JEN THORPE
THE FALL
KWELA BOOKS
For Fiona,
queen of GIFs and the very best sister.
MONDAY
CHAPTER 1
Hector
This time around I’m making it out alive. Things are different. There’s something in the energy of the movement, a conviction I’ve never felt before. I’ve changed too. I’m ready this time.
‘Nice tackies, Hector. You sure they’re white enough?’
My neighbour, Melusi, smirks at me over the joke of a fence between our two back-yard homes.
‘Can’t get there and look like I don’t mean business, can I? I need those fat government cats to take me seriously.’
‘Take yourself seriously – nobody trusts a man whose shoes or clothes are too clean.’
He’s laughing as he heads back into his ramshackle self-constructed house, but I keep washing my backup pair of white sneakers with corn starch. Protesting in clean clothes does something to silence Mom’s voice in my ear criticising me for protesting in the first place. Aunty Estere didn’t pay for those expensive clothes so you can destroy them in a protest, Bakhulule – polishing your tackies to look good on camera instead of working hard so you can buy your own shoes … tsek. Even in my imagination, she can never tell me she’s disappointed.
Mom wouldn’t even know how to live in this world now. She wouldn’t get it. These days you have to start a fire to get taken seriously. Though I guess that was the same in her time.
Melusi comes back from his house and offers me a lukewarm beer; I take it out of politeness and habit. With my first sip, I drift off into memory.
‘You know, Melusi, the first time I ever got involved in something like this, things seemed so much clearer. There were the good guys and there were the bad guys. There was a uniform that said which side you were on, or at least the colour of your skin told you. People were willing to die for what they believed in, but now—’
Melusi interrupts me, snort-laughing. ‘Hector, man, sometimes I don’t know whether you’re talking from your butt or your mouth because most times it’s just shit that comes out. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You’re a baby.’
Of course, he wouldn’t understand how I know. How could I expect him to? I try again.
‘I mean that it feels like people used to know why they were fighting for things, and now they just do it because it looks cool, or their friends are doing it, or they want the selfie. You know?’
‘Says the dude polishing a pair of canvas tackies so they’re whiter than the DA.’
We laugh, but it doesn’t reach my stomach. We sip our beers some more, me on a plastic garden chair, him leaning on one leg and kicking the dry ground where grass used to grow before the drought.
If Mom could see me now, she’d kick the shit out of me for renting this back-yard shanti when Estere’s giving me money that could cover a flat in the ’burbs. She wouldn’t understand that I’m trying to save up. I’ve got a good feeling that this time around I can make it out the other side, and it would be nice to have a bit of cash stashed away. For … something.
‘Hey, man, don’t kick that dust near my clean shoes. I’ve got to wear those tomorrow.’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Melusi bows. ‘I wouldn’t want to spoil your expensive Converses or dirty your palace.’
This place is no palace but I’ve seen worse. At least it has an inside toilet, not like our old place in Meriting. Stupid name for a township where the only merit was that most days the men were underground mining instead of above ground drinking.
‘Hey, Melusi, did I ever tell you about—’
‘Probably, you never seem to stop talking, my man. It’s from being around women too much. You don’t know the comfort of a quiet drink, or the silence between men.’
He’s joking, smile on his broad face, but he’s right. In our house, the drinks were loud and so were the men, and it was a bad combination for me but mostly for my mom. The men she chose were too noisy, took up too much space, so that when they fucked off out of our two-room shack it felt giant with the space they left. Sometimes we needed the space for recovery, sometimes just for grief. But whatever, I made it through, right? I was lucky.
Those times when it was just us two, she’d be on me like a rash nagging me about my homework and to tidy my room and to go out and get things from neighbours. She wanted me to be a better man, to get a good education. I’m doing it, but I wonder whether all that money she scrimped and saved was worth it.
‘Maybe you’re right, Melusi, maybe I do talk too much. Maybe this protest isn’t worth it.’
‘Do you expect me to believe that you believe that? You’re loving this, my bra. Loving it.’
Mom spent all that money on a Model C school so I could learn with the rich mine kids and have people say that I spoke well. She was so busy taking care of me that she didn’t take good enough care of herself.
I start polishing my tackies again, avoiding thinking any more about home and focusing on the job at hand.
‘Don’t worry, my bra, your shoes are right. If you get shot, I’ll come identify you by your Colgate-white tackies.’
‘This isn’t the old days, Melusi. Nobody gets shot at a university protest.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
I didn’t mean to sound condescending, and I’m glad he’s the type of person not to hold it against me. Politics isn’t Melusi’s thing anyway, and he’s got no plans to come to varsity, even if it were free. He didn’t finish school, and he’s got a stable job. He doesn’t see the point – or so he says.
As it is now, it would bankrupt him. You get into varsity for five minutes before you realise you’re out of your depth and out of pocket. Three years of Estere’s fancy high school and all of her money still didn’t equip me for that, or for the hidden costs. You think it’s fees and done, but then it’s photocopies, and printing, and student cards, and societies, and exam fees, and food, and residence keys and, before you know it, what sounded like a fortune feels like pocket change. I could ask Estere for more, but she’s done enough for me as it is. Plus, it’s not right, on principle.
Melusi’s still kicking the dust, staring at me buffing my shoes.
‘This morning the train station was packed with kids heading to protest.’
‘Today’s going to be a big day. The minister’s supposed to come and address us at campus. Should be lit.’
‘I just hope the students stay on campus and leave the station alone. Last week when he didn’t come they threw rubbish everywhere, and—’
‘They’re just trying to get attention.’
‘Well, maybe they should also take notice of who has to clean up after they get their attention and go home. Mtoti had to stay late at work to clean up their mess and then walk home in the dark.’
His normally warm voice has turned angry, and as we both imagine his girlfriend walk home along the field in the dark, I feel guilty. Melusi’s been working security at the train station for more than a decade, night shift. Mtoti works day shift as a cleaner.
‘Fuck, man, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. Do better. And stop swearing, man, it doesn’t suit you.’
I’ve started swearing too much, he’s right. My language is just something else for Mom and Estere to disapprove of. I didn’t teach you English so you could learn how