Violent Delights = Violent Ends

p r o l o g u e

It had been Bennie's idea to hold their funerals together. 

At first, the rest of the living Morrisons had scoffed. Morrisons and Changs settling their differences aside long enough to mourn their dead? At the same time, and in the same place? Surely such a thing could never happen. Funerals were personal things, why should their mortal enemies, the Changs, sit and be smug while they watch them grieve their only son?

But, Mayor Esquire had heard Bennie's suggestion; he always heard everything, even after what happened to his own boy. He had loved it, and had both families arrange it promptly. He believed it would destroy their feud for once and for all. Two families, brought together by the deaths of their sole heirs, the deaths of such innocent souls? If that couldn't do it, nothing would. 

The funeral had gone smoothly, at first. The dueling families had stuck to opposite sides of the church--oh, and how difficult it had been to get the Changs to agree to even having it at Father Lorenzo's church in the first place--but the rising tension in the air was not due to Father's righteous words. Not a tear was shed on either side, no one wanting to be the first to cry in front of the enemy. 

It had all come to a head once the families moved from the church to the cemetery. It was either Esquire or Lorenzo who had said it--no one was for sure who--but when one of them suggested that Roger Morrison help Jian Chang lower his daughter's casket, all hell broke loose. 

"I don't want his dirty hands anywhere near her!"

Morrison rolled his eyes, and backed up away from the casket. "Give me a break, Chang, I wouldn't touch you or your kid with a ten foot pole, dead or alive!"

Chang huffed out a humorless laugh. "Well, you should've told your godddamn son that, too. If he hadn't been trying so hard to defile my girl, none--"

"He did no such thing you, dirty little liar! I will not have you slander my son at his own funeral, you fucking rat!"

Rhonda Morrison, with her face shadowed by her black netted veil, stepped in with an exasperated, "Language, please!"

"Yeah, listen to your whore, Morrison," mocked Chang.

Gasps sounded throughout the cemetery. Rhonda's mouth fell agape as Roger seethed. "Excuse me?!"

Before her husband could remind the couple of just what he had said, Jian's own wife, Jennifer, wrapped her arms around his midsection, pleading, "Jian, I've had it with this! Our daughter is dead, their son is dead, can you please just--"

"'Please' what? You hate them just as much as I do!" He was too distracted by his wife's chiding to notice Roger approaching to look him right in the eye. When he did, realize, he licked his bottom lip and spat, "What do you want?"

Morrison wiped the saliva that had escaped Chang's mouth on the word "want" off of his cheek. He narrowed his eyes and growled, "Say another word about my wife and I swear your fast-tailed child won't be the only one getting buried today!" This made Jennifer recoil in anger.

"What'd you say about her?!"

"I called your kid a little sl--" Morrison's sentence was interrupted by Chang tackling him to the muddy ground. 

"Good Lord, forgive them for they do not know what they do..." Father Lorenzo muttered to the sky as he performed the sign of the cross. 

Chang managed to land a single punch on Morrison's chin before Morrison threw the other man off and lunged after him, hurling his fists towards his body with abandon. Esquire ran to pull Morrison off, dragging him through the grass and away from Chang.