Drive-by Saviours Read Online Free PDF Page B

eight years old, he had figured out how to throw temper tantrums to divert Yusupu’s frustration away from the girl.
    The extra beatings were well worth it. He’d gotten somewhat used to the physical pain, but his father’s constant betrayals were getting harder and harder to forgive. The chamber of his heart where his father held permanent residence was getting harder and harder too, and where Alfi lived was soft, moist and pure. For Alfi he’d have taken the dullest fishing knife and hacked his father’s part of his heart right out, though he prayed to Allah and the sea gods that it wouldn’t come to that.
    Still he harboured a secret fantasy of slowly pushing the blade through and sawing away until he pulled out a bleeding, quivering burgundy sliver, placed it lovingly into Win’s fish stew, and fed it to his father in a bowl, saying, “Here, you can have your love back now. I’m finished with it. It did me more harm than good.”
    Then he’d drag his bleeding little body across the harbour and join Pram and Arum, having truly become one of their indomitable, broken-bodied ranks.
    Before long Bumi had heard even the tallest of Pram’s tales. Arum, whose true stories were once the most interesting, rarely spoke. She sewed sarongs in silence, for the sake of her and Bumi’s profit. The only thing Bumi ever bought for himself was an old Spider-Man comic book. Though tattered and torn, the pictures alone told a story well enough to teach Bumi that stories move from left to right.
    Bumi thought he’d hidden the comic well underneath his pants, but just as Yusupu had found Arum’s first sarong in a fit of rage, Arum tickled the comic book loose while Bumi had a fit of laughter.
    â€œAhhh, Spider-Man,” she said. This was the first small-boy-like thing she’d ever seen Bumi hold. It reminded her of her eldest son.
    â€œWhat?” Bumi asked, unaware of the title of his new picture-story.
    â€œSpider-Man,” Arum repeated, pointing at the comic. “Like my son used to read.”
    â€œYour son could read?” All references to Arum’s boys were past tense and nameless.
    â€œOf course he could. He was a smart boy, almost as smart as you,” she explained with a soft swipe of his nose.
    Bumi could only hang his head and swallow the lump in his throat.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Little One?” Pram asked.
    Bumi couldn’t express it, not even in tears. He’d stopped crying years ago.
    â€œDon’t be sad,” Arum said. “What was with my boys was . It’s the past now and besides, it was God’s doing. Insha Allah.”
    Bumi was practically choking on the tears that would not fall.
    In a desperate attempt to cheer the boy, Pram said, “Hey, read for us, Bumi. You tell us a story for once. Read us your Spider-Man.”
    â€œI can’t read!” Bumi snapped.
    When after several minutes his crying subsided, Arum said kindly, “We can teach you, Child, if it’s that important to you. But I don’t see what a fisher like you needs with books.”
    Bumi had never thought of it in terms of need before. Arum was right that he didn’t really need books, at least not for survival. But he needed answers to all the questions that itched inside his head. Occasionally he would see Pak Syamsuddin, the Science Teacher, on the bus. Then he would get some precious answers. In Syam’s absence he asked the driver, another passenger, anyone but an Islander, who would answer any question of why with the same unsatisfactory answer: “Insha Allah.”
    The encounters with Pak Syam were too few and too brief to sustain that thrill, that tingle of sweet information. Reading was needed for information, and information was needed for joy.
    â€œI need books for joy,” he told them.
    â€œThen I will teach you how to read,” Arum told him.
    THERE WERE EIGHT BOYS AND SEVEN GIRLS DEEMED TO BE OF