Secrets of the Weeping Willow

I hated weeping willows for a time. Not for a long time. In fact, I never really paid much attention to them until that evening in particular. It was spring, and the daylight had become orange, as it does before it becomes its navy blue then black night sky.

I was returning home from a talent show at my high school. It wasn't a very far walk home if I passed through the park as I did every day. I walked my same path home, but this time I wasn't alone. That frightened me more than being by myself. I could hear painful screams and moans to the right of me. I looked over to see three men punching and kicking a man in a business suit as he lay on the ground. Systematically, the three took turns punching and kicking him.

I was frightened, but I didn't know what to do. I hid by a tree and kept watching for about a minute. By that time, the man was begging for his life.

"Please! Stop! I won't turn you in if you let me go!" He said with his hands in the air. I can still remember the horror in his eyes. He was bloody from his scalp to his chin. His hands were trembling. His fingers looked broken. I could see tears running down his cheeks, drawing lines in between his face and the blood running down his forehead.

I was frozen my eyes wide open. I could no longer look away. There was so much blood. It pooled on his blazer and an even larger puddle on the ground underneath the weeping willow tree.

The three stopped beating on the man and stood up straight. The one in the middle cracked his neck left to right then chuckled a little. He motioned for the other two to lift the man. They lifted up the now crouching man. He could barely stand anymore. The man in the middle raised up the man's head and looked at him in his bloody face.

"Gee, you mean it?"

"Yes, I swear! Just please, let me go!" His attacker laughed. I watched him pull a knife out of his back pocket. Still laughing, he thrust the knife into his stomach. The man in the suit's eyes bulged in horror and when he coughed, blood spat forward from his mouth. Some of the blood spattered onto the other man's face. He then took the knife out and began to thrust the knife into him repeatedly. I remember the sound of the knife going in and out of his body, ripping through his clothes, six more times. Finally, he spat in the man in the suit's face and pushed him off the knife to fall back onto the trunk of the weeping willow.

The man sat underneath the tree, eyes frozen open, blood all over his face. His hands lay on either side of him, in the growing blood pool. The evening wind blew the draped branches of the weeping willow aside to reveal the three men, staring dumbly at what they had done. The two who had picked the man up were identical twins. Tan skin, brown hair. They were dressed like a well-known gang from the downtown area: black jeans and white oversized T-shirts now stained with bright splotches of blood. The stabber was dressed the same, his pale skin and long blonde hair drenched in blood.

I didn't even notice the noise my backpack made when it fell off of my shoulder and onto the ground until the blonde guy looked over my direction and the three of them began walking toward me. I couldn't move fast enough when I noticed-the twins had me. The blonde pulled me toward my tree and pushed me against it. He grabbed my shirt and I felt the chain of my pendant tighten. He looked me up and down then looked straight into my face.

"You didn't see anything, did you?" he asked me sarcastically. I tried to respond but no words would come out. "No matter. Boys, look in his bags, see if you can find anything on him." One of the twins found my wallet with my California I.D. inside. He pulled it out and handed it to the man, who still held me up against the tree. With his left hand, he looked at the information on my card.

"Well, James Seth, you were the only one to see us. If I got cops saying a seventeen-year old male ratted us out, I'll kill everyone living at this address including you, you got that?" I tried my best at nodding; one of the twins was getting antsy.