Short Story Writing 14 Killers (Final)

14 Killers

Everyday you look at yourself in the mirror and sigh heavily. Whenever you shave away the sandpaper on your face, it reveals the wrinkles that come with old age. You poke at the lines growing across your skin and shudder a little, wondering how an expressionless face could produce such deep flaws. You dress yourself in the same color palate each day, solid blues and grays, and even though your job has no uniform, you look like the typical worker. Coffee has lost its effect on you, and only the slight burn of its heat on your tongue clears your mind of blurriness. Mornings haven’t felt good in years.

You stare across the table at your family and frown in disgust. Your wife hasn’t looked at you in forever. Her sullen eyes watch her hand slowly swirling a spoon in her coffee. You remember when she used to look at you and hold you and say “I love you.” Those days are long gone now. She cringes if you touch her like you used to, and you haven’t had sex in years. Your son sits there as if he’s waiting for a chance to escape. You look at him, dressed in his struggling gangster clothes, and wonder where you went wrong. You notice that most of the colors he’s been wearing lately have been red, and today his looks are following that trend. You give them a final glance over your shoulder before you walk out the door for work, show them a fake smile, and say goodbye.

You walk outside and your eyes water a little from the cold and the smog. You see your car sitting there, still slightly frosty from the morning mist. Your poor car, it was supposed to be your dream car. A brand new Mustang should be sitting here, beckoning your presence with its powerful nature. Instead, all that sits in front of you is a used station wagon, with paint fading away in all areas. You slam the door shut after you get in, and you start the engine. The car rumbles slightly, but it starts like the reliable piece of work that it is. The garage slowly moves away as you reverse down your driveway. Your house fades away as you drive through your neighborhood.

You drive through the streets and look around, wondering where all the beauty in the world is. You remember reading children’s books while growing up and seeing a world full of happiness and color. You would see a world full of people smiling. A world where even the cars and buildings and clouds would smile. You don’t see any of that around you now, though. A world of non-fiction flows past the windows of your car. Buildings of grey and brown, swirled by motion into one long streak of unsightly blurriness. As a child, you never even knew colors like this existed so commonly in the world. You never see anyone smiling either. Everyone has a look of depression on their faces, as if their shadows were taking control of their expressions. The surrounding world makes it impossible for the cars and the buildings and the clouds to look happy also. Your child self would be crying right now if he knew that his future world would be crushed just by drab colors.

The neighborhood you live in makes you sick. You wish you could close your eyes while driving, just so you could remain ignorant of the world around you. You see signs of the ghetto all around you, and these sights weigh heavily in your right foot. The grey clouds forever linger in the sky above. They set the perfect atmosphere for the depressing neighborhood that you’re now a part of. Clouds that are so lifeless and so dull that they seem to be an extension of the rooftops. You feel like you haven’t seen the sun in ages. You swear that God is somehow trying to cover up this blemish on the world, and that he’s doing a damn good job at it.
You feel your car rumble as it runs over cracks in the road. No, cracks aren’t the right word for them. More like trenches. Trenches caused by years of use and neglect. You eyebrows begin to furrow as you try and predict when one of these trenches will puncture a hole in your tires and send your car veering out of control. Your mood worsens even more when you think of how the roads will be once it starts raining. The trenches become creeks and rivers, eventually forming an urban ecosystem. A delta full of trash and filth, creating a river that matches your memories of the pollution from those old Captain Planet TV shows that you used to watch as a child. A low growl escapes from your mouth when your car hits one of the trenches, causing your teeth to jar together. You curse the construction workers, knowing that they’re too scared to come and fix the roads, but at the same time you understand why they wouldn’t want to be stuck on the streets in a place like this.

You look up and see the ever prevalent gang signs starting to flow past your car. Red XIV’s and X4’s spray painted everywhere. They think they’re so fucking clever. Those Norteños calling themselves N’s. The fourteenth letter of the alphabet. Romanize that fourteen and you get an XIV. Yeah they’re so fucking cute. You’re tired of seeing all these gang signs spray painted everywhere. You always see them, sprayed blatantly in the middle of fences, garages, and anything that could be branded with their mark. You’ve even seen someone driving down 10th street with XIV stamped right across their front wind shield.

You can’t do a damn thing about it either. There’s so many of them that getting rid of a few would just be pointless. You hate how the color of the signs stands out so much against whatever color its spray painted on. Bright red. Makes you feel like the neighborhood has been streaked in fresh blood. You think that they could have chosen a better color also. You hate how they represent red, a color you grew up on. A color you once thought was energetic and bold. You never used to associate red with blood, but now it’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see that color. Yet another strand of your childhood cut by the present.

You also know all the stories about people trying to remove the signs. You see freshly painted walls. Walls that used to be adorned with graffiti and red spray paint, now clean and new. You know that wall is going to be marked very soon. Another red XIV will soon appear there to replace its fallen comrades, but you know that this one will be a little different. There’s going to be a circle around the X, and your trained eye knows what this means. You think that the circled X looks just like an eye. Its watching the community even more carefully now, waiting for someone to make a mistake. You know that the X has now evolved into an emblem meant for more than just territory. The circle is a warning, telling the people not to mess with the N’s. You hate it when you see these community service organizations come into your neighborhood. Coming in with paint brushes and fake goodwill. Thinking that they’re helping out the community with some beautification project. You know they don’t feel any fear painting over gang signs because they don’t have to live here. They don’t have to face the consequences of their actions. They just soak up the rewards of their hard work, and go home and pat themselves on the back. You want to tell them that their actions are just going to make things worse. That they are just going to eventually cause more violence and more gang signs, but they’re not going to listen to you. Your words would fall on ears too plugged up with good intentions to even respond to your reasoning. You know the stories of your neighbors because you live in these stories and you become a part of them. Houses near freshly painted walls soon become covered in yellow police tape. It’s just a crime scene waiting to happen. A scene all too familiar to you.

Then you see the shoes. A pair of shoes tied together by the laces and flung over a telephone line. You used to think of this as nothing. It’s just a practical joke that the kids must do just to have a quick laugh. Just mischievous innocence. Thinking of little kids giggling and running away from their little terrorist act used to make you smile. It used to make you think that there was still a sliver of happiness in the world. You used to think this way until your son and his friends ruined everything. You remember it vividly. Your son and his group of rebels were lounging in your living room, invading your couch and TV. You were trying to be a good parent, and trying to ignore their conversation and their rehearsed to perfection ghetto accents. You stayed in your room just so that their voices would become muddled by the multiple layers of walls. You planned to lie on your bed all day and rest, but your stomach wouldn’t let you do that. It began growling, and as time went on, your kitchen started to sound more and more delicious. Slowly, you opened the door and stealthily walked into the kitchen, trying not to cause any noise, just so that your son wouldn’t think you were spying on him. You stood there in the kitchen, knife in hand, trying to make a sandwich, when their conversation suddenly struck you.

“Yeah man, them shoes are from that scrap the N’s jumped a few nights ago.”
“Aw shit no way. For reals man?”
“Yeah fool I ain’t lying. They threw them up there to show them bitch asses what’s up.”
“Damn man, those were some nice kicks though. Wish they gave em to me instead though.”

You stood there helpless as your thoughts of pure innocence were crushed by the N’s. You almost dropped your sandwich after hearing this, but you made it back to your room with food intact. Seeing these shoes now evokes the same emotions that you felt back then. You feel helpless as they dangle above you, taunting you with their fake innocence. These shoes remind you of your attempts to guide your son through life. You wanted to show him that there was more to the world than what was past his windows. You painted his room in bright colors and surrounded him with books full of smiles. You remember sending him off to school, watching him trot away with his bright yellow rain boots and matching rain jacket. None of it worked. Those bright colors eventually evolved into shades of red. Consequences of the public school system. He looks away from you now, as if he’s trying to escape your influence. All this comes to you, just from seeing shoes perched upon a telephone line. You slam the gas pedal and avoid the rear view mirror, hoping that they’ll just fade away into the sky.

You finally make it out of the ghetto and roll into the city. There’s more colors here to look at and feel, but this isn’t your life. All you do here is go to work in a box that’s been affectionately labeled a cubicle. Its walls are scattered with pictures of your family. Pictures of a time when your smiles weren’t forced and your wife actually held your hand. You sit there for eight hours a day, pretending to do work and letting your computer burn holes in your retinas. You remember when this job used to be promising. An energetic greeting and a firm handshake was all you thought you needed. Your bosses used to say you were going places in the company. You realize now that they were just trapping you in the company, slowly turning you into a mid-age worker with no hope of getting a new job, forcing you to stay forever. You just shake your head now at how naive you were, and all you can do now is stare at the clock and wish for it to go faster and faster. That second hand always seems to be running a marathon that it’ll never complete. Finally, your day is done. Your car is waiting for you in the parking lot, looking as defeated as ever. You start the ignition and begin to head home.

You feel like the drive home is just everything you saw in the morning in reverse order. It’s like life is just rewinding over the worst parts of your life and playing them back over and over again. Same red XIV’s everywhere you look. Same shoes dangling above you, taunting you from their peak up above. Same house you return to every evening. You see that something is a little different today though. You see people gathered around your house from a distance, and you wonder what might be going on. Your mind starts to race a little. You start to wonder if something exciting is finally happening in your life. Maybe they’re throwing a party just for you. Maybe they’re all excitedly awaiting your return so you can all smile and be happy again. When you pull up closer though, you see that it’s just your son and his dumbass friends, playing around in front of your street. Your eyes grow as soon as you see what they’re doing. They’re playing 14 Killers. You fucking hate that game. You think it’s the stupidest game they could have thought of. You wish they could just play tag instead of this shitty variation of it. You see your sons friends pointing at each other, hands shaped like guns. You can hear them yelling at each other. They’re running around, hiding behind cars and diving behind trash cans. The soccer ball you got them just so they wouldn’t play this game is sitting there, stuck up against the curb, still looking pretty new. You cuss to yourself in your car. God dammit, these fucking kids, I told them not to play that damn game. Playing that damn recruitment tool. Fucking little wannabe gangsters. You can’t stand watching them having fun while they’re fake killing each other.

You park your car in the driveway and they pretend not to notice you. You quickly get out your car and slam the door, and still not one of them even bothers to look at you. Must be too damn consumed in their game, you think. Hey, you say, as you walk down the driveway. You don’t notice it, but your fists are clenched and your eyes are blazing. A few of the kids shoot a cautious glance in your direction. Hey, you say, what did I tell you kids about playing that game? They’re all looking up at you now. They’re staring at you as if you’re the one about to shoot them. You’ve got your fingers raised, pointing at them, lecturing them about how they shouldn’t be play killing each other. You’re starting to make a scene. Neighbors begin to peek out of their windows, trying to get a glimpse of the commotion. None of them come out and help you though. They all stay hidden in their homes, all too willing to let you do all the talking. You scream and you shout and you stomp. Finally, you hear it.

Hey, you hear, can you shut the hell up. You look around for the source, and you realize with shock, that it’s one of your sons friends. It’s Dom, the outspoken ringleader. He’s stepped forward, that brave little bastard. Acting tough, just to impress his friends. Standing in front of you, dressed in clothes five years ahead of him. Red shoes, red belt, red shirt. His arms are crossed, arms that are blank now, but look like they’ll soon carry the script of the streets. And he’s staring at you, with his head cocked a little to the side. You hear his voice again, and its accent pisses you off. Hey, you hear, we can do what the fuck we want.

You don’t feel yourself moving forward. You just see Dom’s figure growing steadily. You don’t see his eyes growing with fear. You don’t see that he’s actually scared, that his little act has gone away. He’s running away now, along with his gangster buddies. You contemplate chasing them, but no, the thought of running after some punk doesn’t delight you much. You linger in the street for a little bit, staring at them running away as they become ants on the horizon.

You walk inside your house and eat your dinner silently. Your wife stands at the sink, only making noise with the dishes. You know she knows what happened, but you can’t tell if she’s happy or sad. You don’t want to talk about it, not with her. Her being nice to you now wouldn’t make up for all those years of denial. You finish the rest of your food and go straight to sleep.

The next morning, you walk into the kitchen and see all the familiarities of the morning. A cold breakfast, layed out on the table. Your wife sits there, and she doesn’t even give you a good morning glance. Your son is nowhere to be seen. Looks like he finally found that escape. You pick at your food and get up to leave. No fake smile escapes from your lips this time. You pull open the door and walk outside to your car. Your eyes water more than usual this morning and a familiar scent fills the air. You rub away the wetness in your eyes and look ahead. A small shock of warmth takes the place of the emptiness in your stomach. Your car is staring right back at you, red circle emblazed.


So basically the only drastic changes I made was cleaning up the ending. Making it seem more realistic I guess. I also added in parts concerning the history of the main character, such as his job and his relationship with his son. I'll be submitting this story to the contest at school so wish me luck.