by Kurt Ellis
With a heavy sigh, Kyle stood up and yanked aside the curtain that served as a door. He squeezed his way into the tiny kitchen. The space between the rusting refrigerator and the rusting cupboard was only slightly wider than shoulder width. He removed the large breyani pot from the stove, carried it into the bathroom and set it down in the rough cement bath. He opened the tap and let the cold water gush in. The stream pinged off the thin metal. The geyser hung precariously over the bath. It had broken long before Kyle arrived here three months ago, and it looked as if it would remain broken for quite a while longer. In order to get hot water for a bath, they had to boil the water on the stove.
Kyle took his toothbrush from the windowsill and swept it under the stream of cold water. He took the cut-open tube of Colgate toothpaste and scraped the soft bristles around the inside. The next part he hated. The part when he had to look at himself in the mirror. He raised his eyes to his reflection and a brown-faced boy with full lips and sharp cheekbones looked back at him. His jet-black hair looked greasy. It straggled untidily across his head and begged to be cut – his fringe reached his eyebrows. His jaw-line and chin showed slight stubble, but he could wait another day before he had to shave. Shaving blades were not cheap, and he and Captain shared a packet between them. A few girls had told him once that he was cute, but he could not see why they thought so. He did not like that boy looking back at him in the mirror.
What he hated most was his eyes. Those dark, almost black orbs that had seen so much. Too much. Every time he had to look into them, he saw an emptiness that disturbed him. Behind those eyes, he saw nothing but a hollow, black void. Then, as if someone had pressed the play button on a video machine inside his brain, he would see a repeat of all the things he had witnessed. All that blood. All those tears. And then there was the audio. He would remember the screaming and crying. The cursing and begging. Those damn eyes of his were the eyes of a frightened little boy. A weak little boy. He wanted to hurt that boy looking back at him. To put his fist through the reflective glass, right between the eyes, and to tell that boy: “MAN UP! Stop being a bloody baby and be a man, dammit. Get over it!”
He fought the urge. Instead, he bowed his head to the stained toilet and began to scrub his teeth. Pretty soon, he got the rusty taste of blood. He had brushed too hard again.
He rinsed out his mouth, carefully carried the heavy pot back to the stove and turned the plate on high.
“Is that for me? Damn, bru, you shouldn’t have.”
Captain had woken and made his way into the kitchen. Kyle turned to face his cousin, who was only two months older than he was.
“Did I?” Kyle smiled. “I think you’re still sleeping, Captain. The only time I’ll put water on for you is in your dreams.”
Captain grinned. “Oh, it’s like that, cuz? Aight, I will remember that.”
Captain sidestepped his way through the kitchen and into the lounge. With a swagger, he made his way over to the television set and switched it on.
Kyle eased himself into the single chair opposite the couch on which Captain was lounging. The closed door to his right led to a bedroom. Aunt May’s snores were reverberating off the walls; they seemed to be trying to drown out Bill Flynn on The Toasty Show. The sour smell of the previous night’s wine and cigarettes still lingered in the air. Captain’s mother had been having a good time again.
“So what time did you get home last night?” Kyle asked.
“’Bout half past one. I was over at Nazneen’s place, then went past the brus at the Boggies. Then we met up with Lazarus to do some business at the beach.”
Kyle nodded slowly. Captain and the Godfathers always hung out in a park behind Disney Heights, a block of flats in the area, and the Boggies was a specific bench they liked to sit on. He always thought of the Boggies as Captain’s throne.
“What business at the beach?”
Captain cocked his head to the side and gave Kyle a look that said: Really? You know better than to ask me about my business.
Kyle smiled. “Forget it.”
Captain was a few inches taller than Kyle and his frame was thinner. Kyle was far more muscled, thanks to Charlie’s insistence on a high-protein diet and weightlifting at the gym to build his bulk. Charlie loved to say, “English football is not a walk in the park. You can’t be a poof. You must get big. You must get strong.”
Captain shared Kyle’s complexion and his straight black hair, except Captain’s hair was cropped short. He had a home-made tattoo on the right side of his chest, with the letters “GF” above a gun in green ink. His lower abdomen showed a small circular scar, from where a bullet had pierced his body when he was fourteen years old. Around this bullet wound was another green tattoo, shaped like a star surrounding the scar tissue, with above it the letters “BAMN”. This had two meanings. The first was the sound of the gunshot that had sent the bullet into his body. But BAMN also stood for “By Any Means Necessary”, a life motto that their grandfather had greatly believed in and had taught them. If Captain turned his back to Kyle at that moment, Kyle knew he would see a long, thin scar by his left shoulder blade. This had been made by a knife. There was a smaller scar made by another knife on his right forearm, and another on his left forearm. The one on the left arm, though, had not been made by a weapon. It had been caused when Kyle and Captain climbed a mango tree in a neighbour’s back yard when they were about ten years old. Captain had fallen and his arm had been impaled on a branch. There was more body art on his back, but this had been professionally done. Or rather, done by their artist friend Wahied with the professional tattoo kit he had bought. The tattoo was a phrase stretched across his upper back and his shoulders. It read in an arc of black ink: Only God Can Judge Me.
Kyle looked at his cousin and could not help but wonder at how things had changed. Kyle, Captain and their cousin Jimmy had grown up together and had spent almost every weekend in each other’s company. In primary school, Kyle and Captain used to beat up any kid who teased young Jimmy about his lisp. Kyle, too, had had a lisp. It had taken him countless hours of staring at his mouth in the mirror as he spoke to conquer his affliction. But even before he won the battle of the slurred speech, it would have taken a brave person to tease him. Just like Captain, Kyle would not hesitate to get physical. They both understood the language and the rules of being a bruinou. Violence answers violence. An eye for an eye was the first and only amendment in the Coloured Constitution. You tease me, I tease you back, but worse. You strike me, I strike you back, but harder. You pull a knife on me, I will pull a gun on you. But Jimmy was the complete opposite. Jimmy was soft. He was far too timid for his own good and was often the victim of mocking and bullying. And because the bullies couldn’t get to him after school due to his big cousins being around, Jimmy was tormented in class. Or so Kyle had suspected. Jimmy hated school, despite being a very good pupil. He had the misfortune of being a full year younger than Kyle and Captain, which meant he was a full year behind his older cousins in school. But out of school they were still inseparable.
That all ended when Kyle’s father lost his job. Just as Kyle entered high school, the family had to move to an outbuilding in Greenwood Park. Kyle had lost all contact with Captain and Jimmy for over four years. Then, it had happened, and now he was back in Sydenham, to live with Captain and his mother in their cockroach-infested home until he completed his high school education in six months’ time. That was six months too long for his liking. It was not as if he did not appreciate them taking him in, but he just couldn’t help feeling that he was a burden.
“Did you hear about what happened last night, ek sê?” Captain asked.
“Nope,” Kyle responded. “What happened?”
“You check,” Captain began, sitting up. “You were still at your game, I think. It was about nine, and that druggie fuck Uncle Ronnie is high on buttons or whatever the hell he was smoking. He comes home, starts his shit, and started fucking up Aunty Jean. So Jimmy tries to stop him, and that poes goes aft
er Jimmy. Now Nazneen and me just come back at that moment. This skybird sees me, and he tries to run. That old bastard actually tried to run.” Captain chuckled. “He looked like a wet, skinny chicken trying to fly. But I caught him, and I bloody thrashed him.” He smiled as he slammed his fist into the palm of his hand. “Now I don’t know if I knocked him out, or if he just passed out from being high. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was dead or not. But the cake just lay there – out cold. So I dragged him onto the road and left his ass there. I don’t see him there now, so I guess the bastard ain’t dead.” Captain shrugged. “Pity.”
This story was familiar to Kyle. Jimmy and his parents lived in the small outbuilding behind Captain’s house, and this type of incident occurred at least once a month. Uncle Ronnie would have too much to drink, or smoke some nasty drug like Mandrax, and beat up on his wife and Jimmy. Then Captain would step in, beat Ronnie up and kick him off the property, only to have Aunty Jean let him back in the next day.
Kyle knew this never-ending cycle annoyed Captain. He was the one who paid the bills in this place. He bought the groceries and paid the electricity and water. But when Aunty Jean welcomed her abusive husband back into the home, Captain’s mother would always defend her sister – even if Captain had reached his limit.
Captain wanted Uncle Ronnie off the property for good, and Kyle feared that one day his cousin would snap. That Uncle Ronnie would simply disappear.
“Seriously, Kyle, I’m getting sick and tired of that ballie. One of these days, bru, I will make sure that ballie does not come back. Mark my words. And I don’t care what Nick says. I’m telling you, Kyle, that ballie is Rumpels.”
Kyle chuckled at Captain’s words. There had been an eight-month period when they were ten years old when Jimmy and his parents had moved out of Sydenham to avoid debt collectors. They’d moved into a tiny flat in Newlands East, and Kyle could remember that he and Captain would visit on weekends. During that time, there was a spate of child rapes and murders, with bodies dumped in the sugar-cane fields and in the bush. The very same bush in which Captain, Kyle and Jimmy built camps, or where they played games. Nobody knew exactly where the monster got his name from, but all the local kids called him Rumpels. And Captain had been convinced that Uncle Ronnie, Jimmy’s father, was Rumpels. That changed when their friend Nick witnessed another man dumping a body and informed the police. A man from Newlands West named Perumal Vijay was convicted of the crimes, but Captain never changed his mind about Uncle Ronnie. He hated the very air that Uncle Ronnie breathed. Kyle had heard his cousin say many times that some people are a cancer – you just have to cut them out. And there was no person Captain wanted to cut more that Uncle Ronnie.
4
A sudden sizzle told Kyle that the water on the stove had begun to boil over. He hurried back into the kitchen and turned the knob to switch off the plate. Careful not to spill any of the scalding liquid on himself, he carried the pot over to the bathroom. Gently balancing it on the corner of the tub, he put the plug in the drain, then tipped out the steaming water. He returned the pot to the kitchen for Captain to use and hurried back before the water could cool too much. After a quick bath and a much-needed hair wash, he dried himself off. He put a small amount of gel from the large two-litre bottle he shared with Captain and Jimmy in his hair and combed it away from his face. After just two steps towards his bedroom, his hair slipped back into his eyes. In the room he changed into his school uniform. Grey pants, a white shirt and a navy-blue tie with the name of the school, Bechet Secondary School, embroidered on it. Finally dressed, he returned to the lounge to see that Captain was no longer alone, but talking to a smiling Jimmy.
Jimmy did not have the family’s dark eyes and black hair. His eyes were brilliantly blue and his brown hair flirted with being blonde. His skin was much fairer than Kyle’s and Captain’s as well. And his fair cheek was at that moment glowing ruby red and eggplant purple with a bruise – the result of fatherly love, no doubt.
“I hear you were at the club this weekend,” Kyle said, as he sat down to tie his shoelaces.
“Ja, I went with some friends from school, but I didn’t drink.” Jimmy spoke in a soft voice, as usual.
Captain’s eyes were glued to the television and the news. An attractive reporter was interviewing an old coloured man from Mitchells Plain in Cape Town. The wrinkles on his cheeks formed troughs for his tears to run through. He roughly wiped them away with the back of his hand. The man was talking about the growing drug and gang problem around him that had led to his eight-year-old granddaughter being caught by a stray bullet the day before. He spoke in Afrikaans, but Kyle managed to understand that he had called the police many times over the previous few weeks about a drug dealer’s house across the road from his own. But nobody ever came, and now his baby was dead.
“Did you go to church?” Captain asked Jimmy.
“Yup.”
“Are you lying to me? You know Father Matthews will tell me if I ask.”
Their younger cousin laughed. “I’m not lying. I was there.”
“Good.” Captain got to his feet and went to check on the water that was heating on the stove. As he walked into the kitchen he muttered something to himself, just loud enough that Kyle caught what he’d said. “This bloody country doesn’t care about bruinous.”
Jimmy followed him like a puppy. “Are you coming to school today?”
“Ja, but I will be late.”
“Do you want me to wait for you?”
“What for?” Captain scoffed as he walked into the bathroom. “I’m ducking first period. Not in the mood for trigonometry. But I’ll be there later. You, though, are not ducking nothing. You need to move your ass before you’re late.”
Kyle got to his feet. “Come on, Jimmy. Let’s get going before Mr Williams makes you pick up papers.”
Kyle removed the small diamond ring that had belonged to his mother from his baby finger and slipped it into his wallet. Jewellery was not allowed at school. Not after a boy was stabbed in the toilet for his gold chain a year earlier. “I’ll see you later at school,” he called to Captain.
They walked out of the front door and down the cement path. Cigarette butts littered the dry brown sand of the front yard. Kyle snorted. It looked as if Aunt May’s friends were hoping to grow cigarette trees. What irritated him even more was that on the table around which they always sat, drinking and smoking, there was a damn ashtray. And it was almost always empty.
They made their way down Spearman Road and up Sparks Road, talking and laughing.
“You should have been there, Kyle,” Jimmy said. “The club was jumping.”
“Maybe next time,” he responded. “Hey, has Captain said anything to you about Tyson, about him coming out?”
Jimmy kicked at a stone on the sidewalk and missed. “Captain says he doesn’t care about Tyson being released from jail. The NBKs are a thing of the past, and he’s got the backing of Lazarus, so Tyson mustn’t come start any kak.”
“Have you met this Tyson?”
Jimmy nodded. “He’s a real piece of shit. A bully. Captain says that bullies are the biggest cowards of all. They’re loud and aggressive because they just want to intimidate you. Scare you. Like a dog barking. They want you to back down before the fight because they are actually scared to fight. Captain says that if Tyson comes out barking, he will show him just how hard he can bite.”
Kyle did not respond. This was the typically confident response he would expect from Captain. The history of the Godfathers had always left Kyle feeling somewhat in awe of his cousin’s strategic mind.
The Godfathers had formerly been part of another gang, the Natural Born Killers. Captain had joined the NBKs at the age of thirteen. Their leader, Tyson, was the meanest thug around. His nickname was Tyson because some people felt that he resembled the heavyweight boxer Iron Mike Tyson. But from the photographs Kyle had seen of him, the only resemblance was the bald head and perhaps the gold teeth. Maybe the name was more ap
plicable to his personality and actions, rather than his appearance? From what Kyle had heard, Tyson was a cruel, sadistic bully who seemed to take pleasure in causing others pain. Besides his love of violence, he also had a love for other people’s property. He got arrested when he tried to hijack a Volkswagen Golf from two Indian men in Durban’s CBD. After being convicted, he was sentenced to five years in jail.
This was when Captain’s leadership qualities came to the fore. The NBKs unofficially split into two groups: the longer-serving gang members who were thirty years of age or older, and the new breed of teenage gangsters like Captain and his friend Spider. With the lack of leadership, the gang seemed on the brink of imploding, but Captain saw an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. He had a bigger vision for the gang and for himself, so he left the NBKs and founded the Godfathers. He recruited the younger NBKs to his gang with his vision and his passion, and they bought in.
The older gang members scoffed at these “lighties”, but Captain had a strategy. The next step he took was to secure the contract with Lazarus Jones. Lazarus was the biggest drug dealer on the East Coast, and the NBKs used to do some work for him now and again – transport a bag of Mandrax pills or rough up another dealer who’d tried to sell in Lazarus’s area. But he did not use them often, as the NBKs were unreliable. Captain, though, saw that this relationship could be far more fruitful if it was taken more seriously, and he proposed that the Godfathers take care of all the selling, transporting and collecting of outstanding debts for Lazarus. Lazarus, of course, was hesitant to give such responsibility to a fifteen-year-old. But Lazarus knew Captain well, as his daughter was Captain’s girlfriend at the time. So he gambled on this ambitious kid, and that gamble had paid off. In the year and a half in which the Godfathers had done work for Lazarus, they had, according to Captain, increased his profits by over sixty per cent in the coloured and Indian communities of Durban. They were responsible for distributing and selling in Sydenham, Greenwood Park, Wentworth, Marianne Ridge, Newlands East, Newlands West, Chatsworth and Phoenix. And now Captain was also starting to branch out into black areas such as Bonela, KwaMashu, Lamontville, Umlazi and Ntuzuma.
