Chapter 3, Part 2 of 2
Johnny Carlton
Phoenix, Arizona. 1999.
A week had passed since Johnny found the slaughtered remains of his mother in his bathroom. He was a shell of his former self, a ghost. The police had literally done nothing but look at the bathtub and ruled it as an unsolved murder. But Johnny didn't need the police to tell him what happened, he already knew. The drug lords that he bought his coke from always collect their due. Johnny was two weeks behind on his payment, and they had warned him that they would get their payment. He had laughed it off; if they had come after him, he would've easily beaten them to death. But no, they saw the opportunity to attack him emotionally instead of physically. When he left for his championship baseball game, they invited themselves into his mother's apartment and brutally murdered her in the shower. Johnny was filled with a white hot anger that he had never felt before.. it burned deep inside of him with agonizing pain. "Those mother f*cking idiots think they can get away with this? Haha, they will feel my pain tonight!" He screamed as he punched more holes in the wall since his mother's passing.
Johnny searched around the house for some clean blue jeans and a black pullover. He was going to 8th street to pay a little visit to the cartel, and he was coming back home with their spines in his hand. As he sat wrapping his hands with boxing tape, he replayed the events of last week in his head over and over. "Oh my f*cking God! Mom, mom! Oh my God, they f*cking killed her!" He had shouted in agony as he drew back the shower curtain. Rushing to the neighbor's room, he banged on their door and explained that his mother was dead in their bathtub and he needed to use their phone to call the police. He sat rocking back and forth, for what seemed like days, before the police arrived on the scene. Chief Curtis and Lt. Kabal met the frantic Johnny at the door as he incoherently shouted bits and pieces on what he had seen at them. "Calm down, son. Let's slow down and just relax, ok? Now, we need you to sit on the couch as we take evidence and try to solve this. The first 48 hours are crucial." Curtis calmly stated to Johnny. Johnny nodded and the two policemen began their work. As soon as they entered the bathroom, Kabal gave Curtis a look of shock and whispered, "Hey, this is that slut who sucked me off last month!" Curtis chuckled and responded by saying, "No way, me too! Haha nice! Well, sucks this kid had a mom who was a total whore." "Well," said Kabal with a sigh, "This is obviously the work of Kano. Look at the way he sliced her throat up. He even carved a big 'K' on her chest." "I saw that," remarked The Chief, as he began writing down 'Unsolved' on his document for the murder. "Well, he pays us pretty damn good for keeping his work under wraps, so it looks like this is an Unsolved case.. don't you think so, Kabal?" "Yep, I'd say it's unsolved. Now let's go back to Midnight Steve's and get some wings.. I'm hungry as hell," answered Kabal.
"Son," addresed Chief Curtis to a shaken Johnny "We are going to look as hard as we can into this case, but so far we can't determine anything. We're going to send in a team to get your mother to the morgue for analysis, so I'd stay at a friend or relative's house for a few days. Then we will let you gather your things and set you up with a guardian." All Johnny did was sit there and say "I'm not leaving." The two officers looked at each other and shrugged, and gently closed the door behind them as they set off to the strip club.
Johnny's brow had furrowed and face became red hot as he recalled the events prior. He had just finished wrapping up his fists and he walked into his mother's room. Johnny grabbed the money from her dresser and was about to exit when he noticed a sliver of white peeking out of her jacket pocket, hanging behind the door. It was a note to Johnny from his father in California. It read:
"Dear Caroline,
As you know, I'm not all that good with words. I've tried to be in the boy's life but you never let him anywhere near me. I can see why, Lord knows I don't want him to turn out like his old man. But look, there's a reason why I'm writing you. I'm on the set of this big motion picture in L.A. and I'm Jean Claude's personal assitant! You've told me that our son loves Kung-Fu action movies like I do, and guess what? We need a teenage version of JC's character in this movie, and I told them Johnny would be perfect.. and you know he would, Car. If he's ever going to get out of that shithole in Phoenix, you're going to have to let him have this opportunity. It could be the chance of his lifetime! Just please talk to him about this, I'd love to see him turn into the star I know he could be.
Enclosed in this letter is a plane ticket to Hollywood for him to star in this movie, "Caged: The Legend of The Fist". I really hope you let him start living his own life for once.
Sincerely yours,
David Carlton."
Johnny could seriously not believe this news. He finally got the chance of a lifetime.. his big dream had became a reality. But there was no time to start jumping up and down just yet, he had a little unfinished business left. Stuffing the letter into his back pocket and heading out the door, Johnny gave one last look at the apartment and gave a sigh of relief that he would never have to step foot in that hell hole again.
Arriving at the doorstep of the place where he usually scores his cocaine, Johnny gave a knock and waited for the reaction. A slit in the door slung open and he was met with two beady little bloodshot eyes. "Password." The eyes said to him and Johnny responded quickly with "R.S.S. D.R.E.W., now let me in Hugo, I got to pay off my debt and get some more powder." The slit closed and the door creaked open as Johnny pushed his way inside. He was met with two thugs with Mac10's in hand, pushing them at his chest. "Boss!" one of the thugs called out, "There's a kid out here. Do we waste him right now or what?" "Do ya bloody mind?!" The Boss screamed as he sharpened his knife, "I got things ta do here, mate! What's he 'ere for?" Johnny smirked as he dropped into the splits and punched both of the thugs as hard as he possibly could in their genitals. As they moaned in pain, he grabbed their guns and sprayed their heads clean open in mere seconds. "What the f*ck is goin' on here?!" The boss screamed as he turned around to met with a young man pointing a gun in his face. "Now that I have your attention," laughed Johnny, "Do you know where I can get some good blow without my mom getting killed?" Johnny kicked The Boss in the chest so hard it cracked the ribcage on impact, sending him sprawling into the air like a crash test dummy. Johnny pounced on his victim, sitting on the cracked ribcage and pounding on the face of The Boss until the tape came off of his wrapped fists.
"Do you know.." spat The Boss to Johnny through his blood engorged mouth, "Do you know.. who the f*ck I am, mate? I'm Kano, Lord of the Columbian Drug Cartel!! You think you can just walk right in here and rough me up and get away with it? I'll set my dogs on you, and we'll swarm on you like a plague. There is no running away from The Cartel, there's only death. You'll... *cough* You'll pay us what you owe, or we'll take again." Johnny picked this crumpled mess of a man up by his shirt collar, and stuffed the $500 he owed into his mouth. "So, you got your money. I feel alot better, don't you? Feels like.. a weight.. has been lifted off my shoulders haha." Johnny picked up Kano's knife from the floor and liberated Kano's head from his body. "What about you, Kane Kane? Do you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders? You do? Well, that's just GREAT!" Johnny shouted as he punted Kano's severed head clear across the room. "Now if you'll excuse me gentlemen," He addressed to the pile of corpses, "I've gotta plane to catch."