Born a Crime

picked up Andrew’s bike and he beat her with it. Again she called the police, and the cops who showed up this time actually knew ...

you know how your mom is. She can talk a lot and she doesn’t listen. I feel like your mom doesn’t respect me sometimes. She came ...

“The police won’t help me. The government won’t protect me. Only my God can protect me. But what I can do is use against him the ...

When my mom had decided to keep Isaac, I was so close to writing her off. I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. But seeing her hit ...

going through,” she said. “At one point, I had to disown my family to go off and live my own life, too. I understand why you nee ...

understand how she could have sex with a man she hated and feared. I didn’t know how easily sex and hatred and fear can intertwi ...

victims. We were victims, me and my mom, Andrew and Isaac. Victims of apartheid. Victims of abuse. But I was never allowed to th ...

home where there was domestic abuse. It’s what I grew up around. I saw it in the streets of Soweto, on TV, in movies. Where does ...

as a whore for doing that? Where does she go? What does she do? But I didn’t comprehend any of that at the time. I was a boy wit ...

“Because if I leave he’ll kill us.” She wasn’t being dramatic. She didn’t raise her voice. She said it totally calm and matter-o ...

separate from hers. I couldn’t invest myself anymore, because it would have broken me into too many pieces. But one day she boug ...

in the family had gone to church and I, quite happily, had not. The days of endlessly schlepping back and forth to church were n ...

perfectly calm. “Hey, Trevor, it’s Andrew.” “Hey.” “How are you?” “Good. What’s up?” “Are you busy?” “I’m sort of sleeping. Why? ...

second weird thing was when he said, “Mom’s been shot,” I didn’t ask, “Who shot her?” I didn’t have to. He said, “Mom’s been sho ...

At that point, I was upset but not terrified. Andrew had been so calm on the phone, no crying, no panic in his voice, so I was t ...

“And then he shot her in the head.” When he said that, my body just let go. I remember the exact traffic light I was at. For a m ...

catharsis. It wasn’t me feeling sorry for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to exp ...

outdoor sitting area by the entrance to the emergency room. Andrew was standing there waiting for me, alone, his clothes smeared ...

I turned and ran into the emergency room. My mom was there in triage on a gurney. The doctors were stabilizing her. Her whole bo ...

“No, no, I’m okay, I’m okay. Where’s Andrew? Where’s your brother?” “He’s outside.” “Go to Andrew.” “But Mom—” “Shh. It’s okay, ...