Marco wore a white wife beater, blue dickies tied at the waist with a piece of rope, and perfectly white sneakers. Marco was on his way to his mothers, and he was going to kill her.
He had waited his whole life for this, behind bars, walking round, and around, and around, like a dog. Thinking, and re thinking, and dreaming of revenge. He was a boy, and she had lied. She had given her son as bait, to a system, to a sentence, and to the animals.
It was her that pulled the trigger, that killed a man, in cold blood. It was her that smoked drugs, fucked for money, and sold his sister, for crack cocaine. And it was her that was going to die.
Marco shaved his head, shaved his face, and had even bought cologne for the occasion. His pure white socks were new, like his sneakers. He wanted to be clean for his visit. He wanted to dress nice for the party.
Marco had made a promise to himself, to his sister, and to what he called justice. He would wait, he would wait, and when he got out, he would take back what was taken from him. Life.
He wasn’t fearful of going back to the pen he was raised in. It seemed more like a home than any other place he had ever known. It was her that had turned him into a farm animal after all. And he would sleep sounder behind bars, knowing, she were dead.
Marco tucked a knife in his sock, and a gun barrel in his waistband. He hadn’t decided if it was her face he wanted, or, her heart. He stepped into the cold air and locked the door behind him. He felt strange locking a door to a room he wasn’t coming back to. But it was the right thing to do he thought, then, threw the keys into a trashcan.
He walked for an hour, he needed to, he needed blood in his body, he needed to move. The waiting, the wanting, and the beating of his heart, demanded one foot in front of the other.
My mother, he thought. My mother.
She hadn’t been there when he got out, and that was to be her last chance. If she were there, if she had been there, he would have forgiven, not forgotten, but he might have forgiven. He wouldn’t have bought new socks, or shaved his head so close. He wouldn’t have stood heartbroken, with a duty in his heartache. A remedy he thought. A way to quiet the wondering, why.
How can a mother sell her child? How can a mother lie and let her little boy fight for his life, before his fists have even curled?
My mother, he thought. My mother.
He had called to let her know, he was coming. He was coming, to let her know.
It was a hotel room on the Westside, the part that lives in darkness. The part that smells like pharmacy grade body spray and piss soaked concrete.
Room 206. Another number, another door to nowhere, another article of incorporation.
Marco reached for the handle, and walked in...
The smell of mold and cigarettes seeped out of the walls, out of the floor, and out of the carpet. While perfume, and music, poured out of the bathroom.
Marco pulled the metal from his belly, and headed to the bathroom. He turned the corner, his weapon drawn, and there she was…
With a bedsheet, curled around her neck, she hung from the shower head, waiting…
Marco walked towards his dead mother. He lowered the gun barrel and stared at her for a moment. He leaned in and took a deep breath, as if searching for a smell, a smell that feels like home. Marco opened his eyes, and slowly kissed his mothers lips. Him warm, her, cold.
Marco wanted his mother dead, but, he wanted her to love him more.
My mother, he thought. My mother.
