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Renegade def. - A common vagabond; a worthless or wicked fellow.

... ... ...

There were times that I thought back to that night and wondered what would have happened if things went differently. If I hadn't gone along with what he said. If I hadn't gotten myself pulled into some organized fucking mess in the first place.

He always warned me. Although he was no angel himself, he was a lot fucking smarter than I was. He had those street smarts that kids like us had - thugs.

We were the creatures of the night.

People wouldn't dare push through us on the sidewalks. They knew - just by the looks on our faces - that they had absolutely no chance. For a big fucking city like Chicago, for the amount of people who populated it, we owned it. No one stopped us.

Or so we thought.

You never know just what kind of high horse you are on until someone bigger than you knocks you off. I though that I was king shit of the world. I had the chicks, I had the dope, and I was the best damn thief in our gang. I once punched someone so hard in the jaw he needed his fucking trap wired shut. That son of a bitch never bothered me ever again. No one fucking messed with me - with us. We were as tight as a virgin's pussy - until that day. Nothing had quite been the same ever since.

They wanted to throw me away. Twenty-five years. They wanted to lock me up in an eight foot by ten foot concrete box until I was fifty years old. I was barely legal. I had my whole fucking life ahead of me, and they tried to take that away. They almost put me there, almost. I wasn't about to let them beat me.

Not after what they did to him.

There were some memories that I wouldn't change for the world. The ones where we were as tight as brothers - we were brothers - when we laughed until we cried, when we played jokes, when we only hung out, when we partied, and when we went out and had fun. I wouldn't take away those times back for the world.

The life of crime and deceit...well, I could say that they were my biggest regrets. That was what I was, a criminal.

I knew what it was like to get hurt, to get thrown down, and be called worthless. I grew up in a home with a good for nothing whore for a mother and a disgusting drunk for a father. I knew what it was like to hear the screams, to see the anguish.

I knew what it was like to curl up in the corner of my room howling in pain...tears flowing down my face, snot dripping out my nose, blankets over my head as I scratched violently at my ears. I didn't want to hear it anymore. I would pull at my ears until they were almost blue. I would bruise myself just trying to get the hurt away.

I knew what it was like.

I knew what it was like to feel like no one would ever help me. Even though my big brother - my best friend - was there to hide me, to throw his arm around me...I knew that he hurt too. I always thought he was the bravest guy in the whole world, and it ripped my soul from the inside out to know that he felt the same thing that I did. That he felt the grief circulating his veins...and that he did absolutely nothing about it, only tried to protect me. He wanted to cry, and he wanted to end it all...but he didn't on account of me. I never felt more empty and guilty over anything else.

I could remember the nights when all I smelled was cheap booze and cigars. By the time I was eight years old I could distinguish the smell of alcohol from any other liquid beverage we kept in the house. I didn't think much of that fact at the time, only that if I did smell it, then something bad was going to happen.

Every little fight had come down to that clear, dangerous liquid.

Of course, my mother never helped matters at all. My mom had my older brother when she was sixteen and a half. She never even finished school. For some reason, at the time, people thought it was okay to drop their lives and start popping out kids they couldn't support; the fucking sixties, what a joke. She had my older brother, and wasted no time - only three months after she had him - to get knocked up again.

At least she waited three more years for my sister.

She had this stupid fucking image in her head that we would be the perfect family. Live in our little bungalow and get a dog. Well read the bulletin, bitch: the old man had to serve in Vietnam, the dog was now dead, and the house looked the same as it did in 1964, the boys were drug addicted morons, and the poor little daughter had no one; not a fucking single person that was worthy enough to be considered a positive role model to her.

Sounds like a story out of a Mr. Rogers episode, don't it?

That wasn't to say that the three of us weren't close. We tried - we tried to make things right for her, and protect her. Our little sister was tough, but she was innocent. I loved her more than anything, and I know damn well to this day that I didn't say it enough. She might have felt the same way at one point in time, she may have looked up to me once, maybe was even proud to be my little sister.

Since that night though, things changed forever.

I always thought that because I was subjected to all of the violence and substance abuse that I would know better. I had enough faith in myself growing up to actually think that I would avoid that life. I was confident that I would never become my father. I was confident that I would never be a coward like my mother. I was confident that I was smart enough to take my life another way.

I knew what it was like to feel the pain and anguish that violence and alcohol could put people through, yet it didn't naturally deter me from following that path. Subconsciously, I slowing became one of them. I can't remember how many nights that we drank until we shit ourselves, and how many fights I got into.

I was vicious when I fought. I was just like my father. I would not ease up and I wouldn't lay off of a guy until my knuckles were cracked open, until I was laughing maniacally, until he was screaming fucking mercy, until I was peeled off of him. I wouldn't stop until I knew that I was the last man standing.

I knew what that kid at my feet felt like. I knew that he could smell the hot alcohol on my breath, breathing all over him. I knew that he could taste his own blood, and that he could taste the shreds of skin that came off my hands as they connected with his teeth. I knew that he felt scared for his life, and that he had no idea when I was going to stop.

I knew how he felt, but I did not stop myself. I had to prove that I was at the top of the food chain, and that life was survival of the fittest because, fuck, it was. I had no conscience. I was a fucking hypocrite.

I had grown up - molded - to the man that I never wanted to be.

My father let his anger take over his life. I don't know what happened to him in Vietnam. I don't know how much blood he spilled, or what sort of torture they had put him through. All I know is that when he came back, he was never the same. He left when I was three years old. He left a happy, cheery family man. He came back an indescribable monster that could barely hold down a job at the local fucking car wash. He was never the same, and he never let that experience leave his mind. His anger at the government, at the Vietnamese, at the army...his anger at everyone was taken out on us and he let it destroy his life.

I look back on it now and I can see the similarities between us. We both hated the fucking government - the man, if you will - for what they did to him, so we both rebelled. We both turned to substances when we couldn't deal. We both had an unlimited amount of anger. We both had hot tempers. We both made grave mistakes. We both tore our family apart.

I am just like that man. I couldn't see it then, but after all that has happened, I see it now. I hate myself everyday for it.

I will never forget it until the day my worthless life ends and I am laying six feet below the ground.

... ... ... (FLASHBACK) ... ... ...

I was now officially an accomplice. I couldn't believe that he actually did it. He was the last one left; Roger was the quiet one, the innocent one. Kids like Roger were not supposed to pull a trigger. They weren't supposed to leave kids in the street in a puddle of their own blood, struggling for their last breath.

That was probably why he couldn't hold down his supper when he heard Jake's skull hit the pavement.

But I threw my arm around him. Roger, Ricky, and James were the only ones left. I couldn't let Roger go to jail for murder. He was just a kid and he would never survive in the pen. I had heard nasty stories about what they do to guys in there, and I wasn't allowed to watch my friend go down like that; what if he got the death penalty?

I could remember the way everything slowed when the gun sounded. It was almost as if the whole world had played in a fuzzy, slow motion movie. The bullet spun, and hit him right in the chest. His face had contorted in pain, and his arms had flown forward - ahead of him. The impact of the shot had forced his upper back to push out, making him lose his balance, and he fell backwards. There was a whole group of people standing around. They did nothing. They only stood back and watched, some screamed, others cried. But no one helped him. No one helped us.

It was over. Life as we knew it was over and things were never going to be the same again.

We must have stood there and watched as the blood trickled out of his mouth. The way his chest pushed out, gasping for one final breath. His eyes had rolled back and seemed to settle right on Roger's face. It was almost as if he was saying, 'You aren't getting away' one more time. God, how Jake always said that.

We didn't know what to do. The world was slowed until Roger final lost it and puked all over his Doc's. Reality snapped back like a sling shot at that exact second. I stood, for some reason, with my hands up. I couldn't put them down. Ricky screamed, he screamed like a little bitch.

The only one that knew what to do was James. He always knew what to do.

He grabbed my hands and pushed them down towards my sides. "Let's get the fuck out of here, boys." He had shouted it in my ear...but for some reason it almost seemed like a whisper.

I acted at those words. I threw my arm over Roger's shoulder and pulled him towards me. The sirens had already sounded at the point; they weren't very far away. I almost knew in the back of my mind that it was stupid to run. There were at least a dozen and a half people standing around who had witnessed the whole thing. They knew our names, they knew our faces, and they knew our addresses. We weren't going anywhere.

Yet, I felt the need to save him. It was the biggest mistake I had ever made in my whole life.

I can't remember how he got the gun after that point. I don't remember anyone handing it over to him, nor do I remember him taking it after Jake was shot. All I remember was that he was there - looming over me - as I tried to protect my friend.

I couldn't hear the sounds of our shoes hitting the pavement as the four of us ran. I couldn't hear my breathing, nor could I hear the screams and cries going on around us. The only thing I could hear was a loud, hollow thump in my chest. I felt as if I were in some sort of nightmare. Things had reached the breaking point.

The cop cars had flown around the corners behind us. I could hear the tires skidding across the pavement. We kept on running though. We didn't stop until we hit the block aide ahead of us. There must have been twenty cops on the road pointing their guns at us and telling us to get down on our stomachs. The screaming continued.

"Get down on the ground, now!"

"Put your hands on your head!"

"I want to see you laying face down!"

"Down on your knees!"

I remember being so confused; what did they want us to do? All I did was stop dead on the street, and once again, my hands were in the air. I remember Roger started crying, saying that he didn't want to die. But most of all, I could hear the challenging threats from my older brother. I couldn't see Ricky's hands; I didn't know what he was doing, only that his mouth did not move.

In a matter of seconds, shots had rung out. I remember someone clobbering me on the head, knocking me to the ground. I will easily admit that I hit the ground and covered my ears again. I felt like I was ten years old, with the tears on my cheeks, the snot on my lips, and scratching at my ears, pulling them so fucking hard.

And then his body jerked.

I saw him right above my head, get hit one, two, three, four, no, five times. All over his body he jerked from left to right, sending sprays of scarlet all over my face and the road around me.

I had never felt so broken in my entire life.

He fell in a heap on the pavement, landing right in front of my face. His eyes were open, staring into my own. He had a small trickle of blood dripping down the side of his lips, and one hand rested across his chest.

I remember his legs; I knew that they weren't supposed to bend that way. If he were coherent, he wouldn't have been comfortable.

It wasn't until I crawled over to him and cradled his head in my lap that I realized just how much blood was every where. His blood. I had it on my face, my hands, my clothes...I could taste it in my mouth. For the first time since I was twelve years old, I cried. I bawled like a fucking baby. A piece of my heart and a piece of my soul had been ripped away.

The rest of us were peeled off of him like a scab. All they did was throw a fucking jacket over his face so that the passerby couldn't see his face. Us, well, we didn't get a chance to mourn because we were ripped away and thrown into the hood of a car.

The fuckers weren't gentle. They had broken my nose and hit me in the ribs. The wretched my arms behind my back and cuffed me up. For the fourth time in my life I had seen the back of a police cruiser.

It was the first time in my life that it was because of a murder wrap.

In all honesty though, it was the last thing on my mind. The pain wasn't felt; the fear wasn't there...only such heartbreaking despair. I never felt so alone in my whole life, and I knew it was going to be that way until I died.

If only I could have kept my petty grudges to myself he would still be here today.

... ... ... (END FLASHBACK) ... ... ...

It was the life that I had chosen; I ended up an angry and desperate loser just like my old man. If I could turn back the hands of time, perhaps I wouldn't have gone to the warehouse that night. If I could take it back, the deal would have never gone down. If I could change anything: I would have taken the bullet for him in a heart beat.

That time will never come back to me. Forever more I will be branded the cold hearted criminal.

I knew what it was like to feel the pain, only now I wished I would have learned from it when I was that little runt hiding behind my bed.

TBC