CHAPTER FOUR
What’s your name, inmate?
Being at the wrong place at the wrong time led me to this place. Clement’s plan to use our power in keeping people in check backfired badly. In turn, I got burdened with cruel and unjust restraints which resulted to his death. I got charged for possession of firearms in the first degree which were found in the boot of Clement’s car. After Lysen, we had to deliver those firearms at some place in Hilton. Sadly, bad luck caught up to me faster than a fly to a pile of dog shit. Clement wasn’t alive to plead for himself so the law threw every charge on me until something sticked enough to get me off the street. A lot of treachory and unnecessary behavior took place. There’s really nothing I could do regarding how things played out. If I had the power to control my past, I would have fixed the order of things. I’ve been having a hard time figuring out who I am. Being in this place allowed me to travel parts of myself I never thought existed. For some poor reason I have convinced myself that I somehow belong in this place. Belong in a sense of a questioned morality conflict. Not many would admit to themselves that their moral code or guiding principles are a bit twisted if not foolish.
I’ve committed sins I’m not proud of, I don’t regret any, I just believe I could have found a better way to commit them. My life is evident that some children do bear the punishment of their parent’s iniquities. I once read that everyone is born with interlocking elements or pieces that will later sum up and become whole. Well, I’ve come to realize that I could never be complete. My life got wrecked way too early to be hopeful about the future. This is what I meant by being both the oppressor and the oppressed. I could have stayed home and did my school projects but other parts of me wanted more that day. I was still hyped up about that other night I protected Clement from that old man. I’m still trying to figure out why my inner being always gets fulfilled by acts of cruelty. Is that how Luna was on the inside? Come to think of it, I never got to fully understand my mother’s character. One could never tell what she was thinking, her mind was everywhere all at once. She never really had time to bond with me like any mother to her daughter. Her mind was always fixed on providing and protecting us from whoever or whatever we were running from.
Today marks six months since I’ve been in this place. A year and six months left for this place to rehabilitate me. Three weeks ago, thirteen juveniles got transferred here. It was mostly reoffenders and a few newbies. In the past weeks I’ve allowed myself to interact with people rather than feeling sorry for myself. To my surprise, this place is quite filled with interesting people. I’m never one to strike conversations but lately, I’ve been doing well. If I knew I could easily engage with people I would have done so long ago. My unnecessary conflict with Piper could have been avoided if I just opened myself more to outsiders. I still haven’t heard from him since our last altercation. I’ve tried calling him and uncle Fez a few times but no luck. They probably have their own reasons why they haven’t been in contact with me, hopefully it’s nothing bad. One of the new juveniles caught my eye a few days ago. I’ve never seen her with anyone, I’m not sure if it’s by choice or there’s something about her we don’t know about. She spends most of her time reading books if not admiring the wonders of the sunset. ‘Tomorrow is another country’ is the book she’s reading today. I probably should walk towards her and say something. On the other hand, I don’t want to seem rude by interrupting her alone time. I’m probably thinking too deeply on this, I should just finish my food and go to about my day.
“You think too much…” She said.
She definitely isn’t talking to me, right? There are at least seven of us in this hall, probably someone else was pensively looking at her… Or was I the only one? Shit
“You doing it again”.
“ I’m not, I was just analysing the taste of this egg”.
“While staring at me”?
“ Well, you seem to be enjoying it. Isn’t that why you talking to me? “
“ Haha… I don’t think I know you well enough to say you’re full of yourself so, I’ll leave it at that. “
“ I believe we both have plenty of time to fix that “.
That fifteen seconds dialog was the start of a very long conversation about her upbringing. I could tell from her open conversation that she’s been meaning to open up to someone. She was never alone because she wanted to but for her sanity, she needed to. “I’m Zimenathi Ngwane, a beautiful fifteen year old as you can see, who lived in a household of four. My mother, two younger brothers and my step dad whom I call ‘Bra Jakes’. My biological father passed away due to long illness when I was only seven years old. That’s when Bra Jakes came into picture two years later when I was about nine years of age. He was caring at first but people are their best versions in the first few days of the relationship. After the birth of my two younger brothers who are only a year apart from each other, things took an ugly turn. He suddenly became easily irritable and short tempered. Bra Jakes started drinking on a daily basis. He would get into fights with almost everyone in the hood. My mother’s reputation was tarnished from a respected teacher to “ umfazi wes’dakwa”. My mother knew what was said about her in the neighbourhood but she chose to still see the good side of Bra Jakes. All this behaviour and ugliness went on until I was about fourteen years old. I resented Bra Jakes for all these years, and I couldn’t wait to be grown so I could protect my mother and brothers. Bra Jakes made a punching bag out of my mother and then he would brag to his fellow drunkards about how badly he beat her up the previous night. The abuse started gradually and one day, it suddenly ramped up. My brothers and I were constantly walking on eggshells around bra Jakes being cautious about what might trigger him.
After some time my family got deep into debt as bra Jakes was a heavy gambler. Some months went by with only little to eat and survive. I tried my best to bring food on the table by stealing from people who had plenty of resources to survive. I risked my life many times to keep my family full and healthy. One day bra Jakes noticed how well I held up our family. He resented me for becoming the “man” of the house. Bra Jakes started giving away everything I came back with from my hustle. He gave and gave until there was nothing left in the house. I started to draw out my family’s exit plan from bra Jake’s life. I got help from my mother who suddenly had enough of his presence in the house. The plan was to take my two brothers to Mpumalanga where my aunt stays. My aunt was very eager to help and quickly made an arrangement of transport to pick them up from eMnambithi. Two days past by and it was time to execute their plan. On that day, I went out to steal a few things for my brothers’ departure. On my way back I caught a glimpse of bra Jakes and another women happily walking and flirting their way to some house. I obviously got furious with what I had just witnessed.
I quickly ran home to drop off my brothers’ stuff and made a quick stop at my friend’s house. I asked her to help me out with a few things. My friend’s mother is a cleaner so I knew I would get everything I needed from that house. I asked for a pack of cotton balls, whiskey and any cleaning product that contains sulfuric acid. They took about ten minutes to get everything, after that I headed back to where I last saw bra Jakes. I got in the yard and went round about the house so I wouldn’t be seen. The radio was playing loud and the door was wide open. So I let myself in and found their clothes on the floor, shoes and booze. I slowly sneaked to other rooms to peep what was going on. To my surprise I found Bra Jakes in bed asleep but he was alone. I wondered where his mistress could be, so I figured I had to be quick so I wouldn’t get caught. I poured the whiskey and cleaning products on the floor, curtains and carpet from where Bra Jakes was sleeping to the kitchen. I lit up the cotton balls and dropped then on the floor to easily spread fire then I locked the door. On my way out I bumped into the mistress who was carrying shopping bags filled with groceries. I knew my plan to incinerate bra Jakes would be disrupted if I ran away or didn’t at least stall her until his burnt to ashes. I saw no other way but an opportunity to beat her up, and I did. I hit the mistress with a brick on her head luckily she quickly passed out as I dragged her away from the gate to the washing line away from the public. By this time the whole house was on fire so I rapidly took the grocery and escaped home.
I arrived home on time right before my brothers’ departure. We hung out for some time with my mother who had cooked the food I came in with. Just as they were about to leave, I hugged them tightly and wished them well. As they were headed out, the mistress and the police were already by the gate. I didn’t have time to explain anything to my mother but the minute she heard I was arrested for the murder of bra Jakes, her eyes looked disappointed. I knew what I did might destroy her, but in another world she knows she would have been proud of me. Proud of me for finding a way to protect her even if it meant erasing another life. That was the last time I saw her. I got fifteen years of a blended sentence for murder, arson and assault. I will initially spend my sentence here in juvenile detention and then transferred to an adult prison once l have reached the age of maturity. I just had to cough up what’s been eating me and your ear was brought to me. Hell, I told you everything about my life and I don’t even know your name”. She said
How can I sit here knowing very well I won’t be able to reciprocate all this. If I could, I would tell her everything. I would tell her we are the same and there’s no shame in doing what she thought was best. I’ve never been this comfortable with anyone either than my family. She reminds me of all of them, especially Luna. It’s comforting getting subtle reminders that those who’ve passed before us are still very much a part of our lives. How can I build a friendship or whatever this is on a foundation of lies? All I am is just deception, from living under falsified documents to being incarcerated under a false identity. Everything Luna and Nandi taught me sums up to this moment. This reminds me of the time Luna started calling us by nicknames rather than our actual names. According to Luna and Gunna, it was their way of keeping us safe. Gunna knew his world of work could possibly make our lives hard. Creating pseudonyms for me and Piper made it easier for us to have multiple identities with using only one nickname for all our identities. My name could be Nontobeko or Amahle or Jessica in different places but all those identities would be bound by a single nickname in which it’s the only identity I’m capable of revealing to people. The same way as his Gunna not Busani and mum being Luna. Piper was given that nickname when we were very young, Luna would somehow always find shredded paper on him or money. So she would call him "Paperboy" but young Piper wasn’t old enough to master pronunciation so he’d say, Piper. He hates that name to this day.
I got my nickname through how I was conceived as a surprise twin. I was sitting so closely to my brother in the womb that they mistaken me for a shadow outline on the scan. She’d always say “shadows are proof that light comes from darkness”, like the shadow I reflect the true nature of whatever matter I come in contact with. Always seen but never noticed. I never liked how she perceived me, I associated shadows and darkness with evil for a long time. Little did I know that everything comes from darkness, even light is darkness expressed. During my introspection in the past months, I started to embrace the idea Luna had of me, how she experienced me. I’ve never been in a situation where I had to lie about where or how I grew up. The best I can do for Zime is to tell her tiny drops of truth in the ocean full of lies.
“What’s your name, inmate?” she asked.
To start our friendship on the right track, I’ll start by telling a partially true statement.
“Shadow… You can call me Shadow “.
Hopefully, the line between truth and lies doesn’t get any murkier as time goes.
“ It’s a pleasure to know you, Shadow”.
Since that day, Zime and I have grown fond of each other. We spend most of our time out of our cells together. It’s a very restricted place here, there are so many rules. “You can’t do this or you can’t do that”. It was tough for me at first, having to obey all the rules. I mostly listen to myself and sometimes I would listen to Piper. The life that I was brought into has taught me that. It took me a little while to adapt and when I did, I finally accepted it as my new home. So I figured I’d help Zime adjust to our “new home”. I’ve shown her all my special places and she sometimes use them to read peaceful. And sometimes she reads to me. One of the quotes that kind of stayed with me from one of the books she’s reading is : “The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express ‘reality’ there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages” by Richard Bach. When she noticed that it hit me, she wrote it down for me and advised me to past it where I’ll see it every time I wake up. And honestly it has started making me feel better about my life and the decisions I’ve made thus far. Another thing that has been helping me start to heal from the past and also adapt being here is therapy sessions with the Psychologist who adviced me to journal my feeling, thoughts and experiences. Time started to fly by whenever we were together, it started to feel like we never have enough time together. We’ve grown close, closer than I intended. She’s so easy to be with that is the reason why I let her in so easy.
I woke up today looking forward to seeing Zime as usual but to my surprise I was met by a brown envelope, written “ For my other half” and I cold not believe my eyes. It was a letter from Piper. I was never too worried about him, I knew he’d be alright. The letter read :
“ I’m sorry that I never got to you on time. When I over heard the conversation between Uncle Fezile and Swazi, all I thought about was you because I knew you went with Clement to the mission that he was sent to. Uncle Fezile had the chance to call and warn you or Clement and before you guys were ambushed but I watched him choose not to. What he did instead was pack his things and ran like the coward he is. I could see the panic in his eyes when he ran past me as he fled. Swazi and I tried our best to get to you guys in time but by the time we got there it was too late. We watched as Clement got shot and as they threw you on the ground, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t help neither of you. I didn’t realize that you needed to be saved for a while now. I was too focused on the healing energy I was getting from Liyana, I abandoned the other half of me. It was selfish of me. I became self-centred and started focusing on just my healing. I mean, we went through it together we were supposed to heal and grow through it together but we drifted apart and I hate myself for it. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me my sister.
I’m also sorry that it took me this long to write to you. We had a hard time finding where you are placed. Swazi has been helpful. I hope to come see you soon. I know it must be hard for you being there but I hope you’re doing good enough. I hope to hear from you. I’m sorry again.
With Love,
Paper Boy”.
