BIRTH OF WIZARDS
Our convention did take place as agreed at the trendy Le Carbon Black café, situated in the elegant shopping hub of the city of Francistown, Galo Center that Saturday after lunch and I was the first to arrive at the café. That Saturday, a lot was going down; first it was our meeting with T-Squared, my date with Winona then later on Botho’s party at his grandparents’ house in the up-market suburb of Molapo Estates. Like he had said, I was hoping it would be one hell of a party. But the one thing I was nervous about was my date with Winona which would be my first ever; well, as a teenager.
I took a table at the corner of the café and went through my music player. The café served mostly sweet treats like ice cream, milkshakes, waffles, you name it. On weekends it was usually filled with teenagers who took the week’s stress off with the treats it offered them along with their sweethearts. An added advantage to the café’s choice of cuisine was the fact that it was owned by two guys who had four years out of senior high school.
Today was no different as only two table of its eight was empty while the rest were occupied by the young and old alike. Four girls entered the restaurant just then and Sam French was one of them. She looked so nice in an all-black outfit of a graphic t-shirt, skinny jeans and Nike® sneakers. When she saw me she smiled and waved and I waved back. They ordered some milkshakes and took a table a few meters away, Sam facing me. As they chatted she kept looking at me and this kind of made me a little uncomfortable but I didn’t show it. To avoid getting tempted and pushed into a corner, I looked away. I stole a glance at her and she wasn’t looking anymore.
The rest of the gang arrived a while later and this seemed like a relief. The gang looked quite swaged up as well; Botho was wearing a grey t-shirt, black jeans and brown machesa, accessorized with a silver watch. TreShawn was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with checked green and white shorts and a pair of white machesa with the sleeves folded back while Tyler went for a washed yellow shirt with a pair of black jeans and black machesa. Lastly Bagomotsi went for a pink and white t-shirt with black shorts and white machesa.
Machesa by the way was the name given to sneakers made mostly by shoe companies such as Soviet®, Chuck Taylor’s All Star Converse® and all the like. They were worn mostly by manyora and I guess the guys were starting the revolution already.
‘Looking nice guys’ I said as I stood up to greet them. ‘How are you all doing?’
‘We good mfana, you know how we roll’ responded Bagomotsi with a smile and they sat down. The restaurant’s female occupants started murmuring as the gang sat down and they just couldn’t stop smiling. Botho winked at a few and turned back to us.
‘Don’t worry, I’m used to worse’ he said with a chuckle and I forced a smile, wishing it was me saying that.
I honestly wished I was more like Botho: having all the riches I could wish for, all the girls I wanted, the confidence and mostly those good looks he had. But I guess I didn’t and had to accept that. Besides, who said life ends for those who are not as advantaged as he was? I had a relationship to grow with one of JMS High’s most beautiful girls and that was something.
‘Anyway, this is Tyler and TreShawn and they call themselves T-Squared like I told you before’ said Botho and I shook their hands and introduced myself.
‘I’m Brandon and I’m sure you’ve already met Bagomotsi’
‘Yeah we have and I hope we enjoy doing business with you guys’
‘Our fingers are crossed; same applies to us’.
‘To be honest, I expected a bit bigger duo when Botho gave us a summary description of you guys’ said TreShawn with a chuckle.
The guy was American so his accent did not quite surprise me. I also chuckled and responded to this rather embarrassing statement.
‘Well, what you see is only the physical appearance. We are quite bigger at our feet and on the inside if you know what I mean’
‘We’ll see how that comes out as we live the life under the limelight’
‘Most definitely’ and I went through the menu to hide my embarrassment.
A waitress came over to take our orders and I guess she wasn’t that bad. We always see sexy waitresses in Hollywood movies, more especially those in remote road-side diners and she looked more like them in a short skirt and a checked shirt that quite exposed her attractive cleavage with her hair tied in to two side ponytails.
‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked with a smile and Botho turned to her and flashed a smile as well.
‘Anything?’ he asked and she nodded.
He turned to me, ‘Watch and learn bra’ and turned back to her.
‘Do you guys have beautiful beings like yourself for order?’ The girl just blushed and looked away before turning back to him.
‘Please be serious’
‘I am dead serious. How about I order you for the day? Or I could order you for eternity if you want’.
The waitress seemed to be falling for the guy’s charm as she kept smiling and smiling while he kept on charming and charming. In the end she took a piece of paper from her order notepad and wrote down her number for him and gave it to him. She bit her pen seductively as he thanked her. This waitress was the real thing and any normal guy would stiff up at the sight of her reputable features.
‘I could get fired for this but hey, I could lose out on something big by letting you go untouched’
‘I know’
‘Anyway, what would you guys like to get?’ she asked again this time turning to the rest of us and pretending nothing had just happened.
Botho was the man and he had just gained more of my respect. I don’t think I‘d be able to do something like flirting with a twenty-something waitress like that, at least not in this lifetime. We all ordered milkshakes and she left.
‘Dude, I admit, you are the man!’ said Bagomotsi to Botho when the waitress left and we all nodded, quite impressed. Bagomotsi was a charmer in his own way but he would never try it on someone that old as well, at least not in a few years. A few minutes later she came back with our orders and after passing out the milkshakes, she whispered something to his ear and left.
‘What’d she say?’ we both asked.
‘Just that I should call her later; this obviously implies my conquest’
‘Or maybe your gate-way to a queue of other playas who are getting a piece of the communal honey in demand’ teased TreShawn in his rather impressive accent. I looked at Sam and her friends and they were ordering their second round. I wondered if Sam was also the charming type and pictured her flirting with the so-not-interesting and unappealing waiter who was taking their orders. Luckily, he left their table as quickly as he had arrived.
‘Alright people, enough of the chitchatting; let’s get down to what we came here for’ suggested Tyler and we all complied and turned to the issue before us. It was now time for business and playtime was over. He decided to chair the meeting.
‘Now, we have already introduced our individual initials to you but just for reassurance, I’ll go through the introductions again. I’m Tyler Malokane and this is my boy TreShawn Detroit II but you can call him Trey or Shawn and we are T-Squared. Fresh from Legae Academy in Gabs City, we decided to migrate here for different reasons, which are not really that important. Yes, we do dance, to hip hop though but Botho told me you guys have the idea of fusing your dance and our dance and I must say we are interested’
‘So that means we can get to the brainstorming?’ I asked and he nodded.
We brainstormed ideas about the group as we had our milkshakes: how it would be organized, the attires and all we wanted to achieve through this group. As we did, the girls also seemed to be discussing something serious and I wondered what. I decided that from here I would ask Sam if she didn’t mind telling. After about an hour of discussion, we came to a series of decisions and ordered another round of giant milkshakes.
‘So here we are guys. We’ve all come to an agreement and I y’all understands our group’s goals
but we are left with one challenge: a name for the group’ announced TreShawn in his Yankee accent as we concluded our discussion about our new group.
‘How about JMS crew?’ suggested Tyler but we all disagreed.
‘That sounds a bit too simple Tyler, how about JMS Saints?’ I suggested. I could still see disagreement in their eyes so I disagreed with myself as well.
‘Sounds good but it’s a bit…I don’t know. Besides, when we leave JMS and decide to continue with the group, the name won’t have a stand anymore. I was thinking of something like St. Wiz™. ‘St.’ obviously means we are saints of dance, you know; we lead the way. ‘Wiz’ is just short for wizards; we cast a spell on our fans with our dance moves and make them love us. How is that?’
That was the first time I had heard Bagomotsi come up with something so original and I loved it. The guy was always copying things from the internet or movies when he came up with suggestions, even when he charmed girls. But this time he sounded a bit more original. We all nodded in agreement and after thoroughly seeing through the name, we agreed upon it. St. Wiz would now be our trademark name. All we were left with was to register for a performance and show ourselves to the city. We ordered another round of milkshakes in take-away cups and left Botho inside as he talked to the waitress. The girls were outside and I walked up to them to greet them and ask about the meeting.
‘How are you ladies doing?’
‘We just cool and chilling, you?’ said Sam with her million-dollar smile, her voice as good as ever. I put my hands in my pockets to give the impression of being confident and cleared my throat.
‘I guess I’m good too and so are my boys. So what were you guys discussing in there?’
‘Exactly what you guys were discussing’ said one of the girls and I put on a questioning look but Sam was quick to shed some light.
‘The girls are planning to start a break-dance crew and they were asking me to join in’
‘Oh, okay. But why break-dancing?’
‘Well, it’s kind of up-market, unlike kwaito which you guys have chosen’ answered one of the girls and just then the rest of my boys were by my side.
‘Oh really, is that so? You guys think you are going to pull in more fans that we will?’ asked Bagomotsi with a chuckle that was obviously aimed at intimidating the girls. They just shrugged, except for Sam who just chuckled and responded, ‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Bagomotsi turned to the rest of us and laughed and we joined in. When we stopped after a while, Tyler turned back to them.
‘Okay look, how about a contest end of this month, you guys against us. Let’s say on the last Saturday, maybe’.
Tyler was asking for the impossible; that Saturday was only three weeks away and we didn’t even know a single format. How were we going to do this? I pulled Tyler and the crew aside to confirm this.
‘Guys, we can’t do this. Those girls probably have a format and we don’t. How are we going to beat them if we can’t even dance?’
‘Don’t worry Brandon, I’ve got a plan; I’ll elucidate the details later. Right now all we have to know is that we’ve got our first challenge and we need to accept it. Victory could be ours and we could use it to make the group popular’ said Tyler, putting a little hope in our hearts. We nodded and turned back to the girls.
‘You’ve got yourselves a challenge; the last Saturday at 14:30 in the school square. Flyers will be all over the school first thing on Monday’
‘It’s a deal’ said the girls and they turned to leave.
‘Sam wait’ and she stopped. I walked up to her and I didn’t know exactly what to say.
‘So you have friends in the city?’
‘Yes, I do; thing is, I used to school here back in primary so, yeah. By the way, I am still grateful for what you did yesterday’’
‘Okay, no problem; the pleasure was all mine’ and we both smiled.
I decided to tell her my feelings, all to relieve myself of the burden before I could focus all my attention on Winona.
‘Before you go I just wanted to let you know that in life we all make decisions for a reason. The decision I made was for a good course and I just hope one day you’ll understand that. Winona needed me and I had to make a choice between helping her and abandoning her’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Thing is, I like you and I would have wished for things between us to go somewhere; I wanted you as a girlfriend but I guess I was too much of a chicken to tell you until now’
‘Oh? But we met yesterday and you like me already?’
‘Well, yeah; I know it’s silly but it just happened’
‘That’s such a coincidence because I also kind of like you, only I like you as a friend. But if you had come up to me and told me, I would have considered having you as a boyfriend. But hey, it’s only been a day. So I guess we both lose, right?’
‘Yeah, you are right but I wish you all the best with your group and in JMS High’
‘Same to you Brandon; see you around’
‘Okay; I’ll see you around’ and I ran back to the guys, leaving her smiling.
I joined the guys as they walked on and when I looked at Sam, she was also looking at me but looked away when she saw that I was also looking at her. I guess I had made my choice and Winona was it. I had lost my chance with the beautiful Sam and I just guessed that maybe we would have our chance in the future if Winona and I failed. But failure was something I doubted right then because I was honestly crazy about Winona, like really crazy. St. Wiz had been formed and the day was a Saturday.
Below is a profile of the saints or ‘Wizzes’ as we came to be known:
NAME: Brandon Chidzala
D.O.B: 22 February 1992 in Francistown, Botswana
CREW NAME: Brandzala
Well, I have said a lot about myself. You all know I’m the shy type and the only thing girls like about me is my relaxed personality and well, the way I talk to a girl; I never rush things and don’t get too sure of myself. I combined my name and surname to come up with the crew name.