Lettah's Gift

by Graham Lang

  ‘Maybe you should get away for a while. Why don’t we go someplace together? Victoria Falls? Kariba? My car will be fixed today. Come on.’

  Clara looks at me hesitantly. ‘My mother will probably need some support while she winds up the shop. I don’t particularly want to go sightseeing right now.’

  ‘Just a suggestion.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Frank. Not now though.’

  She lays her head on her arm and closes her eyes. The backs of her legs are turning mottled red under the sun. She breathes deeply. I’m wondering if she has fallen asleep when she speaks: ‘Will you write about me one day?’

  I laugh. ‘Why? Does it worry you?’

  ‘You’ll probably cast me as a fickle temptress.’

  ‘I’d never make you fickle, Clara.’

  ‘I am fickle. I have a bad track record.’

  ‘Why don’t we just play it by ear?’

  Clara smiles and, eyes still closed, reaches out. I take her hand and kiss it.

  ‘You’re so gallant,’ she says.

  Gallant? Now there’s one for the books. Lydia would have been proud.

  Just after five Milton drops me off at Prospect Autos and ring-ting-tings his way towards home in the DKW. My Nissan stands ready in front of the workshop, next to Brak’s Cruiser; it’s been washed and the tyres blackened. The appies, Benjamin and Morris, emerge from the workshop and saunter past me towards the gate. Approaching the office I hear loud voices and laughter.

  I enter a blue fog of cigarette smoke and beer fumes. Jervis and Brak are seated on opposite sides of the counter, a vanquished army of quart bottles at their elbows. Jervis, looking every bit the squalid bartender, is first to see me enter.

  ‘Hey, Matilda!’ he yells. ‘How about a little waltz, hey?’

  Brak turns on his seat. ‘Howzit, china! Pull up a stool, man.’

  Both stare at me with glazed eyes.

  ‘Nice to see the sober work ethic is alive and well in Zimbabwe,’ I say.

  ‘Bugger the work ethic,’ Jervis says. ‘Our work ethic is . . . sympathetic. Sympathetic to the pathetic. Sympathetic to the pathetic melancholic alcoholic who likes to frolic.’

  Brak laughs. ‘You’re a fucking poet, Jervis.’

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ I ask.

  Jervis pushes his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Fuck, I’m too pissed to worry about that now. Pay me tomorrow. As a valued customer do us the honour of sharing a beer with us, man.’

  ‘Might be better if I just picked up my car and left you boys to it.’

  ‘Come on!’ Brak insists.

  ‘Ja, come on, Matilda!’ Jervis says. ‘What’s the hurry, man?’ He cups a hand to his mouth and whispers to Brak. ‘Bloody Aussie. Can’t wait to get back to the Gay Mardi Gras, hey?’

  He erupts into laughter.

  Brak smiles wryly. ‘You’re a man of great wit and tact, Jervis.’ He turns to me. ‘Come on, Frank. Don’t leave me in the lurch here.’

  ‘Okay, just one.’

  ‘Not hard to twist his arm, hey?’ Jervis says. He takes out a quart of Zambezi Lager from the fridge, opens it and shoves it across the counter. He does a little dance in front of Mugabe’s portrait and the frieze of pin-ups. Wagging his grease-stained backside, arms jerking like pistons.

  Brak looks at me. ‘See what you got me into, hey? More than one wire loose in this oke’s head. Seriously.’

  ‘Just remember who’s boss around here, my friend,’ Jervis growls, settling back into his chair.

  I pull up a stool. The three of us clink bottles and swig our beers. Jervis gives a hefty belch, simultaneously mouthing ‘Bulawayo’. Brak shakes his head, laughing. One day on the job, and he and Jervis are just about joined at the hip.

  ‘Good to see Zimbabwe’s woes aren’t causing undue concern here at Prospect Autos,’ I say.

  Jervis waves his hand. ‘Ag, what can you do but go with the flow? I believe in providence, my friend. I have great faith in our government. There will always be pissed Zanu-PF stooges with pranged government cars for me to fix. Never-ending supply. Politicians plus alcohol plus motor vehicles equals paydirt. Not to mention the odd Aussie who comes along. My business is safe.’

  ‘Is everything okay with my car?’ I ask.

  ‘Going like a Boeing. So when can we expect it back again? What new auto atrocity will you commit?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a go at that mobile brothel you conned me into renting.’

  A nicotine-stained grin. ‘Mobile brothel, hey? My friend, many a true word is said in jest. You got no idea how much, shall we say, recreation of a sexual nature that baby’s seen. Man! I used to naai myself silly in that car –’

  ‘How? On the gearstick?’ Brak asks innocently.

  ‘Fuck off, Malan. Bloody wiseguy. Many a sweet damsel lost her virginity in that little jalopy. Those springs got a good work-out –’

  Brak scoffs: ‘Ag, don’t talk shit, man! What self-respecting woman would ever get in a car with you?’

  Jervis waves a stubby finger. ‘No lies, my friend!’ He leans close, his voice conspiratorial. ‘I’ll tell you blokes a story. I made a complete bloody arse of myself on one such occasion, man. Literally. There I am at the drive-in, parked on that hump, you know, with the speaker in the window, making love not war on the back seat with a nice fat matron from one of the boarding schools. Naked as the day we were born, car springs going berserk. Everything going lekker like a cracker, when all of a sudden the fucking car starts rolling forward . . .’

  He pauses for dramatic effect, bleary eyes magnified.

  ‘Coitus interruptus big time, I tell you. Ja, there we go, hey, straight down the dip towards the car in front. Matron still has me in a scissors grip. Bloody speaker gets ripped off the pole. I untangle myself from the matron who starts to screech like a banshee and I dive over the front seat, trying to grab the handbrake under the dash. Picture the scene, boys. A wild matron screeching, me with my arse hanging over the seat trying to grab the handbrake. Too fucking late. Bam!’ Jervis whacks his fist into his palm. ‘We pound straight into the car in front. Big commotion. And what does the oke behind us do? Switches on his bloody lights, illuminating my arse over the seat! Nice big shiny ring for all to see. Anus horribilus. And, of course, the joker starts hooting, and soon the whole bloody drive-in is hooting and laughing. Christ, I never lived that one down, hey. The whole of Bulawayo was talking. I was a fucking laughing stock, man!’

  Brak guffaws. ‘Oh, Jeez! Have you no shame, man? No wonder they shut the place down.’

  Jervis grins. If little horns sprouted from his dirty crew-cut hair, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He gets up and does his little jig over to the fridge. ‘Come on, girls. Who’s for another grog? Drink up, Matilda!’

  And so the deluge. How easily my flimsy defences are breached; how feebly I surrender. Soon I’m as drunk as my pie-eyed companions – not surprising since I haven’t eaten since breakfast. A cosy buzz spreads through me; I seem to float in a piss-warm pond, not a care in the world. After all, wasn’t I entitled to unwind now that my search for Lettah is over? Did I not give it my best shot? Things distort. Brak and Jervis’s huge, strangely endearing, faces bulge and contract like anemones. Every so often, Mugabe’s dour visage, magnified among tits and bums, peers over Jervis’s shoulder. A fellow devil. I know that soon this warm pond will spill over and the plunge will commence. Down, always down. Still I drink.

  It’s dark when we go outside to relieve ourselves. We stand together in front of the office, slaking down the still-hot concrete surface of the work yard, watching the urine funnel off to a drain. The grubby rituals of men.

  Brak spies the chained dog. ‘Only a bloody savage leaves his dog chained up like that, Jervis. You should be ashamed of yourself, man.’
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  Jervis looks exasperatedly up at the stars as he does up his fly. ‘Ag, for crying in a fucking bucket, I’m sick and tired of you carrying on about that bloody dog. If you want him, take him. My gift to you, okay? Happy Christmas.’

  Aside from the dog, whose name is Gator, Jervis supplies us each with a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from a stash he keeps under the counter and four cold bombs for the road. The ‘plan’ is to leave my car at Prospect Autos, sleep the night at Brak’s and pick it up tomorrow morning when he goes in to work. I phone Milton from the office – he doesn’t sound too impressed, probably because he can hear the inebriated laughter of my companions in the background.

  With Gator tethered in the back of the Cruiser, wearing a makeshift rope muzzle, we hit the road. I’m just about to open one of the beers when Brak decides to stop off at what he says is one of Bulawayo’s few remaining up-market waterholes where you can drink among civilised folk – such as himself, he adds with a laugh. Even to an inebriate, up-market is not a term that readily springs to mind as we enter the bar, empty but for three young white men playing darts. Floor littered with cigarette butts. Walls festooned with smutty cartoons, ancient rugby memorabilia and some mounted animal heads – kudu, zebra, a moth-eaten lion. Brak orders drinks. He eyes the young blokes playing darts. ‘Any chance of a game, boys?’ They size us up; what they see amuses them, apparently. They beckon us over. Two are tough-looking fellows with pumped physiques in tight t-shirts. Military-style trousers. Sideburns shaved into thin angular strips. One sports a silver nostril ring. I prove a woeful partner to Brak; on one occasion I miss the board completely, causing much hilarity. My brain now seems to operate in short, sporadic bursts, as though wired to a defective battery. Still I drink. The beers keep coming courtesy of my US dollars which the bartender, a tired-looking geriatric in a rumpled safari suit, accepts with alacrity.

  Everyone is getting on just fine when I stagger off to the toilet. Down a passage, through a noisy swing-door, into the foul ambience of excreta. The urinal is overflowing with yellow piss and cigarette butts. I lurch into a cubicle. As I pee, the toilet bowl seems to grin up at me demonically.

  Back in the bar, things are no longer hunky-dory. Loud bickering has commenced between Brak and the guy with the silver nostril ring. Something about earning the right to wear army apparel. ‘What is it,’ Brak asks, a malevolent glint in his eye, ‘about you bum bandits and uniforms?’ This does not go down well with the boys in camouflage. The one with the nostril ring, looking more like a bull by the second, ups the ante.

  ‘Bum bandit? Say it again, you old prick, and I’ll boot your balls so hard you’ll ring like a fucking pinball machine.’

  Brak just lounges smiling against the bar, lapping it up. I lurk on the periphery. After having my nose broken by that yobbo in Australia, I know that I have no fighter’s instinct whatsoever. The stupidity of our situation begins to register. What am I doing here, carrying on like some low-life? And yet, inexplicably, I begin to mouth off like a stroppy barfly. ‘Grow up, you idiots! Pick on someone your own age!’ – even as I say it, I wonder what possesses the drunken mind.

  They eye me, the puny geezer with a broken nose, with amused contempt. ‘Stay out of it, fuck face,’ one of them warns. Enough said. They turn back to Brak who still leans casually against the bar, grinning like a fat old mongoose in a chook pen. Some ritual posturing. Snarling, snorting, pawing the ground. Yet none of them appears game enough to initiate hostilities. It’s not just that Brak is still the biggest guy in the room. There’s something in his stare that stops them. A look in which there is no fear.

  Engrossed by this unfolding stupidity, I forget that I’m holding a glass of beer; it slips suddenly from my grasp, exploding into fragments on the floor. Brak jerks into a crouch, back to the bar, fists up and ready. I almost laugh at the theatrical absurdity of it – him poised there, head weaving from side to side behind clenched fists, like some mothballed prize-fighter. The three amigos, though, now look decidedly unenthusiastic; none seems keen to take on this big smiling lunatic, yet none wishes to lose face either. The old bartender yells at us to take it outside.

  Out we go to the car park. I hear myself chirping again, berating the young men for their lack of respect for their elders – ironic, considering deference to seniors has never been a notable feature of my own behaviour. A heavy blow to my back sends me sprawling to the ground. I look up to see Brak backing up against the Cruiser, that scary smile still on his face. Behind him, Gator roars with muffled rage, straining at his tether. He has managed to partially remove the muzzle, enough to allow his jaws a decent purchase on any stray human body part.

  Brak cracks his knuckles and beckons the men forward. ‘Come on, you gutless wonders. If I don’t tear you apart, my little pooch will. Come on, you big heroes!’

  He reaches into the pocket of his overalls and takes out a clasp knife. Without taking his eyes off the men, he lobs it to me.

  ‘Get on the back, Frank. Cut the dog loose if you have to, okay?’

  I pick up the knife and stagger to my feet, the palms of my hands skinned; I clamber aboard the Cruiser and crouch well out of Gator’s reach. It occurs to me that cutting Gator’s tether might expose me to a serious mauling, but I take comfort in the fact that Gator’s eyes are fixed on the men standing nervously around Brak. With one hand Brak reaches behind and rustles under a tarpaulin on the back of the Cruiser. He pulls out a short wooden pole and brandishes it at the men. ‘Okay, boys! Time to back up the big talk. Come on, who’s first to be a tent peg?’

  The amigos start muttering among themselves, wanting no part of this madman or his dog.

  Brak taunts them: ‘What’s the matter, boys? Big fucking talk, hey? Come on, just me against you.’

  ‘Fuck this for a joke,’ says one.

  ‘Ja, let’s piss off,’ says another. ‘This old prick’s seriously insane.’

  I almost cheer with relief. A sensible outcome that leaves our honour and hides intact.

  But Brak has other ideas. He suddenly lunges forward and clouts the one with the nostril ring square on his crew-cut pate. A ringing toonk. The man staggers back clasping his head, groaning. Brak takes a wild swing at the other two, misses and nearly falls. Before he can recover, they pile into him. Kicks and punches. Wild curses. The pole clatters across the ground under the Cruiser. He with the nostril ring recovers sufficiently to join the fray. Gator tugs wildly at his tether as Brak disappears beneath a scrum of bodies. I crouch helplessly in the back of the Cruiser, fearful of where this might end, picturing Brak and me laid out on a morgue slab, covered in cuts and bruises, the tags around our toes reading: Cause of Death – Seriously Insane Old Prick. A loud yelp; one of them leaps back, examining his arm. ‘Jesus, the old fucker bit me!’ The others take no notice; one has Brak pinned down on the ground with a forearm across his neck, the other starts punching him in the face. Brak twists his head, trying to avoid the blows. Panic-stricken, I decide to cut Gator loose. I move closer and grab the tether. Gator turns, his throat rattling. He scrambles towards me; I retreat beyond his reach, wondering what the hell to do next. Brak is taking a pounding. Am I expected to leap into the fray?

  Then from within the melee comes a terrible breaking roar. Brak bellows like a wounded beast, as though all the pain and hatred in his life were given voice at once. It seems to paralyse the men – even Gator stops his tirade. Eyes darting with fear, the amigos fall on Brak as if their lives depend on holding him down. But nothing can contain the beast. Brak erupts from the tangle of bodies, eyes wide, insane, bloodied mouth roaring. In a flurry of blows he fells two, the meaty crack of fist against face resonating around the car park. They lie bleeding on the ground, staring groggily after their friend who has taken off down the road in a limping run.

  Brak shouts after him: ‘Hey! Where’re you off to, chicken shit?’

  He looks at me, breathi
ng heavily. Laughs. ‘Fuck, is that it? After all that hunna-hunna!’

  He retrieves the pole from under the Cruiser. The two on the ground cower as he brandishes it at them. ‘Go on, fuck off before I get serious,’ he pants.

  They get slowly to their feet. One holds his jaw as they retreat down the road.

  Brak turns to me, laughing like a madman. I’m still crouched in the back of the Cruiser, unable to fully believe how this has turned out. Not that Brak has emerged unscathed. A trickle of blood from a cut on his eyebrow runs down his cheek into his beard; blood oozes from his mouth. He inspects his right hand; his knuckles are bleeding and the gash where Gator bit him days ago has opened up. The dog strains at his tether, his paws scrambling on the Cruiser’s rusted tray. Brak looks at him affectionately. He wipes his bloody hand off on his overalls and reaches out slowly towards the dog. Gator’s ferocious growling subsides, then stops. Brak gently strokes the dog’s muscular neck. He removes the makeshift muzzle. Then he leans forward and rubs his head against Gator’s – an act of profound stupidity, in my estimation. For a moment the two just stand there, heads together. Gator’s crinkled tail starts to wag. He licks the blood from Brak’s face.

  ‘Thanks, big fella,’ Brak croons. ‘Good boy. You wouldn’t let me down, would you, big boy?’

  Then he straightens up. ‘Come on, china. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

  My drunkenness has started to lift. ‘Maybe you should drop me off at Milton’s.’

  ‘Bullshit. Night’s still a puppy. Don’t fade on me now!’

  We stop at another hotel. It’s after midnight when we emerge, completely blotto, laden with a crate of beer Brak wangled on tick. With Brak whooping, we roar off into the night.

  No surprises that Reggie is less than impressed by the feral company that skids to a halt in front of the house, especially after Brak rammed down the security gate rather than open it. Funny at the time, I have to say. Cracker is also unimpressed; he circles the Cruiser, outraged at Brak’s treachery in bringing such a disreputable cur home with him – I refer to Gator, of course. The dogs glower and snarl at each other. A small blessing that Gator is restrained; it’s my guess he’d make short work of Cracker, given half a chance. Reggie stands at the top of the veranda steps, arms folded, as we disgorge from the Cruiser, bottles clinking. She is furious.