Chapter 12
When I reach to the stairs of Block F, two men who I have never met before in my life with tattoos on their neck are coming down, and they are talking about a man name Katak. They give me a look, trying to act tough as I stare them blankly. One of them is taller than me, and the other is short, I give them a look back to signal how unfrighten I am.
Not before long they left, and so without lingering about I climb the stairs to the third floor.
Once I arrive, Namira’s red door is wide open and coming out that door is the sound of whimpers like the thundering sound of help.
This is the only problem, if they are proud of you, are they there for you when you change, because they always expect a sequel. Life is not a sequel.
Hey do you think this can last forever?
You mean forever ever?
Five ever.
“It’s going to be alright,” I can hear the sound of Saida comforting somebody, her sister Sybilla perhaps.
We aren’t knights, we’re no bishops, nor castles, and damn straight we are no kings or queens. We are just pawns. No matter how much your paycheck is, you’re just a sacrifice. It doesn’t matter who wins or lose because it has nothing to do with you, because in the end you won’t get to see the end.
I slowly make my way to the red door as my body is being pulled into their house, and I can see that both of the girls are bruised. Saida has a dark eye and Sybilla has a cut on her soft lips. They are proper banged up.
Standing in front of Sybilla, who is sitting on a chair, I ask, “What happen here? Who did this?” It is clear what happened here, those two guys must have done this, the question is why.
Sybilla touches her bruised face gently, being silent, not at all acknowledging I am right in front of her.
Saida in the other hand clears her tears and explains to me that Katak is their father, the savage. Apparently he just got out from prison this week, and afore he went in to the penitentiary he owed some money from a dangerous man. Worse even, the debt has accumulated to seventy thousand grand. When the man heard Katak got out of prison, he been asking about the money, but Katak fail to pay up. It’s because I plunged a blade into his throat and that the fact he is now just a dissolved goo of a thing.
Since Katak is long gone, the dues must now be paid by his daughters, these two innocent girls. And if they don’t pay up by the end of the week, those two men are going to come back and do a whole lot more damage.
These girls don’t have that kind of money. If they do they won’t be living in a dump like this.
I feel guilty. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed the savage.
Now I have put Sybilla in danger. I want to cry. I want to punch myself, if I had known, I wouldn’t.
“Do you have this guy’s number?” I ask calmly, those two men with tattoos on their necks didn’t look the type to be dealing with big money, they must have a boss, an employer of some sort that tells them what to do.
She says the men gave her a number to call when they get the money. And I reply, call him.
Saida gets her hand phone, pressing the keypads as she is dialing the number, and then she hands me the phone when it is ringing. She asks me with a brittle voice, “What are you going to do?” I turn down to look at Sybilla who is still silent, touching her face. I want to embrace right now. But it can wait. “I’m going to fix this,” I say with perfect composure that I look like a freaking Power Ranger who just did a summersault.
The end of the line picks up. “Hello, who is this?” this rough gruff of a voice answers, it gives me shivers at the back of my skin. Upon hearing this voice, I can feel the ghost of Christ is ready to bring me home. Picking up phone calls are hard enough, making a phone call is like messing with a raging typhoon.
I take my time before saying anything. “This is the guy who killed Katak. I’ll be dealing with his debt, leave the girls alone,” I finally say, almost breaking.
“Alright tough guy,” he says gratingly, knowing I am shaking and afraid. “I don’t care about Katak, screw him. But what I do care is my money, so you have my money?”
“No,” I say like that of a lion, proud and confident.
“Then what is this?”
“I’m sure we can work something out, I’ll do something for you instead.” I know people like this always have something that needs be done.
There is a silence of human voice, the only thing I can hear right now is my own breathe inhaling and exhaling, and the buzzing of information transmission. Twenty seconds, twenty one seconds, thirty seconds, forty seconds, fifty six seconds, closing in to one minute until the man on the other end of the line blows air and say, almost happily, “Alright, I like your style. You got guts. There is something you can do for me. I have been planning something and it’s a three man job, and you’re going to be the third man.” He further informs tell that this job is tomorrow, and I need to go to a specific street where I will meet up with him and his workers.
After he is done, I ask, “When the job is done, is the debt paid?”
“Yeah. Yeah, whatever.”
“Will you leave the girls alone?”
“Damn it, yeah,” he says half irritated. “Tell me, what’s your name?”
It would be rude not to tell him. “Kid,” I answer. He laughs and then reminds to be on the spot at the right time, tomorrow. After that he clicks off the phone, ending one of my fear-provoking phone calls ever.
“What now?” Saida asks me, she had been listening to the conversation very avidly, while Sybilla was quiet all by herself.
“These people won’t be bothering you ever again.” She is not particularly confident with the words that came out from my mouth, and she makes her remake on it. “Are you sure?” she says nervously.
Not sure, but wanting to ease them I mixed untruthfulness to my next words, “I am sure.” She tries for a smile, and just like the fissure of the Pacific Rim, she is beautiful again even with all that internal bleeding.
I smile back. Funny, this might be the most honest smile I have ever made.
Saida gets up and walks to the kitchen to fix herself up, leaving me alone with Sybilla in the living room. I get down on my knees, forcing my way to her hands, and then grasp those delicate little fingers of hers.
Suddenly I am angry and guilty for not being in her life earlier. I wish I was there from the beginning. She deserves the kind of love that won’t hurt her, the kind of love that would kill for her and make sure she is well and happy, and I daresay that she needed my love all along.
I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. I do nothing but think of her. She has me under a spell.
“Everything is going to be alright, I promise you that. Didn’t I?” I say, and she looks away.
I want to apologize to her. I am sorry that you were not introduced to the kind of love that protects you, but diminishes you instead. I am sorry, but that love is here now and it will never go anyway. As I said before, I am crazy for this girl. I am prepared to put her ahead of my own safety. And I will do this for the rest of my life.
You see, she’s my soul mate.
I think that’s true. I think this idea of soul mates do exist. I believe that everything we do in our life is a way to get closer to our soul mate.
I think feminism doesn’t work, think about it. Who would really benefit from feminism, it’s sure as hell won’t be the female race. The men would get the most out of this deal, straight men to be specific. Be independent, why? So the guys won’t feel bad leaving the girls now. Equal pay, nice, why? Now the guys won’t have the obligation to pay for anything. Free thinking, free your bodies, even better, why? So it’s easy to fool around. Nobody is a winner.
My birthday is on the twentieth of August. My name is Kid. I am seventeen years old, and for sure, I have found my soul mate.
I stay with Sybilla for a while, and then I head back to my place where my mom and one of her friends, by the name of Abbey, who also services the same line of work with my mother dearest, are lounging by the living room. No, she is not in the food service like in the fancy restaurant my mom is working, but instead the pleasuring men kind of service.
My mother and her amatory friend are watching a P. Ramlee movie apparently on the television set. P. Ramlee, now that’s a hero. Forget about the politicians in this country, they are nothing compare to this man. This man is the epitome of Malaysia, or what it should and could be.
Five steps into the house my mother looks at me and all of a sudden, she drops her food, and stands up, walking to me, and then she goes and embraces me. She tells me that she loves me. I pat her back awkwardly enough, and I say I love her too. Lierve. Lierve. That means hare in French.
Both of us, mother and son in the middle on the living room are stagnant and motionless. I don’t know what is going on actually, but I love every second of it. She is my mother, I love her too. I love her.
Stop now, just pause. Let your parents know that they are loved.
And so I smile, and I know she is smiling as well. I guess this is one of those soft playing piano keys moment, when by the end of it we will cry. I love that. She hugs me, and I can feel I am being cured, as if my disease is being ridden away.
Abbey witnesses this moment.
After a minute or so we let go and I head to my room and I fall to my bed and I break down. I cry and cry, but it is not a loud cry, it’s pleading, like I don’t know, a release perhaps? No. No. It’s not a release, it is just a sigh. No. Wrong. I feel as if today I have been proven wrong all my life. I think people do care about me, and I cry not because I am sad or angry, but because I cannot contain this. This is too much, it is making me organ-less. My insides are not there, and it is not entirely a bad thing neither it is good, but I feel. To Orpheus and the skies, I feel and feel of a wound that does not has its scar.
I die on my bed at this instance. And then I sleep. With the taste of my salty tears on my lips, for I know tomorrow will be another day, another day to live and die, another day to struggle, and another day to love.
I think of things I wish not to think.
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