The Broken Bottle Top Part 2

Part 2  

The night crept on.  My brain kept up its relentless thoughts of terror.  Strangely enough however, these thoughts began to lose their effect on me.  I was not trembling or perspiring any longer and absent too was that uneasy feeling which I had developed in my stomach.  Maybe I was becoming braver or maybe I had worked out all of my fear.  I guessed I was going to make it through the night after all.  It was either all of these or perhaps I had resigned myself to what I thought then was the inevitable.  I had often heard that every man had his number and when it was called he had no option but to go.  I guessed my number was being dialed.  Well, whatever fate awaited me, it had already been a horrid night.

Uncle Sam lived in the country in a weather-beaten, dilapidated building which quite obviously had seen better days.  He was my favourite relative after my mum and dad.  During his frequent visits to our home he would take me sea bathing and fishing.  He was an expert fisherman and there was scarcely a time when we went fishing that we did not return with a plentiful catch.  But like all good things, they come to an end sooner or later.  In my case it was sooner.

Soon after I had formed this attachment to my uncle my father was murdered.  The police had diligently investigated the incident but had uncovered little that could help them to nail my father’s murderer.  My mother was very vociferous in her claim that Uncle Sam seemed to have the greatest motive for taking my father’s life.  She argued that he did not react too decently when the large house in which we now live, was willed to my father.  True enough he was grandmother’s closest relative but for some reason she decided that my father was to gain possession of the house on her passing.  In addition to this my father had forbidden him to come to our home or even take me fishing again.  I was told to have absolutely nothing to do with him.  

The house was my grandmother’s only earthly possession of any real value and she willed it to my father.  Thus my mother thought that this was reason enough for my uncle to take his own personal revenge out on my father.  Nothing I could tell her short of the startling truth could really deter her from this feeling that she had harboured in her heart all these years.  Whatever her feelings, I still loved my uncle and I knew that he still loved me.  I had enough proof of this from our secret meetings.  Somehow though, I could not muster the courage to tell my mother the real truth about what happened on that ill-fated night.  It seemed to me that my fear for the murderer was greater than my love for my uncle.  In addition to this I was worried, really worried about the kind of reaction my secret would bring from my mother.  I was awfully sure the shock would be even greater, far greater than when she had learned of the premature death of her husband.

A further twenty minutes went ticking by.  There was no more knocking or raking on the paling.  I eventually tiptoed across to the television set and switched it off.  Having achieved this feat, I returned to my former position on the sofa. I drew my legs under me, leaned against the velvety cushion at my back and closed my eyes.  It was then that I began to relive the entire scene of my father’s murder.

I had always liked keeping pets.  My favourite pets were birds.  In the daytime I would mark the trees where there were birds’ nests.  Around 7:30 at night I used to climb the trees and capture the birds.  I would only leave the birds if there were young ones in the nest.

   

The whole event was still very vivid in my mind.  I had left home about 7:15 that Wednesday night.  I knew the tree well and even the particular branch where the nest was lodged.  In any case it was full moon and I knew I would have little difficulty in acquiring my prize, if there was any.  I commenced my ascent.  I was among the lower branches when I heard voices.  At first they were subdued but then they grew louder and louder.  I could hear them clearly now.  One of those voices was very distinct.  It was my father’s voice.  I would know that voice anywhere.  That voice reprimanded me when I was wrong, cheered me up when I was sad and encouraged me when I felt defeated.  Yes, that was my father’s voice. 

The next voice was familiar too.  Even now I could hear it, always very demanding and authoritative.  I had never liked him and since that day I disliked him even more.  From the time I had heard those voices I stopped my ascent.  When I recognized to whom those voices belonged I literally froze.  What made it more difficult for me was the fact that they came right beneath the tree where I was.  In my shock I wondered what were my father and this man doing out here in this wooded area.  I thought to myself, ”Perhaps he would wonder the same about me if he could see me perched above him.” 

My father took some money from his pocket and began to count the bills.  The ones he had counted he gave to the man with him.  I could see from his expression that the man was not pleased.  He called to my father for more money and my father adamantly refused.  He said, “George, I am asking you for the last time.”  When my father refused for the third time, he reached into his right back pocket and pulled out an almost empty rum bottle and poured the remainder of the contents into his mouth.  I began to wonder what he was going to do with the bottle.  I did not have long to wait for the answer.  He banged the bottle on the tree and then proceeded to stab my father with it. He inflicted wounds to my father’s chest and abdomen.  I felt like screaming but I could not unless I wanted to experience a similar fate.

    

My father slumped to the ground with scarcely a sound.  His assassin went through his pockets and relieved him of the remaining cash.  Through all of this I had remained motionless.  I had kept the same position for so long that I began to experience cramp in my legs.  I longed to change my position but I could not.  At least, I dared not. 

Having rifled through my father’s pockets the assassin turned to flee.  For some unknown reason he looked up before running off.  Our eyes made four.  The look of surprise on his face gradually gave way to one of evil intent.  It seemed to me that time had actually stopped.  My heart apparently sensing that this was the end began to thump against my ribs trying to get in as many beats as possible in those last few moments.

I do not know how long we stared at each other.  Fortunately for me, I was sitting on a branch just out of his reach.   Even if he had jumped, he still would not reach me.  If he wanted me that badly he would have to climb the tree or simply wait beneath it until I came down.  I wondered which option he would choose.  He started to move closer to the trunk of the tree.  His intentions were quite obvious. He meant to get rid of the only witness. 

Suddenly he stopped and looked behind him.  Someone was coming.  He stayed long enough to warn me.  “You’d better not whisper a word about this to anyone for if you do I’ll get you too and when I do you’ll wish you were never born.”  He ran off before the unsuspecting intruder came into sight.  The passerby went ignorantly on his way.  He did not recognize the victim lying under the tree neither did he notice me.  I never saw his face and even now I still wonder who it could have been since the path was seldom used.  Some may dare to reason that perhaps it was my guardian angel for the path was so rarely used that it was then over run by bush and vines of all sorts.

Slowly I climbed down the trunk of the tree.  I stooped by my father and looked at his face.  He seemed so peaceful that one would easily believe that he was only sleeping.  However, this fantasy was quickly erased from my mind when I examined the front of his shirt.  It was torn where the jagged end of the bottle had opened two crude wounds through which the lifeblood of my father had poured.  I could not believe it.  “Maybe this was just a nightmare and I would eventually awaken from it,” I thought.  However, I knew I was fully awake and this was reality itself.

I left the body right where it had fallen and I made my way homeward. I have never been able to explain the feelings that struggled in my breast but foremost in my mind was the assassin’s threat...”You’ll wish you were never born”.  Even then as I sat on the sofa I wondered about the kind of death he had planned for me.  As I walked home that night I hoped and prayed that he was not somewhere waiting for me.

I reached home without further incident that night. I unlatched the back door and I went straight to bed. I slept in my clothes. I experienced all kinds of nightmares and woke up screaming several times.  It was a night of intermittent sleep, interspersed with tossing and turning.  Morning finally came and with it a strange sense of relief. I did not have to sleep anymore and it was not night any longer.

My father’s body was discovered next day. My mother was told of the tragedy, but surprisingly, she took it well. As a matter of fact, now I recall the occasion, she did not seem very heart broken and what little grief she showed only lasted during the funeral. “Was she glad to get rid of him? Were there some things about my father that I did not know?”  I quizzed myself.

Stewart Russell © 1979

Part 3 coming soon...