Chapter 7

The accident that took Paul’s life occurred at four-thirty in the afternoon on April 21 when he was thirty-one. It happened on Liberty Street in Philly. He entered the Quick & Stop convenience store for a coffee—sixteen ounces, cream and sugar—and a scratch-off lottery ticket, which he had played every other day, his only vice. Two African-American men in hoodies and black masks entered the establishment. They demanded cash from the female clerk. The clerk and Paul were murdered. Both were shot in the head and instantly died. The perpetrators were never caught, running away from the crime scene with a little under five hundred dollars.

I experienced a bleak day when I learned of Paul’s death, and the following year, and the year after that. My brother had crossed from this world into the next without a goodbye to, or from, me. And no longer did I have his protection, love, or care, losing him to two psycho fuckers/assholes/shooters who needed a measly five hundred in cash.