Trash - Andy Mulligan [20]
They hauled me in over the edge so all my chest was cut, but I hardly knew it at the time. I was stood up and slapped again, and then they all waited.
I fell on my knees, and they let me.
I managed to take hold of somebody’s leg, and held it – I put my head on my hands. I was down there, kneeling, and I said, ‘I swear on my mother’s soul I did not find a bag. I am telling the truth, sir – please don’t kill me. I cannot help you, I am speaking the truth.’
Where did I find the strength? I know that it was José Angelico’s strength.
‘I am sorry,’ I said, and I was fighting for my life, and knew it. ‘I should have told you I found money, but I should have given it to my friend also, and I didn’t so I lied to you. Please don’t kill me, please.’
‘What belt were you under?’ said the policeman.
‘Four, sir, honestly – I promise.’
‘Where’s the bill the money was wrapped in?’
‘I put it in the paper sack. I put the money in my pocket.’
‘Raphael, listen to me.’
This was the man in the suit, I think. He knelt down next to me, but my head was throbbing so badly I cannot really remember.
‘You’re the breadwinner, aren’t you, for your stinking little family?’
I nodded, but I didn’t look up. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘If anything happened to you, your family would have big, big problems. What would your auntie do?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Two little cousins – what would happen to them? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes – I don’t know, sir. I didn’t find a bag, sir, please believe me.’
‘We can drop you out of that window. Or we can take you out the back. We can do it right now – we have a special place, you know? Perfect for little scum like you. Where no one hears anything. And we will – if we want to – break every bone in your body.’ He took me by the arm, and was squeezing it and lifting it. ‘ We will break this first. You understand that, don’t you?’
I was nodding still, and shivering, and stinking. My twisted arm was in the air, me on my knees, and I waited for the snap, the pain so great I was silent, open-mouthed, unable to make a sound, just waiting.
‘We could put you in the trash and nobody would care. Nobody would even come looking – you understand me? You’d end up in a sack.’
I nodded. I could not speak.
‘So I’m going to ask you one last time …’ He hoisted me and bent me over the window so I was staring down, and I felt someone take my ankles so all they had to do was tip me out. Again, I was looking at the ground as they balanced me. ‘Where is the bag you found?’
I tried to look up, but my arm was so bent and my back was so twisted. I tried to speak, and couldn’t, and tried again. I said, ‘On my mother’s soul, sir—’
The man shouted: ‘What? I can’t hear you!’
I was tipped out more, and I screamed for help. ‘I promise, I promise!’ I shouted. ‘I found money only. I found no bag. If I had found it … if I knew anything about it, I swear you would have it now. I would give it to you! I would – please, listen …’ I could hardly breathe but I found the words. ‘I would take you back to my house and give it to you. But how can I, sir, when I did not find it?’
I started sobbing, because I knew that this was my last chance. I felt the hands on my ankles shift, and then – after some silence – I was lifted back into the room and dropped onto the floor.
When I looked up, I could see the men talking together in low voices. I was shaking all over, and I could not move. After more time, one of them looked over and told me to stand up.
‘You’ve shat yourself, haven’t you?’ he said.
I nodded, and I clawed my way up the wall so I was half standing.
The man shook his head. ‘You stink of it. And of garbage.’ He turned away from me. ‘We’re wasting our time,’ he said. ‘Boy, that’s all you are, that’s what all of you are. You are a piece of garbage. What are you?’
‘Sorry, sir, garbage, sir.’ I whispered it.
‘Eleven hundred pesos, wasting our time with crap. Look at you.’
I managed to meet his eyes again, waiting to be struck as he came over.
‘What is the point of you, eh?’ He turned to the other men. ‘Look at him – why do these people keep breeding?