“Oh, please!” The General rolled his eyes. “Enough with this bullshit. The kid was good for nothing! He couldn’t stand up for himself! He couldn’t hold his gun steady! Do you want me to feel sorry for him? How about some damn gratitude for not putting him out of his misery?”
Puppy Slayer didn’t object. He was taking the abuse just the like he had twenty years ago. For a moment, the General felt proud that his eye hadn’t betrayed him all that time ago—the kid was indeed destined to be a failure.
“How could you have expected something from him? He was just a kid,” Tsetse noted. “You expected him to do something not every adult was capable of. As a result, he’s broken. He’s haunted by the past. He—”
“You can’t be serious,” the General scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I smell booze from him all the way over here, and I see from here that he wouldn’t be able to get another needle shot even if he tried. What’s he doing for a living nowadays, anyway? Hey, boy!” Due to force of habit, his voice was fresh and full of strength when he called Puppy Slayer; for a moment there, when he called him over, he returned to simpler times. “Tell me, what are you doing for a living?”
Puppy Slayer did not reply. He lowered his gaze even more and hugged himself. It seemed that he wanted to curl up right there, like a leaf in autumn, and if it wasn’t for Tsetse’s presence he would’ve silently left already.
“Speak up!” the General demanded, his voice as loud and sharp as a whip.
“Don’t push him…” Tsetse tried to intervene, but the General stopped him with a gesture: “Don’t interfere, Tsetse! God, you’ve grown soft.” He looked at his former Captain with disgust. “First you bring that into my house and now you’re not letting him even speak for himself when I’m talking to him? Have some respect!”
Tsetse didn’t reply. His face was as unreadable as ever. Then, he gave Puppy Slayer a light pat on the shoulder: “Tell him. Go on.”
“I’m a refuse collector,” Puppy Slayer responded, shaking like a leaf.
“Do you drink?” The General demanded to know if he had been right about him earlier. Puppy Slayer nodded: “Yes. Sometimes.”
“Heh, sometimes.” The General smirked. “There are no people here who drink only ‘sometimes.’ You either drink or you don’t.” He spat on his carpet.
The man sat in silence for a while, observing Puppy Slayer. The younger man did not enjoy it and constantly shifted around, as if hoping to escape the spotlight of the General’s piercing gaze.
“Any wife or kids?” the General wondered. The man shook his head. “Of course.” The older man smirked. “I can see why.”
He was relishing every moment of it. When those two boys showed up at his doorstep, they were probably hoping that their appearance would drain the color from his face. Make him repent and beg on his knees for them to forgive him. But as it turned out they didn’t have it in them. Puppy Slayer forever remained an entertainment for him, and even Tsetse, the boy he had had so much pride in, who had bitten the hand that raised him and decided to play the white knight, couldn’t do anything about it. They were both standing there and taking it, as had countless others before them.
You underestimated me, Tsetse, the General thought. I did not go soft—you did. You thought that since you were one of my close officers you knew how to push my buttons, but you were wrong. I am still a warrior, and you’re still a snot-nosed brat.
Turning to Tsetse, the General pointed with his hand toward Puppy Slayer: “Tsetse, are you still going to protect him? Why, why don’t you just see him for what he is? You’re disappointing me, boy. Maybe if you had disciplined him better in the brigade he wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
Tsetse took a long look at Puppy Slayer, and then spoke: “Sure, he’s a drunkard.” The General felt good when he saw the words lash against Puppy Slayer, making him uncomfortable with that sudden betrayal. “He’s a drug addict. He smells horribly most of the time and he will never father any children. But I find it very cruel to hold him to higher standards. After everything he’s been through… How can PEOPLE expect something from him?”
“Why do we even talk about him, Tsetse?” The General burst into anger. “Who cares about him? He was weak-willed from birth, that’s how he was born! Yes, he failed in life, but so what? Look at you! You didn’t!” He raised his hands, looking at Tsetse as if he was appreciating a piece of fine art. “You were a warrior back then, and you are a warrior now! I see it in your eyes. You weren’t broken, you were tempered!”
“Not everyone is made out of the same cloth, General,” Tsetse calmly objected. “Yes, he could’ve turned out like me. I hoped so, but I was wrong. I’ve made the same mistake of expecting too much from a kid as you did. And, for better or worse, he turned out to be different than me. He wasn’t as cold-blooded. He had kindness in his heart.”
“Who cares about kindness in this world, Tsetse?!” The General spread his arms wide. “It’s a fairy tale for fools! I’ve been feeding that fairy tale to fools whose parents I killed twenty years ago, and they have forgiven me! Me! General Malaria, a slaughterer and a cannibal! Kindness is nothing but weakness that is to be exploited! It’s something the weak tell each other when they gather into packs so that they don’t have to face the truth about themselves! People tell themselves that they don’t kill others, don’t avenge their close ones because they want to be kind, but kindness is an excuse for those who don’t have any claws! The strong don’t need any kindness! Us—you and me—don’t need any of that bullshit! We can take care of ourselves! Who cares about someone like him?” He pointed toward Puppy Slayer, who seemed to shrink under the verbal assault of the General.
Tsetse was silent for a few seconds, and then replied: “I care about him, General. I always did. I was appointed his captain, after all. All of the boys were in my care.”
“So what, you think you can judge me because of that?” The General crossed his hands. “You feel that you’re his caretaker now? Do you wipe his ass, too?” He smirked.
Tsetse showed that he wouldn’t reply to that snide remark. The General suddenly felt disgust for the man in front of him. His pride in him was gone. It would be the best if he remained a distant memory of the kid who had followed orders and never showed any emotions. If he had known that he was so sentimental, the General would never have pushed him to open up.
“Go away, Tsetse. I don’t want to see you anymore. Don’t show your face to me.”
Tsetse, however, didn’t budge. He kept standing where he was, staring at the man. Waiting for something.
“I said go!” the man shouted at the top of his lungs. “Vanish! I don’t know why you came here and what you expected but you won’t get it.”
Tsetse suddenly raised his finger and noted: “Do you hear that?”
The General stopped and listened. And as he listened, his eyes went wide.
He could hear people shouting something. Many voices, all full of disdain and anger, were shouting his name. And not only that.
His title.
General Malaria.
“What’s this?” the General wondered, and when he saw the expression on Tsetse’s face he understood; he asked just the right man.
“Don’t you recognize them? This is your congregation, General. They’re coming to discuss a few things about your past.”
“What did you tell them?” The General frowned. His voice was angry but his eyes were betraying the fact that the man was scared.
“Me? Nothing. But the people from the village jumped at the chance to share one story from twenty years ago when they recognized your photo. I have been searching for you for twenty long years, and as it turns out, I wasn’t the only one.”