Update!
I finished this little instalment about 12:30 this morning, so, since I am smart, I am going to do today's bit NOW. Here it is. It's the longest yet. I'm now sitting pretty on 7,130 words. Expect the next bit soon.
“SHUT UP!”
Joan’s voice is so big I think the roof is going to come off. But it shuts Dad up. And there’s quiet. I hug my legs.
“Hey, James, it’s alright, bro. We’ve stopped shouting. We’re sorry. I’m sorry, bro.” He touches my knee. I don’t move, so he puts his arm round my shoulders. I put my face into his arm and hug it. His arm is big and strong. It feels like he could push a truck over backwards with that arm. It feels safe. I huddle there, and decide I won’t come out until the world is calm.
Joan is murmuring to Dad, careful not to make any noise loud enough to disturb me. Dad’s finally caught on, and he’s talking just as carefully. I don’t listen. They’ll be talking about the gang. I already know. Dad will want him to leave it. Joan won’t want to leave it, and Joan always gets his way.
Finally, about half an hour later, they stop talking. Joan didn’t seem angry at all this time, so Dad didn’t get mean again. I can feel them looking at me, so I take my face away from Joan’s arm and look back. Dad’s got a chair, and he’s sitting on Joan’s other side.
“Hey, James.” His voice is like he wants to be friendly, but it sounds kinda slow.
“Hey, Dad.” My voice is real little.
“You wanna go home now?” I nod. Dad stands up.
“Wait.” It’s Joan. He makes his arm go hard. “Can I have my arm back, little bro?” I let go. I didn’t even know I was still holding on until he said that. He pulls a bit of paper and a pen off his little table onto his lap and writes something. Then he tucks half his paper under his chin and tears it into two chunks, one bigger than the other. He folds the little chunk up, then puts it inside the big chunk, and folds that up two, like a letter. He gives it to me, and then turns to Dad.
“You know where Julius lives?” Dad nods and he turns back to me.
“Don’t open this, okay?” He taps the paper. “Dad’s gonna drive you to Julius’s house. He’s my best friend. You give him this, okay? It’s only for him to read. No-one else. Make sure you give it straight to him.” I nod. He reaches up and rustles my hair again, just like two nights ago, only this time he’s the one in bed. “Okay then, you better go, visiting hours were actually over ten minutes ago.”
As we walk out of the hospital, Dad tries to get me to give him the paper, but I won’t. Joan said it was just for Julius to see. I’ve seen Julius before, when he came to our house to pick Joan up to go somewhere. He’s big. Not as big as Joan, but big. And he’s got real long hair.
When we’re in the car though, I can’t resist it. Even though Joan told me not to, I take a peek at the paper. The outside one’s real short.
“Julius, get this to José. I’m letting them cut off my arm, so I can’t be an enforcer anymore. I’m sorry. But I want to do one more job.”
The inside one’s longer, though. It’s to José.
“José, you’re a dead man. A knife in a child’s playground? Jumping on my arm until the bone’s just powder? Man, that’s sick. You put me in hospital, But I’m gonna get out. And when I get out, I’m coming after you.
“The day after I get out, I’ll see you at midnight, on top of Bridge Kanulu.”
* * *
I fold the note back up and when I give it to Julius, he doesn’t notice it’s been opened. He trusts me, ‘cause Joan does. He says so. I feel a little guilty, but not really. It’s not like anyone else saw, and I’m not gonna tell anyone. Julius just reads the notes, and says thanks to me. He asks Dad if he wants a coffee, but Dad says he’s not thirsty. Julius asks if there’s anything he can do for Dad, but Dad says no. We go back to the car without even going in the house.
When I get in the back, and Dad gets in the front I say, “He was nice, Dad.” Dad’s head kind of jerks a little.
“He’s a gang member, James. I don’t trust him.”
I can’t think of anything more to say that won’t make him angry, so I don’t say anything, all the way home.
The next day I go to school like normal, and Mrs. Jane calls me to her office again. She asks if everything’s alright with Joan. I say yes, I saw him yesterday. She asks how bad everything was, and I say bad. She sends me back to class. I go to the hospital with Dad again after school, but Joan’s asleep. They won’t let us in, but I can see from the door that his arm’s gone. I tell Dad. He says he knows.
For a week, I act like nothing’s different, except that Joan is gone. It’s quiet without him. Me and Dad don’t talk much.
And then, a week after that first visit, Joan comes home.
He’s in a fancy wheelchair, with a little joystick on the arm which he can use to go around in circles with, both his legs are in casts, and he needs to keep them up in the air, and his arm’s gone. I thought there would kind of be a stump, but he says he made them chop it off right at the shoulder. He says he didn’t want half an arm he couldn’t use. Then he says something about skin grafts, from his arm, which I don’t understand, but I can see where the bandages show that there’s skin over the hole.
Then he goes into his room. I go into mine and read my book. It’s good. It’s about this mouse who’s got to move her house, but one of her little mouse children is really sick and can’t be outside for long, so she goes and asks the rats for help.
I’m just at the bit where she’s being told the rat’s story of how they escaped from the scientific laboratory, which I know means where scientists do experiments and blow things up when I hear Joan knocking on the door. I jump up to open it and he buzzes inside.
“Hey little bro,” he says. He looks happy, but he keeps leaning down on the side where his arm is. “Watcha doin’?”
I show him the book and tell him what it’s about.
“Ooh, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. That used to be mine, I think. Isn’t that the one where she goes and talks to a wise old owl or something? I nod. The wise old owl was a lot of chapters ago. I know he’s not really thinking about the book, because otherwise he would have known. Joan’s smart like that. He reads things, and he remembers them. He’s thinking about what he’s going to do tonight at midnight. And he doesn’t know I read the note. He thinks it’s a secret that he might not come home tonight.
See I know about Bridge Kanulu. When you say you’re going to meet someone at Bridge Kanulu, there’s only one thing you can mean, especially if you’re someone like Joan. There’s a rule around our town. You can’t kill anyone in town. When you fight in town, nobody gets killed.
When you go to Bridge Kanulu it means you want to fight until there’s only one person left alive. And one of those people is my big brother with one arm in a wheelchair. But I’m not scared for him. For the first time in my life, I’m scared of him.
Tonight he’s going to become a murderer, at Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
I can’t sleep. There is no way I can sleep. I look at the superman clock.
11:47. That means it’s almost midnight.
VROOM!
There’s a van outside. I know who’ll be driving it. Julius. Joan called him this afternoon, from his room. I didn’t hear what he said, but I knew who it was, because I redialed. It feels weird, finding out things Joan doesn’t want me to know. But it feels weird being scared of him too. It’s been a weird day.
bzZZZzt.
That’s Joan’s wheelchair, going past my door. Suddenly, I make a decision. I get out of bed and into my clothes real fast. The van’s engine has stopped and it hasn’t started again, so he’s still there. I sneak past Dad’s room real quiet and look down the stairs. Joan’s gone out the door already, so I run down and out into the back garden.
VROOOM!
The van’s started up again. I’m on my bike now, though, and I bike after it. Bridge Kanulu’s just by a new building site, which is being made by people who don’t know about Bridge Kanulu. They will after tonight. The van goes around. I go through.
I stop a little way away from the bridge. The moon’s big and I can see really well. The van’s up there and there’s a ramp coming down the back. Joan’s buzzing down it. Julius is standing by the van, holding something. When Joan’s down, he hands it to him, and puts the ramp back up. Then he drives off. He’ll be watching too, and he’ll come back to pick Joan up later. If he’s still alive later.
Joan’s looking at what Julius gave him. I can’t see it too well, but it’s gotta be a weapon. It’s lying on his knees. Joan’s buzzing around in circles, waiting for José. Around and around and around…
I hear another engine. It’s got a higher sound. A motorbike comes up onto the bridge from the other side. It’s José. He gets off, and I see him, this man my brother’s about to kill. He’s tall, and Mexican. He’s got a little mustache and he’s wearing a cowboy hat, and jeans and a t-shirt. He gets off the motorbike and puts the stand down, then looks at Joan.
He laughs, and I hate him. My blood boils. I want to run up there on the bridge and push that laugh back down his throat. He’s evil. He’s talking.
“Is that all I did to you? Damn, I thought I’d done worse than that. Still, man, you’re fucked. A hit man with only one arm? You’re done. Why are you even here? You can’t kill me in a wheelchair.”
“I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.” Joan’s voice is low, and quiet. It’s almost like his calm voice, but it’s not. This time he actually is calm. He knows exactly what he’s doing. “And you’re right; I can’t be an enforcer anymore. But there are other uses the gang can put me to. You, however - not many uses for a corpse, are there? I suppose you might make good fertilizer…”
José laughs again. He thinks Joan is joking. Only I know he’s not.
He’s not scared, either.
“I want you to know, José, that you can still walk away, and I won’t kill you. The Bridge Pact only says that once a fight is started on Bridge Kanulu, there can only be one left alive at the end. There’s no fight yet. All you need to do is walk away and never hurt anyone again. Or I will hunt you down and kill you, pact or no pact. What’s your choice?”
José doesn’t say anything. He turns to his motorbike and places a hand on the saddle.
When his hand comes away, it’s holding a long knife.
“I used this to cut you with before. I’ll kill you this time.” Joan sighs. He raises his arm, holding whatever Julius gave him. José rushes him.
BANG!
A tall figure falls of Bridge Kanulu, as echoes of the gunshot report from all around the area.
* * *
When I come home from school the next day, Joan’s in his room. He’s got music playing. I pull a bit of paper out of my bag and knock on his door. He opens it.
“What did you do with the gun?”
“I threw it off the bridge.”
“Good. They’ve got it.”
“What?”
“And they don’t know who you are.” I show him the paper. It’s from the late edition paper.
MYSTERY GUNMAN KILLS ONE ON BRIDGE KANULU.
One José Jones was killed last night in a shooting on Bridge Kanulu, the notorious murder spot. The murderer left no clues but a small handgun with no fingerprints on it. Ballistics prove it was the murder weapon. Police denied comment.
* * *
When I was six, my brother killed a man on top of Bridge Kanulu. But that’s not the end of the story. The story continues. It picked up again when I was nine.