Colour My Ugly

by A. Giannoccaro

  I woke up feeling safe. I felt something in my gut saying that I could trust Rowan with the future he knew what to do my dad had after all taught him but I didn’t want to trust him with the last eight years of my life. I just wanted to get on with life now that I actually have one. I needed to erase those years, bury them pretend they never were. But I was in a prison locked up by a man I know nothing about other than that my dad loved and trusted him and he is a murderer. I need to get out of here and go make a new life somewhere Renzo will never look.

  I get showered and dressed in the bathroom before going into the room. The laundry is gone and the sheets have been changed I must have slept well. I am stiff as hell from the floor but I feel rested I didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. No one stole my sleep and replaced it with pain. No one. I was alone again and it was actually alright this time. I was safe. I may be locked in my room like a naughty child but I am safe. I don’t think Rowan would hurt me like Renzo has, but I don’t know for sure, I know he is murderer, can I trust a murderer? My brain tells me this is bad and I need to run as fast and as far as I can from all of this. But I can’t escape and my heart somehow doesn’t want to, I am home at last and home feels safer than out there where Renzo lives and breathes.

  Lying on the bed is a scrunched piece of paper with a note written in the worst scrawl I have ever had the pleasure of reading. He should be a doctor not a murderer with this handwriting.

  Ellia,

  Tell me everything so I can fix it. You stay until I know the whole

  Truth.

  Rowan XxX

  Who does he think he is? Fix it, is he joking. I am not an it and I certainly cannot be fixed, not after the last eight years, scratch that not after my life. He cannot keep me here, can he? I am sizzling with anger again now. He couldn’t just kill me, or let me go, no now he wants to play mind games. I played a mind game for eight years fucker I will win.

  I am legally dead so no one is looking for me; so he can keep me here after all I guess. I am not telling him anything though. I can’t. No one can fix the things Renzo has done to me; no one can give me my soul back. No one not even Rowan can bring back what he has taken away from me.

  I crumple his stupid note up and throw it in the small bin next to the dresser. I climb onto the bed and look into his stupid camera, I know he is watching. “NO, Rowan NO. I will stay in here forever then. Because you can’t fix me I won’t let you try. I like it here so I will just stay.”

  Asshole. I lie down and wonder how I will waste another day in my little cage. I hate television, there are no books. I close my eyes and I try not to feel like a caged animal I try to douse the fire growing very hot and angry inside me. I know better than to fight. Renzo taught me very quickly that fighting would only end up hurting me more. So I don’t fight, except with myself. That’s what I do I lay here and let my mind fight with itself. I don’t want to tell Rowan anything it’s not his burden to bear its mine. I fell for Renzo, I was his revenge, I was nothing but currency and I paid the price. Me and six others who were innocent. I remember vividly how cruel he was, how pure evil his actions were. I cannot make it go away it’s there every time I close my eyes even now that I am away from him it’s there in my mind.

  Past, Late 2007, Renzo’s Home, Sandton, Johannesburg

  I lay on my bed crying my eyes out. I daren’t cry when he is home. The past months have been a true revelation to me. The sins of the Father. My dad was a bad man. I am paying for his sins. I am a good person.

  Renzo had beaten me and raped me nine times since our wedding night. After a month he spoke the ugly truth to me after he had too much to drink and burned my thigh with his cigarette. He explained that he knew who I was, who I really was. That my father had murdered his mother and unborn brother. I was here to pay for that. I was his revenge. I was his to do with as he pleased. No one would look for me, no one loved me and certainly no one would know if I died. Not only would I pay but my children would pay too.

  I had no children so I didn’t understand his threat, but I would with time. Today I am beginning to understand. I am pregnant; my good Catholic husband won’t use contraception when he rapes me. I know this is bad I just know it in my gut. Every month he issues me with a pregnancy test and waits for the result, he has been waiting for this. The evil smile on his face when he saw the plus sign today tells me this will not end well for me or for my baby. I remember my dad telling me that children were what made life worth living. I cannot understand how he could murder a baby. I already love this baby. I feel sad that it was made by a monster but I love it.

  Ten weeks later.

  Renzo has been scarce of late. I don’t know why, I don’t care, He has left me alone my bruises and burns have actually had a chance to heal and I don’t hurt every time I breathe. The morning sickness is awful but I love this baby more with every vomit. This baby has saved me from the monster I married.

  Renzo comes into our room I immediately stiffen every muscle in my body just feeling his presence. “A doctor will come see to you and that baby today, don’t go anywhere I will be back when he arrives.”

  He must have some Doctor friend because they don’t do house calls here.

  Renzo and the doctor are here, I know that Renzo has told him to set up in the guest room next door to our room, the one I want to be the baby’s nursery. I hope he has an ultrasound so I see my baby.

  Renzo sits on a chair facing me on the bed and the words that he lashes out at me next shred my insides apart.

  “Little one, you are going to go next door and the good doctor is going to show you your baby.” He grabs me by the throat and then whispers the rest in my ear. Then I break that’s the only word for it broken. “Then he is going to rip the little soul from your womb. Do you understand? Your children will pay tenfold for your father’s sin.”

  I vomit all over him. This just gets me a punch in the ribs and a seething slew of curse words.

  He drags me next door by my wrist I don’t fight I know I can’t win and this will hurt enough without earning a beating too. I see the evil doctor who has a sorry look on his face, bastard. I forgot we live in a land of murder and savageness.

  Renzo forcefully lifts me onto the bed. He stands next to me as the doctor switches on the ultrasound machine he has set up in here. “I don’t want to see, just do it.” I stammer the words out.

  “You will look Little One. You will look at what I am taking from you; you will remember it’s mine to take. You are mine.” He stares me in the eye as he spits his words at me with venom. Using his large hand to force my head to face the screen next to us.

  I look, then I live it, as my baby, my beautiful innocent baby is ripped from me, no sedative, no anaesthetics, nothing I am left to feel the pain as my baby is torn from my body and with it the last scrap of my heart.

  The doctor mutters some aftercare instructions to me as he shamefully packs away his things and scrambles out the door. I hope he dies. I am becoming a bad person I can feel it seeping into me every day. I wish I was like my dad then I could just kill them both right then.

  Renzo locks me in the walk in safe for eight days after that. Leaving me to live in my own filth and the blood that I bleed from my dead baby. I stop crying eventually. After eight days he comes in and kicks me, kicks me till I cannot move. He then carries me to bed, cleans me and says he can face me again now. I can’t face you, you evil monster is all I can think. That and please God if you are there let me die.

  ROWAN

  “I want everything and nothing in harmony. I am chaos.”

  ~Christopher Poindexter

  I locked her in again last night, I went back and cleaned after I saw she passed out on the bathroom floor and left a note. I won’t let her leave here until I know what her husband did to her. It’s eating me alive and I cannot get a grip on myself. I am acting irrational; I don’t even like having people n
ear to me so why do I want her here so badly? She slipped up and said he had nearly killed her when he found out she had hidden her money from him. Clever girl I will give her that much not letting the asshole know she was loaded. As soon as he knew she had some money he wanted to off her, makes me wonder about him. I googled him earlier today to find not much on him, he seems legit he is a big business man who is well connected and doesn’t need her money that’s for sure. I wonder if he had another woman on the side and just needed an excuse to be rid of her. Thinking of him the way she described him with such venom and anger, she called him evil and her eyes were on fire even when her body language remained perfectly calm and together. I have this need to know what I missed when I stopped watching her, I cannot let go of the idea that something horrific happened to her while I was busy having my life.

  I plan to kill him. I have done since the day he hired me. How horrible that death is going to be will depend on what he has done to her. I know he has done something awful. She is broken. He broke her mentally but my instinct says he hurt her body too. I haven’t seen her body to know. God how I wish I could see her body. Stop brain! I have to make this right I need these feelings, fucking feelings I shouldn’t have, to stop. I want to know every detail of her life, I never want to know about anyone, in fact I get annoyed when I am burdened with personal details about people. I don’t do personal, I am shallow and controlled and there is no room to feel anything other than the satisfaction of ripping the life from another and snuffing it out.

  I have to work today, thank God I need to kill someone I hope that will kill this insanity and get my head straight. Callum has two tattle tale dealers that need to keep quiet so I have a job to do for my friend. These jobs are the easiest. No one cares a damn if you die here, much less if you are already a criminal. So two halfwit dealers will not be missed in fact no one will even look for them at all. I don’t want to work today I would rather stay and watch her, maybe try and talk to her again. I better buy her some decent food while I’m out. My job gets better and better ruthless killer and food delivery service all in one. Fuck I better get it together and go do this. I am losing my shit and that cannot happen.

  I am well known in the coloured gang community here for exactly what I do, and I don’t mean wine farming. To them I clean up messes. Usually messes who want to talk to other drug bosses or our useless fucking police services. No one will cross me or question me because I am neutral I work for ALL their bosses not just Cal. I do very bad things and I do them very well. Guys who talk to me tend to disappear afterwards.

  I pack my small work bag and change into a suit. I only wear a suit when I have to go work in this neighbourhood. It’s rough and my suit screams ‘I am not one of you, I work for the boss’. I know where my two little friends will be today I have been watching them. Idiots are so predictable they never change their ways. I load my bag in the car, tuck my gun in belt and make sure the house is locked with the security system is armed. I can remote video monitor the whole place from my iPhone. Fuck I love technology. But I don’t need the distraction I just want to go to work and come home as quickly as I can. I need this today, I need to be myself, I am losing control of things and it makes my monster hard to resist.

  I head for Mitchell’s Plain about 32 kilometres outside the city I love so much. It’s a bit of a cess pool, known for its gangs and tik - that would be crystal meth to us educated folk. Tik is big money here and an even bigger problem in these townships. Kids as young as seven are hooked on the shit and it’s completely normal here. To find a resident not on tik that would really surprise me. I am headed to the eastern side of Mitchell’s hell hole where the poorest of its residents live. More specifically to a local high school. I want to be there when school comes out; my little snitches actually go to school. I promise they are not there for an education but for marketing only.

  I park under an old tree across from the main gate of the grotty as hell government school and wait. Litter blows around in the dirty, dusty street and I can see a few members of a local gang hanging out just up the road they nod at me and carry on their business. This place is infested with gangs and I could just get one of them to off these two. But I am a bad man and I get a sick satisfaction out of doing a job myself. I need that satisfaction now as I feel things are completely out of control with this Ellia business. This I can control, this is what I do best, what I was born to do. Kill.

  I hear the school bell in the distance dismissing the delinquents for the afternoon. I know my boys will be out soon to join their gang pals up the road. Who I see made themselves scarce, clever boys. I get out and lean against my car waiting for them I cross my arms across my chest, the urge to storm through the gates and drag them out is right there, but I need to be nice calm Rowan until we are out of the public eye. They will know I am here to chat and they will also know better than to run. I am a good shot.

  As predicted the two come out the gate with some young girls hanging off them obviously after their next high. Their school uniforms are all ratty, skirts hiked up high and the white shirts grubby and unkempt. They scream poverty and desperation all the way from over here. The thought of them selling their sweet youthful bodies it makes me sick, I really don’t like Cal’s line of work. Murder doesn’t seem to grow into other crimes it’s the end of the line, while his drugs seem to spread rot with them, prostitution, theft, rape and God knows what else. They chase the girls away as soon as their gaze meets mine. All Cal’s’ employees know who I am. They walk wearily over to me and greet me in their horrendous fucking pigeon language.

  “Get in boys we have a meeting with your boss.” I keep my voice cold and stern so they know I am nobody’s friend.

  I open the back door and wait for then to haul themselves and their back packs into my nice clean car. Filthy little shits. I can smell their sweaty bodies and it makes my skin crawl. I hate being dirty, my Ma had always beaten it into us “cleanliness is next to godliness” their filth has me itching just looking at them.

  I walk around and get in. I know they are both armed with either knives or guns, but I also know they won’t take a chance pulling them on me.

  “Seat belts boys.” I watch them in my mirror shakily putting the belts on. I love the fear that I am causing them. I love that I control their worthless drug pushing lives right now. They don’t get to die in car crash. I like my car too much for that I don’t want blood on my leather seats.

  “You boys have been awfully chatty, that’s not good business fellas.” I talk to them in the rear view mirror. I can see that they know why I came for them. However there is still a glimmer of hope that they may just live. Dumb fucks. There is no hope, if I fetch you from school there is no hope that you will be coming back…. Ever. I am the end of the line for little shits like them. I want to laugh at their hope.

  “No bossh” the younger one actually answers me in his appalling accent. It was not a question idiot.

  I drive us out of the township to some open farm land on the outskirts of a horse stud owned by a mutual friend of Cal and mine. What do you know he had dug two giant holes in the ground to bury some dead horses? The boys behind me immediately notice them too. That certainly makes my life easier. We park right next to the two giant piles of dug up earth. I am high on the need to extinguish these two pests right now, their begging eyes are just feeding my monster.

  “This is how this works boys. You get out my car and jump in a hole I will make it quick and painless. You run and you die slowly and painfully. Got it.” Neither one answers this time they just nod. I unlock the doors and climb out opening the back door for them. I can smell the rotting dead animals in the holes behind me, how fitting. The stench in the air is stifling and I can see the youngest one gag a little before he willingly jumps right in the hole. Good boy. Stupidly his best friend runs so I shoot him in the knee and have to drag his heavy ass back to the hole. I hold him up next to me and shoot his friend righ
t in the head while watches tears streaming down his dirty face. My grip is like a vice around him and he has gone limp, his desire to fight or flee is gone. He knows this is the end, I am sure I hear him muttering a prayer under his breath. No prayers will save him, I could save him but I won’t. His friend’s death was quick, painless and totally satisfying. Now for this dumb fuck. Him I plan to bury alive. While not in the mood for manual labour it’s a shitty way for him to die so I like it right now. I feel like being shitty, I can just skip gym tonight. I shove him in the hole with his friend and begin to shovel the earth in on top of them. I watch him cling to the body of his dead friend crying, it could have been easy for him too but he just had to run. I feel the monster in me enjoying it and I smile a big toothy smile as I suffocate his stupid ass under the piles of fine red sand.

  I leave the shovel right there where I found it wipe my now sweaty forehead. Fuck a suit was not the best attire for this job but it’s done. I get my car and drive towards home covered in the fine red dust from the sand I shovelled. My brain is finally feeling normal after having her in my house I feel like I am in control again and I can deal with her. I stop in at a drive through to get food for Ellia. I need a shower so badly right now, a long hot one. I am filthy right now as if the street rat’s dirt has clung to me where I held him. I hate the feeling of dirt on my skin. After a job I get the deepest darkest feeling, well no feeling really it’s a nothingness after I kill someone I should feel but I don’t. It’s just a nothingness an empty hole where my heart or feelings or something should be. The only word for it is satisfaction. I am satisfied with what I have done.

  Tomorrow I will get their numbers inked into my flesh as I do after every single life I take. I have a number of tattoos on my body but on my left side where me heart should be, are numbers. Beautiful numbers starting at one, I got number one when I was seventeen. These will be number one hundred and eight and one hundred and nine. Yes I am responsible for taking one hundred and nine lives. I am a bad man, I keep saying this and yet I know you are waiting for something good to come. It won’t I am a murderer and that is never going to change. I like to kill people, it is why I was born.