When the gypsy met the gorga

Chapter 8 : Stefan

"...Through the doors

I run, not stopping.

A stampede behind me.

All of a sudden a door opens

and a hand reaches out

beckoning to me...

I grab it

My only hope

and it pulls me

out of darkness

into a land;

warm, bright, sunny and green."

Dad called up a meeting so I called Millie up and told her I couldn't make it to the party. She seemed a little down.  I asked her number earlier because we were friends now.

We sat around the benches. Iaan, Onas,  Marko , Tass and me sat on a bench with Tillie on my lap. Ferka was still at work.

"Is everyone here?",asked Dad to which everyone grunted. We already got a whiff on what this meeting was about. Someone must have complained about the party even though we made sure it wasn't too loud and we even ended it at 11. What kind of party ends at 11? Terrence threw a party atleast 3 times a wek with huge speakers on each and every corner of his Dad's 10 acre estate. It always ended at 4 in the mornings most of the time and no one ever complained.

" The village counsellor had come earlier and had a word about last night's party and we won't have them for four weeks in the hope we get accepted." People started moaning and groaning. Everyone at our table kept quiet because there really was no point in wasting our voice. We knew my Dad better than anyone in the kumpania.

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A month had passed . I'd really gotten to like Millie as a good friend. No one in the kumpania except for our little gang knew. She hung out with us sometimes but most of the time only us two went around after work. I didn't mind not being able to party so much then.

She was so fun and plain nice and very nutty, She went and volunteered at care homes and old age homes. i helped out twice. She was a person who lived ...to live as I mentioned earlier.

She told me about wanting to be an activist to erradicate racism and I was impressed.

"Why are you so fussed about racism?",I asked as she pulled a book off the shelf in the library. She was looking for material to do a paper on american history. She chose to write about Martin Luther King and a woman called Rosa Parks who got famous because she wouldn't give her bus seat to a white person. Imagine all that fuss over a seat became a phenomenal part of a movement.

"Why do you ask?". She placed the books on a table and sat down. I sat next to her.

"Maybe I'm wrong but it doesn't seem like something some one like you would face."

"You're right but I know people who have faced it."

"Yeah?"

"My Dad married my Mum who was Indian and only my grandparents really accepted her into the family and then Dad got rid of her. She commited suicide because she was..lonely. She had no friends, her own family ostracised her because she married an english man. Another man did something mean to her just because she was Indian. I was in the room at the time she hang. I was calling out to her crying. She just laughed because she was actually demented and told me to stay where I was and that was it. I was stuck with that corpse for three days until my grandparents came and saw through the letter box. I was three but I still have nightmares about it." I was speechless. That was just horrid! "My Dad had gone to jail earlier because he stole money for drugs." She sniffed. "Gran and Grandpa think I've forgotten but I haven't.That man had a degree in english and look at what he turned out into. I don't know where he is and I don't care because I have Gran and Grandpa."