Pop-Splat

by Ian Martin

  “Uh… no, I’m okay. It’s just that I haven’t slept so well for the last few nights.” This was in response to Ophabia asking him if he was alright. She rubbed one of her nipples against his arm in a show of affection.

  There were some screams and shouts from the group on the patio and two rats the size of small cats scooted along the side of the pool and disappeared into the shrubbery.

  “Well, fuck me up the anus if that ain’t the biggest pair of rodents I ever clapped eyes on!” exclaimed Horry.

  Trudy was shouting at the top of her voice calling for that lazy devil Simon. Brandishing a knobkierie he soon came running.

  “More rats, Madam?” he asked. “Where is he? I kill him straight away.”

  The three rats had been up on the counter at the braai feasting on a platter of canapés and other savoury delights. They’d even been at the hot and spicy dip, the cheeky bastards. Now one of them had unwisely chosen to take refuge between a pot plant and the wall.

  “Larry. You chase him this way,” Simon told Ophabia’s brother. “When he come out I hit him op die kop.”

  The young man was wielding the pool’s long-handled leaf scoop. He banged and rattled it to one side of the pot. The rat broke from cover, and the women screamed and instinctively clutched their groins and put their knees together. Simon’s cudgel smashed down on the rat’s back, fair and square. It gave some piercing squeals and thrashed about in what could have been its death throes. Simon wasn’t taking chances and this time he really did get it ‘op die kop’. Stick in one hand, the lifeless body dangling by its tail from his other hand, he strode off with a self-satisfied look on his face. Spots of blood showed red on the pale-coloured tiles; then they turned brown. The party resumed.

  “Ah fuck, man!” said Horry Horowitz. Sparks flew in all directions as his eyeballs somersaulted in their sockets. “Isn’t this just the most incontrovertible evidence that we’re living in apocalyptic times?”

  Rose and Ophabia giggled. They both liked Horry and thought of him as amusing and interesting in a provocative way. Gilbert waited impassively. He actually liked what Horry came out with, even though he considered the guy to be harmlessly insane. Matt grinned at the prospect of another Horowitz tirade. Since his illness their friendship had developed. He felt proud to be the buddy of such an iconoclastic oddball.

  (You’re probably wondering what happened over the past two years. Well, briefly then, before Horry gets going with Rattus rattus and Rattus norwegicus: With the aid of medication Matt survived his final year at the museum institution and matriculated at the end of ’06. He was undecided about his future. Then his father Bruce surprisingly took an interest in his future and suggested – no, insisted – that he enrol at Wits and study for a B.Com degree. He, Bruce, was probably motivated by some sort of half-baked patriarchal vision as well as delusions of immortality. Family name and all that crap. He bought Matt a smart new VW Polo and set him up in a flat in Melville, not far from campus. Then the stupid arse went and got himself hijacked and murdered. As next of kin, it had been Matt’s unpleasant duty to go to the police mortuary and identify the remains of his father. He had stayed on at Wits till the end of the year, and passed three out of four subjects. But he didn’t like the course and found the Commerce students tiresomely shallow and conformist. Boring, man, boring. Instead, he applied to Rhodes and was accepted to study Journalism. B Jrn, a four-year course. That should be more stimulating. Change of scene, too.

  Without doing a stitch of work Horry had finished school with straight As and gone to UCT to study a combination of Sociology, Economics, Law and Politics. It was his stated intention to start a radical new movement to restructure human society on a global basis and in accordance with a universal value system. He still stayed with his parents, and whenever Matt came home on vacation they saw a lot of each other. You could say Matt was one of Horry’s disciples.

  Rose was studying Fine Art at Stellenbosch and had developed a substance abuse problem. Horry said this problem was an expensive one, and she and Gilbert had a ‘special understanding’. Oh yes? Yes, and Horry had made a hand signal internationally recognisable as the male act of masturbation. Gilbert made good money from his cell phone pornography business.

  Larry and Ophabia were going into matric at their co-ed school, which was very expensive, very larney. It was run just like the museum institutions, with the same abhorrent code of ethics. Everything was state of the art and brand spanking new, which was said to more than compensate for the school’s lack of tradition.

  Right, so there we are, up to date, January 2008. Now let’s get back to the wedding bash.)

  “When it comes to vermin,” Horry was saying, “only man is more destructive than the rat. We’ve colonized the entire planet, every square centimetre of it, and everywhere we’ve gone we’ve taken the rat with us. It’s as if their survival is linked to ours. And the more we fuck things up, the more rats there are to kind of put the finishing touches to the mess.” He glanced at the faces of his small audience and saw he had their full attention.

  “This plague that’s hit our lousy neighbourhood,” he went on, “isn’t a localized problem. Fuck no. This is a global phenomenon with humans having to expend more and more energy and resources in fighting the rat population.”

  “Is it as serious as that?” asked Gilbert, somewhat sceptically.

  “It’s bad, man, bad,” said Horry. “The UN estimates that more than a fifth of world food production is consumed or spoilt by rodents. And, apart from food supplies, they cause billions of dollars worth of damage by chewing the shit out of anything and everything else. Countless fires are caused by them stripping the insulation off electrical wiring, you know. Like us, they’ve got a strong vandalistic streak in them.”

  “Oh, I hate them!” said Rose with a shudder and a grimace. “They’re so sinister and aggressive and determined, just like the criminals.”

  “Are you talking about the roof rats?” asked Larry, who had just joined them.

  “Well, I don’t think this one is the roof rat. That’s Rattus rattus,” said Horry. “I think this is the Norway rat, Rattus norwegicus. It’s bigger and sturdier than the roof rat. Unless these are roof rats that have grown fat and sleek on Constantia fare. That wouldn’t surprise me: there’s so much wastage that goes on around here: tons of perfectly good food thrown away every day.”

  “The Constantia rats have probably got high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes,” said Matt, and the others laughed.

  “But rats are cool, man,” said Larry. “Last year we studied the rat in Biology. It’s amazing how they can adapt to different environments. They even survived nuclear weapons testing on atolls in the Pacific. No sign of genetic deformities either. They really are tough.”

  Ophabia was nodding her head in agreement, for she too had done the rat project, and the text-book details were still fresh in her memory.

  “You know,” said Larry admiringly, “the average rat can wriggle through a hole the size of a 20c piece, and can climb a wall as if it’s running up a ladder. And it’s not afraid of water – it’s been known to swim a kilometre without a problem, and it can tread water for up to three days. It’s got these chisel teeth that can gnaw through stuff like lead pipes and cement blocks. The jaws exert a pressure of 24 000 pounds per square inch. Incredible, hey? Also, you can throw a fucking rat out of a five-storey window and the fucking thing’ll hit the pavement and get up and scamper off totally unharmed.”

  “And they breed like crazy,” said Ophabia. “They reach maturity at three months and can produce seven litters a year, each with 6 to 22 young. In just 12 months the rat population can grow from one male and one female to more than 10 000 descendants!”

  They all agreed that rats were amazing creatures but extremely loathsome.

  “We don’t only detest them because of their destructiveness, though,” said Horry, returning to his central theme. “Nor for their ability to infect us with 20 dread dis
eases like plague and typhus and Lassa fever – you know that the rat spread Black Death in the 1300s and wiped out a quarter of the people in Europe? But there’s another reason why we find them so fucking obscene; a psychological reason. When we see a rat and shudder in revulsion it’s partly a feeling of disgust for ourselves. Our base impulses, our revolting habits, our treacherous nature, our murderous inclinations, and our systematic degradation of everything we touch. The rat is our nemesis: a reproach and a reminder of how vile we really are.”

  They all hung their heads in shame, briefly. Then Matt looked up and spoke:

  “Talking of base impulses and revolting habits, I suggest we all turn our attention to the wedding party and observe the guests’ behaviour, especially that of Dick the Prick.”

  The guests had separated into two gender-based groups. The women were closer to the house and the men stood in a knot at the end of the patio. A burly individual in his late forties had just undone his belt, dropped his trousers, and bent over to show the ladies a brown-eye.

  “That guy thinks he’s hilarious,” said Horry. “I must point out that this specimen is known as a Financial Consultant and has a lot of money in the bank and the stock exchange as well as illegally stashed away overseas. He’s married and has two sons at the institution. In fact, he’s just made a R40 000 donation towards upgrading the pavilion and is in good standing with the community. Also, his eldest son, a lumbering oaf with two left feet and no hands, is now ensured a place in the First team. Jesus, he can hardly stand!”

  Indeed, the man had nearly fallen over while trying to buckle his belt.

  “Yes, Matt,” said Horry. “This is the kind of behaviour I was referring to. The kind of thing that makes God peer down from the clouds above and beam with pride and pleasure. Shall we move a little closer and eavesdrop on some of these walking sacks of shit?”

  *

  There were two sacks of shit standing at the poolside. One was called Michael. He owned a wine farm, a game farm and a sheep farm. The other was Conrad, who owned a factory that produced razor wire. He also had a 51% stake in a high-class escort agency. Before Dick the Prick had dropped his pants they’d been discussing chlorine, Ph, black algae, Kreepy Kraulys and marbelite.

  The jongspan moved in, ears flapping.

  “He’s not a bad sort, really,” Michael was saying. He explained that he and Dick were related by marriage. Michael’s wife Meg was Dick’s sister.

  “It’s just that he’s got this devil in him. Drink.” And he raised his own can of beer and shook his head at it, reprimandingly. “And it’s about a year ago they had that rape thing.”

  “Oh yes?”

  Conrad obviously wasn’t familiar with the story.

  “Yes, he was supposed to meet his wife Carol in town. They had this appointment: 6 o’clock in the parking garage. She waited and waited; couldn’t get hold of him – he’d left his phone in the car, stupid cunt. About half past six these three coloured rubbish grabbed her. They had her totally kaalgat and the one ou was literally six inches away from giving it to her when these two guys came out of the lift for their car. Luckily they had their firearms with them.”

  “Where was Dick?”

  “Where do you think? The stupid poes was getting pissed in the clubhouse. Clean forgot he had to pick her up. And it’s left Carol shell-shocked: that’s why she isn’t here tonight.”

  “What a jerk,” said Conrad who, being a jerk himself, felt entitled to pass judgement.

  “Yah,” Michael agreed. “But now he’s paying big time. She’s gone frigid like the Antarctic. Won’t let him near her.”

  The poor sucker in question staggered over to join Michael and Conrad. He began to talk incoherently. Every sentence he uttered seemed to contain at least one ‘fuck’, or one ‘kak’, and often multiples of both. Like: ‘Fuck it, man. I told this fucking cunt he was talking a fucking lot of kak.’

  Trudy and Prudence appeared. Between them they were trundling a trolley loaded with a four-tier wedding cake. It was bad timing, for just at that moment there came a clamour from the street beyond the trees, on the other side of the wall. Voices shouting and at least 20 gunshots. Then a young man waving a pistol came running from the house.

  “Dad, Dad!” he shouted to Conrad. “The Audi. They’ve taken the fucking Audi!”

  Sirens started up and security lights flooded the place in 1000W krypton brilliance. Now in the distance they could hear the staccato stuttering of automatic rifle fire.

  Every man present, even Dick the Prick, even some of the women, was brandishing a firearm in one hand, a cell phone in the other.

  6

  “Don’t worry, Conrad,” said Claude. “Armed Response got them at the corner of Meadow and Parish. Car’s a bit of a mess, though. Full of holes and blood.”

  Conrad and his son hurried off, dark looks on their unlovely faces.

  The cake was cut and the booze began to flow again. Fortunately there was no garter- or bouquet-throwing crap. Anyway, there were only two unmarried females present – Rose and Ophabia. The rest were in their forties or fifties, mostly gym-slim, Botox and silicone jobs dressed like little tarts, trying to stay young and compete with their daughters. Of course there were some fatties too, the ones whose vanity had been conquered by gluttony and sloth.

  The music was turned up and some half-hearted attempts were made at dancing. Then Conrad returned, looking even grimmer than when he had left.

  “This is the last straw,” he said to Michael, knocking back the glass of whisky he’d picked up on his way through the house. “I’m putting the house and the business on the market and we’re emigrating. Australia. We can’t live like this any longer.”

  “Is the car badly damaged?” Michael was sympathetic, knowing form experience what a pain it was to have a vehicle stolen. “If it’s a write-off you’ll lose on the insurance.”

  “Did they get the fucking black bastards?” asked Dick, joining them. “I hope they killed the fuckers.”

  “They killed two of them. The other…”

  “Hey, I like this number,” Dick interrupted, his attention diverted by the music. “This has got fucking good beat. Maybe one of those bitches will dance with me.” And he wandered off in their direction.

  “Well, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving,” Michael said to Conrad. “Lots of people are going – more and more. I’d have gone long ago if I could get my money out. Most of the Jews have already gone.”

  “The Jews saw the writing on the wall 15 years ago,” said Conrad. “But that’s the Jews; they get nervous and I suppose you can’t blame them. But when you see the Portuguese packing up and going, that’s when you’ll know it’s two minutes to midnight. Damn it, here’s this prick again.”

  He was referring to Dick, who was about to rejoin them after his humiliatingly fruitless attempt to find a dancing partner. He had a disconsolate look on his bloated face.

  “Fuck it, man,” he said, rather predictably. “Those fucking bitches won’t…. Not a damn. Not even that fat cow over there.” He pointed. “Told me to piss off. Fuck, look at her! How do you get to fuck something like that? Need a cock three foot long!”

  “That’s my fucking wife, you bastard!” Conrad’s face was white and his eyes were popping out of his head. Without further ado he drew his pistol, aimed and fired.

  Dick the Prick had dropped his beer. Now he screamed and clutched his crotch.

  “My balls! My fucking balls!”

  He staggered backwards. The blood, and there was a lot of it, was Hollywood crimson. He crashed into the pool fence, then fell forward onto his face and lay still.

  Now that lazy devil Simon really would have some cleaning up to do in the morning.

  The party was over.

  *

  Matt had a dreamless night and was able to sleep until after 9. It was Sunday. Around eleven he took a walk down Wycombe Avenue and across the common to Constantia Village.

  As usual the mall was busy
and the car park was full. It occurred to him that here there must be more cars valued at R300 000+ than in any other parking area in Cape Town.

  Horry was seated at the most remote table in the Seattle coffee shop at Exclusive Books.

  “I treat this bookshop like a reference library,” Horry had once said. “The manager can recognise a besotted bibliophile when she sees one, and she tolerates my habitual presence because she understands the addiction. And I do buy a book once in a while.”

  “What are you reading now?” Matt asked, as he sat down opposite his friend.

  “Dawkins,” Horry replied, and closed the book to reveal the title: The God Delusion. “It’s a self-indulgent waste of time, actually. I should be reading something more challenging.”

  “Isn’t it any good?” Matt was mildly surprised. “It sounds right up your atheistic street.”

  “No, it’s a good book,” said Horry. “I love his humour, and his intelligent sense of decency, and the way he passionately detests the stupidity of religious believers. But he’s preaching to the converted. To me, this is merely entertaining. But to you it would be far more rewarding.” He gave Matt a withering look, the way people do just before delivering an insult. “It’d help you to get off the fucking fence.”

  Horry was alluding to Matt’s agnosticism, which was so wishy-washy it could hardly be called an opinion, and definitely not a belief or a conviction. As a small child Matt had believed in God out of fear; then he had wanted to believe, but was becoming sceptical, and developing an antipathy towards religious people in general; and now he was inclined towards atheism but didn’t care enough about the subject to take up a stance.

  Horry found this apathy despicable, and blamed it largely on an educational ethos that had discouraged critical thinking in order to perpetuate the status quo.