hc - sonny's last thoughts before he is gunned down in the causeway, about sandra, lucy, his children, the don, mama, brothers and sister
i’m not crying, you’re crying
-Oh, the kids, the poor kids were the worst; he tried to think what he’d tell them, what anyone would tell them--what if this was it, really, it?
-But there was also Sandra, fuck, he could just imagine what she’d think when she saw him, all beaten and shot to shit, the poor thing
-Lucy was almost worse, she was so young and innocent, practically a kid; he couldn’t let her see a thing like this, no way in hell
-In his head he was praying now, actually praying, when the bullets hit him, heat and pain searing through his veins, his lungs, praying for the family, and for Sandy and Lucy and the kids, sure, but most of all praying for Connie, Jesus fuck, his only sister. And that piece of shit husband. But by the time his thoughts would drift to Carlo and the anger would start to bubble up out of him in a scream he couldn’t hear, it would be over, sarebbe finita, goodnight, Santino Corleone.
Disclaimer: I’d like to think this is how it played out, but I’m not sure there’d actually be room for this kind of life-flashing-before-his-eyes type moment. The scene is very raw and instinctive (much like how Sonny is as a character), and leaves little room for Sonny to have time to reflect on the important people in his life. Even as he’s frantically looking around in the tollbooth and slowly realizing what’s going on (while the tollbooth guy’s dropping the quarters, etc.), those kinds of thoughts aren’t racing through his head. It’s not that kind of death scene; it’s a different kind of death scene. He’s on alert. In crisis, the brain goes into animal mode. If anything, shortly before death, his thoughts would be dominated, for a fleeting moment, by Connie and Carlo, because that was the last thing he was going to do. Maybe after the first couple shots hit him, he was hoping to God he would stay alive/intact long enough just to make it to Connie & Carlo’s house and beat the shit out of or whack Carlo, but after that, fuhgetaboutit, rational thought has left the chat.
