Cruel Crazy Beautiful World by Troy Blacklaws Page A
Authors: Troy Blacklaws
Tags: General Fiction
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the emptying market square. I realise I have not penned a poem in a long time. It’s as if the world, however vivid, swims and sways before me too elusively to pin down on paper: telegraph lines shiver like guitar strings, the sea swings, seagulls hem and haw, the earth quivers all day under the sun. Yet each line I put down feels flat, stale, stalled.
Men of all colours huddle round a motorcar radio to tune in to the cricket. An English wicket falls and they dance and high-five and sing out HOWZAAAT ! In this country we rob, shoot and burn each other ... until a cricket ball or rugby ball or football sends us into a shindig of sudden camaraderie and hooting and vuvuzela tooting.
After the high of beating the West Indies last Christmas, South Africa has had a jinxed year. We lost to Sri Lanka and India.
I catch sight of her at a pub table on the front deck of the Burgundy. Somehow I sense the guy she’s with is her lover.
The umbrellas flap and jig in the wind as if they too are following the cricket. They feel zero empathy for my sudden sorrow.
I sit at a free table next to theirs. I wonder if she’ll recognise me from the market, but she’s scrutinising the tea bag floating in her china teacup.
HE : Hey, Lotte. You just happened to be there.
Lo-tte . A ballooning gasp of longing tied off with the tip of his tongue.
She fishes the tea bag out of her cup and pinches it unflinchingly between two fingers.
SHE : I felt he wanted to tell me something.
HE : But that’s absurd.
SHE : I was the last thing he saw.
She shifts her teacup from palm to palm. Her gaze flickers over me.
HE : Focus now, Lotte.
He catches her hands in his.
HE : Come to Jozi with me.
Jozi, Johannesburg. Jazzy yet risky. A hip war-zone.
SHE : I won’t be caged behind a razor-wired wall. Besides, I can’t paint in Jozi.
She draws her hands away and clinks the teacup down on the saucer.
SHE : I need the sea.
He farts air through his pressed lips. Evidently he scorns the whims of artists who hang on such ethereal things as muses and vibe.
HE : Look ... I want you to lie low till the weekend. Till I come again.
SHE : Lie low?
HE : Yesterday you had a foreigner’s blood on your feet. Today some psycho fucked with your frangipani. I’m not superstitious ... but perhaps they are signs.
SHE : I thought it was magic.
I grin like a dork.
HE : Magic? Black magic, maybe. If you stay I forbid you to walk alone along the sea path beyond Kwaaiwater, or to swim in the tidal pool at the crack of dawn.
SHE : Al, I love that path. I love to walk all the way to the lagoon. And I love the pool then. If you weren’t always so wiped out we’d swim together.
Al. Maybe she’s drawn to guys with curt names. She’ll be spooked by my litany of vowels.
HE : It’s not forever. Once I’ve done the paperwork for this Taiwan deal, things will plateau out. I can handle things from this end then. We’ll marry and have a baby ...
Under my feet: pebbles, a wine cork, bottle tops, cigarette ends, an oyster shell.
SHE : A girl.
HE : We’ll tie her hair in pigtails.
SHE : We’ll let her hair fall free.
HE : We’ll dress her in jeans so she can skip and climb like a boy.
SHE : She’ll wear a dress she tucks into her panties when she skips. And she won’t care if boys see her panties when she’s climbing. You want to curb her freedom when she’s not even born yet. And you’ll tell me I have to hide my breasts under a cloth if I nurse her in a café. You sound Muslim. Or American.
He just sulks for pity.
Lotte sends me a flicker of a smile, fleeting and ephemeral. Perhaps I imagined it. She spills sugar on the table and draws her finger through it. She frowns to figure out where she’s seen me before.
A cockroach feather-foots over my foot to zero in on the sugar. I shudder.
Twin boys stand in front of the restaurant deck. They bow. One boy plays a tune on a Zulu hosepipe flute, and then words from Papageno’s aria fly from the mouth of
Men of all colours huddle round a motorcar radio to tune in to the cricket. An English wicket falls and they dance and high-five and sing out HOWZAAAT ! In this country we rob, shoot and burn each other ... until a cricket ball or rugby ball or football sends us into a shindig of sudden camaraderie and hooting and vuvuzela tooting.
After the high of beating the West Indies last Christmas, South Africa has had a jinxed year. We lost to Sri Lanka and India.
I catch sight of her at a pub table on the front deck of the Burgundy. Somehow I sense the guy she’s with is her lover.
The umbrellas flap and jig in the wind as if they too are following the cricket. They feel zero empathy for my sudden sorrow.
I sit at a free table next to theirs. I wonder if she’ll recognise me from the market, but she’s scrutinising the tea bag floating in her china teacup.
HE : Hey, Lotte. You just happened to be there.
Lo-tte . A ballooning gasp of longing tied off with the tip of his tongue.
She fishes the tea bag out of her cup and pinches it unflinchingly between two fingers.
SHE : I felt he wanted to tell me something.
HE : But that’s absurd.
SHE : I was the last thing he saw.
She shifts her teacup from palm to palm. Her gaze flickers over me.
HE : Focus now, Lotte.
He catches her hands in his.
HE : Come to Jozi with me.
Jozi, Johannesburg. Jazzy yet risky. A hip war-zone.
SHE : I won’t be caged behind a razor-wired wall. Besides, I can’t paint in Jozi.
She draws her hands away and clinks the teacup down on the saucer.
SHE : I need the sea.
He farts air through his pressed lips. Evidently he scorns the whims of artists who hang on such ethereal things as muses and vibe.
HE : Look ... I want you to lie low till the weekend. Till I come again.
SHE : Lie low?
HE : Yesterday you had a foreigner’s blood on your feet. Today some psycho fucked with your frangipani. I’m not superstitious ... but perhaps they are signs.
SHE : I thought it was magic.
I grin like a dork.
HE : Magic? Black magic, maybe. If you stay I forbid you to walk alone along the sea path beyond Kwaaiwater, or to swim in the tidal pool at the crack of dawn.
SHE : Al, I love that path. I love to walk all the way to the lagoon. And I love the pool then. If you weren’t always so wiped out we’d swim together.
Al. Maybe she’s drawn to guys with curt names. She’ll be spooked by my litany of vowels.
HE : It’s not forever. Once I’ve done the paperwork for this Taiwan deal, things will plateau out. I can handle things from this end then. We’ll marry and have a baby ...
Under my feet: pebbles, a wine cork, bottle tops, cigarette ends, an oyster shell.
SHE : A girl.
HE : We’ll tie her hair in pigtails.
SHE : We’ll let her hair fall free.
HE : We’ll dress her in jeans so she can skip and climb like a boy.
SHE : She’ll wear a dress she tucks into her panties when she skips. And she won’t care if boys see her panties when she’s climbing. You want to curb her freedom when she’s not even born yet. And you’ll tell me I have to hide my breasts under a cloth if I nurse her in a café. You sound Muslim. Or American.
He just sulks for pity.
Lotte sends me a flicker of a smile, fleeting and ephemeral. Perhaps I imagined it. She spills sugar on the table and draws her finger through it. She frowns to figure out where she’s seen me before.
A cockroach feather-foots over my foot to zero in on the sugar. I shudder.
Twin boys stand in front of the restaurant deck. They bow. One boy plays a tune on a Zulu hosepipe flute, and then words from Papageno’s aria fly from the mouth of
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