How many white friends have you got? (8)

continued./

When he was on his own he would take his cooked meals and wrap them in a parcel, potatoes, rice, and meat as an offering to the African spirits. The food would be hidden behind the wardrobe for weeks and months growing mould and rotting attracting mice and other scavengers. 

The world revealed in front of the TV, courtesy of their much-cherished ‘Redifusion’ black and white set.  Where Aunt Mo. would mix fruit, knit, and crochet throughout the long winters.  Leroy   could not look towards Aunt ‘M’ as she waved the knitting needles. Leroy expressed the way he felt internally, sorrowful and filled with fear. Ashamed of even the way he felt, as a lump came up in his throat he thought of death by knitting needles as in Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, only then it was a hat pin in the novel.
   Leroy stared at the black and white television with the deepest concentration ever. Seeing right through the screen and counting the lines it took to make up the moving images. 
   “Are you really watching the television, Leroy?” Leroy couldn’t here because he was watching the television, she is stupid, he thought.
   “Boy! I’m talking to you Are you really watching the TV so close, it’s not good for someone to stare into the TV so much, it will damage your eyes.” 
   For some reason it was fair to damage any part of a child’s body but somehow the eyes had a special immunity from danger and to be protected.   Who cares about damaging your eyes, just get me out of this room, anywhere, preferably the jungle somewhere, maybe I could be a ten year old porter for one of the white explores in the jungle or help Tarzan maintain
law and order   or translate English for Africans in the film ‘Zulu’ and warn them of the danger that lay ahead.  “Who cares about damaging your eyes,” thought Leroy, since life being with aunt ‘Mo’ constantly in that living room was like an eternal danger.  

“How many white friends have you got Leroy?”  Asked Aunt ‘M’. Leroy could anticipate a beating. “Hundreds,” he lied. The lie stopped her in her tracks as she stood over the ironing board. Leroy had uttered a bare faced lie. She froze. The temper welled up inside her as the iron steamed.
   “What make you tell lie so eee? What make you so lie?” demanded Aunt Mo.
   Leroy replied with the silence of eternity his brain did not what to transmit any messages to his mouth as to why he lied just in case the message brought on violence and he was to end up brain damaged, with only his eyes remaining. Leroy stared at her lower lip as it involuntarily ‘quivered’ the iron puffed, she was part hidden by a cloud of steam. Leroy
waited through the hiss of the steam. To control her temper and to avoid committing a crime she continued seaming his shirt. There would be trouble If Leroy spoke the truth, he would be attacked it would have been suicide to explain he was lying as a form of self-defence. The silence was broken with words of wisdom from aunt ‘Mo’.
   “Speak de truth and speak it ever cause it what it will. He who does the wrong thing will ever do it still.”
   Her little ditty seemed to have released her anger; she continued ironing and folded the clothes neatly in a pile.
   Leroy washed with a blue washrag as his guardian mother called it.