kagablog

Hot Stuff came to Montford Primary in Standard Three and transferred from it around the middle of Standard Five. The hatred towards him crystallized on 10 March 1989, the day of the school disco, but he was always disliked. Hot Stuff was aloof and gave the impression that he was better than everyone else. There was no reason for him to think this. He was ugly, terrible at school and sports, poor even by Montford’s standards, and had no friends. Still, that didn’t stop him from walking the corridors of the school as if he was above it all. The way he would walk past a game of, say, five-stones, and not even show the slightly interest, rubbed people the wrong way. He had, people thought, airs about him.

The entire Montford Primary could have been wrong in their estimation of Hot Stuff. He could have been the most humble, likable boy around. But because he never spoke, because he never engaged, no-one could tell. For two and a half years Hot Stuff was present at Montford Primary. There isn’t much more to say. He showed up, never participated, scrapped by the exams, and showed up again.

Hot Stuff had come to Montford from the South Coast town of Renishaw. His family were farmers, part of a small group of Indian families that still stayed in and around the sugarcane plantations where their grandparents and great-grandparents had worked. Hot Stuff, along with his sister, went to school for half the day and worked in their fields the other half. His father had moved the family to Montford because he had found work in one of the metal works factories in Jacobs.

Hot Stuff’s unusual life wasn’t the most interesting thing about him though. The interesting thing about him was the way he looked. He was an average ten-year-old Indian boy in size and height, perhaps a bit beefier because of his field work. He had a thick pompadour held in place with coconut oil, deep set eyes and a large hooked nose. But what set him apart was his skin. Hot Stuff’s skin was covered in a network of large red blotches, which were so severe that it was difficult to make out his real skin colour. The official explanation was allergies.

Soon after he arrived at the school Pravasan Pillay, a classmate of Hot Stuff made the following comment loudly in History class: “He looks like Hot Stuff.” Pravasan had been reading the Harvey Comics title of the same name at the time, and had had blurted it out without really thinking. It was a poor observation. Apart from the redness of his skin, Hot Stuff bore little resemblance to the trident carrying, diaper wearing little devil. But the name stuck.

There are just two incidents involving Hot Stuff that warrant retelling. The first happened about a year and half after he transferred to the school. He turned up one scorching Durban morning with his head covered in white bandages, with his pompadour still protruding out the top. His left arm was also swathed with bandages. Hot Stuff had disappeared off of the radar for much of that year and a half but the utter strange nature his appearance again brought him into consciousness. There were one or two comments of the bandages being an improvement but the knowledge that the blank bandages concealed an equally blank face below soon caused interest to wane. Pravasan, who has since moved on from Harvey Comics to more mature fare like D.C’s The Doom Patrol, thought that from certain angles Hot Stuff resembled the Patrol’s Negative Man. But this time he didn’t say anything about it.

The bandages came off about two weeks later and the skin on Hot Stuff’s face and left arm appeared redder and was covered with tiny scabs, almost as if he had had a kind of localized measles.

The second incident took place in the first term of 1989. The headmaster of Montford, Mr. Moothiram, announced that every class from Standard Three onwards would be allowed to attend a school disco, to be held during school hours on the last day of the first term. Each pupil would have to pay five Rands to attend, and the money collected would go towards the building of a school basketball court. Mr. Moothiram wanted to spend as little money as possible on the organization of the disco and insisted that all the arrangements would be done in-house. This meant that the disco would be held in the school multi-purpose room, that there would be no store-bought decorations or mirrored balls or professional D.J. or catered food. The Standard Fives were in charge of organizing everything.

It was during a meeting attended by all the Standard Fives and chaired by the guidance councilor Mrs. Singh to discuss the distribution of tasks that Hot Stuff took his first step towards a new school. Mrs. Singh had just finalized assigning the décor committee and had asked the assembled students who would be interested in DJing the disco. It wasn’t as glamorous a role as the title made out. The D.J. of the first Montford Primary disco (and what turn out to be the last) wouldn’t have had a set of turntables or headset or a booth. He or she would simply have to sit next to the schools ancient HIFI system and press play on the tape deck when the teacher gave the indication and pause when one of the teachers had an announcement. Even the music selection, the essence of DJing, would be out of the DJ’s hands – instead the selection would be made by Ms. Naicker and Ms. Gonum, at 32 and 28 respectively, the school’s youngest teachers. Despite these limitations the position of D.J. was still very much sought over and almost every hand in the room went up. The surprising thing was that Hot Stuff was one of them.

It took a few moments for this to register in the room. Everyone was so concentrated on Ms. Singh, hoping to catch her eye that they didn’t notice that his red arm had also gone up. It wasn’t the most convincing arm-raising in history but it was up nevertheless. It was only when the class caught sight of Ms. Singh’s face that they noticed Hot Stuff. He had never ever raised his arm in class before, not to answer a question, not to use the toilet, not for any reason. There was no hesitation in Mrs. Singh’s mind. She announced immediately that Hot Stuff would D.J. the school disco.

Apart from this single explosion of activity Hot Stuff’s behaviour around the school didn’t change. He was still the same Hot Stuff. Though he attended the disco organizing meetings – at Mrs. Singh’s insistence – he didn’t participate in them. He would just sit near the door and leave around half-way through.

The doors of the disco opened around 10am on a Friday morning. Everyone filed into the multi-purpose room and admired the crepe paper streamers hanging from the ceiling, the tables along the side of the room laden with food and cooldrinks, a box of coloured “disco lights” that had been constructed by the woodwork class, and the table containing the school’s ancient HIFI system. Hot Stuff had already taken his place next to the table, his finger hovering over the play button. A sign in front of the table said: “Please don’t touch the music.” After a brief introduction by the principal, Hot Stuff, with Mrs. Singh’s approval, hit play.

Everything was going well, and there had been at least 45 minutes of dancing when there was a loud scream. Mrs. Singh circumvented Hot Stuff and turned off the HIFI herself. The girl doing the screaming was Rita Reddy, a pretty Standard Five girl who was one of the more popular pupils in the school. Rita took some calming down from the teachers and finally whispered something in Mrs. Naicker ear who in turn whispered into the principal’s ear. The principal then angrily announced that Rita’s pocket diary – which contained a neatly folded twenty Rand note – had gone missing from her purse. He told everyone to search the floor and when nothing turned up he ordered the boys and girls to separate and got the teachers to search their pockets. Again nothing showed up.

It was while the principal was consulting with the other teachers that Pravasan spotted Hot Stuff adjust the front of his pants. It was a quick movement, quite uncharacteristic for the sloth-like Hot Stuff. Pravasan had been having a lousy time thus far. He had been teased about the black poloneck he wore and had been sulking in a corner, not dancing. Rita’s scream and the subsequent search had provided a welcome distraction. Without thinking he shouted out: “Hot Stuff’s got it in his pants. He hid it in his pants” and run over and held Hot Stuff by the collar, lifting his body off of the ground. Hot Stuff made no attempt to fight Pravasan as he rough handled him. The principal separated the two, and then sent the girls out of the class, and in the presence of the boys and the male teachers ordered Hot Stuff to remove his pants. He did so without question. The outline of the pocket diary was clear in his white briefs.

Hot Stuff stayed two more months at Montford Primary, which included two weeks of suspension. His remaining time was not pleasant – boys would punch him whenever he walked by and girls would call him a thief. In short, he was given no space to be aloof. The week Hot Stuff transferred – no-one knows to where – Pravasan and Rita Reddy kissed for the first time. It was Pravasan’s first kiss and he couldn’t stop blushing.