“You kept your promise, Musa. You got me drunk on my birthday. Catch you later in the day.”
“Sipho, wait. Here is the cash for fixing the car, although the way you were spinning it you may have to fix it again soon. All the crooks were asking about you.”
“These cars were made for spinning, Musa.”
“What will you do with the money, anyway?”
“I want to buy a phone.”
“I got a spare phone. You can take it; then I’ll only pay like a hundred rands or something.”
“Musa, you are Mr Money but always bargaining.”
“This is a good deal I am giving you. Take a look behind the gear lever.”
“I’ll take it, thanks, Musa. Call you when I get a SIM card. Anti-hijack system.”
“Go sleep, Sipho. You are mumbling now.”
“No, Musa. Anti-hijacks. What makes M3s go dead within five minutes are the anti-hijack systems. Someone came to see my father with a similar problem. The anti-hijack in his car was going haywire, so we disconnected it.”
Musa came close with a seriousness I did not know him to possess.
“Can you override them? Can you disconnect them?” he said.
“Yes, I can do both,” I said.
I pissed on the blue wall. In the mirror in my room, I saw myself drunk. On the small table by my bed I picked up the birthday card left by my girlfriend, Nana, sixteen hours earlier.
It read, “Happy Seventeen, Sipho, I luv you.”
2. Flirting With the Game
2
Flirting With the Game
I woke later that morning to my father’s impatient knocks on my bedroom window. Before I’d gone to sleep, I left the window open just a peek as I never could stand the pungency of overnight alcohol breath, even my own. When my father tapped on the window, the aroma of his coffee slid through the gap and provided a welcome change of odour in the aftermath of a hard night’s drinking. I recalled Nana’s words, the ones I always heard whenever I tried to kiss her while drunk. The way she laughed at all my jokes yet squirmed when I came closer: “If your breath smells like this, imagine your insides, stomach and everything. I am definitely not kissing you.”
“You have visitors. Why are you still sleeping so late?” Dad asked.
I heard him first as a distant echo that amplified to jolt me out of slumber.
I took a minute to scrutinise the room and confirm that all the landmarks were there – the stained ceiling, mirror, Nana’s birthday card. I moved the curtain – made by Ma on her sewing machine before it died – and saw Dad under the bonnet of a mistiming Ford Courier. With him were two members of the Cold Hearts gang. I had seen the Cold Hearts at the party in Lamontville, but they had never come to us before to have their cars fixed. My tongue was a mess of yeast, barley, weed, cigarettes, ethanol and chips, and my head felt heavy. Definitely bathroom first.
I knew about the Cold Hearts. They were blood-spilling brothers. They talked – when they did talk – as if emotion was painstakingly sucked out of each word, so much so that if you were to replace their original words with others, the sentences would still sound the same.
In the township, there were horror stories about the Cold Hearts. Their signature was on the cash-in-transit heist up at Stanger that left all the guards dead, as well as the bloody hijackings at Hillcrest, which had brought the flying squad into the township. The disembowelling of a taxi driver in broad daylight – over a parking spot – had township people shaking their heads in silent outrage. Was their insanity enshrined in brutality and sheer barbarism?
I had a question of my own: What did they want from me?
The older of the two Cold Hearts pulled me aside. He seemed okay, so we went outside, by the painted part of the blue wall. He was a short, stocky, bald-headed heap of pure muscle. Despite their reputation, the Cold Hearts neither drank nor smoked. I had not seen any of them talking to the girls at the party in Lamontville. In the boisterous party atmosphere, they were blank-faced and aloof, and sipped only soft drinks.
He looked up at me with eyes so blank I wondered if anything functioned behind them.
“Help me with this. I hijacked a car and drove it all the way from Hillcrest. I even went to the party in it. Now when I want to take it to the buyer it won’t start. I hear you are good with these things. Can you start it for me?”
It did not sound like a question, so I did not answer. Only when I saw a slight crease on his forehead did I inquire, “How much will you pay me?”
“Don’t worry, we will pay you,” he said.
“I just need to know. I like everything out in the open. I have had people come here just like you, but in the end I don’t get paid.”
“Don’t worry, you will get paid,” he said.
“If your problem is what I think it is, I will charge you R800.”
“We will pay you,” he said again.
“Let me get my things, then. How far away is this car of yours?”
“First line of houses behind the church in G Section.”
In the fog of a hangover, I collected wires and pliers from our tool box by my father’s legs.
“Do they have a problem with wiring?”
“The way they describe it, I think so, Dad.”
“Before you go, can you start this car?”
The ignition on the Ford Courier only turned. There was no spark.
“Okay, stop. Will you pass any shops on your way? I need the paper, and bread for when your sister comes back from school.”
“I’ll see, Dad.”
“Those are expensive pliers, please come back with them. You keep losing tools but you never replace them.”
“I will, Dad.”
When I saw the car supposed to take us to G Section, I felt a sickening ball of fear which I first dismissed as heartburn. It was the latest BMW 3 Series – not even the yuppies and taxi owners had it yet. I had felt such fear only once before – a year before, almost to the day, when I’d crashed a car into a concrete barrier on my sixteenth birthday.
Everything stopped. My heart and lungs took time out. I felt severe nausea when I closed the door and sank into the cream leather seats. It became almost unbearable when I saw that the upholstery around the ignition had been torn out and a screwdriver used to start the engine. The icy storm of the air conditioner, and the absence of a licence disc on the windscreen, sent a single stream of cold sweat down my back. The reservations
