Is he here?’ Boy Boy couldn’t look me straight in the eye. He scratched the back of his head, arms and shoulders – tell-tale signs that he yearned for a wunga hit.
‘You know I don’t entertain his nonsense. It has nothing to do with me. It’s his life, not mine. He is not here.’
I was going to close the door, but he went on.
‘I thought, as his older brother, you should know about the fight,’ he said, his scratching growing vigorous.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked.
‘I need a hit. Do you have R5, Khulekani? Please, I want to buy bread.’
‘You just told me you need a hit, Boy Boy.’
He got my drift, understood he was not going to get a cent out of me. I fumed at Simphiwe’s latest stunt, my vanished sneakers, and the dead gaze in Boy Boy’s eyes. It all added to the hangover I already had. I wanted to complain to Ma but when I opened the door to her bedroom, I found she had gone back to sleep. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was still only six in the morning.
I drank water and napped the hangover off, waking up to a silhouette at my door an hour later. It was Ma.
‘You know I’ve never dreamed of your father since he passed, but I just saw him now in my dreams. He told me Simphiwe is in trouble.’
‘Simphiwe does this every weekend. He’ll be back. Besides, Ma, I have tests this week. I need to study.’ During the week I crashed with friends on campus since Simphiwe’s antics were not good for my studying, but over weekends I had to come back home to Ma and the troublemaker. Luckily I was still on course to finish my Tourism diploma on time.
‘Shut up and listen to me.’ Pools of tears filled Ma’s eyes and she went on: ‘Your father said Simphiwe is in trouble and you must look for him. And that is exactly what you are going to do.’
‘Okay, okay, Ma!’ I was alarmed by what Ma had said, and how she said it – her voice stern, before she broke down in tears. I left the house to show her I was going to do as she asked, so that she could calm down. I was worried about the state she was in, but not about Simphiwe. He had been going AWOL over weekends regularly, so to me it really was just more of the same.
The change in my little brother’s life had happened at high speed. It was painful to witness: the lies, the stealing, the shame he brought to the family. My dad, especially, must be turning in his grave.
I tore open a new airtime voucher and thought angrily of my sneakers – brand new and two sizes too big for Simphiwe. It took me a long time to make enough money to buy them, working as a busboy in a restaurant after my classes at Tech.
Cold bottled water from the shop on the corner lifted the weight from a heavy night of partying. Blocking thoughts of Simphiwe, I decided to rather call Anele, this beauty in my class, to hear how her studying was going. If anyone could motivate me to hit the books hard this weekend, it would be her.
While punching in the voucher PIN, I made out the scrawny frame of Boy Boy with another wunga addict on the outskirts of my peripheral vision. They walked, lost. When they saw me and approached, I recognised the need for a fix in their eyes.
‘Have you seen Simphiwe yet?’
‘No.’
‘Eish!’ Boy Boy whined and clutched the back of his head.
‘What’s wrong, Boy Boy?’
‘I haven’t had a hit today. Help me out; the pain in my belly is unbearable. I can feel my intestines twist into knots. The back of my head is cold, my whole body itches. Please, Khulekani, I’m only short by R5. I beg you, please, my brother. I am good for it. We have this roof-painting job, but we can’t function without the hit. I’ll pay you back this afternoon.’
‘I would, Boy Boy, but you are not helping me with Simphiwe. I bet you know where he is, but you are covering for him.’
‘No such thing. He has not been smoking with us for a week. Look for him at the wunga merchant,’ Boy Boy said, scratching harder, almost peeling the brown off his skin.
‘What’s his name? Skhumbuzo?’
‘Not Skhumbuzo. Bheka, in the shacks. That’s where Simphiwe smokes now, where I heard the fight happened.’
Boy Boy gave me the directions to the shack and again pleaded most sincerely for cash. He looked to be in physical pain, so I relented and gave him R5.
Before I could call Anele or go look for my brother at the wunga merchant, a friend called: ‘We are around the corner to pick you up.’
One beer to kill the hangover led to a drinking spree that put the Simphiwe problem on the back burner and ended with me sneaking into the house in the early hours of Sunday morning.
I thought Simphiwe would be in our room when I woke up; thought he would be asleep fully dressed and snoring as usual, his socks stinking up the room. I was so convinced that his thin self was concealed in the bedding that I called out – to nothing. I also thought I’d wake up to Ma away from home and at church as always on a Sunday, but she was in the lounge on the sofa, her eyes red with worry.
‘Ma, did he return?’
‘No, he didn’t. Did you not find him yesterday?’
‘No, Ma.’
‘He is worrying me.’
‘Don’t worry. He probably lost track of days – the wunga he smokes does that. Are you not going to church today?’
‘No, we will visit the sickly instead.’
‘I heard he was seen at the wunga merchant in the shacks on Friday. I’ll look for him later.’
‘You could have done that yesterday. What’s wrong with you?’ Ma asked.
‘It was late when I heard the news. I could not risk going there at night with the muggings in the neighbourhood.’
‘What’s holding you back from going there now? Alcohol steams off you with every answer. That child is watching you, that’s why he is this loose!’
‘I don’t smoke wunga and Simphiwe doesn’t drink,’ I retorted.
‘That’s all you know? To answer me back?’ She was mad.
‘What did I do, Ma? Every time Simphiwe does wrong, you blame me.’
A taxi stopped at the gate.
‘We’ll continue this when I come back,’ she snapped, closing the front door.
Through the lounge window I watched Ma get into the taxi. For the first time that weekend she smiled as she greeted her friends from church. Then she settled in her seat and just as quickly was again casting a sullen gaze out the window as the taxi drove off.
With Ma attending to her church stuff, and Simphiwe out there chasing, Sunday mornings were perfect for studying. Ordinarily I was efficient in the silence. I’d planned to study for the last tests of the semester coming up in the week, but on that Sunday thoughts of Simphiwe crammed every cube of the empty space.
My books were open on my lap, but I stared out of the window, looking at nothing. When I looked back into the room it was to our wall unit with Simphiwe’s trophies for running and karate. His school picture showed him beaming – a smile I had not seen in months. I tried to study, but thoughts of Simphiwe darted through my mind.
I tried to nap, but couldn’t take my eyes off his drawing on the wall of our bedroom. On a sheet of white A4 paper Simphiwe had sketched a lake, using two shades of pencils. I was so deep in the drawing that the lake seemed to ripple and shimmer.
When I came back to reality, I walked to the kitchen, opened the door and went out looking for my brother.
I had not been to the shacks in two years and was surprised by how much the community