Mindf**k

by Fanie Viljoen

  A pain was now burning in my stomach. But it was okay. At least now I knew what I had to do.

  Why I had to do it.

  I wondered if the car I’d stolen was still at the garage. Fuck, I hope nobody found it there.

  ‘Chris.’ It was Kelly. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Chris, look at me.’ I heard her gasping. ‘What’s wrong? You look like you came back from the dead.’

  No shit, hey.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’

  Something inside me wanted to laugh at those words. I’ll be fine. Damn, when? And will I? Will things turn around?

  ‘Tell mom I left. I’m not coming back. She needn’t worry. And tell dad that I’m sorry about mom and the other guy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kelly, I can’t talk to you right now. I’m in a hurry, okay?’

  She grabbed me by my sleeve, pulling me back.

  ‘You’re going nowhere. Look at you. You’re soaked, Chris.’

  ‘Could be from the pills.’

  ‘Which pills did you take?’

  ‘Headache pills.’

  ‘Bullshit, headache pills don’t make you sweat.’

  ‘Perhaps a few of them would.’

  ‘How much did you take?’

  ‘Dunno. Just leave me alone now, will you? I have to get away. Kerbs and Sky are on their way. They …’ No, wait, I shouldn’t tell her.

  ‘Kerbs and Sky? Who are they?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. What the hell is going on with you?’

  ‘They were my buddies.’

  ‘Chris, you don’t have buddies.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Had. Kerbs and Sky …’

  ‘Damn, it’s happening again. We have to get Mom.’ Kelly’s face looked scared.

  ‘Leave Mom out of this.’

  ‘No, Chris, Mom has to come and help.’

  ‘No!’ I shouted. My head ached.

  ‘Chris, calm down. It’s happening again.’

  ‘What? What the fuck is happening again?’

  ‘The things you see, Chris.’ Her voice softened, eyes wide. ‘You know … like last time.’

  I kept staring at her, then she said: ‘Kerbs and Sky don’t exist, Chris. You don’t have buddies. Remember? Everyone at school … they’re afraid of you, Chris. Because you were in that hospital.’

  ‘Hospital?’

  ‘The fucking loony bin, Chris!’

  The words struck me like a deadly blow, slamming me back against the wall.

  Proof

  No, no, no. It couldn’t be. Kerbs and Sky did exist. They were real people. Just like me. Just like Kelly.

  I tried to understand what she said, but the puzzle pieces in my mind didn’t fit together, as if they were jammed into the wrong spaces, jutting out angularly and skew. Making up a senseless picture of a life in turmoil.

  ‘Chris?’ said Kelly. Far off. ‘Chris?’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ The saliva formed webs in my mouth. I swallowed it down. The pain still throbbed in my temples.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Kelly.

  I raised my head. She was scared too.

  ‘Let’s go look them up. We’ll take my bike.’

  I straightened up. Yes, I’d show her. Then she’d see. Kerbs and Sky were real people.

  We had barely got on the scooter that Kelly called a bike, when I suddenly realised that I couldn’t go with her. I leaped off the bike.

  ‘Now what?’ Kelly’s voice was irritated.

  ‘I can’t go.’

  ‘Damn, Chris, get on!’

  ‘They’re going to kill me, Kelly! I can’t.’ I screamed at her: ‘That’s why I need to fucking get away! They’re going to kill me!’

  ‘I want to help you, Chris. Trust me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Trust me.’ Her eyes stared at me, pleadingly. ‘You don’t have to go in, you can stay outside. I’ll go in and look.’

  Trust me, trust me, trust me.

  She sat on the bike, waiting for me.

  I had to decide. She was right, I could hide away. They didn’t have to see me.

  I got back on the bike.

  We drove to Sky’s house first. It wasn’t far from ours. I made Kelly stop at least a block away from the house. We didn’t speak a word as we made our way up the road. She was a few steps ahead of me. I watched the heels of her shoes. They click-clicked on the road, rhythmically counting down the seconds. Like the beat of a song.

  We reached the house, big and white. Now she would see. Then she’d believe me.

  I stayed outside the yard, kneeling behind a tree. A car drove past. The driver stared at me. I turned my face away, the smell of the leaves filling my nostrils. I shifted forward to keep Kelly in my view. She marched up the driveway, ascended the stairs to the front door. Knocked and waited.

  A woman opened the door. It was probably Sky’s mother, but she seemed different. (Were they back from abroad?) She probably had a facelift.

  I saw Kelly talking to her. The woman shook her head. No.

  Kelly came back. Head lowered. I followed her down the street. She stopped when we were out of sight of the house, turned around.

  ‘Chris, she said she’s been living in that house for thirteen years. There’s never been anyone like that there. She doesn’t have any children.’

  Every word was like a machete hacking off a piece of my body. Pieces of flesh dropping on the road behind me. Dogs sniffing at them, devouring them.

  We drove to Kerbs’ flat near Naval Hill. Kelly got into the old elevator. The metal gate rolled shut. Then the wooden door. Through the small window of the elevator I saw her leaving the ground floor, totally disappearing from view. I strode out to the inner court. After a while Kelly appeared in the corridor on the fourth floor. She hurried on over to the flat. Number 408. I only saw a part of her hair sticking out from behind the brick balcony, her head was turned away to the door.

  She was probably knocking.

  I waited.

  She came walking back. That was quick. Too quick.

  I waited for her at the lift. When the gate opened, she stood there with folded arms in the dim yellow light.

  ‘The place is empty.’

  No! I’ve been inside that flat myself. It wasn’t empty. It couldn’t be. She probably didn’t bother taking a decent look. I rushed inside the lift. I needed to see for myself. Kelly had lied to me. Fuck, I hated her.

  My fingers trembled. I looked for the right floor button but was unable to find it because I couldn’t think straight. I pressed them all.

  I saw Kelly crying.

  The elevator stopped on every floor. My heartbeat increasing each time, the anxiety constricting my throat.

  4th Floor.

  I almost fell out the door, stumbled down the passage. Kerb’s door came into view. It was olive green. I banged on the door. Continuously. Someone had to open.

  ‘Look through the window,’ said Kelly.

  I looked. There were no curtains in front of the windows. The place was empty.

  I knocked again. He had to be there.

  ‘Kerbs!’ I cried out. ‘Fuck, Kerbs, open up!’

  ‘Shut-up!’ someone shouted from the floor below us. ‘I’m working nightshift and I want to sleep!’

  ‘Kerbs! Kerbs!’

  ‘Shut-up! I’ll call the landlord!’

  ‘Come, Chris.’ Kelly’s voice was soft. She started walking back.

  ‘No, I’ll phone him. You can speak to him. Then you’ll see. Maybe I’m just at the wrong place, my head is so messed up. Kelly, wait.’

  I took out my cell phone. Searched for Kerbs’ number. I couldn’t believe I shook so much.

  The phone rang on the other side. Someone answered.

  ‘Kerbs? Is that you?’ I held the phone so that Kelly too could hear. She wanted proof. I would give her proo
f.

  ‘Kerbs?’

  ‘There isn’t anybody here with that name,’ the voice said on the other side. A man.

  ‘You’re talking shit, man. I’ve spoken to Kerbs before. On this number. I’ve sent him SMSs too.’

  ‘Are you the guy who keeps sending me those SMSs?’ His voice turned angry. ‘If I find you I’ll fuck you up. You just go on and on with the bloody things. I’ve let you know before that you’ve got the wrong number but you don’t listen. You just won’t stop.’

  ‘But this is Kerbs’ number.’

  ‘There’s no Kobus or Kerbs or whoever the hell around here. Do you hear me?’ The line went dead.

  Kelly placed her arm around me. She had difficulty getting me back into the elevator. Together we watched the light counting down the floors.

  4-3-2-1.

  Lift off.

  In the end it’s all lies, isn’t it?

  Kelly placed her arm around me when we made our way back to the motorbike. I brushed it from my shoulders.

  ‘Just leave me the fuck alone!’

  ‘We have to tell Mom.’ Her voice was almost drowned out by the noise of a car that raced past. ‘She would know what to do –’

  ‘No. Leave Mom out of this. She’ll take me back to that place. I don’t want to go back, Kelly. I’m done with everything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She kept quiet for a while. ‘You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?’

  I knew her eyes searched mine for an answer. I deliberately turned my head away. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  ‘Chris, promise me you –’

  ‘I’m not promising one fucking thing, okay? Why should I make any promises?’

  The anger in my body now mixed with anxiety. And self-hatred. And emptiness. Like a toxic drink hitting my bloodstream.

  ‘You don’t understand, do you, Kelly? They’re my friends. Do you have any idea for how long? And now I find out that they were only in my head. How the fuck am I supposed to know what is real and what is not? How do I know you’re standing in front of me? How?’ I stepped closer to her. ‘Perhaps I’d know if I touched you. But what if my mind only thinks that I am touching someone, but it’s not real? What if my mind is lying to me about it too?’

  I stood right in front of her, raising my hand. ‘Perhaps I should slap you? Maybe it would prove to me you’re real if I felt my hand burning. But my mind could be lying to me again and I might only be imagining my hand burning. Perhaps I would only imagine you turning your head away, crying. Do you see? I don’t know anything. I can’t believe anything.’

  Kelly came closer again. I could tell that she didn’t know what to say anymore. But she cried. And again she tried to put her arms around me.

  ‘If you touch me again I’ll beat you up, Kelly. I don’t care if you’re my sister or not. Leave me alone.’

  She turned white with fear, stepped back immediately. I cried. And I didn’t try to hold back the tears anymore.

  ‘Go home, please. Leave me.’

  For the very last time I looked up at the brown building that stood hidden behind the trees. And I wondered if it really was there. And how much of the things that I have seen never really existed.

  ‘I have to tell Mom,’ I heard Kelly call from behind as I walked away.

  It probably didn’t matter anymore.

  I trudged on. The tar road was coarse beneath my sneakers. And the further I went, the more it felt as if a part of me was out of step. As if, slowly but surely, it marched on ahead of my body. And maybe it would break loose. Any moment now. All I had to do was wait. Because if it finally succeeded in breaking loose, it would all be over.

  And then death would come.

  Mercifully.

  But it did not come.

  In the end it was all just lies.

  Then came the thought: if Kerbs and Sky were all in my mind … was there really a Partygirl?

  Running on empty

  Shit, shit, shit!

  There was only one way of being certain: I had to go back to Aldam. And this time I couldn’t just look at the flat piece of earth, I’d have to dig it open. Until I found her.

  Or not.

  I had to beg for some money to catch a bus back to the garage where the car was. It was the first time in my life that I’d had to ask strange people for money. And I hated it.

  I made my way into the city centre. That’s were the most people were. I didn’t look them in the eye when I asked.

  And they were either stingy or bloody deaf – the whole lot of them. Mind you, if I’d have come across myself in the street, I wouldn’t have given me money either. I looked like the facecloth a whore uses to wipe herself clean after each customer, I noticed in a shop window.

  I tried a story about my-poor-mom-who-suddenly-fell-so-terribly-ill-at-home-and-i-had-to-get-to-her-very-quickly-to-take-her-to-the-doctor.

  And eventually it worked. I got the bus money.

  Bus stops are the gathering places of the city’s abandoned, lost and other choice assorted people. Every one of them seemed to be on a vibe from the diesel fumes that clouded out from the black bus exhausts.

  I found a seat at the back of the bus, avoiding the scrutinizing eyes alongside the pathway.

  Our driver was Mad Max reincarnated; Bloem’s streets were his Thunderdome.

  The car I stole at Aldam was still parked at the garage. As if it was waiting for me to take it back.

  I got in and started it again with the loose wires sparking between my fingers. I noticed the petrol gauge shivering at the bottom of the red. I hoped the car would make it back to the house. I needed to get some money to fill it up with petrol. I adjusted the rear-view mirror absentmindedly. Searching for Kerbs’ car.

  Kerbs doesn’t exist, said my inner voice.

  And Partygirl? I asked him.

  He didn’t answer me.

  I didn’t know what I wanted. Did I want her to be alive? Or did I want her to be dead? Really dead, because that would have meant that she truly was there. A light at the end of the tunnel that would prove that I wasn’t completely fucked up.

  I didn’t know.

  The car thankfully reached the house.

  Kelly wasn’t back yet. She’d probably gone to my mom’s workplace. I had to hurry before they found me there.

  I went straight to my mom’s room. I knew where she stashed away money for emergencies. And this was definitely one. How much did I need? About a hundred and fifty for petrol, sixty for the toll gate, thirty to enter the resort. And a little extra for in case. I took three hundred rand and placed the box in exactly the same spot where I had found it underneath my mom’s clothes.

  I grabbed a shovel from the garage. It would speed up the digging. And a flashlight if I had to dig in the dark.

  After filling up the tank, I took the N1 North.

  At Winburg it was as if the clouds reached closer to the road. Dark, blue grey. That was where we’d picked her up. I glanced back in the rear-view mirror as if I could still see her running up to the car. Her black hair waving behind her.

  I could still imagine hearing her voice as I rolled down the window. But her words had already vanished. It was only the sense of her voice that remained.

  I switched the car’s lights on. It was getting very dark. Moments later the first drops exploded against the windscreen, at first only a few dotting the glass and distorting the view; then it poured down. The sharp smell of water on tar rushed in through the air vents. The car wipers cleared away the raindrops but it didn’t help very much. The world before me was now white and misty.

  I only noticed a bunch of traffic cops packing up their gear and scrambling to their cars when I had almost passed them. If it hadn’t been raining then, they would surely have pulled me over – the car’s needle had been tripping around 140, 150 all the time.

  A good sign?

  The brown road sign indicating the Aldam exit was barely visible on the side of the road. The car
’s lights drifted to the right. I made my way along the curving road to the holiday resort.

  It was a terrifying moment. I was nearly there but I wished the road could have been longer. For in the postponement of the moment there was a weird liberation. Maybe a way out.

  The high thatch roof of the gate towered in front of me. The giant stop sign forced me to stop. I waited for the security guard to come. The windows of the cubicle were steamed over. So he had to be there. Perhaps he was sleeping. I rammed down on the horn and drove forward until I was underneath the thatched roof. The sleepy guard emerged from the cubicle. He had a clipboard in his hands and he frowned.

  ‘Day visitor,’ I said.

  ‘Ntate?’ he said questioningly. Which actually meant: What the fuck are you doing here? Can’t you see it’s raining?

  Get moving, won’t you? I wanted to order him; I didn’t want to sit there all day. But I bit back the words; this was the place where I stole the very car I was sitting in. He might know about it by now.

  He started writing down the car’s number plate.

  I should have changed the damn thing but I thought of it too late.

  I studied his face, his eyes for a whim of recognition …

  He kept on writing.

  Nothing.

  He approached the open window again and handed me his clipboard. ‘Please write your name there, sir.’ He indicated a blank section on the paper.

  I jotted down a false name.

  He tore loose my copy, handed it to me and walked away to raise the barrier.

  I drove through and waved at him. Past the first obstacle.

  In the rear-view mirror I saw him aiming for his cubicle, but then he stopped and turned around again. There was another car approaching.

  I adjusted the rear-view mirror.

  The rain lifted slightly, enough for me to see the black car coming up the road.

  A shovel full of dirt

  I’d recognise that car anywhere. In rain, hail or wind. Or even if flames came down from the heaven, I’d recognise it.

  It was Kerbs.