Deacon

 

  Sandy beaches, streets lined with colorful buildings, and tent vendors selling hand-made tapestries are luxuries I don’t get to enjoy when I come to Cape Town. My trips don’t include rugby games at the sports arena or afternoons at water bungalows. Most of my time lately is spent peering past the back of a Jeep while Johan drives over the dusty roads of a nearby township trying not to get carjacked. The lines of wealth aren’t blurred here. There are haves and there are have-nots. And those who have better damn well make sure those who have-not, don’t know it. The Lord giveth, and the have-nots taketh away. 

  This was a lesson I learned the hard way. The Bruce family, my family, lived among the wealthy. As a child I’d heard my father whisper in the kitchen long after I was supposed to be tucked into the security of my bed. He would talk to my mother about things like righting wrongs and fearsome unrest, but I had no idea what any of that meant. Until one day, years later, I was working away from home when a group of men showed up on our farm and decided what was ours was theirs, including my mother and sister.

  One of my father’s foreman rushed to get me, mumbling about things I didn’t have the patience to understand. I just knew I needed to get home. Of the seven men that attacked my family, three were still there when I arrived. The gruesome scene laid out before my eyes the moment I stepped out of my truck. My family’s workers, my lifelong friends, lay beaten and bloody on the path leading to our front door. I hadn’t made it ten steps inside before I saw my mother, lying on the kitchen floor, weeping uncontrollably, one hand cupping her crotch as she pulled her legs into her body and the other over her mouth in disbelief. My sister hid underneath the dining table, knees pulled to her chest as she rocked back and forth, shaking her head vehemently and mouthing the words, “No. Please make it go away.” I assumed she was speaking to someone with more power than I had at that moment.

  I followed my mother’s eyes to the adjacent room where I found my father, a man I’d looked up to my whole life, admired for his good heart and kind nature. I remember shifting my eyes from him back to my mother, then to my sister. Back to him. The sobs of the woman who gave me life, the silence of the man who raised me, and the shouts of three strangers who had taken it all from me suddenly became deafening. The room spun. The noise grew louder. The innocence of my soul was ripped away by the claws of destruction, torn to pieces, disappearing so fast I couldn’t catch it if I tried. Then… silence. The chaos stopped spinning. The sounds of despair stopped swirling around me. Something happened in that moment. Something changed. I was no longer a naïve young man, but a callous soul determined to control every element of the world around him. Water. Air. Earth. Fire. People. Whatever it took. Nothing would ever affect me this way again. Nothing.

  After I made sure the three men that were left would never lay their hands on another inch of innocent flesh again, I carried my father’s lifeless body out of my mother’s line of sight then took her and my sister into the bathroom and cleaned them up. As I sponged the blood from their broken and abused bodies, I realized the truth about the world I lived in. There’s no room for weakness here.

 

  That was almost twenty years ago, and nothing’s changed. Except now the workers are all armed and prepared to do what it takes to keep my mother and sister safe. My little brother was kept locked in the basement all those years ago. So, he didn’t have to witness what those men did to my family or watch me take their lives as retribution. Now he runs the farm with a quick hand and sharp eye. The natives are growing more and more restless, and the division among our people grows wider and wider by the day. Which is why I’m here now.

 

  After spending more time than I should have in Los Angeles trying to postpone the inevitable, I finally came back home to take care of business. I couldn’t keep ignoring the phone calls, the cries of my people. It’s my job to find injustice and document it for the world in vibrant, living color. I don’t sugar coat shit. It’s gritty. It’s dangerous. And it sure as hell isn’t easy. I don’t have a single weak-stomached person on my team. And I like it that way.

  I own a photography business, specializing in risky photojournalism assignments. My men know what they’re getting into when they come to work for me, and they know what to expect when they’re in the field. They also know if anything ever happens to them while they’re out there, I have the balls to do whatever it takes to make it right. Sometimes that means having a simple meeting with the Embassy to get one out of jail or free from the grasp of the wrong group of people. But, most of the time, the Embassy has better things to do. So, it means I take the negotiating into my own hands.

  Right now, genocide is flooding the streets of South Africa, and I was on another continent chasing pussy. No. That’s not true. With Fiona Drazen it was about more than sex. It was about control and the fight to maintain it. I loved her. I always will. But loving her had made me weak. It consumed me. Fiona had done it. She’d finally proved me right. And the very knowledge of that statement rips me in two. I’d never wanted to be more wrong in my life. But… she’s not submissive. She never was. Her final act, one of complete and utter control, sent me walking out the door knowing I’d never see her again. It’s been eleven months, and I still think of her when the rest of the world goes to sleep. But with each passing day, she gets easier to forget.

 

***

 

   Three weeks ago, two of my guys, Johan and David, set off into Nyanga to document some of the gang violence that was breaking out in the past weeks. It’s not as if the road was unsafe or less traveled. But two cars boxed them in, motioning for them to pull to the side. Men with guns poked their torsos out of car windows, warning them to obey. Once they pulled over, a man from one of the other cars put a gun to Johan’s head as if the gesture were as natural as salting French fries, while another wrapped a blindfold around his eyes. He was shoved into the backseat of his own car and driven around for an hour before being drug out onto the dirt of an abandoned lot and left alone.

  The only sign of David we’ve seen since that day was a video sent to my email a week later letting us know a message needed to be sent. I caught sight of a flag in the background and knew immediately who was behind the kidnapping.

 

  My first meeting with the U.S. Consulate didn’t go as I’d hoped, although, it went exactly as I expected. The authorities are useless. A man is missing. And if they won’t help negotiate the terms of David’s release, I’ll have to do it my way.

 

***

 

  “What the fuck?” Johan shouts over the sound of rugged tires crushing rocky gravel. “How many do you think there are?” he asks, pointing at a line of men with semi-automatic weapons strapped over their shoulders as they block the road in front of us. I let my eyes scan the space about sixty yards ahead. 

  “Six. Maybe seven.”

  “Should I turn around? Slow down? Please don’t tell me we’re going to stop.”

  His voice is shaky even without the rough terrain. These men mean business. We’ve crossed a line, stepped into their territory. We’re the haves and they’re the have-nots. We have no business here. It doesn’t matter that they’ve taken one of my men, and I’m here to find him. They don’t give a fuck about justice. Their blood runs purely on instinct and survival. A weaker man would find fear in their determination to create mass chaos, but I’m not a weak man. We’re not turning around. David is out here. Somewhere. And I’m not leaving until I find him.

  I’ve done things I’m not proud of, things that jolt me awake in the dead of night, my skin covered in sweat. Things I don’t speak of. Things that have kept me and my crew from being tortured and killed. Out here, in my world, it’s survival of the fittest and I have become a master at the game of self-preservation.

  “Keep going,” I order, my eyes locked on the man in the center of the blockade. Willing him to move. Daring him to stay. Johan grips the steering wheel with both hands. And if I didn’t know better I’d swear he’d closed his eyes as we continued at full speed toward the men.

  The one in the middle brings his weapon from his shoulder to firing position. I stand, my head rising above the foam-covered roll bar while my hands grasp the sides, holding me in place. I give Johan two taps on the shoulder, urging him to speed up. The wind slaps my cheeks as the Jeep picks up speed.

  Twenty meters. The men square their shoulders but exchange anxious glances. The man in the middle yells something that I can’t discern. He doesn’t drop his gun. I don’t drop my gaze. Always look them in the eye. How’s a man supposed to take you seriously if you can’t look him in the eye?

  Ten meters. The men on the corners start to shuffle their feet. I hold my gaze. I’m certain Johan has his eyes closed at this point. He’s not a quitter, but he doesn’t have near the balls for this stuff as I do. Then again, not many people do.

  Five meters. Middle man fires his weapon twice. The bullets ricochet off the steel next to my right hand. I move my hand but don’t back down. Johan takes his foot off the gas.

  “Keep going.”

  Middle man jumps out of the way just before we run him down. The other men follow his lead, scattering to the left and right as we plow past them.

  “You’re fucking crazy,” Johan shouts, never looking over his shoulder as he keeps driving.

  Maybe. Or maybe I’m just unapologetic.

 

***

 

 

 

 

 The crisp white stucco and delicate landscaped entrance of the updated Victorian style hotel near the water are nothing more than a mask for the barbarity that hides in the depths of the city. My crew and I occupy three of the ten rooms of the quaint hotel. I put us here on purpose, to remind us of our humanity after the atrocities we’re subjected to. A detox of sorts. But even cozy furniture and inviting décor doesn’t distract me from the fact that the danger has just begun for us.