and went on filming. She was, in fact, beautiful. This was all I had of my mother. When I was seven, he had burned all of her pictures. Sold all of her remaining jewelry. But, for some reason, he kept her clothes.

I found him once, curled in a ball on the floor, weeping over her clothes. He was wailing in agony as he found some of her old dresses. He had them clutched to his chest as if he were in pain by the mere memory of her. He was rabidly smelling them, crying over each new piece that was added to his collection. In the end, all of her clothing was on the floor in a heap. Every single article of my mother's clothing must have reeked of alcohol, as he was accidentally spilling clear liquor in his wallowing and didn't even care to notice. I watched as he went from one dress to the next, most likely, remembering the different times she had worn them. He disgusted me. I left him there to drown his sorrows.

The next day, he was back to his normal, abusive self: yelling crude things at me, watching foul porn on TV, and occasionally, chucking a knife at me. For some ungodly reason, throwing knives was all he seemed to know how to do well.