Sir . . .” I tried to talk but the words would not come out of my mouth. Instead I started to cry.
“Tears don’t scare me, my boy,” he said harshly. “If you were that afraid of the cane you should have played by the rules. Is it asking too much from you to come to school every day?”
After five of the best I couldn’t take any more. I attempted to flinch away from the advancing cane but only succeeded in banging my head severely on the table.
“We are not calling it a day yet. There are five more rounds to go, boy, if you decide to take it in instalments,” he said, laughing maliciously. “I told you that after five horizontal ones you will decide whether to take it cash or instalments, didn’t I? And if beating you here on the school premises isn’t to your liking then I will do so in front of your father after school at your home, boy.”
The mention of my father fuelled the agony inside me. Suddenly something snapped and I shouted, “You will never hit me again in your life, you son of a bitch!”
The Big Punisher was very surprised to hear those disrespectful words. He started rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
“What did you say to me, boy?”
I did not answer. I could not believe I had just insulted him like that. He continued rolling up the sleeves of his blue shirt.
“I’m going to teach you how to behave and how to talk to your elders. I can see that you have big balls and want to prove it to me in a fistfight, boy. A cane is not good enough for you,” he said as he started to loosen the tie around his neck.
He put the tie down on the table and undid the top button of his shirt. “You talk too much, boy. I will teach you people today.”
Surreptitiously I sized him up. I was just sixteen years old with bum fluff. He was a forty-year-old family man with a potbelly.
While he was still relaxed and sure that he would teach me a lesson, I gathered all the power that I could summon and punched him as hard as I could. My right fist thumped into his dark bloated face and floored him. His glasses broke and the glass scattered all over the floor. I picked up the fan that was on the table to finish him off, but somebody grabbed me from behind.
“Stop it at once!” It was the voice of my English teacher, Mrs Magwaza. She was standing behind me holding my arm.
The Big Punisher was still on the floor. Like a police dog, he was sniffing and spitting. Blood oozed from his mouth. Very slowly he raised himself up and started picking up the remnants of his glasses.
“I’ll find you. I’m coming to your home tonight, boy!” he shouted angrily, spitting blood.
“What happened?” asked Mrs Magwaza.
But I did not answer her. I pointed at Big Punisher with my forefinger.
“I’m not finished with you either.”
Big Punisher was very angry. He broke loose from two teachers who were trying to restrain him. Seeing that he had overpowered them, I scurried out of the disciplinary room and ran outside in the direction of the rockery between the two long classrooms. Pupils started peeping through the windows. Some stood in the doorways so that they didn’t miss out on the action.
I could hear Big Punisher breathing heavily a few metres behind me as I ran for my life. I ran to the rockery and picked up one of the cement blocks that had been used to build it. At very close range I flung it at Big Punisher. The block hit him straight in the face. He fell down and started kicking for his life.
I was very scared. Mrs Magwaza came running, screaming at the other teachers to call an ambulance. Instead, the school gardener came running with a hosepipe and sprayed water over Big Punisher. I stood at a safe distance, wondering whether I had murdered my teacher at the age of sixteen.
The following day I did not go to school. It was a busy day at home as we were preparing for my father’s funeral. I hadn’t told anybody about what had happened at school.
Around three o’clock in the afternoon I saw Mrs Magwaza’s car coming down the road towards our home. I sensed trouble and as it drew nearer I went to the outside toilet and pretended I was busy in there. I peeped through the crack of the door and saw Mrs Magwaza, Big Punisher and three more of my teachers emerge from the car. They entered our house through the kitchen door.
After gathering some courage I came out of the loo and went into the house after my teachers. There were about fourteen people in our dining room; they had all come to pay their last respects to my father. The teachers were already seated when I came in. It must have become obvious to them that somebody had passed away. I could tell that their minds were smudged with unspoken thoughts, but I greeted each one of them, including the Big Punisher, as if nothing had happened. His left eye was completely closed and there was also a big gash between his eyes that was stitched together with some black thread. He was holding a pair of sunglasses in his right hand.
Big Punisher and my brother knew each other from high school. I made sure that I sat with them to monitor the atmosphere. Everybody in the house looked sad. No one seemed to have noticed the wound on Big Punisher’s face. Sitting next to him was my biology teacher. He had punished me once for using a picture of a naked girl that I had cut out from my brother’s Scope magazine to decorate my biology exercise book. He was a very close friend of Big Punisher; I knew that they used to drink beer together. I also knew that he bore a grudge against me because I had been delivering flirtatious messages on behalf of my cousin to the schoolgirl he was chatting up at our school. He will do anything to fabricate lies that would corroborate those of Big Punisher about my bad behaviour, I thought nervously.
After a while my brother started introducing my teachers to my aunt. “Aunt Ntombi, this is my friend Jerry. I went to school with him.”
There was a little pause after my brother had pointed out Big Punisher as everybody in the house turned to look. My brother continued: “These are his colleagues and they are all Dingz’s teachers.”
“It’s a beautiful thing to know that the straight and narrow can still be traced among the youth of today,” my aunt began in a dispirited voice. “In our days life was communal. When one family cut its finger, the rest of us bled. When a neighbour’s house was on fire we would bring water. Today is different because folk-ways have been sidelined with all this so-called modernity. When a person dies a friend will come and demand payment of his unpaid bills. It is very rare and a pleasant surprise to see you young people still upholding the spirit of ubuntu by coming to pay your last respects to the deceased. Ubuntu is the invincible gold of human companionship. It is a perfect product of nature and the basis of the society. With your presence here today, you have shown the Njomane family that education is not only limited to the knowledge of books, but goes beyond that to include the building of character.”
There was a moment of silence. My teachers glanced at one another. They were nodding at my knowledgeable aunt, but I was not convinced that they were there to extend their condolences. I knew that the Big Punisher was there to give me the beating he had promised me in front of my father, but unfortunately for him my father was no longer in this world to witness it.
“So when did this misfortune happen?” Big Punisher and my English teacher asked simultaneously.
“It happened last week, but we decided that Dingz should not come to school until yesterday as he was very upset,” answered my brother.
My
