COPYRIGHT
This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
American Savages
Copyright © 2015 by Judy Onyegbado
Ebook ISBN: 9781625178190
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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DEDICATION
To all my ruthless readers:
I hope this book makes you
Chuckle,
Cringe,
Cheer,
And
Cry.
Because this is goodbye.
PROLOGUE
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
—John Steinbeck
ORLANDO
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO
His fist collided with her face, sending her to the ground so quickly that her hair whipped around her face before she hit the mat. She stayed there for a moment, frozen on the boxing ring’s floor, almost dead, before she tried to push herself up. Her arms wobbled, and her chest rose and fell as she desperately tried to get the air back into her lungs. She managed to get to one knee before crumbling back onto the mat.
Pitiful.
“Get up, Melody,” I said to her, as I leaned back against the wall of the old boxing gym outside of the city. It was just as run down as the town itself. No one but our people came over here anymore—sweat of sweat, hot blood of hot blood, we were Italians; one people. And she was disgracing herself in front of the very people who needed to respect her the most.
She didn't move, she just lay there like a dead thing. Neither a human nor an animal.
“I said get up, Melody!”
With a small, frustrated cry, she pushed herself to her feet, and threw herself onto the ropes of the ring in order to stand, as Gino held on to her.
“Miss? Miss Giovanni? Are you alright?” Gino asked her, glancing at me, wide-eyed when she did not answer.
“Let her go. And I swear to God Almighty, Melody, if you fall again…”
“I’m fine.” She pushed the loose strands of her dark hair behind her ear and stood straighter as she raised her wrapped fists. She shook her head a few times, and tried to maintain her composure.
“See? She’s fine. Now start again,” I said to him.
“Sir, it’s been two hours—”
“I don’t care if it’s been two days!” I snapped, and it was then that I saw it. All the eyes in the gym looked upon my daughter with pity, and at me with disdain as if I were some kind of monster.
“EVERYONE OUT!” I called suddenly, causing them all to jump and run towards the door.
Gino looked between Melody and me before he exited the ring.
“You and I will be having words later,” I said to him, and he nodded before walking out.
The gym was dim. The only source of light came from the center of the ring where she waited without a word. Stepping inside as well, I grabbed the padded mats, circling her as I placed them.
“You are a disappointment, Melody,” I whispered. “And not just that but you’re embarrassing me and your goddamn self. How old are you now, twelve or four? Do you still need someone to save you? To baby you? Is that what you want?”
“No, sir.” She held her head up. “I’m fine, I can keep going.”
“Fine? A minute ago you looked like a newborn deer. Is it because we’re alone now that you don’t want to put on a show?”
She glared at me. “I’ve been doing this for two hours, Dad. Any normal person—”
“You are not normal! You are Melody Nicci Giovanni, daughter of Iron Hands—my daughter! Normal is never the adjective used to describe you! Exceptional. Notorious. Unstoppable. That is what you should aim for. You’re in pain? Your body aches? Guess what? That’s your life. You think those idiots outside helped you because they cared? Because you’re so precious? They stepped in to make you weak, to drag you down to their limitations, their weaknesses. A helping hand is a selfish one. If you can’t save yourself, you have no right to be saved.” I met the glower of her dark brown eyes. “Do you understand?”
She didn’t answer, she just kept staring me down.
“I asked you a question.”
“Yes, sir. I hear you,” she barely uttered.
“Good.” I raised the pads. “Now, fists up.”
“Ti odio,” she said under her breath as she beat into them.
“I’m sorry, you hate what—?”
“Nothing.”
I thought so.
One day she would thank me for this.
SEDRIC
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO
“Liam, I’m heading to lunch in the next hour with Neal and Declan, would you like to come?” Evelyn asked, more like pleaded with him to come.
Liam sat, surrounded by books, in the corner of my study. His long legs were stretched out across the ground, and his back rested against the bookcase. He paused for a moment and looked to her, my wife, and she withstood his icy gaze.
“Thank you, mother, but I already had lunch,” he replied as if he had no emotions to spare her.
“Well then, I will leave you both to do whatever it is you do in this dungeon.” She grinned at me and I tried to return the smile, but for some reason I couldn’t.
“I will call you later,” I said, when she kissed my cheek before leaving.
It was only when the door closed that I walked over to his corner and smacked him over the head.
“Ouch! What in the—”
“Why must you be so much like me?” I sighed, as I took a seat beside him. “You’re supposed to take the good traits from me and drop the bad ones. Holding grudges against family—”
“I’m not holding a grudge.”
I stared at him, my son. It was almost funny how well he could read other people, but failed to understand himself.
“You’re still mad at her…”
“No, I’m not—”
“I’m still mad at her too sometimes,” I cut him off and he froze, averting his eyes whilst his grip on John Steinbeck’s In Search of America tightened. “I try not to think about it. The years she spent pushing all of us away. How you had to—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped.
“So fine you can’t let me finish a sentence?”
He took a deep breath.
“Be the bigger man, Liam. Let it go. She wasn’t there for you as a boy, I know, but let it go and love her more for the fact that she desperately wants to be there for you now. You’re never too old for a mother.”
“I thought you said I was like you? You always give advice you don’t take.” The smartass mumbled, and I fought the urge to smack him once more.
“We have dinner as a family, and your mother and I have dessert every night.”
“Ugh, dad! Don’t say that, it sounds like you’re talking about sex.” His face scrunched up before he buried it into the book.
Grabbing his head in a lock, I pulled him towards me. “That’s not what I meant, you idiot.”
He pushed my arms away when I let go and laughed.
“But we do that too.”
> “Seriously! Eww…stop sharing please,” he begged, and I laughed again as he cringed.
“Everything we have, and everything I do, is for family, Liam. The Irish Clans, our personal blood, no matter how badly they hurt us or let us down, family is the only safe haven we have from this life. This all started because no one took care of us…they called us Irish mutts. Left us to rot in the streets…we banded together, survived, and now we stand together so that we do not die alone. That is the job of the Ceann na Conairte. The only way you can do that is to…”
“Let it go,” he whispered, and I nodded.
“Go have lunch, because if you don’t pass target practice tonight, you won’t eat until supper tomorrow.”
That got him up and on his feet. When he opened the door, Neal stood right outside of it, towering over his younger brother who either didn’t care that he was shorter, or didn’t notice. Liam, with more pride than a boy of fifteen ought to have, stared at his brother.
“Mom really wants you at lunch,” Neal said.
“I was already going, big brother,” Liam replied. The edge in his voice was evident as he walked out the room.
Neal. Liam. I wonder what will become of you two.
ONE
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
—William Shakespeare
LIAM
DAY 1
123.
124.
125.
126.
I counted as I pulled myself upwards. The bars running across the ceiling provided an ample structure for my workout. Ignoring the burning ache in my arms, I continued with my routine. If I disregarded the husky, deep, and howling voices around me, I was able to find silence in my new six-by-eight stone and steel cell. For one hundred and twenty-seven days, I’d drifted from one cell to another in different jails all across the state for my “safety.” But none of that mattered; I was away from her, from my son, from my family. Drifting and working every muscle to the brink of exhaustion, was the only way to keep the last bit of sanity I had left.
No emotion. No fear. That was the mantra I kept while I waited.
“How are you liking your new palace, Callahan?” one of the officers asked as he beat his hand against the entrance of my cell. Without the shackles and steel, his bravado would be nonexistent. I knew that, and he knew it too.
“It seems like you’ve never been to a palace,” I replied stoically as I pulled myself up once again; one hundred and fifty pull-ups, two hundred crunches, two hundred and fifty push-ups…those were my days here.
“Well, that’s what ya get when you murder your wife. The warden wants to personally welcome ya to your new home,” he said, and I wanted bash his face in.
With a sigh, I stretched before I grabbed my shirt off of the dog mat they called a bed. Placing my hands through the open slot of the door, the little prick pressed the cuffs around my wrists harder than he needed to. But if he was looking for a reaction, he was looking in the wrong fucking place. Stepping back, I waited for him to slide open the door before I walked out. It took three of them, all heavy set and balding, to escort me.
“Walk,” the eldest of them stated, as he nodded towards the corridor with his chest puffed out like a penguin. This was nothing new, this was the third penitentiary, and for some reason they all felt the need to prove themselves and show me who was king of this shithole. As I walked, the insults were the same as other facilities, a barrage of noise and threats always came my way.
“Wooo, look at the pretty white boy.”
“Where’s your money at now, Callahan?”
“Callahan, you're my bitch now.”
“You ain’t shit, boy!”
Walking towards the silver steel stairs, I simply ignored them. Everyone was looking for a reaction, just to be noticed. For one moment in their miserable excuse of a life, they wanted to be seen and heard. I wasn’t going to lower myself to their incompetence…I had people for that.
“You better watch yourself, Callahan,” the guard, whose name I wouldn’t bother to learn, said as he opened the steel door for me.
She sat sandwiched between an old organized desk and a wall that was covered in awards, certificates, and medals. She had short red, shoulder-length hair, wore dark framed glasses, and a suit jacket. She couldn’t have been older than forty, and the golden plaque on her desk read: “Dr. Rachel Alden.”
“Have a seat, Mr. Callahan.” She pointed to the wooden chair in front of her desk as she spun around and grabbed my file.
As I sat down, the two guards behind me made sure that their presence was known. She eyed me like a hawk. Her hands were folded, and her body leaned forward as though she was about to pounce.
“Your court date is in twenty days.”
“I’m aware,” I replied.
She frowned. “And your plea has not changed.”
“No.”
“They found your boot with your wife’s blood on it, a call from your house—”
“Am I on trial now? Because if I am, I think you owe me a lawyer.” I leaned back into the chair and relaxed my shoulders.
She took a deep breath before she leaned back as well. “Fine. Would you like to explain why you’re at my facility? Or better yet, why you’ve been to three county jails in the last four months?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Enough, wise guy, or you're going to the hole!” the man behind me barked, as he gripped onto my shoulder.
I glanced down at his hairy hand before turning towards her. “Apparently I’m not very good at making friends…if you want more than that, maybe you should call them up. Or better yet, read my file, after all, it’s right there in the center of your desk.”
“I’m going to make this very clear, if in the next twenty days, you act out in any way, or say anything to endanger the lives of my staff, I will personally make sure that you’re sent to the worst maximum prison in the state after you’re found guilty…and believe me, you will be found guilty with the amount of evidence that keeps falling out of the sky against you. Do you understand me?”
She almost made me want to laugh. Was she supposed to be intimidating?
“Yes, ma’am,” I grinned causing her eyebrow to twitch. “Will that be all?”
She nodded, and once again the two guards put their hands on my shoulders, signaling me to rise.
As I did, I turned back one last time to address her. “I will want a handwritten apology after this is over, Warden.”
“That cocky attitude of yours may have been charming on the outside. But in here, it will get you in trouble, Mr. Callahan. Enjoy your lunch,” she snapped as the door opened.
I could hardly call the shit they forced us to eat lunch, but I didn’t say anything as we headed to the lunch pit. This place was nothing much, just steel, brick, and orange jump suits. There was nothing to look at, and nothing worth noting. I’d been the most exciting thing to step inside the building since Al Capone. The officers snickered as they took off my chains once we reached the double red doors.
“I hope it’s up to your standards, Callahan. Cause it ain’t getting any better for ya,” he said as I bit my tongue to keep from speaking.
Without another word, I headed to the empty back table in the corner of the room. However, before I could even make it halfway through the hall, two men, with tattoos up their arms and necks stood in front of me.
“You can’t cross this way,” the skinhead, covered in tattoos barked in a heavy Chicago accent. The men at his table all crossed their arms, trying their best to intimidate me.
The other man took a step forward. “Or at least you can’t without paying a toll.”
“Really? And why is that?”
Flexing their muscles, they grinned. “Listen you little cunt, this is our house, you best be moving along, or we may have to hurt ya. It only takes three minutes for the riot squad to show up, boy, and we can do a lot of damage in that time.”
More of the crew st
ood up and that was when I noticed the Jell-O just sitting on the table.
“Are you going to eat that?”
They snickered.
“Boy, you fucked in the head? Do you want to fucking die? Get the fuck outta our area before we beat the shit outta you.”
“I’m sure you know or have heard my name,” I whispered, not backing down from him, “but you don’t know me, and I’m sure you don’t want to.”
They glanced at each other before laughing like hyenas. “Look, you—”
Before he could get another word out, a melted and sharpened spork was in his neck.
They came in so hard and fast that I could barely see their faces. The group at the table was pulled from their seats into the struggle that had broken out in the middle of the cafeteria. After all, we were called the fighting Irish for a reason. It spread like the plague in a locked room. Infecting everything and everyone. As I glanced over the room, I saw that even those who had nothing to do with this were dragged in, and were fighting for their lives as every last man with even a half a drop of Irish blood beat into them.
“Urh…” The skinhead at my feet coughed, as his hands covered the deep puncture wound in his neck.
“This is going to be a long three minutes. You should have just let me go.” I frowned as I took a seat at the table and picked up the cup of red Jell-O.
Counting the seconds until the riot squad finally made it into the hall, I noticed on the top most level stood Warden Alden, arms crossed and glaring. Raising the cup to her, I toasted her with a smile before I dug in.
“Everyone on the floor!” the save-a-bitch yelled, as he began pulling people apart.
I finished off the Jell-O, and took my spot on the ground, without ever breaking eye contact with her. She would learn just like the rest of them. She didn’t own this place…I did. All I needed was three days in any jail. The first two days I burned it down, and the third day, I rebuilt it how I saw fit.