Ride along

I remember one evening, although I can’t remember the season. I can’t even remember how old I was, but I remember that I wasn’t tall enough to see over the dash board. He parked outside, he told me to wait in the car. I was a boy, I was just glad to get out of the house and ride along. I sat in the car, oblivious to the happenings of that evening. I listened to the radio, I don’t remember the song that played; it might even have been “Listen to the radio.” I don’t remember the location, shit! I just realised that I am starting to sound like Oscar Pistorius, “I don’t remember.” Convenient or just how the cookie crumbles? But I distinctly remember a water tower, they are like lighthouses but for inland water, I think they are reservoirs and large scale pressure pumps. He wasn’t gone for long, just long enough to get a quick one in. Back then, I was oblivious. But now I know, a late night outing in a strange place. I was an accomplice, unknowingly. I rode along with the dark worm in the night as he stole into the rose’s bed of crimson joy. Nothing was said of that night, I knew nothing at the time. I went straight to bed, “Do not say a word.” He said before we entered the house, luckily she did not ask me. I was not of her womb but she was the only mother I knew, and I betrayed her without knowing. I don’t know if she asked him, I was too young to concern myself with happenings that were not of my bedroom. I unintentionally kept his dark secret clandestine indiscretion.

I look back and I realize that maybe I never stood a chance, I grew up at the hand of good intending evil. I grew up at the devil’s feet, did I ever stand a chance? Now I start to realize how tragic this is, worse than a Greek tragedy. I am slowly starting to become him, good natured but evil. Noble intentions but so easily corruptible. My honesty, my nobility, traits that my friends admire. In the end, that is my greatest weakness. I run from temptation, but temptation pulls me back. Or is it me? Am I always running back to it? He might not have really taught me a lot of things but he taught me one thing, he taught me about the things that I do not want to do, the things I do not want to be. He showed me the man that I do not want to become. I judge him, my honesty and my nobility make me think I am above him and others. But in truth I am just like him, I am just a man. My honesty and nobility probably make me crueller than he was, nothing is more poisonous than the truth. But fundamentally we are different yet still the same, we both have evil inside us.