28 Boys

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  I thought it was too soon, I believed she needed time, but she said she was ready to start again and keeping it all kept her in the sadness, buried her in the loss, and she wanted to let it go.

  I’m afraid to say she is happy. Happiness is such a strange concept for people like us. It’s like this unreachable goal that we will never get to, and saying you are happy is sure to curse it and make it end too fast.

  People like us don’t feel death like normal people do, we are not touched by it in the same way. It is easy to move on after a loss when loss is all you’ve ever known.

  We don’t grieve, we pick up the pieces and move on. Broken by a place where a murder isn’t news and a rape happens every four minutes, where men like me are free to walk the street, we are a lost generation and the next one will be lost too.

  The popping of gunfire in the area has me awake early this morning. I stand in the dimly lit bathroom and look at my reflection in the cracked mirror. I can’t see what she sees.

  The man looking at me isn’t a good man, but he is trying to be.

  It’s Saturday today. I hate Saturday; anyone who has been inside and knows the numbers will understand that Saturday is the ‘day of wrongs’, the day that bad things happen. Sentences, punishments, murders and rape. I hate Saturday more than any other day.

  I don’t look forward to the end of the week, I look forward to Wednesday, because that’s Engela’s day off work.

  I wash my face and brush my teeth, dress myself properly before I open the bathroom door, and go sit in the front of the house to watch the street come to life with the rising sun.

  Taxies barrel past, as they have taken a new route to avoid a police roadblock on the main road this past week. The guys across the road open the curtains and I get a wave from Donnie in the kitchen. The window steams up where he boils the kettle. This sliver of peace feels like I’m a living in a dream, and I refuse to believe it is real.

  “Môre Francis.” One of the guys greets from behind me as they thud towards the kitchen, fill the kettle, making the old pipes shudder in the walls, and turn it on to boil. “Koffie?” Coffee? he calls to me.

  “Dankie.” Thanks! I yell back, still watching out the window.

  I used to watch for Engela, but now I know she is asleep in my bed after working the delays-shift at the airport last night. Waking her up now would be a bad idea, she’s not a morning person after that shift.

  A steaming, red coffee mug, is passed over my shoulder and I inhale the smell of the cheap, instant brew. It’s better than prison coffee. Anything would be. I savor the taste and warmth of the drink, lifting my feet onto the coffee table … well it’s a crate with a plank of wood on top of it, but it’s functional.

  A man walks by delivering the Saturday Star to those houses where the old people still get a newspaper. He tosses it on the stoep across the street and carries on his way. Auntie liked to read the news. I can’t understand most of it, so I look at the pictures and watch it on the TV rather, not that there is anything important on it. All corrupt politicians, crimes that only impact the rich people, and other rubbish that doesn’t affect us at all.

  News would be very different if they reported it from here. The stories covered up on these streets would shock the world and bring people to their knees to pray.

  Our phones all beep, buzz, and vibrate at the same time through the house, and I know we have to go to work. Saturday. Avery probably went out on a bender last night and killed some poor unsuspecting man, or the boss man had to get rid of some competition. There is always something to clean up. Breathe in, breathe out, it’s better than the alternatives.

  I go to my room to put on my shoes and get my bags. I peck her on her chubby cheek where she lies with her mouth open, fast asleep.

  I will never not say goodbye again.

  “Ek gaan werk toe.” I’m going to work, I whisper to her, as she swats me away without opening her eyes.

  I look at her and see that from despair we have built a stronger foundation for a better future. In our ruins we have found love.

  “Bye Engela,” I say, as I close the door as softly as the rusty old hinges allow.

  All the guys are already in different stages of getting dressed, packed and out into cars. Engines rumble to life when the vehicles file into the street, and we leave.

  My message was from Rowan, not Callum or Avery. That’s only happened once before. Usually it’s from Eiran or one of them, it’s odd, but no more odd than anything else we do.

  It’s simple, just follow the instructions and do the job you are told to do. I convinced Eiran to teach Donnie to do the office stuff. I can’t even read so know I can’t do it.

  I can do this. I am not afraid of corpses, blood, or rank odors, so this is what I choose to keep doing.

  The minute I park my car outside Avery’s building a sick feeling settles into my gut. She doesn’t usually bring her inner serial killer home.

  In fact, she has never had us clean a body at this address. I only know it’s where she lives, because I know where Eiran lives and he watches her day and night.

  Nothing feels right about this, and as the guys start to unpack ‘cleaning materials’ and pull on their overalls I go inside, to meet the boss and see what we are up against.

  Until now I haven’t met Rowan, only received a message or a call from him to go clean up something. Even then, he likes to tidy his own mess. The man standing in the entryway to the modern apartment looks tired and frayed at the edges, his eyes burned with disappointment and anger, and he stops me with a hand on my chest.

  “I’m sorry, Francis. Take him to my home. Some of the others will know where to go.”

  He shakes his head, and walks out the door to answer his ringing phone. Inside I see Avery, catatonic on the wingback chair facing Eiran’s home. She is wet and obviously just cleaned up from whatever this is. Her face is striped with tears and her puffy, red eyes, won’t meet mine as I greet her. “Hello, Avery.”

  She doesn’t respond at all.

  Glancing around the open plan living space I can’t see any evidence that we need to clean up in here, so I walk past her to the bedroom, where a messed up bed and cut ropes tell me there was some not-so-normal sex going on in here last night.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I find in the bathroom.

  The shattered glass and smell of a freshly fired gun are what I notice first, then the bloody footprints on the floor to the shower. Then the spatter on the ceiling that will be a bitch to clean up. We will have to paint it, I’m sure.

  In the beautiful, modern bathtub, is a body floating in bloodied water.

  I know the man in the water.

  My friend told me he was going to get himself killed, he told me he couldn’t live the life he was living any longer.

  Eiran’s pale face is rimmed with dirty water, and I can see where her signature blade has sliced his throat open wide, where his life drained out.

  I can smell the telltale scent of death as I go closer, his dead eyes staring up at the ceiling that is sprayed with red spots of him.

  I can’t breathe. I want to run out there and kill her, but I know he did this. He wanted her to kill him, finally, like she should have the first time. Everyone around me is dying, the children who were my friends gone, like they never mattered.

  And I wonder why it is that I am still here?

  “What have you done, Eiran?” I whisper to the man who gave me a second chance as I try to close his eyes, but it’s too late for that. “Nou is ek alleen.” Now I’m alone.

  As angry as I am, I know that he has found peace for his past here in this tub, just like I found mine in the girl from across the street. This is his salvation, as Engela is mine.

  Avery was his savior, and his tormentor all in one.

  When the guys come in with equipment, body-bags and plastic to start cleaning, I stand from where I knelt beside my brother; because he was more than a friend to me, and start telling them wha
t to do.

  When I step back into the front of the house Rowan is getting Avery ready to leave.

  “Your boys can bury her at the cemetery on my property, that’s what Avery wants. You are his family, it seems right that you do it.” The man has a rough accent and his monotonous voice never changes no matter what he feels. “Come Avery, let’s go home.”

  They leave us to clean up her mess.

  When we get to the small farm graveyard later there is hole already dug for him and she is waiting there, on a swing in the big tree.

  She doesn’t come closer than that, just watches as we put him to rest.

  I knew that the good time and happiness would end. Nothing good stays for people like us. We are born dirty and stained, and we die the same way.

  The drive home from Franschoek takes ages, and I am tired. Not from work, but from this loss. All I want is to lie down with Engela and sleep when I get home.

  I hate Saturdays.

  They are the day of Wrongs.

  Tomorrow is Sunday, the day of rights.

  We will go to church tomorrow.

  There is a hot meal waiting for us on the stove and the house is clean, but empty. She has already left for work and I immediately feel the space between us growing.

  I wanted to share this heavy load with her today, but instead I sit down with this bunch of misfits and we toast our fallen friend and eat our dinner.

  Family is not just blood or numbers. This, here in my small kitchen, is what a family is. We don’t all fit in this house, or in society, but we are here and we hold each other together. We all have problems and we have all done terrible things, but we are all human, we all had parents, families somewhere, someone loved us once, before we were forgotten.

  “Soek jy nog?” Do you want more? I get asked as the food is passed around and I place my empty plate on the table.

  “Nee dankie.” No thanks.

  There is knock at the front door. Not many people would knock. The ones we know and like would just come in – so it’s no one good.

  “Gaan maak oop.” Go open, I say to Vincent, the youngest boy in this family of mine.

  He scuttles off to the front of the house and we continue to chat. They tell me stories about Eiran, things I had missed when I was in prison. He worked hard all these years, he looked after them and cared about them.

  We are laughing about how much he hated the smell of the croc farm, when another lost boy comes into the kitchen. Martin walks in wearing his uniform, it’s faded, like the shine of his job is long gone.

  “Naand Manne.” Evening Gents.

  He greet us, his gaze locks on mine, and I know it’s me he wants to see. I know he knows about Eiran. We were four, no we are two.

  On one side of my kitchen table is the good man, and the other side the bad man; both were just boys that had to find a way to survive.

  “Naand Martin. Wil jy eet.” Want to join us for dinner? I point to the food in the middle of the table, offering an olive branch.

  “Dit sal lekker wees.” That would be nice.

  The rest of the guys part like the Red Sea, letting him through and vacating a chair opposite the one I was sitting in earlier.

  “Help self.” Help yourself. I nod and let him know he really is welcome in my home. I don’t see the policeman, I see the boy I kicked a ball with when we were seven. “The rest of you fuck off.”

  I send them away. This doesn’t feel like a friendly visit to me. I pull out the chair and sit down opposite him. Before he leaves, Donnie opens a beer bottle and places it on the table for Martin.

  “I heard about Eiran,” he says, between bites of food.

  I’m not sure if he is baiting me, so I don’t say anything.

  If he wants to talk, he can talk.

  “His bosses made it disappear, no one is going to know. There isn’t even a docket,” he continues.

  I knew all that already. That’s what happens when business owns law enforcement.

  “I’m sorry, Francis.”

  He puts down his knife and fork now, and looks at me. He looks ten years older than me, and I spent more than a decade in one of the world’s worst prisons. I guess fighting crime is harder than committing it these days.

  “Thank you,” I answer, with words that can’t be used against me. “But, why are you here? In my home, Martin?”

  He sighs and his shoulders slump over further.

  “I want to move Engela into a protection program. We, I mean I, worry about her safety.”

  No he doesn’t.

  “You worry about the case against Nathaniel, not her. But don’t worry about her or the case, Martin. She won’t need your protection, she has mine, and he won’t live long enough for there to be a case.”

  I can see his face heat up with anger. He wants to be the law in a lawless land. I might be outside but I still have power inside, and he isn’t going to be breathing too much more air.

  “Francis, stay out of this. You don’t want to go back inside.”

  He’s such an ignorant fool. “Martin, I will never go back. My hands will never be dirty, ever again. I am telling you to leave it alone. Let it be. Dis ’n nommer ding die. Nie ’n polisie ding nie. This is a numbers thing. Not a police thing. Ons het ons eie wet, en hy is nie spesiaal nie. We have our own laws and he isn’t special. I have taken care of this, Martin. Leave Engela alone, she’s not yours.”

  My last statement sparks an angry glint in his eye, a jealous lightning bolt, because I know he would give anything to have a good girl like her for his wife.

  “Los ons uit.” I say. Leave us alone. It’s a threat and he knows it.

  “Don’t do anything stupid. I can only stay blind to this street as long as nothing happens here, Francis,” he growls at me.

  How did we end up like this? Best friends on opposite sides of the table, opposite sides of the law.

  “I chose to uphold the law, to investigate crime. That means I can’t be friends with criminals, Francis.”

  I want to laugh, because I suspect he is as crooked as they all are. If Callum’s money can shut him up, then he’s not as good as he wants to believe he is.

  “I don’t need friends Martin, I have a family here.” I drink from the brown bottle, the cold beer wetting my dry throat. “But, you already are family. You forget where you came from, Martin. You are no better than us. So you are welcome in my home and at my table, as a brother. But, you leave your filthy police bullshit outside.” Before he can say anything to me, I continue, “Daar is nie plek vir varke in my huis nie. There is no place for pigs in my house. Verstaan ons mekaar mooi?” Do we understand each other?

  With a mouthful of my food he nods his head.

  “En Engela, sy is my meisie, jy los haar uit, of jou lyf sal die volgende een wees wat die krokodille eet.” Engela is my girl, you leave her alone, or your body will be the next one the crocodiles eat.

  “Francis, I care about her.”

  I want to kill him already.

  “Well care from a distance, Martin. You got her into this mess as much as I did. We are happy. I’m serious, I’ll kill you.”

  He puts his knife and fork together on the empty plate. “Okay, Francis. But, I can’t keep her safe from them if you won’t let me.”

  “I can keep her safe on my own.” I snap at him now, irritated and jealous that she has his attention. I don’t want him looking at her.

  “Ek kan na myself kyke julle twee.” I can take care of myself you two. Engela is standing in the doorway to the kitchen; in her blue work uniform she looks so beautiful. “Stop fighting. Martin, ek is Francis se meisie. Verstaan jy?” Martin, I am Francis’s girl. Do you understand that?

  He smiles and nods his head as she comes to my side of the table, kisses my bald head, and steals my beer.

  The conversation is over between him and I, as I tell her about Eiran, and sadness fills our home again.

  22

  Engela

  when bad men go to church,
the world changes

  When I told Francis that he, and this bunch of lost boys and dejects from society were my family, I meant it. Most of these boys never had a mother in their lives.

  I was a mother and now I have no child. I can’t just turn it off. That instinct is just here, and without Dan it had nowhere to go. Taking care of them feels right, like I am somehow turning all the bad shit into something good, even if it’s just for them.

  I wash their clothes, feed them and clean up after them. It’s like having ten kids, and like with one the love is just multiplied, not divided between them. I see the good in them. I know the bad, but I see the good.

  Most of them are older than me, and yet still I see the children that never got a chance.

  “Opstaan julle.” Time to get up folks! I yell through the house, waking them all.

  It’s Sunday. Our friend died yesterday and we are going to fucking church this morning, no matter how much they beg to stay in bed. “Wake up shitheads!” I pound on the doors, so they get the message. “Ons gaan kerk toe.” We are going to church.

  I dash into the bathroom first so that I can get a warm shower, after that they can fight over the hot water; I don’t care.

  Dressed in my church clothes I go to put on some breakfast, but there is no porridge, so they will have to eat Cornflakes and Rice Crispies today. I microwave the milk warm, because I like mine with warm milk.

  With coffee and Cornflakes I go sit down in the front room. I listen to the grumbling men coming alive around the house, and I smile to myself. I lost my son only to gain ten more.

  I lost my mother to become one to them.

  “Môre skat.” Morning sweetie.

  Francis greets me with a kiss on top of my head as my mouth is full of food, and I can’t answer until I swallow. “Oggend. Ons gaan almal kerk toe. Sal jy die klomp oorkant gaan wakker maak.” Morning. We are all going to church, will you go wake the bunch across the road?