A SUSPICIOUS MIND

The weather was getting colder, entering into early October in our quiet neighborhood. The leaves had changed colors. The brisk cool breezes were blowing. It was refreshing autumn time, with winter on its way. As kids, we played touch football in the street until the streetlights came on, then hurried home to not get in trouble with our parents. My friend Denny lived four houses down on the opposite side of the street. We would go to his house to play because of all of the trees we could climb in his backyard.

Directly across from Denny's house were a small Pentecostal Church and a green painted house next to the church on the right-hand side. The people that lived in that house did not seem friendly. It was a husband and wife with a five-year-old son named Mario. The wife, Vicky, was reasonably attractive, but the husband, Frank, was overweight and seemed grumpy at times.

As we played football in the street in front of Denny's house, we noticed that Frank would leave for work every day at around three o'clock. We also noticed that another man drove into their driveway around six quite often during the week. We all thought it must be a family friend or relative. This sequence of events went on during the entire summer. Being kids, we did not pay much attention to it and continued playing in the street.

At this point, it seemed as though Frank had suspicions about his wife, Vicky. Being fall, it was getting dark sooner, and the streetlights came on earlier, so the kids were home early. Frank had had enough with rumors floating around the neighborhood of the suspicious car in his driveway and wanted to prove one way or another that his wife Vicky was being a faithful wife and mother.

One-night Frank left work early and hid behind the bushes in front of Denny's house. He also had a gun with him, along with his uncontrollable temper. Frank waited patiently behind the bushes, and time seemed to go so slow, six, seven, eight o'clock, nothing was going on. Around eight-thirty, the car pulled into his driveway. The car was not familiar to Frank, which made him angry. He was already gripping his gun tightly with anger. Frank waited about twenty minutes more before he started to walk towards the house. As he crossed the street and walked outside his house, he would peek in the living room window but saw nothing. Next, Frank peeked into the dining room window and still nothing. When he peeked into the kitchen window, his temper exploded, his wife was passionately kissing a man who was a stranger to frank. Frank burst in through the kitchen door, surprising both his wife and her lover. Frank, at this point, went temporarily insane, and his actions were not controllable. Frank grabbed his wife, shook her, and said, "how can you do this to me? How?" Vicky was screaming while the man flew out of the kitchen door and got away, as Frank began to shoot his wife dead. Bam bam bam three shots to the head. The shots woke up little Mario, who was asleep in his room as Frank cried over his dead wife, realizing what he had just done. The neighbors hearing the shots, called police.

When the police arrived, Frank held little Mario, and both were sobbing over the dead wife and mother. Little Mario lost his mother that night and lost his father too. Frank was sentenced to life in prison. In a split-second little Mario went from having a family to being alone in this world living in foster homes until he was eighteen.