Getting Even
By Andrew SevenSeven
The following is a work of fiction, any similarity to an actual event is purely coincidental.
Henry van Vuren flung his carry bag over his shoulder as the tall, scrawny guard pushed the big, metal, barbed gate wide open. He nodded at the guard who smiled at him toothily, then took a powerful puff of his shrinking cigarette. His eyes squinted as the smoke wafted over them, and then he let out a cloud through his mouth and nostrils. Walking past the iron gates, he allowed the aura of the moment to enwrap him; he had been waiting for this day for a long time. He turned back to face the grim building that had been his bleakness for a decade and a half. Where he had had to use bitter measures to survive, where meals were an uncertainty, not because of the unreliability of their provision, but rather the bulky hands that would often scoop up the best of his dinner from his plate, or the whole plate entirely at their discretion, and there was often little he could do about it. A place filled with hundreds of other men, but the loneliest place he has ever known. He held back memories of the hell that occurred behind the beige walls of that building. Trampling the butt of his cigarette under his shoes, he swallowed saliva bitterly as the thought of the person who was the reason to why he had been there. Well, it was his crime and he had served his sentence as the judge had pronounced, but the books were not balanced. Not by a long shot. He signaled down a taxi and got in. He was vaguely aware of the car racing down the street to beat a red light, but his thoughts were solely focused on the girl. Well, she would be a grown woman now, but she was the same person as sure as night was dark. The last time he saw her was the day she showed up at his suburban residence. Memory swirled, his mother opened the door, policemen shoved her aside moments after and there she was…crying, crumbling to the tiled floor, like her eyes had seen the devil. How his life got disrupted after that. His father had already paid tuition fees for the year, and his first class as a University freshman hadn’t been too bad either. Everything destroyed. His parent’s hopes for him, his reputation. He had been humiliated, made the laughing stock of his peers, his family’s shame. His future, a nice house one day, a wife, a son, a dog…it was all gone. That IT degree…maybe a PhD one day? A small voice in the back of his mind shouted that it was still possible, but he had long muffled it, long tied a scarf over its metaphorical mouth and buried deep into the chasm from whence it now cried. He had made it his enemy. No, there was no reasoning anymore. His life was over, he knew it. He embraced it. Today was the day of the reckoning.
“Where do I drop you, sir?”
The question came for the fourth time before Henry heard it, and rather annoyed at that. An exasperated passenger puffed and rolled their eyes. “Sorry, sir. Just here by the bank,” said Henry in his wake. He paid and got out the cab. After several strides, he stood outside the entrance of the bank for a minute, staring, contemplating. He finally sighed and pushed the glass doors. He exited several minutes later, in a bit of a hurry and his bag slightly bulkier. He flagged down another taxi and jumped in and quickly gave the driver directions. The trip was shorter than the one from prison, but in his mind it lasted several prison terms, each bad thought uglier and darker than the one he had just unsuccessfully tried to resist. He got off at an old abandoned building, like the type where all the shady kind could be found. A place he would never have gone near before his sentencing, but his life had been changed. Like he had done at the bank, he stood for about a minute. His current temperament was slightly edgier than at the bank, though. Understandable, perhaps: This was the penultimate task. The hurdle before the last, and if he did not do this, there would be no getting even. He tried to muster as much courage as he could in one long draw of breath, then took a step forward, and followed it with another, then another and before he knew it, he was standing in front of tall, musky Gerard, the dealer his informer from prison had told him of.
“What do you want?” growled Gerard the dealer.
“I want—a—a” Henry stammered. He had never stammered before in his life. “I want a gun.”
“You working for the cops?” Gerard cast a suspicious look over Henry and revealed a large knife under his shirt.
“Of course not!” Henry answered, trying as hard as he possibly could to not sound timid. “I’m just from prison. Your cousin Affeni referred me to you. Affeni with a long scar across his right arm. I’ll pay you double, I have a job to do.”
Gerard studied him from head to toe, with glaring, angry eyes. Glaring and angry, but no longer suspicious. “What type of gun?”
“Anything small but should kill from close range,” Henry replied. “Preferably with one shot. And a muffler.”
Gerard’s eyes dropped and rose again and his upper lip contorted conceitedly, but he turned away into a dark corner and returned holding a pistol and a muffler. “This will do the job, and the clip is full. This will do the job. Eight grand.”
Henry had already retrieved the cash and so handed it to Gerard and received the weapons. He took off almost immediately. This would be his last cab drive, and it set off for the hospital where the girl was admitted, the girl who had landed him in prison. The hour of reckoning was dawning. He would die, he knew. He would eventually turn the gun on himself, but not before he knew pay back was achieved. He clutched the bulking bag. He felt like he was in a time warp, like his body was acting of its own accord and he was just watching from a disembodied vantage point. He felt disorientated, only one thought kept him going. Getting even. Before he knew it, he was stepping off the shaky elevator and he was in the wing that had the girl. And after a swift, stealthy search, he slipped into her room while no one was watching and now he stood over her bed, glaring. It was definitely her. He could never forget that face, not in a million years. He could pick it from a crowd. He had thought of it for everyday for 15 years. She was asleep, safely—beautiful. He took the chair beside her bed and sat. Selma was her name, he knew and the clipboard by the table confirmed that he was not insane. Other information on it confirmed the truthfulness of his informants from prison. Here he was, like he had dreamed of for so many years. His hands shook slightly. He felt the gun in his pocket but the moment had not arrived yet.
And then a doctor walked into the room and she gasped. She seemed taken aback by his rugged look but she quickly recovered. “Can I help you?”
“I’m a cousin of Selma,” he lied.
“Well visiting hours are over, I’m afraid,” she replied putting a pen in the breast-pocket of her white coat.
“I know,” he said. “But I’m going back to the coast in the morning, this was the only time I could see her again. Please tell me, how is she doing?”
The nurse studied him shortly, not unlike Gerard had done, albeit for different reasons, and seemingly deciding to believe him, she answered: “To be honest, it looks grim. As you know she was raped 15 years ago, and the trauma had a great affect on her health, her heart as you know took the biggest hit. I don’t know if she’ll make it to the end of the month.”
“Do her parents know?” Henry asked.
“Well, they know she needs a heart donor,” answered the doctor solemnly. “They know it is almost impossible to get a donor in this country, and even if she got one, the fee to get that operation done oversees…” her train of thought trailed off as she stared at the end of a pistol’s muffler aimed at her face.
“Don’t scream,” Henry warned her. “My name is Henry. Henry van Vuren and if you know anything about Selma’s case then you know I was the boy who raped her.”
The doctor almost cried out but quickly threw both hands over her mouth to keep it shut.
“I had a long speech prepared,” Henry said his gun arm shaking, a tear dropped from one eye. “About all those nights in my bed in prison. About loneliness in there, the darkness…about what I had learned, but I don’t anymore—my mind is blank. Selma’s blood is A+ right?” The clipboard had said so, his informants had said so.
“Y—yes,” the doctor answered.
“I’m A+ too,” Henry said. “You have your donor.” He threw her the bag. “Pick it up.”
She looked confused, scared, she had obviously never stood in front of a pointed gun before. But Henry thought she was brave. She bent over and took the black, dirty bag.
“That’s all the money I had from my study account,” he said. “It’s enough to pay for the operation, and to get her oversees and back and more, more—it’s all hers.”
The doctor didn’t answer. She merely shook and tried to mute a sob.
He went into his jacket’s inner pockets and retrieved a piece of paper. “This is proof—that I willingly donated my heart to Selma Nashilongo. It’s signed. You will make sure this is done!” It was not a request. “YOU WILL MAKE SURE THIS IS DONE!”
“Y—yes,” the doctor answered again, shaking with fear.
“Tell Selma,” Henry said, himself holding back a cry. He looked at Selma, sleeping soundly, at peace, brave. “Tell her I’m sorry. I know it means nothing, I ruined her life and there’s nothing I could do that could ever give her those years back, or take the trauma away.” He wiped a stream of tears from his eyes, but another flowed over the stained cheeks. “All this time—ever since I found out she needed a heart—I thought…planning this, I thought she would be getting even with me. This was the day of reckoning, and she would get even, but seeing her—I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…” he was now panting. That voice in the back of his head was trying to talk him out of it, but he had come too far. “I’m so sorry.” He brought the gun to his temple and with one last swallow, Henry Van Vuren pulled the trigger. Everything went black.
