Thirteen Cents: A Novel (Modern African Writing Series)

by K. Sello Duiker

  I walk back to Sea Point, the air thick with the smell of sea water.

  5

  The last couple of days have been difficult. I can’t get a trick. No money means I can’t see Allen and I can’t go anywhere near the bridge. I walk around Sea Point nervously, keeping an eye out for Gerald’s white Grenada. And I can’t go to the bank because the bank has rules. Joyce said you can only take out your money on special days, not on weekends and you must give them a reason why you need the money, exactly like gangsters work. These clever gangsters that wear Italian suits, they are full of kak. Grown-ups are the same everywhere. They always want to control everything. All I want is a decent pair of shoes, to make up with Gerald and a Malawi stop to make me think I’m flying. Is that so much to ask for?

  “Hey!” Bafana jumps at me from nowhere. I’m sitting near the Men’s toilet at the beach.

  “Fuck off!” I yell, holding my heart with my teeth. He laughs but stops when he sees how serious I am.

  “I got a surprise for you.”

  “What are you talking about? Since when do you give me anything?”

  “Just go with me, bra. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Look, I’m tired. I’m not walking to town and the sun is about to go down. Just leave me alone. I’ve got enough to worry about.”

  “I promise, bra. We’re not going far. Just further up the beach. Sunset Beach, that’s where we’re going. It’s not far.”

  “What is this about, first? I’m not getting in trouble with cops for you.”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Just come with me, bra. I’m asking you nicely.”

  I get up reluctantly and follow him to Sunset Beach. He introduces me to two white kids who look older than us and have long noses. They look rich and bored with their money.

  “Ja, so what do you want?” I say to the taller one.

  “Aggression. Cool. I can get into that totally, man.”

  “Bra, don’t speak to them like that. They’re my friends.”

  “Shut up, Bafana. These are not your friends. Look at how you’re dressed and look at how they’re dressed.”

  “You two are cool, man. You know what I mean? Urban culture. Like urban living. You guys are living the concrete jungle, scavenging. Fuck, you don’t need our help. Fuck, that would be an insult. You guys are like cats, urban cats. Survivors, man.”

  Bafana grins and nods his head while I listen to them. I make little sense of what they’re saying.

  “Yeah, so we were kind of trying to tap into your pool of experience. Like we were wondering if you guys would be interested to trip with us.”

  “We’ve got good acid,” the other says, “and we’ll like feed you for the evening but it must be like a totally outdoor experience. Like we were wondering if you would take us to all of your hang-out spots at night. You know, to get the whole experience unedited.”

  “What are you saying? You want me to take drugs with you?”

  “I’m in,” Bafana butts in.

  “Shuddup you,” I tell him.

  “Okay, you guys have got this aggression thing completely going. Is that like your way, like that survival of the fittest thing? Okay, I can see that. I can tap into that if you want.”

  “Look, I’m not taking drugs with you,” I tell them.

  “But this is going to be a totally awesome experience. Like don’t you wanna tap into some raw energy? I mean, just think of it. Think of us making art, man. Right here right now,” the shorter one says.

  “What are you talking about? I’m hungry. I don’t want to talk kak with you.”

  “Bra, they said they’ll feed us,” Bafana says.

  “And then what?” I ask them.

  “And then we’ll have a totally awesome trip.”

  I start walking towards the park. Bafana comes after me.

  “Fuck off, you poes. Your naai. If you want to take drugs fuck off,” I say and curl my fist at him.

  He lets me go. I hear him mumbling with the other two something about another guy Bafana knows about. They walk towards the Seven Eleven where the lights are always on.

  I walk towards the Broken Bath, my strops making flapping sounds that irritate me. I take them off and put them in my jacket pocket. I walk on the beach and feel broken shells under my feet. They make a crackling sound which makes me sad. I hate sadness because it means tears are not far off. And I can’t have that. Men don’t cry. When have I ever seen Allen cry? Never. Or Gerald? Never. Or Sealy? And since I’m nearly thirteen I mustn’t cry. I must be strong. I must be a man. That is what men do. They don’t cry because tears are messy. They make your eyes all puffy and snot just runs from your nose and that’s messy. Grown-ups aren’t messy. They are always neat. They are neat because they don’t cry. When does anyone see a grown-up walking in the street crying? Never. Even my father never cried. And my mother, she never cried. Her tears were her blood. She cried only when Papa beat her until she bled.

  My stomach moans something awful as I walk along the beach. I go to the bins and have a scratch around. There is nothing but empty packets and drops of cool drink left in tins. Two men who look like hobos watch me closely as I scratch near their bin. They are drinking something.

  “Hungry?” one of them says.

  I go up to them. Sitting in the shadow of a spotlight the one stands up to shake my hand.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Azure.”

  “Sit down.”

  I sit next to them but not on their blanket.

  “Have a drink,” the other offers me a half-empty two-litre bottle of cheap wine. I take a slug.

  “Here, sit against the wall. It’s still warm from the sun. It was hot today, huh?”

  “Ja, it was hot.”

  We drink like that for a while. The other’s stomach also moans. He coughs and spits out a blob of green from his throat. It’s obvious that they also have no bread. But I sit with them even though I don’t drink much wine. White wine or any wine for that matter always makes my head spin.

  “Don’t drink much, do you?” the one who asked me over says. “By the way I’m David and this is Pieter.”

  I can hear that they’re both Afrikaans but I don’t attempt to speak their language. That’s how grown-ups fuck you. If you’re too eager to please, to say hi and make a friend they think you’re a moegoe and take you for a ride.

  “It’s going to be warm tonight,” I offer.

  “We’ll sleep well,” Pieter says.

  “Not if you snore,” David says.

  “Ag, los my uit, man. Ek is moeg.”

  “Praat jy Afrikaans?” Pieter asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Engelsman, nè?”

  “Sotho,” I say.

  “Joburg,” David says.

  “Ja.”

  “I thought so. You don’t find many Sotho mense in Cape Town. All the darkies speak Xhosa here.”

  A huge wave comes crashing on the rocks. We keep quiet and drink the wine.

  “You don’t drink much,” he says again. I take a large sip.

  “I get a headache if I drink too much.”

  “Babelas,” Pieter says and laughs. He ends up coughing again and spits out another big blob of green.

  “David, ek kan nie meer drink nie. My maag is seer, man.”

  Me and David polish off the bottle.

  “Is jy honger?” he asks after a while.

  I shake my head.

  “Is jy dronk?”

  I nod and burp.

  “Jy’s ôraait nou. Ek is ook van daai kant. Daai Vaalie mense, ek verstaan hulle nie.”

  I get up and stumble.

  “Stadig, ou kêrel,” David says.

  I open my pants and take a piss in the spotlight. The light makes my eyes strain. I piss for a long time and sigh with relief.

  “Nothing like a good piss,” David says when I’m done.

  I drop next to him on the sand, my
head spinning with wine.

  “Waar’s jou skoene?”

  I take out my strops from my jacket.

  “Daai’s nie skoene nie,” he says flatly.

  “I lost them,” I say and put them carefully in my jacket.

  “Where?” he yawns.

  “In town.”

  Pieter is already sleeping. David curls up next to him. I doze off for a while sitting next to them. Not long after dozing off I get up. I stumble to the edge of the water and open my mouth. Brown stuff pours out my mouth like a fountain. I puke till I squeeze my stomach into a pea. Then I take a sip of seawater from another place and rinse my mouth. My hunger soon returns but it is late and I’m tired. Too tired to walk back to my sleeping place. So I get up the stairs leading to a pathway for people. They have a fancy name for it in English but I forget it. It’s a word that I learned in school once. I walk towards the drinking hole near the Men’s toilet. I don’t want to wake up with a babelas so I drink lots of water. It fills my stomach but doesn’t take away the hunger. My back stiff, I walk back to the swimming pool.

  A few cars run down Main Road. It is late. People are sleeping. My breath stinks. I want to take another piss but hold it in. It’s not much further to go to where I sleep. The air is a little misty. I go down Broken Bath and walk towards the corner near the swimming pool. The shells are ruthless on my soles. But my feet are hard. They don’t tear or bleed easily. I take a long piss near a bush. Bafana is nowhere in sight. He’s probably frying his brain.

  I curl up on clear plastic which I hide near a bush. I cover my head and face with my large oversized jacket and sleep like a rock.

  6

  I still can’t get a trick and I’m too scared to go into town to wash and park cars in case Gerald sees me. Besides, he’s always got eyes in town. Pigeons, people, they are all the same. At the end of the day they are just rats. They’ll take you out for a few crumbs of bread. Gerald, you won’t guess who I saw in town today. You know that laaitie who called you a kaffir? And Gerald will only be too happy to let them kick the shit out of me. Beat him till those eyes of his turn purple. Kick the sunshine out of his little smile, that little moegoe calling me a kaffir! Who the fuck does he think he is? Just because he’s got blue eyes, fuck him, he’s still a kaffir. Does he know who I am? Does he know the Twenty-Eights? Does he know what I can do to him? And after that I must apologise to Gerald because Gerald is a clean coloured with straight hair and light skin. And then I must give him some money because my hands are too dirty to buy him anything.

  And Allen, I can’t go anywhere near him without a cent to my name. I haven’t seen Joyce for days as well because I’m too embarrassed to go without shoes. What will I say to her? She still leaves out food for me in the morning.

  The sky is dark. Stars light it up. I hang around the park in Sea Point hoping that one of the moffies will pick me up. The problem is that at night the ones who go there go for quick free sex. There’s usually no tricking. But if I choose wisely, I’m sure I can have my way with one of them. Some of those sick bastards would only be too happy to give it to me up the bum for a small price.

  I walk slowly round the trees. There are about six guys. One of them is so horny he’s got his piel out. I can see him playing with himself. No one seems to be going near him. He’s too desperate, he’ll fuck anything that moves. He won’t pay, I say to myself. The others stand in the semi-darkness and rub their crotches as I walk closer. I take off my jacket and T-shirt and sit on a bench facing the trees. I sit with my arms open, resting them on the top of the bench. Not long after one of them comes over and sits beside me.

  “I’ll do anything you want for fifty bucks,” I whisper to him.

  “Anything?”

  “Anything that I can do.”

  “And what is it that you do?” he says softly in a mocking voice.

  “Depends on what I’m asked.”

  “What if I wanted to fuck you?”

  “I can do that.”

  “You mean I can do that.”

  “Ja, you can do that if you want. For fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty bucks. Don’t worry about that. What if I said I wanted to fuck you in my car?”

  “You can do that too if you want.”

  “Of course I want.”

  We go to his car. His ring shimmers in the night.

  “Do you always wear your wedding ring?” I say just so that he doesn’t take me for a fool and try and cheat me after the sex.

  “If I give you sixty will you shut up?”

  “I can do that. I can be quiet.”

  The married ones are always the horniest and by far the roughest. He takes me in his family minibus to a dark beach near the V&A Waterfront. We are the only ones parked there. He takes me to the back seat and oils me with cooking oil before he takes me like a beast. I bite the seat in front of me while he grunts and moans. He goes at it at least for an hour before he comes into a condom. As soon as he is done he zips up his pants and takes out his wallet.

  “It’s your lucky day. I’ve only got two twenties and a fifty.”

  My face lights up even though my asshole is sore.

  “Oh, but I’ve got coins,” he says. He couldn’t resist getting me back after I said he was married. Me and my mouth; I’m always on guard. He gives me a fifty-rand note and two five-rand coins.

  “Do you want to do this again?” I ask.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I’m always at the park at night.”

  “Great. It’s been a slice of heaven but now I have to go,” he says and opens the door for me to get out. He gets into the front seat and drives off. I walk towards the water and take off my pants. I sit in a shallow pool and let the cool water cover me up to my waist. I sit for a while until my bum feels numb.

  7

  I find Allen sitting at his usual place near the white girl. She’s got stitches under her left eye and you can still see some bruises if you look past her flashy make-up. I’m nervous because I didn’t see him three days later like he said and because he is wearing his dark RayBans. That means he’s either stoned on drugs, got an ugly bruise or that he is in a foul mood. I go up to him anyhow.

  “Allen, can I sit?”

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “You said I can . . . ”

  “I say a lot of things. Do you always listen to everything I say?”

  “Yes, Allen.”

  “And that’s why you’re on the streets and I’m here. Stupid fuck, just grow up.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “Did you really think I was going to get you shoes, motherfucker?”

  I don’t answer.

  “What, do I look like your mother?”

  I shake my head.

  “Listen, if you want to buy a TV or a hi-fi or something pricey I can get it for you at a hot price. But shoes, clothes, don’t fuck with me. Understand?”

  “Yes, Allen.”

  “See how I’m dressed?”

  “Yes, Allen.”

  “No. Really see. RayBan. Gucci, Armani and Nike,” he says pointing to his clothes.

  I nod nervously.

  “Now look at how you’re dressed and compare it to how I’m dressed. Fuck, you stink. Now fuck off. I’m not the Salvation Army.”

  I get up and walk away quickly.

  I walk towards town, all the time praying that Gerald and his rats won’t see me. I go to Long Street to a shop called Second Time Around. They sell good second-hand clothing. And the woman who works behind the till is not a vulture. She lets you roam around for a while and get what you want, no matter how you look. I spot a pair of veldskoene that look like my size. I take them to the till even though the price sticker says sixty-five.

  “I need these shoes,” I say to her politely.

  “How much have you got?”

  “Sixty,” I plead and take out the money.

  She looks at me out of glasses that sit nearly at the bottom of her nose.


  “Okay.”

  I give her the money. She rings it up on one of those old tills that make a lot of noise, like a toy.

  “Thank you,” I say, relieved.

  I take off my strops and put them in my jacket. I put on the shoes anxiously. She watches me.

  “Here,” she says.

  I stand up. A pair of socks is on the table.

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “I know. Take them,” she says.

  I take the socks and unfasten my laces. My dry feet make crackling sounds as I slide the socks over them. I tie the shoes properly.

  “I can walk forever in these shoes,” I tell her. “Thank you,” I say and leave.

  I can feel her eyes on me as I walk out of her shop. I go to Bree Street, not far from the mosque. I know a guy called Vincent who usually hangs around there. At night he sleeps outside one of the shops. He’s also from Joburg.

  “Mpintshi, I haven’t seen you for a while,” he says when he sees me.

  “I’m in Sea Point now. Town’s too rough for me.”

  “This is where all the action is. You know me, I like big cities.”

  “Ja, but Cape Town? Come on.”

  “It’s better than Sea Point. You have to put up with all those gangsters,” he says. He’s older than me.

  “Nah. I stay away from them.”

  “What’s with the shoes, bra?”

  “Hey, I needed shoes, they were the only ones I could get.”

  “I could have got you shoes, you know that.”

  “Ja, but there’s Allen to think about.”

  “Oh him, I forgot. Is he still terrorising the neighbourhood?”

  “Ja, it’s his neighbourhood. I have to go through him first.”

  We sit under a palm tree. He opens a pack of fish and chips and breaks half a loaf of white bread into two. We eat silently and finish the meal in no time.

  “Ta, bra,” I say to him.

  “I’ve got to be straight with you, man.”

  “What?”

  “The word is out on the street that Gerald wants you.”

  “Are you serious?” I say, terrified.

  He just looks at me.

  “Shit,” I say.