Diamond

                                                                                     

           Mind you, I’ve got to admit that he was not always so good; from the day he was born he was a stubborn quick-tempered individual. Being the last one out may have made him that way, we were twins you see, but he did not arrive until an hour after me. Maybe he got mad at being stuck in there on his own, or maybe he was just born with angry genes. Which ever it was, he came out screaming and peed all over the nurse; it became a favourite trick of his.

After hospital nothing much else happened until the first day of preschool. Being the eldest, if only by an hour, you would think I would be the leader, not so. Jack led, and I followed, straight into trouble. At playtime Jack marched straight up to the biggest kid in the class, punched him on the nose and took the bike he was playing with. The kid, Peter Pigg – I’m not kidding that was his name – who was nearly twice our size retaliated and I of course I had to step in on our kid’s side, we pulverised him. But we weren’t very clever about it; we did it in front of the teacher and nearly got banned on the first day. I should have been ashamed of myself, but I was not and at that age, I could not understand what all the fuss was about; after all, as far as I was concerned, I had only stuck up for my brother.

Jack never hit another kid in preschool or in the infants; he did not have to, he simply threatened them when the teacher was not looking and they gave him whatever he wanted. It was the same in the juniors and by the time we reached the seniors, I was redundant as a big brother, come minder. Oh he was still my brother and would have stuck up for him if he had needed me, but by then he had his own gang and a right load of thugs they were too.

Besides, I had my own mates and was going in a different direction. While I was looking forward to the time when I would leave school and get a job.  Jack had already taken his first steps towards a life of crime. Apart from playground extortion he was into shoplifting in a big way and after leaving school the list of his crimes grew until at the age of eighteen he came to the attention of Thomo’ Thompson.

Everyone knew and feared Thomo, he was the head of Thompson clan and the clan controlled everything north of the river. On The legit side they ran nightclubs, taxis, slots and security, while on the other side they ran everything from drugs and prostitution, through to major heists and money laundering.

Anyhow, Thomo took a liking to our Jack – two of a kind maybe – and he rose rapidly through the ranks, until at the age of twenty-two he became the youngest and most vicious gang enforcer in the country.

Me, I became an apprentice carpenter and after serving my time, set up my own business making hand built furniture, got married, had three kids and lived in a three bed roomed semi.

Jack never married; just paraded about with succession of models, arm candy, to compliment his lifestyle of big houses and flash cars. Was he happy? I don’t know, but from the reports, both in the newspaper and on the grapevine, he seemed to enjoy his chosen line of work and by his mid thirties was second in command with only Thomo himself above him. He was good at his job and maybe a bit too clever for his own good, because someone shot him – the word was, Thomo thought he was getting too big for his boots – and he ended up in intensive care.

Make A Website