Standing Alone

Hello there, my name is John Merrill, but I go by the name Ace. I come from a background that I'm ashamed of and I have never told anyone about it and never will. My family were the leaders of a high positioned gang in New York, called the Ace Cobras. Now I say were due to the fact that something happened to my parents. I was a total accident. My father kidnapped my mother and ironically, they ended up falling in love and became joint leaders of the gang. She got pregnant with me, at nineteen, the same year she was abducted. Their ten-year age gap didn't cease their love.

There are days when I wonder if I'm worthy of being alive because of the death of my parents and that's why I don't hold much value to my life. It was 1953 and I was twelve years old. The Ace Cobras went on a mission to steal one hundred million dollars worth of guns, drugs, cash, you name it they took it. It belonged to our rival gang who were always contending for number one gang in New York, The Chancellors (yes Gordy La Chance reminds me of them, especially when he raised a gun at me).

Our gang was the most ruthless gang in America. New York was the epicentre for gangs. I definitely didn't have a "normal" upbringing. Because of my family roots, I have always been on the run. But why am I on the run when I am only the bastard child of the gang leaders? I'm Ace Merrill, only child of the leaders of what used to be the roughest gang in New York and America thirty years ago, and this is my scandalous story...

It was a week before the heist and I was eavesdropping on my parents. I heard them discussing what seemed to be some top-secret plan. I managed to piece together words like "guns, drugs, cash, take, kill, leave". Just the usual words any twelve-year-old hears their parents converse about! By that time, I had become numb to words like that, since the words became actions and that stung me a little emotionally. Words like kill ended up with much blood spill of people in the gang, who were like nonbiological family. I don't mean that the gang turned on each other, we were a brotherhood, I mean when we attacked another gang they rebelled resulting in many dead in both gangs. I could be next to a standing gang member and then a minute later see them laying in a pool of blood with a bullet in their body. I saw it all; in the head, shoulder, heart, leg, basically any body part. This all happened to me before I was a teenager. Some acquaintances of mine may wonder why I am...well you know, messed up? I have carried this burden of knowledge for too long I need to keep some mental sanity at forty-two.

The following is why my life changed forever in 1953. Due to my position of being in the highest regarded gang in America I was always armed. This time no weapon could save me. It was a week after the success of the heist. it was late, as in 2am late, and I decided I needed some fresh air because I couldn't sleep, so I quietly got changed whilst trying not to wake anyone and snuck out for a walk. I guess you could call me cocky because I thought we owned New York and no gang would dare approach me. Me and my hormonal brain were wrong. As I was strolling down Eighth Avenue I occasionally heard footsteps. I tried to convince myself that it was my imagination. I tried walking faster and the footsteps got faster, and slower as I decreased my pace. There were only a few flickering streetlamps illuminating the sidewalk. I came to the conclusion that it was not my imagination, I was being followed. Before I could get my weapon out I was in a headlock with my arms restrained against the cool bricks of a building. It all happened so quickly, it's still quite a blur to me to this very day. This is probably the most scared I have been in all my life since it was my  life at stake. The fact that I could feel the icy touch of a round piece of steel on my neck didn't help. The next words that were uttered easily topped my previous fear. These next words were spat in my face by who I recognised to be the leader of The Chancellors. "You are gonna kill yo momma and dadda otherwise everyone you have ever met and hold dear will be dead with the snap of my fingers!" I really wanted to wake up from my nightmare right now, but it was happening I was stuck...in reality. He and his gangsters seemed a bit amused since I was supposed to be the toughest kid in NY. My eyes were streaming with tears as fast as blood seeping from a fellow Ace Cobra from my past, like my Uncle Reginald. I was speechless and stuck in the darkness blinding my mind. Suddenly I was brought back to reality when I felt searing pain trailing throughout my body from my groin causing me to cringe and suck air through my teeth. If I wasn't being restrained against the brick wall so hard with a gun tickling my neck, then my knees would have buckled, and I would be curling up in a ball on the cracked sidewalk. This was the best and worst decision of my life. I chose the option that would keep myself alive. Before they let me go they searched me for any weapons and retrieved my shotgun which was hitched in the back of my jeans, so I couldn't attack them. I was ordered to take a gun from the lot that my gang stole and if I dare tell anyone they will come for me and everyone I hold dear. I was given five days or else... These words echoed in the back of my head. I felt like a zombie as I plodded home; half dead, half alive.

It came to the third day, I hadn't done it. I wanted to warn them, but I knew that I would have sealed mine and the fate of many others. How could a twelve­ year old have such a responsibility in history?

On the fifth night I was heading to bed. I simply couldn't do it, I'd rather kill myself. I turned the light off in my bedroom and got in bed. I felt uneasy... and not alone. "So, you think I'd forget about our deal"? I was so scared and froze with fear. I heard footsteps approaching my bed, I fumbled in my bedside table drawer for my emergency gun that I kept in my room. "Uh uh uh I wouldn't do that if I were you". He came onto me and vice gripped my neck. I was loosing air fast. He then grabbed my pillow and started smothering my face. I was struggling and panicking. I kicked him in the groin (payback) took a deep breath in and screamed. Almost instantly I heard two pairs of feet running towards my bedroom.

"John are you ok"?! my mother shouted.

My father replied to her "Of course not honey he was screaming as if he were going to die"!

Oh the irony. The pain from my kick didn't last much longer. Luckily for me he was still recovering. Then the door opened, and I was smashed against my bed's wooden headboard. I couldn't see because he was strangling me again and I was passing out. I could tell my parents were pulling him off of me and I heard grunts and it wasn't my mother or father, they were beating him to death. With my last bit of strength, I pulled the trigger twice to try and gun down The Chancellors gang leader. I then blacked out.

The next time I opened my eyes they were greeted by the light of morning. I had another bad nightmare that night. I remember waking up feeling the frosty bite of cool iron in my hand and there being a metallic smell. I knew this smell and feel all too well... blood and a gun. I snapped out of my half-asleep state and felt sickened, petrified, alone and scared by the scene in front of me. There were smashed objects everywhere. My bedroom had been turned over. Then my eyes felt magnetised to look to my bedroom floor. Yes, there was blood. At this moment I wished I was blind since this image is branded into my brain for eternity. My parents. Dead, in a pool of crimson blood. I killed the people who gave me live and tried to save it. Words cannot describe the mix of emotions I was feeling. Terror, guilt, fear, regret and shame were certainly among the myriad of emotions that I was drowning in. Last night was no nightmare. I just sat there frozen for an hour trying to go through my tidal wave of emotions. I kept on asking, why me? It's times like these when you're alone and you're cold inside, you start to think that there must be something or someone that will answer your prayers. I was feeling too many emotions to cry. The gang would probably be wondering where my parents were. I knew that if they saw their whereabout they would get the wrong impession and jump the gun, I would most likely be dead in a matter of seconds if they found me in my bedroom with a gun by my side and my murdered parents. Which yes, as much as it pains me to say this; I did murder them, involuntary manslaughter. This didn't change anything: I'm guilty.  The thought was and still is so foreign. I could have lied to the gang members; lies run sprints but the truth runs marathons. I decided to run away.

Growing up on the streets was very rough and tough. Some days I didn't eat. It was hard being a kid and on the run with no money. I decided to go by the name "Ace" as to not get my identity discovered just in case the police were onto me. The least obvious name to go by was/is  Ace, reverse psychology. When I was eighteen I found a nice little remote town to live in. By then I had found myself a job at an isolated supplies store. I saved up to get a place to live. During that moment in time the store manager was kind enough to let me sleep in the back of the store. They brought me cooked meals, their leftovers from their home. I got by. I found a small shack in Castle Rock. I had formed a low scale town gang. All those years I felt as though a part of me was missing. I discovered it was being a part of a gang. The gang comprised of Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz and Richard "Eyeball" Chambers. I named it The Cobras. Little did they know that our gang had part of the name of the most dangerous gang in America six years ago, and I was in it.

Now I will put this diary along with everything else in my time capsule and whoever has just read this, you may have all the answers to one of the greatest mysteries in gang history, what happened to the Ace Cobras?