Jaz & Miguel

by Raven, R. D.

  So they played together.

  And they played every Saturday from there on out.

  And his mom and Miguel's mom became friends, too, as they watched them both from the concrete bleachers.

  And then Sandile started going to Miguel's school and they became friends at school also—best friends. A duo that, more often than not, would whip yo ass on the courts when challenged. Once or twice they'd played for money. But competition was always tougher when money was involved and, over the years, they'd come to accept two distinct disadvantages they had and which they would never overcome: (one) their height (or, rather, their mutual lack of it) and (two) Miguel could not (and never would be able to) jump. There'd been a movie about that once. He hated that movie.

  So, whereas at seventeen they had become close, what would keep them together from there on out would be something else entirely, and it had little to do with girls or kwaito or movies or LeBron "King" James or the legend himself (and Miguel's personal favorite) Larry Bird. No, he and Sandile shared something much deeper now, something no one would ever be able to take away ... because Sandile's little sister had been Miguel's little sister's best friend as well.

  And she had been playing at their house on that day, too, while Sandile's mom chatted with Miguel's mom over tea in the lounge.

  No, he and Sandile weren't friends, or even best friends anymore—they were fucking brothers. Brothers in blood. Whereas they had been close before, that day had solidified a connection between them—of mutual suffering endured—that soldered them together with an unspoken agreement to be there for each other into the future and forevermore no matter what.

  No one would ever tear them apart.

  Miguel sipped another bit of Pepsi. The memories were killing him today.

  Where was his father?

  His dad normally arrived at around seven each night. Miguel sometimes worked late with him but tonight—on the second anniversary of that fateful day—he just wanted to get out of there. Which is probably why his father wanted to stay late. Whereas, to escape the memories, Miguel would also escape work, his father would bury himself deeper in it. In a way, Miguel was grateful—better to be buried in work than in liquor. He respected his father for this. He'd seen many a Portuguese man in South Africa turn to the bottle as a source of hope because of much smaller things, but not Miguel's dad.

  He did, however, worry about his father's health. His skin had yellowed slightly of late, and he wasn't eating much either. Miguel just wanted to let his dad know that he was still OK. That he wouldn't need to worry about him. He was just going to go out with Sandile and play some pool.

  He heard the door click open and an anvil lifted from his chest, his legs feeling suddenly weaker.

  Thank God. It was only then that he realized he'd been silently freaking out, wondering if something had happened to the old man.

  His dad said nothing when he arrived. He never did. Miguel raised the volume of the TV just to let his father know he was in the TV room—as always.

  Predictability. This was something Miguel had learned was helpful in getting through these things. If there were no surprises, there would be no shocks; and every shock was a memory of what had happened before, a memory of the greatest shock that could have ever been. And so it was that Miguel would always be here, in the TV room, watching something, waiting for his dad to come home from work, as his mother had done all those years before, just to let the old guy know that there was still someone here for him.

  "Miguel, tudo bem?" his dad asked as he took off his coat. Everything OK?

  "Sim, pai, e contigo?" Yes, dad, and with you?

  "All's good with me. You going out with Sandile tonight?"

  Hell yeah. Please. "Yes, shortly."

  "You know you don't have to wait for me every night, son, don't you? You should live your life. I'm fine by myself."

  But you are all I have left, papa. "I know, dad. I was just watching this show on TV. It's quite interesting."

  His dad looked at the TV for a moment, blankly, and Miguel didn't know if his dad knew he was lying or if his mind had suddenly drifted to something at work. "Well, OK, son. Say hello to Sandile for me."

  Miguel nodded.

  His dad went up to bed.

  Predictability. Every night the same thing. Sometimes they would have dinner together, many times not.

  Miguel would wait a bit before he left. He would wait for his dad to fall asleep. He always fell asleep quickly.

  It was now eight-fifteen p.m. and Miguel was going silently nuts. The memories had been hitting him so hard that a sweat had broken on his brow. The more he tried to forget them, the harder they came at him. He assumed his father would be asleep by now so, without taking his eyes off the TV—as if doing so would trigger some alarm within him—he dropped his arm onto the phone on the side-table by the couch, turned it around, hit two for speed dial (still without looking), and held the phone to his ear.

  "Ready?" said Sandile as he answered, already knowing it was Miguel.

  "Ja," said Miguel, his voice croaking.

  "Die Arend?"

  "As always."

  Sandile did not sound depressed at all. It's not to say he didn't think about that day as well; they just dealt better with this kind of stuff (the Xhosas). Miguel had gone to Sandile's sister and mother's funeral—Lebo had been his sister's name, short for Lebogang—just as Sandile had gone to Miguel's. But whereas Miguel's mother's funeral had only left him depressed, Lebo and her mother's had actually uplifted him.

  The traditional Xhosa funeral (the first time Miguel had ever been to one) was huge. It was like the whole friggin township arrived, with people eating an unspiced cow beforehand, and elders speaking wise words (which Miguel, unfortunately, did not understand) and then burying the dead with some food and anything else that could "help them on their way."

  But the clincher had not been the funeral, it had been the celebration they'd held a year later—umbuyiso is what it's called: an event to celebrate that the deceased had now returned as a true ancestor, come home to help the living. And during Lebo and her mother's umbuyiso, everyone celebrated.

  Miguel had gone to that one as well. He'd never seen people so friggin happy about someone who had died. He was happy, too. It brought tears to his eyes.

  He wasn't sure if they'd been tears of joy, or sadness for the fact that he, too, wanted his mother and sister to return as ancestors to watch over him, just as Lebo and her mother would now be watching over Sandile and his people. It had vaguely crossed his mind that, if it were true, that his mother's burial had not been done correctly, and that she and his sister had not been given the sendoff they'd needed so that they could come back as ancestors as well.

  It worried him.

  Miguel later learned that the Xhosa have no word for depression. Instead, they use the phrase umoya phansi meaning "low energy of spirit." It was enough to make the man fucking religious. Not crazy religious—like, none of that no-sex-before-marriage stuff—but, heck, it was an eye opener on the subject of life and living and there being a higher power and stuff. And Miguel figured the higher power wasn't Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or even a friggin ancestor. Its name wasn't Jehovah or Allah or whatever people called it. And it wasn't a man or a woman. Miguel just knew—sensed—that there must be something more. There just had to be.

  Africa had always been special to him. No matter what happened in it, the sun always rose the next day.

  It would rise for him again, he knew it. It would rise for his mother and his sister again.

  He had to believe this.

  That day could not have been the end, just like that ... in that way ... for the two of them.

  He shook his head and got up. He needed to leave.

  Before going, he climbed up the stairs to his father's bedroom and peaked in the door. He saw the bulge that was his rounded father underneath the bedding and heard the gentle nasal sound of his peaceful snore. For a moment, as he stood the
re watching him, he wondered if his father would ever find someone else, but then thought no more of it, not really knowing how he felt about that—feeling more like, if it did happen, that it would simply be another one of those inevitabilities of life that he'd simply learn to live with.

  Things weren't good or bad or shit or crap or great or wonderful or happy or joyful or lucky or unlucky. Things just were. Life just happened. It was his job to take it as it came, learn to live with it.

  He went to his bedroom and pulled out some money from the brown envelope he still kept under his socks in his drawer. He'd started doing that after Sandile wasn't able to pay one of his drug-debts (another time, another life) and had come over to Miguel's house, banging at the door, desperate for cash. Loaning it to Sandile hadn't been a problem. We all make mistakes, and Miguel hadn't been Mr. Innocent in the area of smoking it up either, even if he had never taken any of the hard stuff like Sandile had. But driving to the ATM to withdraw two grand at one a.m. had caused Miguel to break more than a slight sweat.

  And, even though those habits and days were as far off for both of them as the equator itself, Miguel figured that it would always be a good idea to keep some extra dough lying around the house—just in case.

  Die Arend (Afrikaans for "The Eagle"—another mystery in Miguel's mind, an eagle being the symbol of Americanism and not "Afrikanerism," if that was even a word) was a relaxed pub about fifteen

  Ks from where Sandile and Miguel lived. Sandile lived in Bedford Gardens (not quite at Millionaire's Row—that was in a place called Bedfordview), and Miguel lived in Germiston, an area equally thick in Afrikaans as well as Portuguese people—although most porras in the area spoke Afrikaans as well. ("Porra" was a word acceptable amongst some of the Portuguese for themselves, although not appreciated when used by outsiders—an endless source of confusion for Miguel as to why people would refer to their own cultures and races using the very words which denigrated them). Miguel, however, even though fluent in both Afrikaans and Portuguese, rarely spoke in either—English being his preferred form of communication.

  The pub was sparsely "decorated" with nothing but a pool table in the middle, a clock with lights around its dial (that looked like it came from Vegas or like it had been made from one of those Nevada Motel signs he'd always seen in the movies) on the farthest of the plain-brick walls, a speaker in one corner so some guy could plug in his electric guitar if he wanted to, two or three drinking booths, and a nondescript counter just as you got in (which currently had three very sorry looking souls bent over it). It was frequented by your local bums, drunks and men who hadn't shaved in about seven years.

  Sandile got a real kick out of going there.

  Miguel did not appreciate it.

  They went there for the pool, both being average players, although Sandile had gotten slightly worse since he'd gotten glasses (an endless source of jests from Miguel since then). There were other places to play pool, but Sandile liked to "show his black face" in places like this one. It was for this very reason that Miguel did not particularly enjoy being at Die Arend very much. It was true that some South Africans had not moved on with the times—the locals of Die Arend most certainly included. Sandile believed (semi-mischievously) that if he simply appeared over and over and over again at a place, they would soon start considering him part of the furniture or something.

  In a way, he'd been right, the racist comments had indeed eased off the more they'd gone there. Part of the reason was that many of the men in there knew Miguel's father and respected him, so they let Sandile ("Senhor Pinto's son's kaffir friend") be for the most part. The comments bothered Miguel more than they did Sandile. It was like the guy was running some fucking social experiment or something.

  Racist fucks.

  "So,

  boetie, keen on IHRE?" asked Sandile after firing off a break shot which pocketed the solid yellow, solid blue and green striped balls. A gentle smile of accomplishment broke on his face.

  By now Miguel's attention was solidly on the table although he'd heard Sandile's question. "You gonna choose a group?" Miguel asked, referring to the table (they played by old-school rules—and then only slightly—never naming a ball to be pocketed, always calling aloud a group if at least one ball of that group had been pocketed at the break).

  "I choose solids. But you ignored my question."

  Miguel leaned over the table and aimed for the orange-stripes into the corner pocket. "I didn't ignore it," he said, one eye closed. He fired, hard, and missed. "I was taking a shot."

  Sandile waited. "And?"

  Miguel chalked his cue. "Actually ... yes, I am excited." He felt an involuntary smile pull up at the sides of his lips. He'd not wanted to give anything away. He was mourning after all. Who was Sandile to take that away from him?

  But Sandile noticed, and he smiled with him, leaning down over the table and firing the purple-solid into the right corner pocket in one quick stroke. "I told you you would be," he said confidently, eying the table for his next shot.

  And Miguel had been excited; that he had indeed. Sandile had told him about the IHRE program—the International Human Rights Exchange program—in July of 2012 (and they'd joked endlessly about how ayree the IHRE program was going to be—positive they hadn't been the first, nor the last, to ever make that joke). After they'd finished school, Sandile had gone over to Wits University to major in English Literature (yawn) but Miguel had no desire to study anything, opting, instead, to work with his dad at their import-export business (which he'd started at, part-time, even before finishing school). He'd needed to get busy, to do something other than read or think, and it also gave him an excuse to go over to Mozambique and Durban every now and then to check on shipping first-hand.

  He loved Mozambique, much as he loved Durban. He'd never been much of a surfer but, even in winter, he never failed to take a dip in the warm Indian Ocean every time he went to either place. It was as if the ocean had this inexorable power to wash away all his worries every time he swam in it.

  After much persuasion, Sandile had finally twisted his arm. It's not a degree. It's one semester, he'd said. You need to move on,

  broe! he'd urged. It was Sandile's opinion that doing something for humanity would help Miguel "let go" of things. I'll do it with you. It was that last comment of Sandile's that had finally elicited Miguel's agreement. Sandile smiled, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes as they'd sat in Miguel's freezing-cold car up at Linksfield Ridge (a place with about the most beautiful view of Johannesburg as can be seen, not to mention housing which comes second only to Millionaire's Row itself).

  — You'll do it with me? Why?

  — Because you need to move on. Helping others is a way to do it.

  Miguel had asked little more. He would do it. Besides, what else was he going to do with his life?

  "Your shot." Sandile's comment brought Miguel's mind back to the table.

  "I hope there will be some decent looking chicks there, boet," said Miguel. "Otherwise I'm getting my fucking money back. You know that's the only reason I'm doing this, don't you?"

  "Ja, ja. Whatever."

  The program was only a few months away, and already Miguel had started to feel that faint sense of hope in him. But this hope he hadn't shunned like every other hope in the last two years that had come his way. He was looking forward to this ayree program (overdone joke, he knew). He was really looking forward to it, like something great would come of it; something great for him.

  Something that would help him let go.

  Miguel felt the weight of earlier in the evening ease off his chest. He always chilled out when he was with Sandile. It was that mutual understanding they had, that thing which they shared that neither ever mentioned but which both understood to be fully in the room with them whenever they were together.

  Sandile was his brother.

  He would do anything for him.

  THREE

  jazinsa.blogspot.com

  I'm here!
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br />   Posted on: Thu, July 4th, 2013 at 04:27am, South African Standard Time

  Posted by: Jaz

  # Comments: 4

  I made it! (I'm totally wasted—but I made it! Oh, and by "wasted" I mean "tired," mom, not drunk!) The flight was murderous, although the eleven hour layover in London had a few benefits. Even after a red-eye flight, Candy, Maxine and I (I'll tell you about them later) caught a taxi to the city and then managed to get on one of those big red buses and drive around and see the sights! It was raining like mad and we got soaking wet (oh, so I have a bit of a cold now as well).

  So, there were seven of us in total. Candy is a short (yeah, even shorter than me!) blonde from Columbia U, but she used to live in Seattle! Maxine is a mahogany-haired bombshell, also from Columbia U, but she used to live in Portland. Weird how people travel. Then there are four other girls, one from Cali, two from NYC and one other from somewhere I don't really remember. We paid her to watch our bags while we went exploring. We didn't have much time especially seeing as we had to catch a taxi from the airport to London (wow, that was expensive. Luckily one of the girls thought to carry pounds as well as South African currency) but we finally got there.

  No guys from the US (I have to keep reminding myself that I'm writing this for my folks as well as my best friend. Hmmmm, maybe I should've set up two separate blogs).

  OK, never mind, I'm just gonna say what I wanna say. So, yeah, no guys—bummer!

  London was beautiful. We saw Big Ben (that's like a big clock thing, Rae) and a bridge (I forgot the name) that opened up in the middle and was painted blue a bit (I know, I'm rushing through these descriptions because I want to get to the good stuff!) I'll try post some photos but the internet connection is sooooooo slow here (it is Africa, I guess) that I decided to chill out on the bandwidth in case it took me another three days to send this thing!