28 Boys

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  “Dankie, Engela. Sê vir Ma ek waardeer dit.” Thank you, Engela. Tell your mom I appreciate it.

  I turn away as soon as he has a hold on the plate, and run my bare feet back across the road as fast as I can. When I get to the kitchen I am huffing and puffing from the short jog. The baby is screaming and my mother is just sitting watching.

  His front door closes behind him, and Francis the murderer goes inside to eat my food. My skin crawls as I go to settle my wailing son, and try to get some sleep before I have to drag myself to my shitty job in the morning.

  I give Dan his dummy and he falls back to sleep right away. I wish I could sleep like he does, without the demons that invade my dreams every time I close my eyes.

  I shed my dirty clothes and slide into the single bed crammed in next to his cot. It’s so hot that I don’t even bother to cover up. I just lay in my panties.

  Prayers. I say them each night just the way my mother taught me. I don’t believe in them anymore, but I know she is standing outside my door listening to make sure they are said.

  She still believes in God, I don’t.

  Morning comes with the cries of police sirens and the curse of a new day. Every day I stay here is a curse.

  Keeping my eyes closed, I hope today is the day I can be delivered from hell. I wait for the inevitable buzz of my bedside alarm to go off, because I won’t get up until it buzzes, as if it’s not really day until it does.

  The sweltering heat has made me sweat, and I am stuck to the bedding that I lie on top of. I can feel the perspiration trickle down my spine as I try to turn over and reach the buzzing wake up call I wish I could ignore.

  The vibrating buzzing on the small wooden table wakes me, but not the baby. Maybe I can have a shower before he stirs and wants to be fed. I tiptoe down the passage, forgetting that we don’t have curtains at the windows.

  No one has been across the road that I needed to care about.

  Movement catches my eye as I dart past the window to the bathroom door. I see him see me. I slam the door, waking the baby and ruining any thought I had of a peaceful shower.

  Dan’s cry escalates and I wash my hair in record time. There isn’t a reprieve to tame the knots with conditioner; it will be a bad hair day again. There isn’t even time for the bathroom to steam up before I get out and towel off. I make sure I am covered up as I run back to my room, my wet hair dripping on the floor as I go.

  Dan has given up crying and is baby talking to himself in the cot. I get a great big gummy smile when he sees me. I have only been a mom for six months, but nothing quite compares to that little smile.

  I give him the bottle of formula that is waiting next to the bed, as I always prepare it the night before so I can at least get a shower in those five minutes.

  I hear the house come alive around me and I know Ma is up, the kettle has been flicked on and our cups are set down in front of it. Same as every morning.

  “Engela, jy gaan laat wees!” Engela, you’re going to be late.

  I’m not late, but she yells that every morning to make sure we know she is up and the tea is made. “Ek kom, Ma.” I’m coming, Mom. I yell back at her.

  My work uniform has been hung up on the door handle and I put the uncomfortable blue skirt and shirt on, before I scrape my hair back into a tight knot and stick my frizzy curls down with mousse.

  My airline scarf is tied, and my face painted according to company regulation, before I pick up my son and my shoes and head to the kitchen.

  The smell of Danial’s porridge, fresh toast and tea, make we wish I could stay. I grab my travel mug of tea while I slip into the world’s worst work shoes.

  Ma grabs Dan and puts him in his little feeding chair. I kiss him goodbye before he is covered in porridge, and I have to wear it at work all day.

  “Bye, Ma. Ek gaan laat wees.” Bye, Ma. I’ll be working late. I am taking the extra hours over shift change today. The overtime helps at the end of the month.

  I am one of the lucky ones. I got a job, a real job as ground crew for SAA at Cape Town International Airport. It’s far from home and the commute kills, the hours are terrible, and the pay is reasonable. But it is my first step to escaping this place. Because I will leave.

  I am scrounging for my keys, phone and ID badge, as I swing the front door open and step outside. The just-after-the-crack-of-dawn light filters though the smog, and the noises of violence and mayhem are quiet for a little bit.

  Breathing in the morning air - it’s not fresh, but it is outside and not the air-conditioned inside of the airport that I will be in for the next fourteen hours - I savor it.

  The bus stop is a short walk around the corner from our house, if the bus shows up, otherwise I will have to catch a taxi. As I close the small gate to our yard I look up at him, the gate is pointless since the fence on either side is no longer there, but Ma insists the gate is closed.

  Francis is standing in the same spot where I took him dinner last night. I nod my head in greeting and he smiles at me, not a meth mouth smile like his sister, but one that doesn’t go all the way to his eyes.

  “Môre, Engela.” Morning, Engela. He greets me as I turn and scurry around the corner.

  I don’t like that he smiles at me. I don’t want him to notice me.

  The fewer numbers that know I exist the better.

  I plan to get out of here.

  No one gets away alive.

  3

  Francis

  sits on the fence

  Freedom is a funny thing. All I wanted for twelve years, was out. Now I think I want to go straight back. I am not equipped to deal with the open ended nothingness of a new day.

  I stand in front of my house, and watch my sister come and go, but we haven’t said two words since the night I came home. She is addicted to meth and it will kill her - or I will. I don’t know what else to do.

  No one has come yet.

  I know they will come; I am obliged to stay loyal to the number. I won’t go seeking them out though. I am home, and the important people know it.

  It was very brave of me to come home - or stupid. I testified against a prison warden who was helping twenty-sevens get away with murder. Now I am free, but I also have a target on my back. I ratted out a murderer to get my own overlooked.

  The system is so corrupt.

  I slept with a gun in my hand last night, because I’ll never feel safe.

  The dawn has barely broken and I am standing at the gate post of my home, watching and waiting. “Môre, Engela.” I greet the girl across the road.

  She leaves in a huff, dressed in a silly uniform that makes her bum look fat. Her mother sent me dinner last night, on a paper plate. More than twelve years ago, that same Auntie who just fed me, buried her son. I earned my flag that day, I murdered a traitor.

  I killed my best friend and I assassinated myself. I became a member of a gang. While that sounds like a bad idea, when I was eventually locked away it was that flag that earned me a number, and saved me from atrocities that free folks can ever imagine.

  Remembering that phase it seems like a lifetime - not just twelve years - have passed.

  Danial was my friend. We grew up living across the street from each other, and our Ma’s went to church together every Sunday.

  We had something else in common - we never met our Pa’s. They were inside vier hoeke (four corners). These streets are a hard place for young boys. You either live by the gangs, or you’ll die by them.

  I was an easy target. They didn’t have a hard time convincing me to be a part of the machine, but Danial had a conscience. He was a stupid boy, more stupid than me. He talked to the police, he talked to his Ma, and he even told a teacher. To teach him a lesson, and to teach me how a flag is earned, I killed him. If I didn’t do it they would have killed us both.

  You cannot be friends with a snitch in this place; you are not allowed friends. You have family. Real family and gang family, but no friends. All others are enemies.

&
nbsp; Danial was my first murder, after that I killed people, not on purpose but in the crossfire of fights and the dealings that are gang business. The next time I committed a premeditated murder, it was the one that got me locked up. She was my meisie (girl), my sweet girl. I would wait outside her school to fetch her each day - also so I could sell drugs to her friends.

  Her school skirt was rolled up so short I could see her bum sticking out, plus the way her socks were pulled up to her knees and how her eyes always looked like she was about to cry, she appealed to me.

  She was mine, and then she wanted another. She left me for a Mongrel. Another traitor. I had learned a lesson about dealing with traitors, so I waited for her after school and told her we needed to talk.

  We drove to the Duineveld at the edge of the township, and I asked her to take a walk with me. I had my hand on her thigh, just under the edge of that skirt. She shook her head, and said, “Let’s talk in the car, Frankie.”

  But I didn’t want blood in my car. “Loop spam met my, Liefie.” Walk with me, Love.

  I slid my hand higher up her skirt and she put hers on top of it to stop me. That made me angry, because I saw her let him stick his fingers inside her. “Jy’s my meisie, ek kan maar vat as ek wil!” You are my girl, I can touch if I want to! I snap at her, forcing my hand past hers and to her crotch, but her cotton school-panties are blocking my way.

  “Nee Frankie, ek is nie los nie.” No Frankie, I am not a skank.

  She tries to stop me again, but she is los, she let him fuck her with his fingers. “Shut up, liefie.” (Shut up, sweetheart.)

  My fingers forced their way inside her. She was dry from the fear; she didn’t want me. I bet she wanted him though. I saw her enjoying it.

  I was a jealous boy and her slutty behavior made me so angry. The next time she asked me to stop I slapped her across the face, it left a mark that quickly turned blue. I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to teach her a lesson, then deal with her betrayal.

  “Climb on me,” I snarl at her, as I push my pants down, still sitting in the driver’s seat.

  She shook her head, so I hit her again to make her listen. The tears in those big, brown, crying eyes made me hard. Her fear fed my ego, and I ripped those horrible cotton-panties off her and shoved them in her mouth. No one could hear her scream, but I’d rather not have my eardrums burst.

  I pulled her shirt open, so I could see her white-cotton bra and the way her breasts rose and fell as she heaved in each breath. My meisie was a beautiful girl. I raped her. I forced her to ride my cock in the front seat of the car, and I enjoyed her torture.

  You see, with Danial gone I had no conscience, and no rules other than gang rules in my life. When I was done I drove her to a tickey box and made her call him, to tell him she wanted to see him in the Duine for some fun.

  It was fun. I had a lot of fun watching him beg me for his life, but I had more fun watching her cry. Then I had the most fun as I raped her again, and again, while he watched me.

  The highlight of my day was watching her see me put a bullet between his eyes. She was MY meisie.

  I left her, and his dead body, there in the dunes, with the sand blowing over them as the afternoon wind began to gale. The sand stuck to her tearstained face and his blood. I watched her hold him like she loved him, and I should have killed her too, but she was my meisie.

  I was jealous of that sand stuck to her skin, I wanted to be that close to her -to anyone.

  That night I was arrested. The police dragged me from my bed and I was taken to Pollsmoor Prison. The juvenile-awaiting-trial section was filled with boys just like me, only most of them are not murderers and rapists, they are thieves and drug dealers. Petty criminals, training for bigger things. I am bigger things - I am fucking enormous.

  Well, I thought I was. After my trial, and being sentenced as an adult, I was thrown to the wolves and learned just how small I was. Lucky for me I had a flag, an allegiance to a number, or I would have been some man’s Wyfie (wifey). No, I came into the Twenty-Eights on a golden line, a blood line.

  The first thing I did to cement a position of power was stab my warden in the eye - another charge, another sentence, but it saved my life.

  It was there inside the walls of hell that I met my father, and later gave the order for him to die. I rose quickly to the rank of general in the 28’s because I have a thirst for blood that isn’t easily quenched.

  My heart beats three times a year. I am a soldier, not a Wyfie (wifey), I am forever a fighter and never a lover.

  I killed a lot of boys in prison, it’s easy in there to commit murder and get away with it. My golden number was twenty-one dead by the time I was released.

  I killed twenty-one people and am free as bird.

  As I sit here waiting for the time to pass and the streets to come alive with the day, I see the Auntie across the street watching me. She has a baby in her arms but her eyes are on me.

  I murdered her son and she forgave me, now I am home and she is the only person who cares enough to welcome me back at all. Engela didn’t seem to share her mother’s feelings; she was just a kid when I was locked up. Her brother was just the first boy that died by my hands.

  My hands, covered not only in blood but gang symbols and prison tattoos - my hands are dirty. Always dirty.

  You cannot wash away murder, or rape, or any of the things I have done. No, those things stain you right to the core. Even if I peeled off this rotten skin, I would still be stained inside.

  My one hand is now resting on the gun that is tucked into my pants, and the other taps rhythmically on the wall that I lean against. I miss the hypnotic sounds of the prison bowels, where sounds told the time. The noises around us were the clock that never ticked over; life is on pause inside.

  A dark car, with tinted windows and music so loud it rattles the windows of the house behind me, stops at my gate.

  Here they are.

  I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone came to see what I was doing. I am doing nothing. I don’t want to do anything yet, I just want to be free for a minute. I turn around and go inside.

  The house is disgusting, and aside from the rotten couch there is nothing in it, but it’s my house. I close the front door behind me, hoping they will understand that I am not ready to be bothered yet.

  My hopes are in vain, as minutes later there is a loud knock on the door. I try to ignore it - they might go away. Your past doesn’t just go away though, it is with you, in you, and always right behind you.

  They leave - this time.

  I shower in the filthy bathroom and put my dirty clothes back on. I need to go and collect my money so I can get this place fixed, and myself looking less like a homeless prisoner. I am going to get my life together. I may not be free of the gangs but I am free of prison, and I plan to live a little bit.

  The papers the lawyer gave me, when I left, have a bank account and some other documents in them. I had a bank account before I went to jail, I even had a lot of money in it, and it looks like they have given it back. I just have to go there and get a new card.

  It’s like my life was just on pause, and now someone pressed play and I am scrambling to catch up to the rest of the world around me. I grab the plastic packet full of papers, and the rest of my belongings, and head out of the door. It’s a short walk to the bus stop.

  There are young gang runners hanging around the bus stop and I see them pointing and whispering, whipping out phones to take my picture and report my presence to those higher up. I flash them my firearm and they run off laughing like hyenas.

  I get on the shitty public transport bus and sit in a corner, hoping to be left alone. In prison I knew who I was surrounded by, who was on my side and who wasn’t - I didn’t have to be suspicious of every person who walked past me. Now I trust no one, not even my own number. I am afraid that my freedom will be cut short by death.

  The bus doors open in town, near the mall and the banks. I disembark and keep m
y head down; I am not here for trouble. I want my money and a cell phone, and maybe a book to read. The house is lonely, and the nights are long for someone who is used to never sleeping.

  The lady in the bank looks at me with judging eyes, but gives me a new bank card and a statement for my account. There is a decent sum of money in there. Ma’s insurances all paid out to me, but because I was in jail it was all just sitting there.

  As I walk out of the bank I feel dirtier than I am, and judged by every person who looks me up and down; the tattoos on my face give my identity away. I am a gangster and the whole world can see it.

  “Francis.”

  A voice says my name and I look up without thinking. I don’t see anyone I immediately recognize, so I keep walking.

  “Francis, is that you?”

  The voice is right behind me now. I turn around to a face I remember so well. “Eiran?” I acknowledge my old friend.

  He was a part of the gang, a brother, and someone I thought I would never see again. He is dressed in smart street clothes, and doesn’t look like a member of the gang any longer. Only his skin markings give him away.

  “You are out. I never thought you would be a free man.”

  His statement hurts a little, but I don’t really deserve to be free. “I made a deal,” I answer, uncomfortable with human interaction. I am not sure if he is on my side or not.

  “Me too, my friend. Sometimes we make a deal with another devil, to escape the one we know,” he says.

  Truer words he couldn’t speak. I look around us, where people are walking up and down the street. “I need to go get a phone and some clothes, I look like a prison escapee. Will jy lunch eet?” Do you want lunch?

  “Can we eat while I work?”

  I nod, and we cross the road to a hole in the wall take-away. I pay for our food. “Jy lyk heel ordentelijk, wat werk doen jy?” You look so civilized, what work are you doing now? I ask him as we walk down the bustling pavement.