by Marlon, San Mateo
Celebrating the dead over the living. November 25, I remember the sound of loud arguing vividly, one voice from someone very close to me and another voice from a stranger, the argument went on for a long time. I remember sitting there watching and feeling bored.
My big cousin had just stole some man’s belongings. Him and this grown man had began, both getting very heated.
“Give me my shhh back, lil bro!” said this grown man.
My cousin responded with an evil smirk, as he replied “nah, screw you” and just like that I wasn’t bored anymore.
I became scared in a matter of seconds because in a second this grown man did something no one expected. At most, I thought he was going to try to fight my big cousin and probably not win, but what came next was something new. Stuff I only see in movies. In just a matter of seconds he pulled out a gun and as soon as he reached a straight path the sound of mini explosions filled the air. Five or six shots rang out in just a couple of seconds.
In my thirteen years old young mind it didn’t seem real to me. I saw the mini flame come out of the gun and the gun powder from the gun filled the air like dust. But I didn’t see bullets fly out, it was nothing like the movies. If I hadn’t seen what I seen next I would’ve swore it was fake. I didn’t see the bullets enter my big cousin, all I saw was his body react to the shots, he started to grip his body and a couple seconds later he fell and hit the ground. He was hit in his neck and four more times in his body.
I was frozen, in shock, after my cousin hit the ground.
The man then walked up to my shaking cousin and took the MCM backpack that contained my cousins belongings straight off his back and calmly walked off like nothing had happened.
My cousin was letting out soft groans of pain.
I ran to my mom’s door and began to bang. I would have thought that the shots would have woke her up but I was wrong because she walked out agitated, saying “what!?” very angerly.
It wasn’t a nice way to say it and I knew she had to know. I told her flat out my cousin had just gotten shot and I thought he was dead.
She instantly replied with a “stop lying that’s not funny.”
I took her by the arm and walked her to the window and pointed. By now, the neighborhood circled and started to crowd him. She started to cry in disbelief. She immediately called my auntie. My auntie and her shared this moment of sadness with each other.
I was in shock and disbelief that someone I was playing the Xbox 360 with was gone. He just taught me cheat codes to the game Saints Row 2.
Was this real? Is this really happening? I quickly answered my own question. Yes, this is real and all I can think is “damn.” Just like that you can be gone.
I tried to force myself to cry. I squeezed my eyes as hard as I could but nothing, not even a drop of liquid, dripped from my adolescent eyeballs. I was sad and scared, the same emotions that everyone else had but yet a totally different reaction.
My mom came out of her deep sadness for a second and hugged me and asked if I was alright. I hugged her in her teary eye and asked her “am I wrong for not knowing how to feel?” She responded, saying that my experience isn’t normal and there was no normal way to react to something like that. That statement was soon proven true to me when my mom called my other cousin that was in jail to tell him that his little brother was dead and that his little cousin had witnessed it all. I heard from the phone a loud laughter.
When I was younger I didn’t understand this reaction, but now I’m 17 and I understand he didn’t know what to do. This was the laughter of a man that lost everything, both of his little brothers while serving a life sentence. That was a call out for help. I know that broke him. He was supposed to be their protector and he wasn’t there to protect them.
When I got on the phone with him and he asked “so lil cousin you saw it?”
I answered, “yeah.”
He told me in a laughing voice, “well lil cousin, that’s life we all expecting that someday. Stay strong.”
I didn’t get to say nothing else. All I heard was a click.