28 Boys

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  I’m too drunk to move already, so I stay.

  It is Wednesday before I return to my home. It turns out Eiran has a bigger job than I thought, and learning all this crap is tiring.

  I have learned that about eighty percent of that job is running about after Avery, cleaning her mess, and telling her uncle what she’s doing — which is almost never what she should be doing.

  It is exhausting. What’s worse is watching him watch her, it physically hurts him. This time has made me feel like we were never apart, that those twelve years were just a weekend away from each other.

  He’s still my friend beneath those scars, and in a way Avery spared him from ending up just like the rest of us. But, I want to go home. I missed home for so long that I don’t want to be away from it; I don’t want to be away from them.

  The street is quiet when Eiran drops me outside my house. Auntie’s curtains are closed which is strange for the middle of the day, but I think nothing of it and go inside. The boys are glad I am home; we chat, and joke about the week and girls and booze. I feel young again, yet I look around at them and I feel old too.

  “Die sewes was gister oorkant, Francis.” The Sevens were across the road yesterday, Donnie says from the kitchen table. “Klomp van hulle, ek sien Tannie het nie vandag oop gemaak nie.” A bunch of them, and Auntie hasn’t opened up the house today.

  I want to bolt over there, but I need to ask some questions first.

  “Did Engela go to work this morning?” He nods. The guy is like a security camera, he watches everything, all the time. “And did all of them leave?”

  “She went to work. She ran to the bus this morning, but I am not sure if they all left. Kan nie vir seeker sê nie.” I can’t say for sure.

  Shit!

  “Okay, ek gaan Auntie groet. Ek will sien of alles reg is.” I’m going over to say hello, I want to check that things are okay. I am moving before we talk any more. “Next time you phone me, né (right).”

  It takes exactly eight strides from my front gate to theirs, and another five to get to the front door. I knock five times.

  I see Auntie peek at me through the curtains and then pull them closed again. I don’t hear her coming. There is no movement. There’s a soft sound from Dan that is hushed too quickly for my liking.

  “Auntie, is jy hier?” Auntie, are you here?

  “Gaan weg Francis, hull kyk vir ons. Gaan weg seun, dis beter so.” Go away Francis, they are watching us. It’s better if you go.

  I will not fucking go away.

  “Auntie, maak oop of ek breek die deur af.” Auntie, open up or I will break the door down.

  The chain rattles and the door opens a crack. “Francis, not today please. Please, just go home.”

  I catch the shine of the bruise around her left eye, and she’s cradling her arm like it’s hurting.

  “They hurt you?”

  My eyes obviously giveaway my intention.

  “Francis, los dit uit. Gaan huis toe. Ons het jou nie nodig nie.” Leave it, just go home. We don’t need you. She starts closing the door. “Don’t prove me wrong, just do the right thing. Go home.”

  The Yale lock clicks closed as she shuts me out of their lives and sends me away. The violent anger burning in me, for someone to pay for this, is hard to ignore. Walking straight home is even harder.

  I look down the road and I see them hanging about on the corners, watching, looking, telling. I am buzzing, they violated what is mine and now I want to kill them.

  I’m supposed to be done with killing; they are making that very hard for me. It is only intensified by the way she shut the door on me, turned me away and refused the help I wanted to offer.

  I’m livid.

  When I slam the door behind me so hard the house rattles with the aftershock, I get the attention of the men that now work for me, rather than opposed to me. They all look at me for instructions, loyal and ready to fight at my side. These men have become my family while I wasn’t looking.

  “Leave it.” I bark at them. “What time does she finish work? Anyone know? If we don’t, fucking find out.”

  Donnie starts texting like a teenager on his phone and after only seconds answers me. “She’s working delays, so only after ten tonight.”

  That’s still hours away. “Thanks.”

  I will go fetch her, she’s not getting on bus with that lot around, just the thought has my hackles up.

  “Donnie, I will fetch her, but you go wait at the airport. Sit, drink coffee, do anything, I don’t care, just watch that she is okay.”

  He nods his head and gets up from his spot at the table.

  “Francis, she’s theirs,” he says, stating the obvious.

  “No, she’s fucking mine,” I roar back, just so we are clear about this.

  “Ek sê ma net, die fight is nie ons’n nie.” I’m just saying this isn’t our fight.

  He knows nothing about fighting.

  “Just go, before I hurt you.”

  Parking illegally behind the bus I know she catches home, I see her coming from inside. Clever girl didn’t wait outside tonight.

  Behind her, Donnie follows casually. She glares at him over her shoulder. No doubt she’s seen him in and out of my house.

  He stops and waits a few beats for her to get ahead. There is fire in her eyes when she sees me parked here, and defiance. I know she won’t come without a fight. In her moment of pause Donnie slips on the bus in front of her, the doors shut quickly, and before she can catch up the bus pulls off.

  Good boy.

  The door locks click open and I lift a brow at her, waiting for her to just surrender and get in my car. Eventually she pulls the door open, hard enough that it might snap off its hinges, and sulks into the seat with a huff and puff. Shoving her bag between her feet in the foot well, she glares at me with daggers.

  “Why are you here, Francis?” she asks, as I lock the doors and pull away.

  “Because your mother’s been hurt, and you didn’t call me.” The way I say it lets her know I am not happy with her. “I had no idea.”

  “Well you would have if you came home sometime, Francis. We are not your problem anyway.”

  She gets snippy with her answers and folds her arms across her chest, trying to block me out, but I’m already inside her head.

  “I have a job Engela, I was working.”

  “With Eiran, I know – daai skelm.” That crook. She’s looking at me now. “Ek wil nie eers weet watse werk doen julle twee nie. Dit kan niks goed wees nie.” I don't want to know what kind of work you two do, it can't be anything respectable.

  “He isn’t what you think he is, Engela. Twelve years is a long time, people change.”

  “Have you changed Francis? or are you still a murderer?”

  The knife goes in a little deeper with that comment. “You’re the only person who knows me, why don’t you tell me Engela?” She is pushing buttons that should never be pressed.

  “I don’t know you. No one knows you.”

  I guess that’s the truth, no one really knows me. I never let anyone know me. I’m not even sure I know myself these days.

  “I want you to know me, Engela. I am not what you think I am. I am not all the things I’ve done. Onder dit is ek ’n mens, ’n man, ek het ’n haart en op die oomblik klop my haart vir jou en jou klein familie. Beneath my transgressions is a person, a man, and at the moment my heart beats for you and your little family. I don’t have anything else to fucking live for.”

  My foot gets heavier, and I drive faster as anger builds inside me.

  Can she not see that I care? That I don’t want to be the murderer or the gangster, all I want to be is her protector.

  “I have no reason besides the three of you not to go back inside, nothing else is stopping me from just being a fucking number again. I painted a bullseye on myself for you, Engela.”

  When I dare to take my eyes of the road and look at her, she’s bent over in half, her head buried in her lap and her bod
y shudders with her cries.

  “I fell in love with you and that little boy. I didn’t want to, but it happened. I am not even sure men like me are allowed to love anything. And when you hurt, when your Ma hurts or Dan cries – I feel it. It’s like being stabbed with a shank in prison, the pain makes you want to die.”

  I put my hand on her back, not sure how to physically comfort someone, but I have the need to touch her and make her understand what I am only beginning to see now.

  There was a reason I was set free.

  They are that reason.

  “I don’t want to know you Francis, I am afraid of knowing you.” Her muffled words come out as she keeps her face and tears hidden from me. “Love is stupid, love makes you hope for things and we all know that theres no hope for any of us.”

  She’s right, but I already hope.

  When we park in my narrow driveway and I turn off the car, she sits up and wipes her face with her hands. Her nails are painted nicely. I notice the soft pink color against her brown skin.

  Her eyes shimmer in the little bit of streetlight that filters in through the window as she looks at me; there are a hundred questions in those dark eyes.

  “I would die for you Engela, that’s all I’m saying. Even if you hate me, I would die for you.”

  I take her hand, because I liked the way it felt when I held it before. She squeezes mine and and looks down at them.

  “Francis, are trying to ask me to be your Meisie?” Are you asking me to be your girl?

  I guess I am in a way, but I never thought of it as directly as that. I just want to care for them. “Maybe.” I lean over the center console in the car and rest my forehead against hers, where it’s tilted down to look anywhere but at me. “I think so.”

  I can see a small smile on her lips as she shakes her head just a little, still resting against mine. “That’s the stupidest idea ever, Francis. But, maybe.”

  She looks at me now with a half smile and a different shine in her eyes. Her fingers are playing with mine, rubbing over my knuckles where we hold hands.

  In the quiet I hear my heart beating, I can feel the hand she’s holding getting sweaty and the air in my lungs feels like it isn’t enough. She is the one this time who leans forwards, who pins me back and kisses me.

  Her lips taste of peppermint lip-ice (chapstick), and her hair makes knots in between my fingers. When her tongue brushes my mouth open, softly at first, then with a force I can’t control, I let myself go and kiss her like I am a boy in high school hiding behind the pavilion kissing my meisie before we get caught.

  The car windows have fogged up, and the air is thick and humid inside when we stop for a breath. The sound of our heavy breathing drowns out any noise that comes from outside as I look into her eyes, searching for a reason to let her go, but all I see is everything I want.

  In this awkward embrace, with the handbrake and gearshift between us, the world tilts and I know that Engela is the only thing in this world that I want – need.

  I need her.

  With shaking hands she touches me, softly at first, afraid almost to allow herself to, but then with passion and a primal need.

  I don’t want to stop her, it feels so good, a tender touch, a stroke of love, but there is no way this is going to go any further than this.

  Ever.

  Pushing her a little so that our mouths are parted, I hold her so I can look into those brown eyes, “Engela, stop. We aren’t going to have sex. Not ever, even if you are my Meisie.”

  I see the hurt, the pain in her eyes, and I feel it in my chest where it pulls tight and robs me of my breath.

  “I’m done killing people, I told you that. And having sex with me will kill you. I have AIDS. I am sick, and I will love you and hold your hand and kiss you every single day, but I will not murder you. I can’t. So please, please stop.”

  I take her hand away from where she has started to loosen my belt, pull it up to my mouth and kiss it. She retreats, snatching it away from me to scramble out of her side of the car.

  By the time I get out she’s halfway across the road, and I have to run to catch up to her.

  14

  Engela

  the aftermath of love is war

  I run. I run as fast as my stupid short legs will carry me away from him. How dare he?

  How dare he give me hope and then snatch it away in the same fucking breath. He tells me loves me, then tells me he’s going to die.

  Hope has no place where the hopeless live. I should know better. I allowed myself to see the knight in shining armor just for a second, but he’s already been sliced open and about to expire.

  This isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair.

  I can’t find my keys to open the door. I just want to get away.

  When I look over my shoulder he’s halfway across the street, those eyes on me, and the expression on his face frightens me. His steps are huge, and as I try get the key into the lock in the dark, I hear the gate grate open.

  The space closes between us and I give up and collapse against the wall. The same wall where he kissed me the first time.

  “Engela.” He sounds out of breath from the run. “Wag, net.” Wait.

  “Los my uit, Francis.” Leave me alone, Francis.

  I am so angry that my chest burns, worse than heartburn from a petrol station pie. It’s a physical pain tearing into me, breaking me apart. It isn’t the sex, yes I got carried away in a moment and it felt good, but I didn’t expect him to drop a nuclear bomb on me.

  He steps into my personal space, right in front of me. I can smell him, the aftershave that isn’t his and the leather of his jacket.

  “How could you?” I shake my head and look at him.

  I don’t understand how he can just stand there after telling me that.

  “How could I what, Engela? Tell you the truth?” He steps even closer. “I won’t lie to you so I can get lucky in the front seat of my car. I won’t give you my disease and wait for one of us to die first, I respect you more than that.”

  The way he says respect makes me want to be sick. No one respects a girl like me. Look at me! I’m a teen mom living in this hell.

  “I will give you everything I have, except that. So now it’s up to you, Engela. Ek het alles vir jou gewys, my heart vir jou gegee.” I bared all to you, showed you everything, and gave you my heart dammit.

  He lifts my chin so I am looking up at him, where a silent tear falls down his cheek. Him, a big hardened gangster, is crying over me.

  The stoep light shines on his bald head, and his hands shake as they reach for mine. The way he is gentle with me, like I might break, feels so wrong. He’s a killer, I keep reminding myself of that. He shouldn’t be allowed to cry, he makes people cry.

  “I don’t know why I think I love you, Francis, or why you think you love me. I want to think about this. Los my, gee kaans. Leave me, give me a chance to think.”

  I need the space to breathe, to try fathom it all. I want him to leave me alone, just for a little.

  “Ek is jammer.” I’m sorry. He steps away and lets my hands fall back to my sides. “Dit was ’n stupid idea, vergeet dit. Just forget it Engela, I will leave you alone. I’m sorry, I just felt different with you. I’ve lost everything, and everyone else, and this made me feel good. Dit het die gat in my siel gevul. It filled the hole my in soul a little.”

  He keeps moving away from me, backwards, those deep, sad, dark eyes looking into mine.

  As he gets to the edge of the top step he turns away, shoves his hands inside his jacket pockets, and jogs away back to his side of the street.

  I lock the front door behind me and slide down to the floor of the small entrance to the house. The floor is cold under my tush and I pull my knees to my chest.

  A little while later, my tired, hurt Ma, sits on the floor beside me and pulls me into her side. Her warm body absorbs my sadness just a little, and takes away the hurt the way only a mom can.

  I had to grow up quickl
y. I didn’t get to be a kid for very long, and in situations like this I feel like I am too young to have such heavy troubles in my heart. Too young to be a mother, too young to see so many people die, too young to fall in love with a dangerous man ten years older than me.

  I’m too young for all of this. I just want to sit here on the cold floor with my Ma and cry.

  “Daai seun het hard geval vir jou, my kind. Hy het dit lank ingehou. Baie lank.” That boy fell for you, hard, my baby. And he has held it in for a long time. A very long time.

  She snuggles me in, where I have bent over, resting my head in her lap. She twiddles my hair in her fingers, the same way I do to Dan when he relaxes with me.

  “You are afraid of him.”

  She knows me so well. I am terrified.

  “Because you aren’t looking at the man he is now, you remember the boy they locked away. You were a little girl and he was made out to be a monster, so you made him one in your head. Now your heart wants to love him, but your head won’t let the monster go.”

  It’s funny how our mothers see things we just can’t, even if they are right in front of us.

  “He’s a good man Engela, with a bad past. Just like you are a good girl who made stupid mistakes.”

  A few hours ago I let myself get close to him, close enough I nearly made another stupid mistake, but he stopped me. He told the truth, no matter how hard or ugly it was, he told me.

  I was blinded by what he said, by that word AIDS, it made me miss the reason he said it at all. I don’t know about being a good girl, but stupid seems to be my thing, for sure.

  “Ma, do you really think he’s good? I mean, he killed Danial and others. That doesn’t just go away. He wants me to be his meisie, but I’m scared what that means. I don’t even know what he does, or is? He’s not an Agt anymore, maar wat doen hulle in daai huis?” He’s not an Eight anymore, but what do they even do in that house?

  Ma lets out a little laugh, and wiggles herself to get comfortable underneath me.

  “Het jy gevra?” Have you asked him?