Zoo City (10 page)

TYRONE JONES

Corcoran

USA

"It's crazy in here. I know you can't tear a man from his animal. Ain't right. But some of these niggas got real wild animals, man. One guy's got a Cougar. You can't tell me that's right, letting a prisoner walk around with a Cougar.

   "There's an order to things, too. Don't matter what you did, you got a bad-ass animal in here, you're a bad-ass too. And it don't matter how many people you killed, you got a Chipmunk or a Squirrel, you're gonna be a bitch. Way it is.

   "Then there's me. I got a Butterfly. Keep it in a matchbox. I oughta be pissed off, man. You can guess what it's like being in here with a Butterfly. Except for the stuff it lets me do.

   "See, when I go to sleep every night, I wake up as someone else. For the time I'm asleep, I live the day of someone else on the other side of the world. Man, I've been kids in Africa and India, I was once this old Chinese woman. Mostly I'm poor, but sometimes I get lucky and I'm rich.

   "What I'm saying is, I can't hate the Butterfly. Butterfly breaks me out of here every night."

Excerpt from Caged: Animalled Behind Bars Photography and interviews by Steve Deacon HarperCollins 2008

Traffic in Joburg is like the democratic process. Every time you think it's going to get moving and take you somewhere, you hit another jam. There used to be shortcuts you could take through the suburbs, but they've closed them off, illegally: gated communities fortified like privatised citadels. Not so much keeping the world out as keeping the festering middle-class paranoia in.

   "I'm going to need my own ride."

   "What's wrong, sweetie? You don't like my driving?" the Maltese says, but the jibe is half-hearted. He's been off-kilter since we left Huron's. Even the Mutt is subdued, although we're still hitting the green lights at speeds better left to rocket ships.

   "Not particularly. But mainly it's that whole little dog thing."

   "You just don't let up, do you?" Mark whines. For the first time, it seems like I've got under his flea collar.

   "I need to do this alone. It's how my shavi works. I need to talk to people, to pick up a sense of her." This is all monkey crap, but it's not like they know any better. I'm hoping to stumble on a lost thing that will lead me right to the girl, but I can't count on it.

   "I thought you could just see things?" Marabou says.

   "Sure. If the person is in the room. But then you wouldn't need me. So this is how we're going to work. You can introduce me to people, but then you have to piss off. You can't expect someone to open up to a crowd. One's an interview, three's an interrogation."

   "Ve hav our vays und means," Marabou says from the backseat – evidence that she may have a sense of humour after all.

   "I don't need anything fancy."

   "No. We wouldn't want you to be hijacked," Marabou says.

   "That would be bad," I agree, but the words come out on autopilot, because I'm ambushed by the memory of the bullet that tore away half my ear before it ripped through my brother's skull

   "A Kia, then," Maltese says, oblivious to my mental picture of Thando sprawled in the daisy bushes, my mom screaming, running down the driveway in her favourite dressing-gown with the Japanese print. Afterwards, she had the daisy bush ripped out, the grass concreted over.

   "What?" I say, dragging myself back.

   "Or something secondhand. A skedonk on its last tyres. A car that fits your lifestyle. The kind of thing you'd expect a disgraced zoo girl to drive."

   "Gee, thanks. How about if it doesn't drive at all? We could get me a gutted shell on bricks. That would suit my lifestyle."

   It takes us an hour and a half to get to Midrand and the golf estate where S'busiso and Songweza Radebe share a townhouse next door to their legal guardian, Mrs Prim Luthuli, all generously sponsored by their record label. Another ten minutes to get past the gate guard, who grills us and insists that we all step out of the car to be photographed by the webcam mounted on the window of his security booth.

   "Animalists everywhere," Mark says through clenched teeth, as the guard raises the boom and waves us through. "They'd bring back the quarantine camps if they could."

   "What do you call Zoo City?" I say.

   "Just be glad we don't live in India," Amira says.

   Mark revs the Merc unnecessarily. "Because who knew there was a caste below untouchable?"

   The townhouses are variations on a theme of relentlessly modern, with trim front lawns and rear-facing views onto the golf course.

   "I always get lost here," the Maltese says. The numbering system is completely insane and the estate is huge, so it takes us a few minutes to find H4-301. From the outside, it looks identical to all the other cookie-cutter townhouses with their perfect green lawns and chorus line of hissing sprinklers.

   "Aren't there water restrictions?" I ask.

   "Borehole. There are underground water reservoirs all over this area. Costs a fortune to tap, of course, but if you run a golf course…" he shrugs.

   It would appear no one is home at H4-301, domicile of one Mrs Primrose Luthuli.

   "Maybe we should have phoned ahead."

   "We can talk to the boys in the meantime."

   "Do they know?"

   "No. And Mr Huron would prefer if we keep it that way." Marabou walks up to the door of H4-303, ignoring the intercom phone with embedded camera, and raps directly on the door. She waits. Then raps again. And then pounds. There's no way to tell if it's penetrated through the hip-hop bass emanating from inside.

   Heavy footsteps shuffle towards the door, suggesting a senile hippopotamus in fuzzy slippers. A moment later, the door opens to reveal a very fat, very white kid wearing a very loud hoodie patterned with neon pink robot monkeys. He is scuffing at his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes are red and the reek of dope has soaked right through the hoodie into his pores. He's muttering as he opens the door, "Listen, you people need to chillax, man, the residents' association can get a restraining order – Christballs!" His bloodshot eyes open very wide as he registers the Marabou. He falls backwards into the house, barely recovering his balance before scrambling away in his dirty socks, yelping, "Dude, it's happening! They're fucking here, man! Break out the hardware! Shit!"

   Marabou strides into the townhouse, right behind him. I'm about to follow, but Mark puts his arm across the doorframe, like a security boom and gives a little shake of his head. From inside, there is the noise of gunfire, strangely hollow, and then a lot of shouting.

   "Get the guns! Get the freaking guns!" fat boy squeals.

   Another voice, pissed off, bemused (pissmused?). "Hey! You guys aren't supposed to be here–"

   And a third, weary, "Dude, there are no guns–"

   Fat boy screams. "No, no, no, don't you even fucking, don't you come near–"

   Then there is a dull crunch, followed by whimpering.

   Mark lifts his arm, wafts his hand ostentatiously to usher me inside. I enter the house, cautiously. It's done up in a mash of just-moved-out-of-home boy décor. They've made a bit of an effort. The classic movie posters: The Godfather, Swamp Thing, Kill Bill, all framed. The katana above the giant flatscreen TV is wall-mounted, the trophy cans of beer stacked on top of the bookshelf are perfectly lined up so that the labels all face outward.

   There are two boys sitting on the plush red couch. One is bare-chested in jeans, the fly unbuttoned. He has natty little dreads and a small gold loop in his ear, and he's pouting like he ordered strippers for his birthday and got clowns instead.

   The other I recognise from glimpses of a music video. The boy-half of iJusi has big heartbreaker eyes, an upturned button nose and dimples. He'll grow out of it, maybe even in the next six months, but S'bu still has something beautifully childlike about him, and even his poser attitude can't undermine the sweetness that rises off him like fumes. He's practically edible.

   They're both holding Playstation controllers, the source of the gunfire, I now realise, and they're both staring at Marabou and the fat kid, who is holding his bloody nose with both hands. The Stork cranes its neck forward to nudge her hand with its beak. She looks at the blood on her knuckles with forensic distaste, and wipes it off on the side of the couch. Dazed, the fat kid collapses into the La-Z-Boy.

   Mark sets the Mutt down, picks up one of seven remotes on the coffee-table – by coincidence, it just so happens to be the right one – and kills the stereo.

   Half-naked boy opens his mouth to complain, "Hey, that's–"

   The Dog gives a shrieky little snarl and Mark says, "Shut up, Des. No one's talking to you." He perches on the edge of the low black teak coffee-table, pushing aside a gimmicky odour-free silver ashtray shaped like a flying saucer, and folds his legs. "Well, boys, this is quite the scene."

   S'bu stands up and walks over to the ashtray. "I know, I know," he says, in the patented world-weary way of teenagers. He pushes down on the top of the UFO, which whirrs open with a buzz and strobing lights, and stubs out his joint.

   "She bwoke by dose–" the fat white boy starts.

   "Shut up, Arno. It's your own stupid fault," snaps the half-naked kid with the dreads.

   "You know you're not supposed to be smoking, S'bu," Mark chides.

   "Didn't I already say, I know, I know?"

   "Can these two take a hike?"

   He shrugs. "Arno and Des are my boys."

   "We need to talk about your sister."

   "Whad's up wid your sisduh, dude? You didn'd say budding about your sisduh. Whad's up wid da Song?"

   "Shut up, Arno," Des and S'bu say in unison.

   "'Cos she hasn'd been awound. Shid. When lasd did we see her?"

   "Dude. When last did you see your arse?"

   Arno looks hurt, although it's hard to tell if his hangdog expression is par for the course, or just a result of his eyes starting to swell.

   "Is that the only contraband?" Amira says.

   "Des is holding," S'bu indicates his friend. Des cringes, pulls out a bankie of weed and gingerly hands it over to Amira.

   "What's wrong, sweetie?" Mark asks.

   "Nah, it's just, we thought you were–" Des says. "The cops."

   "Zombies," Arno says at the same time.

   "Why would you be worried about the cops?"

   "I dunno. Just. 'Cos." He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the ashtray. There's a couple of video game boxes lying next to it, starring flesh-eating undead and aliens. One, Grand Theft Auto VI: Zootopia, features a badass in a hoodie, packing a shotgun with a snarling Panther by his side.

   "You know this means we're going to have to search the house. Again."

   "Whatever," S'bu says, and slumps back into the couch, picking up the controller and going right back to his game, a first-person slayer. He's playing a mini-skirted girl with spiky green hair and a machine-gun for an arm facing down shambling hordes of particularly monstrous aliens.

   "Do you want to go back to rehab, S'bu?"

   "Doesn't bother me." But I notice he flinches, enough to throw off his shot. On screen, an alien manages to gore his arm, knocking his health down to 89 per cent.

   "This is Zinzi December. She wants to talk to you. Help her out," Mark says.

   "It's for a story for a magazine. Credo?" I bluff.

   "Oh yeah?" S'bu isn't even vaguely interested, but Des perks up dramatically.

   "Credo cooks, bro," he says, nudging S'bu's arm. "You're in Credo, you're in. Hells yes, lady. My boy is down."

   "Great," I say.

   "Whatever, you clear it with these guys," S'bu says, still intent on his game.

   "Oh, we're 'down'," Mark says. He whistles for the Mutt. The Dog jumps off the red pouf and immediately starts sniffing around the room with great seriousness, tail wagging. S'bu lifts his feet for the Dog as it snuffles around the bottom of the couch.

   "Just seeds, man," says Des.

   The Dog follows its nose out of the room, Mark and Amira behind it. We can hear them climbing the stairs. A minute later, there is the sound of objects being thrown around.

   "Shid, dude, whad if she breags by shid?" Arno says.

   "Then I'll buy you more shit. Will you shut up? You're wrecking my concentration."

   Everyone is quiet for a moment. Des and Arno watch me watching S'bu kill aliens. Upstairs, there is more thudding. Impulsively, I shrug Sloth off onto the recently vacated pouf, squeeze in next to S'bu, and pick up Des's discarded controller.

   "This is two player, right?"

   "Yeah, but–"

   "Killing aliens with S'bu Radebe. That's profile gold. Credo will love it."

   "They're Cthul'mites, actually."

   "Whatever. They all bleed the same." From the player screen, I select the huge black guy character with Mike Tyson tattoos on his face and whipblades mounted in his forearms. Nice to see game designers keeping up the stereotypes.

   "You any good?" S'bu gives me a sideways glance.

   "Fucking terrible. It's all you."

   "Oh great." But he cracks the slightest of smiles.

   "Anybone wand a beer?" Arno says, heading for the kitchen.

   "Get them now before they're all confiscated," S'bu calls out after him.

   "I'll have one," I shout, gutting a particularly loathsome specimen with slobbery jaws and elongated fingers with my whipblades. I'm already down to 46 per cent health. It's only when Arno comes back, cracking the bottles of Windhoek open with his teeth, and sets mine, foaming, on the table in front of me, that I realise what I've done.

   "Oh thanks, but actually, I'm gonna skip." I barely manage to duck as an arachnidy thing with a wobbly glutinous mass on top, like the bastard love-child of a jellyfish and a spider, spews a cloud of mechanical insects at me. Luckily S'bu is there to liquidise it, and most of the insect cloud terminates in shrieking sparks.

   "Our beer too good for ya?"

   "No, it's just that I don't particularly want to go back to rehab either."