WarsaW_WasraW

"Why manage anger when you shouldn't have employed it in the first place"

WarsaW…WasraW
The shellshock continuum

...my return to disturbia

“You’ fired, you no good son of a gun” I tried to explain he was only being polite.
She recoiled and went back to her knitting. I should have known better than to explain. When she saw me come home early, her unwelcoming arm unwrapped from the coil of her body, her hands clasped together and her fingers got to work in her lap. Going over each, like piglets, knitting and unknitting in a criss cross fashion. 

I try to explain. She shoots me a glance. 

“He was only trying to be polite”. 

She recoils. 

I move to the kitchen, take slices of fruit still in their skins and make for the door. 

I close it softly behind me. I must have tried too hard, because I don’t think she heard me…

...my return to disturbia ...getting lost in suburbia

“Please respect my privates!” says the inspector – Koos the Doos - he is facially armed with a nose for the job, all gummy and stuck out at you like he always smelled a rat. Daddy Longlegs with his short temper was fixing for a squabble, but before the fight broke out I remembered my slices of fresh fruit – and decided against anything that was soft and still in it’s skin. 

Like any decent fellow, I would want to protect the vulnerables. 

Like the privates. I am sure they liked me but had to watch as their boss’s subordinate plagiarized authority. 

Just as the air was getting stale with his breath and width (for as narrow minded as he was, he was not short of girth)… 

just as our minds were starting to shiver from his stiffness KWAAH a waarm klap from Yours Truly the reluctant, who had; had it up to here… …wait, no… more like… here. He would not take a father’s day card from his bastard son, so he was unwilling to take kak from anyone. As we crossed into the lobby, I realized then, we had not even yet left their building…

As we crossed the street Daddy Longlegs crossed himself, Yours Truly spat in the direction of the church, I did both by mistake, this town gives you and makes you hate religion, depending what side of the sword you are on. “So you were fired again” - Daddy Longlegs   “Ja” – me “Did you use the fire extinguisher, again?” – Yours Truly “ja” – me … “skyf” – I offer three looses from tight pocket. They take the broken ones. I am the butt of tired jokes when it comes to fixing cigarettes. Daddy Longlegs walks a short distance ahead, he says around his shoulder - “…and then we’ll hit this corner by the left” - blowing smoke over his shoulder “wait!” I hurry to say
“Aren’t we going to Popeye’s to see Tom and Jerry and Mickey Mo_se?”
“Come now, Winnie you’ll see”  - he says disappearing down Plainview.  I follow after him, Yours Truly makes the rear, making like he’s sulking. He can be a real ass sometimes… “Come now, Yours. Two rounds on me.” “Serious! No, sure man Winnie!” He catches up to me as he drops his stompie…
Yes my name is Winnie…

...my return to disturbia ...getting lost in suburbia ....starring in the nebula

Daddy Longlegs had steered us to The “Planetary-yum” a hovel with three stories and a missing roof on the fourth floor. The first story met us near the counter – with it’s broken register, her name was Penny – Daddy Longlegs and Me had found her in a well. He stopped to talk to her in his usual way - “Can I get a light from a darkie…”.
Yours truly is itching to get started and hangs his coat on a nail, asking the clerk to ‘check it for him’. He tears up the stairs with cheek, and leaves me to pay entrance. 

I do so and offer the clerk, Mapule, a smile – her blank face sneers back – she’s always a wet blanket. 

Stomping to the first floor I hear the voices in the Shooting Stars pool hall shout “Yooooours Truuuuulyyyy” like a chorus of drunken schoolboys welcoming their favourite teacher. 

I make my way away from that cabaret, to the opposite wall which had an obvious hole and call for the lift – “EH MSUNU’WAKO AO LETHE I-LIFTI”. 

You hear a rumble through the walls and a few notes of silence, then, a door that looks like it should lead to a service closet opens. 

It’s always a surprise to me because I can never remember if it is on my left or on my right. “AO Winnie the Poo!” – says Msunu’wako from behind me. I was wrong again. “eita Msunuwakho” I leer at him with such mirth, however he’s as cheery as a drunk in a pickle - “Msunu’wakhe!, not Msunuwakho” he corrects me. 

“Whatever” I say feeling wronged. Somehow his name round these parts doesn’t irk him as much as my moniker irritates me. He smiles blank-faced staring as the numbers climb as we stand in the lift.

He is the second story. 

His name is not the name given to him by his parents instead it was given to him by his god loving and life loathing sister, who feared he’d bring the curse that had driven their parents from the church to the tavern into her pious husband’s spirit. So she prayed ‘til kingdom come’ and beat him ‘til the devil was gone’. 

But she couldn’t see the wrath from the wreath and her hitting arm was shrivelled up by some act of god she called the devils work and blamed it on him. 

This twist of fate unwound the household. The sister never wanting to let her husband out of her sight, not allowing him to work fearing the temptations of this world would swallow him, turned to her younger sibling and said it was time for him to be a man despite him barely out of shorts and into shoes. That first day she talked gently and offered him kindness – though she was still stingy when it came time for them to supp. 

This made him look the next day for where to find work, only managing to find odd jobs mopping slick uneven floors. Yet he was proud to bring home his first earnings but his sister cussed his efforts – yet still took a share to pay her tithes. Admonished and having being told he was the devil’s own he kept the company of betting men, and after learning the ropes, became the greatest side-operator in Akukholutho, just outside of Gienkanskop. He got new clothes and bought his sister the finest sleeveless dresses. 

He bought himself shoes and his brother ball bearings. And so on… until his sister got down wind and sniffed his sudden windfall was from ill-gotten gains. She swore fire and brimstone and threw him out the house. When he came to plead his case with the neighbours in tow, she would not see him and kept screaming “Msunuwakhe! Msunuwakhe!” “He pull the devil in me” – He ran away to Johannesburg – to ferry us up and down as a lift operator, remembering each of us by first or birth or even nickname. Smiling blank-faced staring as the numbers climb…
His name was Muzi’zwakhele

“EH MSUNU’WAKO AO LETHE I-LIFTI” it’s Yours Truly, you can here him leaning against the wall. He must have realized after making pleasantries with his adoring crowd, he’d forgotten to remember to ask me for ‘one and a game’. I tell Msunuwakhe! to let me off on the second floor without thinking twice about it and ask him, to mislead my friend as to my whereabouts. 

I get off on the second floor and at first I cannot find my bearings. Aah yes three doors to my right. “Well Cum!” says the sign that tries to decapitate you, as you walk into the Uranus Ladies Lounge. Ladies and Lounge pronounced separately and loosely because as you walk in you see men on scarred and stained sofas making kiss-kiss faces and come-here gestures at girls who were on their feet or slouching at the bar, tenderly known as the Meat market. 

I buy a drink from Hubert – who Daddy Longlegs calls Puberty, because Hubert pronounces his name Hhew-beh-ti – and make my way to my far flung corner all the while patting myself for a cigarette and to check my fruit was not injured during the pat down- from Goni at the entrance, which I found irritating, because he frisked me alone, and ended it with - “oh sure Winnie the Pooh”. Shit, drinks finished even before I take a seat. Don’t want to go back to the Meat Market those cows might start asking me for drinks. 

I arrive at my table and draw Maki’s attention with a blank-stare that she recognizes immediately. As I pull out my last loose from my shirt front it breaks in the process. I thump my head on the table as Maki sachets to my table like a dissolving disprin and puts down a tub of eight 340ml pints and a nip of gin…

… I am on the fourth floor there’s a strobe light that I can see with my ears. I wake up to tell the ous’ to stop shaking me and asking me for money… Yours Truly ran away with my cigarettes again. I call for Maki but see old Man-Small-Baba’mncani and I miss Maki “uuurshjuaal” I say with great confidence. He asks something. I wave him away. I find cigarettes. Good… …Benson wakes me up to ask for a smoke, I offer him one of mine. He asks if I have another brand, but I don’t have the energy to tell him to ffff… Khensi says something about my perfume as she calls it, I try and tell her its cologne – she says ‘ja’ nods and waits for me to offer to buy her another drink. Instead I go piss…

…I find my jacket where it was Khensi is gone - one of the pockets is turned inside out, the one with the fruit feels a little damp. I feel flushed and order a soda water, side plate and two teaspoons of salt. Khensi out of sight with me in mind works her way to the table in the company of Daddy Longlegs and Yours Truly – poor girl probably thinks I am ordering a tequila – the two however know better. My three quarters of a tomato plop onto the plate and make her face knot in riddles. Things being beyond her at this table she moved to a stool closer to the bar. Yours Truly seems sad to see her go. – Yours Truly: “Why is it, with you, Winnie, and your tomato thing, that…?” before he can finish – Daddy Longlegs: “you know moes, already ‘Desi says…’” – me: “Why must we ask the same question?” – Yours Truly: “Argh you man! You are cooked in the head”…

...my return to disturbia ...getting lost in suburbia ....starring in the nebula …lying next to her…

She had laid out my cot. This is how I knew she was still in my bed. She didn’t like it when I crawled into bed with her smelling like smoke, because it reminded her of her childhood, when they were asleep and the house caught fire. This is one of the few things I know about her. I have no reason not to believe her, but I have my doubts. Desi, Desi, Desi!... Desi is the third story. I met her on the roofless floor of the Planetary-yum. She stood at the loudest corner of the floor – where the structure seemed most unsound, taking pictures with her camera phone. My curiosity got the better of me and so I sidled to her, each step deliberate so as to appear less drink if she was to look in my direction, and enquired after what it was she was doing. She whispered over the music that she was taking pictures. I asked of what and why? She said of buildings and the city and as I wandered what to ask next and as she looked as if she would answer why… the lights went out… the music gasped its last mid-shriek… the people groaned. And I saw her by the light of the moon. One by one the stars came out. She seemed as paused as I was although the world around us was confusion. “but why?” I asked and she said: “to know where I am going once I get out of this place” she seemed shy about talking the truth and looked to get going, around us people where a flutter like moths, not knowing where to go without the lift out of service. I led her to the fire-escape that snakes down the building, the old way Daddy Longlegs and Yours Truly used to get in – before I became their free pass for life – she’s never been back there since. She’s trusted me since then. And I owe her my health. Ahhh Desi we are not wanting for money. We will talk in the morning about me being fired. Why a fire extinguisher had to go out the window again. We’ll be okay… Why I am such a son of a gun… Maybe by tomorrow afternoon you’ll be able to say like you always do… “I love you Winchester”…