Mnandi

MNANDI’S STORY Ubaba Mnandi comes in one day and I can tell immediately something drastic is up. He’s got a dream draped around him like a pageant sash, I can almost see it. Like he’s just won the bloody lotto. And old Shorty will tell you that good news makes very bad news, when it ferments. The same old shit and there’s no bad news around the corner. Love, bad news, the rest, bad news …. But let me continue. Mnandi’s another regular Joe, except he’s a real Joe - that’s really his name, or what he’s called at least. And Mnandi’s just another regular. Friday 6:30, out from the dusk, there comes Mnandi. Friday 6:31, I push the quart under his shoulders. Regular Mnandi. He has a wife but she kicked him out. He has a job but he lives on the street, Mnandi with his beard like springs tacked in a row. A nice face all processed by misery. Mnandi comes in one day and he’s not twitching his head around like some lost bird, and its not Friday, it’s some other day, some bright morning. He’s not glancing around my shebeen, not looking for one of the DRCs who promised to teach him a free lesson to do with the fragile nature of the cheekbones. He’s striding in as best he can, head off from his breastplate, not quite a smile but a glow to his eyes that is a bad news sunrise. He’s halfway across the linoleum and he bends over sideways and scratched his ankle. Some heads in the hutches of my shebeen are piqued (luckily no DRC’s today - they never forget their vengeance), but Mnandi keeps striding up to the bar like he’s just got five numbers on the bloody lotto! “Shorty, I never see you drinking.” he says, pulling off his beanie. “You know, if I was behind there ….” He stops talking to nudge his nose with a wrinkly finger as if I’m supposed to know what that means, and then a smile. Nice teeth Mnandi. “You only see yourself drinking,” I say dryly, like any old pro. “What you having? I will buy it for you,” he says, as if by this time his intention isn’t obvious. “One for you and one for me. My treat,” he says. I withdraw the J&B from next to the ice like any old pro. He balks, for a second the dream fizzles like an old neon sign, but it’ s back and he clinks my tumbler and empties his own. I follow suit. He wants me to ask about it, about his levity, but all I see is bad news. Instead I point to my open palm. Up front or out back. Them’s the rules. A crisp fifty comes out. “Shorty,” he says, all conspiratorial and bustling, “Shorty, I hit the 777.” I don’t mean to be rude, I don’t want to pop his bubble, just in case it’s real, but my old eyebrows rise and those four deep trenches are frowning on my forehead. “Shorty,” he leans in real close but then pulls back to scratch by his ankle, “some angels finally found me.” “Tell me Mnandi,” I say. Another bad news story. Bad news on the horizon, Mnandi. Another short story. “Hey, I was waking up outside the Chinese shop, and there’s a five rand by my elbow. I thought it was a dream but it wasn’t. So. What? An omen. Get us a zamelek, hey.” I pop the quart, the top’s in the bin before the gas is out the neck. I pour myself another whiskey. “I sit up and take it,” he continues, “ and start rubbing my joints. Then I see them. Three students. You know students Shorty? This girl all shiny and clothes matching with long silky hair, and two guys in sunglasses and jeans all smelling like soap. Well, they sat down by me, on their haunches, you know? They asked my name and all shook my hand in turn, and the next thing I know they offer me a salary. No jokes! For doing nothing. Six months’ salary, hey. Must have been angels.” “Even angels want something.” I say. “Your soul for starters.” “Nah Shorty. They asked me if I was homeless. I just was wiping my face with my jersey and they got the idea. Four hundred rands a month.” This isn’t the full truth I know, but the bad news is creeping in from the sides like a mist in my chest, and I don’t want to begin guessing what form it’s going to take. I chink his bottle. ‘Angels Mnandi,” I say. I say, “Every dog, hey.” Mnandi’s not a dog but he doesn’t argue. “it must be Zuma’s government,” he says, and we’re off and away. He’s rattling off about this thing and that thing and I slip a few drinks for myself on the new found salary of touched - by - an - angel Mnandi. Mnandi left that day and he could still walk. Out the door with his backpack, scratching at his foot. He left his beanie on the counter. I stashed it in a plastic crate like all the things left at my shebeen. All the subpoenas and switch - blades and good news tears left behind. For my collection. Hey, but then Mnandi is back and it’s not yet Friday, and something’s up and this time the twitch is all over him like lice. He looks like a little duiker before the scamper. ‘They found it, Shorty,” he says in a hurry. Those trenches in my forehead but the eyebrows stay down. “They found it Shorty, my lucky ticket.” He lifts his cargo pant leg and I see the bracelet. It’s a black plastic thing, the size and shape of a roll of sticky tape. It has a LED that shows no signs of life, but there, it blinks red. I’ve seen a few of these bracelets lately, seen their owners scratching away down there. They’re simple GPS tracers wrapped in cheap plastic, or at least I’m told . They’re to study the movements of the worst off, as if they were some geese behaving unnaturally. Who knows what they are watching for. Compile a report, relocate a watering station. All know is the observer tends to upset the system. Come in Friday, 6:30, ask Mnandi. These are his shackles now, bequeathed by the angels of leisure. That was all that it cost, Mnandi’s flash of a dream: a mark on him for the hyenas who pray on this poor unfortunate Mnandi, the mark of a dream, and the mark of a man who needs a free lesson. “Take it off Shorty! Help me take it off. They saw it. They think it gets me R500.00 and they say it belongs to them,” he says, and I see that some of his fingers are broken. Bring your dreams into my shebeen. Leave the pieces behind when you go. Mnandi and his leg irons. A regular sight around here. Mnandi and his bruises….. A shebeen is a shebeen and this is my shebeen, but every shebeen is a big fat manuscript like the yellow pages, like a big chief and his KFC, like old Terblance who had a blind date with karma. And then put Shorty behind the bar, old Shorty behind the bar for 34 years, and you’ve got an oral anthology to rival the one that that Kenyan whitey spouts about every Sunday at His People’s around the corner. And Shorty still goes to church after all the things I’ve heard. My patrons often ask me about that. Not the first thing they ask me is this: “They call you Shorty? Is that some kind of thing supposed to make me laugh?”, because I’m tall and strong like a brick house (not that many people around here know how strong that can be.) I say, to this first question - forgive my digression; just because I know stories doesn’t mean I know how to tell them - I say, after they’ve looked me up and up, about to crack a wise smile if they’re in the mood, I say, “This name some boere kinde gave me when they recruited me to join up with their rugby league.” I say, “Some boere christened me Shorty and I’m more than happy to keep it!” See, this name, it’s a thing bestowed, and I’m coming to understand this rainbow nation deal, but that’s another story. So they come in wanting one of three things, sometimes, mostly, a permutation. Booze, tits and ass. Order matters. They have sorrows to drown and wives to forget and things like pensions to celebrate, and they say, “Shorty, you can’t be a man of faith. No Shorty, I’ve seen you when you rage!” A cackle, slapping the bar, “The devil’s in you Shorty,” they say, but they’re eying me as if they were rodents standing on my counter. “Well, “ I say, “Well my brother, I go to His People’s around on Sikobene. I go every Sunday my son, my father, my sister. It reminds me to be thankful.” “Be thankful? Ha Shorty!” (This is how they talked in the old days) ‘be thankful for your pile of manure!”. “No,” I say, “Thankful I’m not a fool.” Hey! They take that or leave it! Pinch of salt and a tequila if the pay - package is tinkling in your pocket, or been lead like a puppet by his ears!.. A reminder to be thankful. To remind me that there are no excuses. No excuses for what we do to each other from this day to the next, this generation to the next. No excuses around Shorty’s shebeen. Order you sorghum and drown in the bucket, Ralphing, cry if you need to cry, bring your dreams and I’ll mop up later, but no excuses around here….