Queens, New York

“See the old man sitting right there on the park bench? With his cap pulled down?  That’s your target.  Now remember Heath, when you walk up to him, place the gun quickly behind his head, and pull the trigger.  Just like I taught you.”

 His father held the gun out to him.  Heath hesitated for a moment, then took the .38.  He was nervous, but also a little upset with his father.  He had tricked him, and he hated it when he did that.  His father was one who believed that everyone someday would find themselves victims of a circumstance.  That day had been his.  A circumstance that he truly wished he could have reversed. 

“I will be waiting here for you when you kill him.  Don’t hesitate, Heath.  Pull the trigger, walk away, and don’t look back.  Looking back is seen as a sign of weakness.  In this business, you can’t be weak.  Not for a woman, not for family, and definitely not for money.”  Heath wanted to know who it was he was going to kill.  He knew he wouldn’t get an answer from his father,  but he had to ask.  He had to.  His father had taught him that if you want to know something, ask.  No matter who you’re asking.  Just be careful and mindful of how you do it.  He told Heath that it would come a time when some people may not want to answer questions, and become violent.  But that was his dad.  He knew his dad smacked him around sometimes, but he didn’t think he would beat him bloody for asking.

"Who is he dad?"

His father had given him the look he was expecting.   “Don’t worry about that right now, son.  Just do it and hurry back.  We don’t’ have much time.”  Heath remembered how he just stood there, not being able to move.  If he had been prepared, at least knew about it ahead of time, then it wouldn't have been so hard to carry.  

He looked at his father, who was agitated with his stalling.  This was his rite of passage, and his father had been prepping him for years, starting to groom him when he became a teenager.  While other kids were out shooting hoops, he was out shooting guns at empty cans and beer bottles with his father.  Practicing on his aim.  Over the years he learned how to hold a gun firmly in his grip.  The feel of a gun against his palm was nothing new to him. 

His father stamped out his cigarette and reached for another one in his coat pocket. 

“I told you when the time came for you to learn our ways that it wasn’t going to be easy.  Killing’s never easy.  But once you do it, it becomes second nature.  I never wanted this life for you, but certain circumstances have lead us to this day.  Soon, you will know and understand why.“ 

Now that the time had come, he didn’t think he would be able to stand up to the test.  His father had told him they were going to the movies, but when they pulled into the alley behind Gino’s Pizzeria, he knew that something wasn’t right.  All that week he begged his father about going to see the new Godfather movie.  The Godfather Part 2, the one that was going to show how Michael Corleone had risen to power.  How ironic that  there he was, standing in an alley behind a trash dumpster, watching his father exhale smoke from those awful Pall Mall’s that he chain smoked one after the other, given the power to take a life?  

His father didn’t smile.  Heath knew that he was counting on him to go through with this.  The gun felt cold in his hands.

“Go, son.  Time is wasting.”

Heath remembered it felt like an eternity.  Like he was an inmate on death row, walking his last walk to the electric chair.  Except he was walking to carry out the execution.  He was the executioner, forced to being in charge of pulling the switch.    The man sitting on the bench was reading a newspaper.   Heath remembered standing behind him.  Arm outstretched, gun in hand.  The man had cocked his head to the side, and closed his eyes.  As if he knew that it was coming.  The sound of the bullet releasing itself from the chamber seemed to echo on forever.  To Heath the bullet moved in slow motion.  First entering the back of the man’s head, then exiting out of his forehead.  Heath thought he actually saw the bullet sail through the air, even though he knew that could’ve been the case.  The police would later confirm it as an assassination style hit.  His memory still remembered how the old man collapsed to the ground, already dead before his body met the pavement.  When it hit with a thud, the head turned sideways.  Heath had screamed in shock at that face upon recognition.  It was his grandfather.  His dad’s father.  His dismay was overwhelming as he looked back up the alley toward his father, who was waving him to come quickly. When he reached him, he fell in his arms, crying.   “Your grandfather did a terrible thing,” his father had said, rubbing his head gently.   “He knew there was a contract out on his life for what he did.  But he did what he felt was right.   He wanted it to be you Heath.  Wanted it to be you to send him on his journey to the afterlife.  We both agreed that it should be you, and not some punk who would never remember his name.  We knew that if you were the one who did it, you wouldn’t have a problem killing again when the time came.  It would harden you.  Make you cold.  Not at first, but the older you get.  Accept it son, then let it go.  Let it go.  You knew that this life wouldn’t be easy.  I never told you it would.  This is the life that we have chosen.”  His father stuck the gun in his inside pocket, and they were gone, hearing the police sirens approaching in the distance.

That year was 1974.  He was 18 years old.    

The familiar sounds of a present day siren snapped him back to the real world.  He swerved on the road and pulled back into his lane.  There was a police cruiser behind him.  He looked in his rearview and saw the lights flashing.  Someone in the coffee shop must have given a description of his car.  Killing was a major part of his job, but those punks at the coffee shop wasn't intentional.  But they had tried to kill him, and now they were dead.  When it's killed or be killed, he never hesitated. 

The driver’s side door of the police car pushed open and a policeman exited the car, his firearm already cocked and loaded. The back glass of Heath’s car shattered into pieces as flying bullets was shot from the patrolmen’s gun.  A bullet hit him in his left shoulder,  ripping flesh, tearing open his jacket and making his shirt more burgundy with blood.  He realized that the cop was shooting first and asking questions later.  He wasn’t about to die this way.  He had a few other people that he needed to ask some questions to.  The day just wasn't going as he planned it.  Heath ducked down in the car and reached inside his jacket for his own gun.   

Kill or be killed.