me already. It’s what I love about him.
‘Hope so, Melusi, hope so.’
‘Don’t start going crazy over there.’
‘Crazy? You’re the one who’s still listening to Mafikizolo in 2016.’
This time the laugh gets right down into my stomach. I’m glad to see Melusi’s warmth return to his eyes.
‘No more talking shit, Hector. You love studying as much as you love your own reflection, so just sort it out so you can study.’
He’s right again. Ever since I watched re-runs of L.A. Law on Bop TV with Mom, and then The Practice at Aunty Estere’s, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. If I was going to keep getting into trouble, I wanted to know how to get myself out of it. A fair chance at justice seems like reason enough to keep this protest going, even if I know better than most that in the end it’s unlikely to matter anyway.
‘It’s all impermanent,’ I mumble without meaning to say it out loud.
‘What are you saying?’
‘Just thinking, man, daydreaming.’
‘Nice to be a student and sit here drinking beer all day and dreaming while others are slaving away at real jobs.’
‘Hey, man, we’re working too.’
‘I know, I know. So stop polishing your shoes while those students you’re supposedly leading are already at campus calling out the government.’
‘This government, hey, man! Lucky I’m studying law because that way I’ll never be without a job. They talk out of their arses for sure. If lips could fall off from lip service …’
‘Don’t get started again, man. I’ve heard it all before.’
‘But it’s like every time it’s the same type of person that sets the rest of us up to fall and die. Same type commanding the troops at Delville, same type commanding the bulldozers in the fifties, same type ordering students to get shot in the seventies, same type taking bribes from the French for arms, same type—’
‘Stop. Now you seriously don’t know what shit you’re talking. That stuff you learn in history is just half of the story. This government isn’t like the others. If you don’t think our lives are better—’
‘That’s not what I’m saying, man. I’m talking about the fact that politicians since time immemorial have been making the masses the same promises – a better life for all or whatever – and in all that business they forget to implement those promises, and it’s always the working class—’
Melusi interrupts me by throwing his bottle into the bin between our houses, hard. Hard enough for me to know I’ve crossed the line. It’s the age difference between us. We just can’t get past it.
‘Hector, I need to sleep and you’re going to be late for your big show if you keep sitting here ranting. Go now.’
‘I just want them to keep their promises.’
‘We all do, my bra, we all do.’
He closes his door before I can apologise again. I know he’ll have forgotten about it or forgiven me by tomorrow. Just because I’m younger, he thinks I’m naive, but I’m not; I’m committed. This time, things will be different. Not like last year or any of the others before it.
Twenty years since they wrote the Constitution and these leaders are still spinning the same line. Melusi got sold dreams in 1994, the year I was born, and I’m here for the refund. This time last year we thought we’d made progress – they said they’d review things, get back to us with an offer. Then they passed the buck to the universities, with no bucks to accompany it. Seems like they’ve got plenty of money for cops, though.
‘Hector!’
Melusi’s shouting at me through his door. I knew he’d forgive me.
‘Yo?’
‘Answer your damn phone!’
I’ve been so deep in thought, I haven’t heard my phone ringing. I must be going deaf from all the stun grenades they’ve thrown at us the last while. They don’t call them flashbangs for nothing. Three missed calls already and all Estere. Mom might not be watching the news, but Estere will be.
‘Hi, Aunty.’
She doesn’t falter at my fake casual voice.
‘Bakhulule Hector Dlamini, you better stop this behaviour at once. I don’t want to have to hear from everyone that my nephew is on television burning artwork.’
‘I’m only doing what’s needed.’
‘No, what’s needed is that you get your law degree and start acting like an adult. You’re not a boy any more, Hector.’
‘I need to do this so that more people get a chance at getting a degree. So more people can be like me and get this access …’
‘Well, you’re going to need that law degree because by the looks of things you and all your friends are going to end up in jail for arson.’
‘We have to burn things – it’s the only way to get taken seriously.’
‘Oh, you think this is serious? That anyone will give you a job when you are the face of this fake revolution?’
How does Estere know exactly how to get under my skin? It’s like she knew from the moment I was born.
‘A job is the last thing on my mind right now.’
‘It shouldn’t be – you’ll need a job to do the real work of fighting for the rights of people who don’t have access, who need help.’
‘Is that what you did? Sit back and watch? Because, from what Mom told me, you were just as happy to burn things in your day …’
I shouldn’t have said that. I can hear her sucking the air through her teeth and the sharp click of her tongue. I flinch, expecting the smack to the ears. When she speaks again, it is slow and commanding.
‘Bakhulule, that is not how you speak to your elders. Your mother did not raise you this way. Back then, things were different. Those were different times.’
She’s so wrong. These times are just the same.
‘Estere, sometimes it’s hard to see the truth in something unless you’re right in the middle of it. Trust me. What the journalists show you is only a small slice of what we’re going through. They’re just looking for the best photo of the angriest black guy they can find. It’s not all like that. Most of us are simply out there exercising our right to protest – a right that activists like you fought for us to have.’
I’m making her angrier but I can’t stop. She should be angry. I’m angry for all of us. I stand up, getting dust on my shoes as I stomp into my house, her disappointment making me even more determined to get back to campus and prove that this matters. I don’t know when all those old activists lost this feeling, this drive to make things better, but it hasn’t helped any of us that they’re chilling with their BEE ratings on the sunloungers of once-every-four-years political participation.
‘I hope you can hear my voice in that thick skull of yours. Stay off the news and don’t do anything stupid this week. Don’t get arrested. Because one thing you should be able to trust me on is that it’s not as glamorous as you think.’
So she’s thrown her struggle credentials in to silence me. Smooth move. Not much I can say to that. Her voice softens as I sigh.
‘Bakhulule, don’t let your decisions come back to haunt you.’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘You always have a choice.’
She doesn’t understand and her sigh is as large as a Nyala police van driving over my courage. But