Chapter Two
Time flew by like I never knew it. We all eventually got over Mr. Rosenthal's death. The guys who killed him were never found though, that's one thing that hurts me to this day. I mean those motherf*ckers got away with murdering an innocent man, and for what? For doing his goddamn job? Even you gotta admit that's messed up.
But what could we do? Mary and her mother never really forgot the injustice that had been brought over them, and neither did I. But there was no opportunity to prove myself. Or at least that's what I thought.
TOKENTOWN, 1978
I'd just turned sixteen. It was a glorious year for me in many ways, some of the reasons of which I shall reveal later. But you have to understand that at this point both I and Sal were one of the handsomest kids around school. Hell, I'd even heard rumours of girls going up to Sal and asking them to date him, which was considered very bold in the city at that time. Girls almost never admitted having crushes on guys. But I guess that's how it was with us. That's just the way we rolled.
Mary on the other hand, was something other girls could only dream of being. While I and Sal were enjoying our temporary status as 'one of the most handsome guys', she was easily the prettiest girl in the entire area. I mean there was no competition between her and anybody else. She was your classical example of a 'beauty with brains' which was something that was quite rare back then. And I still think it is quite rare now, which is why I'm glad I met Mary.
I know what you're thinking right now. Did I like her? Did I have a little crush on her? I'm gonna be honest with you. I had no clue. I'd known this girl since we were kids, and so it was a little difficult for me to decide if or not I liked her. I mean she'd hold my hand and everything when we'd go to the movies, and she'd even kiss me on the cheeks sometimes. And yes she'd cried a lot in my arms, but that's something that I don't like to mention again and again. It just has some pretty bad memories to it. All in all, I hope you get the point. We were best friends, that was for sure. But neither of us knew whether we could ever be anything more than that. And I liked it that way. A little ambiguity is always nice.
Now if there was a girl who looked as beautiful as her, there were bound to be some troubles. She wasn't the least interested in talking to any other guys besides me and Sal, and that was only because we'd known each other for so long. I and she had kinda become the same person, as a matter of fact. We were so used to liking the same things, having the same hobbies, cracking the same jokes that it got annoying at times. But her being with me meant that every single guy around the block was jealous of me. And that shit brought trouble home sometimes.
Now I need to warn you about my use of language here. A lot of people curse in this story, so you better get used to it. And if you're one of those 'cursing is bad' kind of people, then you better not read. You can't hope to listen to a story like mine without some swearing in it okay? Point is, deal with it.
So I was hanging around with Sal one day after lunch and he happened to say something that intrigued me a lot.
"You know Martin?" asked he.
Now everybody knew Martin. He was a very controversial kid.
"Yeah." I replied, "What about him?"
"He's got something going on in this place man."
"What do you mean?"
Sal leaned in.
"You know how the teachers say somebody's trying to bring drugs to school all the time?"
"Yeah." I nodded. It was a widely known fact that somebody had a hold of heroin and cocaine in the locality and was distributing it at school. Well not those drugs, but small scale ones. Weed and shit. Now there wasn't a lot of proof of that happening, but everybody knew what went on. The only problem is, no guy involved in the business was ever caught red handed. In fact, there was an entire committee that was set up just to see if they could get hold of any one of those kids.
"That's him man." continued Sal, "That's Martin. He's got an entire system here. There's people who buy that stuff, and there's people who sell it. And all the money that's made from this ratshit business goes to the High End."
I was quiet for some time. What the hell was I gonna reply anyways?
"How do you know this?" I asked him.
"I heard it over the grapevine. Well not really, I had a couple of friends who buy those things, so…"
"Why do you have such friends again?"
"Come on, it's not like I'm supporting their activities or anything. You just happen to make such friends, you know. I ain't doing nothing wrong am I?"
"No you're not."
"Good. Not a lot of people know the truth of what goes on in the school. All the drug money, all of it, goes to the High End."
"Wow. The High End, you serious?"
"Yeah. Martin's the only guy who can actually do that you know."
"I guess. Why haven't you told this to any of the teachers?"
"Teachers. You f*cking kidding me? If Martin finds out that I was the one who did that shit, you know what's gonna happen."
Yep, I knew. People who complained about Martin to the teachers were never found in a state to complain again.
"I don't know what to say," I answered, "I mean somebody's gotta put an end to this. These motherf*ckers are ruining other peoples' lives man. They cannot keep on selling drugs to kids, can they? Sal you know about this f*cking racket, why don't you tell someone?"
"I did tell someone. I told you. And now you know just as much as I do. So if you think you're man enough, go ahead. Tell everybody what goes on in school after hours. And if you happen to remain alive throughout this fiasco, tell me your experience. But I ain't messing with Martin. I ain't messing with someone who knows people from the High End. Not if it came to my life."
That was a good point. Nobody wanted to mess with the High Enders. And nobody wanted to mess with people who knew the High Enders.
But I guess you don't care. And you only don't care because you don't know who the High Enders are. So let me just deviate from this little narrative of mine and take you some decades further behind. And I'll tell you this now: the moment you finish reading about the High Enders and the history of this city of ours, you're gonna think a lot differently about the people this place was run by.
TOKENTOWN, 1941
This was about twenty years before I was born and eighteen years before my parents moved to this city. And in the early 1940s this place used to be a small town located in the heart of the state of Hudgens. It wasn't the big city I'd always known. It was a quiet little spot with bars and restaurants and motels and stuff like that. There weren't any schools really, and there weren't any good hospitals either. Mostly the people who lived here used to migrate to the bigger places around like Gerra or Seratova.
But the ones who made a living working here were the bar owners and the motel staff and people like that. And I'll tell you the reason not many people wanted to live here. It was because every full moon we'd be raided by thugs and bandits from all around the neighbouring places. It was like we were supposed to just take it silently while they destroyed all the crops and took all our money and raped all our women. And if somebody tried to cross them, which was something that almost never happened, they'd hang the person from a traffic signal or something like that. There was just no winning with these motherf*ckers! They did what they wanted, they opened fire in the middle of the night just for fun, they used to break into houses and steal both the money and the women. They used to force the bars open after hours and raid the liquor, and most of the times they used to either shoot the bar owner or burn his place down.
And that was just the way it was. Everybody had to sit quiet and accept it. Nobody complained, nobody was allowed to complain. Those who did try to raise their voices were supressed so bad that they never spoke again.
Until some people said that they didn't have to take it no more. They were tired of all the crime and all the injustice, and so they'd decided to take matters into their own hands.
On the first full moon of the New Year, the bandits sneaked into the town like a pack of hungry wolves looking for prey. They used to spread out in groups of twos or threes in different colonies and meet again at the entrance gate of the town. There they would split the money between themselves and leave. And they weren't those old fashioned guys who rode on horses, they had cars. And back in the time, having a car meant being faster than the rest of the world.
Anyways, so that night they decided to raid the local liquor stores. There were about fifteen guys in total I think. They spread out in five groups of three. And that was the night the rebellion began…
Remember the guys I'd told you earlier about? The ones who were fed up of the crime and were going to take matters into their own hands? There were five of them: Benjamin, Julian, William, Stanley and Duncan. All of them were trained marksmen. What were they doing in Tokentown, you ask? Well it was their home. They'd gone away to serve in the army and it was only after they came back that they discovered that their town had been oppressed for long. They always knew there were bandits who raided the place, but things had gone too far now.
So on that very night, it was for the first time that two criminals were gunned down in Tokentown. Their bodies were left riddled with bullets and the only guy to live had been shot in the arm. He'd run off in panic to join the rest of the group. But nobody knew what to do. They couldn't risk coming back in the town that night, for they had no idea who had opened fire out of the blue. This was something new. This was something scary for them.
And it was a fair fight now. They had rifles, we had rifles. They had power, we had brains. They were the oppressors, and we were the ones who'd been oppressed for too long. Things were never the same from then. Benjamin and Julian had fought in the army for so long they even knew how to make bombs and stuff like that. Short range grenades that destroyed everything within a one meter radius. The people of Tokentown had never been happier. They arranged for all the raw material and the gunpowder and the pipes for the rifles. It was like there were real heroes in town. People who could put an end to all the crime and the bullshit that was going on.
The bandits weren't backing down easy either. They'd gotten reinforcements and weapons and new cars to raid the city again on the next full moon. We didn't have the amount of ammunition and man-power as much as they did; I mean all we had were five guys willing to right the wrong.
But we were at war and we knew it. Something had to be done if we were gonna drive those criminal bastards out of our town. People were very impressed with the killing of Delaney and Downer (that's the bandits who'd died that night), and so they were offering their support in every possible way.
The only thing that was problematic was the number of people on one side and the number of people on the other. Five guys taking down a shitload of criminals wasn't a joke then, and it isn't a joke now. So there was only one thing we could retort to: the element of surprise.
Everybody knew the attack was gonna be on the next full moon. But we weren't just gonna wait until a gang of rascals crashed into our city were we? So Benjamin came up with an idea that was probably the only way to end all of this. He was gonna take the fight to them before they ever thought of coming to fight us.
There were about six other villages in the vicinity that were raided by the bandits on a monthly basis. And one of them, Festra, was their next target. The attack on our town was scheduled on the next full moon. And the attack on Festra was scheduled a week before that. So what Benjamin and his crew did was they decided to get them there itself.
So on the night the bandits were raiding Festra, the five of them took their respective positions according to the plan. The only way to the local bars of the village was through a narrow street and the cars would have to compulsorily pass through it to get to the main liquor stores. There were houses on both sides of that street, and there were rooftops from which it was possible to get an angle at the road below.
So Julian and Duncan had taken their positions on a rooftop. They were the sharpest shooters of the lot, and so it was likely that they wouldn't miss a single target. The remaining three were waiting for the cars to arrive on the other end of the street. There was only one machine gun, and it was being handled by Benjamin. The moment they heard the first sound of a car coming, they hid behind one of the houses. Then another car came, then another and then another. By the end of five more seconds there were about seven cars in the same small street, all going to the other side. And they had no idea what was in store for them.
The first car came a little ahead before stopping suddenly. Benjamin had placed spikes on the street to stall them. And it worked. The first car had a flat tire.
This was the signal. Julian took his rifle and aimed at the last car. Then he looked at Duncan, who already had two grenades in his hand. They had to deliver both blows at the same time. And in a split second, the driver of the last car was dead. The remaining cars were stuck in the middle of the street and before they could understand what the hell was happening there was something that landed in front of them and a moment later there were these terrifying explosions that rung throughout the area. Duncan had thrown the grenades.
That was the signal for the remaining three on the ground. They came out of hiding and opened fire in the middle of the street. The idea was that anybody who survived the grenade blasts would certainly die of the bullets. Now you need to understand that the people in those cars were criminals. Even they had guns. Even they had ammunition. But the element of surprise had taken them by shock. The moment somebody tried to fire from the car there was another grenade somewhere, and the person was dead before they had the chance to take aim. The people in the vehicles were being gunned down by Benjamin, William and Stanley. Anybody who tried to escape was shot dead by Julian from the rooftop. There was so much gunfire that night that the flames didn't die out till the morning. And it was bloody violent. But the good kind of violent nonetheless.
They killed every single person in those cars. After the gunfire died down they actually looked inside each and every one of the vehicles to see if anyone was still alive. Turns out a couple of people did actually survive all the bullets, but it was no good use. They died after that anyways.
The guys put petrol in the cars and set them on fire. This was a statement: You don't mess with anybody from Tokentown. And it was a statement that rung throughout the nation. We'd won a battle against injustice that night. And by morning, our city was free.
There had never been bigger celebrations in town. Everyone was glad that the criminals were gone, and the few who weren't there that night never came back to raid ever again. Benjamin and crew were hailed as heroes, and most people thought it was the right thing to do. Most people, that is, not all of them.
Remember when the story's going real well and there has to be this one conniving son of a bitch who has a problem with things? Well there's always people like that in real life. And there was one in Tokentown, who couldn't bear to watch the success and the development that had started happening in the city just a few months after the attacks had stopped.
Roberto Roberti was a local politician who had lost something very important over the last six months. He'd lost his influence over time. See back when the bandits used to attack the people used to be afraid of facing them. So they had to come to Roberti for help. Now this guy was a scumbag. He promised their protection, and they'd elected him as their representative. And then his promises went to hell. Rumour has it that he was himself involved with the bandits and used to give them information about where and how to attack. He even used to get a share of what they stole, and that was something that everybody just had to accept.
But that was all over now. I mean the criminals were dead, and there were new heroes in town. There was public rage against Roberto. He knew he was gonna lose the next election. People were starting to like Benjamin and his group, so much so that they'd decided to make him contest against Roberto.
Now this guy wasn't dumb. He knew how things worked. He also knew that as long as he stayed in power, nobody could do anything to him. But the moment that power died, he was gonna die. So there was one thing, and one thing only, that could keep the people in control: fear.
One night Benjamin, Julian, Stanley and William mysteriously disappeared. Word had spread through town by morning. It is said that Roberto had bribed Duncan to kill all his companions. Duncan's own body was found by the lake a few days later, and everybody knew who had done it. And that was exactly what Roberto had expected. He'd expected the people to figure out that he was the one who'd killed the soldiers and he wanted everybody to fear him. But what happened next was something he'd never anticipated.
The people had been too influenced by their heroes to back out of the fight now. If five guys could singlehandedly take down a dozen gangsters, surely an entire town united could root out a lousy politician. And that's what they did. Roberto's house was attacked in the middle of the night, and he was caught off guard. Six guys had actually entered his bedroom and shot him to death as he lay in his bed. And that was the end of that. Our town had lost five of the bravest people it ever knew and one ugly looking bastard.
From that moment on, everybody knew that there were two kinds of people in the city: those who lived normally and those who lived on something called the 'High End'. Now the term is technically a business term which means 'luxury goods', which is very much what it meant then. Those who lived on the High End were called the High Enders and they were all like Roberto, all rich and comfortable in their huge mansions and their million dollar cars. And our society generally hated those people. Not each and every one of them was bad, but most of them were downright bastards. And nobody likes downright bastards. They were an isolated section of society; they had more influence over the politics and the crime than anybody else in the city. And it was like the High End had always existed, but it was only after the death of Roberto Roberti that all their deeds had come into light.
Tokentown developed really well after the public took matters in their own hands. There were committees that were set up, a proper governing body that was assigned, a police department that had been given the powers it was devoid of until now, and things like that.
And within a span of ten years, it was a beautiful city in the middle of the state of Hudgens. Everybody wanted to come here. The criminal activities had been reduced dramatically, and by the time my father and mother migrated here in 1958 it was already a paradise of sorts.
The High End had been long forgotten, but it was still a fearsome thing. Nobody wanted to mess with a High Ender, and although the people were strong enough to fight back, no one really wanted violence in the city again.
It was highly rumoured that people from the High End were actually expanding their control and waiting for the right time to strike, and I guess those were just rumours. But one thing couldn't be denied: you had to lose five good men to kill one bad guy. And that isn't a fair trade by any means. Not for the common people anyways.
So now you know why Martin was hard to get hold of. If he had friends in the High End like Sal said, then you could be sure of the fact that nobody would even think of harming him. I was myself scared when I first heard of it, and I remained scared for some time.
But there's a time when certain lines are crossed, and some offences just cannot be forgiven. And by that point, you don't really care who the offender is, you care only about justice.