Читать книгу Praise Routine No. 4 - Michael Rands - Страница 4

‘Why don’t we get you some nice shoes, Byron?’ Victoria asked me one evening.

We were sitting in front of her television watching a documentary about spiders, and eating popcorn. She’d oversalted the popcorn, and my mouth was already dry from getting stoned. A strong breeze blew almost every evening, and so I was able to smoke out of her bathroom window. I’d wash my mouth out and splash water in my eyes.

‘Why shoes?’ I asked.

‘Because. Well, because we’ve bought you all sorts of other nice things in the last while. So let’s get some shoes too.’

I’d decided to lie to her, and tell her that I’d received the promotion at work. And so, in order to look like a manager, I’d had to start spending like one. The little savings my father had left me when he emigrated had transformed into expensive cocktails – I avoided two-for-one specials, just to enhance the image – and fancy clothes.

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said, and left the room.

I went back to her bathroom. The underside of her freestanding bathtub was overrun with cobwebs. It was the only place in her house that had been neglected, and so I assumed she never looked underneath it. I hid my bankie of weed and Rizzla there and pretended to have diarrhoea as an excuse for constantly returning to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and rolled myself another joint. I was still stoned from the last one.

The little bathroom window was covered by a lacy curtain with a strange elastic lining which made it difficult to hold open. But I forced the windowpane outwards, and stuck my head outside. The wind was still blowing hard. The building directly behind hers was a single storey, and so from her window I was able to see the flickering lights surrounding the black ocean. The sound of traffic was drowned out by the howling of the wind.

I dropped the roach in the toilet and flushed it away, then sprayed the bathroom with strawberry-and-cream-scented toilet spray.

The following morning, while Victoria was cooking breakfast I went back to the bathroom and got stoned again. But the kitchen window had been open and the wind blowing flat against the building, so all my smoke had blown straight up her nose.

‘You feeling better now?’ she asked me.

‘Why?’

‘Byron. God, you’re such a … Byron!’

We’d only been seeing each other for about ten days, but whenever she knew I was stoned, she started treating me like a ten-year-old child. And for some reason, I’d play right into her scheme and start acting like a fucking moron. A fair number of people had commented on the fact that marijuana and me did not gel too well. It made me a little slow at the best of times. But around her I’d turn into a gibbering fool. I’d become self-conscious, feel like each move was being watched. To avoid total paranoia, I became very quiet and completely withdrawn.

‘We’re taking your car, Byron. Or are you too stoned to drive?’

‘No. No I’m not.’

I sat on her couch eating breakfast with an exaggerated smile on my face. My clothes smelt of weed, I’d forgotten to bring a change with me. When I’d finished scraping the egg yolk up with my fork, Victoria took the plate off my lap.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Very yummy!’

She shook her head and walked out the room.

Sitting in the driver’s seat I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror. My eyes were still red. I unlocked the passenger door for her.

‘We going to Cavendish, Byron. Do you know how to get there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You won’t get lost, will you?’

‘Uh-uh.’

I avoided using my car when Victoria was with me. I’d made a secret compartment under the driver’s seat by slicing a long line across the material and fixing Velcro to either side. I’d taken to visiting her in the evenings after work, and to avoid a trip home I’d hide the skins in the compartment, and seal it up. I didn’t want her to find out that I was really still a translator. Before leaving work I would also lift up the felt that lined the boot of my car, and place the shield and spear on top of the spare tyre, before shutting it down again.

But I was in enough trouble already. If I started dreaming up excuses not to use my car I risked sending her over the edge. So we drove along High Level Road. It was what most people would describe as a glorious day. The sun was up and all the little cunts who like tanning were probably flocking to the beach. Anyway, it was the end of summer, and these happy bright days would soon be behind us.

‘Maybe we should go to the beach later,’ Victoria said, as if reading my thoughts.

‘OK,’ I said.

‘You could get a tan. Maybe then you can get a better job.’

‘What?’

‘I’m only joking.’

‘Oh.’

We stopped at the robots opposite the Waterfront. To our right was the convention centre. It was supposed to look like a ship, but looked more like the back of a boot. It’s surrounded by a collection of exclusive hotels and the handful of high-rise buildings the city has.

I turned left into the Waterfront.

‘What are you doing, Byron?’

‘Oh shit,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. I thought we were going … ’

‘We meant to be going to Cavendish, Byron!’

‘I forgot.’

‘You’re a pothead moron!’

I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do stupid things today. I wanted to get some respect from her, but it would never happen if I kept doing things like that. She sighed loudly and made a show of taking her cellphone out of her bag and looking at the time. Then she looked at me again, and smiled.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean it, you know, like that.’

I smiled a stupid smile. I really hate myself sometimes.

On the other side of the mountain it was quite a lot colder. I knew this without opening my window, because I was unable to shut the air vents in my car. Victoria also seemed to feel the difference in temperature and put her hands in front of the vents then rubbed them together.

‘Are you still, I mean, you said you might at the beginning, are you getting a car allowance?’

‘What?’

‘You said. From your work, you know, now that you’re a manager.’

‘Oh. It’s in the pipeline. Ja.’

Black clouds were coming down over Devil’s Peak and into the thick forest below. I was very stoned and imagined for a moment that I was in Africa. Then remembered that I was.

I opened my window. The cold air came blowing in. I lit myself a cigarette, looked down at my feet and noticed that the scuff mark on the top of my right shoe had been coloured in with something too dark to be soil. I wondered if it might be dog shit, and where it would have come from.

‘Byron!’

‘What?’

‘You nearly drove into that car.’

I’d misjudged a corner. A car next to me, with about five people in their mid-twenties, had slowed down. They were all giving me hand signals, pointing at their eyes, pointing at their heads.

‘You must be careful!’ she said to me.

‘Ja.’

We finally made it into the Cavendish Square parkade.

Victoria pulled down the sunshade in front of her, expecting to find a mirror in which to examine her face. But there was none.

‘Oh,’ she said.

Without hesitating for more than second, she turned sideways, pulled the rear-view mirror toward her, looked at herself – coldly, as a surgeon might look at a patient – touched her pointy chin, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘Come!’ she said, then unlocked the door and hopped out.

I walked behind her. She never once turned around to see if I was following. She walked past the large mirror at the top of the escalators, paused for a second to look at her reflection, again coldly, hopped on the machine and began the descent. I followed.

The escalators are right in the centre of the mall, in a large chasm of space filled with sunlight. In front of me was a Muslim family. The father was dressed in a robe, as was his young son. The woman’s entire body was covered, with only a small slit for the eyes. I was very stoned and suddenly realised I’d been staring at her for too long. And staring is wrong. We embrace diversity and barely notice minor differences like that. The truth was, I envied her. I was starting to get paranoid and would have killed to hide myself inside a full body veil. Perhaps I should invest in one.

Then I was at the bottom of the escalator standing in front of a Levi’s shop with all the pretty models smiling at me. Victoria had already rounded the corner and walked into Truworths. I ran after her. She was winding her way through the women’s clothing section. I noticed that the mannequins were getting slightly chubbier, and yes, some of them were charcoal coloured. I wondered if veil shops invested in mannequins.

I started moving faster and nearly bumped into a trendy black girl of high-school age. She was with a large group of friends and they were holding up clothes against their bodies and giggling. And Victoria was climbing onto the escalator. I ran toward her and grabbed hold of her arm.

‘Byron. What are you doing?’

‘Sorry,’ I said.

It had been such a long time since I was last in the shoe section of a shop. Nothing had changed. A pop song was playing over the stereo. There were countless mirrors and large pictures of men kicking balls and girls sitting on haystacks and smiling. And then the shoes. There they were. The sevens with the sevens. The eights with the eights. All paired up and matching. They seemed to be staring down at me and laughing.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ A short woman with greasy black hair pulled back so tight it looked as if it were about to be ripped from her skull was standing behind me.

‘Umm … ’ I said.

‘Are you looking for anything?’ She smiled.

‘Yes,’ Victoria said. ‘We are looking for shoes, of course, that is.’

As she spoke her bag slipped off her shoulder and landed in the V of her arm.

‘For?’ asked the shoe lady

‘Him,’ said Victoria. ‘We are looking for shoes – white shoes, nice, bowling sort of shoes. For him.’

‘Well, would you like to come with me?’ The assistant seemed amused by us. She had a smirk on her face.

‘What is that you’re laughing at?’ Victoria asked her.

‘Nothing,’ said the shoe lady. ‘Over here!’ She pointed with her right hand at a shelf full of boxes.

‘Stop sniggering’ Victoria said. ‘We’ve come here to buy shoes.’

I stood silently.

‘Would you like to look at them?’ The shoe lady was now doing her best not to snigger. She was in fact overcompensating, to the point where her expression looked like a stick-on serious face. At this stage I didn’t know what she found so funny.

‘These are some Levi’s,’ she said taking a white pair out of the box. ‘They’re on special. As advertised in our flyer.’

I saw all the boxes sitting there. The numbers: 8, 7, 11, 12.

‘They’re nice,’ Victoria said, running her hand along the white leather, and holding them up to her nose.

‘What size would you like?’ the shoe assistant lady asked Victoria whilst looking down at my feet.

I slid the right foot back.

‘We have to try on various sizes’ Victoria said. ‘We can manage by ourselves now, thank you.’

‘Just shout if you need help,’ said the shoe assistant lady. She walked away, the sniggering face prying its way out from underneath.

Victoria’s handbag was still resting in the V of her arm. She looked up and down the rack of shoes. Her face had that same possessed intensity as when she took photographs.

‘What sizes?’ she asked, without looking up.

‘Eleven,’ I said.

‘And?’ She said the word so casually.

‘Seven,’ I said.

She took the two boxes out of the shelf, carelessly, and carried them over to the try-on spot. She placed the boxes on the floor. I stared at them for a second. She kicked the size 11 box toward me.

‘Come on,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘Try them on.’

‘I will,’ I said.

In the distance, prowling between the shelves and the tills, greasy head emerging here, and there, and there again, was the shoe assistant lady. And yes, now she was talking to one of her shoe assistant lady friends, a fat white girl with straw-coloured hair and acne vulgaris. What a revolting creature, I thought. I felt angry at her for being so sif. Then I suddenly became nervous again and longed for a Muslim veil.

‘What’s wrong?’ Victoria asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘So then, Byron, try on – I know, OK – just try them on, both.’

I opened the box with the size eleven shoes in it and took them both out, placing them on the floor.

‘Why you taking them both out?’ she asked me.

‘No!’ I said.

I picked up the right shoe and placed it on my lap. The leather was white and felt smooth beneath my fingers. I thought of the cow that laid down its life for these shoes. I was pleased.

‘Come, Byron!’ Victoria said.

I opened it right up and fumbled about, trying to undo the ridiculous knot that’s always tied into new shoes. When I had it undone, I slipped my foot inside and tied it back up, then waggled it about in the air and put it back on the floor.

‘It fits. I’ll buy them.’

‘But Byron, the other – what about the other, the other set of shoes.’

‘They’re fine.’

‘You have to – I mean, you will be wasting both your money, and our time – Byron, you have to. Just try it on.’

‘I know my size.’

‘We’ve come all the way, Byron. Just do it.’

‘Fine.’

The shoe assistant lady seemed to have been absorbed into another conversation. Victoria kept looking at me.

I first took off my right shoe, and tucked it away neatly in the box. Then, at super high speed, whilst pretending to look around the room at other things, even whistling a tune under my breath, I pulled out the size seven, and, without bothering to undo the ridiculous knot, slipped it onto my left foot.

‘It fits. Let’s go.’

‘Aren’t you, Byron, are you not going to walk around in them, to see, just to know, how they feel?’

‘They’re shoes.’

‘If you don’t want it – my help that is, Byron – then you can just say so.’

‘Fine. I’ll take them. Come.’

‘Both pairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re not going to walk?’

‘Why?’

‘To know.’

‘I know. Come. I need to draw money.’

‘I thought, Byron, can’t you put it on your credit, or debit, whatever card?’

‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘It’s fine then. I will get them for you.’

‘No. Why?’

‘Because you have – in the last week or so spent money on me. So it’s fair.’

‘No, no!’ I shook my head again, placed the size seven box on top of the size eleven and scampered off through the centre to find an ATM. I only had five thousand rand left in my account. Ten days earlier I’d had twice as much.

By the time I got back Victoria had already bought both pairs of shoes and was standing outside the store waiting for me to return.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Yes, Byron.’

‘No, I said I would. I can afford.’

‘So can I, Byron, so can I afford.’

‘I’m a manager. I’m a manager and I can afford my own shoes.’

‘Oh, Byron, you really are, you are really so very silly. Sometimes. You are silly. You can buy them from me if you want!’

‘Fine.’

‘Or I’ll give them away.’

‘To who?’

‘To someone else. There are, Byron – actually, in case you didn’t know – there are other people.’

‘With what?’

‘With feet, Byron. With feet.’

And suddenly as I stood there in the centre of the shopping mall drenched in sunlight and surrounded by strangers, a thought occurred to me. A thought that stayed with me the whole drive home. Somewhere, perhaps not too far away, there must indeed be someone else with feet: my type of feet.

I dropped Victoria at her flat and went home. It was late afternoon when I pulled into my driveway and parked underneath the old carport. The driveway looks directly onto my bedroom, and although the cover partially blocks the sunlight, at this time of day my room is well lit. It gets more light than the rest of the house, which exists in almost perpetual darkness. The long passage with the old thick wooden beams, cracked and lined with dust never gets a drop of light. The ceiling is three metres up and decorated with intricate designs. This theme runs through most of the rooms in the house, but not mine.

I dropped down on my bed and sent a cloud of dust floating into the air. I dropped the packet with the two shoeboxes onto my table and opened up my clothes cupboard. It was pretty much empty. All my clothes were lying in a pile in the corner of the room. It smelt dirty. But the afternoon sun was just right: not that furnace-like heat enjoyed by cunts who go to beaches. I took the right shoe out of the size eleven box and the left shoe out of the size seven. I put them in the lowest section of my shelf alongside the other pairs, then put the remaining two shoes in the same box and placed them in the other section of my cupboard alongside all the other unused shoes I’ve collected through the years. The boxes have literally been caked by a thick layer of dust which I now unsettled as I added the new arrival to the pile. I sneezed.

Then I set off through the streets to the Spar. It moved one building down about a year earlier and the old building still stands there, unused. The old delivery zone has become a favourite hangout for the large number of hobos who live in my area, Observatory. Behind the new Spar is a pay-per-month parking lot, a butchery and a second-hand clothes store. A lazy-looking car guard was sitting on a plastic chair beneath a gum tree. The world felt tired. Nothing much was happening: even the hobos were sitting in silence.

I bought myself a pack of cigarettes and a Cape Ads, then went back home and paged through to the personals section. No one had beaten me to it. Or at least not this week. I scribbled down the advert I wanted to place, phoned the Cape Ads, and dictated it to a lady at the call centre:

Byron: I’d like to place an advert in the personals.

Operator: OK, sir, have you used the Cape Ads before? Do you have a reference number?

Byron: No.

Operator: Name please, sir.

Byron: Byron.

Operator: And what is your ad, sir?

Byron: I have a right foot UK size 11 and a left foot UK size 7. I’m looking for someone who has the opposite problem to swap unused shoes with, or go shoe-shopping with. Contact Byron on 082 995 2381.

Operator: OK, sir.

The operator giggled a little. I’d never have had the courage to place the advert if Victoria hadn’t helped ease my self-consciousness a little. Not to say it was gone. But at that moment, at least, I felt OK.

I hung up. Rolled myself a joint, kicked off my shoes, and waited for a response.

* * *

A dozen guests who’d come independently of the German tourist bus were the last to leave. One of the underling chefs threw a container of dirty water on the fire, sending a thick cloud of grey smoke into the air and causing the coals to sizzle.

I sat at the bar beneath the palm overhangs sipping a Black Label and smoking the second-last cigarette in my box. From the parking lot I could hear Charlie starting up his motorbike. He hadn’t bothered to say goodbye.

I wasn’t sure if he’d made a mistake, or if it was a setup. It could have just slipped his mind; alternatively he and Vusi could be in cahoots, and the reason he’d told me we wouldn’t be using praise routine number four was simply to lull me into a false sense of security. Whatever the story, I knew what awaited.

Lindi came walking toward me from the girls’ change room; she was wearing a tight grey top that hugged her large breasts. She looked up from writing an SMS and said: ‘Vusi wants you in his office, Byron! Cheers, babe!’ she called out to the barman.

I knocked back the rest of my beer, took a long drag of my cigarette and stubbed it out.

The entrance to Vusi’s office is next to the service bar. It’s a simple security gate that he’d obviously just unlocked after stashing away the cash. I walked down the wooden stairs toward his office, which doubles up as a storeroom. As usual there were empty kegs, unwanted promotional goods strewn across the concrete floor. His desk is in the far corner, illuminated by a single halogen lamp. He was typing on a laptop that he now folded flat.

‘Sit down, Byron.’

I pushed the skins between my legs, placed the shield on the floor. He’d undone the top three buttons of his shirt, he looked stressed. He ran his hand over his bald head, then started playing with the curly stubble on his chin. He always does this before lecturing me. He wants me to believe that I’m in the presence of a sage.

‘Let me ask you something,’ he finally said. He continued to play with his beard and stare over my shoulders at an invisible point in the distance. ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Not sure. Do you still see yourself here? At Bhakhuba?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Wearing the skins? Translating praise poetry?’

‘I don’t really know right now.’

‘You only have to remember five routines.’

‘Charlie said we wouldn’t use routine four tonight.’

‘It’s only a few lines. Why do you keep forgetting it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He doesn’t know.’ He started scratching his head. ‘Tell me, Byron, how I can help you.’

‘I’m not sure. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.’

‘If you can give me the solution, I’m willing to listen.’

‘The solution to what?’

‘To you, Byron.’

‘I’m not sure what to say.’

‘He’s not sure.’

‘Ja.’

‘I’m going to ask you to stop coming here.’

‘No, please. I need the money. I will work hard.’ I leant forward trying to convince him of my desperation. But even I could hear that my voice lacked authenticity. Right then I didn’t give a shit if he fired me. I just wanted to go home and drink the bottle of brandy I’d saved for myself and smoke the rest of my weed.

‘Show a white man some mercy!’ I cried out.

‘Are you amusing yourself, Byron?’

I was.

‘Not at all,’ I said.

He shook his head.

‘You can come in once in a while. If you’re desperate, you can do a shift here. A shift there. If people ask for you. I realise some of the guests find you amusing.’

‘Please! You can’t do this to me! It just isn’t fair!’ I don’t even talk like that. Who was I fooling? ‘There’s nothing here without me,’ I said, and leant across his table.

‘Yes, Byron. We’d be finished without you. Go home.’

I picked up my shield and spear and gave him a half bow, half curtsy as I made my way toward the door.

‘And stop smoking dope. You’ll be brain dead before thirty.’

Vusi’s silver BMW X4 was parked in the lot. He reserves his place with an orange cone each evening. I was still dressed in my skins and so it was easy for me to take a piss on his back tire.

Brain dead before thirty, I thought as I sat in my lounge rolling myself a joint. You’ll be dead before tomorrow if you’re not careful, Vusi.

I still had a few good heads left in my stash. The last few weeks had been bad. I’d been smoking heavily with Roddy. Sometimes he brought his own, but normally we smoked mine. Like him, his stash is full of shit. I sometimes think it’s actually mowed lawn. It seldom gets us high, and he always has some excuse. He’s an old man, Roddy. Somewhere in his sixties, I guess. He has a long grey ponytail, wears dirty clothes. He lives somewhere in Salt River and stays alive by doing odd jobs. He’s a shit talker. I don’t mind him, but he smokes too much of my weed.

Maybe I’m too generous, I thought, as I slid down the back of my couch and blew smoke rings toward the dim yellow light on my ceiling. I felt like a diver sitting at the bottom of a children’s swimming pool. I took some long swigs from my bottle of brandy, then made my way into the passage. Two of the lights had gone and I hadn’t had a chance to change them. The passage is wide, high, always cold. The large wooden floorboards are chipped and offer an ideal refuge for dust. I flicked on my lighter, holding it up to the electricity meter next to the front door. At current usage, I had twenty hours left. I kicked open my bedroom door, pulled some dirty clothes off my bed. The sheet smelt of beer. I ripped it off and sent it hurtling across the room, climbed onto the bare mattress, pulled the duvet up to my chin, jerked off and fell asleep.

I woke early in the morning to the sound of gentle rain on my roof. I was glad it was there to keep the water off my face. My father had paid the house off in full when he left the country and transferred it into my name. I had never laid eyes on it before the day it became mine. It was more than five years ago now, when the property market in Obs was just starting to grow. He’d paid next to nothing for it a decade earlier. But despite this one piece of luck he was adamant that his time in Africa was up. He sold his other properties and packed all his possessions into a crate, which he loaded onto the same ship that took him to England. He didn’t want to leave by plane. He said it was important that he went by ship, the same way his grandfather had come to the country. He said he wanted to complete the cycle, and that one day I’d understand. As far as I was concerned he was just a sentimental old fart. But I was glad for the house. No matter what happened, I’d always have that.

Now that I’d been released from Bhakhuba, I had nothing to worry about except the six marijuana plants growing in my back garden. They were certain to bring me enough income to buy myself food and booze for a month. After that? Well, we’d have to see. I’d bought some indoor growing equipment from the Grow-it-Yourself shop up the road from my house. I’d been meaning to transplant the crop into my cupboard but hadn’t found the moment. Anyway, I’d worry about them later. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

When I woke again the rain had stopped. I summoned all my energy and climbed out of bed. I stumbled down the passage to the bathroom and took a piss in the toilet, dribbling all over the floor. I wanted to wipe it up, but I was out of toilet paper. I splashed my face. My eyes were red, with dark rings beneath them. My normally black hair had traces of brown caused by the dirt at Bhakhuba. I ran my fingers through it and held them to my nose. Whew! I needed to wash myself. But first, I had to take a look at my plants. I walked down the passage and when I reached the end, the part where it drops into the sunken landing that leads to the back garden, I stopped dead.

The entire concrete landing was flooded by a few inches of dirty water. Without hesitation I jumped into it, wetting the bottoms of my jeans. I pulled open the rickety wooden door with the stained glass panes and was greeted by a miniature mud slide. Thank God the landing was a few feet below the rest of the corridor, or my entire house would have been washed away. I ran into the garden.

‘What the fuck!’ I cried out to no one in particular.

I ran through the swamp. I could feel the mud between my toes, the cold water against my ankles and shins. The tree in the corner of the garden had been stripped of all its little yellow leaves; they were floating on the surface of the swamp, serving as rest points for drowning insects. And then I saw them.

‘Fuck!’ I screamed. I fell to my knees, then shifted onto my bum.

All six of them had been uprooted. I was sure that I’d planted them properly. They were meant to be resistant. I started running through excuses in my head before realising that there was no one to excuse the disaster to except myself. I was sitting amidst my own failed cash crop. I felt like a Zimbabwean farmer, the rain my Mugabe and his war veterans.

I sat completely still. It was a quiet morning and the rain had stopped. From my garden I can see the top of Devil’s Peak, the chisel-shaped rock, which at that moment was covered in grey cloud and truly looked like the forehead of Satan. I put my hands on the ground to try and push myself up. They sank into the mud. At that moment I almost felt like giving up. But then, suddenly, I felt a very sharp point stick into the palm of my hand. It sent a shock of pain up my arm. I felt around to see what it was, but now it was gone.

I decided I had to find it. I was angry with everything that was going on around me, and I was channelling all this anger toward whatever it was that had split my skin. I dug around in the mud until I managed to locate the offender. I got onto my knees and started working my right hand underneath it. My hand was painful and the cold was making it worse. I took hold of it, leant back and pulled with all my weight. Out it came, bringing with it an explosion of water. I jumped to my feet, turned my back against the white glaring sky. I wanted to focus on the mysterious object in my hand. It was still covered with mud, so I dipped it back into the water and rinsed it clean. When I held it up again I could see that what I was holding was definitely a bone.

It was half the length of my arm, sharp on the edges and old and worn in the centre. In parts it was turning brown from soil that had been caked into it.

I ran inside, paused, ran back out, fetched all the plants and threw them onto my shower floor. I was doing everything at a pace to which I was unaccustomed. I moved into the kitchen so fast I tripped over the linoleum floor covering that was peeling in the corner. I dumped the bone on the rickety round table in the centre of the kitchen then took a step back and rested my weight on the old wooden counter that runs down the side of the room. The cupboards behind me shook under my weight, all the old china rattled. A ghostly light came in through the window, passing over the dishes, the yellow floor. The bone made me feel self-conscious. It had a strangely awesome presence, like a great man. I felt I had to be presentable around it. I looked down at my jeans, they were thick with water and the backs caked with mud. My armpits stunk. I made a fart and scratched my asshole.

I needed to tell someone about the bone. It could be a murder. Perhaps the cops would rock up any day now, search the house and arrest me as an accomplice. I’d seen enough cop shows to know. But no. The bone must have been there for some time. Whoever it once belonged to is way forgotten. The case is long closed. But perhaps it could be a collector’s item. Maybe it’s worth something. Enough to see me through the next few months, a present from the gods. Yes. I had to tell someone.

In movies when people find bones, they always know who to tell. But not in real life. Not round these parts.

I needed to think clearly. I needed to focus. I went to my lounge. There’s only one window in the room and it’s covered by a curtain that looks like mosquito netting. The already pale light filtered through the netting cast the room in a light the colour of a corpse’s skin. I picked the bankie of weed off my lounge table, an item I’d made myself by placing a stop sign on top of a crate. I mulled some in my hand and let it drop on the crotch of my jeans. I had a little bag of chronic in my room which I’d been saving for a special occasion. But it now seemed special enough to me. I put the mulled weed back on the table and ran through to my bedroom. I always store my chronic weed on the bottom shelf of my table. It was a luminous green and smelt of chemicals. I’d paid a hundred bucks for a dime bag’s worth. I cut some up with a pair of scissors and mixed it up with the Swazi.

I picked up the yellow pages which had been delivered to my house a few weeks ago. I’d been using the covers as girrick paper for my joints and there was barely any left. I pulled off a final strip, rolled myself a fat joint and got unbelievably high.

In my now stoned state I was struck by a thought. I knew at once where I’d be able to track down the people who’d be able to deal with the bone. I put the coverless Yellow Pages on my lap, it flopped about like a dead fish.

I flipped to the index and looked under B: Bird Seed Merchants, Boatyards, Body Building, Body Piercing, Bodyguards. But fuck all about bones. Was this not a common enough problem? Then I remembered something else I’d been using as girrick paper in the last while. It was a flyer advertising the Observatory Fair that was being held this week at the community hall. Various groups would have display tables with information and whatnot. Surely there would be some group that would show an interest in a bone found in a garden. But what sort of bone was it? It must have been fairly deep underground. I know this because I broke the worst sweat I’d had in years trying to dig the trench into which I’d transplanted the baby plants when I’d first started growing. So it wasn’t a murder. And if it were, coming into the open about it would clear my name. But more likely it was an antique, something of value. I could sense money.

I went through to the bathroom and washed my hands. In the little freestanding round mirror I could see that my eyes were red. I went back to the kitchen and opened up all the old wooden cupboards looking to find some eyedrops. Somewhere I had eyedrops! But no sign of them. Just dust, old ashtrays, bowls I’d never used. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands, then splashed them with water from the sink. I needed to wash my dishes.

I sat down in the corner of the kitchen, smoked a cigarette and tried to remember if there was anything I had to do with my day. But of course there wasn’t.

I’d go up to the fair and ask around. I’d play it cool. Someone would have the answer. I was so stoned that the walls of the kitchen appeared to be breathing. You get what you pay for.

I showered, and just before walking out the front door remembered that Pete was coming later that afternoon to check out the setup in my cupboard. The setup I’d told him was ready for use. The setup that wasn’t really there.

During our first meeting he’d said that he might have some business for me. But if he learnt that my entire harvest had drowned in the garden, and that I still hadn’t set up the system, I was sure his offer would be reversed.

I started getting paranoid. I walked up and down my corridor running my hands through my hair which still felt dirty. I was disgusted by myself.

I scrambled into my room and began emptying out my cupboards, starting with the shoe section. I had more shoes than at any other point in my life. This was, of course, because of Pete.

* * *

It had been a full week, maybe ten days, after placing the advert in the paper that I got the phone call. I was stoned at the time too.

‘Byron bro. Is that you bro?’ the voice asked.

‘It is.’

‘I read your advert in the Cape Ads bro. Says you got a big right and a baby left, is that the case bro?’

‘It is.’

‘No ways bro!’ He laughed a deep laugh that came from his belly, and picked up phlegm as it passed his chest on the way out. ‘That’s so mad bro. You got an 11 and a 7 bro, is that right?

‘Ja.’

‘I’m seven and a half, and a ten. But bro, I don’t reckon it’ll matter bro. Such a small difference. That’s so lank weird!’ He laughed again.

We made a plan to meet at Obs Café. I hit a bong before I left and strolled up Trill Road to Lower Main. A couple of trendy gay men were sitting at a table on the pavement, having cocktails and laughing deliberately gay laughs. Next to their table was a fern in a pink pot. On the far side of the road a hobo had passed out underneath a large signboard advertising beer. I crossed over the dirty road and walked past the bottle store. A couple of rough-looking guys were buying themselves bottles of brandy.

In Obs the roads are narrow and cars park all the way along the left hand side of the road. Traffic can’t go in both directions at the same time and drivers have to wait their turn. A frizzy-haired woman in a Beetle, who’d been waiting for too long, was banging her steering wheel in frustration as I crossed in front of her. In the big glass windows of Obs Café were some posters advertising upcoming shows in the side theatre. And there through the windows I saw a man, and knew, without introduction, that it was he.

I pulled open the glass door and entered the non-smoking section of the café.

‘You looking for a table sir?’ a waiter asked me.

‘Uh-uh.’

I made my way across the narrow alley that divides the smoking from the non-smoking section of Obs café. He was at a table in the corner, his body sunk backward and downward into the black leather couch, his knees stuck up high like exaggerated A-frames, his pants were torn at the knee. His hair was big and dirty, not dreadlocked, but almost. He hadn’t shaved in months, and his beard grew out in uneven tufts like the grass on the maintenance road at Bhakhuba. His tattered pants were tucked into knee-high black boots, clearly of different sizes. Underneath his thick denim jacket he wore a red T-shirt with Che Guevara’s face in the middle of it. He didn’t stand to greet me, but simply extended his long gorilla-like arm. As we sat and spoke he sipped an iced cool drink with a straw. On the glass table in front of us he rolled himself a joint, and for mixer used the tobacco from the butts of self-rolled cigarettes that he’d kept in his tobacco pouch.

‘You want a drag, bro?’ He held the joint out across the table.

‘OK.’ I took three long drags and held the smoke in my lungs as I handed the joint back to him.

‘Excuse me!’ A perky waitress with nice tits came walking up to the table. ‘I’m afraid you’re not allowed to smoke that in here.’

‘It’s cool, bro, I’m lank buddies with the manager,’ Pete said, while holding the smoke in his lungs.

‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Stefan, bro.’

‘Stefan? I’ve never heard of him. Come. Settle up and leave. Or I’m going to have to call my boss.’

‘Chill, lady. We chucking.’ He took another few drags, then passed it back to me.

The waitress shook her head and walked away.

I took a drag and put it out. We left.

He led me through the streets of Observatory, past a couple of hippies making their way out of an esoteric crystal shop, past a tattoo parlour with a Harley Davidson parked outside, and into his friend’s shop, the Grow-it-Yourself shop: specialists in hydroponics and indoor growing.

The floors inside were made of smooth cement and shone under the overhead fluorescent lights. The walls were lined with shelves covered with chemicals and trays. In the far corner was a vault with a nuclear sign painted on the door. He introduced me to his manager friend, a guy named Brad. We walked past his desk and outside into the service alley.

It was mid-morning and deliveries were still coming in: we watched men dressed in sterile white uniforms unhook the skinned bodies of dead animals and felt the cool, urine-infused breeze blow against our skin. We sat there on the steps for a few moments, unsure how to proceed. I felt slightly self-conscious, and so looked away, pretending not to know the next move.

But Pete was more confident. With his brutish fingers he started unlacing his thick leather boots. I proceeded with caution, undoing one lace at a time and bashfully bringing my little left foot out into the air. He too, had taken the left out first.

When both his were out, he leant back and held them up to the blue sky. I laughed a nervous laugh. He looked at me and said ‘Come on, bro. Let’s see them.’

I slid onto my back and held my feet up to the sky.

Pete probably had the ugliest feet I’d ever seen. The toenails were black and chipped and the toes were covered in thick hairs. Compared to his, mine looked like film stars. He didn’t seem to care about his feet’s appearance, and laughed like a man sick in the head, because, appearances aside, it was clear that we had the same problem, in reverse. As we lay on our backs, feet up to the sky, the order went as follows: big, little, little, big. It looked like a half-pipe for skateboarders.

‘Wo-ho, bro!’ he bellowed. ‘I can’t believe it, bro.’

I too began to laugh.

Pete ran off the steps, and down onto the alleyway. He jumped up and down, raising his knees to his chest, and slapping them with his hands. ‘Woo-hoo. Ha ha’ he kept screaming. His thick dirty hair bounced up and down as he shook his body around. No one took any notice of him.

‘Come bro. Byron! Hey, bro!’ He came and sat down next to me, putting his arm on my shoulder.

‘This is so weird, bro. What the chances?’

‘Slim,’ I said.

‘We’ll be friends, bro. Is that cool?’

‘It’s cool,’ I said. And, without really knowing why, or even knowing if I wanted to, put my arm around his shoulder, and gave it a pat.

We sat there, silent for a few moments, looking out across the alleyway, our naked feet resting on the lower steps.

‘Would you like a smoke?’ I asked him.

‘Sure thing, bro. Save me the mission of rolling.’

I took my arm off his shoulder, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

‘Did people use to give you shit, bro? When you were at school?’

‘Ummm. Not really. You?’

‘Bit. But I never gave a shit, bro. I just thought it was funny.’

‘Ja,’ I said. ‘Never gave a shit.’

‘It’s the only way, bro. But it’s expensive. Nothing you can do ’bout that.’

‘That’s why I put the ad.’

‘For sure, bro, for sure. I haven’t kept all my shoes, for all the years. But I got a fair whack. I can’t believe, bro. I still can’t believe! I’ll go to my house and fetch some of the boxes, bro. Is that cool?’

‘Yeah, it’s cool. I live at 48 Trill.’

‘Sure thing, bro. I’ll be back there later on.’

An hour later he pulled up outside my house on a dirty off-road motorbike. He was wearing leather riding gloves and a helmet that he tucked under his arm as he walked up the path to my front door.

‘Come in,’ I said.

I led him through to my room. He dumped his helmet on the table, shoved the gloves into a side pocket of the bag, then emptied the main content onto floor. Somehow he’d managed to stuff eight shoes into the bag. Then from another side compartment he pulled out a bottle of cheap brandy, which he placed on my desk. The bag was old and worn: it looked like it’d served its time.

‘You got glasses, bro?’ he asked me.

I rinsed out two mugs in the sink and brought them through to the bedroom. He filled them up to the brim and we both drank fast and in complete silence. When we were halfway through our first glass, he filled them up again and rolled a joint. When we’d finished smoking we finally got down to discussing the matter at hand.

‘So, bro, for years you’ve been having to buy two pairs to own one?’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘Crazy, bro. So you end up with all these extras. I never thought I’d find another ou.’

He laughed.

The forehead was the only visible part of his face. It was kidney red, underscored by wide black freckles and blemishes. He had the look of a man who seldom changed his clothes. The khaki pants, the military jacket, the black boots. They felt as if they enjoyed staying put. He was like a kid’s action figure; a standard-issue GI Joe: clothes boots and man, all one.

‘Show me what you got.’

I took out all the boxes of unused shoes. He pulled them towards himself, then emptied the contents onto the floor.

‘Nice, bro,’ he said.

I looked at all the mismatched pairs of shoes that I’d never been able to use, these big lefts and baby rights. And here was a man who could use them. And all the pairs that had been sitting unused in his cupboard, would now see the light of day from the bottom of my legs. What a great guy I was for initiating the meeting.

We spent a few minutes admiring our newly acquired shoes. From a financial point of view, he was the definite winner. Besides the Levi’s I’d just bought, he’d also won himself a pair of Nike cross trainers and some Oakley slip-ons. They were from back in my school days when I still got a spending allowance from my father, but my feet hadn’t grown since then. As for me, I was getting myself three pairs of shoes that either came from Pep or Mr Price, and a single pair of smart evening shoes. I doubted if their twins even got used. I couldn’t picture Pete in a suit.

We each tried on a newly matched pair, and sure enough, the minor difference in size didn’t matter. They fitted just fine.

‘So, bro,’ he said. He had a big smile on his face. I’d packed my new shoes into the cupboard, and he’d crammed his into the bag. I made no mention of the fact that he was scoring big time: there was nothing else I could do with the shoes, and at least now all the pairs in my cupboard could be worn.

‘Show me around the place, bro,’ he said.

I took him out to the garden and introduced him to my plants, which, at that stage, were four weeks old, had just been planted in the soil and were looking fine and healthy.

‘Look strong, bro,’ he said, running his thick fingers over the leaves. The backs of his hands, like his face, were red and spotted.

‘You ever grown indoors, bro?’ he asked me.

‘No.’

‘Checks like your garden’s in a bit of a sink, bro.’

‘Might be.’

‘Tell you what, bro. Those guys up at the store, my one buddy runs the place. I’ll introduce you proper. You can get a nice kit. Then you grow indoors, and don’t worry about the weather.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Listen, bro. If you do get a setup going, I may have some business for you. Not definite, bro. But maybe. But shoosh about it, bro. Lank quiet.’

I hadn’t heard another word from him until the morning of the day I got fired. He phoned and said he wanted to come visit.

So I attached the ultraviolet light to the inside of the small section at the top of my cupboard. I set up the HP globe in the lower section: the section where I used to keep my clothes. I shoved my clothes and shoes under my bed. I filled up six little pots with mud from the garden, and planted a seed in each. I placed them under the UV light, just as the man from the Grow-it-Yourself shop had instructed me to. Then I got the bone and wrapped it in the plastic bag and just before heading out, decided to change into one of the pairs of shoes I’d received from Pete. Although they were cheap, they were pretty fucking comfortable.

* * *

I took another hit from my bong before wrapping the bone in a black bag and heading off to the fair. I walked through the park that surrounds the community centre. Bodies were scattered here and there. Hobos seem to spend most of their time asleep. It’s no wonder they’re on the street. I wondered for a moment if I might end up like them one day. But no, I was a land owner. They were peasants.

I was revoltingly stoned and nearly stood in dog shit. A drunken hobo wrapped in a filthy blanket and sleeping against a tree shouted some curses at me, but I ignored him and carried on toward the centre.

I leant against the fence for a few moments to see what was happening at the fair. A couple of braais were going, people were selling cool drinks and chocolates. Children were playing on swings and screaming at one another. It all felt a bit stagnant, and just looking at it made me feel depressed. I began wondering why it was that I’d actually come to the fair. It’d seemed like a very good idea when I was freshly stoned, but now I doubted that any good would come of it.

‘Are you coming in, sir?’ the lady at the gate asked me.

It was a middle-aged coloured woman. She looked terribly righteous. She’d seen me watching the children and if I said I wasn’t coming in she’d think I was a paedophile.

‘Ah, yes’ I said.

‘It’s ten rand please, sir.’

‘Umm. OK.’ I dug around in my pockets for some coins, making sure not to pull the bankie of weed out by mistake. I really should’ve left it at home.

She didn’t ask me what was in the black bag.

I walked through the play area. The general murmur of little people screaming and big people talking hung about the air. The grown-ups stood in groups, exchanging opinions, nodding heads, biting boerewors rolls, wiping mustard off moustaches.

‘Would you like to try some delicious homemade fudge?’ a plump girl behind a grey table asked me.

‘No. Where are the display tables?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘They said in the advert there’d be display tables.’

‘You mean the community projects section? It’s all through the buildings there.’ She pointed at what looked like a small school block.

The idea started to make sense to me again. The weed was coming in waves. I’d sober up for a few seconds, and think it was all over, then a second later be completely fucked again. Yes, someone here would know what to do with the bone, and be impressed by my initiative.

I turned around and walked away, hopping up onto the concrete corridor that ran past drainpipes and doors painted in different colours. I walked up a flight of dark grey stairs onto the upper level and was accosted by a female. She was posing as human, but could easily have been a bull.

‘Are you here for the drama class?’ she asked.

I shook my head.

‘We starting in fifteen minutes, hey!’

I looked over her large shoulders into the classroom behind her. All the desks and chairs had been moved to the side of the room, but there was no one inside.

‘Ja!’ she said. ‘I’m not waiting. It says on the pamphlet we start at half past one. So we start at half past one. Come on!’

‘I’m not here for that.’

‘We do classes in Woodstock as well. Let me give you a flyer.’

‘I’m looking for somewhere to take my bone.’

‘What?’

‘I found one. I don’t know what to do with it.’

‘Excuse me!’

‘I found a bone in my garden.’

‘And?’

‘Well,’ I said. I suddenly felt like a complete idiot. What was I doing?

‘I was just wondering if anyone at the fair might know what to do.’

It seemed like a normal question, for a few seconds. Then, as I ran it over in my head it sounded completely ridiculous.

‘I’m going,’ I said, and turned to walk away.

‘No, wait. Are you all right?’

I spun around. The woman had very thick eyebrows. Her face looked as if it had been moulded under extreme pressure. She could see that I was stoned, and was about to call the police. Only a stoned person would do something like this. I still had some weed in my pocket, it was higher grade and they’d think I was a dealer. The police would organise a search warrant for my house, find my setup. I’d spend the rest of my life behind bars.

I started to move faster, but then stopped. I had to try and redeem myself. I had to convince her I was normal.

‘It was just a thought,’ I said.

‘Let me see it.’

I unwrapped the bone and held it out toward her.

‘So you just came here to see if maybe . . ,’

‘Well, I didn’t know what to do. But I’ll go now, if you want.’

‘What sort of bone is it? Human? Animal?’

‘I don’t know. It came from my garden.’

‘Let me hang on to this. I think I might know someone.’

I could barely believe what I was hearing. Perhaps I wasn’t so stupid. No, suddenly it all seemed to make sense again.

‘Who?’

‘They’re an organisation. They were meant to have a stand here. But something happened at the last moment. They’re archaeological students. They’re called, something about restoring, to lost groups. Shit. I can’t remember. Do you have a number?’

I gave her my phone number and address.

‘So it looks like we should get the class under way.’

‘No. No. I have to go,’ I said, and started walking away before she could force me to participate.

What a strange woman. I was relieved that she wasn’t a police informer. Whenever I became paranoid I could literally feel the muscles in my body tensing up, and then when the paranoia passed I could feel them relaxing again, as I did now.

I started to enjoy being stoned. The sky looked beautiful, so did the trees. There was a general sense of failure about the fair. A band whined away in the hall, but no one paid any attention. The sellers sold things half-heartedly as if they didn’t really care. It was all rather melancholy. But at that moment the melancholy seemed poetic.

Then I noticed a man in a bear suit watching me as I made my way across the playground. Could he be an undercover policeman sent to look out for suspicious characters like myself?

I started to speed up. But now he was forcing the children off his legs and following me. I was terrified. I felt the muscles in my chest begin to tighten. I looked down at my feet and tried to pretend that nothing was happening. But then he was standing right next to me, looking at me with his big black plastic eyes.

‘Byron,’ the bear said.

Shit. They’d already built up a profile on me. They’d been watching.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘What for?’ the bear asked.

‘Umm …’

‘It’s me. It’s Roddy,’ the bear said.

‘Roddy!’ I screamed. I knew he’d done a lot of strange jobs in his time, but I’d never known him to dress as a bear.

‘Yes. Come. Keep walking out of here. I’ll follow you.’

I didn’t feel any relief. This could all be a part of their plan. But I kept going, out of the gate, past the lady with the tin and into the park. The bear continued to follow me. I started to pick up pace. I would run home and slam the gate behind me.

‘Slow down, Byron!’ the bear shouted again.

‘What do you want?’

‘Do you have any weed on you?’

‘No! No, no!’ I tried to run away, but the bear picked up pace.

‘It’s me, Roddy. Come here.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I just want to smoke with you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

We were standing in the middle of the park, under a low tree. The bear kept scraping its head on the top of the branches.

‘Come to the bathroom,’ he said, and pointed to a public loo.

‘Take your head off,’ I said to the bear.

‘I can’t. Not here. I don’t want to be seen like this, man!’

‘I’ve got to go.’

The bear took hold of my right sleeve and gently tugged me toward to toilet.

‘I’ll take my head off in there! Come to the bathroom.’

I cautiously followed the bear into the public toilet. It was made of dark bricks, and the inside hadn’t been cleaned in months. The toilet seat had been ripped off and the urinal stuffed with newspaper. It smelt of shit and urine.

The bear took its head off.

‘It’s me, Byron’ said Roddy.

Sure enough, it was him. His puffy white face was red and dripping with sweat. His long grey ponytail was hanging down his back. He’s a dirty man, Roddy. I’d been to his flat a few times, and I knew that he washed himself and his dishes with the same bar of soap. He smelt strongly of sweat, and greasy onions I think, but I was so relieved it wasn’t a cop that I didn’t care. He put the bear’s head down on the floor.

‘You’ll make it stink, Roddy,’ I said.

‘How you doing, Byron?’ he asked me.

‘I’m all right. The head.’ I pointed at it.

I could feel my heart slowing down and my muscles relaxing.

‘Ag,’ he said. ‘Times a bit tough at the moment. Waiting for my payment on the Beatles royalties. Then I’ll be set. For now, having to do this kind of shit. You got some weed?’

‘I do,’ I said.

I took the little dime bag out of my pocket and picked a few heads off the plant.

‘We’ll have to smoke it in a cigarette’ I said.

‘OK with me man.’

I emptied some tobacco out of a cigarette, and stuffed the bright green weed in its place. I removed the filter, then lit up. We finished it in a couple of minutes.

‘Thanks, Byron. I’ll come see you sometime.’

‘OK.’

He put the head back on, and walked off to the fair.

I made my way through the park to Station Road. The hawkers on the far side of the street were selling single cigarettes and orange chips to passers-by. Underneath the old Spar, groups of hobos were sitting about shouting curses regarding the others’ mothers’ vaginas, and I fancied I could smell some rather rancid genitals in the air. I think it was the smell of the extractor fans.

I walked past a barefoot man in a tie-dyed top, and then straight into a young woman dressed all in black. The books she’d been carrying fell out of her hands and crashed onto the floor. She muttered as she bent down to pick them up. She had piercings all over her face, and as she bent down I could see the tops of her pale breasts. And she was scrambling to pick up all the books, but paused for a moment too long on my right foot. I was convinced that she was examining it and so kicked the book away and carried on walking.

‘Hey!’ she shouted at me. She had a boyish harshness in her voice. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing!’ I said. I started jogging. I really couldn’t handle another second of the outside world.

‘Fucking cunt!’ she shouted after me.

I scrambled into my house and pulled the lock behind me. I’d had enough of the world for one day. I really did have to stop smoking weed. I made myself a promise that as soon as I was finished the current bankie I would give it a break for a little while. If I was going to get respect from people I had to stop acting like a moron.

I went into the kitchen and searched through the shelves for my teapot. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’d used it recently to make myself some weed tea, but right now all I wanted was a cup of Five Roses. I’d never really been a tea person. But when Victoria came to stay at my house she brought her teapot along with her, and when she left said I could keep it. Since then I’d developed a liking for Ceylon tea, and had discovered that if you add a few heads of higher grade weed into the mix you can preserve the taste and still get fucked. Of course I hadn’t told Victoria that her teapot was put to such use. It made her happy to think of me sipping tea on my balcony like an English gentleman, and I didn’t want to ruin the image for her.