By Any Means

203 Pages·2014·1.22 MB·English

by  Ellis Kurt

By Any Means
Kurt Ellis
Human & Rousseau
In memory of Luke Cafun
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them …
Part 1: Cause
Prologue
The year 1992
The top half of his forehead was noticeably lighter in complexion than the lower
part of his face. A clear brown border had been made by the Stetson hat he
always wore. A hat that was placed over his right knee at that moment. He was
sitting on a concrete step, his forearms across his thighs.
The three boys sat cross-legged in front of him, two of them with eyes dinner-
plate wide and paying close attention to everything he did. The third, a little
younger and fairer-skinned, was more focused on a line of ants trooping past.
They called the old man Oupa.
Oupa’s fingers worked skilfully, squeezing and rubbing together the green
grass that was in the palm of his left hand. He had three fingers on his right hand
– he was lacking the pinky and the ring finger. With his thumb he ground the
weed further into his palm.
His eyes did not leave his hands when he said: “I am not happy about all of
this, boys.”
The two boys lowered their eyes to the ground.
“School is important,” their grandfather continued. “Education, my boys.
Education is your ticket to a better life. That is what we are fighting for. That is
what I gave these up for.” He showed them his mangled right hand. “So that you
can go to school. Not like me.”
His scarred and three-pronged hand slid down the side of his perch and
grabbed hold of a sheet of newspaper. “The only use newspaper is to me is to
roll up my zol in and to smoke.” He tore a strip of paper from the sheet and
formed a green line down the middle of it with the grass. He licked the edge of
one of the sides and rolled the paper over.
“Me, I can’t read a word. I don’t know numbers from letters, my boys. Ask me
what is one plus one, and I will say it is apple. But that is okay. It is not my fault,
because I wasn’t given the chance to learn proper. And it was not what God
wanted of me. I had to go fight against that bastard Verwoerd and his people. I
had to hold a gun and not a book. But you have the chance. To go to school and
to learn. And to be intelligent. But for you boys to duck from school, for even
one day …” He finally looked up and shook his head at them. “That is not on.
That insults me. That insults every single one of my comrades that died for you.
Education is important. That is why I buy these books in there.” He gestured to
the shed behind him. “I can’t read a word, but I will buy as many books as I can
get. Any book. I don’t care what book, but I will buy it. Dumb people get sweet
fu …” He checked his language. “Sweet nothing in this world.”
Their grandfather placed the home-made cigarette between his lips and patted
his brown pants, searching for matches.
“You know what?” he continued. “Look around you, boys. This is the world I
am giving you. It’s not much. But you can make it better. I know you three can.”
He found what he was looking for, opened the box and struck a match. He put
the flame to one tip of the newspaper and pulled deeply on the blunt. When the
paper caught fire, he blew sharply on it to extinguish the naked flare, so that all
that was left was the soft glow of orange embers.
He sighed. “You are better than this. Smarter than this. And you must look
after each other, because no one else will. If someone hurts one of you, the other
two must destroy that person. You fuck them up. You hear me?” The three boys
nodded. “And never back down. Never. Not from anyone or nothing. If
something is not right, you say so. But don’t you dare ever back down when
things get hard. You just need to get harder.” He pulled on the marijuana
cigarette and shut his eyes, savouring the smoke in his lungs. “Yup. This is not
much that I am giving. But you can change it. You can make it better.”
Their grandfather leaned forward, closer to them. So close that they could
smell the dagga on his breath. “My children, your parents suffered because I was
not here. I’m not happy with … But it isn’t their fault. It’s mine. Because I was
too busy crawling through mud and bush in Botswana and Swaziland to be a
proper father.” He slowly shook his head. “I was not the parent they needed. But
you boys …” He smiled. “You boys are where the changes is going to happen.
You will be the generation that sorts everything out. You have to be. I know
there isn’t a lot of good role models around you. And me …” he shrugged. “I’m
not gonna be around forever. But you don’t need role models. You have
yourself. You know what is right or wrong in your heart.” He stabbed himself in
the chest with his finger. “That is where God speaks to you boys. And you must
listen.” He let thick smoke ooze from his nostrils. “But above all, you must do
better than this. You must succeed, by any means necessary.”
1
The year 2000
The wind was warm. It whispered to him. And if he inhaled deeply enough, and
if he really concentrated, Kyle could swear he smelt the scent of the ocean on its
breath.
He was walking down Sparks Road, alone, his hands stuffed deep into his
pockets, his head turned down to the earth. A black cap pulled down low over
his brow. He loved that cap. It allowed him to disappear into the shadows. Away
from the judging or pitying looks of people.
His eyes were glued to the pavement ahead of him as he softly whistled the
tune of a song by the Bee Gees, “How deep is your love?” It had been his
mother’s favourite.
The tarred surface of the road glistened from the heavy rain that had fallen
earlier that evening but which had now eased into a light, warm drizzle. A
devil’s rainbow in the middle of the road caught his attention. When he was
younger, he’d been told by older kids that this was a rainbow made by the devil
himself, and that if he walked over one, he would die. He had since realised it
was just an oil patch reflecting the different hues of the spectrum. He shook his
head slowly and smiled a wry smile. He was such an idiot to have believed them.
He was limping ever so slightly. Pain spread dully from his left knee with each
step he took. This was the result of a fierce and hostile soccer game earlier that
day. A game in which he had performed exceptionally well at the heart of the
Villa Park defence, which he had marshalled as captain of the team. He just
hoped that he had done enough to impress the academy scout from Birmingham
in England. Charlie, his coach, thought he had.
The sound of nearby voices drew his attention. Kyle took his eyes off the toes
of his tackies and looked up in the direction of Butcher Road. There, in the park
that lay like an island amidst a sea of roads, stood a group of six men: six
husbands tasting the bitter lips of their mistresses, the beer bottles. Their drunken
banter drifted on the warm wind and caught his ear. They shared tales of wives
who did nothing but complain, and stories of children who treated them with
scant respect and who were getting up to all kinds of mischief. Kyle glanced at
his watch. It was thirty minutes past midnight. In the morning, these men would
be gone, but their beer bottles and their zol pipes would remain, like proud
memorials amongst the rusted swings and merry-go-rounds on which the
children played. And he knew that the next evening these men would return, and
do the same. And the same the evening after that, and the evening after that.
There was a gunshot in the distance, followed by a chorus of barking dogs. It
was actually a quiet night. Perhaps that was why he had struggled to fall asleep.
He continued down Sparks Road and crossed over Randles Road, which
bisected it. He walked past the doctor’s rooms and into the passage between the
bottle store and the video rental shop. Cautiously, so not to hurt his knee any
further, he climbed the stairs of the block of flats. The stench of urine set his
nostrils on fire, but he wrestled down the urge to vomit. Finally, he reached the
graffiti-emblazoned wooden door at the top of the stairwell and pushed it open
into the now unfamiliar smell of fresh air.
He breathed in deeply and let the aroma of rain-soaked cement fill his nose.
The scent of moisture lifted his leaden spirits. With eyes shut tight, he sighed.
Where he had felt alone and uneasy only a few minutes ago, he now felt calm
and safe. He now felt … at peace. He removed his black Liverpool FC cap and
allowed his long black hair to fall around his face. Turning his face to the night
sky, he felt the gentle kisses of rain trickle down his cheeks. Cleansing him. Re-
baptising him.
He walked over to the edge and looked down at the shining road surface
below. The streetlights reflected off the mirrorlike surface of the street.
Swinging his legs over the edge, he sat on the brink of a seven-storey fall and
looked out over the cardboard-like rooftops of Sydenham.
He remembered the first time he came up here. It had been soon after it
happened, and his mind had been numb yet aching at the same time. He hadn’t
known how to describe the feelings he’d had at the time, except to say he felt
forgotten. He’d felt alone and in agony. His soul was screaming for help and no
one, not even God, cared to listen to his pleas. So when he first climbed these