The Tragic Flaw

by Che Parker

  “Hey, well, there’s no need to worry about me. I’ve just been handling business,” he says, sounding callous. His truck humps through an intersection.

  “Handling business? I had a dream about you last night. It was so horrible, Son. You were in a lot of pain.”

  Cicero pictures his mother stroking her Bible or reading a passage as she talks and the thought irritates him.

  “Mom, I know you care about me and I appreciate it. Everything is good. But I have to get ready for a business meeting so I’m gonna call you back in a few minutes.”

  The phone is silent.

  “I’ll try to stop by later today.”

  “Later today?”

  “Yes, Mother. Later today. Okay? I’ll call you.”

  “Okay, Son. I love you.”

  Cicero ends the call and shakes his head, refocusing his mind on his next moves.

  Youthful laughter bellows throughout the neighborhood. Green maple and sycamore trees line the street on either side.

  “Car!” a girl yells, forcing the kids to stop their game of double Dutch in the street.

  Cicero squeezes his large SUV into a tight parking spot two houses down from Olivia’s grandmother’s. He exits the white iridescent SUV with his red cup and strides up the sidewalk, interrupting a lively game of hopscotch.

  He climbs the stone stairs and glances over at the early budding flowers in Juanita’s garden. As he looks over at them, the front door opens, and Olivia steps out in a yellow dress with her purse slung over her shoulder. Her long black hair is beautiful and her eyes appear unswollen for the first time in a while. Cicero stares at her and wishes she was clean. Disease-free.

  “Hey, C. My grandmother is in the house. Can we talk around back?”

  “Yea, that’s cool, but I can’t stay for long. I got some things to handle.”

  “Okay. I understand.”

  They walk around to the back of the house, into the alleyway where the neighborhood’s residents keep their trash and discarded items.

  Olivia’s long, firm caramel legs shine in the sunlight, and Cicero stares at them. As he does, he doesn’t notice Olivia pulling a handgun from her purse. She turns around and the sunlight hits the barrel. Cicero sees it and is shocked, but not overly surprised.

  “So what’s up with that, O?”

  She points the barrel at his chest, holding it merely inches from him. Unfazed, Cicero takes a sip of cognac, briefly looks down at the barrel, then raises his head to stare her in the eyes.

  In his sincerest voice, he whispers, “Do it.”

  Energy applies pressure to the crescent moon, and the minute mallet strikes the casing. Bang!

  Compressed gunpowder explodes, ejecting one round from within the weapon’s belly. It spins clockwise until it exits at nearly the speed of light, then penetrates the skin and ribs of the fearless Cicero. He doesn’t flinch.

  Blood spurts out. Cicero’s body falls in the dirty alleyway, and lies twitching, and without breath.

  Olivia solemnly strolls back into her grandmother’s home through the back door and into the living room. She grabs her cell phone and dials a number. A man answers.

  “It’s done.”

  “Good,” says Jimmy before he hangs up. He takes a sip of his vodka tonic and looks over at the government informer, who’s managed to keep his identity hidden.

  “That’s that,” Jimmy says, setting his glass down and briefly reflecting. “Yea, he earned a litle. But fuck that. I wouldn’t take that type of disrespect from a full blood. You think I’m going to take it from a fuckin’ half-breed? Now I get my dope, then I get my money.”

  Now clenching the murder weapon in her delicate hands, Olivia sits on the plush light-brown couch, and without a tear in her eye, she smoothly turns the gun to her abdomen and places it against her dress.

  Heat once again flies from the barrel and singes the yellow dress as it passes through. Olivia’s body collapses forward onto the floor.

  Having heard both shots, Juanita hurries down the stairs. The shots sounded too close, and she is fearful.

  “Olivia, did you hear that? Are you okay?” Juanita asks. Her flower-embroidered housecoat flows and she makes her way down the stairs to the first floor.

  The grandmother enters the kitchen and sees the back door is open. She peers outside and sees Cicero dying, his body lying awkwardly on the black pavement.

  Juanita’s pulse quickens and her breathing becomes frantic as she turns and proceeds toward the living room. She places her right hand on her chest; her heart pounds with anxiety.

  “Olivia, honey, are you okay?” Juanita questions aloud.

  Then she sees her. Juanita’s heart jumps into her throat and her stomach cramps; nausea ensues. Juanita eyes her grand-daughter’s bloody, still body.

  “No,” she screams at the top of her lungs, causing pigeons to disperse from the roof.

  Juanita begins to cry, and quickly reaches for the black cordless telephone from a living room end table.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a woman says, sounding like a recording.

  “It’s my granddaughter, she’s been shot,” Juanita frantically explains to the operator.

  “Okay, we have your address, ma’am. An ambulance is on the way.”

  “Oh, God, thank you. Please, please hurry.”

  And Juanita hangs up the phone.

  Now wailing inconsolably, she runs toward Olivia’s blood-drenched body but pauses. She stares at her granddaughter’s tainted blood and is momentarily fearful of becoming infected with her incurable disease. Shame suddenly overwhelms her, and she flings herself on top of Olivia’s bloody body. Oxygen-rich red blood cells stain her floral housecoat.

  “No,” Juanita screams once again, gripping Olivia’s limp body. A gaping cavity occupies the space that a child would never know.

  “It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Juanita pleads, squeezing her granddaughter’s bleeding body, rocking side to side. Tears stream down her aged tan face.

  Juanita breathes erratically, wrinkled callused hands rubbing her grand-daughter’s pretty face. Olivia’s skin is now pale and colorless as blood leaves her frame.

  “My poor baby. It’s gonna be okay. An ambulance is comin’, baby,” she says, crying. “God will keep you close to him. It’s about faith, baby. It’s all about having faith.”

  Olivia’s breaths are short and shallow. She clings to life, yet it begins to elude her grasp.

  The grandmother stares at the dying body she holds, then she gently lays Olivia on her rug. Sadness overcomes her, that is, until she hears the sirens blaring. Juanita realizes her address is incomplete on the outside of her home, so she decides to meet the paramedics outside.

  Juanita prays for Olivia, rubbing her hands together and mumbling. She opens her front door and steps outside into the hot air. Children’s laugher immediately fills her ears, yet it doesn’t comfort her. Her granddaughter may be gone, but hope remains for tomorrow’s dearest. And that thought helps warm her.

  Innocence is at play. Hopscotch and double Dutch entertain the neighborhood youth. Tag has yet to fall off the map. It remains a boy’s way of expressing his feelings for a girl without being sentimental.

  So Juanita sits on her porch with the siren’s volume increasing, observing the ever-changing world through time-tested eyes. She has been a witness to riots, space travel, and now quite possibly the suicide of her beautiful granddaughter.

  She’s seen the persecution of quadroons and conversely, the invalidation of HIV being an evil person’s plague or a gay disease. She knows it can affect the ambitious, as well as the God-fearing. She sits on her porch with her arms folded, tears flowing down her wrinkled face. A white-and-red ambulance speeds eastward toward her home.

  The sunbeams try to fight through darkening clouds. Yellow rays of light strike the pavement on what would be considered by many as a beautiful day. Clouds then begin to gather from the west. The clouds loom above, watchful, as an ambul
ance approaches.

  And yet, down an alley where vermin reside, and slime and sludge congregate, lies a dying shell. The clouds open and it begins to rain on the dying shell of Cicero Day. His eyelids flutter as blood flows from him in the pouring rainstorm.

  Maroon solution flows down the side of his face in a slow waterfall of wretchedness.

  Even after the children have made mad dashes to steps, stoops, doorways, doors, foyers, and elsewhere to avoid the run, burgundy life force continues to pool just beneath its reluctant spring. The stray yellow beams of light have been overwhelmed by the dark-gray coming of the rain.

  Midnight-colored trousers, also of the Italian peninsula, rest unsettlingly comfortable on the drenched and ever more dampening pavement. Cicero’s slip-on onyx loafers lie fixed in a conflicting state, pointing directly at one another in a supple and unsightly way.

  The rain pounds it all as his black blazer functions as a colander for Heaven’s tears. Angels weep for him.

  His earth-tone hands and fingers, furrowed by the wetness, twitch in awkward positions.

  A controlled commotion is heard inside Juanita’s home as paramedics scramble to save Olivia’s life. They are able to stop her bleeding, yet the wound is described as serious. She is on the verge of dying.

  Cicero, while losing his own fight with death, can hear the paramedics scrambling to save the woman who shot him. And for a brief moment, hope enters his mind. All is not lost. Even in his sleep, the young Cicero never appeared so at ease. So to save his energy, he closes his eyes.

  All things urban are flushed toward him in the downpour. Thunder crackles, and blood gathers, and then is dispersed by the rain into several streams that flow down the black glossy alleyway in an artistic display.

  But hope has arrived for Cicero. All is not lost.

  Chapter 21

  Chances for redemption often come in varying forms. Sometimes, the chance for a new life comes in the form of a stranger’s words. It sometimes presents itself in a dream, or as the love of a mother. The chance for a new life can also come from a near death experience. A close brush with mortality can often shake the bones of the relentless, compelling them to surrender their ways and pursue a more fulfilling life.

  But from somewhere, strange screams echo throughout dark caverns. The stench of shit and rotten flesh is thick and ubiquitous. There’s no escaping it. Shrieks of horror fill the ears of others who yell out. The sounds of pain are strangely harmonious and innately unsettling.

  Peering down from a rocky cliff, naked souls can be seen tumbling and intertwining among one another in disturbing perpetual motion. Their mouths emit woes of unending sorrow. Their bodies flop in a boundless lake of fire. Nude men and women wail in utter agony at the top of their lungs.

  This place is Hell, and the lava is a flame that does not consume. In this place, the pain of unrepentant sinners is eternal.

  This is the place where Cicero’s soul resides. The paramedics did not reach him in time. Olivia’s life was saved, but poor Cicero was not fortunate enough to make it. Not blessed enough for a second chance. No. His soul now stands naked in a dirty, waist-deep jagged pit. His eyes open, and he finds himself surrounded by demons. They are ungodly creatures. They cackle at him and hiss with a cobra’s revulsion. Oh, the horror.

  They are black shadows, evil fumes. They moan. Their appearances mock all that God has created. They mimic nude women. They are ghastly. They screech and shriek like hyenas.

  Cicero’s soul is silent and petrified. If he could piss on himself, he would. If he could run, he would try.

  One wields a sword of flames. He speaks with a human voice. It mockingly sounds like Antonio, the one Cicero so cherished in life. It speaks to Cicero’s terrified soul.

  “Welcome, Cicero. We always knew you would come to reside with us!” The demons laugh. Vomit of human bowels spews from one demon’s mouth onto Cicero’s face.

  Flames arise, burning his flesh down to the bone. But not destroying it. The stench is that of a crematorium. Burnt flesh and shit. Cicero’s soul screams in agony and the demons cheer, jumping up and down and yelping in joy.

  The thought of an eternal soul never crossed Cicero’s mind. He was simply too busy chasing money and trying to be the next Antonio. The next don.

  Unfortunately for him, Hell’s minions knew of Cicero, and the welcome mat to Hades had awaited him for quite some time.

  The Deceiver of Men had expected Cicero’s presence for many moons, and the fallen angel greeted him with the promise of unending flames and torture.

  At a young age, Cicero gave up on the premise that there were forces greater than he. He disregarded the value of humanity, and the belief that powers in the universe could punish or reward the decisions that he would make in life. Those choices would ultimately determine his eternal fate.

  And this, above all else, was his tragic flaw. As the flames arise from the hole his soul is once again engulfed in fire, but not consumed.

  Cicero’s soul yells out.

  The wicked spirits roar and snort. Maggot-filled feces fall from their backsides. Maggots and blood leak from between the mocking female legs.

  “We have such torment to show you, Cicero,” a mischievous imp states. “You will come to know misery like never before, son. Capisce?”

  The other condemned miscreants chuckle and howl. Cicero’s feet are charred in the fiery geyser.

  “Why?! Why?!!!” screams Cicero’s soul. Defecation fills his nostrils and sickens his soul, causing him to regurgitate gallons of cognac and bile, burning his throat beyond belief. All around him, souls bleed and cry and wail over and over and over again.

  Cicero screams. It is an unheard cry, in this, the beginning of a cycle that shall never end. The fires of Hell shall burn him for all eternity, forever and ever, without refrain.

  About the Author

  Che Parker has worked as a crime and politics reporter and staff writer covering national health care issues and Capitol Hill hearings. He is currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. He works in public relations and lives in Alexandria, Virginia. Visit the author at www.cheparker.com or email cheparker@hotmail.com

  Q & A with the Author: Che Parker

  Q: Is Cicero a completely made-up character, or is he based on someone you know?

  A: He’s a combination of people, but there are many elements of his character that are completely fictionalized. He’s a combination of a few people I know and grew up with in Kansas City. None of them, though, are that heartless (I don’t think.) He’s also kind of a symbol that some hip-hop artists “claim” to be: the smooth gangster. But he’s educated, too. I think that makes him even more sinister. He had other options, other opportunities, but he still chose to be a cutthroat.

  Q: Why is Cicero biracial? Does the racial mix bring something to his character? And why Black and Italian?

  A: That goes back to the whole mafia, gangster appeal. We often see movies like The Godfather or shows like The Sopranos, and we see an “Italian” image of gangsters. There’s obviously some truth to that, but it’s also a stereotype. Real gangsters come in all forms: Jewish, Chinese, Black, Irish, Latino. You name it. But then you bring in guys nowadays who try to emulate that “gangster” image, and they get it wrong somewhere. They’re sloppy. They look like criminals. They’re not smooth. I think the character of Cicero is the best of both worlds. He brings the two worlds together, so to speak.

  Q: Cicero wears designer clothes and alligator boots, and drives a vehicle that cost $100K. Why does he drink out of a red plastic cup?

  A: [Laughs] Well, you have to realize, where Cicero grew up is the inner city, not the suburbs or the rich part of town. Carrying around a red plastic cup is pretty standard for a real drinker. Plus, I think that adds to the irony. He’ll have a hundred-dollar drink in a ten-cent cup.

  Q: People tend to believe that people who are void of emotion, morals, and empathy have some dark thing that happened in their childhood t
hat contributes to this. You wrote of one incident where Antonio nearly beat a man to death, which Cicero witnessed. How much, if any, did this event contribute to Cicero not having a conscience?

  A: I see this event, in and of itself, as being monumental to Cicero as a child. Before this, C is a good kid, although he is mischievous as well (as noted by the items hidden under is mattress). He is also obviously born with a few mental defects, which I mention briefly as being a personality disorder and being anti-social. In other words, I think this event kind of gives Cicero the “green light” to be bad and to have no guilt about it.

  Q: Cicero is an educated man, holding master’s and bachelor’s degrees. With all of this education, shouldn’t he have come in contact with moral lessons in life? Aren’t our universities charged with producing well-rounded, as well as well-educated, people?

  A: When I initially wrote TTF, the plan was to make this part three in a four-part series. The next one I wanted to write was going to be C’s childhood, probably from grades seven to nine or ten. After that, the next novel would have been his college years. And this still may come to fruition. To answer the question more accurately, Cicero definitely learns a lot of lessons in college, but he ultimately learns how to better control people, a Machiavellian education, if you will.

  Q: Most villainous characters in novels are bad from page one, helping the reader to identify them and dislike them immediately. Cicero’s character starts out being almost likeable, then, page by page he changes. With the strong religious influence of his mother, the reader feels he will find the correct path. Were there signs, real, imagined, or implied or suppressed memories that the reader doesn’t see coming to the surface that doom this character?

  A: I tried to sprinkle in a few hints that he needed to change his ways or risk suffering the consequences. Obviously his mother played that role. Olivia played that part to some extent. The woman on this flight to New Orleans. And definitely his dreams and his mother’s dreams. So yes, Cicero has plenty of opportunities to change his ways.