Junkyard Blues

Chapter Three

13 C Chapter Three errick owns a car. It is an old model Toyota Carina 2, the type that every Toyota manufacturer has already forgotten about. The car needs a lot more parts and a lot more paint to look anything as the manufacturer intended, and it has a funny tendency of leaving the house with Derrick sitting behind the wheel and coming back with a dirty looking mechanic sitting behind the wheel. It was in this car, Jude’s bail already settled, that Derrick started talking. His voice sounded as patronizing as always to Jude. “You should’ve told me you were having problems paying your rents,” Derrick said as he pulled out of the parking lot of the police station, glancing briefly around before turning into the road. Jude sat beside him and did not try to look at his face. He already knew what he would see on Derrick’s face, a look of triumph, that look that said, “I told you.” “You should’ve let me know,” Derrick said again, “You should’ve at least called me earlier.” You little shit! You thought you were already grownup, that you were already big enough to call your own shots. Ha ha ha! Now how do you see yourself? Where are you now? Who did you call to bail you out? The beauty of life is always how things look when they’re already over, how problems look so solvable when they’re already over; when the deed is already done. It was like calling the fire brigade when the house was already down to smoldering pieces of charred brick. “You should’ve let me know…” “It wasn’t a problem really,” Jude murmured almost to himself. He hated the way he felt sitting beside Derrick at this moment. He hated the way he felt like a child, a child standing before his father filled with shame after another session of wetting the bed. To think of it, it was almost always how he felt when he was with Derrick, always like some tiny powerless piece of shit. And there was something he was sure of, that Derrick enjoyed seeing him that way, that Derrick enjoyed hovering over him like some father-figure (Derrick was not his father, but the truth be told, Derrick had been able to play the role of a father better than their father could). A father-figure that D 14 was always right, whose every word was supposed to be taken without any hesitation. The word of a god. “What did you say?” Derrick asked glancing at him. This time Jude caught the look in his eyes. It was filled with amusement; amusement that was bordered by a lot of irritation, “Hmm? What did you say?” “Nothing,” Jude murmured again. “Nothing?” Jude said nothing; he kept his eyes on the taxi before them, whose brake lights where now coming on as the early morning traffic was slowing to a halt. “You think it was not really a problem, huh?” The traffic was now at a complete standstill. It was always slow driving in the morning in Bamenda when everybody was heading somewhere to start their day. This morning it was going to be slower, Jude could feel it. Derrick looked at him, some anger replacing the amusement behind his eyes for a brief moment before disappearing again, “It wasn’t a problem really and yet you spend two days in a police cell. Can you explain that to me? Can you carefully tell me what you were doing in a police cell then if there was no problem really?” Derrick shook his head, “I don’t know at times…” he smiled a puzzling smile, “Do you even know how much it cost me to get you out of there? The amount of disgrace to know that my own brother was now spending nights in a police cell?” How was him spending two days in a police cell a disgrace for Derrick? Was Derrick the one who had spend the nights afraid to sleep, afraid that some sick bastard was going to come for you with hideous sexual intentions? Was Derrick the one with scraped and painful knees right now? “I don’t know what you want,” Derrick shook his head again, “I just don’t know.” Yes and you told me so. Derrick let the car to roll again, the traffic was moving again. “I’m even supposed to be in school right...