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By Root 1112 0

at my favorite Restaurant. I don’t know how he did it without me knowing, but he had set up a big dinner with all of our friends, even some of our old ones from New York. When we walked in, they were all waiting for us. We ate, drank, snorted coke. Michelangelo told me that he was putting me on a plane the next day, so I really went at it. After a couple hours, he told me he was going Home. He said didn’t feel entirely right spending an entire evening with so much liquor and so many drugs. He gave me a hug and said he’d pick me up at noon to take me to the Airport. I hugged him back and told him I’d be ready and I was gonna make him proud. He said he already knew.

Leonard takes a deep breath.

He turned and he walked away, headed toward the valet. I watched him from the door as he waited for his car, hoping that he’d turn around so that I could wave to him. As he was standing there, a black Lincoln pulled up and the windows went down. I knew what was happening, and I tried to yell, but before I could say anything, the barrels came out. They started blazing away. Just blazing the fuck away.

Michelangelo went down straightaway, and even as he was down, the guns kept fucking blazing. By the time I got there, he was done, hit sixteen times, twice in the chest, four in the stomach, the rest in his arms and legs. People were running all over the place, there was blood everywhere, and he was done, shot sixteen times by a carload of cowardly Fucks.

Leonard’s voice cracks and tears start running down his cheeks.

I held him as he bled. Just held him and told him how much I loved him. He was still conscious and he could still talk, but he knew he was done. Right before he went, he lifted a bloody hand and he put it on my cheek. He looked me in the eye and he said, live honorably and with dignity, respect the memories of all your Parents. I want you to play the course of your first Father and play it like one of the Members, and I want you to live sober and live free. Do that for me, Leonard. Live sober and live free. It’s gonna be hard and scary and brutal, but if you just hold on, you’ll be okay. Just hold on. And then he died, right in my arms, shot down like a fucking dog. He died in my arms.

Leonard breaks down and starts weeping. It is a strong shaking sobbing wracking weeping, the weeping that comes from a wound that will never heal. I let him weep, leave him be with his memories and his loss and his pain. I would offer him comfort, but it wouldn’t matter. The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone.

He regains his composure and with it his edge of violence, control and power. He stares out across the Lake at the burning mist and the floating cracking ice, but with an image of the dead held firm in his mind.

I didn’t get on my Plane the next day or any day for a long time. I buried Michelangelo next to Geena and I wept at their graves just like I wept a moment ago and just like I weep whenever I think of them. Then I spent a week locked in my house getting blitzed beyond comprehension. When I emerged after that week, the only the thing on my mind was vengeance.

I spent the next year tracking down the Motherfuckers responsible for Michelangelo’s murder. Then I found the Motherfuckers they worked for, and then I found the Motherfuckers those Motherfuckers worked for. What I did to them does not deserve to be spoken of, but I will tell you that I did not give them the luxury of being held by someone who loved them when I turned their fucking lights out. I spent the year after that drinking and doing blow and trying to get my ass on that goddamn Golf Course in Westchester. I wasn’t able to, so I decided to take a break and come here, the thought being that if I wasn’t able to make my first Father proud, I would damn well do it for the second.

It has been incredibly hard being here and doing this, much harder than I imagined it would be. When I got here I was a fucking wreck. Not a wreck like you were, but bad enough. Every second that passed was a miserable Hell. Now it’s getting easier, but it’s still fucking awful,