The Last Heir

Life can be tough. But what if your life involved sleeping in the street, getting beaten by heavy rain, and having the cold slap you in the face during winter? What if you had to watch someone get killed in front of you like they were just a tiny fly? That was my reality.

I'm Marcus Taylor. At 22 years old, 6.5 feet tall, and with curly hair, I'm that person who grew up on the streets.

They told me my father and mother died in an accident on the highway from Chicago. I was just an infant, whom they strapped to the back seat of the car. Of course, I remembered nothing of what happened while I was growing up, so I had no reason to question their deaths.

My parents were poor before they died. I needed no one to tell me that. I had no inheritance left to me. And the closest family they could have taken me to rejected me. I mean, who rejects a baby? But that's the definition of the useless uncle that I have.

That was the reason the orphanage took me in, and then when I ran off, it was because of an idiot who always physically abused me from time to time. I found a new home in the church but had to run again because other kids were poking their hands at me for all of their property that went missing.

Do not get me wrong. I was no thief. I felt they blamed me because every other kid in the church knew in one way or another that I could not afford to buy my own piece of candy.

I blamed no one though. I understood that life isn't always as exciting as in fairy tales. It may sometimes be hard for a little child like me.

Andrew was the other kid I met on the street. He wasn't my friend, nor was he an acquaintance. I called him a "fending buddy" because I understood that you cannot have any friends on the street. The ones you called friends today might be the ones to give you up tomorrow because he has a cut from the large share.

It's been three years since I've been living on the street before I met Andrew. Every hour of the night, we slept under the long bridge. However, no one dared to sleep too deeply. We must survive by any means necessary.

This meant that if we detected that a lone car was passing the bridge, we ambushed it and took the valuables of the people in the car from them.

It got worse, and Andrew and I had to resort to more scrappy survival methods during the day.

Andrew was the attention diverter. He either found a means to create tension for the passerby or create entertainment for the passerby, and through that, I pickpocket.

Not that I was proud of it or that I wanted to do it at all, but if I didn't do that, how was I expected to feed? No one wanted to hire a homeless boy in a rag to even mop their floors for cash.

So since I tried over and over again and there was no one that hired me, I gave up on the idea that I might be hired because I knew they would never hire me.

May 15th, 2005, I became a young adult and this was was a day I cannot forget. The darkness had just changed to morning, and the cold injected me with multiple endurances.

I was there beside the recycling bin with blurry vision. Suddenly, Andrew rushed down to me. He appeared unsettled within himself, and I recognized his expression to be that of fear or something worse.

"What did you do?" I whispered, but he did not say a word other than to look behind him in such a hurry, and he turned to look at me again.

He pushed his hands forward for me to see, and from that, I got the gist.

Andrew had gotten us something to eat for the morning, and we needed to go away from the location or we would risk being caught by other boys who would snatch our food from us.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a gunshot. The smallest gang came to the street to teach a lesson to the guy who stole from them. They shot him and took his body away. However, that was a normal occurrence, and we did not let that distract us.

In each of Andrew's hands was a black bag filled with fruits, vegetables, bread, and water. Though he seemed scared, he smiled at me and continued to look behind him as if someone were chasing him.

But that was okay. Every day on the street, we lived head over heels in the total understanding that someday, we might no longer be lucky.

I smiled back at him as my stomach made empty sounds, I collected a bag from him.

Andrew nodded. I understood what he meant. It was for us to quickly jump to our feet and run as fast as our legs could carry us to a safe hideout, where we would devour every damn goodie in the bag and have our empty stomachs fed.

But before we could jump to our feet, there was a sudden commotion everywhere. Each boy and teenager, little and grown, was running helter-skelter. Some jumped the fence just to escape the situation, and others were already rounded up.

This was another normal occurrence, but this kind always involved a great murder, and everyone was scared to the bone marrow.

Andrew and I were no different. We were among the others who were already rounded up by the big gang.

At this point, Andrew's breathing was heavier. It was easily apparent on his face that he was in a great panic, and his shorts were already soaked from pee.

Before trouble came for me, I already tried in my own way to evade it. I found a way to fling the bag in my hand away before we were caught.

"How dare you, sons of b*tches, steal from me?" The gang leader said as he jumped down from his rusty truck.

"Who is it, or do I help each one of you get to hell faster?" he asked, puffing out smoke from his mouth as he slowly paced around us all.

The gang leader was as tall as me. He always walked as if he'd been injured in a shooting war, but no one knew for sure. The turf war that he was involved in was said to have taken place even before I arrived on the street.

He was a black man who wore a red beret and a big gold chain around his neck. He had a vest on his bare chest that belonged under a suit, on top of an inner white shirt. His trousers were easily recognizable by the soldiers, and he wore black boots that seemed too heavy for his feet.

"Talk! Who stole from me?" He demanded, grabbing a guy and blowing smoke in his face.

The guy remained silent. Of course, he didn't know who it was. But I was wrong. Yes, he knew who it was, and he wasn't ready to become the sacrificial lamb with a bullet to his head.

Slowly, he pointed at Andrew, who was visibly trembling and quivering his body involuntarily.

The gang leader followed the guy''s hand with his eyes. He suddenly smirked. The bag in Andrew's hand, coupled with the fact that he was being pointed at, gave him away.

It was as if I could hear Andrew's heartbeat; he was breathing anxiously, knowing what would happen to him. Quickly, he kneeled and pleaded at the top of his voice.

I felt sorry for him. He was just another guy my age, and when he cried even louder like a baby, I wondered what he was thinking-stealing from the big gang. No one on the street dared to do that. At least not until Andrew pointed it out.

The gang leader laughed out loud at how Andrew behaved like a crybaby. "I thought you were tough," he said, kneeling before Andrew, pulling his hair, and dragging him.

Andrew looked at me with his red and puffy eyes and his mouth wide open, as if he wanted to catch some air. Seeing that I did nothing to help him out of the situation other than stand there and watch how the gang leader was dragging him away, he screamed.

"He forced me to do it!" "He f**king made me do it!"

My heart raced with dread. "What?" I exclaimed.

"He told me where the bags were." He drew the f**king map of the warehouse. Andrew screamed louder.

At this point, I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. "Was it me? Or was it my spirit that had done all those things he accused me of?" I thought.

"He threw away the bag, knowing that you would come." "Take him and let me go," Andrew added.

Although I was completely shocked, it wasn't because a friend had betrayed me. As I've said before, on the street, you don't have friends because those you think are your friends can quickly accuse you so they can save their own lives.

The gang leader paused. He released his grip on Andrew's hair and shot me a suspicious glance. He began walking slowly toward me. "Is it true? Did you tell this moron to steal from me?"

"Answer me!" he bellowed, spitting out saliva from his black, ugly mouth.

"I didn't do it!" I defended. "I know nothing about what he's saying."

"He's lying. Check the bag behind the trash can. Everything's in the bag," Andrew immediately yelled, rising to his feet and rushing toward the trash. He finally laid his hands on the bag and widened its mouth, turning it upside down, so everything inside the bag fell to the ground.

He quickly bent down to pick up the piece of paper that had fallen from the bag and handed it over to the gang leader. My eyes widened with surprise, and I realized Andrew had used me as bait to set me up if things went wrong.

As soon as the gang leader opened the paper, he smirked.

"Pa!" He punched me hard in the face, causing me to fall to the ground. He grabbed me by my shirt and yelled,

"You fool! How dare you lie to me?" He was about to hit me again when he suddenly stopped as if he had received an order from someone inside the truck.

The tinted glass of the truck was lowered, revealing the face of an old man who should be in his 80s, stepped out and walked slowly towards me. He was wearing a hat like an old-fashioned cowboy, and his jeans were from the 1980s.

He had a cigarette in his mouth, which was barely held to his lips, and he puffed out smoke like he had a second lung hidden somewhere in a safe.

I had never seen him in the street before, and I wondered if he had always been sitting in the truck. He asked gently, "The necklace? Where did you find it?" But I had no idea what necklace he was talking about. So I asked, "What necklace, sir?"

He made a sign with his eyes on the gang leader, who released me and stepped behind the old man. The gang leader's reaction clarified that he was not the leader of the gang after all, but an errand boy obeying the command of the old man.

"Stupid henchman," I thought.

"Where did you find the necklace?" The old man asked again as he pulled out the gun, which was tucked into his henchman's belt. Right in my face, he checked the gun's chamber and confirmed that the gun was loaded.

"I won't ask you the third time." He said nonchalantly, and he pulled the gun's safety off.

Right at this moment, I was scared to my bone marrow, and my heartbeat raced faster like it was on a track. Since I did not want a bullet put into my head, I talked hurriedly. "It had been on me since I was an infant, sir." "My parents died in an accident on the highway from Chicago, and the necklace must have belonged to them."

He came closer to me and touched my necklace. "What is your name, son?" He asked, still staring at the necklace mysteriously.

"Marcus sir," I answered.

"Your last name?" he asked again.

"Taylor. I am Marcus Taylor, sir."

He seemed to recognize the name, as his face showed it all. "What is the son of the wealthy doing living on the street?" He asked suddenly.

I was taken aback by his assumption that I was wealthy. "My father died a really poor man, sir," I said. "I think you mistake me for another person."

"Nonsense!" He refused to believe me, insisting that I was the last heir to my father's inheritance, and he ordered his henchman to give me his phone. "Keep it. I will be in touch." He said, walking back towards the truck.

"What should I do with this one?" The henchman asked, staring at Andrew with a dangerous look.

"Do what you do best." The old man answered.

May 16, 2005, every person on the street had already forgotten that Andrew had been shot. At this moment, it felt as though it had happened a long time ago. But he was only shot the day before.

My sleep throughout the night was disturbed by the dream of what happened during the day. And one of the persistent questions that I kept asking myself, even in my sleep, was: If the old man had not recognized my necklace, what would have happened to me by now?

The new day began with the rising sun, which arrived far too early, and everyone on the street already started their day by begging for food or money to buy it, or pick-pocketing for cash. I also saw a few boys across the road planning some kind of illegal activity that also involved stealing from a gang.

But of course, for anything that involved stealing from either of the gangs, I will not be part of it. However, it did not undermine the fact that Andrew stole from the big gang, gave the other boys the courage to do the same, and "everyone was going to die someday," was the motto I heard them say in unison if they were caught.

I pulled the phone the old man's henchman handed me from my pocket. Throughout the night, I slept in a position that safeguarded my phone jealousy. At least, if it wasn't for anything, it was because everyone knew they gave me a phone, and they might be tempted to steal it.

This was my first time holding a phone, much less calling it mine. Every other phone I have seen in all of my life had been the one a passerby was pressing in his hand or the one I tried to pickpocket but failed.

"They designed this phone with a lot of buttons, and I can flip it open and close," I exclaimed as I continued to understand how the phone works.

"He said he was keeping in touch. But how does this ring? Would I press this red button whenever he contacts me?" I wondered. However, my thoughts were interrupted by the other boys on the street.

It was a few boys whistling, and every other person who hadn't gone by their day got the message to start an ambush. Though ambushes only happen late at night on top of the bridge, other times we approached this method of survival during the day.

"Hey, you! What are you still doing there?" One young adult on the street yelled at me as he bent his back and walked on tiptoes.

"If you won't join us today, you better don't spoil this for everyone else. Now hide." He said.

Quickly, as I did not want to spoil their plan. I quietly tiptoed to hide, and at this moment, there was intense focus and concentration as the whole of the street and on top of the bridge became silent to avoid detection.

The lone car coming at us was the one playing loud music, and they drove too slowly. I wondered if the person driving and the others in the car were drunk. But who gets drunk in the morning?

Every other boy closer to me in hiding was communicating with each other, waiting for the right time to roar out of hiding.

From the bridge down to the underbridge, there was a signal, and suddenly, when the car's music was louder and seemed closer, everyone jumped out.

"He is reversing the car; block that way. Do not let him escape," one boy who blocked the car's way yelled.

I was part of the boys who rallied the car, and when I looked into the car through the window, I realized the people in it were a group of ladies and a young man who drove.

The ladies were putting on the shortest gown, which revealed too much of their skin, and in each of their hands were glasses of liquid sustenance. The young man who drove was in a suit, and his inner blue shirt flew out of his suit. He looked tattered and drunk, and of course, I could detect they were coming from a club or an after-party.

As much as the ladies looked frightened, the young man looked unaware of his environment as he laughed, revealing his brown set of teeth. He opened the door of the car and came out to us.

"What do you dirty beggars, and b**tards want, eh?" He said, staggering on his feet towards the others in his front.

Since the car door was opened, the others who rallied the car, including me, could get into the car. While others collected the ladies' wristwatches, bags, necklaces, and shoes, I was only concerned about the drink in their glasses.

I never had such a drink before, and it was like a dream come true to know what the drink in glasses tasted like, so I took the glass from one lady's hands and gulped it down at once.

"Ugh," a very sour taste. I looked at the ladies with my screwed-up face, and I wondered why they enjoyed drinking a very bitter drink so much.

By the face I looked back at them, the ladies only became more frightened and at this moment they screamed. One of them even fainted.

I became shocked and quickly scurried away.

"Tring Tring" My phone vibrated. "It must be the old man," I thought. However, it was a bad idea to even attempt to pick up the call from the bridge; if nothing else, they must not count my phone as part of the valuables collected from the lone car. So I dashed towards the underbridge, as no one was there.

"I am going to press the red button now, and I am going to put the phone to my ear like I see other people do," I muttered and did exactly.

"Hello, hello," I said at the top of my voice.