Retributions

By Pueros

(A street corner, New York, USA, September 2001)

The Twin Towers had been gone for almost two weeks when Si, short for Simon, was waiting as usual on the street corner, anticipating his daily lift to his part-time job to arrive at any moment. The handsome 17 year-old, from a poor background, was working his way through college by performing nightly kitchen duties at a middle-market restaurant. The transport kindly provided by a friendly assistant chef, who shared his shift, was one of the few good points about the activity.

Since the terrible tragedy that had so recently literally hit Si’s great home city, the youth had noticed an immense sense of bitter sadness and shock in his fellow citizens, mixed with resolute determination to restore New York to some semblance of normality as quickly as possible. Many also had faith in their metropolitan and national leaders to secure just retribution for what had happened and to prevent any recurrences of such horrors.

Si saw a car approach slowly but ignored the vehicle, as it was not the one he was expecting. However, the youth should perhaps have taken more notice, as the barrel of a gun furtively poked out of one of the rear windows.

Si heard two loud shots from nearby, just as the car was passing in front of him before suddenly picking up speed and accelerating away, accompanied by a voluminous screeching of tyres. However, the youth paid little attention to the rapid escape of the vehicle from the scene, because his groin was engulfed by horrendous pain, as a large red stain began to pervade the same area of his light blue designer jeans.

(A hospital, New York, a short time later)

“His balls have had it,” the physician announced sombrely to the policeman. “If the gunman was aiming to castrate the poor young guy,” the doctor continued, “his aim was perfect. First the Twin Towers, now this boy’s twin testes! What’s happening to our world?”

(A police station, New York, subsequent days)

A police Lieutenant was put in charge of the investigation into the terrible drive-by shooting, which, because of the media attention given to the aftermath of September 11th, received little publicity.

The Lieutenant decided that his first task was to establish motive. In particular, the detective speculated whether the victim of the appalling crime was just an innocent chosen at random or someone who had been the target of some form of terrible vendetta.

The Lieutenant went to interview Si in hospital. The youth shared a two-bed room with a very sick middle-aged man of Middle-Eastern appearance.

The Lieutenant elicited little about a motive from the poor traumatised teenage victim. The detective therefore later went to interview Si’s family and friends and soon discovered that the youth was associated with a long-established local street gang in his poor neighbourhood. Further investigation found that this large bunch of juveniles had for many years been caught in the middle of a feud between two other smaller teenage groups. These had been feuding for decades, the rivalry apparently being passed on from generation to generation.

The Lieutenant, however, also discovered that Si’s gang had tried mainly to keep aloof from the regular fighting between the other two groups, some of which had led to unsolved murders over the years. The 17 year-old and his associates, and their juvenile predecessors, had friends and interests in both camps, and they actually sometimes tried to intervene to prevent conflict. However, the youth’s band had always sympathised with one of the smaller rivals in particular because of some close family connections, and had occasionally been forced actively to aid them to prevent their demise at the hands of more numerous opponents.

Further investigation led the Lieutenant to conclude correctly that Si, always apparently on the innocent periphery of gang activity, was the first easy target for retribution for his group’s unofficial alliance. Desire for such terrible revenge had seemingly been festering for years, as fundamental responsibility for the continuing feud was diverted towards the youth and his friends and their predecessors. However, the detective also realised that the rival gang was not sophisticated enough to pull off such appalling but expertly carried out vengeance, which instead must have been perpetrated by more sinister sympathisers.

The Lieutenant eventually reported his findings to his superior, the newly appointed Captain Shrub. The 55 year-old silvery-haired police officer, reforming alcoholic and son of a previous now-retired occupier of his post, immediately ordered token harassing of the suspect group and possible sympathisers. However, he mainly had other concerns on his mind.

Shrub had always been aggrieved that his father had not completely crushed yet another young neighbourhood gang that had caused irritating trouble for years now, despite having the opportunity when they had once overstepped the accepted mark. Now, advised by some of his dad’s still-incumbent police cronies, the Captain realised that the terrible crime inflicted on Si gave him the perfect excuse to eradicate his grievance and secure final familial retribution.

Under cover of the investigation into the mutilation of Si, Shrub ordered a large force of his men to go to arrest the leaders of a gang that had had nothing at all to do with the youth’s castration by gun. A shooting battle ensued, in which some police were tragically killed. However, although their target was indeed crushed, the main leaders escaped, some to haunt the authorities for years to come.

Meanwhile, the original feud that had led to Si’s emasculation was allowed to continue, ever more bloodily, and the planners behind the youth’s genital wounds were never caught.

(A hospital, New York, a short time later)

The bed next to Si’s was now empty.

Meanwhile, the pathologist had just finished the autopsy on the middle-aged man, of Middle East origin, and was highly critical in his report about the deceased patient’s earlier treatment over many years.

The pathologist charged that the man’s various doctors had initially only tackled the symptoms of their patient’s bad health, plus a relatively minor second problem, without truly recognising and treating the core trouble, the cancer that was festering, until too late. He declared that the man had probably for a long time been curable if effective action had been taken.

(Tel Aviv, Israel, same time)

The explosion ripped apart the restaurant, killing many, not least the youth, to whose body the plastic explosive had been attached.

(West Bank of the River Jordan, shortly afterwards)

The American-supplied Israeli military helicopter launched its American-supplied missiles at the suspected refuge of the Palestinian leader. The weaponry succeeded in killing the intended target, along with his wife and three children.

THE END

of

‘RETRIBUTIONS’

by Pueros