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  Touched by the Music

  by Carson Mackenzie

  © Copyright May 2020 Carson Mackenzie

  Cover art and logo © Copyright May 2020 Carson Mackenzie

  ISBN# 978-1-952184-04-8 Digital

  All rights reserved.

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publishing company.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  If you find any books being sold or shared illegally, please contact the author at [email protected].

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  My Life

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Her Life

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Our Life

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Books by Carson

  Prologue

  Lucio

  KARMA.

  Fate.

  Destiny.

  The first time I experienced one of them, I’d been a small, thin kid of eight. Mickey Monroe, grade school bully and all-around shithead, had snatched my skateboard and claimed it as payment for not beating the crap out of me. My friend, Davis, and I watched as he dropped the board on the sidewalk, jumped on, and skated away. I stood there, thought of never seeing the board again.

  Then it happened.

  Mickey pushed down with his back foot and tilted the board to jump the curb and instead of clearing it, the rear wheels hung. The skateboard came to an abrupt stop—Mickey didn’t. At least not right away.

  The momentum sent Mickey flying through the air until the light pole that sat on the corner brought him to a halt—and ultimately, the sidewalk helped as he fell. When he landed on his side, the force on his shoulder and arm caused a facture in both, and Mickey spent the last few months of the school year in a cast while I enjoyed my skateboard.

  Karma: a characteristic emanation, aura, or spirit that infuses or vitalizes someone or something.

  A simpler definition—payback for Mickey being an asshole and doing shitty things to people. Too bad it wasn’t the only time I’d witness or experience karma through my life.

  Decisions and my actions would both play roles in both my success and failure.

  Growing up a step above poverty, a small step, was an excuse I used for circumstances I hadn’t wanted to claim as my own. At least until I was smacked in the face with them.

  The eye opener was the day I walked through the door of the small house where I lived with my parents and two cops stood in the living room. My eyes scanned the room and landed on my mother, who sat on the couch while her body racked with silent sobs.

  “Mom?” I questioned as I moved toward her but kept my eyes on the cops while they followed my every movement. I knew what they saw and thought—a punk ass kid wearing gang colors. They were right. What they didn’t see was potential, a teenager with aspirations and dreams who was caught in a downward spiral of life. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t like it was the first time I had been judged by looks alone. And more than likely, it wouldn’t be the last.

  My mom looked up, her face splotchy from the crying, and held out her hands to me. “Lucio,” was all she got out before the tears once more brimmed her eyes and ran down her cheeks. I grabbed her hands, which were cold as if she’d pulled them from a bucket of ice. Holding both within my own hands, I looked over my shoulder at the cops.

  “Why you here?” I asked, but my mom was the one who answered in between her sobs, bringing my world to a halt.

  “Your dad...he was shot, Lucio. My Joe is dead.”

  Fate: the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.

  True for my dad that day, but the development of the event—mine to live with. And what a wake-up call for a teenage boy.

  It would have been easier to head toward failure than it would have been for me to find my place in a world that at times made me feel as if there was no way out.

  Four years of wasted time in a gang was nothing compared to what laid ahead for me—the rest of my life and what I chose to make of it. The choice would be mine and mine alone. Only the strong survived when the odds were against you.

  If I learned anything from my parents, it was that hard work and the will to do better was always the way to go. I only wished I would have remembered that sooner though, but regrets would remain, after all, they’re part of life. It was only if I let them rule me would it lead to a life filled with one catastrophe after another. A road I had no desire to continue going down.

  So, at sixteen, a gang member since I’d turned twelve, with fuel burning in my blood—I was determined to change my life around. Later, when I looked back, I’d wish I had the revelation sooner, it possibly could have kept my dad from paying the price for my bad choice. Or maybe not.

  Every decision, circumstance, and action would define me as a man one day. The question was—what type of man did I want to become?

  Destiny: the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future.

  However, what happens when events occur to two people and they cross at some point?

  I’ll tell you the answer.

  My life.

  Her life.

  Our life.

  My life...

  Lucio

  Chapter One

  THE GANG’S TURF CONSISTED of a three block radius. A step past the invisible division line in either direction would place a member inside another gang’s territory. It’s hard to believe so many gangs exist, but they do. I would know. I’m Luca Lucio Moretti, and for the last four years, my life revolved around them.

  As a member, it’s guaranteed someone close to you, if not yourself, life would be cut short. With enough time spent in a gang, another guarantee was local jail, or a prison term would be served at some point. I had been lucky I hadn’t done a stint in juvie like several of the other younger members already had. And believe me, it wasn’t from lack of trying by the local cops, they just never obtained tangible proof that would allow them to drag me in.

  The involvement of kids in gangs gets blamed on the circumstances surrounding us. Like the area we live in or our family dynamics. Whether we live in a poverty-stricken area with a high unemployment rate. The educational system even gets tagged in the responsibility for not providing quality education. And those providing the statistics love to blame the kids’ ethnicity as the number one cause.

  Whether the statistics were right or wrong, I had no clue. Personally, I hadn’t associated myself with any of the statistics because I hadn’t had shitty parents who hadn’t given a crap. Nor had I lived in a poor neighborhood in one of New York City’s boroughs. Don’t get me wrong, my neighborhood was on the poor side. But it was filled with working-class folks with low income.

  I really wished there was a defining moment to pinpoint the reason I became a member, but there wasn’t. Unless youth and stupidity qua
lified as reason enough. I would grow older, and I would look back at this time and consider it a waste like many before me. Or maybe as a learning experience. An expensive one since it cost my dad his life.

  I’d been nothing but a twelve-year-old who’d thought it would be cool to belong and let the pressure from others around me lead me into making a bad choice.

  At sixteen, I sat beside my mom in the front row as the priest spoke over my dad’s ashes. I glanced over my shoulder at the people in attendance. A few family members, friends, neighbors, and even cabbies who worked for the same cab company as my dad. Every person had come to honor my dad and pay their respects to my family.

  Even Mr. Sudan, who owned the corner store, had shown up. I’d never be able to repay him for looking the other way when I lifted things from his store. If he’d turned me in, I would have joined the many young boys from my neighborhood with juvie records and became another statistic. Who knows? Maybe I would have benefitted from a stay, or I might have taken a bigger step into criminal activity.

  Though I would always wonder what turn my life would have taken if he had turned me in to the cops. There was always the chance I would have wised up sooner.

  Looking around, it was funny the ones missing at the memorial service were my supposed gang brothers. The ones who for four years talked about loyalty and watching each other’s back and so much other bullshit. Out of all of them, the only member I gave a crap about was my best friend, Davis. We had joined at the same time, and though I knew I wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s decision, I wondered if it hadn’t been for me would he have succumbed to the pressure and joined. As for the rest of them, I hadn’t heard anything since my dad had been shot and killed.

  That weighed more on me than anything else. The loss of my dad opened my eyes to what/who were important in my life. My dad’s death would always be the single most important regret in my life. And I was sure there would be other regrets. They just wouldn’t top the loss of him.

  Joseph Luca Moretti had been well liked around our neighborhood, so the turnout for his memorial service shouldn’t have shocked me. He worked hard to provide for my mom and me. Even in the times when he’d come home tired from a long day hauling people to where they needed to go, he never turned his back on a neighbor who asked for help.

  My dad had taught me many things throughout my sixteen years. He taught me to ride a bike and throw a ball. He had read to me as a small child, and then after I learned to read, he listened. He had shared his love of boxing with me and even saved for months to take me to a fight at Madison Square Gardens. He’d helped with homework and entertained me with stories or games when I was too sick to go to school. But what I would remember most of all was that he loved me unconditionally. Would my own children one day be able to say the same about me?

  He and my mom showed me love even in times when I hadn’t deserved it. If I closed my eyes, I would see the disappointed look on his face, the one I had seen the day I walked into the room wearing gang colors for the first time or every time I smarted off. There were times he voiced his dislike and disappointment in me, but he never needed to.

  The morning of the day he died was the last time I would witness his disappointment. I’d walked in the kitchen and grabbed a piece of toast off the table. “Later,” I said as I turned and headed back through the doorway that led to the hallway toward the front door.

  “Hold up there, Lucio. Where you headed this early?” he questioned from his spot at the table where he sat with his coffee and newspaper as he did every morning.

  I stopped and looked over my shoulder. “Out,” I replied with the typical tone I perfected as if I was grown and answered to no one.

  He slowly folded the paper and set it down on the table before he looked at me. “Your disrespect for me and your mother is less appreciated under my roof as each day goes by. When are you going to wake up and realize that group of hoodlums are not your friends?”

  “Do we have to do this now? Davis is waiting.” I sighed.

  “We love you, Lucio. But it won’t be enough to keep you out of prison.”

  “Christ, I’m not going to prison.”

  “Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually, if you stay on this path of destruction.”

  It was the same speech I’d heard a hundred times. I blew out a breath and said, “Whatever. Got it. I’m meeting Davis,” then I headed for the front door and walked out.

  I was a typical kid on the cusp of my teenage years who thought I knew more than my parents or any adult for that matter. So letting him and my mom down would be added to my list of regrets.

  The service ended, and my mom slipped her arm in mine, and I helped her stand. Before we had taken two steps, people began approaching us and offering their condolences. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before everyone left, leaving only family standing in the room.

  I walked with my mom to where my dad’s urn sat with framed pictures surrounding it.

  “Collect the pictures, Lucio,” my mom said as she let go of my arm and reached for the urn.

  “Let me get that, Mom.” I reached for the ashes, and she waved me off.

  “I need to do this,” was all she said as she curled her arm around it and lifted it to her.

  When we turned, my uncle Tony was walking toward us. “Are you ready, Gina?” he asked as he reached us. Uncle Tony and his family made the trip to New York City from Boston, where they lived and owned a restaurant. He was my mom’s older brother.

  “Oh, Sal, what am I going to do without Joe?” she asked him and swiped at the few tears that ran down her cheeks.

  “Like you have been, honey. One day at a time. Just know you aren’t alone. Maria and I are here for you,” he said and placed a hand at her elbow.

  My mom nodded and let Uncle Tony lead her toward the exit. At the SUV, as he helped her into the passenger side, I slid into the back with my aunt and two cousins. The ride to our house was quiet, and when Uncle Tony stopped the vehicle, I got out with the photos and carried them inside. After I sat them on the table, I headed to my bedroom and shut the door.

  I wanted to better my life, so my dad would be proud of me. Not belittle everything he and mom sacrificed so I could have one. But with anything worth having, I’d have to work for it, and the road to a better life would most definitely be rough and filled with several potholes waiting for me to fall in.

  However, once I was on that road, everything that happened before to get me there, with the exception of losing my dad, I’d do ten times over to reach it again. After all, bad choices set me on the path of destruction as my dad had said, so it would be my choices that would lead me further down the same path or allow me to carve a new one.

  The first step would be to sever my connection with the gang. And like I mentioned before, it wouldn’t come easy or without pain, but I’d take everything dealt to me because my dad was right when he’d say nothing worthwhile comes without a price. I speak of them as past tense because the day my dad died was my last association. Cutting ties wouldn’t be easy, but for me, it would be worth it. Life had too much to offer me. I refused to end up as another faceless statistic.

  Walking to my bed, I sat, placed my head in my hands and let the tears flow for my dad.

  Chapter Two

  “LUCIO! DAVIS IS HERE,” my mom yelled, then the door to my bedroom opened, and he walked in.

  “What’s up with you? I haven’t heard anything from you for a couple weeks. You haven’t come next door, and the few times I came over here, your mom said you didn’t want to see me. You haven’t even been to Trace’s place to hang out,” he said as he plopped down on the bottom of my bed.

  I closed the magazine I had been flipping through and looked at my best friend. Davis and I had been friends since the day he and his family had moved into the house next door. From that point on we’d been almost inseparable.

  At the age of four, the biggest worry for both of us was if our parents had enough mone
y so we could get an ice cream at the corner store on a hot day. We started school together. We faced bullies together. And we’d broken under the pressures of our neighborhood and joined the local street gang together. It’d been easy to get accepted. Getting out, not so much.

  Davis frowned when I hadn’t immediately spoken. Because I wasn’t sure when I did if it would be the last words between us, so I wanted to prolong what was possibly the last minutes shared with my best friend.

  “Yo, you going to talk or what?” he asked. “I came to check on you. Trace and the others have asked about you. Everyone’s wondering why you haven’t been around.”

  “Sure, I bet they’ve been real interested in where I’ve been. Since none of the crew has shown any concern for me in the past month.” I rolled my eyes. Outside of Davis, not one had checked on me.

  “What’s up with you, Luca?” Davis asked, using my first name. The only ones who called me Lucio were family.

  I took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m out. Or I will be,” I said and watched my friend’s facial expression change as it hit him what I meant.

  “You know it’s not that easy, Luca. We aren’t in a club like the boy scouts where you can just stop going to meetings, and there are no consequences.”

  “The boy scouts. Seriously,” I said and chuckled. It felt good even if it was for a brief moment.

  Davis smiled and shook his head. “Hey, you caught me off guard, and it was the only reference I could come up with on the fly. Cut a brother a break.”

  “Well, I guess it isn’t too far off. The scouts do wear colors. It just happens to be a whole uniform, though.” I grinned back. I’d missed the easy comradery with my friend.

  I’d done nothing for the last few days but sit in my room and think over everything one of the detectives handling my dad’s case had told my mom when he called to inform her that they’d made an arrest. Mom had hung up the phone and broke down, but the sobs and tears were different. When she’d composed herself, she started to fill me in on the call.