"April 3rd, 1907, the day that my wife gave birth to my first son, Jonathan Jayden Lamar III. It was a name that had been passed down verbatim through three generations of my family starting with my grandfather giving it to my father, my father who gave it to me, and then me having the honor of bestowing it upon my son. I remember the exact time he exited his mother's womb, 6:34 A.M. Through the blinds an invisible wave of light struck my eye, it burned for a moment, but I was quick to adjust. The long night of uncertainty had ended, and the morning brought the birth of my son. Jonathan almost hadn’t survived that night due to his positioning within my wife's womb. Luckily, a relatively new surgical procedure called a Caesarean section was able to be utilized and it saved our baby’s life. The pair, my wife and son, were required to stay three days in the hospital after the procedure, and everyday I would visit them to make sure they were alright. I was mainly there to visit my son. He was and is the most beautiful baby you could have ever hoped to glance eyes upon, and his presence filled me with pride and joy. He was never far from his mother for the duration of these three days in the hospital. Wrapped in a white blanket and placed in a crib next to his mother's bed, they kept each other company.
I didn't excel in school, and neither did my father. We were illegal immigrants that had come from Cuba, which was the place I spent most of my life prior to my arrival in America. My father had taken the opportunity to escape the conflicts and violence of the Spanish - American War, but the transition was rough. He was a crafty man, my father, and he had managed to sneak the two of us onto an American merchant vessel in order to gain safe passage into American territory. Eventually the ship docked in New York City, New York, and we start our life anew. Once my father had found an apartment, he worked as hard as he could in order to pay off his rent and put food on the table. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke I listened. One thing he would always tell me was that we were blessed to be in this land of opportunity, I looked at it as a land of discrimination. He would remind me everyday that I should continue to receive an education at the school I was enrolled and make something of my life despite my failing grades. This was a subject where my father and I did not meet eye to eye. I wasn't a problem child, but I didn't strive for perfection or even the bare minimum of what my father expected. Not taking my father's advice was my biggest mistake and on April 3rd, 1907 I feared my mistake would be the materialize over time within my son.
Anyway, instead of taking my father's advice I got involved with the Genovese crime family. These were people that understood me and my situation. They treated me like family and they interacted with me more than my father. He never had time to rest because he would always work. If he didn't have a day shift, he had a night shift and all free time was spent sleeping.
I had been introduced to the Genovese crime family through a friend named Joseph Adonis. I had met him in high school, and we had quickly taken a liking towards one another. Together, behind my father's back, we rose through the ranks of our "extended family." Eventually, we were able to operate without elder supervisions, and we were able to carry out our own assignments in the name of the family. We had made a job out of robbing the fat cats of New York. I'd like to consider myself Robin Hood, but Joe and I only shared the wealth between us two. To explain all the mass amounts of money to my father, I told him I had found a good paying job as a secretary for the writers of the New York Times newspaper, and he believed every bit of the my tale.
January 1, 1899, I was celebrating the liberation of Cuba with Joseph when I received a phone call. My father had been involved in a factory accident where his leg had been cut on the equipment he had maned the past seven years of his life. No one had found him in time and he eventually bled to death. So, there I was celebrating the liberation of Cuba, mourning the death of my father, and promoting everything he was against - greed and the emphasis on the material world. Did this stop me from disobeying my father? No, I was too wrapped up in my secular lifestyle. The funeral was brief and inexpensive, and I regret to this day being too cheap to buy my father a proper casket.
June 17, 1903, was the second most important date in my life. It was the day I met my future wife, Louis Anne Adamo. I was carrying out an assignment with Joe that I had received from a high ranking family leader. We were to eliminate a rat that was selling family secrets to our competitors. We were in Central Park when, by chance, I had ran into her. She was the most beautiful women I had ever met, and eventually we had become very well acquainted. She was a different kind of women, she wasn't predictable and had a certain energy about her that drew me to her. You could never tell what was on her mind, and at the time I had no plans for a family. I never wanted one, but she had convinced me over time into changing my mind. She obviously got her wish, look where I am now. Experiencing the birth of my first son!
Now, here I am writing out my life into this diary after spending my first few days at home with my whole family. Who would have ever though a son would make me reexamine my life, and allow me to realize my mistakes. It’s very over whelming, it’s as if the curtains have been lifted from the windows of my mind and I can see the sun rising. I want, and promise, to my son the best future possible for him. It’s just like how my father wanted a better life for me, but I cannot give my son that gift unless I remove myself from my commitments. I have to leave the Genovese crime family. It is currently 8:34 P.M. The date is April 7th, 1907."
Jonathan finished reading the diary that told the life story of his father in one page, a life that should have filled a book. This page told the majority of his father's life, but it wasn't the complete story he had come to know. His father, that night, had gone to his friend, Joseph Adonis, who had become a the leader of the Genovese gang, in order to leave behind his commitments to the family. He was leaving these bonds in order to give him a better life, the life his grandfather wanted for his father, however this was not the result of his father's actions. Joseph shot his father on site, and his blood ran across the roof garden that was attached to Joseph's home after three bullets pierced his heart. Then, his father fell to the ground and his faced turned pale white while Adonis ordered his minions to clean the up the mess and dispose of the body. This, was the story his mother had told him at least. She must have heard it second hand seeing that she had been with him that horrible night.
Jonathan then reflected on living his whole life without his father and, for a time, his mother. As soon as his father had died, Jonathan's mother fled in fear for her life and put him, Jonathan, in an orphanage with a new last name and no knowledge of his true identity. At that orphanage he was never adopted, and he eventually fell into the sins of his own father. He had gotten involved in crime, but was at least wise enough to not involve himself with a gang. He remembered back to when he was a teenager, and how he had so many questions. The only one that could answer them was the nun that owned the orphanage, she was a nice lady. She told Jonathan all she knew about his mother, and he would often ask her to tell him what his mother looked like. She would always give him the same description. She was a brunette with angle blue eyes, skinny legs, pale white skin, a large stomach due to recently giving birth, and her whole figure was wrapped in a beautiful dark blue dress. Then, after the nun would tell Jonathan the short exchange his mother had before with her before she left he would also ask, "What was my mother's name?" She would always respond with the simple answer, "Louis Lamar."
Once Jonathan was old enough to leave the orphanage he was focused on finding his mother. It was the only thing he ever thought of day and night. Eventually, he had found her address by using some of the money he had earned from his crimes. He went to her apartment, but no one would answer his knocking. He visited the building seven days a week, three times every day for a whole month. Finally, he had gotten fed up with waiting and tracked down the land lord. He told Jonathan that his mother had been evicted for not paying her rent, and that she had been prostituting herself in the alleyways behind his building at night in order to pay him back. So, that night Jonathan went to were he was told his mother was selling herself away to strangers, and he found her being held at gun point by a man demanding she have sex with him. Jonathan quickly came to her rescue by surprising her captor. He slammed the man into the ground head first by picking him up by the waste and turning him up side down. The man was very light and was more bone than muscle, and once he had come into contact with the ground his neck produced a loud crunch and he laid motionless upon the street. Jonathan then told his mother who he was, and he took her back to his apartment where they talked about the past and when he was an infant. He gave her his bed, a nice warm shower, and her first meal in two days as she told him of how their once complete family broke apart. She begged for forgiveness for leaving him, and he forgave her.
Jonathan rose from his flash backs, and he stood over the body of Joe Adonis. Joseph showed him his father’s diary, something he held on to as a trophy, before he killed him. He bragged about what he had done. Jonathan was confused and angry, he at first thought Joe may have been happy that he had shown up, but the happiness may have been a disguise for fear. All Jonathan remembered afterwards was a rage that had empowered him.
Once Joseph was done talking, Jonathan shot him three times in the heart in the same garden his father died. Joe’s blood spill across the grass and watered the roses present in the small area. In the pool of blood he saw his reflection, it seemed so much like the face of his father he had seen in his mother’s pictures. He read the diary, crouched on the ground, saw his life flash before his eyes, and then rose to walk into Joseph’s parlor. He then sat down into Adonis’s large black chair, drinking the cherry red wine that his father’s killer and best friend was enjoying before he arrived, and then watched the sun set. He had become his father.