Sunday, 4.38 AM
King Estates
It had been a long night. Another false lead had resulted in a dead end.
I had been tracing the source of drugs in the city, after that night in Glendora months ago. A drugs lab that size doesn’t spring up overnight. The security on that place alone meant money. Big money.
My solution was simple. Find the source of the money, and the drug trade stops. Simple.
Ok, I knew it wasn’t that simple. I’m not that naive. Stop one source, and another takes over. We took out that drug lab, and the dealers just brought their prices up to compensate. The drugs were still coming in.
I thought I’d found the source tonight. Little house in East LA somewhere. It was a set-up. About a dozen gang-bangers were waiting for me. An easy enough fight, or it would have been. Half an hour earlier, someone had seen guys with guns walking around the house, and called the cops. So about two minutes after the fight started, we heard sirens.
A pair of cops busted in, one of them was that cop from Glendora, O’Hara. The gangbangers opened fire on them, so I had to tackle them both down. I finished the fight, eventually. Worrying about three people is a lot harder than just worrying about yourself.
As soon as the fight was over, the second cop, I don’t remember his name, got up and pointed his gun at me. Told me I was under arrest. O’Hara told him he was a dumbass, and smacked him on the back of the head. I like O’Hara.
I got the hell out of there and headed home. I changed out of my costume, wrote in my notebook, and went to bed.
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Sunday, 10.30 AM
I hated my alarm. Hated it with every fibre of my being. It meant another day at that damn store. Working for that idiot. Wasting time I could be using productively. Every hour I spent there, I was off the streets. Every minute I swept that floor, there was an assault of some kind going on in the city. Every second I stocked those shelves, someone was committing a crime.
But I needed the money. We needed the money. Me and my mom, that is.
My dad left when I was about five. My older brother Ricky died when I was twelve. Since then, mom’s been the only family I’ve got.
She works too, of course. Cleaning at one of the motels downtown. Makes more money than I do, that’s for sure. But every dollar helps.
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My mother is the strongest person I know. Her husband leaves her; she just goes out and gets a job. Us boys were all she was worried about. Her eldest son gets involved in a street gang; she smacked him upside the head, and told him to stop running with them. Every day. Nothing was more important than her boys’ lives. Her eldest son gets gunned down in the street, by a rival gang; she makes sure her remaining son doesn’t make the same mistakes. She raised me right.
Ricky was the reason I learned kung fu down at the Y’. I didn’t want to become a victim. I wanted to be a fighter. I got older, and I decided I wanted to do more than survive. I was strong. I was capable. I had the responsibility to my fellow man. I had the ability to clean up the city. Make it a safer place for other kids’ older brothers. Make it a safe place for my mom.
So I dressed up in black, covered my face with a bandanna, and went out into the night. Got shot in the face by some punk holding up a convenience store. Woke up in a dumpster two days later, fully healed. I freaked out. I was a mutant. I should have been dead. But there I was, underneath someone’s garbage.
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Sunday, 12.28 PM
I pedalled like crazy. I was going to be late. Of course. Mr McGee was going to kill me.
Mr McGee hated me, just like he hated Ricky. Ricky had worked at the store for a few months before he dies, Mr McGee was convinced he was stealing. He probably was, knowing Ricky. So Mr McGee loves it when I make a mistake. Punishes me, because he couldn’t punish Ricky then.
I got to the store just in time. McGee told me off anyway. I flipped him off when he turned away.
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I crawled out of the dumpster. I was about a block away from the convenience store.
As I dusted myself off, I heard someone coming. I didn’t think, I just reacted. Jumped up, vaulted off the dumpster, kicked off the wall, and onto the fire exit. Just in time.
Two guys walked into the alleyway. I recognised them pretty quickly as the guys from the convenience store. The guy that had shot me started freaking out. The dumpster was open. What if someone had found the body. When he looked inside, and found I wasn’t in there, he flipped out completely.
His troubles were only beginning.
I leapt off the fire exit, and slammed the dumpster’s lid down on his head. His friend took one look at me, and stammered something about me being dead.
I said something about never dying, sounded pretty cool at the time. Can’t remember the details.
I pulled the other guy out of the dumpster. He was unconscious. Lucky for him. Told his buddy to drag him away, and if I ever caught them doing anything illegal, I was coming to get them. The message seemed to get through, as the guy ran as fast as he could, dragging his buddy along the ground behind him.
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Sunday, 8.21 PM
I walked into the house. My mom had been home for hours. We make small talk about work. The usual.
Things have been a little strained since I became ‘The Shadow’. She doesn’t know, of course. She thinks I’ve joined a gang. We tend to fight a lot about it. I deny it, of course. But when I don’t provide a reason I’m always sneaking out, and why I disappear for days at a time.
She’d probably flip out even worse if she found out what I was really doing though. Guess it’s better this way. I just wish she’d stop looking at me like that.
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Sunday, 11.53 PM
I pulled my mask over my face, and pulled on my gloves. Tonight was going to be a productive night, I could feel it. I had one last lead, and I was going to make this one count.