Dante - Through the Years

1950

They didn’t think he would live long. He had been born earlier than they predicted on the way to Rome. His father had insisted that his son be born in the old country. Tended to by the doctor that had helped Silvio’s own mother bring him into the world. Instead, he was born in the backseat of a 1946 Alfa Romeo. The hills of Tuscany were witness to his mother’s painful screams. 

She nearly died trying to finally give her husband an heir. Last year she nearly collapsed with rage when Silvio had brought that little bastard girl into her home. Looked nothing like her husband. She thanked the Lord that she was a girl. 

She would’ve strangled the child, if she were born a male. 

But he was born sickly. His tiny lungs could barely take a breath. His father hadn’t even bared to look at him for her thought there was little point in loving a child that would be taken by God.

But from the moment Dante Greco was born, he was a fighter. He refused to let the universe do with him what it will. He cried with his weak lungs, demanding that whatever decided the course of his life would let him live. 

Two weeks after his birth, he was as healthy as a horse.

1958

The first time Dante encountered death was one his father had run over a dog with his car. He had screamed at it, blaming it for splattering his car with blood. He had yanked his son from the car and made him look at the whimpering animal. 

“What do you think?” his father asked. 

“It’s sad, papa,” the boy answered. He was unsure what he felt. He didn’t feel excited about this but his heart beat wildly within his chest. 

“What if this dog had bitten you?” 

Dante took a moment to answer. His father liked to ask him these strange questions when they were alone. He always had to answer him, his father would slap him when he didn’t. He cried the first time, the second time it made him want to hit his father back. 

“I would be mad,” he replied. 

“How mad, boy?” he pressed. 

“Very mad.”

“Would you want to hurt the dog?” 

Dante nodded. “Yes.”

“How much?” 

Dante felt his hand tighten. “Much. I would want him to hurt. To cry.”

He looked up at his father and the man nodded once. That was the only sign he ever gave of approval. He took out the gun from his holster. He clicked off the safety and pointed at the dog. 

“This dog looks defenseless, it looks sweet. It can be anything but. This dog can be like people. People can lie and pretend to get you to have mercy on them and when you least expect it—” he takes aim and shoots. 

The dog’s head exploded, blood flew onto Dante’s pants. Dante tried to step back but his father gripped his shoulder and made him look as the blood spread along the road. 

Dante dreamt about the dangling eye of that dog for many nights until the first time he ever killed someone, then the dog’s face was replaced by the associate who had stolen money from his father.

Dante shot him in the head when he was 11. 

1965

The girl looked a few years older than him. But unlikely over 18. Her hand felt small and gentle in his rough ones. When he closed the door behind him she unclasped her bra and he smiled at what he saw. 

He lasted longer than his father and his friends had thought when they brought him to the brothel to ‘become a man.’ 

They clapped him on the back as he brought out her panties in his hand and threw it on the table. He was tempted to look at her as she came out of the room and went around, enticing other patrons but he acted as if she were nothing more than a memory. He would’ve liked to see her again but he knew that would be weak. 

That night he discovered that he liked something as much as he liked guns. Sex. 

1967

Someone was on his dick. He couldn’t see their face and he didn’t remember how he ended up here. He had come to San Francisco for drugs and had stayed for a month already. Couch hopping, sleeping in parks and selling dope for cash. 

He flicked the needle in his arm and laughed at the ding. He thought he finished when the person finally got off of him. He didn’t care anyway. It could be anyone his dick was inside of. What mattered was the sensations. 

The needle, a warm cunt, a tight asshole, the kickback of the gun, the taste of blood, the rush of alcohol in his veins — it’s how he understood what his purpose on this earth was. 

When he went to wash his face in the fountain, he looked over his shoulder to see a small tattoo, bright red on his shoulder plate. It was Woody Woodpecker. He laughed. 

The hippie movement was fine until he had to pay for an abortion before the summer ended. He had asked her to marry him, not because he loved whoever this girl was — he kept forgetting the name — but because as a man it was his duty. 

But he was relieved when she said she didn’t want it. 

1974

Oh, how he loves a party. He didn’t even know that Luce was in university. He had cared little about them. How boring was it to choose a normal human life when you could have the world?

But he was a bit curious to see them. They were always pretty cute. Too bad for them that they had to meet him again in this circumstance. At least he would have fun. 

How cute would they look bruised and bloodied? Fingernails ripped off and crying? He felt his heart hammer in his chest as he looked down at the clock. Did he have to wait for New Year’s Day? No. His father had asked to get them. 

He could’ve done so yesterday as he was staking out their house. But he liked a good entrance. If someone so cute is going to die, might as well make it interesting for them. 

“HAPPY NEW YEARS!” a chorus of voices scream from inside the club.

Dante kissed his gun and the smoke bomb, before throwing it in and shooting at anything that moved.