“You’re puked up. What’s wrong?” I demanded.
With his trembling hand, he reached into his breast pocket and drew a hundred rand from it. “Keep the bitch, okay?” he told me.
“You don’t look good. What the hell is going on?” I asked not accepting the cash.
He hesitated, hard to tell from how petrified and devastated he was. He was muzzy and unsteady. He opened his mouth, but it trembled so much that he could only mumble. Then his eyes spaced-out.
“Where is Mac?” I asked.
“He er… he went to the b-b-bathroom,” He said, his head trembling.“Um… please, t-take t-the money a-and keep the girl.”
“Are you from outside?” I asked.
He flinched. “No-no. Why?”
“Your shoes are wet.”
Quite flustered, he mumbled,“ Um… drunks. Lifeling’s drinks on the floor.” A nervous grin creased his face.
What the fuck is that in your eyes. Wait, now that I look closely he looks more like a parent trying to hide something from a child, then giving them money to go get sweets at the store so they could screw or argue in peace. Something that concerns grown-ups. Should I give them space?
I studied the hundred rand note in his hand, fluttering.
“Just take it. It is important, Sandz,” he gravely said.
“What do you want me to do with this chick? Is this for sex?”
He cleared his throat. “We need to listen to everything she says. I will explain everything later.”
“Is Mac with you on this?”
His face twitched at the idea, too quickly and discrete for a stranger’s eye to notice. “Yeah. I will explain everything. I will guide you.”
“Wait, what muddled up thing is going on that you guys won’t tell me about?” Taking my vantage.
“Nothing, Sandy,” his leer admonishing.
I waffled, finding the look scorching. “Alright. Tell me something, though?"
“Wha’?”
“That this is not going to burn, Macfearson.”
He nodded with not that much conviction coming from him.
Well, fuck it. I am drunk anyway and the world is shit anyway.
I picked the note from his hand and set my eyes on the adorable Kim Besert with my mind slightly nudged.
2
“Spilling beans sounds very sexual to me,” I told her.
She giggled. “How so?”
"I don't know. Just sounds that way it has nothing to do with what it means. Sounds more like you're telling me to tell you how I feel about you since we don't know each other you can't possibly expect that. It's not that we've been playing a game of cat and mouse. The cards are on the table and everything is actually on the open I presume," words glided through my mouth.
“You want truth?”
“Give it to me.”
“Look I’ve been here drinking and for some reason I feel an awful lot horny so if I’m not gonna get fucked at the end of the night by you or anyone I’m goin' to leave.”
“And?”
“You’re carrying this boulder around and I can’t trust that. I guess I will have to go because you won’t say anything.”
“This is very refreshing usually people trust me and tell me all kinds of shit. I am like invisible to them. They don’t see the boulder I carry around.” I paused. “What happened to your ‘give in to the mystery’ theory?”
She sighed. “Okay, fuck it. I am lyin’. I just want to know why you did this. This is the only thing I ask from you. What you’ve done is a bit unusual.”
I considered. “You’ll leave if I don’t tell you?”
“Maybe,” she glanced down.
“Okay then. Here I go.”
I turned to Macfearson. “You think this is a good idea? Should I do this?”
He firmly nodded.
“The last time I did this was with Krissy and I fucking got punctured. Drove her away, mate.”
He closed his eyes, nodding his understanding. “We can’t let the world dictate terms now. We have done too much hiding. They deal with it. Think of this as a How We End Up Alone moment.”
How We End Up Alone was a single from the alternative metal band Hurt. It portrayed in immaculate, insightful and heartfelt lyrics and vocal deliverance a person who is at the verge of a conundrum of an interpersonal relationship. Inducing a state of forced apathy with the full acceptance of the hurt and loss that is to follow. Not irresponsible apathy but the kind that lubricates shameless openness and honesty at any dark price. It is a state of tolerating high risks for a floundering possibility.
The vocalist’s tenor voice crooning:
There’s no more use in lying
Yeah, there is no more use in lying
Then his voice becomes thinner as if one who is about to whimper:
To tell the truth, I don't care what you'll do!
Then returns to the same opening demeanour:
There is no use in lying
There is no more use in trying
When there is no more denying
Then an almost voice whimpering:
I gave you the proof I don’t care what you will do!
The song had a profound almost apocalyptic undercurrent. A song that makes you feel, Macxermillio always remarked at it clicking the repeat button and levitating to the rich worlds within.
Macfearson’s suggestion was perfect, it was a How We End Up Alone moment. He couldn’t have explained it better than that. The spirit and the gist of the song injected me with courage and enough ounces of stupidity I required.
3
The walls of my mind crumbled like walls from chained cannon balls. My concentration inconsistent and slippery. My glance shifting to the gentlemen on the corner laughing and joking completely buzzed out of their own minds. Then the orders of exotic names of drinks I have no idea which are or what they do on my left side. And diagonally on the left side ladies ascending and descending on the stairs. They were not very impressive or heating me off. It was odd that the girls were in leather boots and short black skirts most of them, the kind of skirts that wrapped them from their upper body to just a few centimetres under their pelvis. They left little to one's imagination really, not to think most of them might not be wearing underwear was thrilling. They wasn’t a lot of women of this kind alone here (always in packs) but they kept a lot of my attention, annexing it. Smooth legs they had, silk stockings smooth.
My tongue much more slippery, “Okay, first things first. Now that we are being all cards on the table I think you should now I am horny right now. You put a little heat on me and I would like to have the honour to plough you tonight.”
She gasped comically. “You –“
“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupted, “I know I am a bit of bitch really. I would like a bit of scene setting before I tell you this. Would you go to whoever plays music here and tell them it is your birthday and you would just like to hear Closer by Kings of Leon and can I bum a smoke from you as well? Push the ashtray closer as well, like in the middle of the table. Then I’m all yours after that.”
She laughed, frowning at the same time. “Look I will bum you a smoke and push the ashtray but trying to request songs here is useless.”
“Really? I have alwaysed thought this is a cool place. This must be a crappy place then. Do you do most of your business here?”
“Yeah, sort of. Now can you step on it and tell me what is with you now?” She made an impatient gesture with her hand.
“What time is it?”
“It is one minute after our agreed time so I’m here on my own accord really.”
“So you can leave but you do not choose to? Wow.”
She scowled. “You haven’t given me the cash for the thirty minutes we agreed on. Fifty bucks.”
I nodded and reached for my wallet. Flipped through a few notes and showed her the note. “Happy? Will pay you when I’m done.”
“Go on then.”
"I am a wreck. A fuckin’ freak really. That is why I am here now,” I paused roaming my own thoughts, “You see, I am seeing someone.”
“Ah, oh. Yeah, right. I see,” she reached to touch my hand and looked into my eyes with what might have been empathy. It was a rapid emotional response from her, one that was completely unexpected. That made it strange and puzzling. She put her other hand over her chest and nodded as if the slow pulses of understanding where going through her head.
Soft hands…
“I understand now. When something like that happens I also don’t feel like touching anything. I just crave for a distraction. You are probably so devastated that you could not sum up the energy to approach or even talk to anyone,” She said, smiling and emitting a sudden warmth and charity. Her voice had grown more soothing and mellow as if to appease a child. It made me feel the tense muscles in me relax, lean back in my chair and let my breath flow loose.
“Yeah, so you get it,” I smiled, this time sweet and sending down ripples of joy through my being.
“I have had a tough time too. If this makes you feel a lot better I am glad to help. If you don’t wanna talk about it, it is okay. Sometimes speaking so soon without actually having made sense of anything yourself or come to terms with the reality of the situation can be an overwhelming experience. Very shaking and difficult," she studied my eyes, "Have you been crying so much that you can't anymore, but you feel like crying?"
I shook my head grappling with tears. “Yes,” I choked stifling the simmering emotions.
"Sometimes I feel like I am in the saddest song when that happens. With images black and white, and streets cleared and lonely. Forlorn. Sappy rain, “ She glanced outside the window. “For you it pours. It actually pours. Maybe the heavens feel your pain, cries so much tears that this town will drown in its sorrow and grief.”
“Don’t they weep for you?” I moaned.
“No. I am not like you. Not even the heavens could set their sight on me,”
My heart had a sore stroke of a potent, goo-like and unpleasant emotion. I felt privileged to experience it and also troubled at once, like the way more success breeds more responsibility. I wished she could stop speaking that way and at the same time I wanted her too, I deserved the pain. This pain was the kind coagulating with a speck of sweetness, just the deserved amount. There is no redemption for me in this world, not with her or even the heavens. Why should she care about something as worthless as me? She got me, a part of me was grateful, but a dominant part was grieving at the death she was busy coaxing into her life.
This is what you get for trusting me…
“I am disgusting…” the suddenly the words and emotions that I wanted to convey perished at their infancy in the exhausting swamps of my being.
She shook her head in sympathy. "Did you do anything wrong? Is it your fault?"
“I don’t know. Maybe there is just something with me,” I groaned.
“Is it something you did?”
“I do not think I did anything. I just existed. I just became,” I paused. My hands dipped in the dark goo within my mind to find anything that made even the most remote sense. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been born or even existed in some pre-existing state or another.”
She tightened her lip into a thin line, nodding to encapsulate my pain. “It can’t be your fault then, okay?”
I looked down as her gaze hovered on my skin. I was petrified by shame, and more of it was coming like a fog off a mountain.
“I don’t think this will go anywhere, Fearson,” I spoke to Macfearson.
He knelt beside me with one knee. “She knows,” his voice not shy from a whisper.
“So what? What difference does it make? So did Krissy know but she ditched me didn’t she?”
Macfearson sighed exasperatedly. "You don't get it. You got it all muddled up, bro. Krissy did know it, but she did not understand it. She, on the other hand, understands it."
"How do you know? How can I be sure? How will she help anyway? No one can save us, Fearson. You know that don't you? This life is our punishment. A prison for a crime we have forgotten. I mean what better way to punish someone than put them in the most horrible correctional facility and erase their memory so they think that they are just being treated as slaves or less of a human while they know there must be something better. You are put into a position where you know that there are certain things you deserve, but you can't have them, you are so convicted by the idea that you do, but you do not in reality. Maybe we don't need saving, We don’t deserve it and it is impossible for us,” I said.
“All I hear is a lot of maybes there. An awful lot of rationalized hopelessness, Sandz ,” He grunted quietly. “Let me give you one maybe. You might be wasting the best chance we have. And I’m not gonna let your fear and wounds to stop us from reaching it.” He glared at me with fierce intensity. His face stoic and cold.
I remained stubbornly reluctant. “Show me how. Show me how you know what you know. Give me a test or something,” I demanded.
“Ask her if sometimes she feels like she is fleeting through life. If she says yes she truly understands, something Krissy never had. Krissy was just a horny bitch, this is a horny understanding bitch.” He spoke confidently with no trace of doubt or panic. It was as if he knew.
I pulled my head up and gathered the strength to ask her, my heart pounding in my chest making a distracting sound in my temples.
“Do you feel like you are fleeting through life at times? That it is all stale and you are a passer-by amongst travellers?” I asked, with trembling lips.
She shifted her head side to side like a genius when about to formulate a way to explain something to a kid.“Do you?” she returned.
"The question is ‘do you'," I said, exasperated.
“Well, you know, sometimes – “
“Fuck, Kim. It is a yes or no question. It is either it is the case or it is not, has nothing to do with me. No pretending.”
“Okay. No pretending,” She nodded.
“Yeah. So?”
She sighed. “Yes,” it sounded more like a question.
“I hope you know this is not a test. I want you to answer truthfully. What was that? You sounded unsure. Do you not understand me? “
“No, no. I am sure. It’s just that you making me quite nervous. I don’t wanna ...” her voice trailed off.
“You don’t wanna what?”
“You know?” She paused.” Let’s get outta here. Maybe fucking will help. I think you are too upset right now. You need something to get those endorphins running.”
I sneered at her.
"Or we could just go into the bathroom for a quickie. We don't have to leave," she studied me. "Of course this is genuine it has nothing to do with cash although you will have to pay for the thirty-minute chat we just had. I mean, fuck the bitch, Sandy. Don't let it steal your night or fun. Right? You sound like someone who wants to end your life right now to be honest. I can help with that. I can make you feel better”
I shifted my gaze to Macfearson, tendrils of anger scorching my face.“And this does not sound like Krissy to you?”
“What did I tell you, Sandz? What did she just say to you right now?”
“She fucked me, Mac. She did, now she wants to fuck me too!” I shouted.
“This is not the same,” Macfearson leered at me, frustrated. “She said yes. That is all that matters. Trust me and we shall be free. Don’t fuck this up.”
Then he did that thing where he looks about nervously, sweat breaking from his forehead.
Very conflicted I excused myself, bells were tolling in my bladder, loud and pinching.
Chapter 13
1
The silver zinc urinals on the west wall and the toilet on the east wall were unoccupied. The tiled floor was smeared with dirt and sand from shoes. Puddles of mixed liquids (beer, water and urine) dominated the floor. Careful not to slip I e
mptied my tank at the urinal in the middle. Then went to the basin. It was messed with water. I looked up and stared at my reflection in the mirror. Staring into my red eyes, eyelids half shut and eyelashes frizzled from crying.
The man in front of me was defeated and weak. His skin coarse with dead pimples. That man looked like one who was about to collapse any time soon. I pitied him, at the same time glad that I never got to look at his face that often. Grateful I never had to look into that seeping hole of sadness. Glad I wasn’t him for a moment. Yes, that right there with rugged hair and a beaten face was not me. It was a fucking mask. I wondered if that was how beaten my soul was in the inside. That man resembled a meth addict, who probably had boils in the most inappropriate and inconceivable places. He pissed in a bag taped to his torso, it smelled foul and it leaked. It was an IV bag, only crimson, dirty and not cared for. He hadn’t showered in days, he reeked. His underwear brown with shit stains all over. It was torn where his scrotum was. Skin tightly wrapped around his limbs, no sign of muscles under there, like an undernourished African child. He trembled and shuddered when he walked. Not me, it was the man in the mirror, a dirty grimy mirror.
As I smiled he dissolved.
“What the fuck am I doing, Sandz?” I asked myself. The aches kept pulsing through me.
“What is all this?”
I laughed dryly. “I get it. I don’t get it. I want it. I don’t want it. What a freaking dilemma.”
“Getting a fucking whore to save me? Am I that dirty? A freaking scum in my mind, yeah she – "
A guy interrupted, stumbling in and almost slipping.
She is, I went on with thought, a freaking waste of time if you ask me. No point. No reason. Nobody will mourn her if I kill her, no one will mourn me either so why is such a big deal. No one will care what the fuck happens. Why pretend to love or see anything when there is nothing. I am nothingness, how can anything interact with me or her? Fuck, Macfearson. There is no such thing as salvation or redemption. I call this –
“Hey, You have a lighter on you?” the drunkard slurred, a smoke in his hand.
Fucking cunt.