When we see criminals and miscreants we often assume that they are bad seeds, that perhaps they are born bad. The more heinous and nefarious their deeds the more we assign impure motives and or blame their progenitors. However, people aren't born bad in most cases, in the majority of instances there was a defining moment or series of moments. Take the case of Gabriel Scott, aka Gangster. He is the highest-ranking member of the Gods of Avarice, in the state. His presence at a prison changes the entire facilities temperature. His word is law. Life and death are his to command. How did he get there? Is he as the prison psychiatrist says "A genuinely evil human being"? Let's go back to the beginning...
Gabe was a sweet child.
Blessed with an easy smile, an endearing quick laugh and a sense of are and wonder at the world around him that infected people who encountered him. The lad was the next to youngest of the Scott family. His older siblings were 4 and 8 years older than him. His mother had given birth to a stillborn son when Gabe was 4 and within months of his 8th birthday had his sister Truth.
When Gabe's sister was going into her terrible two's, his life changed. His older brother was allowed to drive in the small town where the family lived, at least as long as he took Gabriel along.
Thomas, his older brother wanted little to do with his younger sibling.
It wasn't personal he was just too young. As a result, the older boy conspired to be rid of him at every opportunity. As soon as the pair left the house Thomas was going to drop Gabe off at the nearest relative so that he could go spend time with his "Woman"
The first attempt to palm off Gabe onto relative was a disaster. Those cousins house was overrun with roaches and while the young Gabriel didn't complain the bugs frightened him and when they came home in his clothes Tommy knew that he needed to take his brother elsewhere.
The second place that Tom dropped off his brother changed the boy's life forever.
These relatives had a 15-year-old son, named James who raped, beat and sodomized Gabe. Being the child he was he didn't tell his older brother, or anyone else just plead with him not to take him there. "Please, Tommy take me to the bug people. I won't let mom find out please, just drop me in the woods I'll play till you come back just don't make me go over there."
With no explanation, Tommy ignored the boys, plea.
While Tommy was learning about sex with his girlfriend, Gabe was being beaten and passed around to all of his perverted cousin's friends.
They thought it was funny to bathe the smaller boy in their semen and call him their bitch.
Gabriel fought as hard as he could. The older boys were too numerous and strong.
They broke him.
Beyond tearing his anus, punching him in his ear until his eardrum was damaged, beyond breaking a rib, something within Gabe's mind snapped.
When his brother returned to find Gabe bloodied, bruised and beaten he knew that their mother would notice the blackened eyes, and the misshapen nose, even if she didn't notice the swollen jaw.
"What happened, Gabe?"
Tommy asked.
Gabriel's look said;
"I begged you not to take me there asshole!"
His shattered and befouled mouth said.
"What do you care?"
The multiple beatings that Tommy gave the offending cousin did nothing to soothe Gabriel, just as the emergency room care repaired his body but not his psyche.
Three years later Gabriel gave James a beating himself.
He planned to punish him to pummel him with his fists, to use the skills he was learning at the hands of his father's brothers who beat Gabe daily in an effort to make him tough, it went a little further than Gabe intended.
James fell into the lake and as neither he nor Gabe could swim the pedophile promptly drowned.
He deserved to die.
He is probably being raped by hell-hounds in the underworld, as he should be.
However Gabe wasn't trying to kill him, and the fact that he did die weighs heavily on his conscience.
The brutal beatings administered by his uncles didn't even seem like abuse, compared to what Gabe had been through before.
He believes his fathers younger brothers when they say that they are just making him tough, and he wants to be tough more than anything wants to be able to make sure that no one can ever mistreat him the way those boys did.
By the time Gabriel was 15, his uncles could no longer beat him one on one, in fact, only the oldest two are able to beat him if they team up.
The guilt that the young man feels at killing James, no matter how accidental, is a parasite eating away at his soul.
Perhaps with a therapist, Gabe might have purged the guilt from his being and with it the desire or willingness to do any harm. His family is not well-off or even middle class, the closest the Scott family comes to therapy is going to church.
Maybe if that had been the only contributing factor the once innocent lad might have regained and re-embraced his purity.
He did not.
While he was 14, he "Killed" again.
Another unintentional killing. This time it was his brother's friend.
Gabe overheard their mother instructing Tommy that he if he went he better take his brother with him.
Oh no, not again he thinks to himself!
He wonders how to make the much older boys not take him anywhere. Remembers a television show where the hero took off after taking the villain's distributor cap off the car.
One issue.
He has no idea where the distributor cap is, or even how to open the hood and decides just to cut random wires.
When Tommy's friend Titus wrecks his car and dies, Gabe feels that it was his fault.
As a result, when Tom himself is killed by a drunk driver Gabe believes that he is being punished for his prior misdeeds.
He feels the same when his girlfriend and mother also passed away.
By age 16 the sweetness has vanished in him as surely as the baby fat on his body has melted.
The abandonment he experiences as his uncles join the military and move away is only soothed by his association with his late mothers youngest sibling.
Uncle Jay Dee.
A real gangster. A killer. A psychopath.
Gabe adored him.
JD sold heroin, he also had an illegal strip club.
A strip club where his nephew is right at home.
JD fronts his nephew some Heroin.
Gabe is a natural, takes to the drug game like a dolphin to the ocean.
It's only a matter of months before Gabe has "workers" of his own.
People that he gives his drugs on consignment. Gabriel pays a generous $30 per hundred.
One of Gabe's workers has plans of his own. Plans that include not paying the 16-year-old would be the kingpin. "I anit paying that little boy shit!" He loudly bragged to anyone who would listen.
The boy app approaches his uncle. "Let me borrow your nine." He says JD refuses. Respect for his brother-in-law and late sister won't let him make his nephew a killer. Instead, he tortures the offender and impales him from a streetlight.
Everyone assumes the boy is responsible. People who owe him one or two dollars hustle to bring the boy his money.
His reputation is almost cemented.
The nickname comes from school.
A would-be a bully.
A jock.
Loud.
Boisterous.
Threatened to slap Gabriel.
"You anit no gangster little nigga."
The swift ass-whooping Gabe gives him belied that statement.
Juvenile Detention came next. Several hospitalizations of his peers earn Gangster the respect of the Gods.
He rockets through their ranks.
A would-be assault lengthened his incarceration.
Newfound rank carries responsibility.
Meaning added time to Gabe's sentence. He now sits in prison with 20 years.
Almost as much time as he's been alive.
