“Homeboy”
A Michael Jackson Horror Story By
MJsLoveSlave
Manhattan
Autumn, 1987
Michael Jackson was at his wit’s end.
Sitting there, in the center of his couch, head in his hands, and openly weeping, the young man was certainly a sight.
His white silk pajamas, once spanking fresh and starched to the point of being crispy were now dingy and stained.
Michael had no clue how long he’d been wearing the pajamas, and it was the last care in his mind.
Also far from his mind, was the last time he’d had a shower. He knew he reeked of all sorts of body odors and every so often, different portions of his body would itch so fiercely, he’d swear he was on fire. Three weeks worth of funk clung to his thin body. His body that was wasting away.
As was his mind.
For the last twenty-one days, Michael Jackson had not slept a wink.
Every time he closed his eyes, even for but a brief moment, he was tormented. Wholly tormented by that event he should never have been a part of.
Gasping for air, as it felt his entire chest was suddenly caving in, Michael tried desperately to push that traumatizing event from his mind.
The event that followed him on a daily basis and effectively had turned his life into one simmering, raging Hell.
For three weeks, Michael Jackson had been a shell a man. Not eating, not sleeping, not even bathing. And occasionally, soiling himself from time to time, as he was so tired, so exhausted, so hungry, so purely weakened, he couldn’t even make it to his bathroom in time.
There he was, a hollow reminder of what had been.
He couldn’t live like this. He couldn’t bear to live like any longer.
Through the tears stinging his eyes, Michael stared at the little object glimmering at him from the center of his coffee table.
A small, gold plated twenty-two caliber pistol.
Michael’s weary, bag-laden eyes widened at the sight of the gun.
Yes. That was the way out. That was the way to him being able to sleep well again. Sleep peacefully again.
That gun would be the end to it all.
Picking up the gun and cradling it in chapped, cracked hands, Michael fondled it as if he’d never seen a gun before in his life.
Yes, if only he’d had that gun in his hands three weeks ago, none of this trouble would have happened…
Up until a scant twenty-days before, Michael Jackson was secure and charmingly pleased with his life. At the age of twenty-nine he was a self made man, owning one of the most prestigious and highly sought after dance schools in New York City. Though his academy, The Lightfoot School had only been open since 1979, it had turned several major stars. Some danced the leads in big name shows on Broadway, others in national television commercials, and still more in music videos that were splashed on MTV.
Every year, the number of people applying for a limited spot--of less than one hundred--to work personally with Michael to hone their craft.
This afforded Michael the lifestyle he had yearned for, since he grew up as the poor son of a less than minimum wage making, steel-mill working father.
Now, instead of a little three room shack in Indiana, Michael now lived in an high rise apartment, drove an apple green Beemer and generally enjoyed his life.
One of the things that Michael enjoyed doing to help the community, was that a few times a month, free of charge, Michael would bring in some of the inner city kids for a lesson, just to keep them off the street.
It was one of these free lessons that set into motion the events that would ruin Michael Jackson.
“Amanda?”
“Here!”
“Scooter!”
“Present!”
“Sheldon?”
When there was no response to the name, Michael glanced up from his roll call sheet.
“Sheldon?” He repeated and still got no reply.
All across the highly polished wooden floor of the studio, Michael saw children, between the ages of five and fifteen, in various forms of stretching in sweats, all across the room.
Doing a quick, and silent head count to himself, Michael took note that three of his students were missing.
Glancing once more at the sheet of paper in his hands, Michael questioned to no one in particular,
“Where are Sheldon, Enrique, and Morris?”
In the far back of the room, he could see a hand raised and wagging.
“Yes, Maritza?” Michael groaned and the little girl, only ten years old, (and Enrique’s little sister) came running up to Michael, her long black braided ponytail swinging behind her.
“Mr. Jackson.” The child started and was twisting the bottom of the Madonna t-shirt she wore. “Tiny, Blue and Big Worm aren’t coming today.” She informed him, calling her brother and his friends by their street names.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his bright red dolphin shorts, Michael demanded sourly,
“Well, why not?”
This was the third time in a row that those boys had skipped practice.
Maritza, stared up at Michael, her hazel eyes wide as she merely shrugged.
“I don’t know…I guess they like going to the arcade more than they like dancing.”
The child started back to her spot near the rear of the room, and Michael grasped her arm.
“Which arcade do those boys hang out at?” He asked softly, am idea brewing in his mind.
“Um…” The child shuffled in her beat up pink dotted tennis shoes.
“Oh! It’s in the back of Lombardo’s Pizza.” Maritza grinned up at him, her two front teeth missing.
“Lombardo’s?” Michael repeated the name softly and was trying his best to place the name. Alas, he’d never heard of the place.
Maritza, seeing he was struggling supplied an answer for him.
“It’s in the Bronx, Mr. Jackson.”
Releasing the child and watching her jog back to her spot, Michael nodded grimly.
He was going to make a special trip down to the Bronx to see Tiny, Blue and Big Worm.
A Few Hours Later
The Bronx
Michael Jackson, who barely ever left Manhattan unless it was on an airplane, found himself walking the streets of New York’s northernmost borough. It had taken him three taxicabs and four subway transfers, but he had made it to The Bronx in one piece. (He didn’t want to drive his car there, for fear that if he left it unattended, he’d return to find it stripped down to the frame and up on blocks.)
He Hadn’t been off the subway a good ten minutes and it was already alarmingly clear to Michael, just how out of place he appeared.
Nearly every person he passed was dressed extremely casual in jeans and tees or jogging suits. And Michael…wasn’t.
Michael was from Manhattan and it showed in his choice of clothing.
Michael wore a royal blue silk shirt, buttoned up to the neck, black trousers with a matching blue stripe down the right leg. A double, blue patent leather belt wove its way around his hips.
Broken glass and long smoked cigarette butts and doobie remnants crunched under the heels of his silver toed boots.
Michael long curls, picked to their highest and held in place by spray rounded out the look.
Factor in the notion that Michael also wore liquid liner circling his doe eyes and that his lips shimmered just slightly with clear chap stick, he truly was gaining attention.
Michael didn’t belong in the ghetto; he looked more suited to be shaking his booty on the neon-lit “American Bandstand” stage.
Even though he was noticing all the stares and whispers that sparked up as he went by, Michael tried vigilantly to ignore them.
He had three boys to see about. He was particularly pissed at the fact that he’d opened up his academy to them--when a lesson with Michael Jackson typically cost five hundred dollars, an hour--for free and they were throwing the chance to learn something useful completely away.
Especially in New York where a strong talent for dancing could open so many doors.
And for what? To play Space Invaders?
Michael wanted to ask the boys to their faces if they planned to come back to class and if they didn’t he was going to replace them.
Finally, after going on foot for nearly half an hour, he saw it.
A small hole in the wall type of a place, with a cracked from window.
Lombardo’s Pizza.
Standing outside the establishment and looking in, Michael searched for the boys.
Behind a scarred counter, he could see a chubby Italian man tossing dough in the air, and scattered around the counter, several teens were loitering and nibbling at slices.
And that’s when he spied them.
In the very back of the eatery, he could make out Enrique, AKA Tiny, standing next to a booth and chatting, very animated, waving his hands in the air.
Just barely over the top of one of the seats he could see two heads bobbing.
Blue and Big Worm.
Incensed, Michael immediately passed through the boarded up door, a tiny bell dinging as he entered.
The inside of the building smelled of a mix of cigarettes and marinara sauce, and loud hip hop was blaring from the juke box near the counter.
“Walk this way….talk this way…I want you to…”
Strolling over as though he owned the place, Michael approached the boys.
And heard language that had no business coming out of twelve-year-old’s mouth.
“…yeah man, that bastard don’t know how close he came to getting my foot hung all up in his ass! Knows his Curious George looking ass was rocking that pinball machine too much!” Tiny exclaimed shaking his head.
As his nickname implied, Tiny was small for his age. A cute, yet hardened kid of Puerto Rican heritage, he was short, and spindly, with dark, wild wavy hair and slanted hazel eyes under thick brows.
Sheldon and Morris, AKA Blue and Big Worm were cackling wildly into their cans of Pepsi.
Blue, a tall slim boy who was so black, he indeed appeared blue, sat fiddling with the New York Knicks cap he wore covering his shiny black Jherri-Curl.
Big Worm, a fat, bald headed, pecan colored boy was smacking the table top, a splotch of soda on his green sweatshirt.
“I wish that stupid son of a…” Tiny trailed off when he noticed that Michael had appeared just behind his friends, and he choked on his words, eyes bugging in horror.
“What? What man?” Blue teased, unaware his instructor was just inches from him. “Say it wit’ yo’ chest, little ass--”
“Yo, cool it!” Tiny threw his hands up and interrupted Blue, indicating Michael with a whip of his head.
Both of the other boys turned and their faces clearly showed their astonishment.
“Mr.--Mr. Jackson!” Big Worm stammered dismayed.
“He came here? Mr. Jackson came to the Bronx! I don’t believe it! Oh shit!” Blue lamented, and was pulling his hat over his eyes, trying to hide his face.
“Madre de Dios…we are busted…damn!” Tiny whimpered as Michael gave him a soft push, indicating he sit down.
“Man, I bet you Maritza went and opened her mouth! I knew that girl was gonna tell on us!” Blue accused and Tiny went to curse him in Spanish.
“Little bitch can’t keep her mouth shut!” Big Worm put it and Tiny started to rise up to punch him, for slandering his sister.
“Don’t call Maritza a bitch, you motherfu--”
“Hey!” Michael exclaimed sharply and the boys quickly quieted down, staring at him solemnly.
“This is the third time you boys have missed my class. I want to know, do you intend to ever come back, or is what you have here so important?” Michael looked at each of the kids in turn.
When the boys couldn’t turn a response, Michael clasped his hands together on the scratched and peeling table top.
“Now I’ll tell you what I see: Three boys who have a gift for dance, who are throwing a chance for greatness in the toilet. Now you three are friends, and I know that here on your end of town, break dancing is huge. Wouldn’t guys like to be a dance team together? Like those guys from Breakin’?”
When the boys still sulking, didn’t speak he continued,
“Or you can each be dancers on your own. You know who Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and the like of them are. You could go anywhere you wanted with dance, if you’d just put in some work. Commercials, Broadway, other theatres…it’s all there, open to you. Especially when its known you trained under me.” Michael paused to toss his hair.
“I mean is this really what you want to do? Stand around a pizza place and waste your lives? You’re twelve! You should be trying to secure your futures…”
“Mr. Jackson.” Blue spoke up and was fiddling with his soda can to avoid Michael’s blazing eyes. “Do you really think we could make a future of this dancing? I mean really?”
Michael raised a fine arched brow at the boy.
“I came all the way here from Manhattan for you kids. Of course I do. I mean I grew up like you. You’ve heard me say it. Poor in Indiana. One of nine kids. Ten if you count my brother’s deceased twin….I started dancing early and look now, I have a studio and am financially independent. I was a little Black boy in the “hood” just like you. Sheldon.”
The boy cringed at the use of his real name, but held his tongue.
He glanced at the other two boys.
“And I had to carve out a living for myself. I didn’t have anyone helping me like I’m doing for you. Now next Saturday, I want you boys in my class at eight a.m. do I make myself clear?” Michael, dropping his voice a few octaves into a serious tone.
“Yes, Sir.” All three boys nodded. It was probably the first time in their lives that the had an adult who believed in them.
The four of them sat quietly for a moment, then Tiny spoke up.
“Have you ever been to the Bronx before, Mr. Jackson?”
Laughing shyly, Michael patted at the kid’s shoulder.
“Is it that obvious?”
“I’m just surprised no one mugged you yet with those threads you got on!” Big Worm cackled.
Michael grinned, perhaps he was overdressed for the ghetto, but he was glad he’d gotten through to the boys.
And to show there were no hard feelings, he even treated the boys to a large supreme pizza with everything--but anchovies--on it and another round of sodas.
By the time they had finished it, night was starting to fall and trying to be cordial, the boys offered to ride the subway with Michael back up to Manhattan.
For the first three transfers, the ride on the subway was pleasant. Sure it smelled of urine and there was an occasional mouse running through, but all in all it was alright.
Then they transferred to the last train of the ride.
As Michael and his young companions loaded onto the train, they saw that there was only one other person on the car, on the far end, a man sat to himself, his face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading.
Michael and the boys sat on the opposite end, chattering amongst themselves.
“Did we miss a lot the last three classes?” Big Worm questioned as the found of them were settling into a row of seats that lined the wall of the car.
“Mmmm….” Michael pondered a moment and rubbed at the cleft in his chin. “Kind of. I’ve started teaching a dance to “That’s What Friends Are For.”
“Man, I hate that song!” Tiny waved a hand. “It’s so sappy.”
“Cool it Dawg. If he wants us to dance to it, I’ll dance.” Blue pouted. “I don’t wanna get kicked out of class.”
“Good kid.” Michael chuckled approvingly and noticed that Big Worm was staring off into the distance.
Following his gaze, Michael saw that he was staring at the man, who’d finally lowered his paper.
He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a Hispanic man, with a somewhat wiry build, long black hair and a thick mustache covering his upper lip.
He was dressed simply in a black muscle tee, jeans and combat boots. A tattoo of a raging bull was curling up his bicep.
“Tiny…Tiny…” Reaching over Michael, completely oblivious of him, Big Worm was shaking his friend.
“What Brotha?” Tiny glanced at his friend.
Leaning in to him, he whispered,
“Ain’t that dude over there….ain’t that Toro Gonzalez?”
Michael noticed that both Tiny and Blue looked up angrily at the mention of the name. it meant nothing to him, but obviously was something to the boys.
“Don’t play with me Worm. You know I hate that son of a bitch since he shot my brother Ricky.” Tiny said seriously, forgetting Michael was there and swearing naturally.
He knew that Tiny and Maritza had a deceased older brother, but had never known how he’d died.
Had he really been murdered.
Stricken, Michael stared at the boys and then back at the man who was reading the paper. He did look like he could have shot someone.
“Man, just look. Ain’t that him, sitting there?” Big Worm insisted and pointed.
Michael watched as a dark cloud of anger came over the boy’s face.
“I’ll be damned.”
And before Michael could do anything, Tiny, followed by Blue and Big Worm had stood and were slowly making their way over to the man.
Shakily, Michael rose to his feet, fear starting to rise in him.
He tried to call after the boys, yet he couldn’t bring himself to utter a sound.
All he could see was that trouble was about to start.
If Michael had known how bad it was going to be, he would stopped it.
Lord knows he would have stopped it!
“Yo Brotha…” Michael looked on as Tiny and his friends stood over the man.
“What?” The man barked, looking up at the boys.
“Ain’t you Toro Gonzalez? The dude that be running around with the Eighth Avenue Locos?” Tiny questioned and to his horror noticed his hand was inching into his back pocket where for the first time, he noticed a small bulge.
The boy was going for a weapon!
“No…” Michael whimpered, so frightened, his voice was barely a whisper and completely unheard on the other side of the car.
“What’s it to you, man?” Toro spoke up and it was the last sound his made.
It all happened so quickly. So quickly. Faster than the speed of sound!
The sentence had barely cleared Toro’s mouth, when he saw it.
The black, switchblade knife in Tiny’s hand.
Michael finally finding his voice, put his hands into his hair and shrieked,
“NOOOOOOOO!”
On legs that had suddenly become pudding, Michael was trying to run.
Trying to stop this madness. But it was too late.
“This here is for Ricky Trevino, bitch!” Tiny declared and in an second, the five inch blade of the knife had been jammed deeply into Toro’s chest.
Michael still trying to reach the end of the car looked on as Toro’s eyes widened in surprise and blood flew from his mouth as he gagged, hand to his chest where more blood flowed and was slumping to the floor.
By the time Michael reached him, Toro Gonzalez was dead.
Lying there on the floor of the subway, eyes closed and turning an ashen shade of blue.
“Tiny… what have you done? Tiny!” Tears of shock at having actually witnessed a murder first hand, had shaken Michael to the core. And the fact that the murder had been committed by a twelve year old boy was even worse.
“Made things right. That motherf***er killed my brother.”
Tiny, and his friends stared up at Michael and he saw that there was absolutely no sign of remorse in any of their eyes.
They were so cold, so vacant, their eyes.
It frightened Michael terribly.
He’d never seen children like this. Never.
They were evil.
The last thing Michael saw as he turned and ran as the train reached its stop was the three boys looking somberly after him.
Michael didn’t stop running until he was back inside his apartment, all four of the latches locked and two chairs shoved in front of it to barricade the door.
That had been twenty-one days ago.
In three weeks, Michael had deteriorated as if he’d been captive for three years. The idea nagged at him constantly. Three little boys, barely out of grade school, committing a cold blooded murdered. Showing no remorse or regret for taking a human life. He had wanted many times to call the police. To report the murder.
Lord knows he had seen the report on TV of how Toro’s body--his real name was Armando--had been found abandoned and stripped of valuables.
The boys had had the audacity to rob a dead man after killing him.
Michael desperately wanted to call the police. But he soon realized he would get in trouble too.
Not only would the boys be arrested and charged, but so would he.
He was an accessory to murder. He was there. He could have stopped it.
But Michael didn’t.
For the last three weeks it was that thought that tormented him.
Kept him from sleeping nights.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Tiny sticking the knife into Toro’s chest. Toro losing color and blood and expiring right before his eyes.
Every where Michael looked, he saw Toro.
He no longer bathed, for every time he looked in the mirror, he swore he saw Toro, knife in his body beckoning him.
Heard him asking “Why? Why?”
He stopped eating. Every time he opened his fridge. There was Toro.
He didn’t go out. He even closed the Lightfoot School as every one of his pupils suddenly looked like a bleeding Toro Gonzalez.
Michael’s fevered mind just wouldn’t let him rest. Guilt was eating him alive.
There were so many unanswered questions.
Was this this the first time that child had killed? Had he done it before?
Good lord, had he done it again since Toro?
And so there Michael was. Stinking and wallowing in his own insanity, cradling that gold gun.
Michael had to stop Tiny.
That boy….that boy was a monster come alive.
He had to be stopped.
It didn’t matter if he incriminated himself.
He wanted his peace of mind back.
If he didn’t, he was going to use the bullets in that gun on himself.
Michael wasn’t sure how he got there, but he found himself standing in front of Lombardo’s Pizza, staring in the window. Standing there in his stained pajamas and bare feet, his left foot oozing as he’d cut it on a shard of broken glass, Michael was clutching the little gold pistol in his hands.
There in the same booth he’d sat at three weeks prior were the three boys, sharing a pizza and laughing it up as though nothing at happened.
As if they hadn’t all been a party to a homicide.
Shuffling over to the door, the bell dinged as he entered.
Several of the patrons stared and laughed at this ragged man.
Michael never heard them. He had his eyes on Tiny, and Tiny only.
“I never said I liked Sheena. That girl is a tramp anyway…” Tiny was laughing with his friends.
It came to standstill when they noticed Michael.
“Mr. Jackson?” The boy gulped staring at him. “Are you okay? You look like hell warmed over.”
“You know what you did.” Michael whispered dryly. “You know you killed Toro.”
Blue and Big Worm looked on frightened, their voices gone.
Tiny still maintained his vocal cords.
“I don’t know what the hell you talking about, man. I don’t know anybody named Toro. And I damn sho’ didn’t kill anybody. I’m only twelve.” The boy cackled and was trying to brush off the situation.
“You need to carry your little ass to the police and tell them what you’ve done, Enrique. You know you stabbed Toro on that subway.” Michael insisted.
Tiny, still trying to act older than he was laughed in Michael’s face.
“This old man done lost his damn mind. Thinking I killed someone. What you need to do is carry your skinny ass somewhere and take a bath, cause you smell like hot shi--” Tiny face fell when Michael drew the small gold pistol and aimed at him.
“Oh my God, he’s got a gun!” Some girl behind Michael wailed and the pizza place was emptying out as all the other patrons were taking flight and running away. Tables were over turned, sodas spilling everywhere.
Even Tiny’s friends, Blue and Big Worm were slipping away, completely abandoning him.
Mr. Lombardo, the owner of the restaurant was ducked down behind the hind the counter. on the phone with 911 quietly begging for the police.
For the first time, Tiny had the appearance of a scared child and not that of a hardened criminal as he began cowering in the seat of the old booth.
“You have to go to the police Enrique.” Michael was urging, shaking the gun at him. “You have to tell them what you’ve done. How you killed Toro!”
“You’re lying! I never touched Toro! I don’t even know who the hell Toro is!” Tiny argued and jumped a foot in the air when Michael fired a round in the ceiling, showing he was serious.
“I’m not playing with you boy! You stabbed Toro! I saw you! Sheldon saw you. Morris saw you--!” Michael screamed tears starting to stream from his eyes.
Finally breaking, and crying himself, Tiny shrieked,
“So what if I did stab Toro? He needed to die. That bitch needed to die for what he did to Ricky! Ricky was my brother! He was only sixteen! Toro shot my brother through the head for five dollars! Five f***ing dollars! And he walked away scot-free! No one told on him cause Toro was in with the Locos and it would have started a war! Everyone was scared of the Locos. I didn’t want the damn Locos! I wanted Toro. I’ve waited three years to get Toro, and I finally got him. I hope to God he’s rotting in a special place in HELL!”
Still shaking the pistol Michael argued.
“You have to go to the police Enrique! You committed a crime.You killed a man and then robbed him! You’re just as bad as Toro if you walk away from this too!”
Pointing at Michael, Tiny roared,
“Don’t you compare me to that bastard man! Don’t compare me to him. I did this for my brother! I had to get revenge for my brother. Hell yeah I robbed him. He robbed me and my sister of our brother! Robbed my mom of her son! I ain’t going to no f***ing police! You’ll have to kill me first! Must be out your damn mind! You‘ll have to kill me!”
Very simply, Michael replied.
“Okay.”
And was pointing the gun at Tiny.
The boy, aghast, had his jaw sagging.
So that was what the last moments of his life looked like. Getting gunned down in a decrepit eatery.
Staring at the barrel of Michael Jackson’s pistol.
Frightened, Tiny closed his eyes against the sight and waited for death to come in the form of a snub-nosed bullet.
BOOM!
Tiny trembled and wet himself at the sound of the gun shot.
But other than the feeling of hot urine soaking his legs, he felt nothing else.
Reluctantly and fearfully, Tiny opened his eyes.
A large policeman had appeared behind Michael and at the moment the shot was fired, had yanked his arm up, sending another bullet into the ceiling.
“Come on, come on, drop it.” The policeman bark and was crushing Michael’s wrist in his hands.
With a weak grunt, Michael released the gun and it dropped to the floor.
“You’re being charged with attempted murder, Sir.” The cop informed Michael as he was pulling his arms behind him and handcuffing him.
“I don’t care.” Michael mumbled, as he was led from the building.
After Michael was carted away, he learned of Tiny, Blue and Big Worm’s fates.
Tiny was charged with first degree murder in the death of Armando “Toro” Gonzalez and sentenced to stay in a juvenile facility until he reached the age of twenty-one.
Blue and Big Worm were charged as accessories, and were sentenced to three years in the same facility.
Michael Jackson was charged with attempted murder and also an accessory to Toro’s death, but all charges were dropped when it was shown that Michael had no involvement in the murder and was mentally unsound at the time he threatened Tiny.
To this day, Michael Jackson can now sleep through the night, as his conscience was clear and Toro was resting in peace.
He is of sound mind, finally.
Wooooow Michael was very pissed an over heated with rage an anger omg thank u sis keep it coming i want more I
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