He was out of the house now, walking fast down the street. His hood up. He had left his gun behind. Tonight was not the night to end it. But he had to do something. He would make Olwethu nervous. He would scare him. Put him on edge. If Priscilla could play cat and mouse so could he.
He was about to turn the corner when he heard the voice behind him. Shit!
“Mzi Mlongeni?”
He could run, but the man was close and he didn’t know if he had a gun.
“Mzi Mlongeni?” the voice asked again. This time Mzi turned. He only recognised the probation officer from his court case when he was right beside him.
His heart began to pound in his chest. It was late, he should be at home. And here he was out on the street. Mzi thought of the court case. He thought of Sergeant Ndebele. What if he had found evidence and told the probation officer. He thought of what they did to you in jail and his blood ran cold. It was more dangerous in there than out.
“My sister sent me to get medicine. She’s ill.” He tried to look the guy straight in the eye.
“That’s a shame! But why not go to the spaza across from your house? They have pills there for a fever.”
“They ran out,” lied Mzi.
“I tell you what I’m going to do,” said the officer. “I am going to escort you home. Then I will bring some medicine for your sister.”
“Thank you,” said Mzi. It pained him to say it, but it was the only thing he could do.
The man looked at him.
“But if I catch you out after dark again, I won’t be so understanding.”
They walked back in silence, passing some schoolboys on their way. The boys turned and stared. Then he could hear them talking and laughing.
“Do you need a nanny to look after you after dark now?” the boys teased.
“Ignore them,” said the probation officer. “It could just as easily be them here rather than you.” They walked on and he continued talking. “You’re the lucky one. It’s happened to you young. Young enough to turn your life around and take another direction, choose another path than the path of crime. That is a one-way street ending in jail.”
“You coward!” one of the boys shouted after Mzi. Then he heard another voice. One that was becoming familiar to him. But here in the dark?
“You are the cowards.” It rang clearly in the night. He turned to see Thandi walking towards him across the street. Was she stupid, he thought? Stupid or very brave to stand up to those guys. And what was she doing out on the street so late, and alone. Mzi thought of what those guys might do to her in a back alley and shuddered. He thought she was crazy, but he couldn’t ignore her, there was something about her that he couldn’t put his finger on, that wanted her to stick around.
“Here.” She came over to Mzi. “I was on the way to bring you these notes.” She scrabbled in her bag and brought out a book full of loose pages. “You missed the handout at the end of class.”
The probation officer looked impressed. “You’re a good friend,” he said. “But it’s not safe for you out here in the dark. I’ll walk you home.” Then he turned to Mzi.“You’re lucky to have someone helping you,” he said.
Mzi just nodded. He hadn’t asked Thandi for anything. What was she doing here? But part of him felt like protecting her. Asking her in.
“Aren’t you going to take them?”
“Thanks,” said Mzi, taking the notes.
They were near his house, and once they were there he hovered in the doorway. Mzi hoped the officer wouldn’t insist on coming in. His sister wouldn’t cover for him. He would be humiliated when she told the officer that Mzi was lying.
“I’ve got to visit someone near here. What do you say I come back in ten minutes to take you home safely?” he said to Thandi.
“Thanks” said Thandi. “I’ll be glad to be escorted home.”
She came in, and they stood awkwardly in the lounge.
“I had to get out,” said Mzi as they sat on the couch. “It was driving me crazy in here. And then he caught me.”
“He gave you another chance. Seems like a nice man.”
“I suppose so.”
Thandi sat down on a chair near him. They sat in silence for a while. Then she started talking about school. Mzi found himself laughing at Thandi as she told him about the bitchy girls. Thandi did a good impersonation, her hand on her hip, her head tossed back, just like the girls in their class. He looked at her differently. She was funny and smart. What was she doing here? Why would any girl in their right mind be here with him? Had Ntombi sent Thandi to punish him? To lead him on – then turn against him?
It was as if she could read his mind. “You know, Mzi, you should really try to like yourself,” she said, and smiled. It was a cute smile and real, not like Priscilla’s fake one. He could feel that Thandi really cared. She wasn’t impressed by his good looks. She was interested in what lay behind them. But that scared him too.
“I used to be angry too,” she said.
“You, angry?”
“ I know, hard to believe. Do you remember the Khozas?”
Mzi looked at her in astonishment. Of course he remembered the Khozas. He could never forget them. He knew he had seen her somewhere before. The Khozas had lived next door to them when he was much younger. He had heard the shouts from that house at night. He had seen the small girl crying outside. Throwing things in rage when she had been shut out by her screaming mother or father. He remembered coming out in the yard when his dad had also beaten him, and finding her next door in the corner of the yard, crying.
“That was you?”
“Yes …”
And then it started to make sense. Why she was familiar, why she bothered him. The feeling that he knew her from somewhere. She would stick up for him. They had spent nights in the back yards of their houses, trying to get away from the screaming of their parents. Blocking their ears. They had sat out in the dark singing to drown out the noise.
“What happened – are you still living with your parents?”
She shook her head. “I left home. I had a bad time.” She looked down at her hands. “Then I found my aunt. I was lucky, she took me in. But I was still so angry I didn’t trust anyone. I wouldn’t let anyone close. But then –”
There was a knock on the door. The probation officer was back to take her home.
She just looked at him. “I have to go,” she said. “I’ll see you in class.”
* * *
Later that night there was a tap on his window. When Mzi opened it Priscilla leaned in. “I would have come earlier, sweetie, but I saw your babysitter in the street.” Mzi hated her teasing.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Mzi went round to open the front door for her. Maybe a visit from Priscilla was just what he needed to forget everything. But as he opened the door he saw a tall figure next to her – Mzobbish. He knew why he was there. It was time for him to become part of the game again.
Sitting, talking in their low voices, Priscilla pouting in the corner because no one was paying any attention to her, it felt good, like the old days. He didn’t even mind that Priscilla didn’t stay, but went off into the night with Mzobbish. He had what he needed. Mzobbish had left him with the drugs. Now it was over to him.
Chapter 12
He had the packet of izitwiga zezoli – just to start, as he had said to Mzobbish. Start small, and then expand. Who said he didn’t have a business brain? He had even invested his last money into this scheme because Mzobbish had been irritated with him for taking so long, and made him pay for the zol in advance. So he had no money left, but a packet that would bring him at least double what he had spent.
He found Chuma on the way in to school. “I’ve got some for you,” he said. “Fresh and strong, straight from the Eastern Cape.”
“Cool, my bra,” said Chuma. “
Break time?”
“See you then,” said Mzi.
Later some other boys came up to him on the sly, looking to buy, and he arranged to meet them during different class times. It was a good feeling again, this power, having something that some people wanted, and other people feared.
As he walked into English he bumped into Thandi. “Mzi,” she was hissing. “Mzi, I’ve got some news, something –”
He ignored her. He had no time for gossip with such a girl today. Miss Masola called them to attention and he was pleased that she had to leave him alone.
The next lesson was Life Sciences, and he was glad that pairwork was over. He had no time now for girls like Thandi. He hardly noticed her looking at him oddly, or trying to signal something to him. He just sat at the back and even dozed off a little when the class got really boring.
He woke up at the end of the class and found Thandi behind him near the school bags at the back of the class. Could that girl never leave him alone? Again she tried to approach him but he left her behind, pushing in front of some boys to get out. They dropped back immediately. The word must have got round, he thought to himself, Mzi Mlongeni was back in town.
He had forgotten it was assembly that day. That was a bit of a problem. The caretaker patrolled the grounds to check that everyone was there, and there was no way he could miss it to do his deals – he’d be caught like a shot. As they filed into the quad Thandi was behind him. But she didn’t try to speak to him any more. Good, he thought, she’s learned her lesson. For once it seemed that all the teachers were there in the front. Usually there were a couple bunking themselves – after all, they weren’t caught by the caretaker. Mzi had seen them sometimes, smoking in the shade in the parking lot, laughing, while all the students had to line up in the hot sun and listen to Mr Khumalo, the principal, droning on. He wondered if there were special awards or announcements. He just wished it would be over quickly so he could do his business.
Then he saw something, a sight that filled him with dread. There, in front of the school, in the corridor, Mr Khumalo was welcoming a group of policemen in their dark blue uniforms. One of them had a dog on a lead. Mzi knew exactly what that dog did. It was a sniffer dog. Trained to sniff out drugs. He felt a rush of adrenalin. Why, of all days, did they choose today for a raid? When he hadn’t even got a cent yet? And when he would be caught. No more community service, no more getting out of this mess. He would be locked up for sure. He wanted to groan, to punch someone. Had someone told on him? Who was the impimpi? He looked around and saw Thandi looking at him. Surely she hadn’t been the one! But why did she look at him as if she knew something that he didn’t? He felt sick. Maybe he could leave, say that he wasn’t well. He started pushing to the back.
“Nobody is to leave this quad!” Mr Khumalo thundered. “Get into your class groups. Teachers, take roll call. And lead your classes to their home rooms. Everyone must keep their bag with them.”
The policeman with the dog had already attached himself to the group of Grade 12s, Mzi’s grade. They had to put their bags in front of them. One by one the policeman led the dog to each bag.
“He’s going to eat your polony sandwiches,” Unathi teased Sipho.
“He’s going to run away fast when he smells your mother’s cooking,” Sipho teased back. Everyone envied Unathi’s lunches of supper leftovers because his mother was a great cook.
Mzi said nothing. He was still clutching his bag to his chest.
“Put it down,” a teacher barked at him.
This was it. It was all over. He put it down just as the dog got to him. The dog immediately started sniffing excitedly, and the white policeman shouted something to the others in Afrikaans. Immediately two other policemen were there. Mzi didn’t recognise either of them.
“Open your bag!” one shouted at Mzi. Slowly he leaned down as they pulled the dog away. He pushed away the thought of his sister’s face, of the social worker. What would they say? He remembered the sound of the jail door clanging shut.
He pulled out his books. “Hurry up,” said one policeman, and took Mzi’s bag, shaking it upside down so everything came spilling out. Mzi blinked. There was no parcel. There were his books, his pencil case, but no packet. The dog seemed as confused as he was, whining and scratching at the bag in the policeman’s hand. The policeman took out a knife and tore the bag open. But it was an ordinary PEP school bag. There were no hidden pockets or compartments. The packet was gone.
“We could arrest you. The dog knows you’ve been doing something naughty,” the white policeman said. But Mzi knew it was a lie. There was nothing there. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe the lightness in his chest. What miracle had happened? Who had stolen his drugs? Right now he wanted to kiss whoever it was, and then laugh as he saw the person getting handcuffed and dragged away.
But no one was. Eventually everyone was sent back to class, Mzi carrying his books and pencil case, his bag in tatters.
Later on he heard the story that a packet had been found in the grounds, outside the girls’ toilets, stuffed in a drain. But no one could work out where it was from, and so the police had to leave with just the packet, and no one to lock up.
Mzi spent the rest of the day in a daze. He had lost his money, his drugs. The other boys who had wanted to buy avoided him, terrified that somehow they would find themselves in trouble. And he avoided them. He felt a strange mix of emotions, all fighting for space: confusion, relief, anger. And then relief again. It had been a close call.
He walked home slowly, still mulling over what had happened that day. No one had gone near his bag, he had made sure of that. But then he remembered – in Life Sciences, when he was sleeping. That was the only time his eyes had left the bag. It must have been then. Who was it? It was then that he realised exactly who it was. Somebody who had appointed herself as his guardian angel. Thandi.
He shook his head. She was one crazy girl. If anyone had caught her with the drugs …
Maybe this was a message. He should leave the drugs for a while. Even Olwethu – he knew he had to get revenge, but maybe he should just keep on the right side for a bit. But then he shook himself. How could he be turning into a coward? He could not rest until Olwethu paid for what he did.
Chapter 13
Jc wit da guys…u ok, bra?
Mzi was glad to read the SMS from Vuyo. Yes, he was still angry with Vuyo for taking on Olwethu without his permission. But he was the only true friend Mzi had. And Mzi had realised that maybe he needed Vuyo to help him after all.
There was no way that Mzi was going to be able to get near Olwethu. He had to face that fact. The only way was through Vuyo. It took him a long time to send a message back. It felt like a part of him was giving up. He was losing face.
Nid 2 tlk. Cum ova.
As he pressed the Send button he remembered Thandi’s face, imagined what she might say. But he couldn’t stop. Not now. He was so close to getting the revenge he lived for. He didn’t even know if Vuyo would get the message. He was probably out somewhere with Mzobbish planning some carjacking, laughing at how Mzi had lost all his drugs. He was sure they would have heard by now. Another thought occurred to him. Perhaps Vuyo was with Priscilla right now, kissing him like she used to kiss Mzi ...
There was a tap on his window. He looked out into the dark. A face appeared pressed against the glass. It was Vuyo, a drunk Vuyo.
Mzi let him in. He was surprised how good it was to chat to his friend. Vuyo had brought beers with him and they felt like liquid gold going down Mzi’s throat. That was better. His body had been craving alcohol. Vuyo told him he had seen Olwethu leaving his uncle’s garage. He told Mzi he had been watching him. Seeing where he went and when.
Mzi told him about the probation officer and how he had been given one last chance. As he drank more he opened up. He told Vuyo of his confusion about Priscilla. Vuyo laughed. “She�
�ll be back,” he said. But he didn’t tell Vuyo about Thandi, or even talk about the drugs. He didn’t want Vuyo to ask who had taken the drugs. Somehow it didn’t feel right, like it might put Thandi in danger.
“I’ve had it with women,” said Mzi. “You give them stuff and they want more, they ask you about your feelings … talk talk talk … nag nag nag. They never leave you alone. They’re all the same.”
He leaned forward to speak in Vuyo’s ear. “Mfethu, I do need you to help with Olwethu. I wasn’t thinking straight the other day.”
Vuyo laughed, slapping him on the back. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it all, Mr Mzi, who thinks he has superpowers, ready to fly out of prison when they lock him up because he isn’t a good boy.”
Mzi swallowed his irritation. He couldn’t afford to chase Vuyo away now.
“OK, OK,” he said. “Yes. I want you to take Olwethu on.”
“I’ll kill him, I’ll beat him up, I’ll –”
“Shut up!” said Mzi. “Think carefully. Be clever. Get him somewhere where he can’t run. Provoke him, so that he makes the first move. Then fight … shake him up. But don’t kill him – not now, not yet. Do you understand? Don’t kill him.”
Vuyo was grinning a lopsided drunken smile. “It will be a pleasure to take him down,” he slurred.
“But leave me to do the shooting later,” said Mzi. “This is a message for him. But I’ll do the last bit in my own time, when people aren’t on my case. He’s mine, remember.”
Just as Vuyo tripped out of the window and weaved away, Mzi saw his sister in the doorway in her faded old nightie.
“I heard you say something about Olwethu,” she said. “Mzi, you have to stop –”
Mzi saw red.
“Who do you think you are?” he roared. “You cannot control me, you stupid woman. Leave me alone.” He found himself standing over her, looking down at her frightened face.
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