The conclusion to my brother's murder

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Today was the official sentencing for Marlon Fluker Jr., the guy who killed my stepbrother in a drive-by four years ago. To summarize for those who may have forgotten, around 10pm on the night after his 15th birthday, after having watched a movie at the theater with family and friends, he was walking through a neighborhood with his acquaintances. This part of the neighborhood was about a block away from the country jail; literally in view of it.

 

Marlon Fluker and his son were driving down the road, ready to kill one of the people in this group for some dispute they had. I still don't know what it was about, but Marlon Fluker Jr. shot into the group of people with the intent to kill someone over something. After the first volley, everyone hit the ground, and then he fired again and shot Marquise in the head once. Marquise died there, July 11th, 2010. In a bout of bitter luck, he was the only one in the crowd to get injured, but he wasn't the intended target.

 

The Flukers had a history of violence and crime, and I heard about it and got the sense it was typically incited by his dad. But ever since then, I believe, Marlon Jr. has been in jail awaiting proper sentencing. Yesterday my stepdad called me over to his house to tell me in person that the state attorney asked him if he would accept a second degree murder plea. I think the only distinction between first and second is that first degree is premeditated. The state attorney mentioned that the sentence is normally 20 years, but there were talks of reducing it in half, which would make the sentence 10 years, 4 of which he's already served, so he'd be in jail for only 6 more years. My stepdad wasn't very pleased about the idea.

 

So he asked me if I would attend the sentencing, and I skipped out on a class today to go to the courthouse. Marquise's mom was there, leaking tears every once in awhile. When I attended middle school, she was the lunch lady, though we never knew each other very well. Marquise and I got along pretty well, more or less like the typical image of brothers, and we fought occasionally. I didn't know how I was going to feel looking at the guy who personally killed him over some petty dispute. My stepdad thought of killing the guy himself, but my mom told him that it wouldn't solve anything, and it would just launch some vengeance streak of pointless violence.

 

Anyway, I was really sleepy for most of the prep time. There were a lot of people there I didn't recognize. I think the father got out of jail earlier than his son because he didn't personally kill anyone, so he was there too, occasionally glaring daggers at my stepdad. That's another reason I knew he had a screw loose; they'd never even met, and it was very much his own fault that his son was there receiving jail time through poor parenting and poor decisions. All the staff there had a really weirdly casual attitude the whole time, though all the people attending were solemn and grave.

 

Just as I close my eyes to rest, the sentencing began. Marlon Jr. was brought in with chains and an orange jumpsuit. He looked like a sorry mess, as far as I could tell. He had hands clasped in prayer tattooed on his right arm, bags under his eyes, and a beard, though his hair was cleanly cut. He looked down most of the time stoically while his attorney whispered stuff to him. I found out that he's only 26. In a year I'll be as old as he was when he gunned down my stepbrother. It terrified me to imagine wasting that much of my youth with such a stupid action.

 

Very casually, very quickly, the motions were followed through, simple questions were asked, a guilty plea, being fully informed about the charge etc. etc. It was almost comical that they noted that he was on the way to commit first-degree murder, but ended up committing second-degree murder. I think it's still pretty much first-degree murder either way. He resolved to kill a guy that day, and it happened to be an unintended target, Marquise. The attorney also said something about believing the opposing party to have a gun, prompting him to act in self-defense. That pretty much contradicts the claim that he was on the way to commit first-degree murder. It was a textbook drive-by. He got the drop on them. There was no "self-defense". It was ridiculous.

 

I didn't want to get all indignant about it, nor did I feel any outward hostility at the guy. It was very clearly something his lawyer came up with to try to take years off his sentence, and Marlon Jr. didn't look too resolved in his claims that it was some weird self-defense thing. The judge, in a very offhanded manner, sentenced Marlon Jr. to 20 years in high-security prison. Marlon Jr. and his lawyer's facial expressions didn't change at all, I think the lawyer whispered something into his ear or something, then the judge stopped in midsentence to consult someone nearby about something else, and then asked Marlon Jr. if he had anything to say. In this really quick, small, pathetic way, he vocalized "I'm sorry". When he got up the lawyer whispered something to him, pat him on the back once, and he later finally glanced over us, the family of the uninvolved teenager he killed, and I made eye contact with him, and he walked away in police custody.

 

I'm not going to be mad at Marlon Jr. I've never met him, talked to him, I don't know what his relationship with his father was, or how much he actually regrets his decisions. I don't want to get mad at something I can't change. I can only hope that Marlon Jr., when he gets out of prison at 42 years old, picks up his life and does something good with it.

 

Here's a picture of Marquise after he graduated 8th grade. The last I ever saw of him was when he was laid to rest in a casket, and shortly thereafter, buried. I resolved to live enough for the both of us.

[Teto 2609]

Heavy. The dude's dad certainly sounds like the worse of he and his son.

 

As a total sidenote, your writing style is always brilliant, and this is all really well observed and described. So my applause for that. Reminds me of this guy Tony Hawks who has a bunch of books about crazy dares he's done; like a book written about his journey around Ireland with a fridge strapped to his back, or his attempts at making a second #1 single (in any country). I imagine you could totally do a memoir-like book like that. You get up to shenanigans too, and you could easily write about them and sell them off as semi-trashy comedy books. Part of making funny stories to share with people is willful suspense of disbelief. And, like I've said a lot; don't let the truth get in the way of a good story (also the moral of Life of Pi (and Big Fish) basically). 

 

But yeah, you're doing a good job at living well so far, I reckon.