by Ilze Hugo
- 36 - SANS
The bar was stuffed. Limbs lined wall to wall. A smell of sweat and vomit and beer. A fat tabby was picking at its paws underneath a painting of Jan van Riebeeck (or whoever it was). The dead man’s dandy mug was obscured by a spray-paint scrawl that read “Screw this guy.” Pink doodle horns sprouted from his curls. A pink pitchfork floated in the air behind his shoulder.
Sans and the sin-eater were plonked at a circle-stained booth. Sans was nursing a beer; the sin-eater was on his second glass of brandy and Coke.
“Thanks for the dop, boet,” said the sin-eater, knocking back some more karate water. “Sin-eating always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Makes me thirsty as hell. And this guy’s Christmas stocking was packed with a few particularly unsavory morsels.”
Sans listened with one ear while watching the bar go by behind the fat man’s back. Wait, was that Faith emerging from the bathroom and heading to the door? He pushed his head down, instinctively. Last thing he wanted was for the dead collector to find out that he’d followed her loony-tune advice.
“You know,” continued the sin-eater, adjusting his large rear on the leather couch, “I really like this place. Noisy with history. Back when this city was nothing but a little tit-sucker—the Tavern of the Seas—this was the place. There’s a reason they called it that, you know. Tavern of the Seas. The whole town wasn’t much more than a drive-in—or should we rather say ‘sail-in’—dive bar back then. Scores of travelers right off the boat came here to blow off steam and wet their whistles. Right here where we’re sitting now. You can almost see them, can’t you? Drinking, fighting, making merry, lekker getrek, laughing their asses off . . . Look, that one right there is—”
“Yes. I get it,” Sans interrupted. “So what’s the deal here, brother? Why haven’t you reported me yet?”
“To whom? The fashion police?”
“The what?”
“Those tackies you’re wearing. They’re not exactly subtle, are they? I mean, gold Nikes? The moment I saw you walk into the cafeteria, I thought, Sho, look at the rims on that one—”
“Hey! What I’m wearing is none of your business. I’m talking about the Veeps.”
“Now, why on Earth should I go reporting you to them, then?”
“If I’m infected like you say, I should be deported, right? Locked up. If what you’re saying is true, I’m a danger to everyone I come into contact with. I could be killing you by proximity as we speak.”
“That’s what they say.”
“They say it because it’s true! I’ve seen the dead, the dying. Do you think this is all some kind of grand illusion? A joke?”
The sin-eater signaled the waitress and ordered another round. “Oh, yes. A cosmic one. And we’re the punch line. But gags aside, let’s just say that my profession has gifted me with a unique perspective on life and death and all the rest.”
Feeling a migraine brewing, Sans pressed on. “You have a way of talking in circles, don’t you? Fine. But what about my money? You said you’d help me find it. And all this shit I’ve been seeing? This Eye business you’ve been going on about. What’s that about?”
The waitress brought the drinks and Fred slid Sans another lager. “Drink up. You’re going to need to be more lubricated before we get down to the fun stuff.”
“What fun stuff? Stop toying with me. Just spit it out.”
“As you wish.” The fat man cracked his knuckles, fingered his moustache again. “So here’s where you’re going to need to trust me a little, boet. Suspension of disbelief and all of that. Sometimes, when the Laughter hits . . . how can I put it . . . it doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. Something in some people’s makeup, their DNA or whatever you would like to call it, is different from the ordinary oke on the street.”
“What do you mean, different?”
“Call it the Nostradamus effect, if you will. You’ve heard of Nostradamus, right? Sixteenth-century oke who said he could see the future?”
“Sure.”
“But I bet you didn’t know Nostradamus was an apothecary before he became involved in all that prophecy hoodoo. The guy was working on a cure for the bubonic plague, the Black Death, when his whole bleddie family died of it. Wife, children, the lot. But the lucky bugger survived. He was coming into contact with all these sick okes for work, so logically he should have been first in line. To kick the bucket, I mean. But he didn’t catch a bleddie thing. It really messed with his head. On top of all that grief and guilt, he started seeing things, too. Weird, crazy, impossible stuff. Like airplanes. Imagine what he must have thought of that. Giant metal birds of doom that go vroom. I guess it really scared the poor bugger.”
Jesus, was this guy ever going to get around to finding his money for him?
“Anyway, so Nostradamus went and figured he was immune somehow and that the crazy dreams and the stuff he was seeing were all connected. Became obsessed with figuring out how. Spent every waking hour on it. Invented some kind of pill using his own DNA. And it managed to cure a whole bunch of people. But the aftereffects of his cure drove most of them quite mad, so he got disillusioned, gave up on the whole medicine business, and got more and more into the occult. Began writing down his prophecies. The rest, as they say, is history. Or maybe, I should say, the future. Who knows?”
“Okay. I hear you. But—”
“I’m getting there, hold your horses, boet. So my thinking is that’s what’s happening with you. You’ve got the fever but for some reason you didn’t get the full-blown disease. And the effect of your body fighting off the infection is that you got stuck with the Eye.”
“But if what you’re saying is true, why me?”
“Ever heard of the Italian family who couldn’t sleep? Generations of the same family coming down with this weird disorder. Some prion disease of the brain caused by a mutation or some such. The insomnia starts sometime after their eighteenth birthday. Gets worse and worse until they croak. Nasty stuff. But I’m digressing.”
No shit. Sans took a swig of beer.
“The point is I think you might have a rare genetic mutation of some sort. Ha, you and old Nostradamus might even be related. Wouldn’t that be a story, hey, boet?”
Sans watched the fat man nurse his Klippies and Coke and wondered why he was even indulging this lunatic. A week ago he wouldn’t have given this guy the time of day. He thought about standing up, leaving. His rational mind knew he should have left the bar hours ago. But something made him stay. Probably the forty-odd messages and missed calls from those damn gangsters. The worst thing was, it was like a part of him was actually starting to believe this nonsense. If that was the case, if he was willing to reach that far, he was clearly more desperate than he realized.
“Listen, boet,” said Fred, leaning his meaty elbows on the table, “my connection to the dead. Had it since I was a laaitie. It’s kind of a family affliction, as I think I’ve mentioned, but it doesn’t quite work on demand. Think of it as a Twitter feed to the other side. All these tweets coming in all the time, and I can’t filter them. Every now and again I hear about one of you guys. A seer who wasn’t born with the Eye. Way I figure it, you guys seem to pop up every century or so—all connected to pandemics, all starting with a fever.”
“So I’m not the only one?”
“Not if we count the dead. I don’t know much about the living. Not my area of expertise, as they say.”
“And what about the girl? How does she tie into all this?”
“Well, the way I figure, you two are connected. Think of her as your other half from the other side of history. She’s got the fever, too—and from the way you said she’s dressed, I’m guessing it’s smallpox—and while you’re sitting over here looking into the past, she’s over there glimpsing the future. Make sense?”
“No. Not even remotely.”
“Oh, well.”
“Suppose what you’re saying is even one half of an inch true. I still don’t get why me.”
�
��Haven’t you been paying attention? Because you both have the Nostradamus gene, boet. Or maybe there’s another reason, who knows? I might be an expert on this stuff, but I’m not God himself, you know.”
“And the visions? Are they supposed to mean something?”
“Way I figure it, you and your cherry have your wires crossed. It’s like there’s a webcam in her brain and she’s downloading the footage directly into yours in real time. Get my drift?”
Sans plonked his beer down. A volcano of warm foam erupted from the bottle’s neck, running down the glass and onto the table. “This is crazy. You’re crazy.”
“Might be, might be, but this is Sick City. We’re all mad here. So, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
Sans closed his eyes, laid his forehead onto the damp table, and tried to still the spinning room. “Right. So if what you’re saying is true—which I’m not saying it is, by the way—would the postboxes pick up anything? Can’t I just continue punching in my medpass and see what happens?”
“You could, you could. Maybe you want to risk it, maybe you don’t. There’s an easy way to solve all this, though, you know.”
“What?”
“Don’t go all ostrich on me and pretend you haven’t figured it out already, boet.” The fat man stuck his hand in the pocket of his windbreaker and fiddled around in there, took something out. A pen? No. Fuck.
“I always carry extras. Don’t worry. I haven’t used this one on myself. It’s still nice and new and sealed in plastic, boet.”
“No.”
The sin-eater raised his eyebrows into triangles.
“Just no.”
“Think about it. If you’re so sure I’m wrong about all of this, it won’t hurt now, will it?” The fat man glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then slid his closed hand across the table. He opened it and they both stared. Sans swatted at the offending thing like a fly. Then, keeping it covered with his palm, he slid the thermometer towards him. He glared at the fat man, who smiled back.
The sin-eater traced the rim of his glass with his index finger until it sang. “Hey, if you want to be Rambo, gamble with death and give yourself up to the Veeps, that’s fine with me. And if you need a good sin-eater before you go, you know where to find me.”
* * *
He was in the safety of the bathroom. Feeling all paranoid android like a junkie. The walk through the dive bar had been a long one, as if all the eyes in the whole damn place were searing into his skin, the mercury monster burning a hole in his pocket, his brain, his heart. To make matters worse, he was hallucinating again. The last stall at the end of the bathroom was morphing in and out of focus like a disco strobe. One moment he’d be seeing the white door of the stall all normal and good and fine; the next it’d be gone and in its place, he’d see a brown door, old, with this brass keyhole in the shape of an eye. An eye. The Eye. Did he have the Eye? Right now he’d rather have his cash back and take his chances. That bloody backstabbing brat of a Lucky.
He grabbed the door of the closest stall and pulled at the handle. After locking himself in, he took the little shitstorm out and struggled with the plastic covering. His fingers felt useless and dumb. Plastic shucked, he stuck the thing into his mouth and sat on the lid of the pot. Waited. For what felt like ages.
Took the thing out.
And looked.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck. He was fucked.
Fortunes measured, he pushed his way through the boozing maelstrom towards the front door. No way was he going back to the table and facing that smug bastard. No damn way. But who was standing there waiting for him, smoking a Van Hunks, when he got outside? The devil himself. As if the fat fuck had known he was going to try to give him the slip.
“Bad news, boet?” asked Fred.
“Screw you.”
“Maybe later. Want a cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Not a bad time to start, don’t you think?”
They stood there for a while. Inhaling. Exhaling. Nothing else. Until the fat man said, “I know a guy.”
“Ja, whatever. We all know a guy.”
“Boet, I’m not pissing over your credentials for knowing people. I can see you’re the kind of guy who knows your fair share of guys. But seeing that it’s only a few hours until the next med cannon, does your guy work through the night?”
Sans glared at him. The fat man just smiled back.
“And what do you get out of this? A cut of whatever I pay this guy?”
The fat man blew a smoke ring into the sky. Sans sighed. His head ached.
“Okay,” said Fred. “Let’s tango. I’ll lead, shall I? A mission with frisson. A drag that lags. A drama-o-rama with really bad karma. A total bleddie nightmare. Nah . . . I’m just kidding. It’s going to be a piece of cake.”
Fred Mostert, sin-eater, ground the butt of his cigarette under his shoe and led the way to his car.
- 37 - TOMORROW
Tomorrow found herself back at the kitchen table. It was morning again, the second morning since Elliot . . . She was exhausted. Needed to sleep. Really sleep. After meeting with the truthologist, Faith, she’d spent all day yesterday just walking the streets, trying to find Elliot, with this awful, chewing feeling in the pit of her stomach that she should actually be at home, waiting for him there. What if someone had found him and brought him home and she wasn’t there to meet them? What if that person gave up and left?
But all the waiting was driving her crazy, so she didn’t wait; she walked. All over the city. Everywhere she’d ever been with Elliot, and everywhere she hadn’t. Talked to so many people, showed them the picture on her phone, begged them to look, to look again, one last time, to remember something, anything. When she finally got back home her feet were bleeding. So she fell into her bed, chucking her feet-mangling shoes across the room like a pair of missiles. Didn’t even remember to eat. But she couldn’t sleep. Just lay there. Her brain replaying the same thoughts on repeat.
Now it was morning and she was back, sitting at the same stupid kitchen table. Eyes thick with lack of sleep. Head numb. Feeling small and ineffectual and useless and close to cracking up.
And tired. So, so tired.
She rested her elbows on the kitchen table. One of the table legs tipped under the weight. All it needed was a piece of cardboard underneath it—a corner from a cereal box, that would do it. There was a box of Coco Pops in the pantry. Elliot didn’t like Coco Pops. She would go to the pantry and get it. She would. She would make herself some coffee and get it.
Just not right now.
Not right now.
Then she heard it. Soft at first. Then louder.
A knock.
Someone was knocking on the door.
She jumped, and the wonky table shook under her weight. This was it. Please, please let this be it.
It was going to be okay, right? It was all going to be okay.
Yes.
Please.
- 38 - FAITH
A gang of neighborhood kids were chasing a soccer ball around in Tomorrow’s street. One wild kick and the ball made a beeline for Faith’s chin. She swerved, missed the hit, chided the little posse for not looking where they were aiming, then double-checked the address the girl had given her.
She found the candy-floss cottage at the end of the street and climbed the steps to the front door. The paint on the left side of the doorframe was chipped away, revealing the bare brown skin of the wood underneath where someone had once wedged a screwdriver into the frame. While she knocked on the door, she mulled this trace of Then and thought about the thief who might have dug at that piece of wood, wondered what his name was. Did he have a nickname? And how did the thief’s mother sleep? Did she lie awake at night, thinking about how the baby she’d birthed from her belly and nursed for twelve months from her sagging tits, the child she’d washed and bathed and clothed and fed and taught all about God and Jesus and the Bible and how to be good, to say please and thank y
ou and then some, chose a different path in the end, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it?
The door swung open, and there stood Tomorrow, her face a blank scale waiting to be tipped.
“Any news?” said the girl, drawing in a breath and not releasing it.
“Yes. I mean no. Not quite.”
“I don’t understand.” Her features oscillated as the scale tried desperately to steady itself, her hand still on the handle of the open door.
“Me neither. That’s why I’m here. You see, I talked to a friend of mine who is on the force.”
“And?”
“I . . . I don’t quite know what to make of it. He says Elliot . . . He says your brother . . .”
“My brother what?”
“He . . . I don’t know how to put it, Tomorrow. There’s no easy way of saying this, so I’m just going to spell it out, okay? They’re saying he doesn’t exist. At least not anymore. They say he has succumbed.”
“Those bastards.” The scale took a dive towards the floor and the girl’s face crumpled. Her hand fell off the door handle and she turned around and retreated into the darkness of the house without saying another word.
Faith hesitated, before following the girl down the narrow corridor to the tiny kitchen at the back. The place was a jumble. Dishes stacked every which way. Flies hovering. Faith batted the air with her hand, then sat at the table. Tomorrow followed suit. “Sorry about the mess. I’ve been . . . distracted, I guess. And Ayanda doesn’t help much with . . . And Lucky’s been . . .”
“I understand. Don’t worry about it. Really.”
“I can put the kettle on if you like? Make some tea?”
“Thanks. But I’m actually good.”
“I’ll make it for me, then. If you don’t mind?”
“Know what? Maybe I’ll have a cup.”
“Good.” The girl fiddled with the kettle. Faith watched her closely as she lifted it off the counter, opened the tap.