28 Boys

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  She states something that seems so obvious, but with Nathaniel I wasn’t allowed to ask anything, so I just got used to not asking at all.

  “Ek het so gedink. Vra, Engela.” I thought not, just ask him Engela. “You can’t know him if you don’t ask him questions.”

  My heavy eyes just want to close and go to sleep. The last few days have taken everything out of me. Between the not so subtle warning about Francis from the Sewes (Sevens), Ma having a sore arm and being roughed up, and now all these feelings I have for the one person I should be staying far away from — I am exhausted.

  I doze on my mother’s lap in the entrance of our house, with the wind whistling in under the door, making us cold enough to snuggle even closer to each other.

  After a few minutes she taps me awake and says we should go to bed, I have to work at two tomorrow afternoon again. I help her up off the floor and we say goodnight in the dark passage before I go to bed next to my son.

  My dreams are full of kisses and murders, dead bodies and bullet holes, all because he kissed me first. Things that make your heart beat faster are almost always going to get you one step closer to death.

  “Engela.” He kisses my cheek and holds my hand, even though everything around us is the same, it all seems somehow better when he touches me. “Is jy seker?” (Are you sure?)

  Of course I am sure, I want my little boy to have a Daddy, and to share my life with someone who loves me.

  “I’ve never been more sure.” I answer him.

  Everything is so sweet with him, so unsullied by sex and without the complications that it brings. My white dress is simple, Ma sewed it herself.

  The bottom swirls around my feet when the wind blows in through the open church doors. We turn to face the minister and he smiles at us. Little Dan stands next to Francis, he is trying so hard to stand still but I can see he has ants in his pants. The little suit he is wearing makes him look like a little man, not my baby.

  The three of us hold hands, a family bonded by so much love already that this is just a formality really.

  When the man standing in front of us opens his mouth, there are no words — just the deafening sound of a gunshot echoing through the big church and the collective gasp of everyone inside.

  Francis falls to the floor between us.

  I wake up trying to catch my breath, the fright for the vivid but stupid dream, making me feel like I ran around the block. I pull the covers off me as my body is hot with panic and frantically looking around to try ground myself in reality.

  A real shot goes off outside and I freeze. Lying dead still I focus on the little body in the cot next to me and watch his chest rise and fall until there is quiet outside again.

  After a long while I get up and go to the kitchen. Ma is already up, no doubt the shots woke her too. I can hear the kettle bubbling away before I get to the door.

  I have woken up tired and my bones feel heavy in my limbs as I step through into the heart of our home. Ma is at the stove, and sitting at the table with his head buried in his hands, is Francis.

  “Môre,” morning, I greet softly, because my head feels like I drank all night and the hangover from, tears, and dreams has made it pound. “Het die geskietery julle ook wakker geskrik? So vroeg wakker Ma? Did the shooting wake you, it’s so early Ma?”

  I stand behind her to see what she has on the stove. The thick, brown Maltabela pap (porridge), smells like my childhood, and is already Dan’s favorite. They are both quiet, too quiet.

  “Môre Francis.” Morning Francis, I turn and greet him where he is now looking at me. His eyes look as tired as mine feel, with puffy bags beneath them.

  “Hello.”

  He greets me. The hesitation is clear in his voice, and he sits back like he’s not sure if he should stay or go.

  “Coffee?” I ask, taking cups out to make tea and coffee, and a bottle for Dan so it’s ready when he wakes.

  “Ja dankie.” Yes please.

  He pulls his chair back under the table and Ma gives me smile behind his back. She turns the stove plate off and puts the wooden spoon in the sink, beside me.

  “Ek gaan kyk of Dan wakker is, en gou aantrek.” I’m going to see if Dan is up, and get myself dressed. She grabs the baby bottle from the counter and starts to leave. “You two need to talk.”

  I don’t know if I want to talk, and I am opening my mouth to stop her when she points a finger and shakes her head at me.

  Once I have stirred the coffee I put a cup in front of him, and go sit down opposite him at the little blue table. My hands warm around the brown mug as I hold it in front of me and watch the steam rise. I’m still thinking of something to say, and the words are all swimming around in my head when he speaks first.

  “I’m sorry about last night.” His face lifts into an almost smile when he looks at me.

  Morning hair and dressing gown, I must look fabulous.

  “You’re just, you are just so beautiful Engela, that sometimes I forget who I am when I’m with you.”

  Maybe he went blind in jail, because right now I know I am nowhere near beautiful. I am pretty sure yesterday’s makeup and my bushy hair would scare most men away.

  “What do you do with, Eiran?”

  I start there. Ma said ask, so now I’m asking. Let’s see if he answers me; also this beautiful talk makes me nervous.

  “We work for a big company, they aren’t gangsters but they do bad things. I clean up the mess and sometimes I deliver things.” He answers then sips his coffee.

  “Watter soort gemors?” What sort of mess? The way he said mess made my hair stand up.

  “Die waarheid?” The truth?

  “No, lie to me. Of course the truth, Francis.”

  “Mostly bodies, and crime scenes,” he says.

  Blood doesn’t actually turn cold, but I feel mine like little tickles of ice as that sinks in for a second.

  “But, I don’t kill people. I told you I’m done killing. I just clean up, most times we don’t know anything about it at all,” he continues.

  I don’t know why, but it sounds less disgusting than it should. I was almost certain that with those duffel bags, and black cars sneaking in and out, they were killing people or selling drugs.

  My imagination had gone wild with the little that it had to go on.

  “There aren’t many jobs for a criminal who spent twelve years in prison, Engela, and aside from just going back to the gangs and the streets this was my best option.”

  When he puts it like that, then it makes sense. It’s not nice, or good or pretty, but it’s better than anything else really.

  “Okay.” I am not sure entirely how I feel about it, or if it even matters what he does. Now that he’s not off killing people, I’m satisfied. “Ek het gedog julle was ’n klomp moordenaars wat in die nag rondkruip. I thought you were a bunch of murderers the way you lot creep around in the night. So I guess it’s not that bad.”

  He snickers and I can’t help but smile and shake my head.

  “You are not cross about it?” he asks.

  No, no I’m not really. Maybe I should be, but the alternatives are far worse.

  “Hmm.” He looks amused.

  “Can I ask something else?” I have questions and I want to ask them all now, while I can.

  Francis looks at me, considering what I might spring on him next. Girls don’t normally ask questions of men like him, that’s just how it is. We serve a purpose, and being nosy isn’t that purpose.

  “Wat wil jy weet?” What do you want to know?

  I want to know everything, but for now I just want to talk to him. It’s stupid, but I like being around Francis, and the way the house feels when he is here with us.

  “How long have you been sick?” I don’t look at him when I ask, but I want to know.

  “I’ve known for nine years, but I think I got it awhile before that. Right after I went inside. Maybe even before that.”

  He doesn’t seem upset, sad, or even worrie
d about it at all. Like it doesn’t matter that he will die from it.

  A desperate reality sets in my mind. In our world it’s not a death sentence when something worse will probably kill you much quicker, the loud shots of this morning ring in my head and realize he has bigger things to fear.

  “I am on anti-retrovirals and I look after myself. You can’t catch it from touching and kissing, only from blood and sex, Engela. I won’t make you sick.”

  I know how AIDS works, we learn about it at work every three months. I am not an idiot, but I won’t lie and say that it’s not just a little frightening knowing that it is so close to you. Like he became this ticking time bomb in my mind when he said that last night, as if he would just explode and be gone. I think I might need some help to be honest, lately my thoughts are just insane.

  “I know that Francis, I know how it works. And I know that it’s hard to tell people, but you told me and I was a bitch about it. I got lost for a little bit in that moment in your car when I felt like I was special, that all this around us wasn’t here.”

  For just a few minutes I didn’t live in hell, I wasn’t a mother, or stuck in the perpetual quicksand of gang life. For just awhile I was a woman with a man who cared for her.

  But, moments like those don’t last, and when he said he had AIDS it threw me right back into the hell where our reality is. Prince charming is only for Disney movies, and I should know that by now.

  “My head keeps looking for a reason not to like you, not to feel butterflies when I see you — good butterflies, not the kind when things are about to go horribly wrong. But, my heart is stupid, because all it wants is you. I don’t even know what I want from you, I just know since you came home things are better.”

  He is watching me. His gaze moves over my face like he is looking for answers to his own questions.

  “I doubt things are better with me here. If I wasn’t here they wouldn’t have hurt your Ma. I am not a good person Engela, I want to be, but I know in my self that I am the best I will ever be. I am sorry I barged into your life. Ek gaan nie lieg nie, ek sou dit weer doen as ek dinge oor moet doen.” I won’t lie though, I’d do it again if I could.

  He arches his hand across the table to mine, but stops halfway. My palm is sweaty. Just talking to him I have a nervous case of the shakes. I haven’t kissed a boy in a long time, and kissing him felt good. It was more than good, it was right.

  “They are. And it’s not just because of you, it’s my fault they came here. Ek het nie geluister nie.” I didn’t listen. It is my fault. All he did was come home and he stepped into my mess, the mess was already here to start with. “I’m a stupid girl.”

  “You aren’t stupid, Engela, and you aren’t a girl anymore either, you are a woman. Jy is ’n Ma, met ’n goeie job en jy kyk mooi vir jou eie Ma. Jy’s nie stupid nie.” You are a mother, have a good job, and you look after your son mother. You are not stupid.

  I reach to touch his hand. It’s warm and rough where my fingers skim over his knuckles. Our eyes lock and he stares at me. Dark eyes burn me with a feeling that I can’t explain.

  “I would like you to be my woman. I know I don’t have much to offer, but I will give you everything I have.” Licking his bottom lip he looks away, waiting for me to say something back.

  My eyes squeeze shut as I look inside myself for the answers to his questions, and my own. It’s hard to breathe when the air in your lungs is heavy, and the air hisses in and out faster and faster. My pulse is tapping in the fingertips that are touching him, and I can feel his going just as fast.

  We are connected and I can’t ignore it.

  I cannot hate him, not when so much of me wants him. I try slow it all down by breathing in and out, long, deep breaths.

  “Okay, I will be your Meisie. Just don’t hurt us Francis, I have a little boy and my Ma to think of too.”

  His smile is brighter than the fluorescent bulb buzzing above us as he grips my hand tight in his. “I love them as much as I do you, Engela.”

  That’s how I made the stupidest decision of my life, but also the best one.

  15

  Francis

  it’s all unfair, love and war, it makes no difference

  I have never had much love in my life if I’m honest. I didn’t have dad and my Ma did her best, but we were lost to the streets so young.

  Even when I went to jail before I could know the love of a good woman, and have family, these were things that young gangsters didn’t think about — it was about about money, power, and the number that was all.

  Girls were for sex and moving drugs, so we didn’t get caught. They weren’t potential wives, or even girlfriends, they were possessions. And a child would just be a reason to leave her. Pregnant girls are sent back to burden their families, young numbers haven’t got time for kids.

  Now though, I feel like my heart wants to pop every time I see her, and that little boy is buried so deep inside me that I know I never had love in my life, because this is love.

  Engela and I, we are a couple, dare I say it we are a family. I spend almost every minute I’m not working with them.

  She is something special, working hard to support her son and mother. Some days her shifts are brutal, and I watch the exhaustion as it shows in her body and face.

  Now, holding her against me in the single bed we share, Dan snores his little baby snores beside us and I listen to the world outside the window, of my team going in and out of the house on the other side of the street.

  It’s not home anymore. Engela is home.

  Her smell, her eyes, and the way she feels when I hold her – that’s home.

  My phone is vibrating on the table. It’s Eiran, and I know I need to crawl out of this cocoon of safety and go do my job. The closing of car doors outside means we are going to work.

  I move so I can reach it before I quietly exit the room. “Hello.” I answer when I get to the lounge, zipping up my jeans and grabbing the jacket I hung over the chair earlier in the day.

  “We have a job, I’ve sent the address. I will see you there.” Eiran sounds irritated.

  “I’m on my way out the door now.”

  Unlocking with the keys that Auntie had cut for me a few months ago when it was clear that I practically lived here, I sneak out of the house and lock up behind me.

  On the other side of the road my team are waiting and ready to go. There is shoulder slapping and hello’s as we all pile into our cars and leave in the dead of night.

  I didn’t kiss her goodbye. I always do, but I was worried the phone would wake them both and I snuck out and didn’t kiss them both. Guilt makes me uncomfortable as we drive to the farthest outskirts of the city and into the farmlands.

  The stars are clear out here. Here there are no city lights and the sky is blacker than black. It’s beautiful when I look up at it, stepping out of the car in front of the small, white, farm house.

  It takes a long time to clean up the mess inside. I know this one was Avery because Eiran came himself, he doesn’t come with us often anymore. Even I spend more time doing other things and just managing the guys.

  But, when it’s her, he is always there and I get called to go with. She likes knives and I am sure blood is her favorite color. When the last of the plastic bags are gone and the man is in a body-bag on his way to a fishing boat for disposal, we are finally finished. It is already nearly lunchtime.

  The sun beats down on us as I feel my pocket to let Engela know I am leaving. It’s not there. I must have left it at home when I left this morning.

  I double check the car but it’s not there either.

  I climb out and tap on Eiran’s window, so he opens it. “Ek het my foon vergeet, ek sal bel as ek by die huis kom.”

  I forgot my phone, I’ll give you a call when I get back home.

  He nods and drives off, the red dust flying up into the hot air getting stuck in my throat when I breathe. I am the last to leave and one last look around it’s like we were never he
re.

  When I look at the digital clock in the car I know Engela will be at work already, but Auntie and Dan are home. Maybe there is something nice for lunch.

  The car bounces along the rutted rural roads until I get back onto a highway and head towards home. The radio signal cuts in and out, out every time a song I actually likes comes on, and I catch crackly bits of the news.

  As I get closer to home it get clearer and the two o’clock news bulletin opens with Two dead in gang related shooting. The static is in my mind, not from the radio, as I instinctively drive faster. That’s my suburb, that’s too close to my home.

  Toddler and elderly woman shot dead.

  Tell me it’s not them, fucking tell me. I scream at the radio for details, but the victims are not being identified until the family has been contacted.

  I know it’s them, but even then I pray to all the god’s in all the religions that I am wrong. My car feels like it just won’t go fast enough.

  I want to phone them but I don’t have I phone, and I can’t stop to call from the garage so I just drive as fast I can. I feel the catch rising from my belly up my throat, the thick, slick, sickness that wants to escape as I am stopped by the police a block from my home. I stop in the middle of the street and leave the door open and engine running as I vomit on the floor between my feet.

  When I stand and look around at the crowd, it is Martin’s grim face that answers all my questions.

  There are flashing lights, blue and red, police and ambulance. Maybe the news was wrong as I shove my way through the crowd that has formed along the chevron tape, that blocks the street I call home. When I get to the tape, the sound of women crying and people yelling curses at the inadequate and inept police, is deafening. I duck under the tape and an officer pushes me back.

  “Martin!” I yell for him, and when he sees me he calls off the pig holding me back.

  One. Two. Three. Four — faster —Five. Six…

  It takes twelve steps before I see it, the red spray-painted line down the middle of the road with gang signs on either side. Their sign on her side, 28 on mine.