From Innocence to Arrogance

by Ezekiel King

  My Aunty Delma sat in front of me to my left with Tanisha opposite her. Tanisha was telling us all about her English teacher at school. About how the teacher had lost her temper at one of the pupils. I found the story interesting because I was usually that pupil. It was nice to know I wasn’t alone in making the teachers lose their rag.

  Tanisha was 13. She was very intelligent for her age. She was slim with pale skin. Her hair was usually tied back behind her head in a ponytail. It made the front of her hair flat and shiny as her tight ponytail pulled every hair in her head tightly back.

  I finished my dinner, and my aunty began to collect our plates.

  Delma had a beige valour tracksuit on which the words ‘Juicy Couture’ were written in fancy writing made from crystals on the back.

  She collected my plate, adding it to the others on the side near to the sink. I could feel the grain of wood as my hands rested on the table. It was smooth under my fingertips with a hint of texture that only sanded wood had.

  “Cyrus, I told your mum I’d bring you back after dinner. She said your dad had been asking where you were; if I don’t take you home, they’ll only moan next time you want to stay,” my aunty said sympathetically. She knew I didn’t want to go home.

  “Okay, you’re right,” I said as I sighed heavily.

  Back to my dad’s castle tonight. Well, back to our cardboard house on a shit council estate was a more accurate description.

  “Merv will take you home when you’re ready if you get your things ready,” Delma said as I walked back into the living room feeling disgruntled.

  I hugged my cousin, Tanisha—well, kind of patted her on the shoulder.

  “Merv, I’m ready when you are,” I called through to the kitchen.

  My stuff was ready. It was a carrier bag next to the sofa I had slept on. It had sat there since I had arrived, containing navy shorts I had brought with me to sleep in.

  Mervin appeared from the kitchen with a single key in his hand. “Ready, mate?” he asked as he signalled he was ready.

  “Yes,” I muttered back. “Love you, Del, see you soon,” I said calling through to the kitchen as I walked in the opposite direction towards the front door.

  “Bye, Cyrusss,” a voice said behind me as I left my auntie’s house.

  Mervin’s car was parked next to Delma’s on the driveway. It was an expensive black German car. It looked new and clean. It had little numbers followed by a single letter on the back that read 435D. I knew enough about cars to know this was the model of the car.

  I got in the posh BMW besides Mervin. The car smelled of new leather mixed with a hint of air freshener.

  This car is better than my mum and dad’s house, I thought as he started the engine that growled before calming to a gentle purr.

  We were back on my council estate in less than then minutes. Mervin had driven slowly, but the car felt as though it wanted to go fast.

  We turned left, off the main road, and drove straight down past the only right turn which was a dead end, before turning right at the bottom to stop ten houses later on our right. My house was the last house on the right. A giant kerb with concrete stumps prevented cars going any further.

  “There you go, Cyrus,” Mervin said as he turned to face me.

  “Merv, what do you do for a living?” I asked inquisitively as we sat staring through the windscreen.

  “I’m a web designer,” Mervin replied looking a little bewildered.

  “Oh, okay, I just wondered. Thanks for the lift, mate,” I replied as I jumped out of the shiny black saloon. I stood watching as Mervin carefully reversed to turn around before turning left and then out of sight.

  Turning to face my house, I stood for a few moments. I was preparing myself for the act of being happy to be home. Only delaying the inevitable, I walked to my gate, grabbed the handle and used my thumb to press the metal button above it to release the lock on the other side.

  Using the ball of my foot, I kicked the gate open gently to avoid the risk of scuffing my best trainers. I had become so used to having a broken gate. I habitually used a special technique to open the gate without even realising I was doing it.

  I swung the gate closed behind me. As I approached the front door, I could see my dad in the kitchen through the large window that overlooked the front garden.

  I opened the door which I’d expected to be locked considering my dad was home. I entered the kitchen.

  “You all right, Cyrus? I see you’ve remembered where you live then?” my dad patronised.

  My dad was a big Jamaican man. He wasn’t ridiculously dark in skin colour but not that light-skinned either. He was more of a perfect median between the colour of milk and dark chocolate. Like a strong brown if that makes sense.

  “Of course, Dad. Are you all right?” I replied in a light cheerful tone.

  “Yes, I’m cool. I’m just frying some fish; your mum is in the living room,” my dad added as he continued cooking.

  “Smells nice,” I complimented.

  My dad had done a lot of things badly in his life, but one thing he had always done well was cooking. He had always cooked great Caribbean cuisine going back as long as I could remember.

  I guessed that had contributed to my heavy build, that combined with his genetics.

  My father, Calvin, was six-foot tall with broad shoulders and a bald head the size of an impressive black bowling ball. We have the same jet black eye colour. To me, that added to his seriousness of his resting facial expression that came effortlessly to him.

  My dad was a very scary man to look at. The type of man that could say ‘don’t fuck with me’ without uttering a single syllable.

  Our kitchen had a white-tiled floor with a large rectangular window above the sink facing the front garden that I had just came through. The kitchen had another window facing the back garden at the opposite end of the room. Both had a ceiling-to-window frame blinds that were a dark nude pink colour.

  If you took the blinds down from both windows and stood in the garden, you’d be able to see straight through the house. At the back of the kitchen, we had a large circular brown dining table with matching chairs. We didn’t have many luxury items in our household, but the few nice things we had were of high quality. For instance, we had a large flat screen TV in the living room.

  My dad had an expensive stereo and a few diamond calls he would always show off, and that was about it. Everything else in our house was purely ‘fit for purpose’. For instance, our fridge, it was a fridge, but it didn’t dispense ice or anything. If you wanted ice, that could be found in the bottom section of the freezer. Ice would be kept on the top shelf in a tray if you were lucky enough for someone to have put water into the little tray with twelve sections that made individual cubes of ice.

  We had a cooker and an oven, but they were not state-of-the-art appliances as was our washing machine and dryer. All cheap, white Chinese appliances that were simply fit for purpose. I wasn’t ungrateful; I just wanted the best things in life. After all, someone had to have the biggest and best, I just wanted that someone to be me.

  I found my mother in the living room, with her feet folded underneath her thighs on the sofa, captivated by the television. She had always loved to watch the soap operas. EastEnders, Coronation Street and so on. I couldn’t stand them. I think I was permanently scarred from the years gone when I had wanted to stay out playing in the street, but I wasn’t allowed; so I’d have to sit and endure the soaps while my mum would sit fascinated by every word of the shite. I slumped down on the sofa next to my mum who hardly afforded me a sideward glance.

  “Hi, Claire,” I joked. She turned her head almost 90 degrees to look at me long enough to see her smiling at me. I called her Claire sometimes as a joke; she was ‘Mum’ and a great mum at that.

  Calling my mother Claire occasionally had become a running joke between us that had never gotten old, provided I didn’t overdo it.

  “Did you have a nice time at Delma’s?” my
mum asked without even looking at me. My mum loved the soap operas, and no one in our house could deny her watching them. She had two full-time jobs away from home, and then she’d have to keep the house tidy on top of that.

  She’d have to put up with my dad’s random mood swings and anger; she’d deal with me getting into mischief which was more often than not and deal with the house finances.

  I think it would be fair to say they were another four or five full-time jobs. So, for this reason, my mum watching the soap operas was accepted collectively. Even my dad knew where to draw the line. This was the line.

  When the soaps are on TV, ‘leave Claire the fuck alone’ was the general consensus in our house.

  “Yes, I had a good time… or escape,” I said while smiling widely as I leaned over to kiss my mum on her cheek before heading upstairs.

  The alarm clock on my bedside table read 7:20 p.m. I was still holding the carrier bag, I’d gotten out of Mervin’s car, within my hand.

  My bedroom had a paper-thin blue-bobbled carpet on the floor. My single bed frame was made from hollow poles, like a cheap farmers gate had been reconstructed into a bedframe just for me.

  As I sat down on my bed, the springs in my mattress compressed to exhaustion with almost no resistance. The mattress had been my older brother’s; and before that, no doubt it had been another relative’s mattress. It wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been my dad’s mattress from when he was a child, knowing the corners he would cut as long as it didn’t affect him.

  Looking around my room, I told myself, you won’t be in this situation for long, Cyrus. Things will soon get better.

  My room didn’t have much in it. I had floor to ceiling blinds, a bed and a brown chest of drawers that was chest-high, as I would stand next to them. They were backed into a cupboard in the corner of my room that had no door on it towards the back left-hand corner of my room. The chest of drawers fit inside the cupboard almost perfectly. I think it had been done to save floor space.

  I had a small TV unit with an old TV and my gaming computer. I also had a small black bedside table, an alarm clock, and that was it.

  The best thing about my room was that it was my own space. My TV hadn’t come with a remote control. I had to turn it on manually at the side using the power button which I did whilst standing.

  I turned my gaming computer on and picked up the control pad. I spent the next 15 minutes shooting tiny computer-generated police officers.

  “Cyrus,” my mum shouted up to me from the bottom of the staircase.

  “One sec,” I replied as I put the control pad down and hurried down the 13 steps.

  My mum stood at the bottom of the staircase, holding her phone towards me.

  “For you,” she said as she gave me her phone. I took the phone from her while looking slightly confused.

  I had a phone. It wasn’t as good as my mum’s phone, but it was a phone. It worked; it was fit for purpose. I held the phone to my ear.

  “Yes, pal.” My eyes gaped as my heart almost stopped beating in shock.

  “Mum, it’s my mate from school. I’ll bring your phone back down in a minute,” I said as I started back up the 13 steps. The phone was still by my ear, but I didn’t speak until I was back in my room.

  “Cyrus?” the voice on the other end said.

  “Hi, mate, how did you get this number?” I asked with a stomach filled with butterflies.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute, little fella. I need to ask you something first.”

  “Go on, mate. What’s up?” I said urging the man to continue.

  “Can you speak?” the man asked.

  “Yes, I’m in my room alone,” I explained.

  “Well, I spoke to my uncle, and he’s given me something for you,” Jason said. I smiled to the point that my back teeth would have been visible. Then I remembered my problem. Money! I thought.

  “Jason, I do want the stuff, but I don’t have the money for it. I don’t even know how much money I will need to pay for it,” I explained while wishing I had any alternative solution. The phone fell silent as I held it firmly against my ear.

  “Cyrus, do you want to let my uncle and me down?” Jason asked.

  “No, of course not. I’ve known you since I was about 12. You’ve watched me grow up, and you’ve always been good to me. You’re the last person I want to let down,” I replied. It was the truth.

  “So, come and get your weed then; but when I call you to collect the money, do not let me down. I’m back at my house now, and I’ve got it here for you,” Jason said.

  “Okay, I’ll be half an hour because I’m back at my house now,” I explained.

  “I know you are. Your aunty gave me this number,” Jason replied. He was clearly taking pleasure in the fact I had no clue what was going on.

  “Oh, okay,” I replied as the penny finally dropped.

  “Cyrus, how are you going to get here?” Jason asked. It was a good question. I knew my neighbour would give me a lift, but a lift right this minute was unlikely. It was a Sunday night and nearly 8:30 at night.

  “I’m standing…” Jason stopped speaking mid-sentence as I heard a female voice talking to him in the background.

  The voice was familiar—it was my Aunty Delma. She was talking quietly, and Jason was listening, saying the odd ‘okay’ and ‘yes’.

  "Cyrus, I’m standing outside your auntie’s house on her driveway.

  I’m calling from her phone; she said she will bring me to you. Pick you up so that you can come to my house and then take you home. You can’t tell your mum or dad. She said you need to walk to the shop at the top of your estate because she can’t pull up outside your house. Okay?" Jason explained.

  I knew I had a 10:00 p.m. curfew at the very latest, and the time was now 8:25 p.m. I couldn’t tell Jason that, but luckily I wouldn’t have to because I had enough time, just.

  “Okay, mate, I’ll be at the shop in ten minutes,” I answered. The phone went dead as Jason hung up. This was real. I couldn’t believe what had happened in the last 24 hours. I must be mad, I told myself as I stood in my room stiff with shock. My mum’s phone was still in my hand as my arm hung by my side. I was smiling with a mixture of emotions as the happiness, shock, confusion and anticipation coursed through my veins. Two minutes passed before I realised I had not moved a single inch. They comprised of me standing perfectly still, with my jaw open, deep in thought.

  Eight minutes left, the voice in my head said urging me to start moving.

  I pulled my tracksuit bottoms down to my ankles and stepped out of them using one foot to stand on them as I pulled the other foot out, freeing both feet from them. Pulling my collar over my head, I used my right hand to take off my T-shirt in one smooth fast motion.

  Stepping forward to my chest of drawers, I opened the top drawer to take out my grey sports T-shirt, closed that drawer and opened the third of the five drawers to get out my matching grey Nike tracksuit bottoms.

  I spun on the spot to pick up my mum’s phone from the bed where I had threw it before changing and started back downstairs. Six minutes left.

  “Mum, here’s your phone; I’m just going to pop up the road to borrow a new computer game from Lee,” I said to my mum anxiously.

  “Cyrus, there’s some fried fish, it’s snapper with rice, yellow yam and green banana. Come and get some,” my dad called through from the kitchen.

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll have some in 15 minutes. Lee has a game I want to borrow from him. I know I’ve hardly been at home in the last day and a half, but I have no homework to do,” I said calmly as I tried to explain why I was going to be leaving the house again so soon. My dad just looked at me for a full five seconds. I could read nothing from his facial expression. It was as plain as a garage door.

  Finally, he spoke,

  “Cyrus, you think I was never 15. I was 15 before you was a twinkle in my eye. You go where you are going to go, but it sure as hell isn’t to get no computer game. Just make su
re you’re safe, and you aren’t getting into any trouble. Go on,” my dad said in his slightly faded patois accent.

  How the fuck did he know I wasn’t going to get a computer game? And what the fuck is a twinkle in his eye? My dad is a psychopath.

  Three minutes left.

  I didn’t reply to my dad; doing so would have only drawn more attention to the fact he knew I was lying. Instead, I left the kitchen to get my grey hoodie from the back of the cupboard door in between the staircase and living room.

  Unlike my Aunty Delma’s, our gold handle squeaked as I pulled it down to exit the house using the same door I’d came through earlier.

  I walked through the garden slowly, trying not to alert my dad to the fact I was in a rush, yanked open the partly stuck closed gate and closed it quietly. Then I sprinted as fast as I could. Left past the ten houses that made up the row I lived on. Then I turned left, running past the side of my row, followed by the side of another three rows that were parallel behind the row my house was on. A line of roughly 20 houses on my left made a row leading to the main road which was the end of our estate.

  I turned right at the main road; my pace had slowed to a gentle jog due to my poor endurance. The local shop was roughly 20 houses to my right across the road from the top of our estate. I could see it.

  One minute left, I thought as I slowed further to a relaxed power walk. I turned left to walk along the concrete path that led to the entrance of the shop. I thought it would be best to wait there. The shop was a general convenience store that had about ten isles. They sold essentials such as bread, milk, cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate and a variety of household items. A big square brick building with a car park twice its size in front of it that could park roughly 30 cars. The shop had bright lighting outside on the concrete walkway that ran the length of the front of the shop. I stood just out the reach of the electric door sensor as I didn’t want to repeatedly set the door to open as I waited. Scanning the car park, I couldn’t see my Aunty Delma’s car which was a good thing. I had rushed to get to the shop as I didn’t want them to have to wait for me; but now I was here, I wanted them to hurry up. I was on a budget for time.