First Day
It was a Friday, and had been a week since my curse for departures bore its acid truth through the motley fabric of my universe. I say UNIVERSE, because I was ultimately intent on re-membering my sundered prior ones into a stoic body, endowed with colossal experimentalism and thus the assimilated knowledge. I am in love and am torn by first, the slight mirage of mistrust I inspect upon my lovers face; then second… her consistent eluding of my passion’s exhibitions, like hugs, kisses and even the copulative sharing of our bodies. My only consolation was the child since morning rose, but it now also seems that the past night’s quarrel might have painted all sordid. I remember crying myself to sleep… I wonder why tears have not washed my vision for I am still a fury at loss’s clutch. That wretched night of a brawl alchemically bred, how the inner soul of a black man could hammer fungal stumps into a crisp heart.
I nearly killed my queen, hands readied for neck-snapping and jaw breaking… my eyes with a rage that made even me a stranger to the self I saw in her eyes. But truth remains that at dawn, held to her vigorously performed tasks of writing scripts, she was brewing a method to expunge my being from hers. I was fear incarnate, and later she told me to fear is painful. I concurred that I would leave after sour attempts at apologies. Those that fell on rusted ears were the menial jests I threw into a rather pedantic monologue. I love the sound of her laughter, and it bears my stunted mind keenly.
Before we could board a cab to town, I fall apart again… bilious tears boiling from the pores that give my eyes breath… stingy, a ball of thorny phlegm creeping sordidly up my throat. I cry the silent tears of masculinity, under shade of yellow spectacles… intermittently, pulling them from my face to feign rubbing sand from their lids. Only the tears kept rolling down the creased faced. I had to return to beg a bit more this time… and a friend acquiesced that the downtrodden pride that breaks a man should not stop me. We were on the same boat now… and it couldn’t be, he said. At least to fight for my life’s gift from above should ascertain that happiness does not leave an entire village unless war has truly befallen. I walked back toward failure, called out for the final that would pull her out of the mire that was swallowing her. She stared and wondered what was I doing to myself; and once again relieved me of my place within the scheme of things we were building.
I walked back towards the dejected city, met friends and had a couple of beers in one of those dingy pubs clogged by redundant old timers. Soaked faces, bruised by bulgy pores dripping unflinching sweat. We watched broken ladies huddled in comatose slumbers, ears a-tuned to the blurring twitch hissed by tattered speakers. Sedative rhythm and blues lulled us along a mean reminiscence, and kin to my present jilt, The Head Chef’s eyes slosh into my twitching skin … and the night became darker.
I had resolved to go home to visit mother, rather to cry upon mother’s shoulder like the foolhardy lovelorn child whose betrothal would never be… but I was still here, after dark… binging and stalling all possible crusts of pain from falling. We met The Prince when both huddled against some concrete slab to gain balance adequate enough for the duration of bouncing a cigarette… but it was ridiculous. We were near tears and somber.
The Prince guffawed wryly at the sight, two broken men… moaning about losses incurred through hearts given. He said something to the effect that: We gain through loss what we loose in our gains. The night’s dream shrilled through agape ears, music toxins brewed a satanic lager in my belly – as I danced at Sophiatown like I was dying. Gin, Whisky, Wine filled glasses canvassing the table before me when exhausted by rhythm, sprawling on the couch near my passed out friend.
Then came the conniving nag of club owners talking about we had to leave. Theirs was not a place for sleepers. We decided to find some spot to crash after midnight and it turned out to be in an office block that night. We had been renting space in this antique cluster of brick…. but tonight we needed to just jut unto its floor for repose after falling over life’s waterfall. Near an elevator, on a wooden bench… pillowed by my sack of two books; I had a tremendous dream that it was all a dream, and that she would wake me if it appeared a nightmare.
Second Day
I cease a dream with vigil with a snag of recollection that have not provided for my son in over three months. Her mother is fraught with disdain, an anger I understand. I have promised and disappointed my son the mirror bred with womanhood on numerous occasions… whence I had planned to visit him and never showed up with coin scarcity as the common excuse. I’d spend weeks without calling him… in fear of queries which might be marring him nubile mind. This confused my queen I realize. She was beginning to loose respect for me, strenuously; hence this arbitrary neglect of my sole responsibility to a soul who would carry my blood. I wake up missing him gravely, inebriation’s hell in skull only subdued by the thought that he promised to love me unconditionally. And what awe I feel in the sun’s reflection in my drunken eyes still, the glowing tungsten of filtered light blotting a square on a pale wall…
But… my back-bone is bruised by tossing on a plank, shoulder bones protruding savagely, with elbow-markings itching with the jab of starvation. I feel nauseous and needing something I can not put my finger on. It hits me in bouts that I will never see them again… at dawn, huddling The Black One while watching the queen climb an automobile to work. Suddenly I glare in wonder of the whereabouts of The Head Chef… he left the binge house an hour before I did. I get into the machine and it charts my search towards the ground floor. I find him in fetal position under a table, seen partially since I have this rush to relieve a fiery bladder. I have to see mother I keep mumbling to my inner sore. And when I return to enquire about his sleep, I tell him we are leaving; I need to get home. It is six thirty on a
Like a vagabond I pace beside this twin bearer of assaults of the soul akin to mine towards a corner shop. We need something salty for the after taste of hangover. We arrive only to scream over yawns of cooks looking prisoner-like for chips and a Russian sausage, dawn’s commuters queuing for their machine meals for a day’s sustenance during the wage war. We much a few slabs and bites of manufactured swine fat, and feel a tad better… nausea rising in my tripe like boiling oil. He wants to shave; and just as we shake palms he veers into nearby booth for a barber’s touch at the dawn of severance and departures from our youth we saw perish. The city’s traffic has raised its brow and the unblinking streets fuel madness in the eyes of late farers and corner stallers.
We smile the serene smile of angels having left paradise, the knowing smiles of beauty, truth unsaid yet shared through unknown facilities of our strengths. He knows petals that fell from my eyes at a mention of her name… he knew my fears and beauty clairvoyantly spied in a not so distant potential time. We bided the good by and slunk into the city’s brace like recluses chastised to vulgarity.
I pace sleepishly through masonry of an antique city with slime crawling upon it barricaded windows, piss bins brimming with junk and death calls from trees and other mineral souls. Cooks and hawkers clog catwalks and I say this’ the belly where the lost remain lost. I need to be lost… help me death slum.
After a momentary wait in half-filled taxi, a preacher approaches the gaping door and beckons to share a message and prayer with us. I find this rather weird and too coincidental for my appreciation.
He proceeds to lament the matter of poverty for which the many sprawling like ants are known for. He froths curses at the new disease and soon bursts into a prayer of such saddening vacuity that a nostalgia for my past days as a devoid born-again Christian are invoked in me. Later after an introspective wait we are finally riding over dust plains and distant horizons blazing under a fierce morning sun, a dead coffin humming its heart’s whiz with automatic precession. The noise is unbearable when one’s own thoughts cannot be distracted from its pestilence. I am seated next to a sleep-massacred other whose stench speaks of death’s city, concluding to leave the window slightly ajar so my nostrils would be in the gust of the wind.
I am vibrating with death of veins, with an abundance of toxic blood leaving me near unconsciousness. Only thoughts of mother, mingled with thoughts of past loves failed by what I wonder if was witchcraft of the heart, of the alchemical concoction black folks are crowned infamously for, or actually my incapacity to rise above my present financial predicaments. I am broke, a woman is taking care of me… pays for food and the lodging in place of such serenity I would have thought it sign for prosperities to come. I think of Epiphany’s mother, my first love and the son she borne me. I think of The Bogus Goddess and her daughter of nine who thought my soul to be an angel’s (because I always had answers for every question) and how both bore scares beside those of my infliction. Now here was this error I had committed to my queen… unforgivable even by her heart which I judged to have endured much scars, survived even when wrecked by balls of fire.
I recall one day in
Succinctly the alchemy of their wombs went trailing past my sight.
I was dumbstruck by this other woman telling secrets of our union.
I was the dead… perhaps she said, but nonetheless,
I hear melodies of satisfaction bind me, from the gut…
Some dearth of emberish coals sizzling in me.
She asks if I am working and,
Some tear burns innards and,
A forlorn waltz of mind says:
She might be the sanctuary for dying womb circles.
The terror of the unknowing methods of love drying
When all days art one…
Sentiments gone in baby chatter… what was this dream?
There are ways of dying with dreams I know and would never share… somehow when they decide to call another anomaly of a friend, I sully that they are innocently debauched, hedonisius syndrome going to their peril’s wedding. Changing minds to terrains beyond creamy finds, we say bring the brew of children young as nine months among the living.
There is a sorority ear-ring cult going on in the midst of the clique,
I over-hear…
What? I ask with
Query guilt wrought and somberly crouched on fetal pose.
Silence, then giggles and some brushed off remark at my naivety.
I figure my mad rigmaroles too cumbersome for their minds…
And the child cries in sleep negation… perhaps
The terror of dreams… music calmly deadening my aloofness to thrill…
Would the monk’s melody bend with these whistled winds of my breath?
A new house member wades in with crowds of self,
And elderly man enters carrying the best cosmetic luggage in the world…
Demure, mature, jazzed up fellow of a child to be bound to poles.
I am starved for pizza they ordered minion ago… this old man’s foot tap on tiles is unnerving…
What should I ask… I ponder. Maybe I should ask him if he needs help.
Maybe he’d ask: Do you need any help with your methods of dying?
In Carletonville, a loud hailing man screams for the last one headed for Fochville and I concede to the open invitation. We go past mines and their dumps, sloppy hills and other looking like artificial mounds. Once in town, another loud hailed call is seeking a single commuter to fill the vehicle for a trip. I follow suite. And the shack dwelling of my neighborhood loom before my eyes once more, more depressant and proclaiming what a tombstone the places of black growth had become in this age of democracy and equality.
I arrive at home and find the three first-wives of the Sekoli clan sitting timidly under a peach tree behind the toilet. My sisters are cleaning the house after a perhaps night of laughter and other jovialities of a reunion of women. Mother hugs me warmly and sobs… I begin to cry and it was when Second Wife of Dead Son says: Se tshele ngwana ka dikhapha… MmaKhahliso.
I am home and I love the face here… I am loved. I sit calmly with them and light a cigarette, ask my youngest sisters to go buy me beer… and a smile rides my teary face.
I was at loves enclave, and the stories of death and losses seemed a necessary method for unnerving my senses towards the real that is abound me outside of love.
It rained a marvel that evening, the patter of hail on a tin room hushing my dense thought towards dreams. I believe that dreams are true spaces for exorcism and the hypnotic summoning by a thunderous nature unto their lands art a gift humanity should eternally cherish.
Third Day
The ghost township awakes early on Sundays, and bed-wetter children whistle with boiling kettles readied for dawn baths. It is Sunday and piety is looming within the din of naiveties bred by religiosity, many conned souls hoping for reprieve in the clustered abode of the held high. I watch Rory sweep the yard in song, early-bird nephew screaming in my ear invitations to play. Mother seems intent on sleeping the day away; and outside a golden disk ascends over the moistened soil, shacks drying tears and dogs soaking up the rising heat. I get up intent on giving for my calm a morning glory, only Uncle would have herbs suited the opening of dreams of the night descended. Coffee is wry on plagued tongue and teeth, Mother asking if I can eat last supper’s leftovers. It is going to be a scotching day, and other friends turned shebeen marabouts will make their calls at barred windows for their quenching potions.
The First Wife of Dead Son has left, and the morning is freshly clad in a sweet draft. Wet grass, after last night’s hail storm carry pebbles on blades and bird chirp with vigor at a spectacle of unearthed worms. Uterine chores continue with a collective hum of hymns I have forgotten; how cleanliness is seen to be close to godliness. The smell of cobra floor polish rousing memories of my life’s journey through the streets of this conurbation. I grew up here, and the louts pacing over muddy puddles are my peers towards scepters of maturity. Rory’s singing is angelic yet tormented by what I could imagine as true supplication bred by poverty. She told me later that she tried to commit suicide. I bled; and blamed myself for letting her down. Oh, our birth’s last through mother – how we need her.
I always sought after a nature that allows one to recompense; all debt that I bellowed unto karma’s fabric to eventually provide a chasm for forgiveness. I believed fatally that the love I was bestowed was that chance to make amends for all others I have severed and scarred. I ask mother if I am a beast born not unto love’s calling? She says I love drastically.
‘Lerato lona, okebe oa le balehela Ngwana ka…’ she say, innocently acute,
‘…letshwana le masepa… hobane haa othswere… otla tshwanela ho nyela.’
I thought this to be quite a sagely prognosis of my paranoid retraction into a cocoon of loveless loneliness. So, as I sit wasting without love, I have to hang on to the idea that LOVE can still flow through these blackened veins.
Later I walk the blizzard heat of a rotted zinc town to visit aunts and relations by blood… and all marvel at my well-being. I kiss hordes of elders and grand old women who bear my history’s entirety; and for the future saint I am becoming I listen, eat and drink from their mugs. Shacks cling horrendously against cheap bricks behind sunken fences, and the metallic township sizzles under a searing sun. Old women trudging their bellies across faded lawns slow with the day; leaning on car wrecks making for junk-yard décor on their house fronts. I wonder about my nephew playing in this fatal heat – what about headaches? Sister to the sun says he’s had far too many.
Later, as night approaches I return from my sojourns with clouds gathered after they’d scurried under the ray’s blows… cotton like and soaked grey. It will rain soon, but I would be home by then… looking at the faces who love me unconditionally. Mother loves Afrikaans soap operas, so I will probably go through another grueling omnibus. Nephew is sold on wrestling; he knows all the weird names of the caricatures performing gladiator stunts in front of idolizing hordes. They are me and me them… under the thunder that announces a drench. And then thoughts drift towards HER, finally. I will sleep beside a pillow with not her soul to bid mine peace. No sobs from The Black One… or common cherubical giggles before sleep. I am torn and blotted out of pristine page in love’s dream novel, I feel… as I sit watching TV, glassy eyed and mildly sighing into the fabric of my blanket.
Day Four
In preparation for yet another curse of departure, and anxiety overwhelms me. Mother insists I wear the ‘new clothes’ she bought me. How her debts accompany mine – combined with histories that will require dignification. I know she lives under a tempestuous cloud of hatred family bred – aunts and uncles with beastly tempers proclaiming doom for any of her forward charges through life. Mother has prepared me some well-butter soft-porridge, a pearly bowl that would give me the essentials for a journey. She waits on a boiling kettle for a mug full of chicory and says she will need milk for her coffee. I rush to the corner spaza shop, only to return with a sour sachet having not checked the expiry date. I am chastised and reproached by mother, with The Second Wife of Dead Son meekly at my defense.
Sister to the Sun has long awoken for her bath – first her son, then followed by her aimless body waiting to charge towards servitude. I know her dreams as she knows mine, and together we will traverse this purgatory with strength. Afterwards a wreck full of pre-scholars comes to huddle Nephew up to places of lessons. I kiss him and prepare a bath for this person-cell ready for the city’s torpor. I am devastatingly damned by tears, attempting to hide them from mother’s probing gaze. I am strengthened by her embrace as I kiss her head chakra bald and slightly bristled. She told me about a story of how since her return from maternal homesteads, she’d never covered her head. And my aunts saw this as an abominable enfeebling of her maturity through the calling of birth. I mean four seeds’ bones had passed through her skin cloaking womb? So, in retaliation to her family wenches’ scorn, she dared to her coils unto the mercy of a razor blade. Daringly she called one of the progenitors from their wombs to secretly do the lobotomy of her hair; the libation and sacred rite of severance from their control. The Jackal shaved mother – at 56.
Insults came one morning when she was sweeping the yard, from the threesome wading their baggage to their varied chores for white folks. I mourn still the marrow mother spent in those charnel-houses – pallid walls and electrified panes of supremacist affluence of privileged whites. She has now faded into ailments of bones and lungs; and Sister to the Sun once surrendered to such domestication – she once told me. A devil’s cult of sold hands that cleansed dewomanized barbies’ abodes for pennies and the penance for abandoned offspring. I recall that we often held ill of mother routine departures to the masters’ houses – but we are now grown, stoical and mighty uupon her servile shoulders de-marrowed.
I soon hop a Taxi after a vigil with dust smitten shacks watching hordes of cyclist grandfathers flocking towards municipal charge houses. Children are abound – uniformed and thrusting aims unto a dying future of ghetto penitentiaries. Classes formed among the poor glare as with textures of faded shirts on faint shoulders – plastic bags sacking volumes of education’s trails. The vehicle arrives, and I find myself once again headed for the maw of
side two of the story...
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