The Tony Kendall Show

“Hello guys, welcome to The Tony Kendall Show!” A handsome, clean-shaven man with a bald head spoke to the camera and his audience. 

Tony Kendall was a former psychiatrist who loved his new talk show hosting job. The man had an ego that shimmered brighter than the diamond stud earring clipped in his ear. He also could fight like a heavyweight boxer. One night, Tony confronted a robber at a gas station. The gunman tried to rob a group of teenage girls. He attempted to steal their car, and he didn't see Tony coming up behind him. Tony wrestled the gun out of the robber's hand. He body slammed the man after punching him in the face a few times and rattling his teeth. Tony shocked the group of girls when it looked like he appeared out of nowhere to them. The talk show host transformed into a hero that night. He felt good knowing he protected a group of girls who were all old enough to be his daughters. Tony wasn't a guy you wanted to pick a fight with. He had a bulky physique and he towered over most of the guests who came on his show. The talk show host sported a naturally curly, mahogany brown beard. He also sported expensive jewelry on his body that made him look more like a hip-hop mogul than a talk show host. Since Tony loved hip-hop, he chose 50 Cent’s Ayo Technology as the show’s theme song.

Most often, Tony would wear his signature, midnight black, three-piece designer suit, which had a tight fit over his large muscular build. Life gave Tony a second chance. The talk show host spent most of his teenage years as a drug dealer. At 19, Tony had become a street king. He would intimidate rival gang leaders using his growing business and his entourage. Sometimes he would use his fists or a machine gun to get his point across. At other times he would use cutthroat business deals, which would undermine his competition. 

Back then, Tony saw himself as a street entrepreneur. He took pride in running multiple businesses, such as his car chop shop business, his partner ownership of a strip club and prostitution service, and his underground narcotics distribution service. Tony was the king of Brooklyn, New York, or so he thought he was. One day, he bought his mother a brand new Mercedes. Before he could give his mother the keys to her ride, a drive-by shooter interrupted Tony’s gift-giving moment. Getting shot eight times in his chest, back, and legs changed Tony’s life forever. 

Tony would never forget lying on the cold and wet ground with his mother crying over him. He would never forget how his mother held him in her arms, and he’d never forget seeing his blood smeared across the front part of his mother’s dress. He could feel the bullets lodged in his body. Tony saw himself dying that day, but God spared his life. The talk show host walked with a limp because he still had a bullet fragment lodged deep in his left knee. Tony kept the bullet fragment in his knee as a reminder of how close he came to death. 

Tony thanked God every day for giving him a second chance at life. He also thanked God for giving him the ability to help people. Tony never dreamed that he would go from being a drug dealer to a psychiatrist, and then to a TV talk show host by the age of 43. It seemed like Tony’s life was rising to its peak. The Tony Kendall Show brought in millions of viewers. Each week the show’s ratings would increase. Tony would invite many guests on his show. He would have the pleasure of interviewing A-list celebrities while also interviewing and helping regular people who struggled with life addictions. 

It was a beautiful afternoon for Tony Kendall, and the talk show host announced his next guest to the audience. The man made himself comfortable on stage and he kept looking at his 72-year-old mother who was sitting in the audience giving her son a proud gaze. 

“Hi, Mama!” Tony caused his audience members to laugh when he waved at his mother, which was something he would often do before starting his show. Tony’s mom, Gloria, would stand up and wave to new members of the audience every time her son would introduce her. Tony’s mother looked fantastic for her age. She had a petite and shapely body, and she barely had a wrinkle on her face. Tony would joke about his mother’s youthful beauty by calling her a white-haired teenage princess. 

Gloria loved it whenever her son would make her presence known. The woman felt honored by her son. She also never dreamed that one day she would see her son transform into a beautiful man. 

“I would like to invite our next guest, or should I say, guests!” Tony put his hands together while speaking to the camera and leaning forward in his stage recliner. “Today, I’ll be interviewing a mother and her daughter, Tiffany and Mya Ramirez!” Tony stood up after introducing the women. When he saw the women appear on stage, it amazed him how the women looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. 

Tony hugged the women before guiding them to a sofa next to his recliner. The talk show host admired the beautiful resemblance between Tiffany and her mom. He could see that Tiffany was Hispanic. She had an oval-shaped face, high cheekbones, wide golden-hazel eyes, and a delicately slender nose that complimented her full red lips. 

Tiffany’s mother, Mya, looked like her daughter’s twin. The only difference was that she had a thicker face and body. Both women had a supermodel level of beauty. Their angelic faces, their curvaceous physiques, their long, flowing cappuccino-brown hair, and their tight-fitting, scantily clad dresses made them look like two Hispanic Barbie doll fashion models. 

“Tiffany found out something terrible from her mother.” Tony went back to speaking to his audience after giving Tiffany and her mother a warm embrace. “Tiffany’s mother told her a devastating story about her father. What do you do when your mother tells you that your father was a rapist and that your birth was a product of that rape?” Tony heard an audible gasp in the audience after he finished his last sentence. The talk show host continued to speak to his audience members and the camera with a grim tone in his deep voice. He slowly leaned back in his recliner while folding his legs. “Would you still want to be with your father after finding out that he raped your mother? That’s the dilemma that poor Tiffany is facing.” Tony reached over to take hold of Tiffany’s hand. He looked over at Tiffany’s mother, who had tears shimmering in her eyes. 

“At first, I didn’t want to tell my daughter what happened to me,” Mya spoke after Tony told her to share her heartbreaking story to the audience. “I was 26 years old when it happened. I was working part-time as a waitress at a nightclub. I didn’t enjoy being a waitress, but I needed the money so I could pay off my student loans.” Mya paused for a second while swallowing and moving her hair behind her ears. 

“So what happened that night, Honey? How did you get assaulted?” Tony guided Mya back to the major part of her story because he knew that’s what his audience wanted to hear most of all.

Mya dabbed her eyes with a piece of Kleenex that Tony gave her. “I thought I had to work extra hours that night. The nightclub seemed more crowded than normal. My boss surprised me when he told me I could go home for the night.” Mya took a deep breath before proceeding with her story. “My boss told me I could go home, but he wanted me to meet a group of men first. I didn’t know who these men were, and I wanted to say no. But I didn’t want to say no to my boss because I knew he would tell me to go home and not come back. He was a boss you couldn’t say no to. He was a big man and he loved to smoke cigars. He pretended to be nice, but he had a nasty temper. He took me to a secret backroom near his office. I didn’t know the nightclub had a secret backroom until he showed it to me. When he took me into the room, there was a group of men just standing there in the middle of the room. The men had on black suits and a few of the men looked like teenagers. The room was a little dark, so it was kind of hard to see the faces of all the men.” Mya paused while looking down at her lap.

Every member of the audience had their eyes glued on Mya, including Tony’s mother, who was staring at Mya with her fingers over her mouth. 

“I knew something bad would happen to me when I saw those men in the room.” Mya’s child-like voice trembled. “I panicked as soon as my boss brought me into the room. I remembered screaming and I tried to run, but my boss grabbed me before shutting the door and locking it. He kept telling me not to cry and that everything would be okay.” Mya gasped while wiping her nose. “I just remember screaming and I tried to fight but my body went numb. I saw myself getting gang raped by all the men in the room. But only one man raped me, and the rest of the men were spectators. My boss pushed me into the arms of this young man. He had on sunglasses and he had a thin mustache. He was tall and skinny and he had spiky, dirty blonde hair.”

Tiffany looked around at her mom with tears in her eyes. The young woman was still holding Tony’s hand. It was hard for her to hear her mother’s tragic story a second time while sitting on stage in front of a live audience. 

“So the man who raped you was a young guy?” Tony asked Mya while giving the woman a sympathetic stare. He watched as Mya slowly nodded her head. “I know this is hard for you and your daughter,” Tony said while reaching past Tiffany to touch her mother’s hand. Tony was leaning forward in his recliner and he had both women by the hand. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when Mya continued with her story.

“It was a young man who raped me. He looked almost Asian. He was handsome and he had a gold tooth. I can remember his crooked smile and he had dimples. He looked like a teenager.” Mya paused again. The woman kept taking deep breaths, and she’d grip Tony’s hand whenever she would start talking again. “I couldn’t do anything. My body felt paralyzed. I was down on the floor with this man on top of me. He never took off his sunglasses, and he kept smiling down at me while unfastening my pants. He entered me and when he began raping me, the other men started clapping and cheering. My mind went blank. I left my body. I wasn’t even crying anymore. I just remember smelling the young man’s cologne. I can remember his white turtleneck and his black suit jacket. I can remember his pretty-boy face, his crooked smile, and his gold tooth. When he kissed me on my lips, I could smell the alcohol on his breath. When he kissed me, that’s when I blacked out.” Mya fell silent and she swallowed hard while dabbing tears off her face. 

There was a brief silence from Tony and the audience members. The silence was heavy and gloomy, like a dark, massive cloud. Two minutes passed before Tony spoke out his thoughts.

“It breaks my heart to hear this story,” Tony spoke softly to the audience. He shook his head while releasing a grieving sigh. The talk show host wanted to give Mya a hug and a kiss. He could feel the mother’s pain, and he kept his teary eyes on Mya while caressing her hand. Tony put himself in Mya’s shoes. He imagined himself as a woman being raped. He imagined how he would feel if someone violated his body. Tony wanted to take away Mya’s emotional pain. He also wanted to take away the emotional pain that her daughter was going through. 

Tiffany reached over to hold her mother’s hand when her mother finally gave in to her tears. The young woman was still holding Tony’s hand and she waited to reveal something to the talk show host. 

“My mom knows the man who raped her.” Tiffany began talking to Tony after she saw that her mother was too distraught to speak again. “She blacked out while the man was raping her and when she woke up, she was in the back seat of a limousine. She told me that the rapist, my father, put her in the limousine’s back seat and told the driver to take her home.” Tiffany sniffed while wiping a tear off the side of her nose. She stopped talking for a minute and she stared at Tony with an intense sadness in her beautiful eyes.

“What is it, Baby?” Tony asked Tiffany with sincere concern in his bearded face. The man held Tiffany’s hand close to his chest as he leaned closer. He wanted to cry while looking at the lost anguish in Tiffany’s tear-soaked eyes. “You said that your mother knew the rapist? Who was he, Sweetheart? Tell the audience who he was. A man who would do such a terrible thing to your mother should have his identity revealed to the world! People should know the name of this rapist! I know a few police officers who watch my show and they can use this asshole’s name to track him down and arrest him!” Tony began preaching to Tiffany, his audience, and the camera. He wanted justice for Tiffany and her mother, and he waited for Tiffany to reveal the identity of her rapist father on national television. 

Tiffany licked her lips before reaching out to touch Tony’s face. “My mother told me to forgive the man who raped her and got her pregnant. She told me to forgive my father.” Tiffany’s soft and raspy voice echoed out to the audience. The young woman never took her hand off Tony’s face. 

A slightly puzzled glint arose in Tony’s eyes when Tiffany raised her hand to his face and began stroking her slender fingers through his beard. The talk show host didn’t understand why Tiffany was caressing his face, but he didn’t mind her touch. 

Tiffany took a deep breath. The young woman looked at the audience before speaking again. “The man who raped my mother was…” 

Tony’s ears pricked up. The man placed his eyes on Tiffany’s lips and his mouth tightened. Tony couldn’t wait to hear the man’s name. He couldn’t wait for Tiffany to expose the rapist. 

“Tony Kendall,” The man’s first and last name rolled out from between the young woman’s lips like cigarette smoke. After saying Tony’s name to the audience, Tiffany slowly returned her sweet gaze to her talk show host father. She could see that all the blood drained out of his face. “You raped my mother. When she woke up in the limousine, she found a small box sitting beside her. She opened the box and there was a gold, heart-shaped locket necklace inside. She also found a letter inside the box.” Tiffany took her hand away from Tony’s face so she could reach into her purse to pull out the letter. The young woman also pulled out the locket necklace that Tony gave her mother.

Tony’s breath got stuck in his throat when he saw the gold necklace and the letter. The man broke out into a full-blown sweat. He tried to breathe, but his breathing was shallow. Tony still had Tiffany’s other hand. He felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him. At first, the talk show host thought someone was pranking him. He thought that maybe it was his floor director, Jennifer. A woman who was known for being a prankster on the show. But Tony felt a dreadful weight in his stomach when he saw Tiffany pull the letter and the necklace out of her purse. He knew for sure that what was happening to him was very real. Tony’s memory came flooding back to him when he looked down at the letter in Tiffany’s hand. He had forgotten what he did when he was 19 years old, probably because of the high level of alcohol he consumed that night. 

“Dear Lady,” Tiffany read her father’s letter. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I hope that you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. The necklace is a gift representing my sincere apology to you. What I did to you was unspeakable and I am so sorry. Please don’t hate me. I’m a young and stupid punk. I’m trying to write this letter to you and I’m drunk at the moment. I was drunk when I raped you, but I don’t blame the alcohol for my actions. I know I’m a monster, but I’m asking you to please forgive me. May God curse me for the rest of my life for what I did. Sincerely, Tony Kendall.” Tiffany lifted her pretty eyes back up at Tony after reading his letter.

“I forgive you, Sweetie,” Mya said to Tony after finding her voice. “I wanted you to meet your daughter.” The woman added while reaching past her daughter to touch Tony’s hand again.

Tony couldn’t talk anymore while staring at Tiffany and her mother. The man didn’t know that he would meet his daughter under tragic circumstances. He didn’t know that a crime he committed over twenty years ago would come back to haunt him on his talk show. Tony still had his daughter’s hand. He went into shock as he looked around at his audience members, wondering if it would be a perfect time for a commercial break.