12 Yards Out

by Javi Reddy

  “What did you do?” James slowly sat up. She smiled at Jay. “You know that dream that he keeps having?”

  “The one where he’s falling.”

  "It’s not a dream. It’s more like a vision from the past. Those aren’t bars of a prison he sees, those are bars from his cot, and those aren’t real planes and stars he’s trying to reach up for, those are toys hanging above the cot. And when he’s falling…well, he’s falling—thanks to me.

  “I snuck in one night and picked him up. I held his little body in my arms and I felt nothing. This was not my brother. This was the thing that killed my mother. That is how it would always be. I began to strangle him, wishing that he and my mother had swapped places. My father burst into the room and tried to stop me. I flung the baby to the floor, which may have been carpeted, but he still suffered a head injury.”

  “And you think he was the monster?”

  "Shut up, serial killer. We’ll come to you in a minute. Anyway, soon after, I developed the skin condition known as vitiligo. My skin began to depigment and it was traumatic for me. Having just lost my mother, I soon lost my self-confidence. I begged my father to help me look for treatment. To try and find a way that could perhaps reverse the condition and give me back my normal skin colour.

  “He had the money, but the manner in which he dismissed me and refused to take my pleas into consideration, sickened me. He was only concerned with helping his favourite child, who had become epileptic—thanks to his little drop from mid-air.”

  “Wait… so because of you, Jay developed his condition?”

  “Good to see you aren’t totally brain-dead. I was a fool not to have gone one better. I should have dropped him out the window.”

  She placed her right hand over his head and squeezed it.

  "No matter. Everything worked out. In time, I’d get the sort of revenge that was better than anything I could have imagined. As my vitiligo worsened, and my father put his efforts into treating brother dearest for his epilepsy, I knew that there was no longer any room for me in the Chetty household. The years went on and I became more and more miserable. Eventually, I ran away from home.

  Remember, I told you I met Vinny in a bar and it changed my life forever? Well, that much is true. I may not have been legal at the time, but I realised that I was desirable enough to get into places I should not have been in, and I was able to get things from people that I should not have been able to get. It wasn’t just about flirting or seducing men. I knew how to manipulate anyone, male or female, into giving me what I needed.

  I met Vinny in that bar and took him back to his hotel room. I satisfied his every carnal desire and eventually, he made me part of his business. He gave me the money I needed to do what I had been planning to do."

  “You need help. Let me help you.”

  “Hush. I’m not done yet. It’s about to get juicier. Soon after, I saw my brother on a YouTube video that had thousands of hits, labelled: ‘The Artist of Rosebank’. His friend filmed him, doing numerous tricks outside a shop, using a soda can as a ball. What a waste. Jay Chetty and his eternal weakness in trying to please others. But then it hit me. To really hurt him, to really break him, I had to take away the one thing that meant the world to him. Just as he’d done to me.”

  She walked away from Jay and over to James. She pulled up an old bar stool and sat down barely a metre away from him. She stared at him blankly. No pools of lust nor love in her eyes. She got up and kicked the stool away before moving back to Jay. She then turned her back on the boy, taking slow steps away and counting each yard in the process. “…10, 11, 12. 12 yards out. Close enough…”

  She swivelled around and held the gun up to Jay. She pulled the trigger. It was a blank.

  “And yet so far away. How many penalties have you taken in your life, dear brother? 20? 30? It’s all such a mirage if you think about it. You standing there, 12 yards out. Ball at your feet, keeper sweating, trying to figure out which way you’re going to go. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to score. You always score. Because from 12 yards out, you’ve always been prepared. You’ve always known what you were getting into.”

  She moved in closer. Waving the gun tauntingly in front of him.

  “But what happens when you’re thrust in deeper? Closer to fears and threats that you’ve avoided your whole life?”

  She pulled up the bar stool and sat down closer to James once more.

  "I eventually put my plan together. First, I completed a degree in Biochemistry. I had the financial backing of Vinny and my sheer determination to get me through it all. The degree prepared me for everything—organic synthesis, drug design, chemistry and pharmaceutical research. I registered as Layla Rosemary, of course. I couldn’t put myself at the risk of my father raining on my parade.

  “Somehow, he found me anyway and visited me on res at the campus. He walked in on Vinny and me doing…well, let’s just say something that wouldn’t exactly make me the daughter of the year. He hated Vinny from there on. He was blind as usual as to what was really going on. He could not find it in his heart to believe that it was my doing. He felt that Vinny had corrupted me and taken advantage of a little girl.”

  “That’s why he went crazy when he saw Vinny that day at Jay’s football game. It wasn’t because he thought that he was a scout. It was because of the man himself. He saw Vinny intruding yet again.”

  “Good to see you’re finally catching up.”

  “You knew all along. And you helped Vinny reign his terror over us?”

  “His terror? Oh, darling, don’t be moronic. This was my terror.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You see, I got the degree for a certain reason. Chemistry, helped me to keep you sedated, and that’s how I learnt to use the purple plant you saw inside the Rosebank flat and outside Jay’s house.”

  James thought about the violet flowers. Pretty, but deadly. “It’s called a Datura plant.”

  She placed one of the flowers behind James’ ear.

  “Thanks to the seed in this beauty, I could boil them and create a toxin variation that could be used as a form to pollute your minds and keep you in check.”

  “Keep us in check?” She smiled.

  “That’s when the real action began. You think that’s a ‘V’ on your head? Have a look in the mirror next to you, and this time, tilt more to the side.”

  James tiredly picked himself off the ground and limped over to the large rectangular mirror to his right. He slowly tilted his head to the ground, and he saw it.

  It wasn’t a ‘V’. It was an ‘L’.

  “We see what we want to see, darling, and more importantly, thanks to me, you two remembered what I wanted you to remember.”

  James rubbed the pattern and the pain in his hand matched the pain in his stomach. “You operated on us? You… You cut our heads open?”

  "It seems I had natural surgical skills. I guess, I really was my mother’s daughter.

  “And I didn’t just operate on you. I played God with your memory. Like I told you—the brain is such a marvellous organ,” she almost clapped as she said it.

  “Before I could cut you open, I obviously needed practice. It was pointless operating on animals. I needed ‘live’ practice. So, I turned to the youth.”

  James’ eyes widened. “Vinny’s army. You operated on those poor kids from the streets. That’s sick”

  “You think I’m sick? I gave them a better life. I give them a chance to be a part of something special, rather than die out there in the cold before they reached their best years.”

  “Something special? You threw them to Vinny who wanted nothing but a sadistic power to rule. They’re willing to kill for him. Do you realise what you’ve done?”

  “They’ll make it worth living in. They’ll give back the power to those that were never loved.” She strode back towards Jay.

  “Whilst the downright spoilt will know what it’s like to suffer.”

  “But how di
d they get so strong?”

  She looked back at James.

  “After I operated on them, I targeted their pituitary glands—the pea-size organ situated at the base of the brain. The gland produces a natural form of HGH that stimulates growth in kids. I just developed a serum that I injected into the gland that stimulated growth.”

  She shone a torch on the large silver cylinders not far away from them. “A lot of serum might I add.”

  She switched the torch off.

  “After I gained experience operating on kids, I knew I was ready for the main course. Chicken a la Jay. But Vinny’s money was running thin. We needed more. The mini-army and the poaching business had become child’s play. Excuse the pun. We needed much more to stay ahead of the game. That’s where you came in.”

  She grinned at James. It was a Vinny-type grin. James could no longer find the vintage Layla smile.

  This was Lalitha.

  "Your father’s death rocked the country. Even people from overseas were taken aback by it. His funeral was well publicised, and I knew that there’d be a number of wealthy people who’d attend. It was the perfect opportunity for me to use my ‘skills’ to seduce whichever multi-millionaire I could get my hands on.

  "Then, I saw you at the funeral. I didn’t know who you were, but you must have been important if you sat in the same row as the family members of the deceased. That’s not what drew me to you though. It was your eyes. Everyone else in that row wept profusely.

  "You remained still. I could see something brewing in your eyes as you gazed at your father’s cold corpse in the open casket. You had a darkness in you, and it lit up a curious wick within me. You always wonder about those that don’t cry at funerals.

  “When I found out that you were his son, I was sold. Jonathan Tait’s inheritance must have been more than either Vinny or myself could have ever dreamt up. I seduced you, although it was hard at first. You were an animal in bed. How do you think I became the ‘Scarred Princess’?” she pointed at the mark on her cheek.

  "Soon, you had to return to the psychiatric facility in Edenvale. You were only released because of your father’s funeral. I had made several attempts to kidnap you from the facility, but I was always thwarted. That’s why you appealed to be sent back to the Tshwane Prison. Eventually, Vinny came in to do the job himself. You were a murderer by nature, so trying to get you to come easily was not the most manageable job in the world.

  “He knocked you on the head so hard that I feared you’d have suffered too much brain damage. I operated on you anyway and everything worked out. I messed with your memory, so that you thought I was your girlfriend. I messed with the prefrontal cortex in your brain, that’s mainly responsible for things such as your impulse and emotional control and your empathy. I dabbed a substance there that brought it to life. That’s why you felt so passionately about Jay and me when you were previously nothing but a cold-hearted killer.”

  James bowed his head.

  “I owned you. I had your fingerprints, the only form of signature that could activate the account that your father left as your inheritance. Aaaaah, your father loved his technology. That account would have been impossible to hack into.”

  She rubbed her scar slowly as she continued.

  “Erasing your memory and making you totally forget about your past had its pros and cons. The good thing was that you didn’t know I had your money. The downside was that you forgot that you were a murderer. So, you suddenly became this pain in the neck, who had developed morals. You so desperately wanted to help Jay out. It was a complication that I didn’t foresee, and it became a nuisance to manage.”

  “So you put me up in that crummy flat in Rosebank, and framed me for Preega’s death because you knew it would keep me out of the spotlight.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Then, what did you do to Jay’s mind?”

  “I didn’t want to erase his memory. I wanted him to remember the pain of the last few months. The stripping of his dignity and the kidnapping of his girlfriend. And above all, I wanted to take away his talent from right under his nose.”

  “So, you messed with his procedural memory and left him with your same ‘L’ mark.”

  “You must admit, it’s a nice little touch. The right hemisphere of the brain controls left sided functions and vice-versa. So, I had a little extra fun. I didn’t just mess with his cerebellum—the little brain at the back of his actual brain that helps with motor control and coordination. I scraped into his left hemisphere as well, so that his right-side actions were hampered.”

  “But if Jay’s normal memory was fine, unlike mine, how did he not know about me and who I was?”

  “That’s where Vinny came in. His ‘friends’ from China had developed a micro-chip that helped suppress certain parts of someone’s memory. An agreement had been put into place, where Vinny supplied them with ivory and they gave him chips. Vinny wanted to buy the technology from them, but they wanted something worth millions before they considered selling to him. Amritha’s antler pendant was the perfect coup.”

  Lalitha held out her Blackberry like a teenager who has just got the latest phone for Christmas.

  "The chip technology was still in its testing phase, so nothing was guaranteed. We programmed it to try and brainwash both of you so that you would forget about the media and technology. If we cut those two aspects out of our life, then we were good to go, and as we develop the technology, I won’t even need to operate on anyone in the future. We’ll program our chips, so people forget certain things: their Swiss bank account pins, the people in their wills, the codes to nuclear weapons. The possibilities are infinite.

  "For this particular venture, against all odds we were successful. It was the miracle that we needed to complete everything. Think about when either of you retold your stories. You barely mentioned the media or technology. Jay did not talk about the flat-screen computers installed in his classrooms at school or the Instagram or Facebook accounts he or his friends had. You never talked about tablets or smartphone apps that your father’s media company had developed to make communications and news easier to follow.

  “As long as you two overlooked those topics, I was safe. You were oblivious to what was really happening out there.”

  “And you kept us under your influence, all thanks to a crummy plant?”

  “I had the antidote injected into me, so I was immune to its effect, but I kept you two drugged, and that let me do whatever I wanted to do.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “I am, I am. And today this all ends. Years of planning. My masterpiece will finally complete itself. I’m so glad that you’re here to watch it. I know you felt like the three of us were supposed to become a family. Well, I did build a family tree of sorts with those lovely leaves of mine.”

  She stood behind Jay once more.

  “Time to watch the final act. Time for the curtains to come down on little brother.”

  Chapter 36

  9 October 2013. Reunion

  The bright red gas cylinder next to Lalitha offered some sort of colour to the otherwise dimly lit arena. She fiddled between the green and red hoses, as her pale hands prepared the blowtorch. She walked up to Jay and made sure that the needle jabbed his face.

  “There are so many ways I wanted to kill you. I thought about it every single day since I left home. Should I slit your throat in your sleep? Should I pull at your testicles with a set of pliers? Or should I just do it the old-fashioned way and plant as many bullets as I possibly could into that already messed up brain of yours?”

  She walked back to the gas cylinder, her heels clinked hard against the concrete floors. She opened the tap. She placed a set of tinted goggles on and pressed the accelerator. Showers of sparks lit up the grimy quarters as Lalitha’s teeth stuck out menacingly in front of the bright flame.

  “Seeing that you got to keep your normal, brown skin; burning your face off, bit by bit, seemed to be the most appropriate way in the
end.” She switched the blowtorch off and removed the goggles.

  "And yet you don’t even deserve that. I’m gonna give you something, much, much more. Nothing lasts like the pain inside in you. I learnt that with this lovely little adventure which I’ve been on for the last few years. My, was it fun to watch you squirm as I took you apart piece by piece. The mighty Jay Chetty, reduced to nothing, but a common cheat. I’m assuming that you and boozie over here are still wondering how the cocaine got into your system?

  “It wasn’t hard at all. When you came to stay with me, the perfect opportunity was handed to me to carry out the final stages of my plan. I picked up your Epilim for you and laced your little purple pills with a formula I knew, when mixed with the sodium valproate in your meds, would change the metabolites of your test results to Benzoylecgonine; the same metabolite present in cocaine. The rest fell so perfectly into place.”

  She searched Jay’s eyes for an emotion. He remained still. “How does that make you feel, superstar?”

  She ripped the duct tape off and Jay fixed his stare on her.

  “What’s that? Nothing to say? Nothing to congratulate your superior sibling on?” Still, Jay did not utter a word.

  “If you think it can’t get worse, you are mistaken, dear brother.”

  She placed her thumb and forefinger to her mouth and let out a shrill and deafening whistle. From the darkness, Vinny strode in, in a white Chinese collared shirt and black trousers. He forced Preega in, whose hands were bound together. Vinny was followed by Thishen, who brought in Amritha, her hands were also bound. They were hurled to the ground.

  “If I killed you, brother, we both know that would be giving you an easy out. An out I was not afforded when my mother passed away. So, it’s only fair that I give you the chance to go through what I’ve been through. You have a front row ticket to the show. I want you to watch and suffer. I want you to feel hopeless.”