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K Sello Duiker
THIRTEEN CENTS
Kwela Books
1
My name is Azure. Ah-zoo-ray. That’s how you say it. My mother gave me that name. It’s the only thing I have left from her.
I have blue eyes and a dark skin. I’m used to people staring at me, mostly grown-ups. When I was at school children used to beat me up because I had blue eyes. They hated me for it. But now children just take one look at me and then they either say something nasty or smile. But grown-ups, they pierce you with their stare.
I live alone. The streets of Sea Point are my home. But I’m almost a man, I’m nearly thirteen years old. That means I know where to find food that hasn’t seen too many ants and flies in Camps Bay or Clifton. That is if there aren’t any policemen patrolling the streets. They don’t like us much. Or if I fancy some fruit then I go to the station where the coloured fruit-sellers work. I don’t like them much because they are always yelling at us to move away. Most of them throw away fruit instead of giving it to us. But I’m not stupid. I know that they put funny things in the dustbins where we go scratching for food. I can smell their evil. I know a few kids who are under their evil spell. They make them walk the night spreading their evil. And some of them are so deep into their evil they can change shape. They can become rats or pigeons. Pigeons are also rats, they just have wings. And once you become a rat they make you do ugly things in sewers and in the dark. It’s true. It happens. I’ve seen it.
But like I said I’m almost a man. I can take care of myself. “Julle fokken mannetjies moet skool toe gaan,” the fruit-sellers yell. It’s easy for them to say that. I lost my parents three years ago. Papa was bad with money and got Mama in trouble. The day they killed him I was away at school. I came back to our shack only to find them in a pool of blood. That was three years ago. That was the last time I went to school.
I walk a lot. My feet are tough and rough underneath. But I’m clean. Every morning I take a bath at the beach. I wash with sea water. Sometimes I use a sponge or if I can’t find one I use an old rag. It’s just as good. Then I rinse off the sea water at the tap. It’s not that bad washing with cold water. It’s like anything – you get used to it.
My friend Bafana can’t believe that I saw my dead parents and didn’t freak out. But I told him. I cried and then it was over. No one was going to take care of me. He’s still a laaitie, Bafana, only nine years old and he’s on the streets. And he is naughty. He has a home to go back to in Langa but he chooses to roam the streets. He likes sniffing glue and smoking buttons when he has money. I don’t like that stuff, it makes my head sore. But I like smoking ganja, quite a lot actually. Now Bafana when he smokes glue and buttons he becomes an animal, really. He starts grunting and doesn’t speak much and he messes his pants. So whenever I see him smoking that stuff I beat him. I once beat him so badly he had to go to Groote Schuur to get stitched. I don’t like that stuff. It just does terrible things to your body.
I sleep in Sea Point near the swimming pool because it’s the safest place to be at night. In town there are too many pimps and gangsters. I don’t want to make my money like them. So during the day I help park cars in Cape Town. It’s not easy work. You have to get there early. Sometimes you have to fight for your spot. The older ones leave us alone, they get all the choice parking spots in the centre of town. It’s like that. I don’t ask questions.
I help people park cars and wash them if the owners let me. If you wash their car before you ask them most times they just swear at you because you’re a laaitie and they are big. You see it’s like that. That’s how it works here. You must always act like a grown-up. You must speak like them. That means when you speak to a grown-up in town you must look at them in the eyes and use a loud voice because if you speak softly they will swear at you. You must also be clean because grown-ups are always clean. And you must never talk to them like you talk to a laaitie. Like I can’t talk to them the way I talk to Bafana. I must always say “Sir” or “Madam”. It’s like saying “Magents” except it’s for grown-ups. And when I can remember I say “please” and “thank you”. Those two words are like magic, my secret. They’ve made me nice money every time I used them with a smile.
I work near a takeaway shop called Subway. On a good day I can make enough money to buy half a loaf of white bread with chips and Coke and still have two rands left over to buy a stop from Liesel who stays under the bridge.
She’s the only grown-up I trust because she asks me for money and always pays me back a week later. I also like her because she let me see how a woman looks like naked. She doesn’t tell lies, Liesel, not like the other people who stay under the bridge. All the skollies, gangsters and drunks with phuza-face also stay there.
Poor Liesel. I know what she does to make money. It’s not easy. That’s why I never ask her about it. And when she has a bruise or a cut under her lip I don’t say anything. I just pretend that things are like always, the same. We talk about kwaito and whether the Rasta who brings her stop will get good stuff like Malawi gold or Mpondo and we talk about other things. I like her a lot but she’s not my cherrie. She’s got her own outie. I don’t like him much. He’s a member of the Hard Livings gang.
2
Morning creeps in slowly. Bafana sleeps curled in a half-moon beside me. I get up to take a pee. I rub my eyes and let out a yawn as I piss. We sleep at the far corner of the beach. Above us is the swimming pool. It is too early for the public toilets to be open so I go a little further up the beach and do my business near a drain. Deep orange clouds cover the sky. Seagulls fly by and cry.
“Bafana, son, get up, we need to get breakfast.” I poke him. “Bafana . . . Bafana.”
I go on like this for about five minutes before he gets up.
“Wena, you must stop taking those stupid drugs. They are fucking you up. Look at you, you can’t even get up. You’re lucky it’s me. Somebody will think you’re dead.”
He moans and looks at me with a skew face.
“I’m hungry,” he mumbles.
“Ja, shuddup, you know what you have to do.”
“Wena, and your stupid rules.”
I slap the back of his head and he clicks his tongue at me.
“The sun is already out, hurry up. I’m also hungry.”
We take off our clothes and go towards the water only dressed in our shorts.
“Don’t make me drag you in there, son, we go through this every morning.”
“Yessus! Who said I have to wash every day?”
“Hei voetsek! Don’t give me shit. You know my rules. If you want to stay with me you have to wash. Now fuck off,” I say and push him into the water.
He shrieks.
“Thula, man. People are still sleeping. This isn’t town.”
I only go in up to my ankles and watch him scrubbing with a cloth.
“Do it properly,” I warn him.
“Eish maar, wena.”
After a while I let him go out and rinse off at the tap. He sits on a rock and dries off in the sun while I bathe. I think
