shoes. He pulled them towards himself, then emptied the contents onto the floor.
‘Nice, bro,’ he said.
I looked at all the mismatched pairs of shoes that I’d never been able to use, these big lefts and baby rights. And here was a man who could use them. And all the pairs that had been sitting unused in his cupboard, would now see the light of day from the bottom of my legs. What a great guy I was for initiating the meeting.
We spent a few minutes admiring our newly acquired shoes. From a financial point of view, he was the definite winner. Besides the Levi’s I’d just bought, he’d also won himself a pair of Nike cross trainers and some Oakley slip-ons. They were from back in my school days when I still got a spending allowance from my father, but my feet hadn’t grown since then. As for me, I was getting myself three pairs of shoes that either came from Pep or Mr Price, and a single pair of smart evening shoes. I doubted if their twins even got used. I couldn’t picture Pete in a suit.
We each tried on a newly matched pair, and sure enough, the minor difference in size didn’t matter. They fitted just fine.
‘So, bro,’ he said. He had a big smile on his face. I’d packed my new shoes into the cupboard, and he’d crammed his into the bag. I made no mention of the fact that he was scoring big time: there was nothing else I could do with the shoes, and at least now all the pairs in my cupboard could be worn.
‘Show me around the place, bro,’ he said.
I took him out to the garden and introduced him to my plants, which, at that stage, were four weeks old, had just been planted in the soil and were looking fine and healthy.
‘Look strong, bro,’ he said, running his thick fingers over the leaves. The backs of his hands, like his face, were red and spotted.
‘You ever grown indoors, bro?’ he asked me.
‘No.’
‘Checks like your garden’s in a bit of a sink, bro.’
‘Might be.’
‘Tell you what, bro. Those guys up at the store, my one buddy runs the place. I’ll introduce you proper. You can get a nice kit. Then you grow indoors, and don’t worry about the weather.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Listen, bro. If you do get a setup going, I may have some business for you. Not definite, bro. But maybe. But shoosh about it, bro. Lank quiet.’
I hadn’t heard another word from him until the morning of the day I got fired. He phoned and said he wanted to come visit.
So I attached the ultraviolet light to the inside of the small section at the top of my cupboard. I set up the HP globe in the lower section: the section where I used to keep my clothes. I shoved my clothes and shoes under my bed. I filled up six little pots with mud from the garden, and planted a seed in each. I placed them under the UV light, just as the man from the Grow-it-Yourself shop had instructed me to. Then I got the bone and wrapped it in the plastic bag and just before heading out, decided to change into one of the pairs of shoes I’d received from Pete. Although they were cheap, they were pretty fucking comfortable.
* * *
I took another hit from my bong before wrapping the bone in a black bag and heading off to the fair. I walked through the park that surrounds the community centre. Bodies were scattered here and there. Hobos seem to spend most of their time asleep. It’s no wonder they’re on the street. I wondered for a moment if I might end up like them one day. But no, I was a land owner. They were peasants.
I was revoltingly stoned and nearly stood in dog shit. A drunken hobo wrapped in a filthy blanket and sleeping against a tree shouted some curses at me, but I ignored him and carried on toward the centre.
I leant against the fence for a few moments to see what was happening at the fair. A couple of braais were going, people were selling cool drinks and chocolates. Children were playing on swings and screaming at one another. It all felt a bit stagnant, and just looking at it made me feel depressed. I began wondering why it was that I’d actually come to the fair. It’d seemed like a very good idea when I was freshly stoned, but now I doubted that any good would come of it.
‘Are you coming in, sir?’ the lady at the gate asked me.
It was a middle-aged coloured woman. She looked terribly righteous. She’d seen me watching the children and if I said I wasn’t coming in she’d think I was a paedophile.
‘Ah, yes’ I said.
‘It’s ten rand please, sir.’
‘Umm. OK.’ I dug around in my pockets for some coins, making sure not to pull the bankie of weed out by mistake. I really should’ve left it at home.
She didn’t ask me what was in the black bag.
I walked through the play area. The general murmur of little people screaming and big people talking hung about the air. The grown-ups stood in groups, exchanging opinions, nodding heads, biting boerewors rolls, wiping mustard off moustaches.
‘Would you like to try some delicious homemade fudge?’ a plump girl behind a grey table asked me.
‘No. Where are the display tables?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘They said in the advert there’d be display tables.’
‘You mean the community projects section? It’s all through the buildings there.’ She pointed at what looked like a small school block.
The idea started to make sense to me again. The weed was coming in waves. I’d sober up for a few seconds, and think it was all over, then a second later be completely fucked again. Yes, someone here would know what to do with the bone, and be impressed by my initiative.
I turned around and walked away, hopping up onto the concrete corridor that ran past drainpipes and doors painted in different colours. I walked up a flight of dark grey stairs onto the upper level and was accosted by a female. She was posing as human, but could easily have been a bull.
‘Are you here for the drama class?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘We starting in fifteen minutes, hey!’
I looked over her large shoulders into the classroom behind her. All the desks and chairs had been moved to the side of the room, but there was no one inside.
‘Ja!’ she said. ‘I’m not waiting. It says on the pamphlet we start at half past one. So we start at half past one. Come on!’
‘I’m not here for that.’
‘We do classes in Woodstock as well. Let me give you a flyer.’
‘I’m looking for somewhere to take my bone.’
‘What?’
‘I found one. I don’t know what to do with it.’
‘Excuse me!’
‘I found a bone
