Jaz & Miguel

by Raven, R. D.

  Although, that business about a recording pen—that had been a new one for Abbey. He'd never understood much about technology and science and computers and things, but when he'd heard about the pen that Hugh Grant had used to record that conversation—bugger, bloody genius! So Abbey went "online" and asked Google, "How do I find a recording pen like the one Hugh Grant used to bug the bugger?"

  Abbey clicked on a few links and was completely gobsmacked: pens were far from the only thing available. There was this whole new world of spy technology which they called "GSM" bugs (fucked if he knew what "GSM" stood for). The way the website explained it, you could put one of these buggers somewhere and the bloody thing would transmit sounds directly to your mobile phone! There were calculators, coins, power adaptors, computer mice, iPhone chargers, extension cords! The man had been in heaven. They even had covert GPS tracking devices you could buy these days! Yes, you just slapped them under a car and then, only when it would get on the move would it transmit.

  Best of all, these were all locally produced products—Best of British, they were.

  As a wordsmith, Abbey often felt the need to correct people's impressions of the Red Top—and particularly The Daily. He always refrained from calling it a "tabloid" knowing that most people (likely, his counterparts up over in the United States of Abomination—or the United States of Arrogance) did not fully understand the meaning of the word. The word "tabloid" derives from "tablet," as in: small and easily digested. And if there was one thing that some people had failed to acknowledge (and it was indeed some only, because the Red Tops were selling as fast as hot cross buns), it was this: the reason yellow journalism and Red Tops (fine, "tabloids"!) continued to exist is because of what the wise man himself had stated during those phone-tapping hearings only a short while ago: People are not forced to buy our newspapers!

  Abbey didn't remember the exact quote word for word, but he had it filed (along with that autographed copy) in his safe.

  He'd watched all three hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-nine seconds of that first day's hearings. Enlightening was the word he'd used to describe it.

  But people want small, easily digested news: a photo of Britney Spears's crotch as she steps out of a limo, or of Paris Hilton's; a photo of Kate going down on William, taken at just the right time. Heck, what he'd give for a photo of Obama scratching his balls! Or of Oprah slapping a child—blooming priceless I tell you (if it ever happened—which was the other problem).

  But, alas, such gems rarely appeared (or were utterly nonexistent) and, because of it, The Daily's news was generally relegated to the same old hogwash they'd been reporting on for the last half a century: a sex scandal here, a drug-abuser there. Bluh.

  How ... bloody ... boring.

  A picture painted a thousand words, and words—put together in the right sequences with just the right amounts of finely picked bits of information—were worth a thousand pictures.

  That's why Abbey had decided to go to South Africa. He'd had enough of the same old boring shite (another fine English word—and far more polite) day in and day out. And as much as he'd come to love The Daily, what he aspired to was something much greater, something truly honorable. And if there's one thing that everybody knew, it's that all white South Africans are a bunch of racists, all black South Africans a lot of xenophobes, and every South African policeman a human rights abuser interested only in his back-pocket—and completely on the take. (He wasn't sure if "on the take" was the Queen's English, or from an episode he'd seen of NYPD Blue, but it had formed a part of his lingo now, so he left it at that).

  That was undeniable. The good old CCB (Clear-Cut Broadcasting—Britain's most accurate news network) had reported it, so it was most certainly true. A fine bunch of reporters as them, there had never been.

  Why they'd never accepted his own stories though ....

  South Africa was a veld-fire waiting to happen, waiting for the right shard of glass to be randomly left out in the open, the sun eventually focusing its rays through it, and lighting that first piece of kindling.

  The rest ... would happen on its own.

  The first rule of journalism was impartiality, and letting the story take its course, never getting involved. (He'd learnt that from some Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman movie that he'd since forgotten the name of).

  A saved child does not sell newspapers, and people do not have to buy their newspapers—so there.

  Hearst in his day had simply been doing what any good author would do: he was writing to an audience. And, so long as the audience existed, so would the story—and so would the newspaper.

  Their job, as journalists, was not to get involved, but to simply record the occurrences.

  And therein was Abbey's problem: he was simply never there to record the story!

  He wasn't there when Jennifer Lawrence tripped while getting her Oscar (celebrity embarrassments being a tabloid staple). He wasn't there when the London riots started (he would've given his left eyeball for just one good shot of that one). And he wasn't there during the xenophobic attacks of May, 2008 in South Africa. And, because he was never at the right place at the right time, never able to capture that photo—that story—he was still simply Jonathan P. Abbey, freelance reporter for The Daily, and not Jonathan P. Abbey, Media Mogul (ok, he'd settle for Jonathan P. Abbey, Chief Editor).

  At forty-two years of age, this was simply not acceptable.

  Abbey felt ... old.

  The last time he'd been shagged (four years before—also the last time he'd been in South Africa) was only because the girl he'd been with had needed a break—an in—with one of the major British newspaper chains. Abbey had told her the truth. He was indeed British, and he did indeed have some influence with British newspapers. Not once did he lie. And she—just as readers have the choice to buy newspapers—had been perfectly within her rights to not have gotten involved with him. (She gave a fine blowjob that one she did).

  He hadn't lied. Abbey never lied. He'd gotten expert (in all his years of experience) at merely having a knack for selecting his truths.

  A picture paints a thousand words. If only he could get the right picture, at the right time, of the right thing, and pretty it up with the Queen's English all around it, so as to add meaning to that picture—all of it factual, of course. He remembered that incident in South Africa in 1994 when a man was caught on camera being shot at point blank. The headline read: SHEER BLOODY MURDER. Now that was bloody news (no pun intended). That was blooming reporting if he'd ever seen any!

  And the people lapped it up. Ah, yes, there was one other thing he did hate: those fucking newspaper readers. They'd believe fucking anything if you just worded it right. It gobsmacked him how unintelligent the world was, unable to decipher the difference between a story with a slant, and just a story.

  But was there ever a story without a slant?

  So they had to dodge lawsuits and defamation suits and watch their journalistic codes of ethics and all that bollocks—newspapers were still selling. And so long as people bought them, there'd be Red Tops (not "tabloids"!)

  He'd gotten good at that in all his years: of telling the story with just the right facts so as to get a predetermined idea across to the reader—just as he'd once told that same plumpy red-head student who'd bonked him, just enough so that she'd have a certain idea in her mind about who he was. (Technically, she was graduating a month later, so could one really call her a student?)

  He pondered, while he sat now on the plane headed for O.R. Tambo airport in Johannesburg, where to begin, where to sow the seed and ask the right questions that would get people thinking—or get the story moving of its own accord (because the story had to happen of its own accord, of course—impartiality, first rule, that movie with Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman).

  Then, like a flash of lightning, he thought of it: the university! He wriggled in his seat with excitement. What fond memories he had of that red-head: such dreams, such passion, such … innocence. But she wasn't
really the reason he'd thought of it (and he was sure she would be gone by now—unless she'd started teaching, but he strongly doubted that).

  University students—all university students from all over the world—were always such fertile ground: dizzy from the rarefied air of idealistic views, malleable to new ideas, always questioning the norm even if that norm has moved civilizations forward for centuries, convinced they can change anything and everything that is wrong with the world one political protest at a time.

  Naïve.

  Trusting.

  And if that failed, there was always The Price (another thing students normally were, was broke). But he was hoping he'd be able to avoid spending any more of his hard-earned sterling. As it was, he'd already spent a pretty penny on all those "GSM-thingies" and that GPS tracker.

  Honestly said, Abbey was pleased about his talents. They weren't even talents at all, they were learned skills. And he'd worked hard to acquire them. All those years of being teased at school, being called "the devil himself" because of his wiry red hair that never seemed to stay flat, looking much like it had been frizzled out with a curling iron and never given the chance to rest again. He'd been teased about his thick glasses, and the fact that he used to pick his nose (who didn't pick their nose when they were a kid?!)

  Devil! Devil! Johnny is a devil! (They used to call him Johnny at school, and although he didn't love it, he did prefer it to The Devil).

  He knew it was because of his hair—red being associated with hate. That was certainly it. It was not because of the red blood of the girl he'd pushed on the floor when he was ten and then kicked once she was on the ground. (And she'd been teasing him after all—the prat).

  She'd deserved it.

  The way he remembered it (and the way he told it) the name-calling had started before that unfortunate incident—not after.

  She'd provoked him.

  How was he to know her head would've cracked when it hit the ground?

  And he had only been a little boy, after all. Little boys make mistakes. Don't they?

  (But he'd showed her. Oh yes he did.)

  When all was said and done, and as much as he'd hated being called The Devil, there'd also been a certain sense of power that came with the name, a tinge of fear in those who uttered it. And that he didn't mind. Because the name he'd been called before that had carried no fear whatsoever on the part of those who used it; and that name, he categorically abhorred!

  Because if there was one thing Abbey wasn't, it was a liar.

  He always told the truth.

  Always.

  And that girl never called him a liar again after that day.

  Boy did he show her.

  NINETEEN

  They left early in the morning, two days after Elize's parents had called.

  After passing the Spurs Steakhouse and Superspar convenience store that Jaz recognized from Elize's neighborhood, she knew their eleven hours on the road would soon be over. They'd decided to go straight to her place and face the music—all four of them. Miguel would drop her car off for her the next day. Jaz was relieved. She was relieved the two days were over and that the drive was over and that the whole lying to Elize's parents would soon be over because Miguel seemed to have disappeared into a world where she didn't exist, ever since that call from Elize's father. Granted, the house they'd been staying in hadn't allowed for privacy—that she understood—but there were other places they could've gone. It's not like they were sleeping together (or even taking their clothes off) so they could've gone behind a rock or kissed on the beach under the moonlight or even just behind a tree. They'd done it a few times in Umhlanga. The whole thing had been … daring. And Miguel had enjoyed it as much as she had—so it hadn't been because of embarrassment or fear that he'd stopped touching and kissing her as passionately as before.

  Heck, they could've even asked Sandile and Elize to go out for a walk for a while like they had done for them.

  The whole thing with Elize's parents had obviously just been too much for him. So, soon it would all be over and done with and they could all just move on with their lives!

  Growling dogs scraped their nails against the concrete fencing of Elize's neighbors' houses when they arrived. At least Elize had no dogs. Her wrought-iron gate squeaked as she opened it, and the three of them followed her in.

  They were thirty minutes early—and two days late.

  Jaz turned to close the gate and heard Elize's front door opening. For a moment, she had a flash of some of those western films she'd seen and imagined a man standing with a gun at the door asking, Who goes there? But this was no western. Something about not knowing what they were about to face had kept Jaz quiet for most of the trip.

  When she turned, Miguel, Elize and Sandile were frozen still, looking at the two figures standing at the door, backlit by a golden light. They seemed less angry than Jaz had expected.

  Elize's father had made her nervous the first time she'd met him—and also now. He was a big man in both height and width. He had a thick, white beard which was well-trimmed. Her mother, on the other hand, was a petite brunette who kept her hair in a bun and who dressed plainly. When Jaz had come to their house, Elize's mom had been in the kitchen, and she'd served the drinks.

  They were traditional people, and Jaz could respect that.

  Elize's father's eyes glowed with anger, but her mother held onto his arm at the door and ... smiled? Yes, she was smiling. It was a faint smile, but unmistakably friendly.

  "You must be Sandile," she said, extending her hand out to him.

  As the four of them climbed the steps of the porch and approached the door, Elize's father's voice boomed at them, saying something Jaz could not understand. Miguel's hand tightened against Jaz's. "Jaz," Elize's father then said, his eyes frowning down in disappointment, "you will also wait outside while we talk to Sandile and to our daughter. Alone."

  Jaz felt a pang of thick guilt inside her. She swallowed and nodded.

  Sandile looked back, his eyes wide with surprise. He did not grab Elize's hand, but stayed by her side.

  "I will bring you both something to drink," said Elize's mom quietly once the rest had gone inside.

  When the mother went away, Jaz said, "I feel like a slime ball."

  "Why?" said Miguel.

  "They're obviously not—"

  "Here you go," said Elize's mom, carrying a tray with a pitcher of orange juice and two glasses.

  Miguel thanked her in Afrikaans, but that was a word Jaz could never bring herself to use because it literally sounded like donkey when she said it. So she just thanked her in English.

  "I was saying, they're obviously not going to ... I don't know ... do anything to them," she said when Elize's mom was gone.

  Miguel shrugged and drank a full glass of orange juice in one swig, licking his lips at the end. "Who knows? And if not them …." He gestured to the neighborhood.

  Jaz was angry. She was about to tell Miguel that he was as prejudiced as he'd accused this family of being when they both heard the booming voice of Elize's father come from inside. Jaz stared at Miguel for a moment, then both got up to go to the nearest window and look in. They crouched underneath it so they wouldn't be seen through the white gauze curtains.

  Elize's father was standing, talking down to Elize and Sandile, pointing his finger at them.

  "Fucking racist," said Miguel. "When this is over, they'll probably be staying at my place."

  Jaz said nothing. She saw Elize's mom ease over toward her husband, pulling him gently by the arm and sitting him down. Then Sandile, who had his back to the window, leaned forward and shook his head. He looked at Elize and was talking. Elize's father's eyes glared at him, but he listened, his wife caressing his arm as if to ease his tension.

  "They look like they're just ... talking," said Jaz.

  Miguel had slouched with his back to the wall and his legs stretched out, but he jumped up and poked his eye through the window again on Jaz's comment.
<
br />   He frowned, as if also realizing what Jaz had just realized.

  The father's eyes flicked over to the window and they both shot down below it again as if a bullet had been fired from inside.

  Jaz's chest pounded as she looked at the door on her right, wondering if someone was going to come through it and crap them out for listening in (although they couldn't hear much of what was being said anyway). Miguel gestured with his head that they should go back to the stairs. She crawled on all fours, under the window and to the stairs. They sat in silence for at least twenty minutes. Then the door clicked behind them and Jaz gave a jump.

  When they turned, there were Sandile and Elize. Elize was smiling, and Sandile was wide-eyed with surprise.

  Elize's mom was also there. "Mr. Van Zyl and I would like to talk to the two of you now," she said.

  Oh ... shit.

  Perhaps it had been that they'd waited two days and so things had simply calmed down. Although, ultimately, it had become abundantly clear that color had little to do with their anger—but lying did. Elize's parents told Jaz and Miguel that so long as Elize was happy, so would they be. Her father said that—black, white, green or orange (cliché, but sweet of him to say it)—whoever dated his daughter would need to be, first of all, a man, and in that regard, Sandile had failed.

  And so had Miguel.

  As for Jaz, they had expected more of her and they'd felt, well, betrayed.

  "So, there you have it. Now, in my eyes," said Mr. Van Zyl, "you are in debt to this family—for lying. And you somehow need to pay that debt. You need to gain our respect back. But if you do, we will be more than happy to accept you as friends of our daughter."

  Jaz looked at Miguel and wondered what was expected of her.

  "So?" asked Mr. Van Zyl.

  Miguel shrugged. "I don't know ... sir. What would you like us to do?"