Jaz & Miguel

by Raven, R. D.

  Jaz & Miguel

  By R. D. Raven

  Text copyright © 2013 Ricardo Delgado.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover photos from SHUTTERSTOCK and copyright of their respective owners.

  Cover design by Awesome Book Cover Design.

  This book and its author are in no way affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any person (living or dead) or organization (including, but not limited to, any of the person or organization's affiliates or representatives) mentioned in this book.

  Any mention of actual trademarks or works of art (including, but not limited to, books, movies, and songs) in this book does not, in any way whatsoever, constitute an affiliation with, sponsorship by or endorsement by or from the owner(s) of the mentioned trademark(s) or the copyright owner(s) of the mentioned work(s) (including, but not limited to, any of his / her / its affiliates or representatives), for this book or its author. Such a mention also does not constitute (whether implied or not) in any way whatsoever any form of contribution to this book or its creation (such as, but not limited to, artistic input or suggestions, advice, financial input, or creative input) on the part of the person / organization mentioned or on the part of the owner(s) of a trademark or copyrighted work mentioned.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by R. D. Raven

  Quenchless: A Novel

  For Sandra,

  My Sunshine.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  PART II

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  PART III

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  PART IV

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THANK YOU FOR READING

  ARE YOU A BOOK BLOGGER?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOR LITERARY AGENTS

  GLOSSARY

  PROLOGUE

  A dream pulled the Sangoma from her slumber like a hand ripping the heart of a sacrificial cow. A dream which now had her trembling and quivering and shiny with sweat like a child who had just seen a tokoloshe; trembling not from the swirling winds and raging storm that encircled the kraal, banging their fists against her hut; but trembling with actual fear of what was to come. She screamed out in dreadful agony, her eyes wide and fixed on the thrashing rains and glowing lightning outside her door.

  A devil was on his way.

  A devil more evil than any tokoloshe had ever been, because this devil would wear a smile. A devil with frizzled red-brown hair that sprung out like uneven thatch; and big glasses on his eyes.

  Worse than a devil.

  A liar.

  PART I

  ONE

  Like the Green Lake Itch, Jaz Curtis had suddenly felt the need to cleanse herself of the Seattle air she'd been wading in for the last seventeen (soon to be eighteen) years of her life. It had been only a few months since she'd finished school and her best friend, Rae, had already signed up for cheerleading tryouts at

  UW (cheerleading never having been Jaz's thing), attended three house parties, found a boyfriend, and (God forbid) even started hanging out at Starbucks at The Village.

  Jaz, on the other hand, had read three non-fiction books and was now working at a clothing store on Pine Street to save up for her upcoming trip.

  So much had changed.

  Cheerleading aside (Jaz really hated the fucking sport, although she confessed it was probably because she was neither very athletic nor very blonde—not blonde at all, actually, but auburn—so maybe she'd felt a bit threatened by the bleached geniuses of the pompom), Jaz and Rae had been BFFs and done everything together since way back when in Junior High. For the last two years (since Jaz had gotten her license) they'd almost always hung out at Bauhaus Books and Coffee after school (also on Pine Street, and where they even sold Ding Dongs) and sipped on Americanos while sneaking in some homework in between the much more important tasks of people-watching and commenting on the barista's ass (which, admittedly, had been more frequent in the beginning when there'd been this real cute one there—but he'd since moved on).

  As Jaz sipped her coffee now, trying to find some joy in the seriously lacking quality of derrières today, she figured that she and Rae had probably started drifting apart when Jaz first told her about her desire to participate in the International Human Rights Exchange Program ("IHRE", pronounced ayree, like a Jamaican) at Wits University in Johannesburg. Although it was easier to say that they'd drifted apart simply because they'd finally graduated high school, that had simply been an acceptable excuse for the inevitable deterioration of their friendship into what it had become today: nothing.

  Well, not really nothing. Jaz had called her a few times—in the beginning, when Rae still hadn't settled into college life—and Rae acted surprised and said, Hey, how are you? Gosh, long time no talk. Yeah, um, well, things have been SO hectic you know.

  When Jaz first told her of her desire to go to (of all places!) South Africa, Rae had said, Are you out of your fucking mind?! Do you know they rape people there?! Do you actually watch the news?!

  She did watch the news. But she was going anyway.

  Now, with High School finally gone, so was Rae.

  But Rae was still her best friend (even if only nominally for now). A friendship like that doesn't just end. And Jaz knew that as soon as she also got into college life after returning from South Africa (assuming she'd have decided on a major by then) that she and Rae would start hanging out together again and doing all the things they'd always done together while growing up. This was just a phase. Surely things would eventually work themselves out.

  Convincing Jaz's dad had been hard as well. Her mom had been easier. She'd been a serious hippie in her day, fighting for human rights and equality for women and all that stuff. Sure, her mom was slightly concerned about Jaz's safety, but the program looked safe enough. She'd stay in a dorm on campus and all the students would get briefed about security before they left. Jaz promised she'd update them on a blog she created specifically for this.

  She told them: It's going to be a blog because I suck at email and because I want to look back at this and remember it; and the time difference is like nine hours so don't expect me to call that often! And I'll make it private—the blog, I mean—so only you and dad ... and Rae, of course ... can look at it.

  She set it all up (jazinsa.blogspot.com) and explained to her mom what a blog is and how it works and how to post comments. She set it up so that her mom and dad would get notified by email (the only thing she was willing to have to do with email) whenever she posted something—oh, and Rae as well, of course.

&n
bsp; Rae thought the idea was cool and set up her own blog: raeinseattle.blogspot.com. Hers turned out to be more of a video blog though, and then a photo blog. There are videos of High Vs and Low Vs and Touchdowns on there, as well a few drunken sophomores in mini-skirts with shirtless guys hanging above them ....

  Oh, brother.

  In a way, maybe Jaz's folks had been relieved. Jaz had never wanted to go to college. She was never sure what she wanted to do. Before telling them about the IHRE program, they'd already agreed to let her have the year off. They'd said that maybe it would be good for her to work awhile and gain some experience and see what it's like to be an adult. Although the IHRE program wouldn't necessarily count as a credit to her major (when she finally decided what to major in), they were sure the experience would be good for her, and that it would look good on a résumé.

  When she'd seen the article in the

  P-I that day six months before graduation, it had been like a godsend, like she'd been meant to find it. That's how she felt about it at least.

  It was an article about another girl from UW who'd done the program. Jaz tracked her down (the reason Jaz didn't have a Facebook account herself was for this very reason) and then spoke to her (at Starbucks of all places). But, in all honesty, even if Jaz hadn't met with the girl, she would've gone anyway.

  "Refill?" The barista's comment pulled her out of her trance. She realized she'd been staring at the page of her book—South Africa: A History of the Land and its People—all the while daydreaming.

  "Sure," she said, holding out her cup.

  "Looks like a nice book," he commented.

  He had pimples, and scraggly hair, but he was polite enough. "Uh, yeah," she replied. "I'm going there in a few months. July, actually."

  "Ha, cool," he said with a half-giggle-half-choke that made him look like a cross between Beavis and Apu (she could never remember his last name) from the Simpsons. After an awkward moment, he moved on.

  July. That was five months away. Her plan was to cram in as much study about South Africa as possible before leaving. She'd read three books about it already—everything from Sangomas to Ladysmith Black Mambazo (a group that sang in a genre called mbube. Actually, she'd also learned that the song, The Lion Sings Tonight, was also an mbube song). And all that during lunch-breaks, evenings, and Wednesdays—her only day off.

  The IHRE program had one Spring Break in the middle of it (Spring starting in September down there—weird, she knew) and it was only ten days long. She was determined to go to Cape Town, Durban, Mpumalanga, The Kruger National Park, everywhere. But ten days would not be enough. So she figured maybe she'd stay on a little longer after the program was over. Her parents would give her some money for the Spring Break, but not for any other "vacation" plans. This is why she was working (well, that and the fact she was bored out of her skull half the time, waiting).

  She wanted to be prepared. I mean, she hadn't told them about any of her vacation plans yet. She just said that she was (almost) eighteen and wanted to get a job to start saving up some money—be a grown up and stuff.

  They lapped it up.

  But something about South Africa had called her there, of that she was sure. She thought maybe it had been the front-page story in the P-I about those bums they'd bulldozed out of

  The Jungle—enough bad news about poverty and pain to make anyone want to do some good in the world—but deep down she sensed it wasn't.

  Or perhaps it had just been ….

  The truth is, she didn't know herself. Just as she hadn't known what she was going to study after leaving school, she couldn't explain whatever was calling her to this foreign land in the middle of nowhere, of which the only thing she knew was that, at least once upon a time they had been supremely racist, and that they'd held a Soccer World Cup there recently. (She knew nothing about soccer, but she and Rae had agreed that the US team definitely won in the number-of-hotties-per-team area. And there was also that Ronaldo guy from Portugal. Ah, and that Beckham dude—England, was it? Yum. She amazed herself at remembering all their names, but some things are important to remember).

  There'd been a picture of an elephant as part of that P-I article (the one about the IHRE program, not the bums). That had perked her interest. But that wasn't what had called her either. She looked at the book she was reading, flipping through some of the pages, looking at its cover. There was a picture of Cape Town's Table Mountain on it, and clouds that rolled over it like a comforter. In some of the other books she'd read, there were photos of a place called God's Window—a view from a mountain that stretched on forever. There was the Kimberley Hole where diamonds were mined; Gold from Johannesburg and a place called Gold Reef City where you could even go and see them smelt the stuff right in front of your eyes and walk down in the mine shafts; there were the Sudwala Caves and Pilgrim's Rest where people had flocked in the 1800s because of the gold-rush; there were the Drakensberg mountains which sometimes filled up so thick with fog that about the only thing you could see was your hand; there were kraals and ancestral spirits; and not to mention the giraffes, springbucks, kudus, impalas, lions, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, elephants—

  It struck her, as it had struck her several times before (but she still needed reminding of it every now and then): it was the land that was calling her.

  The land itself.

  Africa.

  TWO

  For Miguel Pinto, the African sun had been buried along with his mother and little sister two years earlier, taken into the ground underneath the black pall that had covered their mutual coffin—together forever, in heaven and on earth.

  Since then, the beauty he'd once heard in the chings of glasses and the humming drone of low voices while sipping a Caipirinha and doing nothing else but talking about girls and parties over at Catz Pyjamas in Melville with friends, had been replaced by the constant hackle of morbid memories that clung to his mind like threads of glue-covered gossamer.

  And girls? Shit, he hadn't been interested in one in two years. What for? All they did was giggle and laugh and talk about shit that had nothing to do with anything but their hair or their asses or their fucking thighs.

  Miguel had little interest in these things anymore.

  But he knew it went deeper, that it wasn't only to do with the level of conversation he required, because he'd barely even watched any porn in two years either! The way he saw it, he figured he'd simply just sunk below the level of not even wanting to have anything to do with the general subject of procreation.

  What, actually, was the point in forwarding life if it could be taken away so quickly?

  Heaven. Miguel had to believe there was one, and that his mother and sister were there. He also had to believe that the men who did what they did to them would be forgiven, because men make mistakes, and hate was a road which led nowhere. This he had since learned.

  It was not how he had felt when he found his sister. No, he had felt very differently.

  He shook the memory from his mind and took another sip of the Pepsi he'd been holding for the last thirty minutes and which had made his palm numb and his hand hurt while he stared blankly at some American talk-show where the host was making oh-so-funny fucking jokes about his president and Jennifer Lawrence falling at the Oscars and whether or not Lindsay Lohan was really pregnant.

  Twats.

  It always amazed him how much hot air could be expelled from the lungs of people with nothing greater to worry about than the state of their shoe shine or what restaurant they were going to eat sushi at that night.

  Spend a day in South Africa you idiots, then go back to your talk-shows and make fun of someone's outfit.

  Miguel was waiting for his dad. It was eight p.m. and dark outside. He always waited for his dad before leaving the house at night. It's not that he was particularly worried about him; he just liked to let his dad know that all was OK before Miguel went out.

  And tonight, he needed to go out.

  He and Sandile had a unique
relationship. Miguel didn't know any other South African whites that were best friends with a black guy, or vice versa—at least not at their ripe old age of nineteen. Sure he knew plenty of kids that had been buddies at nine or ten and then, as they grew older and gained an interest in girls, they found they had different tastes, and then their musical preferences grew apart, maybe even their taste in movies. And so it had been that the closest friendships he'd seen of people his age had always been between ones of the same race.

  Sandile and Miguel's friendship had (in the early stages) carried on longer than most (Miguel surmised) probably because of another common interests they shared. It's not that Miguel particularly liked

  kwaito music (he didn't; fucking hated the stuff) or hip hop (well, only a little bit) and especially not (heavens no) the endless whining of Toni Braxton or Babyface or any of the other "classics" that Sandile insisted on listening to on one of their many drives down to Durbs or over to Mozambique. It's not even that Miguel's skin was darker than most whites' (a pleasant side-effect common amongst the Portuguese whose parents were from Mozambique, and oh-so-popular with the chicks) because, in all other respects, he was as Caucasian as they came. It wasn't even their taste in women (Miguel's eyes always tracking the cliché blonde while Sandile generally went for what he—equally as cliché—usually called "the epitome of an Ebony Queen").

  No, in the early days, up until they were seventeen or so, their friendship had been held together by something else, something they'd held in common since the first day they'd met at Saheti school (not a school either of them went to, but a school with the most awesome basketball courts in all of Johannesburg, if not the world—not to mention the babes. Hot, hot babes) where Miguel was shooting hoops at ten years of age and Sandile had just arrived with his mom (Sandile wearing sneakers that were just too big for him), also there to play.