by Zakes Mda
Now he plays his didgeridoo alone. He has even done away with the tumbadora. Just the man and his didj without any frills. And people love it. He draws better crowds than he did when he was with Rachel and is making more money. People are fascinated by the deep drone of the instrument, and the various tones he is able to muster all at once. He never fails to get applause and requests for an encore whenever he produces vibrations and reverberations that seem to shake the very earth the people are standing on.
“You let Rachel run all over you,” says Nana Moira.
“You let Rachel run all over you,” says Jason.
“Give us a shot,” says Nana Moira.
Jason gets the bottle of bourbon from behind the pots and pours them each a shot in paper cups.
“You shouldn’t let Rachel get away with everything,” says Nana Moira as she slugs the drink in one swig. “You gonna lose her to that skinny West Virginia boy.”
“You don’t lose nothing you never owned in the first place, Nana Moira.”
“With that attitude you ain’t gonna get nowhere. She’s ripe for the plucking and you snoozing.”
There is a commotion in the quilting room. The kids have arrived. Jason is one of the two judges in the gingerbread house competition, so he leaves Nana Moira to her cooking and baking. The place is buzzing as the moms and older sisters help the kids unpack kits of prebaked gingerbread houses from boxes. The kids are in groups of two or three, depending on their ages. Jason starts the stopwatch. The winning group is the one that will have the best decorated house in thirty minutes. The room fills with the aromas of confection. Walls are erected and cemented together with icing. Then the roofs, the doors, the windows. Some kids use Hershey bars for the doors and gelatin sheets for almost clear windows. More icing on the roof for snow. The more creative ones use shredded wheat cereal on the roofs or cookies layered as shingles. M&Ms, Skittles and candy corn make the walls and the roofs colourful. Some are even used to fence the houses. Shredded coconut or just sugar spread in front of the houses become snow on which gingerbread Santas mingle with naked gingerbread men. Some houses are wobbly and cannot stand the weight of the decorations. They come tumbling down and the owners burst into tears. Jason has to cast off his role as a judge and become a comforter and consoler.
Nana Moira watches from the kitchen entrance. She smiles to herself and says under her breath, “He would be very good with my great-grandchildren.”
Savoury scents of baking pies wafting from the kitchen intermingle with the minty and gingery aromas that fill the quilting room.
The only compensation for the sad fact that it won’t be a white Christmas again this year is that the kids can make a bonfire outside and roast marshmallows.
A dinner of savoury and sweet pies was had by all, and a lot of soda and egg-nog was quaffed. Toys donated by the Athens business community and sundry philanthropists were handed out by a doddery Santa who would have fallen to pieces if any of the kids had sat on his lap. The infants and toddlers have been taken home to bed, and the quilting room has become a dance hall. A bluegrass trio from Chester Hill is singing and playing the mandolin, banjo and dulcimer. It is a square-dance theme party and most of the younger women are resplendent in fancy dresses with rows of ruffles, lace and ribbons. Some are in colour-coordinated ruffled dresses, petticoats and even pettipants. Most of the men are in their sloppy everyday plaid shirts and denim jeans. But two or three fops are in long-sleeved country-and-western shirts with bolo ties, neat jeans, cowboy hats and boots with taps.
In these early hours of the dance only one or two couples are dancing. The rest are standing in groups talking and laughing and drinking punch or egg-nog. Genesis and his wife are cracking a few jokes with Nana Moira. The wife is properly attired, while Genesis is in his old hippie tie-dyed T and faded jeans. Nana Moira is in a bright blue prairie skirt, albeit a long one. She takes this dance seriously and admonishes Genesis. She says she expected better from him, but it turns out he is no different from the other men who have lost respect for tradition and culture and come to the square dance dressed any which way. Thanks to the spoilsports it is not quite the fifties theme party she had hoped this would be. Although she had not announced it that way, all this effort was in memory of Robbie Boucher. Sadly, the men failed to live up to that memory.
“But it makes no never mind,” she says after giving Genesis a few more choice words, and gently admonishing his wife for not getting him in line, “square-dance is square-dance even when some folks are disrespectful.”
Jason, who has the habit of avoiding his father when they are at the Centre, though he still lives in his house, is on one of the car seats on the porch watching the kids using long sticks as skewers to roast marshmallows. A curious boy walks over to him.
“What’s up, Jase?”
“Get your ass outta here!” growls Jason.
The boy is taken aback. Was this not the guy who was laughing and cracking jokes at the gingerbread house competition? He scampers away to join his mates at the fireside.
Jason does not want any kids bothering him because he is involved in very serious business: he is creating sizzurp in a soda bottle. He is mixing Phenergan – a brand of cough syrup that has large amounts of promethazine and codeine – with Mountain Dew and pieces of Jolly Rancher candy. He uses a Styrofoam cup to drink the mixture, and soon he feels all fuzzy inside and regrets that he was rude to the boy. He calls him to come and join him, but the boy yells back: “Fuck you!”
He is attacked by so much happiness he wants to cry. He stands and dances to the music from the quilting room. The headlights of a car shine on him as it drives into the yard. He dances even more vigorously for the light. The parking space in front of the building is chock-full – some space where cars would normally be parked is taken up by the bonfire – so the car reverses and parks outside the fence. Rachel and Schuyler get out of the car and walk into the yard. Immediately Jason sees them he shouts excitedly, waving his hands.
“Hey Schuyler! Hey Rache!”
“I thought you said he was not talking to you,” says Schuyler to Rachel.
“He was not,” says Rachel.
“Come join me, girls,” says Jason. “Rache, you pretty Santy Claus you!”
She does look very beautiful in black knee-high boots and a three-piece Santa costume: a teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy red mini-skirt and hood, both with white faux-fur trim, and a black and red velvet top. She is not wearing a coat despite the cold; she left it in the car to show off her attire. Schuyler does not look bad herself, though showing less flesh in a black pants suit and a down jacket with a hood. She still hobbles on her single crutch.
“What’s up, Jason?” says Schuyler, when they get to him.
“Try this,” he says, giving Rachel the Styrofoam cup. In his euphoria he has forgotten he is not talking to her. He loves everybody and he wants to share his sizzurp.
“What’s this?” asks Rachel.
“Hey, that smells like slim,” says Schuyler.
“What’s slim?” asks Rachel.
“Slim, sizzurp, same difference,” says Jason.
“You don’t know slim? Been living under a rock lately, Rache? That’s what the hip-hop guys call purple drank. That’s why he’s so happy. It does that to you.”
“I’ll have none of it. I’m on my own high,” says Rachel, as she walks away towards the door.
“Me neither,” says Schuyler hobbling after her. The women enter the building.
“Hey Rache!” says Jason giggling and calling after them. “Where’s Blue? How come you’re here without Blue? I love Blue, Rache! She guards our money and it grows and grows, all because of fuckin’ Blue.”
He follows them into the quilting room and starts clogging alone like crazy. He is the only one who is clogging. The rest of the people have formed two circles of eight dancers each. They are gleeful as they do the flutterwheel, and then reverse the flutter and pass the ocean, all of which are square-dance steps that l
eave the couples giggly and giddy. Rachel is dancing up a storm in one of the circles. So is Nana Moira who, to Rachel’s surprise, does not need the walking stick when she dances. Of course her joints are stiff and arthritic and she dances like the old lady she is, but her dance partners are only too happy to support her and nurse her along. One can see that back in the day she used to be a nifty dancer. Genesis, particularly, relishes dancing with Nana Moira. Actually, everyone wants to dance with Nana Moira. She is the celebrity of the night. Schuyler can only sit on the sidelines and watch.
Early in the morning, a few hours before dawn, Jason is driving Rachel’s car back to the Jensen Community Centre after dropping Schuyler at home in Rome Township. Rachel is dozing next to him. The crisp winter air outside penetrates the old Ford Escort and brings Jason to alertness. The events of the party return to him in incoherent snatches.
After his marathon clogging the sizzurp wore off and he was in the dumps. He just sat there, next to Schuyler, and stared at the dancers. Occasionally Nana Moira joined them when she got tired. Jason was not responsive to their conversation.
“That’s what slim does to some people,” said Schuyler.
“You would know, wouldn’t you?” said Nana Moira. She couldn’t help being bitchy to Schuyler. It was no secret that she didn’t like her one bit; she merely tolerated her for Rachel’s sake.
Nana Moira didn’t sit for long. Soon she was up and about serving potato and corn chips with dip and urging people to have some. Then she went back on the floor dancing.
Jason steals a look at Rachel. Her head rests on his shoulder. He only has to tilt his head slightly to feel the silky hair against his cheeks. He drives very slowly. The bumpy road makes her head rub against his face. Occasionally she wakes up and tries to sit upright. But in no time she is dozing off again, giving him a thrill that he cannot prolong enough.
“There’ll be a lot of cleaning up tomorrow,” says Rachel as they enter the Centre.
Paper plates and cups strewn all over the place. Some of the ornaments have been stripped from the Christmas tree and form a trail to the door.
“And you won’t be there for it,” says Jason.
He takes a chair.
“Who says?”
“You’re never there for nothing.”
She sits on the table.
“You’re not starting on that again,” she says. “Must go home now. Gonna sleep for the whole day.”
He is rolling a joint.
“Okay, no sweat. Let’s share a peace pipe. It’s Christmas, Rachel. We don’t wanna waste Christmas.”
They share a spliff, although Rachel takes only two tokes.
“This is gonna pick us up,” says Jason.
“It’s gonna give us the munchies instead,” says Rachel.
Jason goes to the kitchen and comes back with slices of fruit cake on a paper plate. They start eating. She has only one slice, and he stuffs himself.
“We should lock up and go. Where are my car keys, Jase?” says Rachel.
He pats his pockets and says, “I must’ve left them in the car. I’ll get them.”
Instead of going to her car he goes to his. He gets a can of Old Spice from the glove compartment and sprays himself liberally. He returns to the quilting room. The scent of cologne is not lost on her. She suspects this is some feeble attempt at seduction and chuckles to herself.
“The keys?” she asks.
“Come on, Rache, we still having a great time. Tell you what, I got some bourbon left.”
He goes to the kitchen and brings one of the bottles he had hidden in the cupboard behind the pots. He pours two drinks in paper cups.
“I’m in no mood to party, Jason. Not after partying for the whole night,” she says, and takes one swig from the cup. “Now give me my keys.”
He pats his pockets once more and pretends he can’t find the keys. Rachel laughs and says that it’s a cheap trick. He was driving her car just a few minutes ago; there is no way he could have lost the keys between the car and the quilting room. Jason reaches for her and holds both her hands while gently swinging her arms.
“You can give me a goodnight kiss though, won’t you?”
She gives him a peck on the cheek.
“Come on, a real kiss, not some fuckin’ baby kiss.”
“You know you’re like a brother to me, Jason,” she says trying to free her hands from his. But his grip is tight.
“I ain’t nobody’s brother,” he says.
“My pops played marbles with Genesis when they were kids,” she says, trying in vain to lighten the moment.
“So fuckin’ what?” he says. “Doesn’t even make us kissin’ cousins then.”
He grabs her to himself and holds her tightly. She tries to push him away, but he is too strong. He plants a wet kiss on her lips as she screams: “No, Jason! Let me go!”
She is really fighting back now, kicking him on the shins and elbowing his ribcage. He won’t let her go, so she sinks her teeth into his hand.
“Holy fuck, that hurt!” he screams.
He slaps her repeatedly on the face, and then throws her roughly to the floor. She is still kicking and screaming as he drags her to a particular spot. He reaches into the drawer of one of the sewing chests and gets a pair of scissors. She tries to escape, but he grabs her before she reaches the door, and once more drags her back to the special area – the spot he used to clean incessantly.
“If you don’t stop screaming I’m gonna use this,” he says, brandishing the scissors.
She curls into a foetal position, whimpering.
“So, we can’t kiss, hey?” he says, hovering over her. “We gonna fuck then? How do you like that?”
He is on his knees and uncurls her, forcing her legs open. He kneels between them. He rips her Santa Claus costume with the scissors: first the velvet top, then the mini-skirt and the knickers. She spits in his face, and follows that with an attempted knee to the groin.
“Holy shit! What you gonna try next?”
More slaps on the face. She gives up. She just lies there as he takes his pants down and crashes on her.
“So you wanna gag, hey?” His tone is no longer menacing. It is gentle.
She does not know what he is talking about. Does not associate it with anything. But, yes, she feels nausea; the Old Spice reeks all over him, and she retches.
“You can’t tell me you still wanna gag. I cleaned myself for you. Since that day when you told ’em you wanna gag, I cleaned and cleaned so I smell good now. For you.”
He spits these last two words out with so much venom that she recoils. He forcefully opens her legs with his knees.
As he does his business on her she tries to ignore the pain thrust into her and the cold of the linoleum floor. Think of other things, she tells herself. The trick had always worked when she was little. Whenever she was in trouble she just switched off from the present and thought of the good times. Maybe when her pops was still alive. Maybe when he first brought her Blue and she was freaked out by her. Maybe when he drew the eyes and the nose and the mouth with a pen. By the time she switched on back to the present the trouble would be gone.
He kicks the leg of the table; frosted slabs come tumbling on the floor from the wobbly gingerbread houses, forcing her to the present. She struggles once more to let her mind wander. She can forget the humiliation that surges into her chest for a while. The humiliation and the anger. But his smell forces her back to the business at hand. The cologne is unsettling. As if what he is doing to her would have been less horrendous had he retained his high school odour. Or at least if there were traces of the old smell disguised with patchouli. It does not matter that she does not know how patchouli smells. Does not know how it looks either. She only knows that it is reputed in folklore as hippy perfume. And Jason is a hippy. As was his father before him. Before he found Jesus. Jesus. Perhaps if she thinks about Jesus he will come and save her. She is no churchgoer. Never been one. Nor is Nana Moira. But Jesus is s
aid to be all-loving and all-forgiving. He does not save only churchgoers.
He is whispering something. No, not Jesus.
“See? It ain’t so bad, is it?”
“Fuck you, Jason,” she says, and starts weeping again. She is angry that he has forced her back to the reality she was trying to forget, to what she has been trying to consign to that corner of the brain where all bad memories are stored even as they are happening. Do the impossible; turn present experience into memory.
“You fuck so good when you’re mad at me, my Rache. I love you, Rachie. You belong to me, not to Skye. I am more of a man than Skye. Now you know, hey Rache? Now you know who’s the man.”
It dawns on her that Jason is replaying her lovemaking with Skye, a more savage and brutal version of it. He must have seen them.
He jerks into convulsions as he ejaculates into her.
He stands and pulls his pants up. She is a tattered bundle of sobs on the floor. He gently helps her up. The pieces of Santa Claus costume fall off and she is naked.
“You can’t go to Nana Moira like this,” he says. “What the fuck we gonna do, Rache?”
“I just wanna pee,” she says.
He lets her go to the bathroom while he looks for something to cover her with. He finds a quilt – one of the women’s work-in-progress. Maybe Nana Moira’s.
“I got something for you, Rache,” he says.
But Rachel does not respond. She is no longer there. She is running home with the wind piercing ice-cold needles into her body, making her run even faster. The gravel on the uneven and potholed bitumen road bites into the soles of her feet, but she keeps on running. Dawn paints the horizon red, and semen runs down her thighs. Fortunately no one is up at that hour to witness the sight.
“Rache!” Jason’s voice echoes in the thin light. “Come back, Rache. Here’s your key, I can drive you home. I got a quilt for you! Raaaache!”
Nana Moira never gets to see Rachel’s limp body stumbling in. It is a blessing that they live in the kind of neighbourhood where people don’t bother locking their doors. She creeps into her room like a wounded animal.