Fifty-Four

Daniel Addas







"My father and I had a volatile relationship and we fought often but never over a girl before." I lean my cheek against my palm. My elbow rests on the table.
"So what you're saying is that you shot your father and when that didn't kill him, you stabbed him?"
"The man just couldn't die. Plus he was in pain. I did him a favour."
"By killing him?" He says, more to himself than me. He shakes his head, horrified. His voice wobbles by the end.
"No. By ending his misery. As I said, he was in pain," I correct him, lifting my gaze as I speak so that our eyes meet.
For the first time since I got here he actually looks at me as though I'm an animal, as if he's ashamed he's even breathing the same air as me. Oh well.
That doesn't bother me one bit. If Clara could kill her father to protect me from abuse then I can help her get away with it.
Clara has always made sure Mama and I are safe. She always puts us first. She put Mama in a mental institution to hide her. Papa left no stone unturned when he was searching for her but a psychiatric ward was the last place Zayed would ever suspect his wife to be. We often get Lulu Barika to give her PCP so that she'd act crazy and the doctors can keep her in there with minimal suspicion.
I remember the first time he hit Mama, s'pose I should say the first time my sibling and I found out about it.
We came home from school to a damaged house: broken glass door, overturned sofas, rice all over the marble floors. We stood at the living room in dead silence as we processed the room. Papa pacing the room like a pastured bull.
My mother's eye had already started turning blue. She was barefoot and her T-shirt was stained with blood. A limp accompanied every step she took.
Twelve-year-old Clara rushed to her side. "What happened here, Mama?"
"Nothing, sweety," she said, her scared gaze searching Papa's face. "Mom's fine."
Clara: "Mama, you're not fine. Did you and Papa fight?"
Mama: "No."
"But—"
I interrupted Clara in a urgent but infuriated voice. "They didn't fight, stupid. It's obvious he hit her."
Clara pushed out her chin and glared at me. She didn't believe me. Whatever.
"Look." I pointed to the swollen eye, the split lips. "He hit her, Clara."
"It's not how things happened, exactly. He was just upset because one of his employees is stealing from him. It won't happen again," Mama said urgently, desperate for us to believe her.
But how could we when she didn't look like she believed it herself.
"Right, you'll keep making excuses for him. I always hear you fighting well into the night," I told my mother. It was true. They fought every night.
Now as I tell Jones this story immediate awareness lit his eyes.
He balls his fist and he unexpectedly asks, "So, you killed your father because he was abusing you?"
I squirm. "Huh?"
This too was planned. Clara knows everything about everyone. For example the reason I had to speak to Jones is simple. He became a cop because he wanted to be the voice for women and children. Him, his mother and siblings suffered abuse at the hands of their alcoholic father. It didn't take long for the private investigator Clara had hired to bring us some worthy info on our favourite detective.
Clara always knows her next move before she follows through with the current one. I'm afraid to ask but I have enough reason to believe she knew she was going to kill Papa the second she found out he was cheating on Mama. She already hated him for hurting her and the old fart kept on building to the list. I think the last straw was him refusing to accept that Clara is atheist. He shoved his religion down her throat every chance he got. She was just tired of living a lie.
"Did—Did he sexually abuse you?"
He didn't. But Clara knew this was going to be the detective's question. He was abused by various members of his family when he was younger. I work in some tears because I know that this is what victims expect from another victim. To tearfully fill them in.
"Yes... Clara took me to the doctors the next day."
"I don't mean to be insensitive but do you perhaps remember the doctor?"
"Yes, Dr. Hill at the Netcare Hospital."
I know what Jones will find when he goes to question the doctor. Long story short, the Greek style sexual activity I engaged in? Well, I'm not particularly into men. I did that for this very reason. I had rough protected sex with Skylar, it was my first time, and like Clara had said, I bled. My aashole felt like it was on fire.
From there it was a matter of going through Mrs. Jones' trash and when I got home, Clara and I locked the bathroom door with me on my knees, and her bending over me, trying to squeeze the semen on the condoms into my butthole.
It worked.
The second Dr. Hill saw the injuries and I flinched and cowered every time he made a gesture to touch me.
The winning act was when he gave me pills to take, for the pain, he explained, and I slapped his hand so hard that the tablets flew across the room. "Please... Please don't hurt me."
It was like he'd read the manual Clara had wrote. He got this horrified, stunned face and mumbled: "Oh My God. You were raped."
As Clara had instructed me. I started crying, snort and tears getting into my mouth. Disgusting. But at the end of the day doctors knew about the raped kid's file who didn't want to talk to the police nor press charges. They concluded among themselves that it was by someone I knew, someone I feared.
The police got involved against my wishes (which was exactly what Clara and I hoped for) and no matter how hard they pushed, I refused to talk. I have an unexplored file somewhere. Papa's semen sits... Wherever police keep evidence.
"Daniel, I'm so sorry," Jones says.
What's the next step? Yes that's it. Be mad.
"I don't want your sympathy."
"I'm not pitying you."
"Right. What's next? You gonna tell me you know how I feel, bullshit."
"I do know how you feel. I unfortunately went through the same thing when I was a little boy."
And a sixteen-year-old Jones killed his father in self-defense.
Number one rule of murdering someone and getting away with it is talking to an officer who understands. An officer who'll feel like he's doing you injustice by arresting you for taking (off the streets) the very predator he swore to protect the society from.
"Now," Jones says. "Let's talk Wendy Sherman."