morning unravelled as I made my way down. A young mother hung the last of her infant’s clothes up on a line. An old woman tossed water from a bucket onto the pathway just after I passed her shack. I walked faster to avoid the stream of soapy water. I recognised a few faces from high school.
Unlike most other shacks made of timber and metal roof sheets, Bheka’s was built properly with concrete blocks and roof tiles. Straws with the poison – wunga – were in his overall pockets. I watched as he made a sale to two boys about my brother’s age. Young slaves to the first high, they were their families’ Simphiwe.
‘Your brother exchanged his cellphone for a lot of wunga. He took his SIM card with him,’ the wunga merchant said when I asked about Simphiwe. ‘I don’t know where he went because it gets busy here on weekends, but he was here. He started a fight. It wasn’t in my yard; it was down there at the cul-de-sac. Tell the boy to cool it. He’s still young and the things that come out of his mouth are too old for him.’
I sat on the steps and smoked a cigarette, my mind processing the information about my brother. A wunga boy stopped and shook my hand like he knew me. It took me a while to recognise him. As he let go of my hand, I realised it was a friend’s brother. He had grown unhealthily thin. After greeting, I asked if he had seen Simphiwe.
‘He was here on Friday with Dumisani. There was a fight. Dumisani started the whole thing. Simphiwe was fighting for him. Wunga hits us in different ways. For most of us it zaps energy, but Simphiwe gains energy. He is everywhere: dice game, cards … Your brother doesn’t know when to stop. And he never backs down. We broke up the fight but Simphiwe just kept pushing it. It’s his karate that makes him think he is invincible. It’s worse since he became friends with Dumisani. Your brother uses Dumisani’s reputation as a shield, but the boy whose nose he broke is just as bad, if not worse.’
‘Dumisani who?’
‘You know him, he lives near the butchery. You went to school with his brother, Sango.’
‘You mean that fat boy?’
‘He is thin now, after what happened last year and his time away. You know what happened, right?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Anyway, they left here in a friend’s car. I don’t know who. Sorry, I’m in a hurry. Good to see you. You have R5 for me? I need to get my day going.’
I don’t remember if I gave him the money or not. Not much registered besides the bolt of shock going through my body as I connected the name to a face. Dumisani was Sango’s younger brother: the killer kid.
I wanted to buy thin-cut T-bone from the butchery – a little contribution to the household from tips I made during the week. The only butchery with decent meat was near Sango’s house anyway. I’d pass by and ask about Dumisani’s whereabouts.
I buzzed at the gate and waited, until the neighbour opposite, an old lady, called out from her veranda: ‘There’s nobody there. They are away at a church conference. Try them tomorrow.’
‘What about Sango? Is he around?’
‘Sango works in Richard’s Bay now, since the beginning of the year.’
‘And his younger brother, Dumisani?’
‘Who am I answering to? My boy, who are you?’
‘Apologies for not introducing myself. I went to school with Sango and my name is Khulekani.’
‘I see. I haven’t seen Dumisani since Friday morning when he left the house keys with me.’
‘Do you have his phone number?’
‘He doesn’t have a phone. He is a wunga addict. His parents got fed up because every time they buy him a new phone, he sells it to smoke that poison.’
I thanked her, smiled politely, and said goodbye when she started down the road to chatty. I dialled Simphiwe’s number three times on the way home, wishing that, by some miracle, he’d paid the wunga merchant and got his phone back while I was out looking for him. All I got was his voicemail.
Ma had just finished cooking Sunday supper when I got home. I told her the story but thought it best to leave out all the added madness that had come into Simphiwe’s life. The fact that she knew he’d become a wunga addict was bad enough, without me turning the screws. She did not need to hear about his fights and camaraderie with killer kids.
‘They left in a friend’s car. My guess is they went to the city. There were parties all over, this weekend. I checked at one of his friend’s houses, the one they told me he was with. A neighbour told me the family was away. I’ll check in the morning.’
A very thin layer of worry lifted from her face. Nonetheless, it was a grim Sunday. I did not eat. The house was filled with the delicious smells of Sunday supper, but I felt sick.
Later, I fell asleep on my books, but then woke with a jolt due to a nightmare in which a green Golf was going up in flames.
By my first class at Tech, Tourism Policy, the bad dream had been forgotten, as nightmares and even happy dreams often are. I was supposed to study past test papers for the rest of the day, but the weight of the weekend won. I squeezed in a few hours of rest in a friend’s room while he was in Technical Drawing class.
I stared at the ceiling for a while, but then fell into a deep sleep polluted with bad dreams that went on and on, and chilled my bones. Nightmares about Simphiwe, or rather his voice, for he was out of focus and far away. There was no background either; just a thick blackness and his voice: loud, complaining, accusing …
‘Of all people, Khulekani, I thought you would find me. Do you know how cold it is here? When you come here, bring my jacket!’ he shouted.
‘Which jacket?’
‘That blue Nike one, with the white tick.’
‘But you sold it for straws of wunga.’
‘Just bring me a jacket. It is cold here.’
His voice faded away.
I bolted upright, soaked in sweat. I grabbed my backpack and went down to the road to hail a taxi to Umlazi township.
The taxi dropped me off at the butchery near Sango’s house. I made my way to the neat house with the lush, trimmed lawn. Sango’s parents, both teachers, had lived in this house for a lifetime. When we were still in school, especially primary school, Sango would come and play soccer at our section, in our yards, but we never played at his house. Their grass was too manicured for our kick-abouts.
They raised Sango right. Connections got him a dream job when he left high school. He married his girlfriend from church and babies would surely be on the way soon. He had probably been promoted too, as he was now working in Richard’s Bay. His was a life prescribed, and he aced it with flying colours. Sango the genuine good son – yes, they succeeded in raising him right. It was with their youngest son, Dumisani, that they achieved the opposite. From a crybaby, Dumisani grew to be general bad news: high-school dropout, addict, killer kid.
Sango’s parents’ dining room could pass for a shrine to Christianity. The face of the clock on their wall was a solemn, gazing Jesus Christ. There was a print of a blue-eyed Virgin Mary and one of Joseph and Mary staring at baby Jesus. Nordic, of course – all their halos bright and gold like the colour of the hair on their heads. And JC again, this time on a cross carved out of wood. In the mix, away from this centrepiece, there was a photo of Sango and Dumisani with their parents – dignified folk in their Sunday best. Peace brimming in everyone’s eyes, except Dumisani’s. There was something that looked to me like confused evil in his stare.
Sango’s parents welcomed me warmly, with a genuine goodness of manner that made it hard to understand how they had given birth to a killer.
‘How can we help you, my boy?’ the father, Mr Mlaba, asked.
‘My name is Khulekani and I’m a schoolmate of Sango’s. I’m looking for my