“What goes up
must come down.”
Superman*
#quote
Today on the
History Channel I saw a brief bit on the history of orange juice. I'm
very glad I did because y'know the saying, “If you don't learn from
history you are doomed to repeat it.” Anyway onto the flash
fiction!
The New Mob
Boss's Down Time
A new mob boss
was in town. Steve. He didn't wrestle power. He inherited it. His Dad
choked on a marshmallow. He grew up around the boss scene so he knew
the works of it. A few hours ago he sent a man to sleep with the
fishes. Usual hijinks.
The new mob
boss inherited the “family business” young. Ten in fact. When the
troops of the mob first took commands from him they were surprised it
all made so much sense. The fact that the orders from a chubby, big
nosed, little kid fit exactly to what their old boss would say was
startling. And later the commands got even more logical. He got
respect quickly. Even if his age and appearance didn't fit the role,
his strategy did. When he took over the police caught half of many of
his organization's men.
But downtime
fit far less to usual role of mob boss. Steve watched all the
cartoons, superhero and otherwise. He watched so many superhero ones.
His body guards looked on confused how the mob boss could watch such
whimsical cartoons filled with positive messages, some of the heroes
even fought and took down mob bosses.
It made a
twisted sense in the end. To Steve neither world existed. Dad raised
him that running the mob was something that was just done. He really
didn't have much empathy for the people he sent to sleep with the
fishes, they were like names on a slip of paper. The cartoon
characters existed more to him but there was still a blur in reality.
Steve sat in a limbo of morality. It made him very good at his job.
He understood goodness just enough to put a smile on in courts when
his organization came crashing down from outside pressures. Juries
thought the kid couldn't have possibly understood what he was truly
doing.
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