Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  A shadow in the water, could be a great white. I watch it till it’s gone. A bright painted train slides to Simonstown. Except I know up close it’s crushing and clumsy. Just like this whole business on the tail gate of the van, pistons clanging, wheels grating, gripping the metal track. I’m dying of thirst.

  I shut my eyes. Try make it nice.

  This middle aged man comes in a brown crimpelene uniform. Gleaming brass buttons. Shiny brown cloth, a conductor. Grey hairs sprouting from a fat man’s cleavage. His fingers are thick. I think, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, he’s a stupid, fat man, but he begs me to stay. So I go up and down with the rhythm of the train, the wheels find the track, circle, lock on, riding across the swell of the sea. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I’m way too young. But I sit and I slide, feel the piston go in, feel the ridge rubbing.

  I hardly ever have orgasms, but now this chaos, notching up, up, up to a nonstop spasm, epileptic fit, a flippin stroke, must be. Shattering, scattering, I fly away. Graceful, at last, sweeping over the sea, over racing, dark shapes. They’re sharks, but they can’t reach me. I can fly. The sweetest feeling, like max codeine, my nerves know nothing but luxury.

  That day on the cliff, I whip out of my body, have a weird, rocketing orgasm. It blasts me off the planet, I swear, for flippin daylight seconds.

  And that gross fantasy, it was some kind of rope. An umbilical cord that could hang me or save me.

  I didn’t know then.

  ‘Shit. Shit. Shit!’

  ‘Hell, that’s romantic.’

  But Hanif’s proud. He’s made a prostitute come. One success he can’t tell his wife about.

  ‘Shit! The condom popped.’

  It’s Monday, the clinic closed at four. ‘Get me home fast. I need to wash.’

  Hanif’s long, hooked penis checks out the ground before he pulls up his blue police pants. ‘Don’t be dom. I’ve got to fetch my wife.’

  ‘Buy me a morning after pill.’ Like, buy me a diamond.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Fifty five rand.’

  ‘Vok, no, that’s nearly my take home pay.’

  Bastard drops me at Sunrise beach. I go to the toilets. Lucky the attendant’s outside, drinking a beer with someone. I straddle a basin, try not to splash. They chat outside. ‘I said to him, My baby, listen carefully. You got two daddies now. Gary was your first daddy. Him and Mommy made you, okay? Now Kenny’s helping me look after you. So now you got two daddies. Do you understand?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘No he was quiet. He looked all around and I could see he was thinking. Then he said, Mamie? Ja? I said. He said, Has Batman got a gun?’

  The two woman hose themselves laughing.

  There’s no paper towel so I’ve gotto drip dry.

  Usually when the condom pops I go to Sister Brown. When the condom pops, I make her day. She’s always so glad for more proof I’m white trash. How many times can a chick need a morning after pill? I mean, how many times can she make the same mistake? She says it in her silence. In her sniff.

  Last time I went for one, she said, ‘Here, take some lice shampoo too.’

  ‘What for?’

  She sniffed. ‘There’s a lice epidemic.’

  I scratched my head. ‘I’m not itchy.’

  She shot her eyes at my shorts. ‘They don’t only breed on the head.’

  Bitch.

  ‘So I’ll shampoo my couch, then.’

  At the flat, I rinse myself silly. Lie in my loft, think good show, girl. Another shot at Aids. Another shot at an unwanted kid. I think about these things, it’s not like I’m stupid, you know. I think, if I had a kid, I’d have to keep it on a leash to keep it alive. Okay, I can see myself boiling butternut for a kid, twisting the ends off the beans. Singing along to a song, the sun streaming in. The stuff Gladys did. But I’ve seen how they run away from their mothers. And how they shout when they’re tired. Not here. Uh-uh. Add to the screeching in the block. If I had a kid, we’d have to hang out in the park, there next to the cop station. Watch the bergies give each other drunken klaps. Split their lips sucking meths. I’d have to keep the kid on a leash cause of the speeding trucks. No thanks, I’m not ready for a pet.

  I shunt that sick train dream out of my mind. That orgasm, I reckon, was cause I’m too chilled. I’ve been making good bucks. And I haven’t been hurt for a long, long time. I was relaxed enough to explode, that’s all.

  But I tension up fast.

  Annie doesn’t pitch at the road. One day, two days, three.

  I go to Vrygrond to find her. Past women on wooden boxes babysitting their washing, so no one steals it half wet. A couple of filthy white dogs chasing each other, all crazy like it’s gonna storm.

  I get a hard look from Annie’s dad, like I’ve done something wrong.

  ‘She’s in her bed.’

  Annie’s skin’s missing. A whole lot of it. Half her face bubbled with dried blood. One eye stuck. Her one shoulder’s just a red scab. She’s looking at pictures in the Scoop! mag.

  ‘Man, Annie!’

  ‘How’s this Paris Hilton chick.’

  ‘Who got you?’

  She shows me Paris Hilton’s fanny lips. ‘She’s got vok all class.’

  ‘Annie, man.’

  ‘Vokken poes in the yellow Datsun.’

  ‘That blonde oke?’

  She nods. ‘Rory.’

  She’s been with him twice. Said he was helluva sweet. ‘Did he kick you?’ I’m thinking of me and the navy oke.

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  Annie lifts the sheet gently. I look inside.

  Her hip, her thigh’s just raw meat. Around the huge wounds, black from the bleeding inside.

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘He’s a cunt.’

  ‘How’d he do it?’

  ‘On the Blue Route.’ Her tears burn her stuck eye. She wipes it with the edge of the sheet. Sniffs back the rest. ‘He was finished with me. So he gooi’d me out.’

  ‘Geez.’

  ‘I’m finished with the road.’

  I don’t push her. Just say, ‘Sorry, man. Sorry.’

  Annie roasted on the tar.

  Lucky she’s not dead.

  Usually I’m tough, but I stay home for a day. Sorry for Annie. Scared for me. Thinking I’ve been lucky.

  There was that oke who stalked me. I was still working from the flat, he came for a jump. Time to go, he didn’t wanna leave. I had to scream and shout, get the whole building to come see. He went that time, but he kept coming back. Knocking on the door when I was busy, whispering, ‘Let me in.’

  ‘Stuff off, you stupid freak!’

  He whispered through the lock, ‘You whore. You unfaithful whore. I’m going to punish you.’

  It’s not like the police were gonna help, so I told the oke, ‘Watch out! I’m with the Hard Livings. I’m gonna get my pimp to take you out.’

  But the ou felt rocks. One day, when someone went, he slipped into the flat. I was bending over, still getting dressed. The bastard stabbed me in the bum. Geez, it was sore.

  I took extra Syns. Cleaned it with Dettol. Put on a big plaster. Shit, it hurt to walk. All I could do was wait for the pig to come back. To whisper at my door, ‘Let me in,’ like a flippin wolf. Next time he stalked me, I stalked the bastard back. All the way back to the taxi rank. I paid this street kid fifty to get on his taxi. Follow him home. See where he lives. Take me there later.

  I waited outside his house in Retreat. Waited till it was full. His sister came home. His mommy came home. Maybe his wife. I don’t even know who all lived there. There were only two men, somebody’s husband or somebody’s brother. And the pig. I don’t even wanna say his name. I walked in while they were having their supper. I pulled down my pants, pulled off the plaster. Geez, it was sore. I showed them my cut. I pointed at him. ‘He did it.’

  They nearly died of shock.

  ‘I had sex with him once. He paid me the bucks. Now he won’t leave me alone. Every
day he’s at my door with a knife.’

  One woman choked, ‘She’s lying.’

  But the pig was such a coward, he couldn’t even talk.

  I got out before it got ugly. I was lucky it worked. And lucky he only cut into fat, not into muscle.

  But I wasn’t so lucky with the navy diver.

  Sheez, I’m freaked.

  Ag, I get slapped up all the time. The jerks who don’t wanna pay, they get ugly when I argue. But I don’t wanna get chucked from a fast car. Or get cut like Amanda. Eyeballs out. Buried in the sand.

  Annie was with me that time with the diver. Me and Annie still worked for Butterflies. That’s where we met, Annie and me. Three boys hired three girls. Navy okes, young. The one ou was an ambassador’s son, he was Annie’s. I had this tall guy, nice and quiet, black crew cut, joined eyebrows. We were eating crippled chips, dipping them in tomato sauce.

  ‘Ooh, this one’s all shagged out,’ said the ambassador’s son. My oke put on this deep laugh, tryna be manly. Tammy, she was sixteen, was with the third oke. He had a skew mouth, sticking up hair like too much static. Also blonde, like Annie’s sweet Rory. Blue eyes with big pupils. Stank of deodorant. He kept saying, ‘Bok naai!’ like he had stuff all brains. Smirking and staring at my tits. It’s like, these okes, they always want what their friends have got.

  He banged the table, shouting, ‘Bok naai! Bring me my steak!’

  Boasting, ‘I need some protein for what I’m gonna do.’

  Tammy stroked his knee. ‘What you gonna do?’

  He shoved some chips in his mouth, looked at me. ‘I’m gonna turn you into a slap chip.’

  We gobbled beers, went numb from the gums. So when he twisted my nipple, I hardly felt a thing. I stretched across the table, my elbow in a beer spill. I twisted his nipple back. Tammy whined, ‘Don’t do that to my baby.’

  But the fight was on, right there. He snarled at me, ‘Slag.’

  We got really pissed. We drank till we were like the ship they were busy salvaging. Rocking and leaning. When I stood up, my feet felt too small. We managed to get into someone’s white Chico. Bok Naai drove. He nearly killed us on the way. Screamed up the mountain road, whacked us against the sides. When we got to the navy barracks at the top, I pulled the ambassador’s son off my breast. ‘Two hundred each, or no go.’

  You see, the agency got a flat fee for the date. Sex was an extra, a private deal. Tammy nodded. Annie was already outside, hooked in the armpit of my very tall boy. She backed me up, ‘Ja ous, kak n’ betaal.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Bok Naai drilled me. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Something you want, so pay for it.’ I was still drunk, so I had no fear. He swung, tried to klap me, but my date grabbed his arm. ‘Barry, hang on. Don’t hit.’

  ‘Hit me,’ I said, cause I was pissed. ‘There’s no way I’m moving from this car till you pay.’ Sheez, that’s when the door sucked open. He came at me, a flipping man missile from the side. Hit me like a truck, smashed me right over. The ambassador’s son just balled up on the seat, stayed out of it. Then Bok Naai climbed up on the side of the car, kicked down with both legs. All I remember is tryna reach up, tryna pull myself up by the front seat. The pain was, like, delayed. When it came, God, it was horrible. And my arm hung funny. I couldn’t grip with my fingers.

  They left me staring at the dark. They played Bob Dylan in the barracks. That Forever Young song that’s a prayer to God to fix things, keep things lekker sweet. Bring me a ladder so I can climb to the stars.

  Ja, sure.

  Annie sneaked me an ice pack. ‘We’ll be quick, alright?’

  But it was like three hours later the girls got in, held me up round those mountain bends. Annie whispered, ‘Sorry Tess. But I got your marcha.’

  Annie swiped a wallet with nine hundred and eighty bucks in it. Made me take it to pay for the doctor. I got expensive fibreglass put on at the larney Constantia hospital, paid for by the jerk. When the doctor asked what happened, I said, ‘I got kicked.’ You could tell he wanted the story. But all Annie said was, ‘Not by a donkey.’

  Back at Butterflies I collected graffiti, so the nurse had to cut through signatures from all the girls, plus dumb sayings from the okes. I hope you get better, from Samson, the security guard. Break a leg, from Sydney, the ad man. Annie wrote Bok Naai sucks bullets, and did a bad drawing of the blonde with a gun at his head.

  Annie’s road roll freaks me out. I overdo the Syndols to try chill. That day, I have seven in the morning. Five in the middle. But that night, three’s too little to get me to sleep. I hate upping my Syns so easy, so I take a walk to the Seven Eleven. Top up with four Panado. Ag, they’re sweeties, man. Weak as anything.

  A couple of weeks after Annie got tossed, I wake up in a panic.

  It’s Madeleine, wailing fit to unstick the bricks.

  Her door’s half open. She’s slumped in a mulberry red dress on the bed. Her strong body turned to slush, like the mulberry’s gone overripe. Henrique, the refugee who collects our rent, touches her hair, walks away. Comes back, touches her hair. There’s green and black fabric stuck in the machine. Madeleine’s little boy sits on the bed, threads a strip of green cloth between her toes. Someone peeps into the room with me. She’s stocky, car tyre black. Hair extensions like nylon rope. Her luminous orange bib says, Thank you for shopping at Shoprite Checkers. I’ve seen her herding cars in the parking lot. She speaks that funny French to Henrique. He says in English, ‘They arrested Honorious in Johannesburg. They sent him back to the DRC.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘ Madeleine’s husband.’

  ‘He can just try again, can’t he?’ I ask.

  Henrique nearly whispers, ‘There was a shooting in a bar. Bemba’s men killed Kabila supporters. They burnt up the bar and all the bodies, they don’t know who died.’ He tips his head at Madeleine. ‘She thinks Honorius is dead because the people know him and Madeleine were …’ He jams a thick wrist against a big hand. The car guard says in a French accent, ‘Opposition.’

  Madeleine starts up her siren again.

  That day I walk all the way into bloody Bergvliet to get pills cause I’ve gotto give the local chemists a rest. It’s flippin far up Ladies Mile. One ou stops, asks if I wanna go to the forest with him. Droopy eyes, puffy fingers. Water problem, must be.

  I say, ‘No thanks, I’m visiting my sister.’

  Angie in Bergvliet? I can’t see it. Angie’s up on that hill in KwaZulu Natal. Making pancakes for tourists. Pushing her husband around.

  She told me that time I called her from the Holiday Inn in P.E. A whole lot of us from Heavenly Escorts got booked for a hockey tour, masters league. The old guys were out playing a match. Us girls had foam baths, did our hair. Rubbed on those free bottles of body cream, getting ready. We hit the bar fridge, polished the vodka. Hit the phone.

  When it was my turn to phone, I didn’t wanna look like I had no one to call. So I phoned Ange. I lied, ‘A whole bunch of us came with our boyfriends. Just to party a bit, you know? Check out the beaches, the clubs.’

  The girls all laughed in the background. We weren’t even allowed out the hotel in case some guy’s wife’s sister’s friend spotted him with one of us stuck to him. But Ange read between the lines.

  ‘Don’t worry Tess. We’re all a bit fucked up. I mean, the other night, I hit Bazil. I feel like such a mad bitch.’

  ‘Sweet Bazil?’

  The girls packed up laughing, thinking I was talking recipes. But that’s what I call him in my mind. Ange always makes him sound sweet as Jesus. Perfect, except for his bad leg. I suppose even Jesus got nailed.

  ‘I just lost it. I hit him with his own crutch.’

  ‘Ag, well … And business?’

  ‘Too good. The locals come all year round. I think that’s why I did it. We make twenty kilos of mixture every day, Tess. You know those big nappy buckets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Two of those every day.’

 
Syndol’s my best, but Adcodol’s okay if I’m short of bucks. It’s the same stuff, they say, but Syndol feels stronger, faster to me. I limp into the Bergvliet chemist. Put on a laugh. Tell them a helluva story. ‘We were riding a tandem bicycle, me and my sister. This dog ran out and barked at us. Just a stupid little staffie. We fell.’ Laughing, like it hurts to laugh. I still get the darting looks, the eyeball pinball, but they sell me two boxes of Adcodol. ‘One for my sister.’

  I sit on a swing in the park, swing, swing. Swing five into my mouth. Take a swig of Energade. Swing, swing. I swear, I’m already feeling sweet. It’s all in my mind, must be.

  I catch a taxi to Muizenberg. Pop in to see Annie. She’s got a job serving tea at the Masque theatre. She’s lasted for over a week already.

  But the foyer’s empty. The bar holds up its white china cups, the mirror makes double of everything. I’m dying for a pee. The music on stage floats through the toilet wall. Flute music, the thin sound of reeds, plus a crowd of pretty bells. Annie told me it’s a dance show, so I imagine tutus. I stand flexed on my legs, you can get crabs from toilet seats. The music tinkles after I’m finished. My wee’s dark from too many pills. I don’t flush in case I drown out the flutes. In the mirror I see skinny, freckled. Dyed blonde growing out. Dead blonde, more like, cause my hair’s all split. My two front teeth are still a bit big. But the gap between them’s definitely shrinking. My eyes, green with yellow flecks. The white I burn white with Safyr Bleu drops. Neck, still spindly. Breasts, put it this way, they’re no strain on my back.

  I wash my hands under a trickle. The music’s gone in the foyer, but I follow a carpet, find it again in the tunnel. Annie’s standing at the back of the theatre. Her teeth flash white in the dark. I hang with her, watching. A man like a biology drawing on stage, black with white lines. A skull mask. Long white muscles, tendon wires painted on. He pulls back like a catty, falls forwards into a dead stop. The stage set is a zebra street crossing. There’s a woman in white lycra, huddled on the pavement, tryna decide. He tips her face, gently, gently till she looks at him. Then he flies up, blurs his lines. Shows her some kind of wild time. She’s tempted. Up slowly, life runs through her. She stretches, reaches for him. Follows, wants to play. He spins her, laughs at her, copies her moves. She gets tired, slows down, faints at the edge of the crossing.