Bom Boy Read online

  Propelled by fright, Feathers moved with a haste his body was unprepared for, he slipped on the expensive smooth porcelain tiles, the sound of his legs sliding and a heavy thud as his skull glanced off the edge of the basin and hit the floor. His body was shaking as Oscar walked into the bathroom. A shiny pool of blood spread onto the yellow floor mat and the wriggling slowed until it felt as though the only sound in the house was a clock ticking. The man's face was not yet drained of all colour but his lips were blue. Oscar went onto his knees and put his ear to Feather's mouth, averting his eyes from the grey saucers wide open and staring. A warm breath, short.

  ‘Help,’ he whispered.

  As Oscar waited for the breath to grow faint and disappear, he realised that nothing had gone according to plan.

  ‘Malcolm?’

  Oscar's head jerked as he heard an old voice downstairs call up towards the landing. Should he run?

  ‘Malcolm, we started without you. The boys said you can join the next round. Come on, a shower shouldn't take that long. What are you–’

  She was elderly, although she did not look as old as Feathers. She wore red lipstick that was like an x-mark amidst the slack lines of her wrinkled face. Her nails were painted and milky pearls jangled down her front. She was small, he could push past her, he doubted she'd be able to point him out.

  Who are you? What have you–’ her face contorted as she saw the blood and her friend on the floor, motionless. Oscar's thoughts of running were mired by her screams and the sound of approaching feet.

  Sunday 18th November 2012

  Saturday 24th October 1992

  For Leke:

  Did it work though? I mean, here I am, while you and your mother are out there somewhere, away from me.

  I feel strange. As if something is coming. I've had that feeling for a while now I can feel it the way I think my father could feel it.

  There is another version of Moremi's story. It is not in the history books – I made it up myself. In my version the Gods longed for love not grief. Moremi went to the river and cradled her baby one last time before setting him down on the dry banks and jumping into the flowing water.

  The Gods were appeased. They feasted on the bountiful love she had for her son. And, even today, whenever the waves come onto the banks and lick the sand, that's the Gods still feasting.

  Leke – my bom boy!

  Oscar put the pen down and folded the letter twice. He placed it in the large brown envelope where he'd kept his other letters to Leke.

  As he put the envelope away he noticed a commotion at the back of the cell. Some of the older gang members had been in prison their whole lives, their families forgotten. The process of visiting when Oscar enquired, was an arduous task that almost ensured families slipped away and prisoners were left to cleave to one another. The gangs and the violence connected them.

  Oscar winced at the sound of a fist hitting flesh. His nerves were fraying and he clasped his hands together to stop them from shaking. Some strange luck had won him immunity but he was doomed to live out his sentence watching others who were less fortunate being beaten and raped. Each day less of him remained for the people he loved.

  Looking around him, as though for the first time seeing his circumstances, Oscar realised it hadn't worked. The curse killed off families, connections and intimacy. Here he was in prison, yes, he was still alive, but there was no heartbeat to the life he'd been left with, no warmth. He would finally see Elaine in eight months time, but which Oscar would she come to visit? Which Oscar would this place serve up for her? He got up off the bed, there was nothing left to do. He'd defend the young boy being raped behind the curtain. He'd do what was necessary to become human again.

  Elaine waited out the last day; she'd received a call from the lawyer saying an early visit had been negotiated due to Oscar's good behaviour. The year had stormed through like one long winter. Elaine decided to keep the news of the visit from Oscar and surprise him. When he saw Leke he would regret insisting she keep him at home.

  She cleaned a house in one of the rich neighbourhoods for the transport money. It was almost 10pm when Elaine opened up the door to her house and the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello. Who is this?’

  ‘Hello. Can I speak to Elaine Marriot?’ the man's voice on the other end was tinny. He was talking in a large space and his voice echoed against the walls.

  ‘I'm Elaine. Who's this?’

  ‘Mustafah Jacobs. I'm a warden at the Joubert Prison. I'm sorry to call at this hour. I've been calling since 9pm.’

  ‘What is it?’ Elaine asked.

  ‘I'm sorry Ma'am. I have some bad news.’

  It was a strange feeling Elaine had. To have known something and not known it at the same time. To have been waiting for something and to have forgotten one was waiting. Mustafah Jacobs said many things to console her that night. But Elaine didn't hear most of it. Oscar was dead.

  Everything Oscar owned was put into a box. The warden handed it to Elaine with a practiced heaviness. Throughout the battles that had been happening in the prison he was the one to deliver the news to the grieving widows. Inside the box were some of Oscar's clothes and a wad of lined paper with his handwriting – the letters. Elaine shivered as she thought of her son. A wrist watch and pieces of paper would not fill the gap of a father. She started to cry and the warden shifted his feet on the cold cement floor, looking down.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he said, but her tears continued.

  Saturday 24th November 2012

  Leke opened his eyes and closed them again. He did this repeatedly until he struggled to discern on which side was the dream and which side reality. Everything was white as though the atmosphere had transformed to moistened particles of chalk dust. He looked around, noting that he was in his studio but couldn't remember how he'd got back there. A soft rapping got him to his feet.

  Initially, when he opened the garage door, he could not see anything but the fluffy fog-filled day.

  ‘Who's there?’ he called out and she emerged from the softness.

  ‘I woke you up,’ she sounded disappointed.

  Leke tried to hide his happiness to see her.

  ‘I better go, it was a bad idea anyway.’

  ‘No no, come in,’ he stepped aside to let her pass, bending to close the door. When he turned around she was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking around.

  ‘This is different, bunking down with a car for a roommate,’ she said and Leke smiled relieved by her honesty.

  ‘I wasn't expecting visitors.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘How are you? How's your grandmother?’ he was sorry he'd asked, he sat down waiting for her to lift her head from her hands and her shoulders to stop shaking.

  ‘I've had to use the permanent Frail Care. I can't take care of her anymore. They’re good people but they don't understand her like I do, they don't know all the little things. They rang in the middle of the night because she was upset and demanding to speak to me – disrupting the whole place. She knew who I was, Leke. For one minute she remembered my name.’

  Later they went for a walk outside in the fog and held hands. Leke felt in a dream, he knew with a forceful certainty that with his next step he would turn to wind and fly.

  Wednesday 28th November 2012

  Marcus placed the phone down on the receiver. They'd confirmed his most recent fear. He hated doctors, ever since they had diagnosed Jane's sickness he'd felt that way. Doctors lied. Instead of saying “you’re dying” they say “what's important going forward is quality of life.” Instead of taking you by the collar and screaming “live each fucking day, love this person because they won't be here for much longer” they say “you may want to rearrange things, your daily schedule, to accommodate taking care of her.”

  ‘Balony!’ Marcus said out loud and snorted at his mental ranting.

  He opened the drinks cupboard. He shouldn't have had the third glass of whisky but since he did he may as well proceed
to the fourth.

  If doctors had ever experienced someone close to them dying they would know that with that kind of situation comes a strange condition of denial, a certain “deafness”.

  Marcus took a swig from his glass enjoying how plastic his thoughts became. Like Plasticine.

  Surely, if doctors understood about this condition of deafness they would know to shout, to speak loud and direct into the ear of the person you needed to get the message across to: live each fucking day, love this person because they won't be here for much longer.

  The doctor had wanted to know if he had anyone that would care for him as his condition worsened.

  Should he call Leke? Marcus toyed with the idea but watched it recede into the background. He went to place the empty glass in the kitchen sink, fixing his mind on bed. His cellphone rang so infrequently it took him a few seconds to realise what the noise was.

  ‘Hello,’ it took all his might to fight the drawl in his words.

  ‘Marcus.’

  ‘Leke! How’re you? You there?’

  ‘I wanted to just…’

  ‘Yes, how are you doing?’

  ‘I'm fine. I'm okay.’

  ‘Good good. How's Red? Everything okay?’

  ‘It's fine Marcus. I was checking in.’

  ‘Oh!’

  Marcus sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘How are you?’ Leke asked.

  ‘I'm alright. I was at the…I'm alright, a bit bored really. The university is about to close. After graduation. I think I'll just retire next year.’

  ‘You already are.’

  ‘But I mean just leave properly. They let me stay on all these years but…I think I'll leave properly now.’

  Leke didn't know what to say.

  ‘Well. So thanks for the call, son. Did you read the things I gave to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I also wanted to tell you something.’

  ‘Yes? You there, Leke?’

  A silence peaked.

  ‘Leke?’

  ‘See you on Sunday, Marcus.’

  ‘Great, son. Yes, see you Sunday.’

  Saturday 1st December 2012

  ‘Can you help me?’ Leke asked, looking across at the babalawo. The skin on the man's face reminded Leke of his leather brogues. The eyes were bloodshot.

  They were sitting at a table, but when Leke looked down he realised they were floating. The ground was somewhere far below and this fact did not bother him.

  The babalawo leaned forward and studied Leke. ‘You still have your baby eyes,’ he said. ‘People don't understand like us babalawos do, just as babies lose their milk teeth, they lose their baby eyes too. Followers cannot tell the difference but we can.’

  As the babalawo spoke Leke kept looking down, the ground was getting closer.

  ‘Same way you need adult teeth as you grow into the world, you need a new pair of eyes to really be able to focus. The baby is from the spirit world with spirit eyes. That makes for an unsettled life, when the child keeps her baby eyes.’

  ‘So you can't help me then?’

  ‘Your life is full of illusions. Things seen that aren't there, things that are there remaining unseen.’

  ‘But what about the curse though? That's why I'm here.’

  The babalawo shook his head.

  ‘What? Can't you remove it?’

  ‘It's impossible.’

  ‘But you’re him right? It was your curse, you were the one my great-grandparents came to?’

  He nodded.

  ‘So then? Do something. By any means, please,’ the table was rising again and the ground moved further away. ‘I love her, you see?’

  ‘Okay, give me a piece of your heart,’ the babalawo pointed at Leke's breast pocket.

  Leke reached into his pocket and pulled out his photograph. He now knew what “E” stood for – Elaine.

  ‘I'll take this,’ the babalawo said, ‘as an offering up of yourself. A token.’

  ‘So, you can reverse it?’

  ‘There is one possibility. Take,’ the babalawo placed two tokens, a cowry shell and a piece of bone into Leke's cupped hands. ‘Place one in each hand, don't let me see which,’ he spread the cowhide on the table and sprinkled some sand on it for notation. He gathered the sixteen palm-nuts into his left hand and then exchanged. Two left. He made a mark in the sand.

  The babalawo continued throwing until he had a full reading.

  ‘Well?’ Leke asked.

  ‘Show me what's in your left hand.’

  The cowry shell.

  ‘What does that mean? Can you remove the curse?’

  ‘Yes. On one condition.’

  What's that?

  The babalawo gathered up the cowries and repeated the ritual, consulting Ifa. When he'd finished he shook his head.

  ‘What's wrong?’

  ‘Show me your left hand.’

  The bone.

  ‘There will be difficulty.’

  ‘What do you mean? What's the condition?’

  ‘That's the condition.’

  The young man looked confused.

  ‘Ifa will undo the curse. There is no sacrifice required except to propitiate Esu with the entrails of a guinea fowl and its breast feathers intact.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Well, as I said there is a condition. And the condition is there is a condition but you'll never know what it is. There is a condition though and it will come and when it comes, you'll know this is it but you don't know what you’re waiting for and you don't know when it's coming. That's the condition.’

  ‘A life of dread?’ Leke asked, in the dream.

  ‘No,’ the babalawo shook his head. ‘Just a life.’

  Leke looked down as the ground drew closer and closer until, finally, he could feel the warm earth beneath his bare feet.

  The babalawo dissolved. Leke stood from the table and walked away, his feet tapping the ground. Tap. Tap.

  Leke woke to the rain tapping his tin roof. Tap. Tap. The sting of ammonia was still in the air from his last cleaning session despite the window he'd left open for ventilation. He worried water would come in through the open window, he wondered when summer would settle in properly.

  He banged his hand onto the space beside him on the mattress hoping to collide with a soft body. Nothing.

  He was almost certain he was alone. He lay still remembering his dream and wondering whether to get up and check if the photograph of Elaine was still in its place, when he heard the click of his fridge door opening and the refrigerator light showing Tsotso in white flannel pyjamas.

  ‘I'm hungry,’ her flat tone. ‘And your cupboards are bare.’

  Wednesday 19th February 2013

  ‘How much will it cost?’ Tsotso asked.

  ‘Four hundred,’ Leke replied.

  ‘Rands?’

  He shot her a look.

  ‘That's a chunk of cash, Leke.’

  The robot turned green and Leke pulled off. ‘Marcus has given me the money.’

  ‘I thought you said he doesn't believe in such things?’

  ‘He changed his mind. He said I should do whatever I need to.’

  ‘Okay, so you’re freaking me out. I mean, are you serious? A sangoma?’

  ‘Not just anyone, Marcus tracked down one he trusts. The woman who used to care for me gave the recommendation.’

  ‘Your nanny's sangoma?’

  Leke kept his eyes on the road. ‘You don't have to come with me but I'm asking you to. I'll do it either way.’

  ‘You know I'll come so don't be like that,’ she sucked her teeth and Leke tried to hide his smile.

  They drove on in silence, pulling up at the last flat they'd circled in the “Cape Ads”. The rent was good. It was near the Frail Care and it was on the ground floor – Tsotso didn't want the trauma of moving the piano up flights of stairs.

  Leke moved to open his car door and Tsotso touched his back.

 
‘I don't want this hanging over our heads. I'll go with you but promise me that will be it.’

  ‘I promise.’

  The Saturday morning traffic into Gugulethu had been heavy, something was happening at the civic hall, a gathering of some sort. Large banners waved in the breeze and the stamp of toi-toing struck a beat through the air.

  They parked Red alongside a spaza shop, a dog trailed them as they walked past a large sign, “Yellow Door Nightclub”, and entered into the compound next door. The sangoma, Sis' Lerato, was an herbalist as well as a part-time Xhosa teacher.

  ‘Good morning,’ Leke said when she opened the door, Tsotso standing behind him.

  Sis' Lerato, heavy-set, her feet in plastic slippers, looked ordinary.

  ‘Lightness would never recognise you now,’ Sis' Lerato said, opening the door wide so they walked past her into a large living area. ‘Go straight through, to the back. I'll be with you in a bit.’

  When she returned she was wearing a string of beads that covered her face. Leke and Tsotso had sat, cross-legged on one end of a long mat and she now joined them, sitting on the opposite end. Different sized jars, a few empty, others too dark to tell the contents and still others with some animal offal floating in transparent liquid, lined one of the walls of the room. A stash of old newspapers in a corner, and small grease-proof paper wrapped parcels, the size of a banana, arranged on top of a sturdy wooden shelf. The curtains were drawn but the bright day's light filtered through the thin red fabric, giving everything a faintly red tinge.

  ‘Welcome,’ Sis' Lerato settled herself, her voice hushed. ‘Yes. Yes. Welcome.’

  She pointed to the white candlestick they'd been asked to bring and a box of matches. Sis' Lerato lit the candle.

  ‘Welcome. Welcome Leke. Welcome to our daughter, Tsotso.’