“You know that shirking responsibility
comes naturally to me.” Time had changed his voice, body, hair-line but he
remained as feckless as ever. He laughed and expected me to show admiration at
his nonchalance. I couldn’t even manage a fake one, the situation was too
grave.
“Brother she is your daughter.
You need to control her, make home-rules more stringent otherwise you’re going
to lose her.” I tried the last parental distress call to shake him out of his
reverie but one look at his expression and the pointlessness of my endeavour
was clear to me. I still had to try, “Dude, she is hanging with the wrong
sorts. I found them with the doobie but god alone knows what they will try
next. The boy had his hand on her leg and her skirt didn’t cover much of it anyway.
I’ve spoken to her but I am just the uncle of a long dead parent who she doesn’t
give a flying fuck about. ”
His smile surprised me. He took a
long drag of his cigarette and kneaded the stub into the ground with his foot
and looked at me from under his brows, “Jealous,
haan?”
