The Guardian Demon

Brave: Part 2

“MLO IMLA”

That’s what’s written at the entrance of the open-air restaurant they sit down at.

“Isn’t this a bit too open for your kind of business?” Brian asks his father.

“What do you think we are doing here?”

“Meeting someone who will be dead in the next twenty minutes?”

Brian’s father chuckles and says, “Look behind you.”

He knows that he probably shouldn’t but he turns around anyway.

#What am I supposed to be looking for? A suspicious-looking person in black shades? A supposedly dead ex-employee? A stuffed bag whose owner is nowhere in sight? Or maybe something more sinister; a chokoraa (Swahili slang, sheng, street kid) who looks higher than he can afford, an abandoned child who saw more than she was supposed to? Or maybe it’s that pretty girl over there, with the complexion of a warm, sweet cup of cocoa, with her hair tied back into a fluffy bunch like a bunny’s tail that makes her look as if she has a small, dense, black cloud tethered to the back of her head, with her nose round and cheeks chubby with dimples like ripples of joy spreading out from her radiant smile. s**t, she’s turning this way, don’t look away that’s lame. Her eyes are like an abyss that I’m falling into so smoothly that I can’t feel the gravity. She reminds me of someone. She reminds me of…

“Julia… “

He turns away quickly before she can recognize him.

“They just moved here one week ago. Her father got a lucrative job here courtesy of yours truly. You see, I’m not all bad.”

Brian doesn’t look at him. He just stares at the table as a rush of thoughts flood his mind.

“Go talk to her,” his father says.

“I can’t, seeing her just reminded me of what I did to Matthew.”

His father’s face twists in disgust. He then stands and starts waving in their direction.

“Mama Julia!” He calls out.

Brian gets surprised.

“What are you doing!”

Julia’s mother recognizes Brian’s father and with Julia in tow, moves to Brian’s table to greet them.

“Wow, fancy to see you two here! It’s been years. Brian, look at how much you’ve grown, you’re a man now!”

“Thank you,” Brian says with his eyes downcast.

“Baba Brian, you stopped coming home after Joe moved here too, why did… “

#I can’t even look at her, why am I such a coward?

His hands clench and unclench.

#Oh yeah, I killed our best friend’s father... but she doesn’t know that.

He looks up for a moment and underneath his brows he sees her looking at him. He quickly looks away.

#God, she’s beautiful.

His feet fidget and drag underneath the table.

#Why won’t she say anything, she would never shut up before.

“…Brian!”

“What?”

“What are you thinking about so hard that you can’t even hear me, anyway, Mama Julia and I will go somewhere for a bit, be a gentleman and take care of Julia, okay?” His father says with a smile that almost makes him throw up.

He groans a response.

The parents get up and leave.

Here he was. Her best friend. Their best friend. She had always thought that their reunion would be a little more magical. Why had he never tried to contact her? Why did he look so nervous? There could only be one explanation. Well, there could be another but he didn’t, he couldn’t have.

“It wasn’t me,” her voice pulls him out of the swamp of thoughts he had been drowning in.

“What?”

“After what happened to Matthew you just left, without a word. I showed up at the river the next day and waited for you but you never showed up, and then when I went to your house your mom told me you had left for Nairobi. You never even returned home for the holidays with your father.”

#Everything about that town reminds me of my betrayal.

“I’m not the one who told on Matthew okay,” she continues, “I don’t know how everyone found out. It wasn’t my fault.

#She thinks I blame her for something I did?

He slowly reaches across the table and puts his hand on hers.

“I don’t blame you, I never have,” he says without looking up.

“You don’t? Then why did you leave without saying anything?”

“Because… because I couldn’t face you…”

“Why not?”

Brian rubs his neck.

#She’ll hate you if you tell her, you have to lie.

“Because…”

#Lie!

“Because... I’m the one who told on Matthew.”

She had hoped that they would meet again, if not through her constantly pestering her mother then through Brian’s own initiative. She had hoped that Brian would accept her apology and hear her theory about how it was probably her brother who had been spying on them. She had hoped that Brian would get angry and use his father’s connections to sniff out Matthew from whatever hole he had disappeared into. She had hoped that they would continue their once beautiful friendship for as long as they could. She had hoped that the thing that kept implying that Brian had betrayed them was wrong. She had hoped she didn’t already know the truth.

She withdraws her hand from the table.

He looks up at her and sees exactly what he had expected at such a confession. Disgust. He should’ve just lied.

“I was a child, I was jealous. I didn’t think things would escalate to that level.”

She stands, abject that her intuition had been right. She wishes he had just lied. They will probably never see Matthew again. He might even be dead.

“I’m sorry Julia,” Brian says standing up after her.

She walks away. Brian sits back down.

Dusk. Brian is lying on his hands on the table while he looks blankly to the side. A bearded man approaches him casting his shadow on the young man at the table.

“Where’s Julia?”

“She left,” he murmurs without looking at him.

A grimace forms on the bearded man’s face. He takes a seat.

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth.”

“Why? Did you think it would win her over?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do… “ Brian’s father grumbles.

The words draw bile from his stomach setting his throat on fire. That sentence embodied the very concept of weakness. It was defeatist. It was anti-life. It served no purpose other than protecting itself.

“The right thing to do! Haven’t you learnt anything? What is right and wrong is just a mass delusion! I have been trying to break you from it but you are so stubborn. If you want that girl, tell her anything you need to tell her for you to be happy. I want you to be happy, do you understand? And the only way I can ensure you will always be happy is if I make you learn that everything is in your control, nothing has value unless you wish it to!”

“If lying and killing are happiness then I would rather be depressed,” Brian says drowsily, unaware of the storm brewing in his father’s cauldron of a mind.

“Then that is all you will ever be.”

Brian lifts his head and looks at his father.

“Was this a test?”

“At least you have a brain.”

The bearded man gets up and starts walking away. He had tried everything, except…

“I spent too much time trying to build you up, maybe I should have just broken you down.”

Brian’s father is reading a newspaper in the living room of his house. Brian comes out of a room somewhere.

“Where’s Joe?”

“I don’t know,” his father answers nonchalantly.

“Then send someone to look for him.”

“I already did.”

Brian stares at his father. Deep in the pits of his stomach, he feels something. What had he done? His father’s phone rings.

“Hello… Okay.”

He gets up.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“They found Joe.”

#I had seen dead bodies before.

Brian has tears streaming down his face.

#But this wasn’t a stranger’s lifeless remains.

He is in a morgue.

#This was my brother’s corpse.

His father stands behind him.

#After all those years protecting him, a d**g addict stabbed him dead for a pouch of cocaine.

Brian abruptly becomes serious and angry.

#No, the d**g addict didn’t kill him.

“What did you do?” Brian asks through his gritted teeth.

His father likes the way his voice sounds. Cold, calm, collected. Focused.

“I didn’t want to have to resort to this, but you were being so stubborn with your sentiments. It was my original plan though; find the centre of your world and destroy it, but I thought seeing several strangers die would yield the same results, I guess it wasn’t simple arithmetic. You have the spark of greatness Brian, you are meant for greater things, not like that boy. This could have been avoided if only you would have needed less convincing. And besides, he was stealing from me, so I killed two birds with one d**g addict.”

Brian’s face goes blank.

#What did he just say?

His eyes dry up. He clenches his teeth. His whole body stiffens. His hands squeeze into fists. Everything goes red.

The bearded man crashes into a wall. Something drives the wind out of his lungs. His left knee cracks. He screams and falls on his hands. Something hits him on the side of his face. His ears start ringing, his vision becomes blurry. He is hit in the face and he finds himself on his back. Something drags him by his shirt to an upright position. The side of his face starts getting pounded. There’s someone shouting something over the ringing, ’Killed… Son… Brother…’. He can’t make anything out. The pounding becomes distant, everything starts to dim. Suddenly, he is let go and he falls to the floor. There’s a warm liquid flowing down the left side of his face. Something metallic crashes. Through his eyes he sees several blurs struggling against each other. He smiles. He closes his eyes.

Knock, knock.

Brian opens his eyes. His head is fuzzy. There’s a sore pain in his neck.

Knock, knock.

He looks at the door. He looks around. He recognises the room.

#You wanted me to be fearless?

He picks up a knife from the table and slowly walks to the door.

#Then you’ll be my first victim.

He jerks the door open with the knife held above his head.

“Julia?”

Julia sees the knife and jumps back in terror. He sees her reaction and puts his hand down.

“Sorry, I thought it was my father.”

“Your father? Do you always greet him with a knife?”

“I was in the kitchen cutting some things, I forgot to put the knife down.”

“Umm… okay?” She’s not convinced but it doesn’t matter.

“If this is about what happened to Matthew-” he says after an awkward silence.

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” she interrupts, “You might have blown the whistle but you’re not the one who made them do it, but that’s not why I came. May I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He shows her in. She goes and sits on the couch. He places the knife on the table and sits next to her.

“I heard about Joe, I am so sorry.”

She hugs him.

#Warmth.

She withdraws and looks at his neck.

“There’s some blood on your neck.”

She takes out a piece of tissue paper from her purse and, tilting his head to the side, dabs his neck.

“It’s like a pinprick or an injection.”

#So that’s what happened.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing.”

“You sure? I mean you are acting kind of strange, with the knife and all.”

“I need your advice on something,” he abruptly says.

She looks at him with a bit of worry in her eyes.

“Anything.”

#Love

“There is something I need to do, about Joe’s death, and if I don’t do it, I don’t think I will ever find peace.”

“What do you need to do?”

Brian looks at the knife he placed on the table.

“I can’t tell you the details.”

“You can’t tell me the details? Does that mean you are planning on doing something stupid? You want my advice? Do what you need to do, but don’t be stupid about it. I already lost Matthew, I don’t want to lose you too.”

#Kindness.

She puts her hand on his face.

He stares into her eyes then he starts moving his head closer. Julia gets a bit surprised and starts moving her head further but there’s only so far she could go. He kisses her.

He pulls away and sees that she is surprised.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, it’s okay. With your brother’s death, you must be feeling confused.”

They withdraw from each other and sit squarely on the couch.

#This would prove him wrong about everything and also get justice for Joe, but…

“I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

#Maybe she’s right, maybe I should trust society and the law one last time.

“I will report my father.”

“Why will you report your father?”

He turns his head towards her.

“You can never tell anyone what I’m about to tell you…”

#I told her, and then I told the police.

Brian and Julia are sitting in front of a T.V. screen. Both have their eyes glued to it. Both have their mouths aghast.

#Instead of catching him and humiliating him by making him suffer through the system he so looked down upon…

The by-line at the bottom of the screen reads, “‘King’ of the local d**g cartel killed by a policeman in a stand-off.”

Julia hugs Brian.

#And for the first time in my life, I felt free.

The young man smiles over the lady’s shoulder.

#My father was right.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says.

#It was.

“You just wanted justice.”

#This is justice.

“Please, don’t feel bad about this.”

#I have never felt better than I do right now.

“Don’t leave me,” he says and squeezes her.

#He was right about everything.

“I won’t leave you,” she hugs him tighter.

#If you want something just take it.

“You are the only one I have left,” his voice flat, emotionless.

#And I want you, Julia.

“I will never leave you,” her voice tender, caring.

#And I want revenge.

#My father was dead but I wish I had been the one to pull the trigger, but there was still a chance so I called some of my father’s friends.

“It’s a shame what happened to my father, but it would be an insult if I let him rest without getting justice for his son.”

“I’m listening…” says the man at the other end of the call.

#They found my brother’s killer.

A young man with a scraggly beard stands over a dirty street boy, g*n in hand.

#I killed him myself.

He points the g*n at the boy and pulls the trigger.

#The g*n felt lighter after the recoil. The bang sounded as if signalling the start of a race.

#That bullet carried with it what was left of my moral solicitude. Neither god nor the devil had done anything about my brother’s murder, but I had.

#I was free, fearless.

#The murderer’s blood flowed, but was it enough? I had the means to make the world better, to rid the world of evil and injustice, and I owed it to my brother to use it to fix the society that failed him.

#The same society that failed Matthew.

Brian is standing at the head of a conference table. There are several rich people seated along its length.

“I can make you richer than my father ever did.”

“You don’t need to campaign with us,” says one of the men at the table, “we know your father wanted you to be the one who takes over, with his influence- “

“I don’t want his influence, I don’t want his drugs, I don’t want his kingdom. I don’t want anything from him. I will make my own. I want to offer you a new deal.”

He places a briefcase on the table.

“What’s that?” Someone else asks.

He opens the briefcase. A golden glaze shines over his face.

“Your new King.”