Born a Crime

about what your family is thinking!” Abel towered over my mother. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t get angry. “Mbuyi,” he said ...

child—” “Mbuyi—” “I can’t have a child for a husband—” “Mbuyi—” “I’ve got my own children to raise—” “Mbuyi, shut up—” “A man wh ...

Then out of nowhere, like a clap of thunder when there were no clouds, crack!, he smacked her across the face. She ricocheted of ...

disbelief in her face. This had never happened to her before in her life. She got right back in his face and started shouting at ...

even control—” Crack! He hit her again. She stumbled back but this time didn’t fall. She scrambled, grabbed me, and grabbed Andr ...

charge about?” “I’m here to lay a charge against the man who hit me.” To this day I’ll never forget the patronizing, condescendi ...

talk to your husband. You do know once you lay charges you can’t take them back? He’ll have a criminal record. His life will nev ...

demanding to see the station commander, and right then Abel walked into the station. He’d driven down. He’d sobered up a bit, bu ...

thought of the police as the good guys. You get in trouble, you call the police, and those flashing red- and-blue lights are goi ...

and heartfelt with his apologies: He didn’t mean it. He knows he was wrong. He’ll never do it again. My grandmother convinced my ...

— Abel was an amazing mechanic, probably one of the best around at the time. He’d been to technical college, graduated first in ...

As headstrong and independent as my mom is, she remains the woman who gives back. She gives and gives and gives; that is her nat ...

to the industrial area of Wynberg, just west of Alex, and Mighty Mechanics became the new family business. When you first go int ...

they’d bought, they saw how much trouble the company was already in. The garage gradually took over our lives. I’d get out of sc ...

they’d wake me up at midnight, and we’d drive all the way back out to Eden Park and crash. Then pretty soon it was “We’re runnin ...

might one day turn into lofts. No, no. It was a cold, empty space. Gray concrete floors stained with oil and grease, old junk ca ...

floor. I slept in the cars. I got really good at sleeping in cars. I know all the best cars to sleep in. The worst were the chea ...

blazer to curl up under, and I could get really cozy inside a Mercedes. But the best, hands-down, were American cars. I used to ...

some sedan. I got to a point where I could do a basic service on a car by myself, and often I did. Abel would say, “That Honda. ...

“I can’t do my homework. I have work, at home.” We worked and worked and worked, but no matter how many hours we put in, the bus ...