“How was life with Eric?” Andile ask me.

“It was different from Vuyo and me. The only difference was that we constantly did a lot of drugs. A day never went by with us smoking drugs. It’s not that we were addicted, but we could afford them. We did not do our jobs in our area, we did them in towns. All the guys in our area treated us like celebrities and wanted to be our friends. We were more than roommates, we were partners in crime. Always we were on the run from police. Parents hated us because we were a bad influence to their children” I say.

“I do not blame them. You guys were like Marcos and Al Capone” he says.

“Who are those guys?” I ask.

“The greatest hustlers that ever lived in this planet,” he says.

“There was nothing great about us, besides having money. Even what we did for a living came with a sacrifice. The more robbery we did, the more Satan poisoned our minds. Every day he would show me visions of me sitting with a lot of money. I hate myself for saying this, but I loved every single moment of it. Every day I would be counting money I made the previous day. Crime for me was like a career which I had dedicated my life to. The only painful thing was that no one was proud of me. Even all the girls I said I love you to were only interested in my money. Not that I blame them, they also were finding it hard to cope with their families and were only looking for someone to have fun with” I say.

“How many girls have you slept with already?” he asked.

“About fifteen if I am correct” I say.

“Have you ever went for a blood test?” he asked.

“I thought of going for a blood test, but realised they would only find drugs on me. Even though I slept with them, a condom was the first thing on my mind before any action could happen” I say.

“What memorable robbery did you and Eric do back then?” he ask.

“I would say the PEP store. It was just me and him. Each one of us carried two guns on us.” I say.

“How did you get them?” he asked.

“Simple actually. All we had to do was to go to someone who had a gun and point at him with our gun, then tell him to give it to us or die. One day we also took a policeman’s gun.” I say.

“How?” he asks.

“We knew what time he was coming from work, and so we waited for him opposite the road from his house. When he got out of the van that dropped him off, we rushed to him and pointed our gun in his face. We then took every single weapon on him, even his bullet proof vest.” I say.

“You guys had the courage to do anything wrong to people,” he says.

“We had the courage to live without any fear. We walked roads that normal people would not even think about going in, and we loved every moment of it,” I say.

“What happen at the PEP store?” he ask.

“It was close to midnight and was raining heavily. We wore rain suits and were on our way to town. When we got there, we broke the bathroom window and went inside. We searched and searched then found a safe. I shot the safe open and ‘WOW!’ all that money that was inside it. We put it in our back bags and rushed our way out of that window. A security guard saw us and was shooting at us. We fired back, then he fell on the ground. After that we ran nonstop to his shack. We first smoked some TIK-TEK and poured all the money on the bed and counted. It was close to fifty thousand, and our hearts were smiling. We decided to split it fifty-fifty. On the same night, I took my bag and went to go hide it in the bushes. I dug a hole in the bushes and buried the money there. As I make my way back, I hear a scream of a female and some guys talking. I decided to take cover and pulled my gun out just in case. There was about ten of them, they looked like hyenas drooling over a springbok and were surrounding it, ready to jump at it. She was crying and could hardly shout anymore. They stripped her naked and made her lay on her back. One by one they went to her eating her self-confidence and were even fighting for their turns. Her head was facing towards my side and looked like she was lifeless. Her tears that came out of her eyes told a very sad story. Finally I recognized her, it was my cousin. A lot of questions came to my mind: should I try to help her or not. After all the things she and her sister did to me, how can I forgive her. She deserved it I thought to myself, but watching her go through that and doing nothing about it made me no different than those guys.” I say to Andile.