Mindf**k

by Fanie Viljoen

  Then he gave the corporate thing a shot and went to work at the bank. Saambou. A few years later, all the personnel from Saambou were sacked. Everyone heard the rumours, but nobody wanted to believe it. Finding a job after that was a bitch. Affirmative action and the pale-male-syndrome closed all the doors.

  And then came the back breaker.

  My mom, who worked as a personal assistant at an investment firm, had in the mean time gradually started climbing the corporate ladder. In the evenings she studied so hard you could almost see the Unisa books flying. And during the day she attended every imaginable conference and sucked up to all the bosses. And before we knew it, her pay check was bigger than my dad’s.

  It was a recipe for disaster. Their marriage went down the drain. No man’s self esteem can handle things like that with grace.

  He grabbed at straws and tried selling funeral policies to keep his dignity. She just kept on earning more and more in bonuses each month. She bought a BMW. He had to downgrade to a second-hand Mazda.

  But they stayed together under one roof, in separate rooms. Kelly and I could see the way they looked at each other. And we knew: the shit had hit the fan.

  Oh, my car, my car

  Saturday morning.

  SMS to Kerbs:

  my mom just gave a helluva scream. i think she saw her car:-(

  It was the first time in months that Kelly was home on a Saturday morning. Did her boyfriend dump her? Well, good for him! Normally she dumped the boyfriends long before their sell-by date. It made her believe she had the power to end it all. It gave her a false sense of security. And it thankfully stopped those tear-filled sessions that could last for days afterwards.

  I checked her out as she walked from the kitchen cupboard to the fridge. Tried to see if anything was wrong. Waiting for that you-men-are-all-lower-than-swine-shit outburst. Maybe a tear.

  She kept a straight face. Then perhaps everything was still a-okay between her and the boyfriend. (What’s his name again? Something like Cutlet, Cunter, Gutter? Gunter? Never mind.)

  ‘They broke into mom’s car last night,’ Kelly said when she noticed me watching her.

  ‘Oh?’

  What was I supposed to say? Ask her about the car? Who cares, I was there, wasn’t I?

  Kelly emptied some Rice Krispies in a bowl, then cold milk and three spoons of sugar. I shuddered at the thought of the cold milk. And the food. I don’t know how people can have breakfast. I’d rather have a cigarette.

  I watched her taking the first mouthful of cereal, heard the snap-crackle-pop. A stream of milk ran down her chin. She wiped it off with her hand and took a second bite, this time smaller. I imagined hearing the sugar crunching underneath her teeth, how it glided down her throat only to appear days later as a cellulite dimple on her white butt-cheek. And I could see the three cartoon-characters on the cereal box laughing at her.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked after a while.

  I just grinned, wondering if I should tell her: I’m watching you fattening yourself up. But I just left it. That was a war for another day.

  I heard someone at the front door. A while later my dad stepped into the kitchen. ‘The car’s window was smashed. The radio is stolen,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh, you do?’ he asked.

  Same tone as last night. That well-buddy-I-know-too-tone of voice. But did he really know, or was it my imagination?

  ‘Kelly told me.’

  ‘Ah.’ He scratched his stubbly beard and sat down next to Kelly.

  ‘I’m going to check it out,’ I said, to get out from under my dad’s eyes. I knew he watched me disappearing into the hallway.

  I stepped outside barefoot, only dressed in jeans. No shirt.

  My mom was sitting in her car. The look on her face like someone mourning a loved one.

  ‘Fuck, Mom, I heard they –’

  ‘Please stop cursing,’ she snapped, not even looking my way. Her hands were clamped around the steering wheel, her eyes staring intently through the windscreen.

  ‘Mom, didn’t you park the car inside?’

  ‘Does it look like I did?’

  I walked around to the passenger’s side. The leather was still wet after the rain. The carpet too. Pieces of glass everywhere. My eye caught the screwdriver on the carpet. Shit, it was the one that Kerbs used to lift out the CD player. I picked it up quickly. Mom’s eyes flashed towards me.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’

  ‘Sorry.’ I shrugged my shoulders, but I didn’t drop the thing. ‘The police won’t go through too much trouble anyway. Fingerprinting and the like, I mean.’ I’m hoping, actually. ‘They’ll want to know if you have insurance, you answer ‘yes’, case closed. They’ve got bigger worries than stolen radios.’

  ‘My sunglasses are missing too.’

  ‘They’ve got bigger worries than stolen radios and sunglasses.’

  My mom looked so sad sitting there. Her blond hair was still messed up from the sleep. Her eyes looked tired. She still looked a bit befuddled. Maybe it was from the two sleeping pills. Or maybe it was just the sadness for the car. I think she loved it more than she loved my dad. She probably got better service from the car.

  ‘I should go back in,’ she said. ‘I have to phone PG Glass. Find out when they’re opening.’

  As soon as she left, I wiped the screwdriver clean. Just in case.

  Then I stepped back into the house.

  I heard my mom looking for her cell phone.

  The Mystic Boer

  It was Saturday night. Kerbs and I were on our second beer. We were at the Mystic Boer in Kellner Street. The place was jam packed. Bodies rubbing up against each other. One of Muse’s songs was playing. I tried figuring out which one it was, but the name eluded me. I saw Kerb’s leg moving with the beat of the music. He probably didn’t even notice it; he only checked out the girls strolling past to the restroom, the bar or on their way outside.

  We slouched on the red couch in front of the wall with the silver corrugated iron sheet. Nice spot. Close to the bar. Further off guys were playing pool. Every once in a while you could hear the crack of the pool balls over the music. The Voortrekker lads on the wall at the back stood watch over us. I sometimes wondered what they would have done if they were here now. Would they have joined us for a beer? They looked so emaciated; maybe they’d rather like a slice of Mystic pizza.

  Sky Eyes found us in the dusky club. Sky is my other buddy. If you’re a girl and you had to choose between myself, Kerbs and Sky, you would probably choose Sky. He’s the most presentable of the three of us. Someone you could introduce to your mother. And he has the looks – blond hair, blue eyes. It’s weird that he’s still single.

  ‘I almost floored a car watch just now,’ said Sky, sinking down on the couch next to me. ‘Fucking old timer tells me that I shouldn’t drink too hard.’

  Kerbs and I laughed, but we knew that was all talk. Sky wouldn’t do something like that. He has a soft heart.

  ‘Did you tell him you only drink Red Bull? To give you wings!’

  ‘Fuck you.’ Sky got up. ‘I’m gonna get a beer.’ He ambled over to the bar.

  Sky tried getting one of the barmen’s attention. Eyes cast down they scrambled from the Coke machine, over to the booze bottles, to the till. Only then did they make eye contact with another customer.

  A poster was stuck to one of the walls of Mystic:

  And that was where we were going. What we needed cash for. Why Kerbs and I broke into my mom’s car.

  Kerbs was going to sell off the stuff. He had his contacts for scaly ventures like that. They wouldn’t screw him over.

  ‘I’ve done this kinda thing a million times, bru, don’t worry.’

  But somehow I was still worried. What if things went wrong?

  Sky Eyes came back with his beer.

  ‘Hey, fuck, where’s ours?’

  ‘Get your own. Do I look like a beer brewery?’ Again, he fell down betwee
n us.

  ‘All right,’ said Kerbs. ‘I’ll get my own. I don’t even drink that crap. I drink Black Label and piss Castle.’

  Kerbs wanted to demonstrate and almost fell of the couch. Not only was he drunk, but he was high as well. Sky and I laughed as he tried straightening up only to lose his balance. Sky gave him a kick on the ass and he stumbled onward to the bar.

  ‘How’re things moneywise for you, Sky?’ I asked when Kerbs left.

  Sky had to provide for himself. The radio and other stuff only covered my and Kerbs’ MindFuck expenses.

  ‘I’ll come up with the money, no worries. My old-timer will provide, as always.’

  Sky was a lucky son of bitch. I reckoned his parents stuffed him with the money just so that he would stay the hell away from home. Even though he was more presentable than Kerbs or me, he remained a social embarrassment for his parents. As soon as he finished Matric that year, there would already be a flat nearby the university standing at the ready for him. No worries anymore for his mommy and daddy, because he would be out of their house and out of sight permanently. (Then we are going to party like there’s no tomorrow.)

  ‘I’ll bring the meat. And beer,’ said Sky.

  ‘Will they let us in with beer? Don’t you have to buy it there?’

  ‘Shit, I hope not. We’ll take some along just in case.’

  ‘And some reefer.’

  Sky started smiling. ‘It’s going to be an insane party, Burns.’

  Then I noticed Sky’s smile disappearing in an instant. It was as if his face went numb. Shit, no, not here. Not now. His eyes turned inwards. His body started shaking. The beer bottle slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor.

  ‘Kerbs!’ I shouted over the noise of the people and the music. ‘Fuck, Kerbs!’

  The people crowded around us. Kerbs broke through them.

  Sky lay on the floor. His body shook. I held him down. Kerbs grabbed his head, opened up his mouth. Pressed down his tongue.

  ‘Is he alright? Should we get a doctor?’ someone asked.

  ‘No, he’ll be fine,’ said Kerbs.

  ‘Sky, can you hear me?’ I asked.

  He didn’t answer me.

  His shuddering body calmed down.

  Like spent waves subsiding after crashing on the beach.

  His eyes slowly opened up. I got frightened when I saw the terror filled look in his eyes. And I knew it had happened again.

  It wasn’t just an attack. There was something else.

  We helped Sky straighten up. He rubbed his face. His neck. He still looked a bit dazed, a bit off balance. I wrapped my arm around his neck to keep him on his feet. He touched the back of his trousers. They were wet. From the beer on the floor, I hoped.

  The nosy crowd moved away, talking, turning around a few times to catch a final glimpse of us.

  ‘Let’s just fuck off,’ said Sky. We passed through the people. Sky opened and closed his mouth, as if tasting something bitter on his tongue. Then he said: ‘Shit, Kerbs, when did you last wash your hands?’

  The things that Sky says sometimes frighten people

  It was Tuesday. Kerbs, Sky and I were in Mimosa Mall. Kerbs only came along to check out the girls’ tits. Bloem has some lovely girls. And the lovely girls have even lovelier tits. Kerbs had a keen eye for things like these and he wasn’t ashamed of expressing his admiration.

  ‘You’re going to smack right into a trashcan or something if you keep staring around like that,’ Sky said to Kerbs.

  ‘Yeah, or tumble over a railing somewhere,’ I added.

  Sky laughed. He also knew that anything was possible with Kerbs.

  ‘Every sport has its injuries,’ Kerbs just grinned.

  We strolled around for a while on the ground floor of the mall and then took the escalator to the first floor, past Exclusive Books, straight to Musica with its industrial look. Immediately, someone approached us, a black girl.

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘Yes, a blowjob,’ Kerbs tuned her. She quickly marched off, furious.

  ‘Fuck, Kerbs, why do you say things like that?’ I asked.

  Kerbs shrugged. ‘What does she know about Green Day, anyway?’

  I noticed her keeping an eye on us. I was used to that. Places like these always have their scallywag scouts. Come to think of it, everywhere you go, there are people watching you – some of them without you even knowing it. Like in a movie theatre. You think you’re sitting there in the dark and nobody can see you, but you are wrong, my bru. They keep their eyes on you even in the dark. Check it out next time you’re at the movies. There’s always a little red light shining, up on the ceiling. It’s a camera, and it’s watching you munching your popcorn and gulping down your Coke. Every single move you make …

  Sky found the Green Day CD which he came for. 21st Century Breakdown.

  ‘Are you going to listen to it first?’

  ‘Of course. It’s too bloody expensive to just buy it. Did you notice, Burns? When the rand was so weak a few years ago, the price of CDs skyrocketed. And when the rand got stronger, the prices stayed the same. Somewhere there’s a fucker pocketing our money. And they think we don’t know it.”

  ‘Shit, Sky, you should just download the stuff from the internet, man. Much cheaper,’ I said while flipping through a stack of Pink Floyd CDs. (Classic stuff.)

  ‘No, hell, I want the originals.’ Sky made his way to the counter. ‘Can I listen to this?’ He gave the CD to the guy behind the counter, who removed the sticky tape from the sides. (Can you fucking believe it – the store tries stopping theft with sticky tape?)

  Sky put the headphones on. I shuddered, thinking of the millions of crawling head lice, other people’s filthy oily ears and the things that might have already started living on those headphones. Gross!

  Kerbs came sauntering closer. ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said. ‘Don’t take forever.’

  Sky pressed the volume button on the counter to max. I knew why. The shitty rap music that played in the store was so loud that you could barely hear the music in the headphones.

  Sky pressed the next track button.

  He listened for a while. Then suddenly he removed the headphones.

  ‘We shouldn’t go anymore,’ he said.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘MindFuck. We should stay away.’ He looked scared.

  ‘Why?’ I asked cautiously. And as soon as I said it I knew that I should have kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I saw blood. The other night in Mystic. You know, when …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Blood, Burns. Bad shit is gonna happen if we go.’

  ‘Fuck, Sky, why are you telling me this? I hate it when you come up with this crap.’

  He put the headphones back on again. Chose the next track. But he was still looking at me. With those blue eyes that could see things before they happened. His Sky Eyes.

  And he looked concerned. Fucking concerned.

  An alarm suddenly went off at the store entrance. Sky and I both swung around. We knew it was Kerbs.

  Dreams, blood and money

  ‘Blood, Burns,’ said Sky in my dream that night. We were floating in a boat on the water. I couldn’t see the land at all. I somehow knew it was out there, but I just couldn’t see it. I heard music rolling in from far away. I think it was ‘Night falls like a grand piano’ by Wonderboom.

  ‘Blood, Burns,’ Sky repeated, lifting his arms, his palms facing up. He extended his hands to me. The stretched skin turned pale and then blood slowly started oozing to the surface. It formed a small arch in the palm of his hand. He turned his hand over. The blood dripped into the boat.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  The red lines ran down against the Perspex inside of the boat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m performing magic,’ Sky said.

  ‘What kinda magic?’

  ‘Mind magic. And you’re my volunteer.’ />
  I didn’t know what he meant. In a way it probably made sense. No, it meant nothing. Sky couldn’t do magic. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was his eyes that had suddenly turned black. Like black holes one should stay away from.

  ‘Where’s Kerbs?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s getting rid of her. Making sure that they don’t find her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know.’

  Sky pointed to the water with a bloody finger. A drop of blood ran down the shaft of his finger, clinging to the tip for a while and then dropping into the pitch-black water.

  The water became clear.

  I saw Kerbs’ face staring up from out of the water.

  He laughed at me.

  Then it seemed as if he wanted to tell me something. I held my ear closer to the water to listen. His arms suddenly shot out, grabbing my head and pulling me from the boat.

  The water was deadly cold. Kerbs’ fingers pressed hard against my temples, his legs intertwining with mine. I tried kicking to get to the surface. It didn’t help. Kerbs was amazingly strong. I was running out of breath. I tried freeing myself from his grip. I thought I heard him laughing. It was a weird sound, like a dog being run over. We sank even deeper. My heart stopped …

  And I knew that somewhere there was land. Even though I couldn’t see it.

  I knew it was only a dream.

  Everything.

  Sky couldn’t perform magic.

  ‘Dude, fuck Sky. I’m fed up with his Nostradamus-shit.’

  I was in Kerbs’ flat. A pigsty of dirty dishes, dirty underwear, dirty everything. It didn’t bother him at all. He said that someday he would bang a girl real good and then ask her to clean up his place. Sort of as compensation. Yeah right, as if that’s ever going to happen, but that’s the way Kerbs’ mind operated. He lived in a world of his own, like an ant on a sugar high inside a sugar pot.

  Kerbs sat opposite me on the bed, his back against the wall. He took another sip of his beer. I told him what Sky had said. But I kept my mouth shut about my dream. He didn’t like that sort of thing. Neither did I. I hated it when people told me about their dreams. As if it had some or other deeper meaning.