The Salty city Predator

Chapter 7

He now does not know the fate of his brother and all the joints he went to they were all discussing great men. Geoffrey hates these drinking joints for all of them find pleasure discussing the achievements of great men from the salty city but find no joy exploring or trying to change their miserable lives to achieve greatness. It’s now the dead of the night, and he retires back to their coach at the train station. At the station one of their neighbor tells him of the capture of one of the street boys by police. He got the information from a cook at the station this gave him a breath of relief and hope of seeing his brother again.

As Geoffrey returns to the station worried of his brothers where about Jimmy is being treated to a night of prison tales by five remands in the cell he was locked in. They tell him how they live in solitude for years not knowing where to end up from one prison to another the conditions are better if you are serving time you find it easier to accept and serve time for crimes they didn’t commit in prison, than surfer the unending hell in remand cells. The justice system in our country is just rotten most of us in remand have walked and suffered on these corridors of alleged justice I call them auctions of freedom and liberty,” one of them says.

After a day full of tales at the police station the night creeps in more and more arrested individuals including drunkards, thieves and other criminals making the cell over congested. The cells smell the urine stench from a black bucket at the corner of the cell. The inmates have prohibited anyone from reliving long calls only short calls of nature are allowed but in some cases the. The stench of the urine is more bearable than the stench of excrement. Most of them are bailed out by their friends and relatives through bribes and favors to these officer others are to be presented in court the following morning. Before they were presented in court, they would perform some cleaning and make the police cells a more habitable place. Jimmy is young and with injuries is responsible for carrying the bucket full of human waste for disposal in a pit latrine used by the police officers outside the station. As the night proceeds three of the remanded prisoners hold Jimmy to the floor and demand their conjugal rights they were denied since they were arrested from the young lad’s bowels. This adds more physical injury to the boy’s bruises from the mob plus his dignity is stripped off as the other timid inmates are watching this happened every night. During his three days stay at the cells a confident man of God word come round preaching to the inmates as an evangelical duty to his lord in an attempt to steal some souls from the devil and jimmy remembered him as the church minister where they served when their mother was alive. The preacher reminded his mother and sympathized with him after he told him his whole story. The preacher promised to arrange for his release the following day if he promised to go back to the church once he was released.

Early in the morning, Jimmy is set free he struggles to walk out of the station, but he is used to such s****l assault by the colossal street boys. He strolls up to the railway station where he meets his brother worried sick about him. The two brothers embrace, and both tell of their ordeals. They are happy together again not knowing what tomorrow brings life or death. They go to buy glue and pass by the gallons to find whether there is anything to eat in the waste bins by the bakery; so that they could save some few coins from their last loot. 

See brother you almost paid the ultimate price just because of some few coins. This world is not ours remember how they chased us from the orphanage. Remember how every morning they would read the bible to us but do not know the meaning of what they were teaching.

I cannot forget, but if I died, I would have no regrets I would have saved your life before they chased us from the orphanage they had tried to equip us with a gift only for the talented like you, education you were always the best. Don’t give up, the sun will one day set and give way to a calm night for a bright dawn. By the way, what’s your problem with Christianity remember mum has led us to the ways of the lord while we were of tender age, so as not to depart from it? You changed after mum’s death you used to read the bible every Sunday in church and mum was proud of you. What happened? Tell me, brother, you seem to have lost all faith in this world.

There is nothing to tell. You should know just that you are ignorant. I have no problem with Christians only difference in opinion with their God. I thought that mum should have lived, but he thought otherwise. From the time mum died, and we became orphans I knew we would not make it. It is written whatever we ask for, in his name! It shall be given unto us in faith. Mum was a committed Christian is this what she urges God in heaven for us. She wanted us to be educated look at us now living from hand to mouth. Was that what she asked for in faith? The lord says we should not be worried of what to eat the bible tells us to look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet our heavenly father feeds them. If the lords find pleasure feeding birds of the air and does not see any reason to feed us. Do you think he finds them more important than us? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. He dresses the wild lilies with all beauty but we are here in tartars.

That’s your problem brother let me go to church to give thanks to the almighty God. Do you know that the only reason I am standing before you is something you may call it luck but I prefer you call it a miracle? My legs still hurt I can’t even walk properly. Please take me to the church where mum used to make us and the only place she found peace. I have an appointment with the man of God who secured my freedom, and I think he might help us.

I will take you there, but I will wait for you at the shore outside, just next to the church. I hope that’s okay with you. The only reason I am standing before you is that I have not fulfilled my destiny. I will never be a slave of any religion that places too much emphasis on death and life after death. I am an advocate of life and will not value death more than life. They chased us out of their orphanage the only place we knew as home and threw us to face this cruel world, not knowing where we would go. They taught us how to give food, shelter, and clothing to the needy. If they who took me out of the streets and take me back there knowing the fate that awaits me is either to die hungry or to die in the hands of an angry mob, but if I am lucky they don’t kill me I go to jail which is better because there they will teach me skills of living. I will have gone to prison with a diploma in pickpocketing I will have graduated after my sentence with a masters in armed robbery. In the psalms of David he sings,” I was young and now am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread.” For the sake of our over holy and righteous late mother ask the lord this question on my behalf.  

Destiny is decided with the choices we make brother am in no mood of arguing let's go. I will keep praying for your lost soul. You forgot Purity she is the only one who gave you hope at the orphanage after mums death have you seen her lately. You should go by her house and talk to her she always puts some sense into your head.

It a jungle rule that a stripe and a spot can never interact with their encounter leads to the demise of one that is the zebra always. If we look at it scientifically the two of us are from the same family, but social class places us in different species; that’s why purity and her parents would come to make donations at the orphanage every year during Thanksgiving. This makes her a spot and I the stripe. Purity did not see the rift between us, and for that I will never forget her but for me she was a very pure and ripe apple at the tip of a tree up so high that no matter how hard I try to reach for it the thorns prick me and as I try to climb higher the wind sways the tree, and I risk falling down. Purity will forever be an image for me or a dream that will never come true.

But she loved you and always came by the orphanage to see you. She still wrote you letters that you always replied with ecstasy and excitement. I remember how you would save to buy stamps at the post office after sneaking out of the orphanage to post letters to her. She had even defied her parents to be with you.

Her parents will never let us be. No parent would allow her daughter to be taken away from paradise to an empty wastepaper compartment. Don't you agree? The last time her mother saw as together, she threatened to feed me to her dogs and warned her daughter against associating with thieves like me. Remember her father is a decorated military man with accolades in wars.

Suit yourself lets go to church and give me some money for the church offering it’s not advisable to go into the house of the Lord empty-handed. Furthermore, we need his guidance I am not going to risk my life anymore for food on these streets the bishop assured me in the cells. Everything has a reason and maybe that’s why I was arrested to meet him and be rescued from this savage life.

My brother, I can only give you half of what remains from our last hunt but remember that’s your share. How does a fisherman risk his boat capsizing and losing his life to catch fish and when he finally gets the fish he throws it back into the sea? The lord is our provider why give back what you almost died for. I thought God is all knowing and should understand we are mare beggars after he took our mother and we survive by stealing from his flock. I was wondering what is the worth of our lives what if those handbags had no money, and you would have died for nothing? Why give in these churches there too many wealthy people who make fat offerings. Someone who converts to a particular religion has a better understanding than we who were born into the faith and didn’t try other faiths but follow sheepishly. My conviction is that God is everywhere yet someone tells you to go to church on a specific day where people dressed in white robbed clothes read from the excellent book at their timing. They give interpretation and doctrines at their convenience as if God appears exclusively to them. They make poor beggars as you give to rich beggars like them. The true gospel they preach says a man should not live by bread alone yet even the little crumbs that fall off their tables is taken away from us.

Help me up and let me go to church before the congregation arrives my time in the police cells has changed me. I need to make things right with God am just tired of this life of stealing. We are turning eighteen ends of this month we will be able to be gainfully employed in the local industries, and maybe we can raise enough to take you back to college. The rich give out of their abundance I am giving all I have from my heart. This offering is giving means my next meal will have to come from him for he is my Jehovah Jireh. After I offer this sacrifice we will never beg again or risk our lives on the streets again he says even if my faith is as little as a mustard seed I can order mountains to move into the sea and they obey. Today I am going to make my final prayer like Samson did am tired of all this humiliation too much. If there is indeed a God, who listen I want to give him a final ultimatum am tired of pretending to be strong for you not to lose hope. I will approach his throne of mercy one last time.

I repeat it to you again as I had quoted the bible before, look at the birds of the air they neither labor nor soar, they don’t even have stores, but the Lord feeds them. Look at the lilies the lords clothes them so beautifully that even King Solomon with all his wealth has never worn such beautiful garments. The lord finds pleasure in dressing wild grasses such as lilies and feeding birds than us. Let’s go I will be waiting for you outside the church compound next to the fence by the sea. Don’t take long I don’t have all day.

Everything the Lord does has many reasons his weakness is stronger than the strength of all the strong men of the whole world combined. The foolishness of the lord is more knowledgeable than the knowledge of the all the intelligent men in this world combined. The two walk together one supporting the other and head for the church. They continue their previous conversation as Jimmy tries to convince his younger brother to accompany him into the church.

I still don’t believe that God still exists, I think this is just a mere fabrication to pretend to maintain the moral fiber in the society while reaping from offerings and tithes from the congregation. The true gospel should not be about the money, the preachers today say that you have to give for the lord to answer your prayers. This alienated us from being part of their flock for we have nothing to give. Maybe all these religions are just a fallacy to trick people so that you can make wealth out of their ignorance. I used to read the bible every church day, and I noticed how the father and son relationship is one of the active pillars of Christianity is built on. We don’t even know who our father is we are just nothing in this world. If indeed God really lives or even hears our prayer I want him to make me find our father before I die. There is nothing too difficult for the lord? This task is too easy for him. I cannot subscribe to a sheepish believe where the shepherd lives a lavish life at the expense of their poor flock. Shouldn’t the true gospel be where the shepherd risks his life and leaves his comfort for the sake of the sheep? I don’t think there is God in heaven or anywhere for that matter because if he existed, he would punish all those who alter his word for their own selfish gains.

My brother you are missing the whole point your notion that religion is for the downtrodden and hopeless in the society is wrong. You think you can argue out through everything in life. I would rather live with the notion that there is God but if it happens that there is no God I will have lost nothing than believe that there is no God and if it happens that actually, God exists you will be in trouble and be forever condemned in the lake of fire.

You religious talk always places too much emphasis importance on death rather than life. I think being a free thinker and I swear if I ever find our biological father again I will trust and be a committed Christian once again. I will always attend mass every week I will go back to the sanctuary as a new being. We are almost near the church I will go by sea and wait for you there to finish your prayers. Geoffrey runs to the sea and shouts” tell the lord to give mum my regards!”