Page 22 of The Triangle

“Do you have a family?”

His eyes dart back to mine. He lowers his head, gives a tiny shake, and although I could well have predicted his response, a wave of emotion that I wasn’t expecting pours through me. I down the remainder of my brandy in one gulp, stand, and say…

“Well, you do now, bru.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Like how you handled yourself out there today. Good man.”

“Thank you, sir. You too, sir.” He cringes, worrying he’s been insulting, I reckon. It’s clear that he wants to feel proud but is still unsure if that’s OK. Yet another thing I like about the lad. Then he says, “Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Anything I can get you?”

“No, bru. I’m all right.” I begin to head toward the back when his voice stops me.

“Oh… Mr. van den Berg?” I turn. “May I ask where we are going, sir?”

I laugh inwardly, then catch a tiny grin and nod at him.

“Get some rest, man,” I say as I again make my way toward my bedroom.

Just as I’m about to close the door and see if I can try to sleep at all, which I most assuredly won’t, I turn back to him once last time. “Solomon Bophela…”

He hasn’t moved. He faces me.

“Ninety-five years ago, my black great-grandfather married my white great-grandmother in a secret ceremony on the outskirts of Jo’burg. They had my grandmother, she married an Afrikaner called van den Berg, they had my father, my father amassed a fortune, met my mother, had me, I have continued my father’s business, and as of the last time I checked, I was—off the public record—the forty-fourth wealthiest person on the earth.”

He looks at me, waiting for more.

After a second, I nod and say, “I wouldn’t be here today if, ninety-five years ago, that Zulu oke and that yarpie woman hadn’t come together. And the fokken courage it took for my great-grandparents to do what they did, especially then, is beyond reason, my boet. I mean, can you even imagine how much they had to love each other to take that kind of risk?”

His face remains blank.

I sniff in a tiny laugh and say…

“I hope someday you can.”

And then I close the door to my suite so that I can lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for another eight hours.

CHAPTER NINE - DANNY

The year after Christine left me was weird. It was just fuckin’ weird. We’d been partners for so long I didn’t know what do with myself after she walked out. I kept waiting for her in not so logical ways.

Like… I remember wanting to go out to dinner. Not fast food. I’m not talking about the drive-through. I’m talking about sitting in a restaurant and eating something nice. A steak with a fat, baked potato. Candles on the table. Hell, a tablecloth too. And good craft beer. I wanted it so bad, but for weeks, in my head, I kept thinking… When Christine comes back. Then I can go out to eat. Because eating out was something we always did together. It felt impossible to eat out if she wasn’t there.

And then one day… I dunno. Maybe six months later. I was driving by Caseon’s Steakhouse and I just stopped. Went inside. And ate. By myself. Just like that.

And just like that I was someone else.

Someone who didn’t have a girl named Christine by his side.

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was just Danny.

I had a little bit of money that day. Ran into an acquaintance who owed me about ten grand for a job I did, but never got paid for because the dude went to jail. It’s funny how money is so relative. When you’re fat with cash you don’t think about it but when you have none, that’s all you think about.

And the day before that I had none. Like, I was fuckin’ broke. I didn’t even have an apartment. I was crashing at Brasil’s warehouse. I did a few jobs for him back when we first met. Stole a few cars. So he was letting me sleep in a back room. And when I was driving home from dinner I saw this bike in a driveway with a for sale sign on it. I pulled in, talked to the guy who owned it, handed that guy almost all my cash, and then called up Brasil’s towing company and took it home to the warehouse.

There were tools there and cars were already something I knew a lot about. Plus, I’d done two semesters in a body shop at a vo-tech school back when I was still in the foster system, so I knew a little bit about how to fix a fucked-up fender. And Brasil had a guy who could do a nice paint job.

I sold that bike for double the money three weeks later and bought myself two more. Fixed those up, made an even slicker profit, and one year after Christine left I was this guy.

Fortnight’s Custom Choppers.

Whenever Alec disappeared I didn’t have this existential crisis. I never thought about that motherfucker when we weren’t together. Barely remembered he was part of the team.