The McCallion Family Test Chapter

(Warning

This Chapter is rated Mature and may contain material unsuitable for readers under 18.)

 

(1)

 

Tallwater, North Caroline, 1924 

 

It was hard to breathe Sonny ‘Fun Boy’ Colomba found waking up to something rough against his face. His face was throbbing with pain, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He shook his head trying to knock whatever was covering his eye off, but the burlap bag wouldn’t move. The shake shot a spike of pain through his skull while chafing his nose. He did what anyone would do and tried to reach up to remove the bag, but his hands only met ropes tied to a chair, but where was he?

And for the love of Mother Marry why would anyone tie him down?

                He glanced around the darkness hoping to see the blurry image of a person, but he couldn’t see anything. The night outside cloaked his surrounding more than the bag itself and yet, there was something there. He could smell them sitting? No, hanging next to him.

                The blood on the floor, he could now smell the dirt under him from his broken nose, overwhelmed any hint of anything else in the room. The blood was strong, he was sure at first it was his blood, but the longer the pain set itself aside he found it was something else. Something which had been killed only hours before.

Could it be his gang?

His bubbies he traveled with all the way from New York City to make sure the deal stayed whole and peace between the North and South stayed true. The Southern families would keep the Moonshine flowing northwards along with the drugs and women. Could �"

Oh, s**t no �"

The families take out his gang to send a message home to the North. This could be the start of a war between everyone, and the Southerners took the first shot. No, they wouldn’t be foolish enough to start a war when everything was going so well between them all. The government in all their grant wisdom outlawed booze to the blissful overture of all the mob families. They were all going to get rich, no point in starting a war now.

So, why in Hell would they kill my people?

He wanted to sit up some more in the chair, but the ropes keep him still. He could already tell when -if �" he got free his arms and legs were going to be fast asleep. The pens and needles would be more painful than the ropes themselves. God, he hated those pens and needles.

He took a deep breath pulling in the dust of the bag almost coughing not so much from the dust but most the pain in his ribs. Someone had gone to town on him when passed out. He couldn’t recall how he blacked out.

There was a knot on the back his head, a big one, that’s right �"

I was coming out of the bar, and then bang, out cold.

Someone shuffled their feet near him stopping Sonny from thinking anymore. He led towards the sounds of the feet, but they were gone, drowned out by the darkness once more. “Who is there?” he asked. “You better let me go if you want to live. My father will send an army down here for me.”

The threat went unheard.

“Hey, talk to me,” he ordered. “Tell me what you want, and I’m sure I have it. If it is money, I got it. Drugs, I got them too. Boozes, I have more than you’ll ever need.”

The darkness answered a silent nothing.

“Damn it,” Sonny roared fighting against the ropes.

 

(2)

 

Sonny stopped fighting ten minutes after hearing the person move near him again. He dropped his shoulders wishing to everything Holy his head would stop warring with itself for a moment. He couldn’t think clearly, and he needed to control what was going on in his head to get out of this station.

                 “Sonny, boy,” his father said in his thick Italian draw, “you need to learn how to breathe. You can’t keep going off the rails all the time.”

                “Sorry, dad,” he said locking his jaw. “I’ll do better.” He was twenty-two years old, a man now, he didn’t have to learn anything he didn’t want too, but his father was the boss. He got the nickname Fun Boy for a reason.

                So, he was a little bit of a hot head. He never saw it as a big problem.

                As long as he wasn’t mad, he was, well, fun to be around. He lived it up and made sure there was a party always to have with him.

                Even if the f*****g south, he hated coming down here. There was nothing in the South but dumb county rednecks who didn’t know how to take a joke or have any fun. But there Moonshine sure was good.

                He came down here because it was a duty, his father ordered him to. They got to Tallwater a few days ago, got their business done, and rested in the w***e house a few nights. It dawned on him the moment he heard the door open to the room. His dark brown eyes went wide with the heavy boots coming down the old wooden stairs. He saw the very reason he was here, that stupid w***e who he roughed up when running to somebody. He couldn’t recall how bad he beat her. He didn’t know how out of control he got. She said something smart about his c**k, something funny to her and her w***e friends, and then he lost it. He took her by the hair … and what? Beat her? That much he was sure of, but did he rape her? Did he cut her?

                The knot on the back of his head keep the answers from him, but he was here because of her. Her pimp must have knocked him out to make him pay for taking out his rage on her. It would be a simple payment, and he would be on his way. The pimp would see and understand he didn’t mean it and it was her fault. He would be a businessman about the whole thing, Sonny could get out of this alive and then �"

                Come back with a lot of guns.

                An overhead light shot wake with the bag being pulled off his face blinding him for a moment too long.

 

(3)

 

Sonny’s struggle to adjust to the bright light. He kept blinking trying to make his eyes work quicker. He glanced to his side where he heard the man move his feet to see a large black man with arms the size of John Henry’s legend strength. For a second a childish thought dashed into Sonny’s head about the man being John Henry himself, but the nasty scar running down his face quickly scared the thought away. The black man snarled at Sonny with his one dead eye.

                Sonny looked away turning his head to the two deer bodies hanging from hooks with everything inside of them removed. Their guts and inners had been placed in a bucket against the wall, and the blood had long been soaked up into the dirt under them. He shuttered at the sight never liking to see an animal being butchered. He didn’t mind eating the meat, just didn’t want to see it being killed.

                “Hello Sonny,” A rough voice said in front of him. Sonny slowly turned to the man larger than the black man against the wall. He watched him pull a chair from the wall and taking a seat in front of him. The man removed his straw hat with arms kissed by the sun. This man, who Sonny wasn’t ready to look at in the face, spends his time out in the field working and when he wasn’t taking care of his land, he was in his butcher shop.

                He sighed crossing his legs. “We need to talk,” the man said with a commanding tone.

                Sonny gulped looking up at the long-bearded man’s face with his pale blue eyes and shape jawline. He forced a smile when Sonny’s eyes reached his stare.

                “Mr. McCallion, sir, I don’t understand what is going on,” Sonny said softly.

                Hezekiah Allen McCallion let the weak smile drop away to a stoic gaze. He didn’t let any emotions drip from his eyes, and his voice was smooth and control as he said, “I want to talk about respect.”

                “Respect, sir?” Sonny asked thinking it wasn’t very respectful to be tied to a chair after being jumped by some men, more than likely the big n****r over there, Sonny thought. The black man looked as if he could knock anyone out with one hit.

                “Yes, son, respect,” Hezekiah said with a nodded. “I respect your father a lot, you see. He is a good man and understands how to treat people.” Hezekiah pulled a half-smoked cigar from his baby blue shirt, stained with blood from the deer behind them. He lite the cigar with a wooden match knocking back the stench of vile. “It’s why I work with your father and not the other families. It’s why I have done more delicate jobs for him because he respects me, and my business and I respect him and his work.”

                “I do as well, sir, respect your business,” Sonny said calmly at least he hoped it was calm. He happened to notice the long blade hanging from Hezekiah’s side. The knife long and made to cut a body from groin to gullet was, thank god, still sheathed.

                Hezekiah smirked disappointed of the statement and then asked, “Then why did you cut one of my girls?”

                 “Oh s**t,” Sonny said under his breath. He remembered now, he cut the stupid b***h making sure she would always be being laughing. “I didn’t mean me too, sir. I got out of han---”

                Hezekiah pointed the cigar at him and growled, “I’ll stop you there. You make another excuse here, I’ll let Mr. Sledgehammer work on your face.” He nodded at the big black man with the dead eye against the wall.

                Sonny said nothing more.

                “Now, we both know men can get a little out of hand when they drink too much. I understand the meanness the drink can bring out in people. Some man for some reason will beat on a lady when the devil comes knocking,” he said with a nod. “I don’t like it, and normally, I would leave the punishment to my friend Mr. Sledgehammer here because he can see if the man just got out of handle or not. But you, boy ---” He made sure the word boy stuck out. “Pulled a knife out and went to work on the poor girl, now that is no mistake. That my friend is on purpose and I can’t let that go.”

                “How much?” Sonny asked. “How much do I owe you?”

                Hezekiah face twisted in disgust at the question. It almost wounded him for Sonny to bring money into it. He sat back a little trying to let the disgust festering into rage settle down before speaking again.

                “You cut her,” Hezekiah said trying his best to stay calm. “In my thirty-three years of life, I have never seen a man do that to a woman and then have the balls to wave it away with money.” The disgust was bleeding out too much for either one of their likings. Sonny tried to seat back looking for the words to calm down this man, but he couldn’t find them.

                Hezekiah leans in slowly speaking to make sure the point got across, “I should cut your balls off of you because you are no man.” He blew a big cloud of smoke into Sonny’s face.

                “My father would kill you,” Sonny found himself saying hoping it was enough to save his balls from Hezekiah’s knife.

                Hezekiah shot to his feet tossing the chair away from him and slapping Sonny across the face. He spat a glob of blood out on the floor cursing Hezekiah as he turned back to him. The rage from the attack launched out of Sonny’s mouth with more threats and cursing, but nothing was creaking the stone face of Hezekiah. His thumbs were hooked under his suspenders listening to the boy’s screams. He grew tired of them letting one hand drop to the hilt of his long knife. Sonny stopped middle word at the movement of the hand.

                “You kill me, and you’ll start a war,” Sonny calmly said.

                “You might be right,” Hezekiah said, “but I don’t want to kill you, Sonny. I want to teach you a very valuable lesson.”

                Sonny said nothing more watching Boston Thomas Sledgehammer stepped off the wall and walk over to Hezekiah. “It is going to be a lesson you’ll remember for the rest of your life.” He took the long silver blade from the sheath and gave it to Boston. “Just an ear,” Hezekiah ordered him,” and nothing more.”

                “Yes, sir,” Boston said with a wickedly grin turning towards Sonny. Hezekiah climbed back up the stairs with Sonny screaming about what his father was going to do to them all, but the cried soon turn to utter pain curling most man’s blood. He sounded worse than a pig dying.

 

(4)

 

Boston handed the knife back to Hezekiah after cleaning the blood off with his white shirt. Hezekiah nodded at his old childhood friend with a grim frown. “Where are the others?” Hezekiah asked putting the knife away.

                “We have them locked up in the hotel,” Boston said. “I have six men on them, they aren’t going anywhere but they sure in the hell aren’t happy.”

                “Either will Sonny’s old man be,” Hezekiah said walking away from the door, and Boston followed him side by side. “We are going to have to make it up to him, Sledge.”

                “How so?”

                “Send six boxes of Moonshine with them,” Hezekiah said walking around to the front of the building where his car sat with his sleeping son in the front seat. He stopped puffing on his cigar, “And I’ll make sure Papa Colomba understand what happened here.”

                “The girl, what about her?” Boston asked cleaning his hands with a rag. The rag was red, but Hezekiah didn’t know if that was from the blood or not. If it was white once it would never be so again and he had to force himself to look away from it.

                “How old is she?” He asked.

                “Seventeen,” Boston spat.

                “Why so young, Sledge?” Hezekiah asked.

                “She lied about her age,” Boston said, “and her family is poor, she needed to make money.” Hezekiah knew Boston was lying about knowing the age of the girl before now and he was trying his best to give her some work.

                “She not going to be able to work anymore, huh?”

                “No one is going to pay for her face,” Boston said with a frown.

                “All right, all right,” Hezekiah said walking away to the driver side of the car, “send her by the house, and I’ll find her some work.”

                “Ivy going to be okay with that?” Boston asked with a playful smirked.

                “What woman wouldn’t want some more help around the house with the kids,” Hezekiah said, “even if it is a w***e.”

Author's Note

I’ll try to make this short for the both of us, but I feel, I need to add a little context to my stories on here. All the stories I post on this website are what I call “break stories.” They are either stories I go to when I get stuck in long from novel or stories, I write to explore a world. So, what does this mean? It means I enjoy these stories, but I don’t put everything into them. So, why am I posting them? A fair question and the reason I’m posting my stories on this website is to have fun, to show you my growth but most of all to give you a little taste of the worlds I work in. What does this mean for you? It means you can judge the work as you wish and by all means help me with plot, characters, and building the world, but I ask you to ignore grammar problems as best as you can and the style in which these stories are written. My page on here is my sketchbook and you guys get to see all the rough, nasty parts of my writing.