My whole life I wanted to be feared rather than loved, ever since I hit 22 it seems as if my dream came true. Standing at only 5’10 but weighing 210lbs of muscle, people tended to keep their distance at the courtyard. I liked to do the same, socializing isn’t my thing. I grew up in a small town in Kansas, so even without socializing people knew exactly who I was, especially after what had happened. I was reffered to as the ‘The Vanilla Gorilla’ or ‘The Albino Ape’ once I got released. I’ve always heard revenge was sweet, but it made me feel like shit. After the inncodent, all I wanted was to start over.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was April 28, 2012 and 4:00p.m, 3:54 if we’re being exact. Like any other afternoon I was driving around town with my older brother Marcus. I don’t know much about cars, what I do know though is he drove some sort of Chevy from ‘98. It glistened a sparkling red in the sun as Marcus was always working on and taking care of his car. Marcus was my role model, despite being a drug dealer, being gang related, and always having to owe people money, he made sure I was the exact opposite. He wanted nothing but the best for me.

“I won’t allow you to go down the same path that I did.” He’d always tell me every night before bed. I made sure I wasn’t, I did everything I could to stay on the right path.

The car was quiet at the time so I broke the tension.

“How about we play some music?” I exclaimed, like I just came up with the smartest idea known to man.

“Yeah, I’m always down for some tunes.” He said nervously. I knew something was wrong at this point. He was always confident and wasn’t scared of much. The words Marcus and scared didn’t corralate well.

“Alright, I got aux. Don’t worry, I’ll play music we both like.” Biggie was the artist of choice today, can’t never go wrong with that.

The song Notorious Thugs was bumping all throughout the car. Cornfields whizzed by faster than a bullet and an occasional herd of cattle could be seen every mile or so as there are plenty of farms out here. I had my arm out the window and tapped the side of the car to the beat as the first verse started up.

Armed and dangerous, aint too many can hang with us, straight up weed no angel dust, label us, notorious. The song played as I sang along. Marcus didn’t.

The sky was pitch blue with not a single cloud in the sky, the only thing emptier than the sky was the road we were on. Even over the loud music I heard Marcus let out a huge exhale as he put both hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 like he was taking a drivers test.

My stomach turned..

“Oh no. Not right now.” Marcus whispered under his breath followed by multiple curse words. I could see the sweat beaming off his forehead, and it wasn’t from the sun.

“Uhh, is everything alright?” I asked worried out of my mind, I noticed I had began to sweat as well.

“Yes of course, I’m chillin.” Marcus said suddenly as he pressed his foot to the accelorator. That’s when I saw it. In the mirror I could see a car driven pretty low approaching rappidly. Listening to Biggie as well I could hear the faint beat to the song ‘Ten Crack Commandments.’

“Who’s that Marcus?” I questioned, shaking in my boots. I started praying hoping everything would be okay.

“Don’t worry about it, just a few punks that I owe a little money to.” Sounding a little nervous in his voice. I wonder what he meant by a few bucks, like actually just a few bucks? I hope he’s not dealing dope still. Thoughts rushed through my head as the car pulled in front of us and slammed on the breaks almost causing us to crash.

“Quick get in the trunk or something!” Marcus raised his voice as he pointed to the back seats. I didn’t bother questioning it as I leaped like a frog into the back seat.

A few minutes passed before I heard a knock on the drivers window. Marcus proceeded to roll down the window.

“Yoo, Oscar. The main man himself, what’s up?” Marcus exclaimed sounding friendly. I’ve heard stories about this goon, and if I remember correctly, it is’nt good that he stopped us.

“Don’t play stupid Marcco,” Oscar replied. “You know why I’m here.” Everything became quiet and I couldn’t make out the conversation until I heard the deep voice of Oscar. “That’s a nice watch, lemme have it.”

“Listen here ‘debo’,” said Marcus being a smart ass. “This is a Rolex, I can’t just give you it.” He began to chuckle nervously.

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to take it by force.” Replied an infuriated Oscar followed by two gunshots.

My stomach dropped as I filled with rage. A car screeched off shortly after. I went back up to the front finding Marcus’ lifeless body in the seat. There went everything. Marcus was one of the few people I had, my Mom worked day and night and my Dad has been locked up since I was in third grade.

After throwing Marcus’s body in the passanger seat I put my hands on the wheel and gunned it. After 20 mintues of driving like NASCAR I saw the low car, cruising slow, and listening to Dr.Dre. Probably high of their asses. They didn´t see me coming. When I finally got next to them I made a hard left on the wheel and crashed right into them.

I woke up on the pavement, cops surrounding me with a frightened look. I looked to my left only to see a puddle of blood and two lifeless men next to a totaled car and shatters of glass.

“Sir, would you like to explain this?” A tall white officer said holding up a bag of blow. They put me in cuffs and I was sent to jail for first degree murder and possession of drugs. I knew Marcus was still dealing.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the orange jumpsuit, that didn’t help the anger I had at all. I couldn’t let out my anger on other inmates because they were all much bigger than I was. So instead I would workout. That’s all I ever did in that courtyard, I wanted to be the biggest, I wanted to be feared. After roughly four years, it happened. I still had that anger, that fire, just that darkness in me. That’s why I had to transfer to another, more guarded prison. Fighting anybody that looked at me wrong was a habit at his point so I don’t blame ‘em for moving me.

When I stepped foot in the new prison with handcuffs on I got that same feeling I haven’t felt since the day I lost Marcus, my stomach turned. I was eating lunch by myself when I heard footsteps approaching. A smaller man, maybe in his mid 40’s  with shaggy long blonde hair, and blue eyes that hung kinda low sat right across from me.

“Listen here big guy,” the man said trying to sound intimidating. “I don’t know who you think you are, but here you’re nothing but a punk.”

“Oh yeah?” I replied. “And why’s that?”

“Because I run this place .Try anything shady and you’ll regret it… If you live.” The man snarled as he spat on the ground, almost hitting my shoes.

“Alright buddy, I’ll keep my distance. If you keep yours.” At this point he was staring deep in my eyes and took a huge breath in before he execerted.

¨Nahhhhh, I´m just playing. It's honestly not as bad as you think.¨ Boy oh boy was he wrong.

The next few weeks went by, and they went by slow and miserable. Suicidal thoughts rushed through my head.

¨Why me?¨ I´d question thinking life isn´t worth it anymore. Damn, I missed Marcus; Memories rushed through my head, thinking about all the good times we had. That's when Marcus’ dead body appeared in my head. Like a television program had been hacked. That night I almost did it. I had the shank I made lined up to stab me right in the heart as I gripped it with both hands. I bursted to tears as I heard a familliar voice. The voice of an older man. The one from a few weeks ago.

¨Ah, that´s never the way out,¨ he said leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. ¨You´ve got a whole life ahead of you.¨

¨I don´t know man, I feel like I have nothing left to live for.¨ I said, wiping tears from my eyes. The man grunted as he came closer to me.

¨Watchu locked up for anyways?¨ He asked as he started picking food out of his teeth.

¨Long story short some thug killed my brother, Marcus. So I tracked him down and murdered him. I just miss him man,¨ I felt more tears coming on.

¨Yeah I miss that kid.¨ The man said.

¨I´m sorry what?¨

¨I miss Marcus.¨ He proceeded. ¨Getting that news and then finding out you got locked up didn´t settle well.¨ He grunted as he helped himself off the ground. ¨Welp, goodnight… Tell your Mom I miss her¨ He said as he dissapeared into darkness.