By Any Means

by Kurt Ellis

  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 wrest
led 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 piss-soaked stairs, he had done so with the intention of ending his torment. To give everyone, including God himself, the middle finger and to soar over the edge. Maybe someone would hear him then.

  But once he got to the roof, something changed. He somehow found peace. He felt safe and free from all the shit that was going on in his life. This place became his special place of thought and reflection. He came up here to talk to God. Not pray. No, never to pray, but to talk. To ask Him why. Why the fuck was he being punished? What the hell had he done to deserve this torment? He never received an answer, but he always felt a little better having asked.

  Kyle felt removed from the world around him. He imagined that this was what people who’d had near-death experiences described when they said they had left their bodies and looked down on themselves from another, ethereal plane. Everything looked different. Smelt different. Even time was different.

  Kyle thought he’d been up on the roof for only five minutes, but when he looked at his watch, he saw that another thirty minutes had disappeared. He listened to the wind serenade him and he observed the world at his feet. Calm. Black. Empty. His eyelids eventually began to feel a little heavy, so he decided that it was time to go back. It was a school night, after all. He hated having to go back to his aunt’s matchbox house, but a seventeen-year-old boy did not have much of an option. Not just yet, anyway. But, hopefully, soon.

  2

  “Sies, ek sê, I hate the smell of raw fish,” complained Spider. “It makes me naar.”

  “You must come out on the pier in the early hours of the morning,” said Bruge, with a smile on his face. “Absolutely genuine. Parkin’ out there with an Old Brown Sherry, your rod in the water. It’s heaven, ek sê. Pure heaven. Am I right, Captain?”

  Captain just shrugged. The ocean was screaming at him. The salty smell of sea surrounded him. Embraced him. But although the wind and air were warm, he shivered.

  The three of them were sitting in Captain’s parked Toyota Conquest. The windows were down, but the smell of the marijuana they had just smoked still hung in the vehicle.

  Two sharp beams of light cut through the darkness from around the corner and panned towards them. “They’re here.” Captain pushed his door open. He stepped out into the empty parking lot and, to reassure himself, touched the small of his back. The 9 mm Grand Power K100 pistol that was rammed into his belt offered him some comfort.

  The headlights belonged to a white BMW M3. It eased up to the Toyota, the only other car in sight, and parked almost on Captain’s toes. Both the driver and his passenger got out. The passenger was short and slight. He had sharp features and his eyes bulged a bit. His companion was larger. He had massive shoulders and a large chest that looked as if it was made of stone.

  “I knew you’d be on time, Captain.”

  “Always,” Captain smiled and shook hands with the smaller of the two men. “How are you doing, Lazarus?”

  “Couldn’t be happier. Good business always makes me smile.”

  Captain flicked his head at Lazarus’s bodyguard in greeting. “Howzit, Neville.”

  The bigger guy grunted and got back into the car.

  “This bastard is going to make us wait,” Lazarus said.

  “Looks like it. You want a skyf?”

  “Yeah, why not.”

  The two of them stood between the cars and shared a cigarette for a few minutes until another set of headlights came around the corner. The BMW 325i came to a stop next to Lazarus’s BMW M3. Captain ground his cigarette under the sole of his tackie and joined Lazarus in walking over to the new car.

  “Lazarus. Captain.” The fat man that spilt out of the driver’s seat had skin as black as tar. “Too long I have not seen.” He had a strong Mozambican-Portuguese accent.

  “José.” Lazarus shook hands with the fat man, and so did Captain.

  “Good to see you. Good to see you. You ready to get down to business, yes?”

  José did not wait for a response. He walked to the back of his car and opened the boot. The three men huddled over the trunk as José lifted the divider to reveal the spare-wheel well. But instead of a tyre and rim, there were bricks of white powder.

  “Good stuff,” José said with a pearly grin. “Top quality.”

  Lazarus nodded. “Good.”

  José slammed the boot shut and handed the keys over to Lazarus, who smoothly passed them on to Captain.

  “Now, we can talk of future business. Durban, East Coast side. Nice. Business good. But now I want to get into Joburg. You got … capable … to get into Joburg?”

  “Depends on the margin,” Captain responded with a smile.

  “But even then,” Lazarus interjected, “Joburg’s got some heavy hitters of their own. It’s too risky. I prefer to keep my operations to my city.”

  José nodded vigorously. “Okay, okay. Business plan number two. I want to take cars from here, to my Mozambique. I’m talking twenty, maybe thirty thousand per car. I give you list of car. You find the car, take the car, get it over the border, that’s it. I got connect at border post. No problem at all to get it over. What we –”

  Captain touched Lazarus on the shoulder. “I think I should waai here, Lazarus. Sounds like other business that don’t involve me and my guys.”

  Lazarus nodded. “Sure thing, Captain. Drop the car off at my house and leave the keys with my wife.”

  Saying his farewells with a simple flick of the head, Captain climbed into the BMW 325i and eased the car out of the parking lot, with Spider and Bruge driving in his car behind.

  The luxury car hugged the bends and curves of the road better than his own vehicle ever could. He was tempted to see just how fast and responsive German motor engineering was, but he resisted the temptation to open the car up on the freeway. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he made sure that Bruge and Spider remained on his tail. He should have had Spider drive with him, he thought. He would love to hear his views on José’s proposal.

  Lloyd Scheepers was Captain’s best friend long before he became his second-in-command at the Godfathers. Actually, Captain was amazed that they ever became friends. They were polar opposites. Where Captain was hot-headed, Lloyd was calm. Captain was act first, think later. Lloyd was think first, think later and then maybe act. He was a calming influence on Captain and the rest of the Godfathers. Except when it came to spiders. He had a pathological fear of arachnids, hence his nickname – Spider.

  As he drifted the BMW towards the off-ramp, Captain remembered how they had first met in primary school. He had come to Lloyd’s defence when a group of boys was tormenting him by dangling a spider in front of him, trapping him in a corner. Captain’s interference got him a beating, but also a friend for life. And a partner in vengeance, because C
aptain and Spider, with the help of Kyle, got their revenge on each one of those boys before the year had ended. In Captain’s mind, the Godfathers were born that day.

  Spider was from a poor family. A family so poor, in fact, that he used to come to Captain’s house most nights for something to eat. That still amazed Captain. He’d always thought it was impossible to have a poorer family than his. That was the commonality between them, Captain thought. They both came from poverty, and they both burned with the desire to escape it. And that was what they were doing with the Godfathers.

  3

  He woke at exactly half past six, as he usually did – without the help of an alarm clock. Still groggy, Kyle swung his legs over the side of the bed. But instead of cold, naked cement, he felt something else beneath his bare feet. Looking down, he saw the pale photograph of a shorthaired, bearded blond man nestling a grey skull to his cheek. It was an old, tattered copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet that had belonged to his late grandfather. He and Anthony had found it, along with a box containing many other books, in the storage shed in the back yard. Although their grandfather had been illiterate, he had collected as many books as he could.

  Kyle picked the book up off the floor and laid it on the bed next to him. He had swooped on this and other Shakespearean works, as well as a few classic novels, when the box was found and opened. Anthony had claimed the biography of Malcolm X, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and a few other books as his own. Anthony – or Captain, as most people called him – was still asleep in his bed. A soft, snoring lump beneath the covers. Kyle could see the spines of other books beneath Captain’s bed. He saw a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and the corner of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

  Kyle had heard Captain returning home late the previous night, about twenty minutes after he had curled up beneath his covers. Captain had probably been out partying with his boys, or with Nazneen. Probably a combination of both, so Kyle was not surprised that he was still asleep.