Cruel Crazy Beautiful World by Troy Blacklaws Page B
Authors: Troy Blacklaws
Tags: General Fiction
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the other boy, words like dipping, flitting birds eluding the bird catcher.
Al tosses all the jingling small change from his pockets into their hat.
I fid a coin in my pocket.
They bow again and go into the orange light.
HE : Come to Jozi with me, Lotte. I beg of you.
I free my guitar and pluck the strings.
Lotte remembers now. She smiles at me and blows the sugar away.
I twang my desire for her.
Al slurps spilt liquid from his saucer.
SHE (laughing): Remind me why I love you, Al Pike.
HE : Because you need never be scared when I’m with you. And you’ll never go begging. Besides, I swept you off your feet, didn’t I?
SHE : You did?
HE : I did. And I gave you a flashy rock. See it catch the sun.
He holds her hand and swivels her ring so the diamond flashes like a lit fuse.
HE : You belong to me.
My plucking fades out.
SHE : Do I?
HE : You do.
They kiss.
I pinch a ten-rand note under my coffee cup.
A Tuareg four-by-four hoots at me as I jaywalk to the cliff path. I go down the steps to the old harbour. On the way down I pick red canna flowers. I fling the petals into the water of the harbour and see them float to form a question mark.
Is there no cure for this fever in my blood?
I sit on the harbour wall and play my guitar hard. The waves of a listless sea clap dully against the wall.
Seagulls mock me from the rickety salting poles where fishermen hang fish out to dry.
– Isn’t she beautiful? I cry.
Kaaaak kaaaak is all they reply.
A few moth-eaten, sun-seeking dassies blink sorrowful eyes at me from the red zinc roof of the old whaling warehouse.
The professor, shadowed by Moonfleet, drifts down to the slanting slipway where whalers once landed harpooned whales.
Moonfleet skips and barks at my music. Seagulls fly from the salting poles. Dassies shy from the hot tin roof.
The professor rolls up his pants and wades barefoot in the shallows. His hands t’ai chi at the sky.
Moonfleet, all skipped out, licks the salt off the soles of my feet.
I play my guitar till my fingers bleed and the sun sinks west of the new harbour. And then I play on into the dusk, a fish bone for a fat pick.
16
A FARM SOMEWHERE SOUTH of the Limpopo. After midnight.
Jonas picks Jabulani. There are muted murmurs of an injustice, for Jabulani has not had to endure this hell for long.
– Jabulani is the one who can run like a wild dog. Our forefathers were warriors and knew how to throw a spear, but that skill too is lost. Jabulani is the one who learnt at his university how to throw a javelin far. And if he survives, the police may listen to him, for he is a teacher.
They cast a rope over a beam, then tie it around Jabulani’s hips. They hoist him up to the beam.
He signals for them to let go. He winds up the rope, looping it between thumb and elbow. He slings it over his collarbone.
Now they chuck the long, glowing-tipped stick up to him.
He catches it. Holding the stick ahead of him like a tightrope walker, he foot-foots along the beam, heel to toe, heel to toe.
They gasp and hiss each time he teeters. At the end of the beam he tilts a vent and hauls himself out onto the roof. Through the vent he hears a hum of hope from the condemned men.
He geckos up the roof slope to the zenith. The stars look like holes punched in Jonas’s fire drum. Down below he sees the dogs lying flat, feet flirting with the glowing coals of a dying fire.
He stands and feels the heft of the stick in his hand. His target is over forty yards away. If the stick falls short, they will all suffer. Ghost Cowboy will kill him.
He hurls the stick at the thatched roof of the poolside gazebo. A dog barks at the whistle of this one-eyed sky snake spearing through the dark.
Soon the thatch begins to glow. A flame peels away. Then another. Then the gazebo roof is ablaze.
Now all the dogs go ape.
Jabulani drops flat to the roof.
The gunmen bound out of the farmhouse all bootless and cussing and eyes agog at the sparks shooting high.
A
Al tosses all the jingling small change from his pockets into their hat.
I fid a coin in my pocket.
They bow again and go into the orange light.
HE : Come to Jozi with me, Lotte. I beg of you.
I free my guitar and pluck the strings.
Lotte remembers now. She smiles at me and blows the sugar away.
I twang my desire for her.
Al slurps spilt liquid from his saucer.
SHE (laughing): Remind me why I love you, Al Pike.
HE : Because you need never be scared when I’m with you. And you’ll never go begging. Besides, I swept you off your feet, didn’t I?
SHE : You did?
HE : I did. And I gave you a flashy rock. See it catch the sun.
He holds her hand and swivels her ring so the diamond flashes like a lit fuse.
HE : You belong to me.
My plucking fades out.
SHE : Do I?
HE : You do.
They kiss.
I pinch a ten-rand note under my coffee cup.
A Tuareg four-by-four hoots at me as I jaywalk to the cliff path. I go down the steps to the old harbour. On the way down I pick red canna flowers. I fling the petals into the water of the harbour and see them float to form a question mark.
Is there no cure for this fever in my blood?
I sit on the harbour wall and play my guitar hard. The waves of a listless sea clap dully against the wall.
Seagulls mock me from the rickety salting poles where fishermen hang fish out to dry.
– Isn’t she beautiful? I cry.
Kaaaak kaaaak is all they reply.
A few moth-eaten, sun-seeking dassies blink sorrowful eyes at me from the red zinc roof of the old whaling warehouse.
The professor, shadowed by Moonfleet, drifts down to the slanting slipway where whalers once landed harpooned whales.
Moonfleet skips and barks at my music. Seagulls fly from the salting poles. Dassies shy from the hot tin roof.
The professor rolls up his pants and wades barefoot in the shallows. His hands t’ai chi at the sky.
Moonfleet, all skipped out, licks the salt off the soles of my feet.
I play my guitar till my fingers bleed and the sun sinks west of the new harbour. And then I play on into the dusk, a fish bone for a fat pick.
16
A FARM SOMEWHERE SOUTH of the Limpopo. After midnight.
Jonas picks Jabulani. There are muted murmurs of an injustice, for Jabulani has not had to endure this hell for long.
– Jabulani is the one who can run like a wild dog. Our forefathers were warriors and knew how to throw a spear, but that skill too is lost. Jabulani is the one who learnt at his university how to throw a javelin far. And if he survives, the police may listen to him, for he is a teacher.
They cast a rope over a beam, then tie it around Jabulani’s hips. They hoist him up to the beam.
He signals for them to let go. He winds up the rope, looping it between thumb and elbow. He slings it over his collarbone.
Now they chuck the long, glowing-tipped stick up to him.
He catches it. Holding the stick ahead of him like a tightrope walker, he foot-foots along the beam, heel to toe, heel to toe.
They gasp and hiss each time he teeters. At the end of the beam he tilts a vent and hauls himself out onto the roof. Through the vent he hears a hum of hope from the condemned men.
He geckos up the roof slope to the zenith. The stars look like holes punched in Jonas’s fire drum. Down below he sees the dogs lying flat, feet flirting with the glowing coals of a dying fire.
He stands and feels the heft of the stick in his hand. His target is over forty yards away. If the stick falls short, they will all suffer. Ghost Cowboy will kill him.
He hurls the stick at the thatched roof of the poolside gazebo. A dog barks at the whistle of this one-eyed sky snake spearing through the dark.
Soon the thatch begins to glow. A flame peels away. Then another. Then the gazebo roof is ablaze.
Now all the dogs go ape.
Jabulani drops flat to the roof.
The gunmen bound out of the farmhouse all bootless and cussing and eyes agog at the sparks shooting high.
A
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