Before I shot him I smiled and said:
Once you stop caring about dying or going to jail, you can do anything you want.
April 18, 1995
The officer’s mugs were plastered over the news. No suspects arrested but plenty of street scum had been detained for questioning. That’s when the shit hit the fan. At first the community showed overwhelming support to find the killer, but the deeper the brass dug the more they wanted this whole episode to disappear. Oakland Police Officers Andrew Douglas and Billy Chan had been shaking down pimps and drug dealers in the East and West Oakland area, going on 3 years. I know what you’re thinking. Who the fuck is going to believe degenerate lowlifes over two decorated cops, right? Ah, here’s where the twist comes in. The scumbags they shook down decided to previously videotape a few of the transactions they encountered with the dirty cops. I’m talking shakedowns, threats, receiving drug money. The department ran scared. The relationship between the community and the boys in blue was shaky at best. If this nice piece of information gets out, you’re talking about WW3. Someone had to answer for the dead cops. The brass did what every politician who is trying to cover their ass does: pick a patsy. How did I become privy to this information? Let’s just say a little birdie told me and leave it at that.
The guy’s name was Kareem Coleman. A gang banger from Richmond. Here’s the tricky part. The suits knew they couldn’t use a live patsy. Too many questions. The puzzle would be missing a lot of pieces. The official story went something like this; forgive me if I leave out any details: Officers Douglas and Chan stopped Kareem Coleman on suspicion of distributing illegal narcotics. A scuffle ensued. Mr. Coleman shot and killed both men before fleeing on foot. A week later, Coleman was himself murdered, the victim of a drive-by shooting in his hometown of Richmond. Somehow the medical examiner concluded the bullets found in the officers’ bodies came from a gun owned by this guy Coleman. When I read the article in the newspaper I laughed.
The reporters didn’t ask any follow up questions or engage in any investigative reporting, because, A) -Their boss told them to stay away or B) - They didn’t give a shit. It seems every newspaper is full of liberal journalists or whatever the fuck they call themselves these days, always throwing that same bullshit line, anytime a minority drug dealer, or gang member gets killed. He came from a broken family, it’s not his fault he grew up to kill people, we should cut him a break; blah. blah. Bullshit! They’ve never had a loved one taken from them by one of these monsters, or been followed in the dark by two thugs who want to take what you own; strip you of your dignity. This has nothing to do with race. I know a lot of good folks of different ethnic background, so don’t twist my fucking logic around. I’m talking about predators, feeding off the innocent. People like that deserve death.
I wish I could go back to that morning. I wish I told my wife how much I loved her before she walked out the door. I wish I didn’t hate myself. I wish I didn’t hate humanity. Murdering those cops sealed it for me. I had some good left in me but now it’s gone. My heart is cold as ice. When I wake up in the morning I don’t like the man I see in the mirror.
The first time I took a life I felt purpose had been shifted back to me. I had something to live for. Now that evil seed has wielded its ugly head. Killing has become a necessity, a drug I crave. I’m an addict.
I tried praying. I came up with a short sermon I sing to myself every night. Nothing fancy: ‘Lord take me out of this world and into yours. This situation cripples me. Please, I want to be with my wife. I can’t handle this heartache anymore, amen.’ Pretty pathetic, right? Well, fuck you. You don’t know shit about suffering.
After a month of repeating the same humdrum bullshit and getting no results I decided to try God’s house. I drove to a swanky church in the North Beach section of San Francisco. Saint Francis of Aussi-something. The ceilings stretched twenty ft. tall. The pews opened up a mile wide. I took a seat in the front. The place was as quiet as a cemetery. I kicked things off with a silent prayer then I stared at the luminous alter, where a statue of Jesus hanging from the cross stared back at me. I asked the almighty “why? Why me? It’s one thing to steal my wife but now my sanity?” I yelled as loud as my lungs would allow. The frustration poured out. “I am no longer a human being. I’m a robot. You did this to me. I tried to follow you and for what? You’re supposed to hold the answers. I’m still here, stuck in the same fuckin’ mud ever since you decided you needed my wife more than I do. The bible talks about struggles, trials, tribulations, the warm and fuzzy shit you find on a Hallmark card. Why? I mean, why do we need to feel pain? For your amusement, God? Is heaven that boring?
The good thing about living is knowing you’re going to die. This hurt can’t go on, can it? What the fuck is the purpose? Answer me.” I sat in the pew, weeping. I have nothing left. No fuel for today or tomorrow. Voices crawled inside my head. Little munchkins talking in a high pitch sound, telling me the work isn’t done. The episode was overwhelming. If I was going to experience a mental breakdown, no fuckin’ way would it be in a church. I ran out, hopped in my car and looked for the nearest liquor store. I didn’t find any parking so I pulled into a narrow alley behind Town and Country liquors, a few blocks down from Big Lew’s porn shop in the city. I went in, grabbed a six-pack of bud, intent on drowning my sorrows, but when I came out a wiry man wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans stood in the rear of my car arguing with some honey. She wasn’t bad looking. Nothing you’d take home to mom. She was the type of skank you took to a hotel and rode till the sun came up. Dirty, sexy.
The two were arguing. Don’t know about what. I just wanted to inhale a few cold ones and get these fuckin’ tweakers out of my head. I didn’t have time to play referee. The woman had different ideas. She ran up to me, begging for me to give her a ride. Mr. Leather Jacket didn’t take kindly to that. He advised me to mind my own business and drive away. I told him that’s what I’m trying to do. The girl kept pushing up on me. She wouldn’t let go of my arm. As hard I tried, I couldn’t break free of this bitch’s grip. Mr. Leather Jacket was infuriated. I didn’t see the right cross coming but I sure as shit felt it. The son of a bitch packed a mean punch for a small dude. I dropped to the ground. I tried looking up but my vision was blurry. After a few minutes, it returned. Leather Jacket was standing over me, pointing. His face had a nasty growl. The girl tried to calm him down but he just shoved her out of the way. I had one choice after he pulled out a gun.
I cursed to myself. I didn’t want to kill anymore. A part of me never wanted to get up. What the hell did I have to live for? I quit my meaningless 12-hour trucking job. Didn’t have much else, but my stupid ass instincts kicked in. I rolled on my side and reached between my balls. I heard the couple bickering. She, calling him a cracked-out junkie, he, returning the insults, calling her a two-dollar hoe. I didn’t waste any time. As soon as I fell on my back I aimed and started shooting. Leather jacket jerked forward, holding his chest, before hitting the pavement. The woman put her face in her hands. I remember the way her mouth opened. Her eyes didn’t blink. A true picture of shock. I helped myself up, still a little wobbly. I expected at least a touch of gratitude. Nope. She started throwing punches at me, calling me a murderer. Again, instincts took over. I couldn’t believe what I did next. I shot the woman in the stomach. She drew me into this fight. I didn’t come searching for it. I looked at the mouth of the ally. There were people walking past, by the dozen. No way could I leave the bodies. To my surprise, the girl was still breathing. Somebody might hear her calling for help. I thought on my feet. I opened the trunk of my Cadillac. The hood blocked any visual traffic, so I didn’t have to worry about curious on-lookers. I dragged Leather Jacket’s body first. Almost broke my back lifting him in the trunk. The girl gasped for air. I did the only thing humane. I put her out of her misery with a shot to the head. Her eyes remained open, staring at me. It was one fuckin’, eerie feeling. I slammed the trunk and walked to the driver’s side, thanking God nob
ody heard the shots. The entire time I’m driving over the Bay Bridge, heading back to the East Bay, my eyes took turns checking the rearview searching for cops, then at the odometer, making damn sure I obeyed the speed limit. I’m cursing out loud, thinking, what the fuck am I going to do with these bodies?
I couldn’t stop shaking. I was on the brink of a panic attack. My nerves didn’t calm until I pulled in the garage. Driving from the city to San Leandro, California where I live, took around 40 minutes. It felt like I had a hundred heart attacks in that time. I grabbed some thick plastic painters sheeting from the shed and covered the floors so I wouldn’t get blood everywhere. I dragged the bodies into my bathtub, then stripped naked and went into my bedroom and changed into a tank top and sweats. I went back to the garage to get something big and sharp. Only thing I found was a shovel. I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. For 5 hours, I hacked and cut up the bodies before disposing them in a large hefty bag. The experience was surreal. Killing is one thing, but chopping dead corpses is something I can’t describe. I didn’t know where to dump the remains so the next day I drove to the Oakland Hills and picked a secluded area to bury the parts. I would later find out the victims’ names were Adriana Scott, a prostitute, and her pimp boyfriend, Nick Bowman. Both were lowlife’s, a product of the nightlife sewer. Maybe I did them a favor. I don’t know. That old saying crept back into my head:
Once you stop caring about dying or going to jail, you can do anything you want.
June 17, 1995
The quote kept coming back to me, laughing: Once you stop caring about dying or going to jail, you can do anything you want.
After I murdered those cops in cold blood the world in my eyes had changed. The vigilante persona doesn’t fly with me anymore. Maybe I’m weak. I’m not strong like Bruce Wayne. I don’t turn into a super hero when the night falls. The only way to put this nightmare to bed is to do the one thing I thought I would never do. Take my own life.
I called my lawyer and updated my will. My assets including the house and cars are going to my younger sister Charlotte, who I haven’t spoken to in over ten years, yet she lives 15 minutes from me, out in Pleasanton. Sorry to say we experienced a falling-out. The man she married is a piece of shit. A real fuckin’ lowlife. His name is Bob. I couldn’t stand the son of a bitch. He drove a beat-up green Sedan with a Confederate flag hanging in the back window. The prick oozed cockiness. He had long reddish hair and wore cowboy boots. An authentic redneck. These attributes didn’t bother me. The reason I hated this man (It’s hard to call him that) was his unwillingness to provide for my sister. The dickhead couldn’t hold down a job to save his life. Wasn’t like he was crippled or anything. The cocksucker was just lazy. He would stay home, drink beer and fill his veins with heroin while my baby sister busted her ass, working ten hour shifts as a nurse, only to spend her night’s bar tending at a dive joint in Castro Valley to make ends meet. Bob wouldn’t lift a finger, yet he complained because my sister was gone all the time. His drinking and drug use spiraled out of control. That’s when the late-night calls and visits started. Charlotte would show up at my house at two in the morning, crying. On a few occasions, both of her eyes were swollen shut. I flew into a rage. I went right over and paid Bob’s worthless ass a visit. As soon as he opened the door my knuckles flew to his face. He was a short pudgy fella, no match for the anger inside me. I boxed as a kid. State champ,runner-up. Bob didn’t stand a chance against me. I beat him within an inch of his life, put his ass in the hospital a few times.
My sister was furious. She gave me the same speech every time Bob came home in a cast. (How could you, it’s the drugs, he’s usually not this way), excuse after excuse. I grew tired of playing the bad guy so I decided to cut all ties, told her not to call me. I regret my decision. That was ten years’ ago. She has no idea my wife died. I contemplated picking up the phone, but I didn’t want to hear Bob’s voice, so I decided against it.
I made up my mind; June 17, 1995 would be my last day on earth. Too damn late to rectify past indiscretions. The suicide note had been written the night before. Nothing big. A couple of paragraphs explaining the reasoning for the people I killed. I was ready to leave this world. The person who I became wasn’t the person my wife fell in love with. In the movie’s, the good guy experiences a life changing episode that pushes him over the limit. He finds himself thinking and acting out of the norm. He embraces the ugly person he’s become. It’s what creative writing teachers refer to as inconsistency. In order for a character to develop and a story to flow, he or she must do something out of the ordinary. Well folks, I’m not a character in a fuckin’ novel. You can’t change events to make the writer engulf his creation. Life isn’t a giant bowl of fiction.
I loaded the gun, cocked the hammer back and sat on the tail end of my bed, reliving the most precious moments in my life: The first time my dad took me to a baseball game. Game 2 of the 1962 World Series at Candlestick Park. The Giants beat the hated Yankees on a sunny day 2-0. I was so excited. I got to see Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey play on the same field. I can still smell the fresh cut grass, the hot dogs and clouds of smoke. I remember my first crush, Sandy Hopyard, third grade. Another flashback found me knocking out Royce Royal in the fifth round to advance to the finals of the State tournament. I caught him with a left hook to the chin. He dropped to his knees. The memory was replaced by the image of me seeing my wife for the first time. She worked as a bank teller. Those luminous eyes stole my heart the minute she looked at me. We took a stroll on the beach in San Francisco for our first date. I brought a radio and we danced till the sun came up, laughing, talking about life. The Golden Gate Bridge peeked down on us with envy. An image of our wedding popped up next. We exchanged vows on a hot muggy day in September at a Napa wine vineyard, in front of family and friends. I was the happiest guy on the planet. I hit the lottery. The woman of my dreams agreed to marry me and I didn’t have to bribe her. OK, there you have it. The fondest memories replaying in my head over and over. Time to check out.
I stuck the barrel of the gun in my mouth and closed my eyes. I was about to pull the trigger when an image of my sister popped up, the two of us as kids, playing tag, joking, not a care in the world. Damn, I long for those times. I miss my baby sister. I would do anything for her. I needed to speak to her one last time. I picked up the phone praying Bob didn’t answer. On the third ring a female voice answered. She sounded older, frantic. I asked her if I could speak to Charlotte. The line got quiet. I thought I had the wrong number and almost hung up when she informed me in a low humbling tone my sister had passed away a few weeks’ ago. My heart sank. A thousand questions ran through me. I pressed the lady, demanding she tell me what happened. I’m her brother damnit, but the poor woman couldn’t get a word in. I kept saying over and over, “This can’t be happening.” I finally calmed down long enough to hear the lady speak.
A drunk driver plowed into my sister’s car, killing her on impact. The neighbor stressed the kid had not been hurt, “What kid?” I asked. “Her daughter,” she replied. I dropped the phone, speechless. I’m an uncle? Shock soared through me. I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I jumped in my car and sped off. Death had to wait.
June 30, 1995
I found out my sister divorced Bob awhile back. She remarried a doctor soon afterward. From what the neighbor told me he adored Charlotte. He supported her financially as well as emotionally. He brought her flowers every Friday without fail. A real gentlemen. Guy’s name was Danny. He died about a year ago. Some kind of boating accident in the bay.
My niece was living in Arizona with her grandparent’s, (Danny’s mother and father). They came and got her a few days after my sister was cremated. I called the grandparents begging to talk to my niece. They ordered me to lose their number. The next day I received a phone call from their attorney. A pit bull of a woman warning me to stop harassing her clients or else. I told her I just want to connect with my niece and find o
ut the details of my sister’s death. How come she was cremated 48 hours after the accident? No funeral or proper good-bye. Why did the grandparents swoop up my niece and take her to another state like she had a disease and had to be quarantined? No one was talking. Not the police. Not the neighbor. I’m her brother, for Christ sakes. The attorney paused. She drew a deep sigh. What I said must have struck a chord because she told me everything. How, my sister had been killed by a drunk driver. How the driver’s blood alcohol level spiked three times the legal limit. How the driver is a famous athlete. How he paid the grandparents off. How he cut a deal with the District Attorney. Get this, he received a hundred hours of community service for taking a life. Yes, I didn’t stutter. A hundred fuckin’ hours. No jail time. I couldn’t believe it. I asked the attorney why she’s telling me this. “What about attorney-client privilege?” She told me her parents were killed by a drunk driver when she was in college. It was the most difficult thing she ever went through. Wow, an attorney with a conscience. Now I’ve heard everything. She chuckled before hanging up the phone. I wasn’t laughing. No amount of money justified taking someone’s life. I knew what I had to do.
The voice crept in my head: Once you stop caring about dying or going to jail, you can do anything you want. I welcomed the tune. It provided fuel for the next course of action.
I took a shower, and made myself something to eat before I got dressed. If all went right, this day will be my last on earth. I loaded a clip in my gun and sat on the couch realizing I might never see the inside of my house again. All the memories I shared with my wife felt like a lifetime ago. I shed a few tears, but the day’s events wouldn’t let me grieve for long. Revenge was calling and I couldn’t ignore it.
Confessions of a Vigilante Page 3