Surrender Essay, Research Paper

Surrender

It happened one windy fall day. Now that I look back, I regret ever taking my little brother to town that day. It was the day before election day for the county sheriff and almost everyone was in downtown Ameriland awaiting speeches from the two most popular candidates. Ricky Coward was on first and he was rambling about crime and drug use in our “fine city.” I was listening to sheriff Coward’s speech when I noticed my younger brother was no longer by my side. Frantically I scoured through the masses to find him but I just couldn’t. After searching for about five or six minutes a police officer came up to me. “Are you Jim Alexander?” he asked. “Yes.” I replied. “We’ve found your brother. You’d better come with me.” I thought something terrible had happened so I followed the officer into the Baltic Historic Theater. He brought me to a small office room and shut the door. “Where’s my brother?” I asked, the man replied by giving me a left hook to the eye. I fell to the floor. By this time two other officers and a man dressed in a suit burst in the room. They were whispering amongst themselves, “Is he the one?” one officer said, “Yea, that’s him.” The well-dressed man replied.

The well-dressed man walked up to me slowly and confidently and said the most horrifying words I’ve ever heard uttered from man’s lips. “Do you ever want to see your brother again?” “Yes.” I replied in terror. He turned and looked at me with disgust and said “Well then you’ll do exactly what we say when we say it.” I was left speechless, I didn’t know what to say or think, my mind was racing a million miles an hour. The man took a small hand gun out of his pocket, loaded it, and slid it across the table to me. “We want you to assassinate Wilson Crown, the other candidate.” “Why?” I asked puzzled. “Shut the hell up! I’ll do the talking!” The man was enraged. “At exactly three o’clock Crown will get up and do his speech, you are to get close to him and take him out at three o’ five. If he’s not dead by then your brother will be.” He handed me the gun and told me to go. I ran out in the street crying, infuriated and distressed at the same time. I had only ten minutes before the whole thing went down. I was in a dilemma, I had no idea what I was going to do. Policemen were everywhere, letting me know that they were watching me.

About seven more minutes now. I paced around thinking desperately what to do. Finally I decided to warn Crown about the whole conspiracy to kill him. I went behind the podium where the candidate was waiting, wrote a note, handed it to him and walked away. I couldn’t risk the chance of anyone seeing me for they would surely kill my brother. I didn’t know what else to do, it was three o’ clock and Wilson Crown hadn’t got up to make his speech yet.

Struck with despair, I sat on the curb of E. Frulow street. I sat there for a good thirty seconds when I looked up and saw my brother in a white van across the street. I ran across the street and tried to open the doors of the van, they were locked. Frantically I took off my sweater, wraped it around my elbow, and busted the window. I unlocked the door, got my little brother

out, put him in the car and hauled ass back home.

I was filled with gaiety as I sat on the couch in my living room. I dared not tell my parents for they would probably dismiss it as a fairytale that I made up on the way home. My mother turned on the news and I was astonished to learn that Ricky Coward and several other members of the Ameriland Police Department were arrested for conspiring to assassinate Wilson Crown.

I was overwhelmed with relief. About thirty minutes later a man who said he was a GBI agent came to our door. It was the well-dressed man, one of the conspirators. Consumed in fright I was waiting to be shot dead on my very own kitchen floor. The man reached in his pocket slowly and pulled out warrant for my arrest. Another man barged in the door, put me up against the wall and searched me. He found the loaded revolver in my pocket. My mother was crying and my father was cursing as they put handcuffs on me and put me in the car.

So here I am now, in a federal penitentiary, just wasting away. How I got into this, I just don’t know. That still bewilders me to this day. I’m just thankful nobody got hurt.