THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 35
THE HUSTLE
Location: GOLGOTHA HEIGHTS INTERNATIONAL CHURCH
Death has finally found Yaw Boat in his most vulnerable place… the arms of love!
A strange calmness slowly spreads over him.
Boat doesn’t know where it came from, but at the moment his heart almost gives up, the calmness begins to roll all over his soul, a detached balm that feels like drinking the coldest glas-s of water in the heart of the Sahara Desert.
Throu-ghthe fog in his br@in he is aware that if he becomes further traumatized, even one degree more terrorized, he will go insane.
The mysterious peace spreads throu-ghhim, settling his nerves, forcing him to accept what has happened, and face it with all its ugly implications.
His father.
His own sweet loving father!
The only person he loves more than himself, his hero.
A man considered as one of the most powerful men of God, blessed multimillionaire… a man who has always showered Boat with nothing but pure love.
Where does reality end, and insanity begin? Is it a dream he will wake up from and find it his father there to cradle him and as-sure him that everything is okay?
No.
Nothing will be okay ever again.
A lot of things suddenly make sense to Boat.
How else could Samson Basoah have gotten away with possible murder, and maintained that terrible temple in the house of a renowned man of God?
And Samson Basoah has played along, feeding Boat’s ignorance, not letting Boat know the father he loves so much is also a part of the deadly game, the main fulcrum in the machinery around which everything else revolves.
Who are these people, and what plans do they have for him? What will happen to him? More importantly what does his father plan to do to him?
How can it be possible that this man he loves so much can be a part of this? As the fire-preaching man of God isn’t he supposed to be opposed to such evil? How come then, that his very soul is the seat of a terrible three-legged horned monster?
What the hell is going on?
de-ep down in Boat’s heart is the hurt, the agony, the crippling panic that is caused by his feeling of helplessness, but he knows he can’t let it take over now.
Whatever happens from now Boat knows that he is going to lose a father, the only person who matters to him, but the terrible unbearable ache from that will come later, if there is going to be a ‘later’, that is.
A million unanswered questions plagues Boat’s mind, threatening to consume him, but these too can wait. If, by some strange intervention, he is able to survive this and meet Paul Anderson, everything will be made clear and maybe, just maybe, the agony of pure love betrayed by no other but his loving father will not totally tear him apart.
Yaw Boat thus for-ces himself to look into those infernal eyes – eyes that constantly explode into different colours – and then he tries to tug free from his father’s grip.
BOAT
(voice shattered)
Let go of me.
His voice is raised. He doesn’t know whether he is speaking to his father, or the beast within the man. He just knows that he has to get away from this man.
Boat yanks his arm ha-rd, trying to break his father’s hold on him, but he is as strong as a thousand Samsons, and his grip is one of iron.
JOE BOAT
(hissing)
Be still, son! Be calm. Everything is going to be alright. Just trust me, my son.
BOAT
(bitterly, harshly)
Trust you? Trust you? I’ll rather die first!!
It comes out as a wild shout, and he hears the audible intakes of breath from the three men with his father.
MISS BONDZIE
(with a horrified screech)
Yaw Boat! Really!
She sounds like an affronted nun.
Joe Boat smiles sheepishly at the three men and the other people who have appeared from nowhere; they are evidently other senior men in the church, and have been drawn to the scene by the sound of Boat’s high-pitched voice.
JOE BOAT
(sadly)
My son has been un-der a terrible strain lately. Please, excuse his behaviour.
He speaks with the wounded expression of the hurt pious father whose son keeps going wayward.
One of the men with him speaks; he is a white-haired.
ELDER 1
Of course, Mr. Boat, of course. We un-derstand.
All of them cannot, however, keep their stunned eyes from Yaw Boat’s face.
JOE BOAT
(lovingly, pas-sionately)
Let’s go home now, son.
And that is what finally breaks Yaw Boat’s heart completely.
That show of extreme love which he has relied on all his life, and which he is just finding out is laced with something much more potent and evil.
It breaks his heart and, try as ha-rd as he can, he just can’t stop the tears from stinging his eyes, and spilling slowly down my cheeks.
Boat screams at his father then, unable to hold back the pain and the helplessness, the dejection and the unbearable agony.
BOAT
(pas-sionately)
I’m your bloody son! I love you! I love you more than anything, ANYTHING, Daddy! Why the f*¢k are you doing this to me?
For a moment – a very brief moment – Joe Boat’s eyes clear, and his grip on his son’s arm slackens.
Boat catches a glimpse of him then, his real father, way back down there, face tortured, real pain mirrored in his soul. But it is just for a fraction of time.
JOE BOAT
(resignedly)
Let’s go home, son.
Joe Boat looks over Boat’s shoulder, nodding to somebody behind him.
Boat turns his head.
It is Samson Basoah.
He is immaculately dressed as usual, looking as hu-ge as a mountain, but his face shows the bruises of the fight he has had with Boat.
Riding high across Samson’s shoulders is a gloomy-faced Hideous.
Joe Boat addresses the gaping church elders.
JOE BOAT
(in a pain-filled voice)
If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, I have to take my son home. I’ll see you all tomorrow.
With words of solace and support to Joe Boat they turn in singles and twos and head for their vehicles and for the entrance. They have scorching looks for Boat, looks of loathing and distaste, blaming him obviously for making their hero’s world a living hell.
Panic grips Boat as they began to disperse.
He will be left alone with his father and his demons!
Boat begins to struggle furiously again, and his father has to hold him with two hands.
BOAT
(screaming, frightened, desperate)
No, please, don’t leave me! Oh, please, please! Stop! Don’t let them take me away… they’re going to-
He doesn’t finish.
His father steps forward sharply, and Boat doesn’t see his left hand coming up until he chops Boat viciously in the throat with the edge of his left hand.
Boat gasps with acute pain. He grabs his throat as he sags, making choking noises as he struggles to breathe, tears of pain blinding him.
As Boat falls he sees Miss Bondzie’s ashen face.
She is staring at Joe Boat with something approaching horror.
Miss Bondzie has seen the savageness with which he has struck his son, and she is horrified!
She has never seen him like that before, and has never expected her to ever hit out at his son because he loves Boat so much!
To her, and many others, Joe Boat is an angel personified.
Her hands are now pressed to her heart, and her eyes are bulging with horror.
Boat’s body goes throu-ghspasms as he fights for breath and consciousness, and his agony is doubled because of the emotional pain of that blow.
Physically it is painful, but de-ep down in his soul it tears his heart to shreds. He knows then that his link with his father is severed, maybe for ever.
He falls on his hands and knees, then on his side, and finally he rolls over on his back.
His father towers above him, and for another brief instant that horrible mark disappears from his forehead, and the crazy eyes recede too.
This time Boat clearly sees the pain-filled face that looks down at him. The face of a shattered soul, a lost man calling for help, a father tortured by what he is doing to his son.
Boat sees real pain, raw agony and remorse, and it finally sinks in to him that somehow it isn’t his father who is doing all these things… the demons in him are now running things, suppressing his father and taking over.
Almost with a rush Boat sees that thing within is father is taking over again, the mark blazing furiously, the eyes changing colours more rapidly, blazing death!
The Shadow-Thing inside his father is mad!
It had not liked the way Joe Boat has submerged its dominance, even if for a brief moment!
That tells Boat something else, and makes him accept what is happening more rationally.
Somehow, the person looming over him has his father’s face and features, but he is not the real Joe Boat. Somewhere de-ep there, lost and screaming, Joe Boat still exists, but his will is submerged, pushed down and trodden on. That is why Boat has seen the shadow of the beast, and not that of his father Dad.
Samson Basoah is bending over Boat. His coat parts, and Boat sees the gun in his shoulder holster.
Hope. Fight. Never give up!
Never ever give up!
These are beasties with fangs, Goliaths with a mean spirit.
Can’t afford to let them to have him, because they’re gonna maim him goooood!
Samson grabs Boat’s shirt to haul him up, and Boat pushes upward, his hand reaching furiously, angrily for the bu-tt of the gun.
He yanks it out and rolls away, gaining his feet and releasing the safety. Blindly, without pausing, he fires in the general direction of his antagonists.
Samson dives for Joe Boat, pulling him down behind the body of a sleek black Lexus.
Yaw Boat is running again, as fast as his agonized legs can carry him. He hits the exit door with his shoulder, races along the short corridor, goes up the stairs and exits on the Public Parking Lot.
There are still a lot of people milling around, and when they see the gun in his hand they begin to flee and shout.
The startled security man at the gate tries to draw the gun strapped at his wai-st. boat closes the gap between them as as he quickly reverses the gun. He brings the bu-tt down ha-rd against the security man’s temple, and he collap-ses with a throaty ‘guusha’ kind of sound.
Boat jumps over his inert form and races blindly towards the main gate.
A harsh street lamp is behind him now, elongating his shadow on the concrete floor, and as he runs he sees another shadow looming large on the ground, behind him, the horned head racing past Boat’s shadow, hands balled.
Once again Boat steel’s himself for the blow, but when it comes it is once again still unexpected, still terrible, still excruciating.
It smashes against his back, causing spittle and drops of blood to spew out of Boat’s mouth as he falls. Boat crashes to the floor, ban-ging his head ha-rd on the ground, and the gun goes skittering un-der the parked cars.
Dazed, Boat lies on the ground as a large number of people began to gather around him.
TBc…