The Heart of Revenge (8 page)

“Hunko Vance, Hunko Vance.” She charged
towards Vance with his mud covered hands, in her pretty white
dress.

Her baby smile brought smile to everyone’s
face , her tiny arms wide open to hug around Vance’s long legs, her
chubby cheeks squashing against his knees, eyes closed,
giggling

“Hunko, hunko” squeezing his legs tight and
wouldn’t let go.

Vance bent to lift her up. Mom phone rang
again, she grabbed up the phone and yelled at Vance,

“No! No Vance, your hands.” He froze half-way
bending to pick up Loriel then straightened back up. Mom put her
phone under the table, looked at the caller Id. Rejected the
call.

“Hey Lorie baby,” Vance said looking down on
her flowy hair which would be dancing at her shoulders if it
weren’t bunched up in a bun today and tied with a pink ribbon. The
ribbon matched the high waistband around her white dress. Lassy was
in a playful mood and wouldn’t leave from behind her, he snuffed
and nudged at her back, panting impatiently, kind of signalling,
‘
Hey let’s go, let go of his leg and let’s go play, come on,
come on, run’
. She paid Lassy no mind, giggling and
baby-talking to Vance,

“Wif mi up Hunko, wif mi up, tehehe.”

“Can’t lift you up now baby, mi hands dirty.”
Lassy urged her to run and play with a single bark, that caused Mom
to jerk. She looked suspiciously around. Lassy nudged Loriel with
his wet nose. She slapped Lassy on top of his head and shoots off,
giggling in a high pitched voice. Lassy sprang off in a happy chase
behind her. Jason followed Lassy grabbing at his shiny black tail.
Mom’s phone rang again.

(((Rrring. Rrring.)))

(((Rrring. Rrring.)))

Mommy stared at Pinky. Pinky wasn’t looking
at her, she was looking at Vance. Mommy looked back at her phone,
rejected the call. Planted the phone in between her lap under the
table and began typing a text. Pinky laughed out as she watched
Vance and Loriel in adulation,

“No man! Sure that little girl not yours? Is
how she love you so much man?”

It sounded like a compliment. Children seemed
to just love Vance, Loriel was one of them, but obviously by the
dirty eyes and the tension in Vance’s hardened look at Pinky, you
could tell Vance took it as an offense. He assumed she was throwing
an insult at him, by saying he’d sleep with the old woman, Ms.
Merl, next-door. Which to me, by the way, would still be better
than him being a twenty-one year old virgin. I waltzed over to take
a chair beside Mommy, her phone dinged as a text came in to reply
to hers. She read it and was replying to it while she replied to
Pinky also,

“I don’t know why every little children round
the place love him off so much.”

Pinky wasn’t talking to Mommy. She rolled her
eye at Mom, turned her back and walked straight out of the room
while Mommy was talking to her. Mommy turned her head to Pinky
walking out and called out to her,

“Pinky, remember we taking some picture now,
don't leave yet.”

Pinky didn’t stop walking nor did she looked
back at Mom, but she did look back at me and with a mischievous
laugh she replied,

“Mi don’t want take not a picture .. ask the
one beside you, ’cause it look like she love take picture.” She did
her mix-up laugh, a big deep belly laugh “Wooii,” and trailed off
adding, “Mi gone pee-pee.”

Loriel’s giggling could be heard in the
distance. Vance looked at me with a scrunched forehead, I could see
his brain muscling, trying to figure out what Pinky meant by that.
He knew Pinky meant something more from her laugh and gesture.
Mommy turned and she too knitted her forehead at me. She knew I
hated pictures. So what was Pinky talking about? Mommy put her
phone down on the table. I looked away from everyone and gazed at
my black shadow that was on the table. The light from Mom’s phone
was fading to black, fading, fading until the light disappeared and
her phone returned to black. The light in my shame also went
out.

I felt squeezed, the room felt tight around
me, Mommy asked.

“When since you love take picture?”

The outside roof of my nose tip was spotted
with tiny round sweats and my palms were getting wetter. I
answered.

“Me?... Me? ... I. I don't.”

“So what Pinky talking ’bout?”

“I’m clueless. Pinky just love chat.” Pinky’s
voice excitedly bellowed from all the way down the hallway.

“Mi body! RAAAEE!!”

Mommy turned both eyebrows inward at me.
Afterward, she relaxed her face, gently placed one hand over mine,
her other hand wiping the sweat off my nose,

“You really nervous eeh honey?”

“Yeah. Today is really big.”

“You know you have to pull through with this
right? You know this is the only way.”

“Don’t worry Mom.” I took a short thought
about things, then comforted her. “I know. You stop worry. Ok?”

“I’m not worrying. Just remember you doing
the right thing, OK?” She squeezed my hand and looked toward Vance.
I knew how important it was to Vance. I had the urge to wipe my
sweating palms on the side of my gown but I didn't want to wrinkle
it, I wanted my dress to remain looking neat. Vance used one muddy
finger to scratch at the liverspot on his shoulder and Mom
said,

“Vance everyday you helping this lady with
garden, you can’t be working out yourself so much for people like
an idiot enuh. She paying you?”

“No. But she’s old Mom. What’s wrong with
helping her?”

Mommy would do anything in the world to help
her children, herself and whoever she cared about, but everyone
else she didn’t give jack-shit about. She hated to see any of us
giving away anything. That’s the only thing about Mommy that
irritated me. I butted in,

“Nothing’s wrong with him helping out the
little old lady, leave him alone.”

“Is something she looking from a young boy.
From her husband dead she just take a set on Vance so, is like
every damn day she have work giving him to do.”

Vance stared at Mommy with some amazement at
how cold her comment was. Mommy wasn’t fazed by his glare at her,
continued in a nonchalant tone,

“You can stay there looking at mi. You better
mind you give her what she looking for. She so old you might give
her heart attack same time too.”

Immediately, Vance face saddened, as if a
ghost had drained all the joy out his face. He heard the word heart
attack and it triggered an alarm button in him about his terminal
heart condition. He would probably die soon. He looked away from
his mother, bowed his head down and used one muddy hand to slowly
wipe the other muddy hand.

I felt sorry for him. I felt my eyes
quivering in their sockets. I wanted to cry. If I could give him my
heart I would in the blink of an eye. I would do anything to save
his life. In February when he got his worst attack ever, I had to
pay Dr. Reid four thousand U.S. Dollars that I didn't have, well
actually it was Qwan’s money but whichever way you looked at it,
it’s still a lot of money, especially since Qwan had just paid my
tuition and in the next two months my tuition is due again for the
new school year again.

Its eating me alive to know that after
marrying him, I have to ask him not for an additional four thousand
U.S. for Vance’s medication next year, but for forty thousand US
for Vance’s surgery. I felt like I was using him, just an
opportunist and I didn’t want to use anyone, especially since Qwan
had been there for me since I was fourteen. I’m marrying him for
the wrong reason. I didn't want to marry for the sake of getting
his money. I didn't want to use him. But I needed to get forty
thousand US for Vance. I had no choice. I looked at Vance and my
eyes got wet, I tried to steady my voice and liven up Vance,

“Vance come on man, you’re living, you OK,
you not gonna die, stop acting like you dead already. Cheer up
man.”

The pain wasn’t well hidden underneath my
awkward smile that I tried to fake. Vance could see the pain, the
worry, the uncertainty of living. He was looking at me but not
seeing me. He was in a deep and reflective zone.

“How mi must smile? I’m dying in less than a
year.” His tone went down. “How you would feel?” His muddy hands,
with palm stretched to me, begging me to answer, “How? Put yourself
in my shoes, how?” An ugly dropping of mud fell from his hand to
the floor. Mom, Vance and I stared at the brown splat that fell. No
smile. Just stared. In pain. Hurting.

My heart moved, the tears came running down
my face. The silence in the room seemed to stand there for a year.
I finally broke the silence.

“Everything’s gonna be OK after today,”
Stifling my cry, I stumbled over the word, I. “I...I ...I” deep
inhale, gathered myself “I talk with ... with Dr. Reid. Arranged
everything already .... Everything’s gonna be OK. I’m certain.” I
promised him.

Lying. I was lying. I wasn’t certain things
were going to be OK. I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders. I had
to marry Qwan for my brother, but I wasn’t certain how things would
work out, I just wasn’t.

Vance’s reply was unexpected. It came as a
humungous shock to me and probably to everyone else too.

by: Leelia Lexings

When Vance was twelve he was a lively twelve
year old. In the month of March, when Vance had turned twelve, he
didn’t get the royal blue and white BMX bicycle that he wanted for
his birthday. But, he did get a bright-yellow and black, handheld
textris videogame. He’d never put down his birthday game even if
the house was alighted on fire and he was trapped in the middle of
the blaze. He’d play with his bright-yellow game all day and even
late at nights we would still hear the videogame sounds after Mom
shouted,

“Put down the game and go to your bed nuh
little boy!”

His face would be stuck in the game in total
concentration playing to beat his last highest score all the way
till the small hours of the morning. He had the proudest smile that
shone on a young child’s face whenever he made a new high score
- his joy - his complete happiness
. Also that March, Mom
found out that he had a heart that would kill him. He would be dead
before he was thirty-six. She cried so much tears, she soaked the
bosom of her blouse straight through. You could wring her eye water
out of her blouse. She held the news, contemplated for seven days
if she should say it to Vance or not. He was the happiest child on
earth. She had a hard time getting enough strength and courage to
tell her twelve year old son his heart was going to kill him. She
cried while telling him and later that evening she cursed Dad for
two hours straight. She was crying her eyes out while she cursed
him for turning up the TV too loud. Vance didn’t cry when he got
the news and he didn't smile either. He never played his game that
night, the day after nor ever
again - his joy - his complete
mourn
.

What’s happening with his heart was that his
heart muscles were overgrown. It’s growing too fast, getting bigger
than it should normally be and if he didn’t get a surgery to cut
away the excess muscle-growth from his heart then the upper and
lower ventricles would grow too big and completely cut off his
blood circulation to and from his heart. His heart condition is
known as cardiomyopia but Vance simply called it an overgrown heart
or the red hearse in his chest.

Dr. Reid quoted the cost of his surgery in
U.S. dollars. It was nineteen thousand U.S. dollars and he needed
to get an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator) which would
help to regulate his heartbeat. The ICD would use electrical shocks
to slows down his heart when it went too fast and speeded it up
when it went too slow. Basically, keeping it at a normal pace and
preventing sudden cardio attacks that persons with his heart
condition were prone to having. But more importantly, the sooner he
got one of these ICD implanted the longer he may live. The cost to
have the ICD surgically placed in his chest, was twelve thousand
U.S. dollars. A total of thirty-one thousand U.S. dollars. Mom
didn’t have ten thousand Jamaican dollars in her account and her
U.S account was closed with a small balance that was on the minus
side after the bank deducted its maintenance charges. Dad had less
money than Mom.

Vance’s heart was big in other ways too.
Despite the fact that he would be dying the same age as Jesus
Christ, but without the resurrection, he always smiled. Whether it
was to hide his pain and concern from everyone or it was genuine,
only he could tell.

Vance spent most of his time on non-strenuous
activities such as at the Help the Youths Club (H.Y.C.), and in the
garden next door that Ms. Merl had. He seemed to get a sense of
relief being with nature and just nurturing it. He wanted to start
a garden at home for himself but our yard didn't have the space.
Ms. Merl’s garden had sunflowers, daffodils, poinsettias, roses and
more. It was a beautiful array of colors and Vance played a huge
part in keeping it beautiful.

No one at HYC or even Ms. Merl knew he had a
fatal heart condition. Vance hid his terminal condition from
everyone, not wanting to burden anyone and too proud to take a
crumb of pity from a soul.

His favorite channel was GOLTV, he’d watch
football till his eyes bled a football-field but when his friends
passing by the house kicking a soccer ball to each other, dressed
in jersey shorts, tightly laced football boots and old sneakers,
his brethren, Patrick, was always the one to stop by our gate and
holler,

“Yow! Sissy Vance, you not kicking some
ball?”

Vance would snatch up the remote, aimed it at
the tv and hold down the volume button till it was close to mute.
This was his way of hurriedly shoving the sound of the football
match he was watching on tv and hiding it behind silence. He always
seemed to look at his black and red football boots he had bought
four years ago before he answered Patrick. His boots were ontop of
the shoe-box it came in and still he had never worn it before. It
was still brand new and house dust was in his boots more often than
his feet were. His reply would often be,