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Case Study of a Teenage Predator

David Ford

1 - Denial

    “I’m sorry kid, don’t kill me. I swear I’ll leave and never come back! Oh god, don’t kill me!” A male voice pleaded.
    “You know I can’t letcha go,” came the reply. The words resonated through the walls of the dingy squat house, making even the cockroaches tremble with fear.
    “You don’t have to do this you know. Please,” the victim said again. He fell to his knees and sobbed. It was two pm on a school day and a sixteen year old boy had come to kill him.
    “Why don’ I have to?”
    “What?”
    “You said I don’ hafta do this. Gimme a reason and I might change my mind.”
    “Erm... well...” Darius was sick of this routine. Pathetic men begging to be the one exception to the rules they swore to abide by, but there was something about this one that sent him over the edge. Maybe it was the infected needle marks in his arms or perhaps the stupid tough guy tribal tattoo across his bare chest, but Darius knew this guy had to die, right now.
    “See. Everyone says I don’t hafta but when I asks why, they don’ have no answer. I just don’ get it. Why don’t you know what you asking for?” As he said this, the boy raised his pistol up to the man’s head and the man began to cry hysterically. “Aww hell n’aw. Don’ you be doing that to me,”
    “Please! I’ll give you money!”
    The boy looked around. “Do you think I’m dumb or summit? Have you seen this crap shack? What in God’s name makes you think I believe you got any money? And anyway, you think I care ‘bout your money? N’aw I don’. I think that’s insultin’.”
    “But I...” The man didn’t get to finish that sentence. The boy squeezed the trigger into the man’s skull. He looked at the brain matter on the floor and let out the huge breath he’d been saving since he walked in through the door. Then he pulled out his phone, forced a smile and took a selfie with a dead man. He then turned and left without even checking for valuables. He took lives for the thrill that flowed through his body every time he pulled a trigger. For the rush he felt having the power over life and death.

2 - Anger

    2:20 pm, he should have been in chemistry. That’s not his bag, wasted far too much time he’ll never get back. What the hell would he need to learn about Nobel Gasses for anyway? He dropped out of school a few months back. He’s got this life now.
    When he got back to the safe house, his smile gave away his success. His gang mates let out a cheer and and charged at him with a flurry of high fives, fist bumps and back pats. One of them even lifted him up over their shoulder and bounced around while cheering. He couldn’t have been happier.
    “Let’s see that dead SOB, Darius,” said a muscular man in the crowd. Darius took out his phone and waved the selfie.
    “Aww, he’s not gon’ bother us anymore!” piped up a tattoo-laden guy in a gleaming white vest, malice heavy in his voice.
    “N’aw he ain’t!” replied Darius, a remark which was met with another equally animated celebration from the pack of hyenas around him. The voices echoed around the empty house, shaking the vermin ridden building’s foundations as if it were shivering from the cold.
    “Aww heck. Darius my brotha! How ‘bout we getcha fixed up with our ink? Then nobody gonna mess with you in them streets,” one voice said.
    “Yeah, our guy’s gon’ love you, Darius. You’re a blank canvas to him,” came another.
    “Fresh ink virgin!”
    “What? Y’all really mean it?” Darius asked.
    “Of course bro. You’re one of us now.”
    He felt the warm glow of happiness. With the respect he gained from that kill, he was officially in. A member of the crew. Darius kills to belong.

3 - Bargaining

    2:30 pm and there was a stir in the womb of the house. The door at the top of the stairs opened and a presence emerged from the darkness of the portal. The celebrations muted and the toy soldiers stood to attention.
    “Darius! I thought that racket was about you. Well done, boy. Come to my office.” The voice of the Big Boss boomed like the roar of a lion. It commanded attention, respect and compliance.
    Darius followed him to a room unlike any other in the house. In fact, you’d think the door was an entrance to another building entirely. It was warm and brightly decorated instead of a dilapidated wreck like every other room. Big Boss sat his large frame down in the worn out chair behind the desk, his dark skin sagged at the cheeks over the corners of the grin he was giving Darius. He scratched at the fold his neck was buried beneath and pulled a pair of glasses from the breast pocket of the tent sized cream blazer he wore.
    “Darius my boy, you have proved yourself to be very useful indeed. I’d like to offer you a more appropriate reward.” Darius’ heart began to race with anticipation. Maybe Big Boss was going to give him twice the money they agreed. He prayed. “How’s about instead of the cash I promised, I give you your first week’s wages from the job I’m offering?” His heart calmed, gutted.
    “I’m flattered, Sir, obviously, but I need that cash, Sir. I really need it.”
    “I’ll give you some cash, son, but the job, well the job will be long term.”
    “I know but you don’ understand. I need the money we agreed on. I already took a hit in accepting double or nothin’ for this afternoon after not bein’ paid last time and I really can’t wait no longer,” Big Boss was taken aback by this rejection, not used to being told no.
    “Darius, think about this for a second. Riding with us permanently offers benefits that money can’t buy. Security, constant work, a weekly pay cheque. Think about it, boy.”
    “I’d love to continue working for you, Sir, I’m more than happy, in fact delighted to do the dirty jobs for you and your boys. But I need to do them for one off cash payments, Sir. And right now, I really need to be paid,” Darius said clenching his hands together in an almost begging position. Big Boss looked disappointed but empathetic. Darius knew he had been an enforcer for the mob once too so maybe he understood what it was all about. That he kills for the money.

4 - Depression

    3:00 pm. Back on the street making his way home, Darius contemplated the job offer. It’s not that he wasn’t grateful for it, it’s just he really needed the money Big Boss promised him, which was now in his backpack.
    He reached his neighbourhood and walked past his old school, kids just beginning to stream out for home. Darius put his head down and blended into the crowd of ants, hundreds of them, all looking just like him. Impoverished, broke, hopeless. The only difference was they went to school in the hopes of better things to come, whereas Darius couldn’t wait that long. He couldn’t wait till he was eighteen only to find out earning a proper living meant at least another five years of squalor because he wasn’t born with a certain surname or in a certain area. He needed to go out and grab it now.
    A scrap broke out between a few boys. There might have been a knife, it may have been over drugs, it could have started because one boy stood on another’s foot by accident. Nobody cared though, it was as normal to see violence here on the streets as it was to see it on television. This was a war zone of its own right, a human Serengeti where the herds were only safe if their numbers were greater than those of their attackers. Full on gang warfare. Nobody was immune. He carried on until a couple of on the beat cops sprinted past him into the crowd like some sort of Netflix cop show, grabbing the fighting boys, forced them into an arm lock and smashed them against the nearest wall. Nobody questioned the sheer brutality, the police gang was top of this food chain. Darius noticed as the taller of the two cops frisked a blade from the smaller boy and held it up to the light of the sun.
    “Well, what were we going to use this for, boy?” He said, tightening his lock.
    “I ain’t gon’ say nuttin’ to you,” the boy replied through gritted teeth.
    “What about you then, you like talking or what?” The shorter, more muscular police man said to his captive.
    “He said he’d stab me if I didn’t pay him no protection money, officer,” he winced back.
    “Gee, Greg. Looks like we’re gonna have to take these boys in for questioning. Looks like we got ourselves some illegal racketeering going on in our neighbourhood,” the second officer said.
    “All racketeering is illegal, dumb-ass,” the boy with the knife rebuked. Greg kneed him in the back and took out his truncheon, placing it on his throat and choking him.
    “What did you say, boy?” He hit him in the shoulder and he fell to his knees, “You know, power hungry thugs never win! Now get up, we’re taking you boys in,”
    The truth - power hungry thugs get a badge and a gun. That way it’s legal. Darius watched as the two boys were escorted out of the crowd and into a cop car over the road. Everybody then turned back to their business as if nothing had happened. Darius shook his head and watched the car drive away, just thankful it wasn’t him in the backseat.
    Once the ants reached the ghetto, the crowd fanned out as they went to their own homes. They spread themselves around the burned out cars, the boarded up houses, avoiding the drug addicts and the beggars who used the end of every school day to seek a cash hit out of the pockets of vulnerable kids.
    Darius clasped the straps of his schoolbag as tightly around his built shoulders as he approached a shifty looking homeless guy asking everyone for money. He could smell him before he saw him, not surprising since his hair had more grease on it than a mechanic’s overalls. The clothes he wore were a canvas containing the great artwork known as the Stains of the Streets. Darius looked him up and down before they made eye contact. He saw himself in the mans rags, or at least a version of himself. He crept his hand to the back of his jeans and felt the gun resting in his belt. That’s better, he thought, I’m so much better than this loser.
    “Hey there son, you got any bills for me? I’ve not eaten in three days.”
    “How’s about I give you this sandwich instead?” Darius suggested.
    “No thanks man, I’d rather buy it myself. You know for my self-esteem and all that. Five bucks is all I need!”
    “Wow, is that all crack costs nowadays? You make me sick, brotha.”
    “Just gimme some dough man! I need it!” The homeless man lurched forward toward Darius. Darius quickly jumped back and brandished the gun at him. Nobody batted an eyelid at their exchange.
    “How’s about you crawl back into that gutter you came from. I ain’t got no cash for you and your drugs. Got it?” The man backed down. Darius put the gun away and turned back into the urban savannah he roamed.
    He actually had three grand inside his backpack instead of the common school books and calculators, but he needed every penny. Maybe to get away from the dangerous corners, the shady characters, the constant smell of burning car parts or the everyday fear that today could be his last. One day. That’s why he couldn’t accept the job. He’d be stuck here forever. Darius killed to escape.

5 - Acceptance

    3:20 pm. Darius walked through his front door. Before he had the chance to take his jacket off, he was mobbed again by an even more passionate force than the hyenas at the safe house. His little sister Kelly, barely past his waist in height, still at the age where the cornrows on her head were as adorable as the Disney t shirt she wore or the half grown front tooth in her mouth.
    “Darius is home! Darius is home!” chanted the seven year old. He lifted her above his head and then hugged her as tightly as he could. She adored him.
    “Wow, you’re getting big,” he said to her.
    “I need to get big so daddy can see me, remember?” she answered. Darius gave a fake smile.
    “Of course sweetie, but nobody knows where daddy is,”
    “That’s why I need to get big, so I can be safe when I go and find him,” the naivety broke Darius’s heart. He remembered when their dad left. He was nine and his mother was pregnant with the girl in his arms. There was a lot of screaming and crying and then he just went away. The last time Darius saw him, he was coming out of a store a few years ago. Darius shouted over and his father ignored him. He ran over and his father ran away, again. If only he’d had his gun then. Then Kelly wouldn’t have the false hope that one day she could be a daddies girl.
    “Where’ve you been big bro?”
    “Just out,” he said back.
    “You shouldn’t leave us for so long, I was worried. You can’t be hurt too, that would be the worst thing ever, Darius!” She said through her cute half smile. “I love you too much big bro,”
    “Not as much as I love my little girl,” Darius replied. He loved making a fuss of her.
    “Yay!” She squealed.
    “So, Kelly, is Mom ok?” His sister nodded as he put her down. Darius stalked over to a room at the back of the house. The buzzing noise always upset him. He took a deep breath as he pushed open the door to a room full of machines and pipes and wires, a writhing pit of snakes whose constriction and venom was all that stood between his mother and her death. She looked frail. He doubted whether she had the strength to open her eyelids. She had leukaemia and could no longer get out of bed, it hurt too much to move. She needed more treatment than they could afford. She stirred however when she heard her son.
    “Darius! Oh, Darius, how was school, my son?” she forced out the words.
    “It was great. Oh, and I went to the bank,” he lied, sniffing back the tears. “We have enough for more medicine.”
    “Oh that’s wonderful. You’re such a good son to me...” She drifted back to sleep.
    Darius sighed. His chest felt heavy and wet as the tears pooled at the base of his throat. He’d never cry in front of his mother. She had a fifty-fifty chance of making it through the cancer but medication was expensive. They could never afford it. At home he felt powerless. Out there he could be somebody. He knew he was the only one who could support his mom, and giving up the last years of his childhood was a small price to pay. He stood up and inspected the serpents wrapped around his mother, and then kissed her head and walked out the room.
    He heard laughter. Kelly was playing in the other room.
    “Darius? Will you come play with me?”
    “I’ll be in soon sweetie pie,” he called back. He entered his bedroom and opened his bedside drawers. He picked out his favourite Spiderman action figure and twisted it in his fingers then lay it on the bed to pick out the box Spidey was guarding. An ammo box. It jangled with the bullets inside the iron case. He placed his gun carefully inside and popped it back down, laying his toy back atop it.
    “Keep that safe, Spiderman, you’ve always protected me.”
    He then stood and walked out to play with Kelly.
    Darius kills to survive.

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