Sky-Birds & Ravishers , livre ebook

Digital On Demand - Musa Kheswa

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

131 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

“Sky-birds and Ravishers is a matter-of-fact account of an earthly Hell, a South African jail. Kheswa’s eye is unflinching: the horrors—of institutionalised rape and degradation—are told in a brisk, almost casual way, which renders them all the more immediate. It’s a dark, visceral read, with just a glimmer of hope at the end. Compelling, raw and memorable.” - Simon Maginn, Author of ‘Sheep’
21-year-old, Sosobala NoZulu, is part of a notorious gang, called CMB, Cash Money Brothers, based in Durban. He lives a fast and reckless life, often involved in car theft, and bank robberies. When his girlfriend, Sandy Gumede is brutally raped, he decides to take the law in his own hands and kills the rapist, Sifiso Mkhize in cold blood, in the Westville Shopping Centre parking lot.
Sosobala is arrested and found guilty and sentenced to a maximum of ten years imprisonment for the first-degree murder of Sifiso. He arrives at the Westville Prison and is recruited by Chopper to join the 26’s gang. He tows the line until a young man arrives in their cell and his abuse in the dead of night galvanises Sosobala to intervene, which results in a string of unintended consequences.
Musa Kheswa is a reformed gangster and he wrote this book as a warning for the youngsters in the townships who idolise gangsters without realizing how bad life in South African prisons are.

Sujets

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Digital On Demand
Date de parution	01 juillet 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9798663418232
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Table of Contents
Title Page
Imprint Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
About the Author

Published by Liyasa Publishers 2020
www.liyasapublishers.co.za

Copyright © Musa Kheswa 2020

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission from the publisher.
For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed,
“Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below:
info@liyasapublishers.co.za
liyasa.publishers@gmail.com
All characters in this work are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by Yenzi Mpila
Editing by Chuck Sambuchino (USA)
Typesetting: Book Lingo
eBook Conversion: Book Lingo

Email: publish@booklingo.co.za
Set in 11 point on 15 point Minion Pro
ISBN: 978-0-620-86138-0
e-ISBN: 979-8-663-41823-2 (Epub edition)
DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my beloved father, Mnyayiza Basil Kheswa, my dear paternal grandparents, Zephried Maxhegwana and Katherine Victoria Kheswa (née Strydom); my great-grandparents: Frederick Strydom and Lina Strydom (née Ndumo); Ali Mlahlwa and Violet Ntonjana Kheswa (née Hadebe) … and their glorious clans: NoZulu, Mpangazitha, Ngelengele, Liyasa Liyasibekela, Mnguni omuhle wakwaMchumane, iZulu eladuma ekuseni kwathi ntambama laphangalala, Amaqhaqhambi eZulu eliphezulu, Amazala Nkosi, Izimpofana ezawela uThukela noMlazane neza nimacocombela njengekwindla.
Not forgetting this great man, Jonathan Khanyile: Ngwane.
And to my maternal grandfather, and grandmother, Agnes Nxumalo (née Zulu): Zwide KaLanga, Ndwadwe, Mkhatshwa.
May your souls rest in eternal peace.
A special thank you goes to my family: noting my loving mother, Ncane Kheswa (née Nxumalo), my caring siblings and cousins, and our adorable children. Last but not least, Simon Maginn (UK), and the man above. In God We Trust.
1
ENTERING THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND: THE PRISON

S osobala NoZulu stood in the courtroom, his gaze locked with that of his attorney, Billy Thornton. He wiped his face, his hands moist and warm. He fixed an image of himself as he had been at sixteen, the lean sportsman at soccer practice. Striking, he had thought at the time. And in a courtroom with a nasty draught, a thousand miles from that soccer practice was a twenty-one-year-old gangster, about to face the wrath of the law. The judge with a baby face that complemented her silver ponytail delivered her sentence. He kept himself from screaming at her as her lips pursed with every word: “Sosobala NoZulu, you have been sentenced to a maximum of ten years imprisonment for the first-degree murder of Sifiso Mkhize, two years suspended. You will be eligible for parole in the third year.”
The public gallery was filled with faces both familiar and unfamiliar. His mother looked distraught as she sputtered syllables that lingered in the air like an early-morning river fog. His tender wrists felt almost crushed as an officer, the kind who looked like he’d eat and sleep gym, tightened the handcuffs behind his back. Sosobala’s brow furrowed. They bounded down the stairways of the court, escorting him through an underground tunnel past the cells like a racing horse in a harness. The cells were occupied with men of all ages-some clearly at home here, others plainly scared.
They stopped behind a police van. He was hustled in through the back door, followed by the others. It was locked from the outside and the flaps on the sides of the mobile cage’s barred windows were wound halfway open. He crouched in there, crammed together with other offenders like rubbish in a dump. The odour of rotten eggs and dragon breath fouled the stifling air. He frowned. The van careened out of the Umlazi Magistrate’s Court onto the Mangosuthu Highway. He peeped through the barred window, screwing up his face and squinting like an old grumpy woman. He took in the sidewalks. They had tall trees, as green as its grass, lined up in formation, and billboard advertisements of different brands with cool and dashing models. And the streets bustled with vendors in their brightly painted mobile containers flashing by. Passers-by, young and old, congregated from all angles to flock to this spot near the four-way traffic lights in V Section, the mouth of Umlazi. He sensed in the pit of his stomach that, maybe, this would be the last time he ever saw such a vibrant sight.
Maybe.
He was a bucket of emotions as the van sped onto the highway. They bounced like softballs around every inch of the mobile cage as it skidded down the road. It cranked up a steep hill before they pulled in at the gates of the prison. The way the driver’s foot revved the accelerator was as if he was late for his wedding.
He peeped again, wide-eyed, through the barred window and there stood a sign engraved in yellow, above the colossal aluminium gates: WELCOME TO THE WESTVILLE PRISON: A PLACE FOR NEW BEGINNINGS.
The outside of the prison consisted of multiple storey red brick buildings trimmed with beige paint on the windows, doors, and roofs. It had a high double-row fence of galvanised security chain-link topped with concertina wire. Its heavily armed warders looked constipated, dressed in uniforms, as brown khaki as a walnut, with matching hats and bullet proof vests. They patrolled the area like ants swarming a dead worm. The driver aggressively sounded his horn, as if he loathed everything about the world.
Sosobala sighed, pondering the inevitable.
“Guard,” the driver shouted, honking once more. “Open up.”
The guard appeared and pulled on the gate. It opened wide as the van drove in, racing like a Formula One car until it pulled in at an isolated building. The driver blew the horn again and the steel gate opened with a creak. A warder carrying a large hoop of keys fumbled with the back door. It unlocked and opened wide.
“Bring those cocksuckers in here,” a hoarse voice said.
Eyes bulging, he jumped out of the van with the others, like sheep into a shearing shelter. The warder gave the convicts their first orientation at the Westville Medium B prison. His nostrils were assailed by the stench of a thousand dead squirrels. He flushed in disgust at the offending convicts, some mere inches away from him.
“My name’s Montie. In here, we’re your Vaders,” a warder said in an Afrikaans accent. “If you behave, we won’t have problems. Hear me, convicts?”
Sosobala took him in. He was in his fifties or so, lofty with hands the size of a bull skull, and sporting a neatly trimmed red beard.
“Listen carefully. One at a time, come forward, strip naked and do a Tauza dance like this.” He stooped and mimicked exposing his butt-hole. “After that, pick up your clothes, you go there and collect your stuff. You’ll get a foam mattress, a sheet and a blanket, a bar of bath soap, a towel, a roll of tissue, and a uniform.”
Montie pointed to the next cell, his eyes growing more intense, “Don’t make me repeat that. Hear me?”
While being escorted along the corridors, floor to floor, steel gate after steel gate unlocked, clanged, and locked. His bladder weakened at the sound of the warder’s boots. His shadow moved on the linoleum. Very shiny, the linoleum, and so are the boots. They passed the guardhouse for the middle floor. Two guards sat inside, feet up on the desk, behind the thick glass walls of the office. They seemed annoyed.
“Here’s your cell,” Montie said, unlocking the gate. “You take that bed over there.” He pointed at the steel bed frame metres away from the entrance.
Sosobala nodded like a boxer stepping into the ring to begin the fight of his life. He took his first step. His cell was a hall, spotlessly clean, with about forty prisoners or so. Some convicts looked hard-core, others scared. The beds were laid out side by side on both the walls. Very orderly.
Westville Medium B, the maximum security prison holding dangerous convicts, comprised different cell blocks: A, B and C. It also housed the various prison gangs. Every cell block had its gang leader and his lieutenants, with the lower ranks following. And then there were the sky-birds, men fit only to wear women’s panties. They had no privileges, not even to carry their own stuff: money, cigarettes or dagga, or any valuable goods-laughing stocks of the prison. He put his stuff on his bed.
An inmate approached him with a killer look:
“Moth’fucker, let’s see your prison card.”
A blue card with full names, prison number and the conviction. Sosobala fiddled in his back pocket and stole a glance at his interrogator while taking it out. He was a one-eyed man with tattoos of playing cards on both sides of his scrawny neck, which looked like it could snap under the weight of his gigantic head. The prison clothes, as orange as the sunrise, hung from him like wet clothes from a line.
“Another killer,” one-eyed man said, twitching his eyebrows. “I need soldiers like you, you feel me, who aren’t afraid of spilling blood.”
A prisoner with tattoos of an ace of spades and a king of diamonds would be the highest ranking member in the 26