Name: Violet Razor

Born: Southwark, London, England, January 10th, 1959

Died: London, England, January 10th, 1985

 

The night Violet Razor was born, the snow in Southwark, London had reached drifts of up to 50 centimeters deep. The cottage she was born in had been abandoned, with no electricity or running water. Candles lit the inside of the cottage on Old Kent Road as Violet’s mother, Ariel, an erotic artist and diamorphine addict, squeezed Violet Reznick out of her womb. The moment the infant Violet emerged from the warm, darkness into the cold, harsh world she would come to know, Violet began to scream, and she didn’t stop until she was killed with a whisper exactly 27 years later.

 

The first sensation Violet felt, excepting the cold that engulfed her at the moment of birth, was the scorching heat from a set of candles and hot wax when her Mother’s pimp dropped her on the floor attempting to separate her from her Mother by chewing through the umbilical cord. Her pimp, an associate of George Cornell, infamous gangster and underground pornographer, ignored the child and completed his work. He had birthed many children, but had never experienced one he didn’t have to spank to clear out the lungs. Violet’s Mother collapsed in exhaustion as the pimp lifted the baby and took her to a smaller, adjoining room in the cottage. He gently cleaned her, studied her face curiously and realized that Violet was special. He almost hesitated to hold her to his chest, having never experienced the glow of such a special child. But, he could get the girl’s Mother back to work much sooner without a child getting in the way, special or not.

 

The pimp gently pressed Violet’s face into the plump area where the shoulder meets the chest. When the baby seemed to fall silent, attempting another breath but receiving no air, the faint sound of “Who’s Sorry Now” by Connie Francis drifted in through one of the broken windows. When he was almost certain the child must be dead, he lifted her limp body from his. She was no longer breathing. From behind him, a scream of rage shattered the silence as Violet’s Mother, straight razor in hand, sliced her pimp’s throat, bathing the three of them in the geyser of blood that spewed from his severed artery. Violet landed on the cold, wooden floor, and gasped, able to scream again. The pimp’s body slumped nearby. And thuis Violet Reznick, was brought into this world.

 

Violet and her Mother survived the night, huddled against the pimp’s cooling body. The next day, her Mother visited George Cornell, explaining what she did and why she did it. George, after beating Violet’s Mother in places she wouldn’t bruise, inspected the baby, much as the pimp had, and held her close to him. Not to smother her, but because he could tell she was a very special child. And so, in the first and only show of mercy George Cornell ever gave, he allowed the Mother to leave, but only under the condition that she and the child return once a week until he was able to put her Mother to work.

 

Her Mother did as she was told, and when it was time to work, it was time to work. Violet’s life in earnest began. Old Kent Road, it was certainly agreed, was no place to raise a child; Violet was no exception. From the earliest age she bore witness to acts of depravity, common in the London criminal underworld. However, Uncle George, as he had become known to her, would viciously attack anyone who even dared suggest the child participate in any of these acts. Although exposing her to a life no child should ever know, he protected her from the elements that surrounded them, until shortly after her seventh birthday when Ronnie Kray shot and killed him in Whitechapel, taking over all of his interests, including Violet and her Mother. The Krays, Ronnie and his twin brother, Reggie, had no interest in protecting the child, and considered greater profit to be found in allowing her to participate in those same depravities she had only witnessed until now.

 

Violet’s Mother made a deal with them that she would give twice her normal percentage to them if they would leave Violet alone. They agreed. When The Krays were arrested, shortly after Violet’s ninth birthday, her Mother was arrested as well, along with fourteen other members of the gang. Violet was then taken in by Eloise Gustav and Hermione Trumble, two of the last remaining members of the Elephant Gang, and not by any sign of altruism on their part. The two of them attempted to instruct Violet on the finer points of fingersmithing, dipping, and running the grift. Despite Violet’s finesse and natural talent at criminal activity, especially from one so young, Eloise and Hermione would always find some small criticism, and follow their critiques by abusing Violet both physically and verbally, calling her “The Ugly Bitch” and “Stupid Sow”. Shortly after her tenth birthday, Eloise and Hermione decided that Violet should follow in her Mother’s footsteps.

 

The first time Violet made any money for The Elephant Gang, the faint sound of “Venus in Furs” by Lou Reed drifted in through one of the broken windows. And thus Violet Reznick’s life would continue until shortly after her 13th birthday, when Eloise and Hermione were killed in a fire started in the pub beneath their flat. An arson investigation was conducted, but remains a mystery. Violet was working, in the way that she’d been taught, the night of the fire. However, on this night, at the first second in which her client was finishing his business, she told him to open his eyes. A short second after he did as he was told, her Mother’s straight razor glistened in the moonlight, and sliced through the soft gelatin of her client’s right eye. He had no time to fall away as he was shoved to the ground, the straight razor obliterating his left eye. She watched as he writhed on the floor, screaming and clutching his face; she studied him, intently, as the man clawed at his oozing sockets.  The faint sound of “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy drifted in through one of the broken windows as Violet mercifully ended his suffering. And thus Violet Razor was born.