Bom Boy Page 8

  ‘I should be there by now,’ he said to the wind but there came no reply.

  He suddenly realised the air around him had disappeared and he was struggling to breathe. Understanding that he had gone too far he moved to turn and fly back upwards but something gripped him. He couldn't see them but indeed he had flown into the mass of dark wires. They felt more like sticky roots grabbing at his limbs and body. Making licking sounds, the saliva of this beast like acid on his skin. As he took his last breath he noticed that the inside of the belly of his captor was pasted with the same photograph he'd been staring at earlier. Block after block, a strange collage. She watched him die.

  More and more nightmares had invaded his dream-life so that, exhausted after a night of struggle, he fell asleep at his desk at school and dropped two grades by the end of term exams.

  ‘Is it hard at home?’ the young school guidance counsellor had asked, sitting across from Leke.

  The steel chair was cold and soothing against the backs of his knees exposed beneath the school shorts.

  ‘We know your mom is seriously ill.’

  ‘She's not my mom.’

  Leke's nightmares continued, he would wake up sweating and crying and Jane would come to comfort him.

  ‘Bad dream?’ she'd say not switching the lights on but coming and settling on the edge of the bed. Her bony hands found the bump of his legs and caressed him.

  She was sick. Dying. But Leke couldn't help himself.

  ‘How did you find me? Did my mother throw me away? Forget me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you have to take care of me? Did someone force you?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Then what?’

  She came closer to hold him but he turned away and pulled deeper into the blankets.

  ‘Why did you call me Leke?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where did you get that name from?’

  ‘I–’

  Even though it was dark and his back was to her he could imagine her face as she decided to lie. Maybe she thought any answer, not the truth, would calm him. Maybe she was tired, she was sick. Maybe she thought when she was strong again she'd explain properly. Or maybe she would leave it to Marcus which would be as good as leaving it to no one.

  ‘I don't know what happened, Leke. All I know is every single nurse in that hospital was madly in love with you and I had to fight them to allow me to adopt you. They gave me your name with no explanation. Some of them cried when we came to collect you. That's where you come from, my dear. Not a dustbin but a warm nest of love.’

  The mythic nurses would later appear in his dreams to hush away demons.

  It didn't explain the photograph, but her invention absolved her. Leke turned and let himself be hugged by Jane. Some nightmares persisted but fewer than before. Jane never came again to comfort him. Instead she sent Marcus. After she died no one came. Over time the nightmares dimmed but his sleep was never the same again, sometimes missing that sleeping world of unbounded adventure hurt his heart and he cried when he was by himself.

  Leke placed the photograph back and put on his shoes. The image in the bathroom mirror as he washed his hands grabbed his attention. He looked as though studying a stranger's reflection. He had to bend down to catch the top of the mirror.

  Back in the restaurant the heated air from the fire warmed his face but the conversation with Marcus remained tight and cold.

  ‘How's Red? You fix the wipers yet?’

  Leke nodded, watching as Marcus drained his wine glass.

  Marcus signalled to the waiter. Want some dessert Leke?’

  The ice-cream shocked Leke's teeth, the pain was too much and he left his bowl half full. Marcus finished his, the chink of the spoon on the bowl joining the chorus of other eating noises in the restaurant.

  ‘See you next week?’ Marcus asked, digging his hands into his pockets, jingling his car keys and scanning the parking lot for his car. Leke nodded, but Marcus wasn't looking. Having spotted his car he turned to Leke and tried to hug him, Leke tightened and he patted his shoulder instead.

  ‘Take care, son.’

  Leke walked towards home, ignoring taxi drivers hooting and calling for him to jump in. He counted his footsteps in groups of one hundred, starting again after each century. A pair of lovers held hands and kissed in the corner of a bus shelter. In the verge a homeless man jerked off underneath a tattered blanket. Another ragged woman cursed her husband who walked behind her pushing an empty trolley and cursing her back.

  He strolled past the familiar spot, Doves Funeral Parlour, and even though he couldn't be sure it was the same one, he thought of Jane and what he remembered of her burial. The memories were coming easily now, and he let them.

  The morning of the funeral the house was full of people. Jane was popular at the high school she'd taught at before she fell ill and Marcus had a big family. Between Jane's sister and her family, Marcus's five older sisters, their families and a bunch of school kids in uniform, Leke didn't recognise his own space – transformed from a familiar home into an uncertain place. He didn't know where to sit.

  They drove to the church in a long skinny black car, it gleamed and Leke liked it when he stood beside it and saw his curved reflection on the body.

  At the church, the family was led in and seated, the large hall filled up with people, most of whom Leke didn't recognise.

  Jane was to be cremated. After everyone was seated Marcus and four of the matrics from Bremley High School walked with the coffin, pushing it on a trolley.

  She was sleeping not moving at all. And she was wearing a white dress, with puffy sleeves, that Leke had never seen.

  Later, when Leke asked Marcus what his mother was wearing Marcus explained that Jane had asked to be buried in her wedding dress.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don't know, my boy,’ they sat on a bench in the garden hiding from the guests eating and drinking in the house.

  The garden had once been photographed by House & Garden, Jane had won best letter of the month and part of the prize was a garden makeover and photos in the following month's issue: A giant rubber tree at the far corner where the grass dipped; a small koi pond near the veranda so you could hear it if you ate breakfast on the stoep.

  Further along Main Road there were people carrying shopping bags. He'd already spent the morning in the mall but after the lunch with Marcus he didn't want to go back to his studio.

  The Plaza Mall closed its doors at 10pm every night except Friday and Saturday nights when it closed at 11pm. On a Saturday or Sunday Leke arrived at 8 am ahead of the early morning shoppers.

  Leke waited at the entrance of the mall. A woman in a peak cap and tennis shoes, tall but dressed simply in tracksuit pants and t-shirt. He followed her into the mall.

  She went into the supermarket. In aisle two a shop attendant was stacking Cornflakes next to Rice Crispies. Leke, staying behind the attendant, caught a better look at the woman – she had a bandage on her face, barely concealing a bruised cheek and black eye. Perhaps she'd had a fight with her husband? She filled two small baskets – frozen peas, canned goods, cleaning products and cereals – and joined the short queue to check out. As she wandered out the glass doors with her bright bags her cellphone rang.

  ‘Yes?’ she shouted. What is it? … I'm on my way… Yah, well fuck you too! Fuck you! I hate you… I said I'm on my way for God's sake!’ Click.

  ‘FFUUUCK!’ she flung her head back and screamed into the hollow insides of the mall.

  Other shoppers turned to stare as she walked towards the car park, snivelling.

  Beside her car, her hands full, she looked around for someone to help her open the door. Leke, walking past, obliged.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said after she'd piled the bags into the back of the car.

  ‘So kind,’ she continued, her voice muffled as she tried to hide her face with her hand. Leke nodded in response and backed away.

  Later th
at night he lay awake in bed; he'd wanted something to remember her by but couldn't steal anything fast enough from the shopping bags.

  His sleep was disturbed by a recurring dream in which he was standing in a deep hole. Above his head he could hear the sound of digging and every few seconds soil rained down on him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted.

  ‘It's me,’ his voice called back at him.

  Monday 27th August 2012

  Leke nodded in Lewis's direction as he clocked in. The security guard, sitting on a chair by the door, pursed his lips in response – Leke was ten minutes late. The workers who were friendly with Lewis would go to lunch without clocking out and he would look away while they were leaving, as if he didn't notice. But with Leke, Lewis was always watching. It was Lewis who had lodged the hygiene complaint against him. Leke looked back to see Lewis scowl as he climbed the steps to the first floor of the two-storey office building.

  A dark corridor, with the manager's office to the left, led into an open plan space.

  Leke walked past the auditors and went to his cubicle. There was no natural light on his side of the office, but a pot plant, placed on the worn carpet, with spiky green leaves, endured, surviving on the half-finished cups of rooibos tea that he emptied into its soil. Leke sat down at his desk without removing his backpack, and turned on his computer.

  ‘Hey, Leke!’

  Gene had joined the company five days before, and was still unaware of the hidden rule amongst the staff: ignore Leke.

  Leke tilted his head to acknowledge his new neighbour.

  Gene was half distracted, adjusting the height of his monitor. He'd been doing this since he'd arrived, complaining to Leke over his shoulder that “they don't make things for tall people like you and me, pal”.

  ‘How was your weekend?’ Gene asked, stretching up and smoothing his hands over his brush-cut auburn hair.

  Gene's face, less pale than his hands, was tanned a light bronze.

  ‘Okay,’ Leke said.

  ‘Do anything interesting? Did you catch that movie with the hot chick on SABC 1? With the–’ he cupped his hands in front of his chest.

  ‘No.’

  Someone sniggered and Gene looked around the office, confused. He shrugged, asked, ‘You watch the rugby?’

  ‘No,’ Leke said, as he punched in his computer password.

  Gene sighed and turned back to his computer.

  At 12.15pm Leke got up. The talk in the tea pause area quietened as he dropped a teabag into his mug. At his desk he took off his backpack and pulled out a cellophane bag with five rusks in it. He ate one, careful to collect the crumbs that fell on the desk, and wipe them into the dustbin – the cleaner had complained about the bits of food and the cockroaches they'd attracted.

  Immediately after finishing his first cup of tea Leke got up to make himself a second.

  Back at his desk again, Gene had wheeled his chair out between the desk clusters and was gawking at something. Leke looked to see what he was staring at.

  Two women chatted a few desks up. One, tall, was standing; leaning forward, her hands spread on the desk. The other sat holding a leaflet the tall one had handed to her. She scanned it and asked something. The tall one pointed towards a side wing where the board room was located. After a few seconds the woman sitting down shook her head and returned the flyer. The tall woman walked on, stopping at each desk till finally she got to where Leke and Gene sat.

  ‘Hey sweetheart,’ Gene dropped his voice a tone lower.

  ‘Hi. I'm Tsotso.’

  ‘Gene. He's Leke,’ he took her hand and she had to prise it back from him.

  ‘Not sure if you guys saw the posters. I arranged with WPBC to have a blood clinic here. It's today, will you come through and donate?’

  ‘I will if you’re inviting me.’

  She didn't smile. She handed them each a flyer and waited while they skimmed through it.

  “GIVE BLOOD”, it said, in bold lettering.

  ‘You do this often?’ Gene put the flyer aside, leaned back in his chair and pasted her with his eyes.

  ‘I spend a lot of time in hospitals, around nurses. I guess their lectures on blood donation finally got to me,’ she was very matter-of-fact.

  ‘How'd you get Robocop in on it? Boss man doesn't even know I exist,’ he leaned forward on his chair. ‘You must have special powers.’

  Tsotso frowned and looked towards Leke who had turned back to his computer. ‘Are you coming?

  ‘Yeah yeah yeah, we’re coming,’ Gene said.

  She looked back at Gene and then Leke. ‘Okay, starts at midday. Bring your IDs.’

  Gene watched her walk on to the next desk. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Very, very nice.’

  A line formed, it wound through the office and ended at the boardroom door. Leke and Gene joined the queue. They looked out for Tsotso but didn't see her. Every ten minutes or so the boardroom door was opened and, craning his neck, Leke caught a glimpse of some beds and equipment.

  ‘Nervous?’ Gene asked. ‘I hate needles, by the way. I hate blood. Can't stand the prick of the needle. That's what I can't take. And they make you watch, you know? You nervous?’

  Leke scuffed his shoe into the carpet.

  You think she'll be hot? The nurse,’ Gene strained to see how fast the line was moving. ‘That's one of the reasons I'm doing this,’ he smirked.

  The mythic nurses had returned on and off to Leke's dreams but in life he avoided hospitals and clinics. He wiped his palms on his chest.

  Gene noticed a colleague butting into the queue, ‘Hey, join from the back man! Some of us have been waiting a while.’

  Gene went in before Leke and then the door opened and it was finally Leke's turn. Inside there were three desks and three beds set up.

  ‘Please sit down. Could you fill this in? It's a lifestyle survey which is mandatory for all donors.’

  The nurse at one of the desks wore no lipstick and the flesh around the tips of her nails was raw and reddened.

  Leke took long to fill in the form.

  ‘Have you had sexual activity with a male or female prostitute, escort or sex worker, or exchanged money, drugs, goods or favours in return for sex?’

  He hesitated, nothing had happened that night though, he thought to himself, remembering the woman's caked make-up and wobbly high heels. The look on her face when he'd told her he'd changed his mind.

  ‘Finished?’ the nurse asked.

  Leke signed his name and handed her the form.

  She glanced over it before adding it to a pile.

  ‘Thanks. Have you donated before?’

  ‘Blood?’

  She smiled, ‘Yes, what else?’

  Leke shook his head.

  ‘Okay, let's register you. Your ID, please. Thanks. I'll issue you with a card. Next time you donate you can use it as identification,’ she handed Leke the card. ‘Next I need to do a finger prick test, checking your iron levels. Give me your right hand please.’

  Her hand felt soft, pudgy. Leke winced at the pin prick. She left for a short while then returned.

  ‘Okay, come lie on the bed. Let's check your pressure and pulse.’

  Everything was fine.

  ‘Okay Your arm please. Other arm. Thanks,’ she had a young face but her ample figure lent her a maturity, a kind of confidence – she didn't seem to mind that she took up space.

  A silver nametag on the breast of her white uniform said Adielah Moses. Her neck sat in rolls of cream-coloured flesh beneath her chin. She had horse-shoe earrings and fine dark hair grew along the sides of her face, other strands of hair escaping from the flowered scarf pinned around her head.

  ‘Place your arm here, to the side.’

  Leke did as she asked.

  She tied a light grey strap around his bicep. The scratch of the strap was rough, in contrast to her clammy palms against his skin. The pressure from her touch excited him. He worried that she would notice.

  ‘I've never d
one this before,’ he blurted out as she dabbed his arm with cool cotton wool.

  She smiled. With her other hand she reached for the needle and a collection bag.

  ‘This might hurt,’ she said but Leke felt nothing as she pierced his skin.

  It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since he'd been so physically close to another human being. He thought of Red first, then Jane, and his hand jerked.

  She noticed, keeping her eyes on the vial she said, ‘Try and keep still please.’

  He answered with a sigh, watching as the blood pooled in the plastic collection bag. At the sight of the bright burgundy his body prickled and his head filled with air.

  He thought of his favourite moments growing up, lying on Jane's stomach listening to the noises of her insides. It had always fascinated him – the body was talking to itself.

  ‘Maybe you'll be a doctor when you grow up, Leke,’ Jane had encouraged when she saw his mesmerised look. ‘Remind me to ask Dr. Naidoo to let you listen through the stethoscope when we go for your check-up, okay?’

  ‘What's a stretoscope?’

  The memory, that closeness, shocked him.

  ‘Finished. Just apply some pressure there for me.’

  Leke put his hand on the cotton wool while Adielah applied a thin strip of gauze to hold it in place. He felt heavy again and disappointment came over him like the shadow of a rain cloud.

  ‘Is that it?’ he heard himself say.

  ‘Quick nuh? Easy peasy.’

  He lifted into a sitting position, on rising he felt faint and grabbed hold of the nurse for support.

  Woah! Careful,’ she said, ‘sit there for a while. I'll bring you some juice and biscuits. Keep drinking throughout the day, and eat a good meal. Try not to do anything too strenuous.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Leke said, surprised to find himself missing the sensation of her skin on his.

  While Adielah arranged some biscuits and a polystyrene cup of juice onto a tray, Leke stayed sitting and looked around the room at the other two stations; still feeling dazed he closed his eyes for thirty seconds. When he opened them Tsotso was standing over him. Her skin was dark, a deep brown colour, and she had a darker mole, the size of a guava seed, just beneath her left eye. Without it, Leke thought, she would not have been beautiful.