Sweet Revenge (Chapter 1 - excerpt)

CHAPTER 1 – IMAGINATION RUNS WILD

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but knowing what I know now (Have no worries, I’ll get to that too), I have rebuilt and recreated what my wife and son went through that day. I have refined the scene a thousand times. I do it out of guilt I suppose. Guilt at my failure to protect them. Guilt in wishing I could’ve switched places. Guilt that I failed to somehow prepare them for the worst. Guilt for not installing an alarm. You must understand that “living” it again won’t hurt me. It will only help me feel better by raking myself along the coals.

7:40 a.m. I believe. I know…Dana and I had traveled probably no more than three minutes from the house. Dasha was probably telling Deshawn that it was nearly time for them to leave as well.

They walk from the kitchen after Deshawn retrieves his lunch. The footsteps go from tap tap tap to shmch shmch shmch, their feet traveling over tile then plush carpet. Dasha gives one last look around to make sure they have everything.

Then the back door caves inward. The cracking of the door jamb startles my son and my wife. It is an unknown sound. Although, it doesn’t produce panic, only curiosity.

“What the heck was that?” Deshawn asked.

Rather than answering, Dasha heads to the back of the house to investigate- perhaps mistaking the noise for a bird flying into the kitchen’s bay window. That is when the panic comes.

She sees two figures through the closed blinds. She gasps, “Deshawn, go upstairs and call the police.”

Confused, Deshawn freezes, having never heard his mother say anything close to this alarming.

Dasha, “Now.” She speaks in the sternest of whispers as the men rush in through the door.

The men hadn’t expected anyone in the home. They had pulled up in a utility van that was made to look like the vehicle of the local satellite company. They had uniforms, but no masks. A blonde with longish hair, and a bald man with a handlebar mustache. Dasha can clearly see they are certainly as astonished as she.

There is a difference though: The men were not scared.

They advance, drawing pistols with silencers as they came. She tries to usher Deshawn upstairs, but as she turns to follow a gloved hand grabs her hair and yanks her from the third step. That queer feeling of sudden certainty when you know you are going to fall overtakes her. Then she crashes to the ground, smacking the back of her head on the floor.

7: 42 a.m. Dasha is dazed, but coherent enough to see the blonde rush upstairs and pluck Deshawn from the landing. Doubtless, he was heading for the ball bat in his room.

Her view is suddenly changed when the bald one hefts her from the ground. Tears escape her eyes. No scream escapes her mouth.

Deshawn is forced back downstairs, putting up a fight the whole way. Blondie has hold of him, shoving my son forward, Deshawn collides into his mother. Neither fall. However, when Deshawn regains his equilibrium he rushes Baldie- the man holding a gun on his mother, my wife.

Enraged, Deshawn now looks more like an animal than a 14 year old boy. Lips pared back, teeth showing, and eyes full of angry, stinging tears. Baldie waits for him to move in and without much thought or effort thumps him on the head with the butt of his gun. Deshawn crumbles.

That makes his mother finally cry out.

7:43 a.m. Baldie signals her to be quiet by taunting her with his gun. When it doesn’t work, he points it at Deshawn instead. That works.

Blondie looks at his partner. They exchange a brief, casual, but more important knowing look.

7:44 a.m. Deshawn rolls up and over and swings an arm up and into Baldie’s crotch. It’s a final desperate hope of escape. He tries to get away, probably hoping he can make it outside to get help.

7:45 a.m. It doesn’t work. Blondie fires, hitting Deshawn in the back. The bullet traveled the perfect path to hit his heart then left lung, causing him to asphyxiate on his own blood.

7:45:30 a.m. Dasha wrenches free of Blondie and in a last move, reaches out for her baby boy. My wife’s last moments were confused, angry, and without hope. Furious and embarrassed, Baldie fires into her face twice. The life leaves her and she slumps over our son’s body. My wife is left to bleed on our grey Berber carpeting.

As it stands now, the stain has been cleaned but I still see it. I see lots of things these days, few of them good.

I learned something from my mental reenactments though. In just over five minutes two thirds of my life was taken away. In the time it takes you to floss, read an article in a magazine, or some other inconsequential act, they were gone.

What I learned: Tragedy is swift.

My name is Delon Moss. There was a time when I had the perfect life. You’ve seen now what I believe to be the method by which I had that life taken from me.

However, to better help place it into context I will share with you exactly what I had; exactly what I lost that was so perfect, so dear to me. I’ll share it so that you may understand my pain just a little bit more. I don’t want your sympathy, and I certainly don’t want your pity. I’ll share it so that you may come to understand-if not necessarily agree- exactly what caused me to devolve...

S.A.M.C.R.O.

“I’m tired of being crushed under the weight of greedy men who believe in nothing.”

- Jax Teller, Sons of Anarchy

The Walking Dead made me a zombie. Breaking Bad got me addicted. But Sons, Sons invited me to be part of the brotherhood.

From the above I suppose you can tell that I am a fan of those niche television dramas that have a cast full of characters that you are primed to love, and then you are forced to watch die off in excruciating ways.

It's hard to say what’s attractive about that. Perhaps it is akin to that Haruki Murakami quote; “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” Maybe in some strange way watching these small worlds on television implode due to greed, violence and the fallacy of humankind is darkly appealing.

I am now on the cusp of finishing this series via Netflix (Oh praise the streaming gods!). And yes, I realize I am about 3 years behind everyone else, but that’s my preference. No bandwagons and no commercials. I can also hear most of you screaming, “How can you write about it if you haven’t seen the ending?” Simple, because life’s a journey, not a destination. And I’ve know that the final episode is not the way to judge a long running series that’s brought me such high levels of entertainment. In other words, I’m not hanging my entire opinion of the entire show on however the last episode turns out.

For me, Sons had a great deal of things I liked; human drama, Chibs, and even a Stephen King cameo. Most of all it had characters that weren’t typical. I hate rooting for that white-washed hero that has no self-doubt, nothing to hide, and no scars. I like the characters that walk the line, and more to the point, sometimes feel that they need to roll up their sleeves and move the line themselves. I also like a good “villain seeking redemption angle” (à la Meryl from TWD). SOA had many rich characters that did both those things, sometimes those two traits were rolled into the same character. I enjoy that dichotomy within a character’s moral fiber- that battle of what they feel needs doing versus that which they feel is just. Both major and minor characters alike seemed to have at least a spark of that written into them on SOA. Which makes it extremely hard for a guy like me to hammer down a solitary favorite character. But that’s a damn good problem to have.

I know rumor has it that there’s supposed to be a SOA prequel in development and a potential spinoff centering on the Mayans MC, and I will definitely be interested in those if they come to fruition. Not only interested, but I won’t be waiting years after the shows air in order to watch.

However, until then I do have the last episode laying in wait. And as I did with Breaking Bad, I will procure an appropriately themed bomber of a fine craft beer, get comfortable and see where the MC’s last ride takes them...