The Murder
It was the summer of 1951, Joseph Johnson was a twelve year old boy who lived in Brooklyn with his family of five. His father George, his mother Patricia, and his two sisters Nancy and Linda. They lived in a small apartment on the 2nd floor, five blocks from the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. The Johnsons were celebrating the 4th of July with the entire family from all over the country. Jonathan Johnson and Erina, Geroge’s father and mother. Diego Johnson, and Vanessa, Alexander was George’s brother. Alexander had two daughters Jennifer and Jasmine. On Patricia’s side she had Albert Brando and Mary, her parents. Her sister and her brother in law, Sonia and Jim Hopkins, and their two sons and one daughter, Leo, Brad and Angelina.
George’s part of the family had come over from Colorado, while Patricia’s was from Florida. Both of them came to Brooklyn in the early 1930s for college, where they met and fell in love. Patricia gave birth to Nancy when she was only nineteen, and George was forced to stop studying and started working at a hair salon. A couple of months later Patricia also had to leave college since she couldn’t afford it, she would stay home while George went to work. Three years later they had another baby, Linda, and not so long after that Joseph was born. By that time George was already the barber’s shop manager and Patricia was working night shifts cleaning the Atlantic Terminal Mall.
Joseph was just finishing getting his pompadour cut from his fathers barber shop. Lil’ Rich, the man cutting Joseph’s hair, was George’s number one hair stylist. He started working for him when he was only sixteen. He was a tall skinny black man with a fade, we called him Lil’ Rich. His real name was Tommy Jackson Jr. The real reason why he insisted to be called Lil’ Rich was because his father also had the same name, but his father was an alcoholic and murdered three women and now spends the rest of his life stuck in jail. Lil’ Rich felt shame every time someone called him by that name.
“Alllllllright, and I think we are Done!” he said in an enthusiastic tone.
Joseph looked at himself in the mirror and smiled while rotating his head to look at his new haircut. Joseph thanked Lil’ Rich, paid him and hurried home, he didn’t want to be late for dinner. As Joseph was walking home when he saw four Jaguar MKII all going in the same direction. Joseph thought to himself that there was some kind of rich people event going around, he followed them until he couldn’t see it anymore. As Joseph got closer and closer to his house, he heard something, he heard… gunshots. Joseph ran as fast as he could and while trying to pinpoint the location of the gunshots he began to realize that what he had heard came from his house. When he got there, Joseph saw the same four cars that he had seen earlier, the Jaguar MKII. He stood there trying to understand what was going on, and if the situation wasn’t already bad, he watched eight men come out of his building and get into those cars and drive off. Joseph was terrified, he didn’t know what happened in that building, all he hoped for was that it had nothing to do with his family. As he slowly went up the stairs, he started to feel sick, he was shaking and terrified, and just as he approached his door what he saw was blood coming out of his apartment under the door. Joseph knew what happened, he fell on the ground and began to cry, alone and hopeless.
About fifteen minutes after the gunshots, five police cars arrived at the scene and rushed up stairs, to find Joseph, sitting right in front of his apartment door against the wall. One of the officers wanted to help him and get him out of there, but Joseph was unresponsive, he looked pale and shocked, as the officer was talking to him, Joseph saw the cops opening that door, and stumbling upon his entire dead family. It was a bloodbath, the carpet was drenching with blood, the table and food no longer looked what it used to be. The smell kept getting worse by the second. But in all this tragedy God still had plans for one person. An emergency team began to rush upstairs and grabbed one of the bodys, it was Linda, the second child of George and Patricia. Joseph was still in shock so he didn’t notice, the medics carrying an injured victim down the stairs. The cops carried Joseph out of the building and put him in one of the cars, he stayed there for hours until someone finally came over to ask him a couple of questions.
“Hey kid, I’m sorry about what happened there,” said the officer.
Joseph remained unresponsive.
“Do you have anywhere else to go?” asked the officer.
Joseph was silent.
“Listen your sister, she’s in the hospital right now, apparently when the bastards gunned down- well, the point is your sister was only shot on her legs” the officer explained.
Joseph then finally showed some kind of response, he began to tear up.
The officers noticed that and decided to take him to the hospital.
“I’m gonna take you to the hospital, you know, where your sister is. Maybe you can do a little check up of your own just to see if you’re ok, is that alright?” the officer asked with a calm voice.
Joseph nodded.
The officer then got into the vehicle and drove to the hospital. On the way the officer began to start conversion, but Joseph didn’t say anything. The hospital wasn’t very far from where Joseph lived so thankful for him he didn’t need to stay in that care for very long. They both arrived at the hospital and they headed straight for Linda’s room. She was still in surgery so Joseph and the officer had to wait outside.
Around midnight the doctors finally came outside to see Joseph and give him an update. He was feeling a little better by that time, at least he was able to look into people’s faces when they talked to him. Meanwhile the officer who was sitting right next to Joseph fell asleep on his shoulder.
“Hello I’m Dr. Harris,” said the doctor with the intention of waking up the officer
The officer then quickly woke up from his nap and also introduced himself.
“Oh hi, Officer Greg, so how is she, Doc?” asked officer Greg in an attempt to sound worried.
“The surgery was a success, she will be fine. I’m afraid though she will never walk again,” Dr. Harris said with a disappointed tone of voice.
After hearing the news Joseph walked into the room where Linda was in. As he entered, he saw his older sister, lying down on that hospital bed, unconscious, and worse, without her legs. The doctors had to amputate in order to save her life. Joseph couldn’t do anything else but stare. He dragged a chair from the room and placed it right beside Linda’s bed. He held her hand and said.
“I promise you, I swear in all of our family’s deaths. I will kill the sons of bitches that did this to us.”
