28 Boys Read online

  “Oh, I’d love for you to go right back. Get out Francis!” I scream at him. My yelling makes Dan cry and he holds onto him even tighter as I try to pry my baby away from the one man I truly fear. Now I am crying, begging him to just let go and come to me. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this, Franky? Tell me, because you have no idea what you have started do you,” I sob, as I yank my child free from him.

  “This wasn’t me Engela, can you not see my fucking tears? My sister died in there tonight. This, this was not me. I got on a bus with you, remember?” His question is both a statement and a threat that I understand. I am his alibi and I better not get him in trouble.

  “Sorry, Franky.” I manage to cry, she was my friend.

  We were best friends then Nathaniel happened. I survived the gangs and she got swallowed whole. I suddenly feel responsible for her death. I rock my baby boy and try to calm us both down.

  I am so tired of surviving every day. I want to live. I hate the fear that clouds my skies each morning and the certainty that my son’s future is even bleaker than my own. I sit down on the chair where my mother’s blood is drying into the material. I should go to the hospital, but a bus at this time of the night won’t be easy to find.

  There is a knock at the front door and Martin comes in without waiting for me to get up and open it. He looks from me to Francis and back again. He knows secrets that could get me killed and I have to trust him. Again, I have to trust him again, and that scares the shit out of me.

  If the truth comes out in all of this mess I will be the next statistic, the next dead girl. A traitor.

  Martin recognizes Francis right away, they were all kids on these streets. Martin found the police instead of the gangs, his dad was a cop too. I guess some boys are saved, although I am not sure that being a cop is any better in this place.

  “Francis.” He greets, but it comes out as more of a question. I give him a look that says shut the fuck up Martin. “Engela, I need to take a statement from both of you, then I will go fetch your Ma for you.”

  I frown and nod as he walks to the kitchen, he obviously doesn’t want to talk with Francis here. Dan clings tightly to me as I follow behind Martin, his sobs are now snivels and his little bottom lip quivers with each short breath in.

  Martin turns and gives me a very stern look. “Why is Francis in your house, Engela?” he whispers, but it’s still a yell, I’m still being scolded for this.

  “Ma invited him in, he came home and I don’t know, she’s on some crusade,” I tell him, panic rising in my voice.

  “What part of stay out of the limelight was so hard for you, Engela? You don’t want him drawing their eyes back to you, you got away with it, but you can still get caught.” He sounds scared.

  “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I know how bad it is that he is here, on this street! He is 28! Are you kidding me with a lecture right now.” I sink into a chair hanging onto my child. “He wasn’t supposed to get out. Martin, how did he get out? How is that man in my house?” I cry now, tears fall down my face and wet my shirt. “Is Nathaniel going to show up one day through my kitchen window?” I have lost faith in the safety I created. My belief that they are locked away is gone and fear is growing in me every second I sit here with him. “I was at work, my Ma called me. That’s my statement. Francis was in the city, we caught the same bus.”

  I swallow the fear and look at him, pleading with my eyes for him to keep all the promises he made me. He said I would be safe, I just hope he didn’t lie.

  “I’m going to talk to Francis, but you need to get him off this street Engela. That house is marked for business, and not 28 business either.” Martin stands up before I start to answer him.

  “Felicity was killed. It’s his house. They won’t get near it. This street just became 28, thanks to the police. The police who are supposed to keep me safe! I don’t know how, or why Martin, but this had something to do with him - even it didn’t. Jy verstaan?” Understand?

  He nods and walks back to the front of the house, and I watch out my ma’s window as the meat wagon collects bodies from across the road. The ones that lived are all long gone, and a small crowd of older residents hang around, talking and shaking their heads.

  I sense the security I had slipping away. A new gang will move in and my little boy is not the right number. Francis needs to leave. He needs to go back where he belongs.

  He killed my brother. He started a war and the rest of us were left here to fight, to live the best we could. I see Martin through the window, walking back out the house. He turns to look at me, and the worry in his brown eyes makes my fear even bigger than it was.

  I wait ages in the kitchen, hoping to see Francis leaving through that same window, but he doesn’t.

  Dan has fallen asleep in my arms and he is getting heavy to hold. I need to take him to bed. Cecil is standing outside. Across the street his eyes meet mine and the threat doesn’t need to be spoken. I am in trouble whether I did anything or not.

  I try not to cry as I walk past Francis to put the baby in his cot. When I know he is settled and won’t wake up, I go back to the lounge.

  He sits there. His shaved head is down, cradled in his hands, his back bent over so his shirt is pulled tight over it. I see his breaths in and out, they are short and shudder through him, Francis is crying.

  “You need to leave, Francis.”

  He doesn’t even look up to answer me.“My house is crime scene and my sister is dead.” Looking up into my eyes, I see the tears on his face, wet with grief. “Where would you like me to go, Engela?”

  “You can’t be here. You are making them see me, and I really need them not to be looking at me, Francis. My kind is nie ’n agt, ek is nie ’n agt. My child is not a twenty-eight, I am not a twenty- eight. Loop net, asseblief, uit ons lewe. Gaan terug na jou kant van die pad.” Just get out of my life, go back to your side of the road please.

  I am crying, begging for him to leave before it’s too late.

  It’s already too late.

  “I chose them. I did things to stay alive and safe. So did Felicity. This wasn’t easy for us either, Francis. You were safe inside, while we were out here fighting the war you started.”

  He gets up quietly and leaves. The front door slams behind him and I breathe in before I let myself cry for so many unspoken things. When the tears give way to exhaustion I make a call to my boss, apologize for leaving and request a few days vacation. Given what has happened he is understanding.

  When I crawl into the bed facing my sweet little boy’s cot I say his prayers and hope like hell someone is listening, whichever God will have me at this point, I don’t care.

  I wake up to the sound of a gunshot, a shot close enough to rattle my window and wake the baby. I know I shouldn’t look, but I do. The silence returns as the echo of the bullet disappears into the night.

  Between the shadows, under a broken streetlight, Eiran and Francis stand over Cecil’s body. His blood paints the story of a turf war being reborn and the relative peace of the years passed is gone.

  Francis sees me and I close the curtain, and lie back down in my bed. I will never sleep. I will never be able to sleep again.

  I keep my eyes on my little boy as he tries to soothe himself back to slumber. It’s time to think about leaving. Maybe leaving my Ma behind is better than staying. I know they will kill her, they are going to kill us too.

  Ma knocks on my door. I heard her coming in a little while ago. She pokes her head inside and I can see her worry lines. “Are you two okay?”

  “Ons is reg Ma, gaan slaap nou.” We are fine, go sleep Ma.

  The night is almost gone and I lie here until sleep forces my eyes closed. My dreams are fitful and bloody.

  My memories and dreams melt into nightmares of my past, and visions of what is coming haunt my sleep. Francis’s face, stained with bloody tears as he holds my son in his arms and gunshots rain like a flood around us. The screaming voices are the soundtrack
to the menacing images in my short sleep.

  When I wake up Dan isn’t in his cot and I immediately fly from my bed, dashing out of the open door, looking for him as my heart thunders and the tears I feel just stopped are pouring down my face again.

  When I stumble over the stupid step into the kitchen my eyes land on my little angel in his chair. Ma is making coffee and Francis is feeding him.

  My heart turns to lead in my chest and I feel as if its weight will break my bones with each thundering beat. My ears ring and my eyes fill with yet more tears as I stop dead still in the middle of the floor.

  What is happening?

  7

  Francis

  sees them dying

  I can hear sirens, and see the red and blue glow of flashing lights before I even turn the corner towards my home. My stomach twists as memories of my arrest come flooding back to me.

  My steps slow down and I use the phone to dial the only other number I put in it; the officer who secured my release from prison.

  “Something happened at my house. I swear I haven’t been there and I’m not involved. It wasn’t me. I can’t go back. I didn’t do anything.” I don’t even let him say hello as the words flow from my mouth and panic grips my throat in a strangle.

  “Calm down Francis, I know about it already. You are not even going to be questioned. Wait for the dust to settle, then you can go home. Just accept this gift from your new employers, and don’t fuck up and lose this job.”

  My employers?

  What the hell?

  I am confused, but don’t say so.

  “Is jy seker? Dit lyk nie goed hier nie.” Are you sure? It doesn't look good here. My eyes are scanning the carnage, the sound of gunfire continues to get louder as I get closer.

  “Francis, go wait somewhere. Do not get involved.”

  I hit the red end-call circle on the screen and keep walking. The live action-movie in front of my eyes plays out in slow motion as Felicity comes darting from the house, and I watch Cecil, who is at the bottom of the steps, empty his gun into her chest.

  My heart stops.

  He looks me in the eye and points the two fingers of his free hand at me in the symbol of a gun. I am a marked man, the wrong number on the wrong street. Turf is everything in this place, and I stepped on theirs when I came home.

  No one ever believed a man serving more than twenty life sentences would walk free. I cannot believe it myself. I traded other lives for my freedom, I gave them men worse than I will ever be in exchange for this privilege. I was safer on the street than inside, they said.

  They were wrong. So very wrong.

  The shattered glass of the house across the street glints in the blue strobe lights on the police car as I bolt towards the front door, there is a baby inside there. I grab a paramedic on the way past, yelling at her that there is a baby in the house, and she stumbles after me as I drag her inside.

  The blood on Aunties shirt, and the scream as we burst in, makes even me jump. I can hear the baby crying. He is lying on a bright colored blanket facing the TV, which is now shattered and broken.

  I have never held a baby. I am afraid of hurting him as I lift his little body from the floor and tuck him against me. The gunfire has turned to silence outside, and the paramedic I accosted is helping this poor little boy’s Ouma (granny).

  A sadness I have never felt before takes over as I hold onto this baby. I wonder if my Ma dreamed of being an Ouma. If she was happy before she died?

  I so badly wanted to make her proud of me, but I had no place in this world so I found my place in the gang. I never got to say goodbye to her, to tell her that I did something good, something right. She didn’t even answer the letters and calls telling her I was coming home, because she was dead and no one bothered to let me know.

  I collapse onto the couch clinging onto the baby, trying to shield him from the images outside the windows. I watch my sister’s body get covered over by a silver space blanket by a police officer, his shirt is untucked and he looks so tired. They all look a little lost as some come out of my house carrying bags and guns, and others try to cover the bodies littering the pavement and street.

  I look down and two tiny brown eyes meet mine, his crying has stopped but his little lip still quivers as he holds onto me for dear life. Time stands still as I hold a life in my arms and watch one expire outside, her pigtails and missing teeth flash through my mind. I know the woman in the street is no longer that little girl. Her life changed when I left and she was lost to the drugs. There was no way I could have saved her, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have tried.

  Engela is outside. I see her talking to a policeman and I wonder if this was her? Did she call the police?

  After she ripped her child from my arms and later kicked me out, I sat on the bottom step of my home, my sister’s blood spattered on them now.

  Is there anything left for me to lose?

  I want to go do something stupid and get caught. I want to go back inside where none of this matters at all. I need walls to keep me, I need a cage to stop what I fear is inside me still.

  They will kill everyone close to me. Now that there is no one left they will come after me. I feel so small in this open space, the dark sky above my head in place of a concrete ceiling, and fresh air where I long for prison bars.

  I close my eyes and watch my sister die over and over again, each time I feel the bullets rip through me, pain cripples me and my chest burns with guilt. As I hug my body and the air turns cool with a breeze, I held a life in these arms tonight, a small fragile new little person.

  He doesn’t deserve to live across the street from the terrors in my house. Innocence is lost so soon after we are born. I hold onto the sensation that holding the baby caused as I dial Eiran, I hope he answers me. I have so many questions.

  “I am coming now Francis, have all the cops left yet?” He doesn’t even say hello.

  “Yes, it’s quiet. Except Cecil, who is hanging around just down the street.” I see his shadow about eight houses away. I know that Judas anywhere, even after all these years.

  “Wait till I get there. We will deal with him.”

  The line goes dead and I sit on the step and wait. I think I might be waiting to die. There isn’t much else to wait for.

  The lights have been turned off across the street and I can’t see inside the windows, but I know they are in there. I sit for hours, Martin dropped the Auntie at home a while ago, and the lights went on and off again inside the house.

  Cecil still leans against a lamp post watching me, waiting for something. I’m not sure what it is, but he hasn’t left and it starts to make me nervous.

  Eiran said he was coming now - fucking African time now could be any time this year. When we were young boys, before all the things that have gone between us, we were all best friends, thick as thieves. Eiran, me, Martin, Danial and Cecil, now look how far apart we all are.

  Cecil drew a line in the sand, Martin is a cop, and Eiran is something far bigger than even I understand. What am I? The only thing I know for sure is I am free, and maybe it’s time to choose to be something more than all this violence.

  I am not just a number.

  I just need to decide what it is that I am beneath it all.

  Three cars turn the corner with a motorbike in front of them, shiny clean new cars that don’t belong here. Two cars park in front of the single garage that is separate from my house, and the bike and other car pull up in front of me.

  Eiran pulls off a helmet, and the woman he was watching through the window gets out of the red Jaguar in front of me. My skin turns cold and I get the feeling that these are not good people, they are worse than even me - and I was never anything but bad.

  “Francis, this is…” he looks at her first, as if he doesn’t know what to call her. “Your boss. This is the boss. She sorted the problem tonight and will look after you, as long as you stay with the company and do your job.”

  I stand up and hold
out my hand for her to shake. She just looks at it and then at Eiran. “Francis, that’s an odd name for a gangster as notorious as you.” She has eyes that don’t match, and both a gun and a knife holstered; those are just what I can see. “Well Francis, things have changed since you last walked around free. The gangs no longer run the streets, no matter what they think. They are all owned, and I am the owner of everything that gets moved around here. Do you understand that?”

  I nod. It’s a lie because I really have no fucking clue what she is saying, but Eiran’s eyes on me from just behind her tell me to hou my in. (Keep my thoughts to myself).

  “I tolerate these stupid turf wars and differences in opinion over who owns what, but it’s all mine. Eiran seems to think you are a very valuable asset and I stepped in this time. Keep your shit together, keep your hands clean and do your job. You are a cleaner, not a gang member any longer.” She steps right up to me, her body against mine as I look down into her face, “This is my house now, Francis. Your co-workers will clean up for you tonight.”

  She gets in her car and speeds off as fast as she appeared.

  “Wat die fok?” I ask Eiran who is standing next to me now. What the fuck?

  “Things changed, Francis. Crime is big business and that’s our boss. Whether or not you are in gang, a 26, 27 or 28, indirectly she is your boss. Do not fuck with her, just do the job. They have friends in high places. Like the president high.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me so we can walk up the steps of my house. Ripping the police tape off the door, we go inside. “Welcome home, Francis.”

  Only it doesn’t feel like home at all.

  “They killed Felicity tonight.” The words don’t carry the feelings that are inside my heavy heart.

  “I know they did.” He whistles, like he is calling a dog, and the men crawling around cleaning my house all turn and come closer. “This is your team Francis, we are your new family. Jou nommer maak nie saak met ons nie.” Your number doesn't matter with us. They all greet me and the band of misfits continue what they were doing. “This never happened, and when the sun is up no one will even remember it. We need to deal with our brother at the end of the street now. Come.”