How come Mwana’s underperforming?’
‘I’m in Zimplats, and we’re doing alright. Really positive policies on PGMs, so Hartley or whatever they call it now is looking great, but everyone else in the industry is struggling. Gono’s hording all their forex and swapping it with Mickey Mouse money so they can’t function. They’re gonna sink. Do you want me to get you out?’
‘No, I’m in this for the long haul. They’ve got good proven reserves and their PGMs will be coming online soon. They’ve got eggs in quite a few baskets.’
‘It’s your money, little bull, but I say quit while you’re slightly behind. No one ever quits while they’re ahead.’
‘I’ll talk to you later, Dad,’ he says, hangs up and sighs.
Mr Majeika chews his lettuce, barely making a crunching sound as he watches the news from his hutch. Farai takes a sip of water and flicks over to CNN. Recycled footage: green, night vision clips of videogame-like explosions. It looks beautiful on the Sony widescreen plasma TV. He can almost feel the heat from the blast and taste the chemical smoke pluming in the air. The commentary uses words like, ‘surgical strikes’, ‘collateral damage’, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, and when the footage changes to armor-plated Humvees and Abrams, he knows for sure he should have bought into defense.
He goes to the bathroom, takes a long piss, and showers. He comes back out, towel wrapped around his body and knocks on Brian’s bedroom door.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ he shouts.
Brian replies with a torrent of abuse about his mum’s genitalia and wholly unfounded assertions about her sex life.
‘I love you too,’ Farai says, and goes back to the living room.
Water streams down from his short Afro onto his back. He can’t be arsed to use a hair drier. He moisturizes, using L’Oréal for men, because he’s worth it. His stomach grumbles; he won’t eat till midday though. He wants to have full mastery of his body, of every thought and emotion that comes from it.
‘Why the fuck do you have to fucking wake me up so fucking early in the fucking morning when I’ve fucking told you before to fucking leave me the fuck alone?’ says Brian, voice slurring, breath reeking of last night’s bender.
‘Dude, you have a stiffy,’ Farai replies. ‘Don’t point it my way!’
Brian takes a look at the bulge in his boxers and raises his eyebrows.
‘It’s not aimed at you. It’s just a morning glory, perfectly natural, nothing suspicious there.’
‘Didn’t you get lucky last night?’
‘Would I have this affliction if I had?’
‘What happened? I set you up with that Filipino chick, and you looked like you knew what you were doing. Please tell me you at least got her number.’
Brian sits beside him and uses a cushion to cover his flagpole. Some Arabic women in black are running across the screen, wailing, raising their hands to the heavens and beating themselves on the head. The voice-over states that laser-guided missiles are accurate to within a few centimeters though the occasional ‘collateral damage’ is inevitable.
‘Listen,’ says Farai as images of charred Iraqis fill the screen, ‘you’re walking around with a loaded gun. It’s unhealthy for a young, healthy male such as yourself to live like this. A man must allow for a maximum of 4 weeks between sexual intercourse. Look at this. These guys are on 6 month rotations, they’re not getting laid and that’s why atrocities happen. After 4 weeks of no action, blood flows away from the brain, and there’s way too much testosterone in the body wreaking havoc in the amygdala. You carry on like this, mate, and you’re a danger not only to yourself, but to society at large.’
A loud, very human cry comes from one of the bedrooms. Brian moves quickly to see what’s up. Farai shrugs and flips the channel to Al Jazeera where he is met with even more distraught Arabs. He decides it’s all too depressing and logs on to hi5 to see if he’s got any new messages. As the page is loading, he flicks to a half-finished chess game against his laptop. It bores him, he’s playing at level 10, the highest level, and the AI can’t keep up with him. Its gigabytes of processing power don’t match up to his integrated organic circuitry.
‘Farai, can you come and give me a hand here?’ Brian calls out.
‘I’m busy,’ he replies.
‘Come on, man, this is serious.’
Farai gets up, tightens the towel round his waist, and walks down the dim corridor to the last bedroom on the right. The pong of stale man-sweat hits him. Brian’s standing at the door. A naked, skeletal figure lies on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. At intervals he moans. This is their friend, Scott. Farai opens the window. Fresh air rushes in from outside.
‘Dude, what the hell do you think you’re doing? We’ve got neighbors. This is a respectable area, they’ll skeem we’re killing a goat in here or something.’
‘She didn’t text me back,’ Scott groans.
‘Would you like something to drink, tea, coffee, water, anything?’ asks Brian.
‘My life’s over. She hates me.’
They stand awkwardly around their naked friend, not quite knowing what to do. Brian fetches a glass of orange juice and gives it to Scott. Farai can’t begin to understand why someone would go crazy like this over some piece of ass. He paces around the room, picking up dirty clothes and putting them into the laundry bag, an activity that hardly makes a dent on the mess.
‘She totally hates me.’
‘That’s chicks, man. They promise you the moon and all you get is a tiny little star, like this.” Farai indicates a tiny little gap between his index finger and thumb.
‘Everything’s fucked.’
‘Do you mind putting something on, coz, no offense, but your naked ass and his stiffy are kinda freaking me out here.’ Farai laughs at his own joke.
Scott lies there, immobile. His eyes bother Farai, pupils dilated, the whites, red and bloody. He knows the story though, Scott has spent the last week psychotexting his ex, C, trying to win her back with romantic declarations, freaky poems, and not-so-subtle emotional blackmail about how life isn’t worth living without her. The chick was hot, no doubt. Farai remembers her – great tits, curvy ass, cliché Coca-Cola bottle body, smart, funny, and quick as a whip. A classy tsvarakadenga. He knew it would never last with his mate Scott. The chick had standards, yo.
‘You’re calling her too often. You’re giving her too much power over you, bro. You gotta hang back and wait until she wants you. Guaranteed she’s gonna come crawling back. Straight-up homies like us are hard to come by in this city.’
‘You think so?’
‘Would I be saying it, if I didn’t think it?’ Farai feigns offense. ‘Now get up your rasclut, you’ve got work this morning, haven’t you?’
‘I’m calling in sick.’
‘You can’t. You owe
