Queer Africa – New and Collected Fiction (Modjaji Books – April 2013)

Winner of the LAMBDA Literary Awards- Anthology Category 2014

(A Boy is a Boy is a …)

It is 1985; the train is crammed, full, full of lithe brown clothed service men. He approaches
the ticket counter and buys a one way ticket to Johannesburg, then he walks up the single
lined platform. A sign hangs above the platform, it reads ‘Johannesburg: Departing 16h15’. It is four o’clock; a
train from somewhere has already arrived. It shudders on the platform, smoke rises
from beneath it, from silver steel manacled tracks.

He steps up andinto the thin corridor of a train carriage and opens the door of one of the
cabins. A family sits in the cabin, a wholesome family made up of parents and 2.6
children; a male husband and a female wife. The husband’s face is hairy,
unshaved hair that stinks of nicotine and raw marrow. His eyes are yellow and
narrow, blood stained; his lips are naked and self-doubting. His wife shrinks
into the carriage seat. Her breasts are sunken, drunken; they sway lugubriously
in the cabin wind. In her hand she holds a faded pink wet cloth that is covered
in lime green vomit.

‘I don’t like
women’ he thinks.

Next to her, one hand desperately tries to undo the buttons of her tired dress, a child; mean,
hungry, worthless. He watches as she slaps the child’s hands away and pinches
his fingers spitefully.

‘What do I feel for little children with mean mothers,’ he wonders as he closes the door and leaves?

He walks further and opens the door of the next cabin. Four women sit on the seats, feral women,
cat eyed, ones who love a priapic life. Rainbow eyelids and crude cut yellow
peroxide hair. As he looks inside a woman with long sun dyed finger nails leans
over the wash basin and plucks her emaciated eyebrows. ‘Ouch,’ she says, ‘fucking
sore this tweezing is;’ a red scar on her eyelid. Her breasts leach, ripe
watermelons over the top of her bare backed vest.

The woman who sits next to her pushes narrow legs from out of a short purple skirt, ‘not so bad,
hey, not so bad.’ Her legs are smooth, mottled with stains, rounded ankles, corpulent.
She winks at him, possible? But he knows these passions and disasters; the
rages, the debauches, the madness, and so he leaves this cabin too.

As he closes the door two other women push past him, flatten him against the side of the
corridor. A concupiscent cerulean dress, flesh uncovered in the fluorescent
light, brushed and taut, feminine, emotional pornography.

‘Too many women’ he thinks, ‘they smell like flowers, wet flowers, flowers that have had their
day in the sun, petals soaked with sweat, used and pressed and hardened’.

He pushes onwards and opens the door to the next carriage. Inside are two soldiers,
servicemen, salubrious, superior, in service; men who kill just like all people
kill, soldiers that pillage, wolves who follow the living knowing that soon
there will be a carcass, raw meat, soldiers in sunburnt boots and shoulder
ensigns; blue and orange and white, white skins, lepers, taking a journey, a
religious experience, a journey to the Holy Land, they are crusaders. One of them
leans forward and holds out his stretched lustrous gun. It shines, dangerous,
daring, adoring.

‘Come in boy,’ one of the soldier’s says, he does not hold a gun, instead he leans backwards and
stretches out his legs, his cock bulges in the crotch of his pants, ‘plenty of
space in this cabin, come sit down, make yourself at home.’

‘Better than the women; here I can smell stale sweat and rancid butter, the smell of filth, of life,
of heavenly husbands.’

He walks in through the narrow doorway, ‘thanks,’ he mutters. He feels saturated with
impudence and entitlement, tragic in a sensuous way. He walks inside and puts
his shoulder bag onto the rack above the seat, then he sits down. There is a lot
of space, three in a cabin for four. ‘How should I act,’ he thinks, ‘how does
one perform in a setting like this? What kind of variety show do they want, a
servile puppy that cringes?’

He gets up and takes his bag from the rack above and opens it. He takes out a book, a flat black
book with a torn cover, stained. The poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, a school teacher
had taught him to read and speak French; and he, in return, gave the teacher a
meaning to this musical sound. The teacher had taught him in the time when he
did not teach in the classroom, his spare time, his time of self obsession and
fantastic indulgence, his secret time. And he, the good pupil, had learnt to
speak the language as if he had been born in France, as if his mother had
taught him the tongue while she nursed him at her sweetened breast, he was a
Parisian. Now, in this small cabin, he holds the book between his reddened
fingers and feels indifferent, intimate. He thinks about how he had impressed his
teacher, such an acute learner. He had made his eyes a nervous blue, his hands
sweat and shake, he wanted more; his mouth was sweet and breathy. Nearly a
child, his mysterious ways seductive, he spoke a tender talk, remorseful.

He opens the book and turns a page…. ‘ – Mais, cher
Satan, je vous en conjure, une prunelle moins irritee! et en attendant les
quelques petite lachetes en retard, vous qui aimez dans l’ecrivain l’absence
des facultes descriptives ou instructives .. …’

‘What are you reading,’ one of the soldier’s asks, the soldier takes the book from his hands,
there is no resistance, fingers perfumed with tobacco and brandy, a shaven face,
but not smooth, callous? ‘Not even English, weird words,’ the soldier says, ‘what
are these words, or are you just reading shit and pretending to understand it?’
The soldier turns the pages of the book, ‘and there is more of it, a whole
book, something funny, can’t even write a proper language, hey, you must be
some kind of criminal?’ The soldier moves his blackened nails over the page,
his fingers make a heart shaped smudge plotted with arteries, blood on a picture
of poetry.

He sits forward, and then he shrinks back. It is difficult to pretend when he is uncertain as to
what the soldier, who leers, wants. He can’t think of the right words to say, a
poem, a paragraph, a lightning language. ‘Well, I will just pretend
breathlessness; this could mean anything, nervous anticipation or just a long
walk to find a train carriage,’ he thinks.

The door opens and another man walks in and sits down. Now there are four of them, the
compartment is full, restrictive. The soldier who holds the book passes it to
the other who obsessively caresses his rifle, ‘wonder if this young fuck is a
queer, a pansy,’ the soldier winks, or maybe he blinks, as he speaks? ‘Only a
fucking queer reads fucking creepy words like this, and they look like poems, a
moffie who can’t even speak fucking English properly, this crap.’ The soldier
with the gun between his thighs moves and leans over. The gun presses into him,
gently strokes his thigh. The soldier reaches out and takes the book, he holds
it against the long drawn out rifle barrel, then he reaches out his hand.

‘I’m Jan,’ he says him, ‘and that there is Kobus. Who you stranger,’ he turns to the soldier who
has just walked in? And he, he did not give his name, for what is in a name and
he was not asked to give it.

‘John,’ the reply is terse, as are the soldier’s eyes.

Jan takes John’s hand. He pumps it up and down. Then he turns to him, finally, ‘what the fuck
are you reading, who are you by the way, give me your name?’ Now he demands the
word, a label.

‘A’, he says, ‘and I’m reading Rimbaud. He was a poet in Paris, a radical poet. He was shot by a man, in the hand,
once. I was taught to read it by the guy that teaches at the school that I went
to in Jeppe.’ He knows that he sounds absurd, but he can find no other words,
all he can say are the words that he knows, the words that he was taught, a
sour bitter truth.

‘Paris, France, you mean,’ the soldier called Jan says. ‘Not Paris, Parys,’ he laughs, his gums
are cherry and his teeth are grey. He reaches into the bag besides him and takes
out a bottle. The gun moves slightly against his cock as the train starts to
move. He stares at the metal. ‘Hey, don’t be afraid boetie,’ Jan says; as he watches
him stare, ‘it’s a gun, not just a gun, but a gun.’ He winks, or maybe he just
blinks, again. ‘Even you have one…. This
is my rifle, this is my gun ….’ he lifts the rifle and caresses it. He
strokes his cock through the fawn of his pants. ‘Love my guns, and you?’ Jan
laughs again. Kobus laughs too, and then he pulls at the zip on his pants as if
to pull it down and laughs again, loud sounds. John looks at them both, and
then looks at him. Appealing thoughts move in his mind.

The bottle moves to Jan’s lips, his bulging Adam’s apple contracts as the brandy follows the
curve of his throat, lost, drunk, impure. He passes the bottle to Kobus who takes
it and holds it to his mouth. A bead of brown liquid meanders down his chin,
burning lips. He gulps and coughs. Then John takes the bottle, there is a gleam
in his eyes. He passes the bottle to him. He takes it; ‘I’m running away,’ he
thinks, ‘I may as well drink poison.’ He takes the bottle and holds it to his
lips; the violence of the venom wracks his limbs, leaves him deformed,
baptised. The train lurches over something on the track, the bottle flies
upwards and the liquid shoots out. It falls on Kobus’s brown boot. ‘Hey,
fucking creep, queer boy who can’t read, don’t fucking waste it, this is good
stuff.’ He picks up the bottle. A stream of brandy travelled down the boot, the
delights of damnation.

He holds the bottle close to his chest, ‘sorry,’ he murmurs and lifts the bottle to his lips
again. He prays that the train will not lurch.

‘Can’t waste the stuff,’ John says, ‘can’t waste a drop of fire water. Lick it,’ John points at him
and then at Kobus’s boot, ‘come on, lick it up, can’t let it go to waste.’ John
leans over and pushes on his spine, ‘go on lick it up boy.’

He feels a frozen passion, crippled. He looks at Kobus, Kobus too gestures to him to get
down. Jan just sits and caresses his rifle. ‘Come on, lick.’ Kobus pushes at him,
John pushes at him, Jan leans forward and slowly picks up the rifle, ‘come on
boy, lick.’ Jan points the gun at his stomach, ‘get down and lick.’

‘Dying,’ he thinks, ‘I’m dying, but this kind of death, it feels so good.’

He lies in mud, criminal, the skin on his scalp is dried to dust, shame, blame, absurd pathetic
anger. He feels his seventeen year old uncircumcised cock rise, the skin moves.
He kneels. Punishment. Power. John pushes at him and he lands on his hands and
knees, like an animal. He moves his head downwards, towards the floor, towards
the boot. He feels the hard leather lather his tongue. He licks. The brandy
smarts on his bare gums, the rawhide foot tastes as if it has been licked
before. He opens his mouth wider; he wants to feel the pointed heel against the
back of his throat. It seems a long time before he sits up, coughing,
debauchery in his emotions. He feels a burden lift from him, his innocence is
forced apart, his wisdom squandered. ‘I am dying,’ he thinks, ‘so all I can do
is call my executioners closer, I want to bite the butts of their rifles; I am
suffocating in sand and blood; misfortune, this is my god.’

‘Like this kind of fun,’ John says, ‘not so good at doing it myself, but I like to watch. When
did you last fuck a chick,’ he turns to Jan, ‘bet it was a long time ago, but
hey, you’ve been in the army and there are no chicks to fuck there. Or did you
fuck a terrorist’s wife, hey … hey?’ John strokes Jan’s hand, softly, gently.

Jan laughs, ‘a cunt is a cunt,’ he says and takes another sip of the brandy.

Kobus takes a cigarette from his pocket. ‘I fucked a terr the other day. She stank of fucking
animal fat and she cried when I put it in her, she must have been crying from excitement,
can’t imagine why else she would have cried. Ah…!  So I just shoved it up that terr’s pussy. It
was dry, but they say that the terrs like them dry, they make them dry, adds to
the friction. Now I like it dry, very dry. Wonder what the wife will say when I
suggest it?’

‘Let’s see the cock,’ John says?

Kobus looks at him, ‘you serious,’ he says.

He gets up from the floor and sits again on the seat. He does not speak. Rimbaud lies on the
floor, the pages are stained with brandy and the grey ash from Kobus’s
cigarette has fallen on the pristine words.

‘I’m serious,’ John says, ‘you said it was big, lets see? Let’s see what you put up a terr’s
cunt?’

‘Close the curtains,’ Kobus says, ‘and I will show you. Lock the door; don’t want the
fucking peanuts and tea girl to bust in on us.’

He stares at Kobus who leans over to touch the gun that Jan holds tight between his thighs.
Kobus pulls at the zip on his pants. His cock bulges, it is circumcised, the skin
torn, cut backwards, the pink glans face the ceiling. ‘Still not as hard as I
can make it,’ Kobus laughs. He pulls his cock free and holds it; it stays up
and then wanders downwards. The red veins gleam in the fluorescent light. ‘Jesus
can’t get it up. Come here queer boy,’ he calls to him; ‘fix it, fix it like
the French fix it.’ Kobus takes his hand, and holds it to the straining blood. ‘Touch
it, hold it, stroke it.’ Jan leans over and holds the gun to his forehead, ‘come
boy, do it.’ The gun wavers. He stares; he feels his blood stir and his head
light. He puts his hand to Kobus’s cock. It feels like a gun, it feels hard, it
is a gun. Slowly he moves his hand up and down. He bends his head downwards,
the tip of his tongue touches glistening glans, a crimson seed, it moves with
its own life in the shadowy cabin. He feels the metal tip of the silver gun in
his mouth, it moves down his back. ‘I am courageous enough to love this pain,’
he thinks. A man, it is John, John with his shadowy eyes, pulls at the belt
that holds up his jeans. The material falls to his socks, his red socks. A
knife cuts through his underpants. He feels the tip of a revolver probe the
deep black hole of his arse. He feels the metal move inside him, that deep dark
brown hole. It enters; there is no sound except the light that hisses. Kobus
pushes him forward and he feels the pain. A cock pushes into him, it goes in
deeply. Spittle on a hand, semen inside, the smell of unwashed faeces. And
again he feels a cock, this time it is in his mouth, another one, someone
else’s, Jan’s? He is on all four limbs, he turns his head upwards, John’s face
stares at him, there is a smile on his thin lips, a grimace, a sneer. His mouth
fills with the creamy custard flavour of the semen, whose is it this time, it
tastes like whipped cream mixed with strawberry jam? He feels his innocence, he
loves his innocence. And then it is finished.

‘Clickety clack, clickety clack, clickety
clack ….’ He feels the wheels of the train underneath him. Now and then the
train seems to moves over a stone or maybe it is just a change in the track, he
does not know. He lies in a pool, a puddle of his own blood and sweat and semen
and laughs. He laughs as he knows something more now. He laughs because he feels
something more. He laughs because he feels pain and exultation. It is the power
that he laughs about, the ecstasy, sublime power, power that he alone has
created, bewitching. He laughs as he thinks of his teacher; he would have been
proud, proud and happy to know that he survived, that he enjoyed the pain, as he
enjoyed pain, the pain of rejection by a schoolboy, as he enjoys his pain, the
pain of his touch. He laughs at how much of a simulation it all is, his life a
remake. And they were good people these soldiers, they did not kill him.

He gets to his feet. John looks at him. John puts a finger underneath his chin, ‘you did good
queer boy; you did good.’ John licks spittle from his lips and lies back. Kobus
put his head on the back of the seat, his mouth falls open, his lips are
stained brown, nicotine and whisky and semen. A faint whistle emerges from his
nose, his eyes are closed, his lips curve into a feeling of satisfaction. Jan lies
flat on the seat and dreams of sun hardened terrorists and fleeing women, he
snores as he sets fire to grass huts, burning.

He picks up his book, the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud; it has fallen to the floor. He opens a
page; it is torn slightly, ….. ‘He will love me now, my teacher, he will love
me,’ he thinks. ‘He will know that I know. He will know what I can do when he
touches me, I can already feel the pain in his guts. Only I know that this pain
is beautiful, that it satiates, that it is divine, that I can do it again.’ Rimbaud
seemed docile compared to what he had just done, like a girl going to Sunday
school, a sweetly sleeping body. He closes the book and dreams of the other
things that he can do, will do, with guns and soldiers, in calm pale moonlight,
a sad beauty; he imagines a marbled fountain, gushing, streaming, sobbing.

The train pulls into Johannesburg
station. He sits upright. The train stops and he gets up. He looks at Kobus who
pulls his bag from beneath the seat and moves to descend the stairs. He stares
at Jan who looks away as he holds the gun close to his chest. Only John looks
at his eyes, then he leans over him, ‘you will do it again, I promise,’ John
whispers, ‘with me next time.’ And then he too is gone. He rises and leaves the
carriage. He climbs down the stairs slowly, he is sore. He stands on the
platform and watches his rapists kiss their mothers, sisters, wives and children;
they had, if only for a moment, escaped from reality.

And he, he cannot see his cold blue eyes, but he knows that they look past everything; they look
somewhere outside of the world in which he walks.