Autobiography

has done so often in our business life, asked,
‘What are we going to do, Dave?’
I looked at him and said defiantly, ‘We’re going
to kill him!’
Was it bravado? Did I really mean it? Maybe all
the abuse he had put me through, physical and
sexual, explains why I thought of killing him.
Ralph wiped his nose on his sleeve and
sniffled.
‘I ain’t never killed nobody before, I can’t do it
Dave.’
I answered calmly, ‘We don’t have to do it
now.’
I had heard from Mum that Cenci was losing
his sight. So, I decided we would wait, and
when he was blind and helpless we would kill
this awful, brutal man. Fortunately, before any
plan could ferment in my young mind, Cenci
left and went back to his wife. My cracked ribs
gradually improved and I recovered from the
beating. Cenci might have had deteriorating
eyesight, but he was a big, strong, intimidating
man, a roof tiler by trade, used to working
physically every day.
I was only a kid, but I still thought of killing
him. Was it that wrong? Didn’t Roy Rogers,
Gene Autry, Tom Mix and Zorro, the American
movie cowboys, my boyhood heroes, kill the
bad guys? Wasn’t that the rule of the Wild
West?
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