Mr.Capone

. 2 .

It was nothing more than a grudge that made Mr.Capone want the kid's head on a platter.

Capone had almost sweet talked the guards into letting his 'friend' go, but Marcus Perry, the boy's father and a high ranking officer had stepped in and made sure the release was stopped at the last second.

I had never shot a gun before.

At the age of seventeen, though, I sat patiently outside Tony Perry's window, Smith & Wesson in hand, watching his every move.

My intent was never to fall in love with the boy, but god damn, it happened.

Because those first two weeks as I watched him I didn't just fall in love with him, I fell in love with everything he did and everything he was.

I remember watching him at night. Before he laid down to sleep he would write in this leather bound notebook. What was scrawled in that ink I would never discover, but when I lay down at night sometimes the thought of those words still haunts me.

He was nervous, I noticed. About everything. His hands would shake as he brought them up to fix his hair in the mirror, and when someone barged into his room, he would jump as if he had been caught doing something bad.

But he never did anything bad.

He was a straight a student, he modelled himself after god, prayed every day as soon as he got up, and tutored children in his spare time.

Yes, Tony was near perfect.

...Except the drugs.

Anything he could get his hands on.

Amphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana were his favorites. I loved to watch him get high; the way his pupils would pin point and he would stare at the extravagant paintings on his wall as if they were talking to him; and they may have been.

That was Tony Perry's darkness; His demon.

And darkness and demons tend to harbor pain and regret with them.

After the third week, Capone grew impatient.

I had been shining the floors of his New York kitchen, making sure everything was spotless the way he liked it.

He sauntered through the door with guards by his side, something you usually didn't see when he was in his own residence. I stood at attention, dropping the soapy sponge I was holding into the bucket of water.

"Micheal." He stated "We needs to have us a chat."

I left the room two hours later with a pair of bruised ribs, a black eye, and a final message that he 'wanted that son of bitch dead by twilight tomorrow'.

But I couldn't. I sat outside his window with my silencer-equipped gun and promised myself this was the last time I saw him. The last time I ever watched him smoke, the last time I watched him pray, the last tume I watched him write in that leather bound notebook...

And then, when nightfall came, I promised myself I would pull the trigger in five minutes... and then ten minutes.. and then half an hour.. and then two hours..

and I couldn't do it.

I tucked my gun inside my belt and wandered home.

When I stepped through the door, Mr.Capone was waiting. He had a large joint clenched between his lips and as he exhaled smoke he asked in an oxygen deprived, airless voice:

"Did you do what I asked?"

I only lied to Mr.Capone once. And it would turn out to be the worst decision of my life.

"Yes."

Because I was so in love with a boy who would never know my name.