Writing in Reverse- Vedo's Crossword

The following short story was written as a creative writing exercise. By observing photographs of people on the subway we were able to create stories surrounding their subway ride.

Vedo Giudice was a Jersey man, he lived across the Hudson with his wife and boys. Most of his extended family, consisting of brothers, brothers in law, first cousins, second cousins, cousins once or twice removed, all lived in the SoHo/Little Italy district of Manhattan. The family business was a decent restaurant called 'Giudice's Italian Cuisine' and this was where Don, the Boss, lived and ruled. He was a second cousin once removed of Vedo's and was the top dog around. The Giudice's had long been a mob family, spanning many generations, so basically everyone who was related belonged. Vedo wasn't the toughest guy there ever was, so he was never one to talk and sort out things, he just had to clean up.

Every morning Vedo had to cross on the Staten Island Ferry over too the Manhattan harbor and from there walk to the station that went strait to SoHo. It was his morning routine to do the New Jersey Chronicle's crossword puzzle to, you know, keep his mind nimble. On this particular April morning, Vedo was fading, he could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone do the crossword. The night before he had to work overtime because there were too many bodies for one person to get rid of, so Vedo had to come along and dispose of the bodies. The men that he had to saw up were some of the brothers of the rivaling Don and it was a messy death they met. So anyways, Vedo was tired and not looking forward to having to go to Giudice's. As he started walking down in to the harbor subway station he smelt a wave of fresh coffee floating below his nostrils. Now usually Vedo just ate at Giudice's but sometimes he would treat himself to some stand coffee and he felt that today was the day. The coffee immediately made him feel like himself again and so he started down into the station, caught the train heading south. He sat by the door rocking side to side with the movement of the train feeling rather depressed about his lot in life, disposing of bodies, when he had arrived at his station. He got back out into the crisp New York air and slowly started walking towards Little Italy, as he walked he heard a lot of shouting and scuffling, but that was the normal background noise in this part of town. As he approached Guidice's he noticed how everything was silent and it seemed as though no one was inside. He got closer and realized that there was blood splattered on the window. Vedo froze, this could only mean one thing: a shootout. He slowly opened the door and gazed at the massacre of his entire family. There were bullet holes in every part of their bodies and not a breath was issued. Everything started making sense to Vedo, he had a feeling that the rivaling Don was not going to take the previous night's excursions lightly and sure enough, he didn't. Slowly Vedo turned around, closed the door and started off back to the subway station headed towards the harbor.

*Image taken from BillSullivanWorks