Free Ishmael Toffee by Roger Smith Page A

you.”
    “But I’m not good, Ishmael,” she said, her voice sticking in her throat like food she couldn’t swallow.
    “’Course you are,” he said.
    She shook her head. “My mommy made her dead because of what I did with Daddy.”
    He grabbed her shoulders, so hard it hurt. “Now you listen to me and you listen good. What your daddy done to you is nothing you could stop, hard as you could try. It’s not never your fault. Never. You understanding me, Cindy?”
    “Bobby,” she said, smiling through the tears that came like water down her face.
    “Ja, Bobby,” he said laughing, standing up and taking her hand and she let herself be walked to where they are sitting now, having their picnic: bread and Simba chips and guava juice and apples and Vienna sausages red like lipstick, all greasy but tasting so good because she is very hungry.
    They sit with their backs against the stone and eat their feast, and when her tummy is swollen up Cindy feels her eyes getting heavier and heavier and she lies down on the sand and goes to sleep because she knows that Ishmael is her friend and he is there to watch over her and keep her safe.
     
    ●
     
    The girly snores softly and Ishmael lifts the pack of Luckies—red circle like a target on the front—and tears open the silver top. He puts the pack to his nose, catching that nice, rich smell of fresh tobacco. The first proper cigarettes he’s bought in more than twenty years. He’s spoiling himself, but what’s the harm?
    He got himself matches, too. Knows they are Lion matches because they’re yellow and got a drawing of red lion on the box. Ishmael taps out a Lucky and is disappointed to see that it has a filter tip. Can’t buy plains no more. He busts off the tip, chucks it on the ground and puts the cigarette in his mouth, feeling bits of tobacco tickling his tongue like little worms.
    He fires up and takes a long drag, coughing smoke, then shuts up, fast. Doesn’t want to wake the girly. Wants her strong tonight, so they can get their asses gone from here when it’s dark. Not sure where they’re going to go, but wants to put as much distance between them and Tin Town as he can. He found a couple of hundred rand in the lady’s purse—must have been payday for her—and that’ll be enough to get them on a train upcountry, where he’s never in his life been.
    He takes a peep around the side of the tombstone and sees the Red Ants have got all the people out, up there on the airport side of the graveyard. Now they’re smashing down the shacks made of old tin and wood and plastic.
    A woman with a baby tied to her back tries to stop them and an Ant smacks her down with his nightstick. Some other people come and drag the woman away, and Ishmael can see from here that her face is red as the Ant’s uniform.
    Not Ishmael’s problem. Got him plenty of his own. And he don’t like it here fuck-all, in this cemetery. Believes every word of what he told the kid, about the dead not hassling good people. But what about him? He put countless men in their graves. Some women too, truth be told. And for sure, a whole lot of them gonna be planted right here in this graveyard, maybe even under where he’s sitting his ass.
    Ishmael, even though it’s hotter than hell on a bad day, feels a shiver run up his spine. All of a sudden the smoke tastes sour in his mouth, and—though he reckons it’s not yet noon—he tells the night to get a move on and come.
     

26
     
     
    His name’s Taswell, but call him that and you’ll see your mother. Angel, that’s his handle. Angel. Proud of his American gang tattoos. Barely out of his teens but he’s on his way up, running drugs and women. Taking what he wants, when he fucken wants it.
    He sits slumped low in the shotgun seat of the Honda Civic, shacks blurring by, looking past the driver, Boston, at a group of men coming on, some of them carrying sticks and metal pipes, and he knows what this is about: street justice, they call it. Say