So-called Objectivity, once understood as being huma-centric in bias, is further unveiled when understood that so-called ‘objectivity’ is in fact further biased by being Westerncentric.
Objective truth has nothing to do with aboriginals, that myth. What is this guy blabbing about?? Look in the mirror. No, fuck that, look in the view. You are revealed.
The most blasphemous thing the Bible ever did
was to claim knowledge of the workings
of the mind of God
One can imagine the workings of lower consciousness,
never the twirls of the higher..
by mick raubenheimer
“The task of the artist is to suggest a new reality. Either through re-imagining a given system of communication, a shifting of its limits; or simply by communication of the incommunicable, of special experience. In this way the artist expands the consciousness of the Human.” Anonymous, 2047
From the past.
In 1937 Edgard Varese, pioneer of 20th century experimental music, voiced his frustration with the restrictions of the classical idiom indirectly, and optimistically: “I anticipate a future where technology has advanced to the degree that it can give voice to the inner landscapes of my musical imagination.” Together with John Cage, Ionesco and Stockhausen, Varese was determined to break through the self-imposed boundaries of what constituted so-called Classical music, and indeed, what constituted music itself. Throughout the bustle and flow of the 20th century, and even today, the term ‘classical music’ has been problematic. What these rebels were contesting was the received notion that Classical music, the genre itself, was something fixed, set in stone - an established canon of repertoire past (with the hesitant, and rare, inclusion of selected 20th century greats), to be played by classically trained musicians, on traditionally ‘classical’ instruments. End of story. In fact you’ll find that even today, almost a century on, ninety percent of ‘classical’ concerts still abide by said notion. So what happens to classically-trained composers and musicians who want to expand the idiom, test its language with new expression? Does ‘classical’ and ‘new’ music have to be mutually exclusive? The problem, here, lies in the name of the rose (if I may mix my authors..)
It was in response to the problems above that the International Society of Contemporary Music (hereafter the ISCM) was established in 1922. The society found a very simple way to resolve the retro-fetish intrinsic to the notion of Classical music - they dropped the ‘classical’! As implied in its name, the ISCM considered the canon to be merely a foundation for contemporary and future expressions of Classical music. Focussing its energy on contemporary efforts, as well as in breaking free of the Eurocentric mold automatically associated with Classical music, the ISCM promoted experimentation and exploration, whilst retaining the fundamental requisites of technical excellence, and the approach to music as artform, which it considered to be the true distinction between Classical and Popular music. The ISCM’s annual music festival, originally called the World Music Days, hosted the premieres of compositions by a great many important 20th century composers, among them Ravel, Bartok, Stockhausen and Ligeti; and it is surely thanks to its passionate committal to the promotion and celebration of the contemporary, that new, quintessentially 20th century movements such as Minimalism became both popular and acknowledged by the purists.
The New Music Indaba 2007, held primarily at UNISA’s Sunnyside campus from 10-13 October this year, was the latest instalment of the annual contemporary music festival & workshop hosted by New Music SA, the local wing of the ISCM. As can be expected, New Music SA’s focus is rightfully on facilitating and exploring dialogues between African traditional forms and the more European slant of ‘established’ Classical music. Each annual Indaba throws spotlights on promising local composers, and gives them the opportunity to interact with world-renowned musicians and composers. This year was no exception.
To the present.
New Music SA rejoined the ISCM, fittingly, after the obtuse shadow of Apartheid had passed; this after an absence of four decades. It was thanks to the efforts of internationally celebrated local composer and pianist Michael Blake that New Music SA was reintroduced to the world-stage in 2000. Since then, there have been seven musically invigorating Indabas held in Grahamstown, where Blake was then established; having relocated to UNISA, the Indaba loyally followed. It must be mentioned, however, that the New Music Indaba is not linked to any one academic institution, and indeed invites and accommodates students of music and composers from all national universities and schools. Most importantly, these Indabas are open to the public, and is highly recommended for all lovers of music, and, in my opinion, all lovers of art in whichever form.
The 2007 Indaba kicked off on Wednesday 10 October with a composer’s forum. Presentations on aspects of composition and arrangement were given by Paul Hanmer, who spoke of stylistic crossover and picked up the theme of this year’s Indaba (Ínstrumental voices) by exploring the transition from vocal to instrumental composition citing two of his own compositions; Vevek Ram , acclaimed local sitarist, who discussed the problems of translating Classical Indian Music into scores for large instrumental ensembles, as well as exploring solutions citing works by Phillip Glass and developments in Bollywood soundtracking as examples. The last presentation was given by the very animated Robert Maxim, internationally-acclaimed conductor of 35 yrs standing, who has resided in SA for the last 13 yrs and fallen in love with its traditional musical cultures; Mr Maxim focussed on his contributions in arranging Mzilikhazi Khumalo’s (whom he names ‘’Africa’s Beethoven'’) ‘Ushaka’ for classical performance, an arduous process, apparently, to argue that any successful marriage between disparate musical cultures, and especially translation of works from one idiom into the other, requires of the arranger to ‘’leave his ego at the door”. He also stressed that such endeavours are doomed from the outset unless the arranger understands the cultural world behind the source material completely before translating it (in his case, arranging it for classical orchestra).
Next was to be the debut of the daily audio/video installations ‘Reverie’ (Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake), and ‘The Collision project’ (Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday), but Eskom intervened. Fortunately Dr Blake was on hand with his laptop, so everyone huddled closer for a more modest screening. After watching and listening to ‘Reverie’ the room was ahush, it seemed everyone had been touched by its elegiac beauty. During the discussion that followed, both collaborators being present, Kaganof suggested that the premiere was enhanced by the concentration and physical intimacy required by the smaller screen and lower volume, leading to an atmosphere he likened to being in a sacred space. This led to an interesting debate concerning the nature, and place, of the sacred in art. Several people were disappointed to hear that the piece was not to be included on Michael Blake’s forthcoming piano works cd collection, to which Kaganof countered that perhaps making the work available to consumerism stripped it of the concentrated appreciation that it enjoyed that day - that the value of art is perhaps heightened when it has to be sought out. In response to Kaganof’s temple/sacred space perspective, Paul Hanmer asked why the temple couldn’t just be taken to the masses. Due to the more detailed nature of ‘The Collision project’, the less-than-optimal audio and visuals detracted was felt to detract from it so it was shelved for the following day; my experience of both pieces will then follow below.
Wednesday was concluded by the virtuoso solo-marimba performance of Magda De Vries, an astonishing performance that took in works from the East, through Africa, and to the West. in between performances Magda shared her thoughts on the compositions, and why they were selected.
Thursday kicked off with a bang, involving as it did the internationally-acclaimed British chamber group, The Schubert Ensemble, who led that morning’s workshop. These workshops lie at the very heart of the New Music Indaba, and its goals. The premiering of exciting new compositions (both local and international), experiments in and between idioms of music, and fantastic performances by local and international artists are wonderful in themselves - but the chief aim of these Indabas is to facilitate an open exchange between established and up-and-coming composers and musicians, creating a fertile arena for new ideas (and many a collaboration has been sparked at these very events); but even more importantly - giving students of music the incredible opportunity of hearing their music played by world-renowned musicians and ensembles; having their work discussed and explored first-hand; and even getting the chance to collaborate live. This, of course, is an unsurpassable learning opportunity.
The Schubert Ensemble kicked off the workshop by running through some of Judith Weir’s compositions; these compositions were shown to be relatively simply arranged in composition, based on different folk musics, and beautiful. The Ensemble would play interesting segments of compositions and share their individual views on aspects of them and invite the audience (consisting mostly of composers and music students), to join in analysing and appreciating them. Next the Ensemble played student-composer Joseph Abe’s ‘Extracts from the Jungle’, an interesting piece which seemed to combine oriental and African influences (the composition in its entirety would later be incorporated into their national concerts around SA) - what followed was an in-depth interaction with the composer, where the Ensemble members expressed what they enjoyed in the composition, invited Abe to make suggestions regarding the execution, and pointed out areas that might benefit from alternative approaches. The Schubert Ensemble are clearly at ease with and adept at facilitating interaction with their audience, creating a laidback atmosphere of give-and-take regarding opinions on the music performed.
The next local composition explored was Paul Hanmer’s ‘Piano Quartet’. The previous evening I had an interesting conversation with Mr Hanmer about the differences between so-called Jazz and so-called Classical Music; myself having always wondered what improvising Jazz muso’s think of the more formal, static approach of Classical.. Mr Hanmer surprised me by pointing out that to him the two disciplines shared more similarities than they bore differences; the points he made came up again during the discussion of his piece. Hanmer’s ‘Piano Quartet’ was immediately recognisable as his, the piano playing that contemplative melodious rhythm so unique to his music, and being very much the central instrument. During the discussion that followed, and after admitting to loving the piece, the Ensemble focused on segments of Mr Hanmer’s score which would have benefited with more detailed information (regarding eg. the tempo of a segment etc). It is here that Mr Hanmer’s points the previous evening came to mind again. With the exception of ridiculously over-notated scores which define exactly in which way the composer desires the piece executed (the Ensemble cites Ionesco as an example of this kind of tyrannical scoring), most scores inevitably have segments that require interpretation on the musician’s behalf, allowing the piece subtle differences in execution by different groups/solo musicians.. this, you could, say, is Classical improvisation. A great lesson to all the composers present was that one has to achieve balance between allowing for interpretation (which the Ensemble feel gives a composition air to breathe), and ‘under’-scoring, where too little interpretation could lead to a performance not intended by the composer: An unintentionally ‘wrong’ performance due to too little information in the score.
Next on Thursday’s menu was an opportunity for outsiders to glimpse the inner workings of New Music SA by attending their Planning Forum. Naturally the forum was concerned with exploring ideas that would enhance the annual Indaba events. The shift from it’s six-year stint situated in Rhodes during the Grahamstown Fest had significant effects on the Indaba. Dr Blake explained that the move had both pros and cons; while there was a significant drop in funding (they had relatively big sponsorship in Rhodes, being associated with the National Arts Festival), the shift isolated the Indabas as events in their own right, not one spectacle amongst hundreds attended by half-interested passers by. In its new manifestation the Indaba is more intimate, something which benefits both the composers and the public attending - everyone who drops by does so out of passionate interest, which concentrates the interactive quality of the Indabas. Paul Hanmer instigated a discussion regarding potential publication of commissioned compositions, something which would allow given compositions a life outside of the Indabas, and potentially lead to wider recognition for composers. The speaker revealed how, outside of web-publication, which would be open-access (and therefore preclude potential financial benefits to the composer), the prospect was highly unlikely.. he cited major international publishers as surviving purely thanks to one or two compositions that have become Classical ‘hits’ (appear in ads and are concert-favourites). A visiting composer stressed that before looking to the future and its possibilities the forum should focus on a critical inspection of whether the workshop aspect is as successful as it can be, it being the heart of the Indaba. This was agreed on, and another student composer’s complaint/suggestion was duly noted and addressed - he felt that due to lack of schooling many visiting, and even invited, composers struggle to follow the terminology taken for granted during workshops; it was agreed that future Indabas would feature more intermediation to solve this (benefiting the public as well). It was also suggested that by printing biopics of student/visiting composers and players alongside those of the featured composers and musicians would facilitate more intimacy and promote conversation between all. In response to a suggestion that the Indabas might benefit financially if they were officially associated with, and therefore backed by, UNISA, Dr Blake explained that by tying them down to one institution would not be beneficial, mentioning that he would love to see the event move from region to region every few years, thereby drawing attention to composers and trends previously unexplored.
Friday was definitely the highlight of the 2007 Indaba. The day kicked off in a detour to the University of Pretoria, which hosted the 85th birthday concert of local composer Stefans Grove segment of the Indaba. The celebration took the shape of a solo piano recital by the internationally famed Jill Richards, which included Grove’s ‘Five Glimpses’ composition along with Stockhausen and the Beatles! The concert was followed by a ‘masterclass’, where selected student and visiting composers had their works performed by Ms. Richards, and could engage with her on their pieces. The importance of careful notation resurfaced, and became the central topic during the session. A light-hearted moment came after an as-yet-incomplete piece by Mr Hanmer was performed. Prior to playing the piece, Ms. Richards kindly invited Mr. Hanmer to play it himself, which he politely declined; afterwards, everyone having applauded the complex beauty of the piece, she enquired as to how the composer would play a specific section that had challenged her, he admitted that he wasn’t sure - “I can’t play it (this piece)!” This was touched on again later when a student composer enquired of Ms. Richards her opinion on composers who score pieces outside of their capacity to play, to which she quipped that to compose only within your capacity was like “.. having a Ferrari and only driving it to the cafe’! ”
Back at UNISA, I attended the ‘full-scale’ screening of the audio/visual installations. ‘The Collision Project’ was very interesting. A collaboration between composer Clare Loveday (present) and artist Gerhard Marx, the collaboration, she said, was sparked by an idea he had been hawking from composer to composer, all declining due to its abstract, way-out nature; but for the same reasons, she felt compelled to take the challenge. The piece might be described as an attempt to give reminiscent voice to the wrecked carcass of a car; indeed, in the program notes the ‘authors’ call the piece ‘forensic music’. The broken body of the car is used to vibrate the strings of cello and violin fragments attached to it - and so, symbolically, release the car’s memories. The piece kicks off with three persons (the ‘players’) climbing into the wreck and proceeding, through soft, broken streams of whispering, to evoke the sound of a space full of criss-crossing people and conversation - the everyday hustle bustle of human life. After this the three climb out and explore/invoke the car’s past by percussively tapping it and plucking and bowing said cello and violin strings, creating an eerie, haunted atmosphere of moans and regret. The piece concludes with the players repeating the whispering interior section, before fading out with plaintively bowing cello strings. Interestingly, during the couple of minutes witnessed during the small-screen attempt two days prior, the piece seemed to benefit by the ill-defined visuals, consisting of blurs moving around a car; now the well-defined players distract the viewer’s attention from the car, in so doing, removing its voice by revealing the mechanisation..
‘Reverie’ (created in 2003) marks the first of many later collaborations between director/writer/artist Aryan Kaganof and much-lauded composer/pianist Michael Blake (whom you’ve met several times during the course of this article). A fascinating concept, and sublimely executed, the collaboration is based around a solo-piano piece composed by Blake in the mid-Nineties. The concept for their project was, in a sense, a direct inversion of the tradition movie soundtrack audio-visual dynamic. Whereas in traditional soundtracking the music exists to highlight, amplify or contradict the psychological aspects of a movie, to operate as a kind of meta-text to the film; in ‘reverie’ the focus is the music, with the visuals serving to compliment the atmosphere of the piece through subtle shifts of tension and harmony. Usually when visuals are created to support music, as in Veejaying (where ‘visual dj’s create visuals to accompany songs at electronic dance events and parties), the approach is overtly ‘literal’, or symmetrical, with the visuals merely manipulated to match the rhythm of the music. Here Kaganof has succeeded in making a visual track that embodies all the subtleties of a sophisticated score in its relation to the central piece, here the music. The piece itself is a softly repetitive, simplistically and gently beautiful composition; interestingly, the Shona and San vocals on which the piano melodies are based suggest Oriental influence, which might have influenced Kaganof’s idea for the source-material of his visuals, the mood of the piece, a kind of beautiful, slightly melancholic limbo, certainly did. His source-material is footage of citizens of Tokyo strolling through one of the city’s beloved parks; he describes the frenetic pace of day-to-day Tokyo as “40 times the pace of Joburg..”, which has led to the tradition of Sundays dedicated to languid strolling in these peaceful parks, a literal unwinding. The figures in the camera shots have been manipulated into soft, spilling splotches of form moving to the mood of, as opposed to the rhythm of, Dr Blake’s composition; formal quality of this visual manipulation led one of the viewers to liken it to Impressionism in painting. Certainly the visuals do suggest a slow-spilling painting.
Friday evening was sounded out in an almost direct inversion of ‘Reverie’s limbo - a colourfully explosive performance by Marc Dube and his Minimal Thing ensemble. Mr Dube and his student ensemble were here to introduce us to Soundpainting, a fascinating form of what might be called ‘improvising improvisation’, based on several hand- and body-signals used by a conductor to.. err.. conduct his ensemble’s improvisation. Confusing no? yes. Different from Classical conducting in that there are no scores to be strictly followed note-for-note; the ’score’ instead consists of these signals which determine who plays, and suggests the rhythm and other stylistic aspects of the playing, while allowing the musicians to improvise within these constraints. What is wonderful about the Soundpainting approach, as presented by Dube’s Minimal Thing, is its sheer humour and exuberance. The unexpected stop-and-burst format creates suspense that lends itself to the rhythms of comedy; and its disciplined-freedom, with the accent very much on fun and surprise, is joy-inducing to the audience, and very obviously highly enjoyable for the musicians.
A wonderful conclusion to yet another fantastic, if small-scale Indaba. My only complaint regarding the New Music Indaba is that it is so unknown in public circles, for which the lack of advertising is mostly to blame. The Indabas unfailingly brim with fascinating, exciting music and explorations between forms of music, which always lead to new musical experiences - A must for anyone who loves music!
Another side-project of New Music SA is the bi-annual Unyazi Electronic Music and Art Symposium, which is just as, if not even more, lively and stimulating than the more Classically oriented Indabas. The next Unyazi is due to take place in Cape Town in March 2008
(Background on the ISCM and New Music SA provided by the ‘New Music SA Bulletin’)
Danger!:Matches!:Unyazi!!
While the rest of Capetonia are stumbling and cursing around in Eskom’s continuing festival of ‘But is it Light?’, my curiously bopping smile joins several dozen other smiles and frowns and indecisively dancing (twitching?) limbs in celebration of a very different species of Dark. Righard Kapp (local fretboard-astronaut and member of Buckfever Underground) is busy coaxing curiouser and curiouser notes and squiggles from the outskirts of his guitar. The guy dancing to my left is now definitely twitching – if delightedly.
‘Unyazi’ is the Zulu term for lightning – that fantastical yellow snake that erupts from beyond to illuminate in crackling branches patterns hid in the dark. Unyazi explodes, always electrically, always in new patterns, always most impressively in the dark. And so does lightning.
Inaugurated in 2005, the Unyazi fests represent the ‘electronic’ branch of New Music SA’s ventures into the promotion and celebration of original contemporary composition. Accent here on ‘original’. Rejoining The International Society For Contemporary Music in 2000, after an Apartheid-Era absence of four decades, New Music SA, led by celebrated local composer and pianist, Michael Blake, kicked off their annual Indabas – celebrations of contemporary Classical and ‘Other’ musics.
Unyazi 2005 was New Music SA’s inaugural exploration into the quantum glints and sonic sleight-of-hand of electronic instrumentation. Congregating at Wits University were such lauded international figures as George Lewis (AACM); the recently-returned Louis Moholo; sometime John Zorn collaborators Lukas Ligetti, Matthew Ostrowski, & Mark Applebaum; and the legendary Halim El-Dabh, one of the pioneers of electronica whose cv includes having worked with Igor Stravinski, Edgard Varese, and John Cage (say no more). Joining them were ao. local luminaries Zim Ngqawana, Warrick Sony (Kalahari Surfers), James Webb and Jonathan Crossley.
Unyazi 2005 was a revelation of sound. Warrick Sony created a jam-session between Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the avant-garde of Stockhausen (and a fish-eagle); Matthew Ostrowski made Aphex Twin sound elementary with his endlessly layered oceans of sound, improvised live with his portable electro-orchestra; French Canadian Maxime Rioux introduced his automaton, a mutated ensemble of African, Classical, and ‘found’ instruments which plays, and conducts!, itself.
Yes, yes – Unyazi 2008 hasn’t kicked off yet (I was taking a jump to the left..). Curated by James Webb, local aural provocateur; this year’s Unyazi is themed “Fear of the Known: Extreme listening”, and takes place at the University of Cape Town (March 12), University of Stellenbosch (March 14 & 15), and then takes a jump to the right to Wits (March 16). In addition to performances, Unyazi is structured to facilitate discussion between artists (and attendees), featuring various workshops and lectures. So if you’re working on the Next ‘Richard D James Album’; obsessively collect rare WARP vinyls; have ever been involved in a heated Autechre vs. Aphex Twin discussion; or get all giddy when whispers of the latest Waddy or Wormstorm album do the rounds – get your digital ass down to catch Unyazi illuminating unexplored skies of sound.
In addition to Mr Kapp, artists confirmed include James’s Sey and Webb, Warrick Sony, USA’s Brandon LaBelle, the Kemus Ensemble, European noise outfit Sudden Infant, Theo Herbst, POW, Ulrich Susse, Asmus Tietchens and various other odd wonders.
Lights down, ears up!
Love may be blind
But orgasms have eyes all over the show
Blinking wetly and hungrily
All simultaneous
And very loudly
Painting the air with sound
‘Reverie’ (created in 2003) marks the first of many later collaborations between director/writer/artist Aryan Kaganof and much-lauded composer/pianist Michael Blake. A fascinating concept, and sublimely executed, the collaboration is based around a solo-piano piece composed by Blake in the mid-Nineties. The concept for their project was, in a sense, a direct inversion of the tradition movie soundtrack audio-visual dynamic. Whereas in traditional soundtracking the music exists to highlight, amplify or contradict the psychological aspects of a movie, to operate as a kind of meta-text to the film; in ‘reverie’ the focus is the music, with the visuals serving to compliment the atmosphere of the piece through subtle shifts of tension and harmony.
Usually when visuals are created to support music, as in Veejaying (where ‘visual dj’s create visuals to accompany songs at electronic dance events and parties), the approach is overtly ‘literal’, or symmetrical, with the visuals merely manipulated to match the rhythm of the music. Here Kaganof has succeeded in making a visual track that embodies all the subtleties of a sophisticated score in its relation to the central piece, here the music. The piece itself is a softly repetitive, simplistically and gently beautiful composition; interestingly, the Shona and San vocals on which the piano melodies are based suggest Oriental influence, which might have influenced Kaganof’s idea for the source-material of his visuals, the mood of the piece, a kind of beautiful, slightly melancholic limbo, certainly did.
His source-material is footage he shot in 2004 of citizens of Jeonju, South Korea, strolling through one of the city’s beloved parks; he describes the frenetic pace of day-to-day Jeonju as “40 times the pace of Joburg..”, which has led to the tradition of Sundays dedicated to languid strolling in these peaceful parks, a literal unwinding. The figures in the camera shots have been manipulated into soft, spilling splotches of form moving to the mood of, as opposed to the rhythm of, Dr Blake’s composition; formal quality of this visual manipulation led one of the viewers to liken it to Impressionism in painting. Certainly the visuals do suggest a slow-spilling painting.
mick raubenheimer
Sometimes I piss on plants
so as to destroy them
Sometimes I piss on plants
so as to enrich them
The virile, robust water
that runs through you
in
the ecstatic
of the knowledge
of good
and evil
also runs
in hid whispers
through that
infinitely softer
water
called Air
and it sings
always
ever
new songs
fresh twists
Together we vibrate
Amen
It was a highly muscular beast; as members of its species tended to be. But disproportionately fat, in juxtaposition with the more modest frame out of which it hung, or sprang, as the case may be. Its robust mirth was of a kind that sent a flutter through the hearts of those females who glanced upon it; double-take. Its owner recalled fondly the one whom had toyed with these flutters once, glancing at it in a series of winking winks, eyelids flitting in flexing, snaking eyelids-solo. When he grabbed her mock-sternly and flopped her around onto gasping belly she was still winking wildly until he opened her eyes (they had never known they could open this wide), with single, vain, heart-rending thrust. Applied himself to this nether heart. Playing Lepidopterist with his craning, gulping net while on the other end of her writhing map her face narrated the ecstatic horror.
Die wereld op die dak.
When Gert got to the top of his mountain he found a bit of veld, enclosed but neglected. But or and. This was the place. Gert seeked out the stooping Gert-sized gash in the fence and struggled through. When Gert got to where he reckoned the middle was he fell himself. Packed out his shit. Double-checked. Grinned slow, Gert-stylee (broken upward grimace). No eight slices. Gert took a nap in the wide afternoon.
In his dream Gert was looking at Ons Ander, and he was all of them, that younger him, when his homeless system was still fresh and epic in its capacity for pain. When it was still nervous.
In his dream Kerel ran straight at him from far but he was Xhosa the dog that left him and something smelled like the first time he’d smelt pussy and it was the newest scent in the world and he couldn’t relate it to anything and Kerel was running faster and his finger was pressing his eyeball and everything waaaahhhrped sloooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO/
and he was Xhosa wagging his tail and barking at Gert crackedly mumbling in his sleep and the bright yellow helicopter filled the sky with its black stripes and black backwards-whirring choppers and Kerel pushed his finger into Gert’s eye and said WuuuuuuUUUUUUHHHHRR RRRH.RRRHHH.RRRRRRRRRHRHRHRH
On the third day Gert decided that he liked his new family. They weren’t losers, they were Others, like him. And he.. belonged. With them. They were Afrikaners like him, except Sarah, but she tried. And other things exempted her. Life on the streets wasn’t good for the libido, so Sarah didn’t exactly suffer as the communal vrou, and despite Gert’s vigour (a decrepit combination of being young to the streets and basically sex-starved, this one’s for you Maria!), she had almost experienced sensual pleasure with him. “Ons.” Kerel introduced, “’s ‘Ons Ander’. Ohs isie fokn ‘ande rouens’ mrons is. Ons. Saam. Ne oue n vrou?” Some of them smiled at Gert. “So wat bring jou strate toe Gertjie?”, Sampie stated. To indicate to Sampie that he was only of consequence when he bade it so, and because he knew Gert wouldn’t answer, not yet, Kerel continued to explain to Gert the virtues of the fam. Introduced everyone. “Sarah sljou hand skud wanhr j beetrvoel. VoEl voel huh!” Sarah pulled her face into a smile.
Two years Gert walked as one of the Ons Ander. It shaped him. On the whole it wasn’t a nightmare. But Gert’s central debt to the family was that they had crucially readied him, shaped him toward Stump. By the time Gert left the Ons Ander he was ready to outgrow the last flashes of pain reality had to offer; he was ready to send his trusty little messenger, so much abused, so blatantly disrespected, to its rightful deathbed. And there the little messenger would linger for the next couple of years, weakly lifting a finger now and then, untimely and rather pointlessly. Gert graduated from the family, ready to become that rare, mythic creature; the uber-beggar.
Some of you may have bumped into the uber-beggar, seen his eternally huddled sillouette; flinched unknowingly as you squeamed past his unquenchable rants. Their hammered punctuation of schizophrenic, alien cussing, too ancient or foul to fit language. Few will recognise the uber-beggar for what he is. In the dull eyes of everyman the uber-beggar is just another rambling bum. Nog ‘n vrot fokken hand uitgesteek. Fuck off I’m not giving you any money. But the uber-beggar never sticks out his hand. Is no beggar. The uber-beggar never asks for money; and frowns in distant recollection if successfully handed the meaningless metal and paper. The uber-beggar hardly eats; when he does it’s only through a faintest flicker of habit. He lives off fire and smoke and limps or hobbles or crawls the cold, feelingless galaxy he invents around him. For the most part the uber-beggar sees through the meaningless mingle of passersby; when they successfully intrude into his space they are The Curse.
Up there, on his mountain, Gert, five long years after his self-exile from the Ons Ander, was approaching the final layer of becoming. Soon he and the English lady would speak again, on equal footing, with equal registers this time. Converse in tongues. Cold, feelingless tongues.
Gert was dreaming his new form now, sizing it up in the now solemn dream air. A dassie hopped onto Gert’s sleeping body, wriggled its nose, and was off again into the browns.
***
The spilling palace.
Cats take their time adjusting to the new places their Slow Ones haul them off to, so unceremoniously, so inconsiderately. More often than not, cats adjust themselves right out of there. You had your chance schmuck. I’m no dog on a leash. But two days after being let out of their basket-of-enclosure, that crude trap with its ominous rumbling and its tightening atmosphere, Pork and Peach were sprawling around like royalty.
This is more like it. The Slow One had got it right this time. The inside was bigger, and,
when on the third day they were cautiously (see him hover skittishly) introduced to the outside, the outside was practically spilling in all directions. Never had so many scents and smells winked at Pork. They winked from afar and they winked from right up close. Pork could hardly believe his luck. Por-ki’d this way; ki-pie’d that. Giddy snout all but bounding off in all-pursuit.
Peach calmly licked herself. Front paws, pause; fore-limbs, neutral scan; rump and tummy, Swish. Peach felt her Slow One’s eyes. It took considerable effort to remain aloof and vague with the tumult of avian song and faint far-off scurrying and scent and swirling and swirling into her being. Peach looked up at her Slow One. Blinked casually. “And..?”, her eyes seemed to say. Pork hopped towards a bee.
That afternoon their Slow One let them out again. Peach slinked off, all of her perfection trembling beneath that furred composure (that night Peach would introduce herself to two new species). Pork hopped and twirled drunkenly about. Scratching and sniffing; biting and smelling. Pork looked back at his Slow One with a face like an exclamation-mark. The latter beamed back, chin in palm.
***
Gert Groetrek en die fokken dose - Deel veertien.
Gert en die Ons Ander.
Gert spent the day after his adoption spying on these losers, while the distinction still had merit. He did this under the guise of recuperating; while he recuperated.
Gert had a cracked jaw; broken left brow; a more appropriate nose; several virile cuts and gauges; a tepid jungle of bruises; and a freshly relocated shoulder. The latter was thanks to Kerel; who took pains (ah cruel language!) to remind him of this for the next two years. First you give and then you take. “Jy smos mefokn skouhr. Mop tleen. Gert? Oft j fokkn vgeet .” Highly skilled, those Teens. Every now and then they’d round up the little moulding family. Just for kicks. And punches. Never fucked them up too much. Like Prometheus’ eagle, they left behind just enough to regenerate; left alone just long enough to remember. Kids these days.
Only Kerel knew this (Sampie suspected it), but the existence of the little family was all but completely indebted to the Teens (Bra was the only member not born of teen violence). And even Kerel was only subliminally aware of this pathetic irony.
The family was born on the day that Kerel saw what was left of Sampie. Kerel had been walking the streets solo for about five months when the Teens tackled him laag. They poesed him fucked up. It was only through the cruelty of Fate’s dice that he survived.
Ou Kerel never quite walked the same again; never quite spoke the same. Giggling babies scared the shit out of him now. Five weeks after that little atomic explosion, still weak with fallout, Kerel saw the Teens doing their Haka on some other unluckiest creature. Kerel did his best I’m-just-a-patch-of-grass impersonation; while time shrieked in his ears.
He quietly vomited. Kerel waited behind the tree; swallowing his breath until he heard their Swagger-song jagging off into the faint of distance. Kerel shivered over to Sampie. Tearfully Kerel fixed his shoulder; pissed some of the blood off his face; cradled him until he began to moan, reborn in the gently rocking stink and tears of Kerel. They were Pisbroers from there on in. Yes, Kerel Had told him. And yes, from there on in they Did piss together (indebted, Sampie would knyp until Kerel looked over and nodded solemnly) – their yellows frothing together in intimate, symbolic, and very literal warmth. Next was Sam. Kerel and Sampie, mutually and passionately incensed, and grossly overestimating their new legion of two (possibly three!), actually took the Teens on this time. The little patches that could.
Kerel. Sampie. And Sam. Lay there nursing each other. Platonically.
And then there was poor Sarah. Only her soul had been broken. Her poor soul. It was not a pleasant sight. It was a horrific sound. So horrific, in fact, that it had probably saved her. The Swagger-song was hesitant this time, fading faster. The okes took her in. When she’d healed in the realm of physics she became their vrou. Her debt was vast, she felt, and – nodding understandingly – they agreed. Within six months they were seven strong (the Teens were forced to bring guests along now). Only Bra had come in Teen-free, but, perhaps appropriately, soon bummed off. Didn’t quite click like the others. That, and he’d begin to suspect that these teen romps were not, in fact, random. Even though the others never mentioned them. Today Braam is a successful bank-clerk. And, thanks to his stubbornly mysterious past, lays a lot of clerkettes.
Gert doggy-paddled in and out of consciousness on his first day of recovering/spying. They all looked the same; only their voices differed slightly. And the one was definitely
a (paddle paddle..) “Jirre, hys vrot huh..”, “Ja mah hysl weet iktom s’skour trug ‘gee. Anyay, sbdoel. Fokkn room ghad Sampie.” Philosophic quiet.
“Dis beter hoe meer is ons, Ons Ander..”, Sarah ventured apologetically.
That night Kerel limped off; told Sampie to keep watch. Bought himself Kentucky Fried Chicken; didn’t mind the scowls and general disgust. Things were looking up. This new oke was gonna seal the deal. Kerel saved a piece for Sampie; who would be awake when he returned; who would smell the finger licken’ grease.
Things were looking up.
***
Die Dassie in die aand en die koue ster
Two years later Gertjie visited Oom Boet’s farm for the last time; in fact he was sent there, him and his mom. She explained that it was a holiday but he could see in her face, and the sinister climate of his dad’s voice, and in his evasive eyes, that it was not. Sometimes his mom lied. They went for the weekend but came back early Sunday morning, from a rock to a hard place. His dad wasn’t very impressed, and said so loudly while his mom cried and cried. He hadn’t known adults could cry that much, that violently.
The holiday was not a friendly one. The embraces were not glad. Even San-Marie was distant when they arrived. That afternoon, in the mountain, San-Marie showed him her naeltjie for the fourth and last time. She was taller than him now. The sky was melancholy and something about her made him wary. She showed him much else, and made him show her. She was sniffling and beautiful and foreign. At one stage they were both naked in the dry air. Somehow this felt more natural, more real than the alien images she had revealed in cropped frames, the edited amorphous swells and sudden obscure definitions she had pressed his hand against. They had sucked on each other’s tongues, under her direction. It was weird and slimy.
Gertjie and San-Marie were very quiet during the long walk home; the disinterested heat, the estranged hum of Sonbesies. They didn’t speak much that evening, and on Saturday their play was depressed and disjointed. Saturday evening Gertjie went to bed early.
When he woke up it was dark, and his mom wasn’t in the bed next to his; he could feel the absence of her shape. There were muffled voices coming from somewhere in the house.
When Gertjie woke up his mom was snoring lightly in the bed next to him. It was the only sound. Gertjie lay in bed looking at all the strange objects of black and blue in the room; they only came out when the lights were off. Then Gertjie heard something outside, in the mountain. It was his Dassie! His heart beating now, Gertjie slipped out of bed; began the long adventure out of the farmhouse. Halfway out he stopped, his back expertly against the wall, like a Rekkie. Gertjie snuck to San-Marie’s room, slipped in. A ray of moon lit her cheek and she looked herself again. Gertjie kissed her delicately on that moonlit cheek. Then he returned to his mission. Outside the moon was low, the sun drawing near across the cosmic gulf. Gertjie loved the nebular film that coated everything – the grass, even the rocks and sand and stones – like on Jupiter. Jupiter was his favourite planet. Maybe it looked like this on the moon too, the moon was fat yellow but it shone night-blue. That was strange. The Dassie called again. It wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t coming from the mountain anymore. It was nearer! Gertjie frowned when the source began to reveal itself; the Dassie was calling from the maid’s room. Why would the Dassie go to the maid? Sannie said she was dumb coz she couldn’t even speak; just say some names. She looked like a Boesman. She could speak to Dassies, Gertjie decided.
Gertjie crept along the wall of the shack. The Dassie was louder now, then softer, but he couldn’t hear the maid. Then, as alarm-bells fell out of the sky and pushed sideways against his head in underwater panic, he recognised Oom Boet’s voice. Gertjie sat very still. He knew he should run, but what if Oom Boet killed his Dassie! Gertjie inched up to the window. The maid’s door slammed shut and Gertjie dove to the side, lying flatter and flatter.
Gertjie lay very still. Then looked over his shoulder; Oom Boet’s back was rounding the corner of the house. The alarms had wound down to a whistle. Gertjie stood up and brazenly peered through the window. It was just the maid. All was quiet. His Dassie had escaped! Maybe the maid had helped him. Gertjie waited for a long time before he slid back into the house; when he got back to his room he said thanks to Liewe Jesus. Inside his mom wasn’t snoring. Very quietly, like a karate man, Gertjie climbed into bed. He dreamt he was looking at his Dassie, which was singing, and the stars were cold.
The next time Gert saw San-Marie he was married and she had breasts. It was at a funeral. Twelve years had passed. Gert had no idea how to act around her, so for the most part he ignored her. Then, awkwardly stumbling over tact, he whispered (whispered! Into her Ear!):
“Onthou jy my naeltjie?” Her face registered faint, unsurprised disgust. And then she was gone. Gert tried smiling at his wife, who hadn’t noticed. Gert wondered whether she would notice if he fucked another woman ON HER FACE.
They had been married six months.
***
Die Engelse dame en die poeier wat vibreer.
Gert was about halfway up the mountain. Sitting. He had just shouted something he couldn’t remember – and quite loudly, by the sound of it. Gert no longer ’sat’ down, exactly; sitting down was way more strenuous than standing up. Gert fell down. Simpler. Quicker. To the point. What was she doing here, the English lady? He had seen her, and she had seen him, before moving off with that ladylike limp of hers. She was far from her territory, her ladylike lanes with their genteel trees; where the residents greeted her mornings, where some offered her tea and sandwiches. Where she told them about the powder from above, and what it was doing now. Where she predicted before she forgot.
The Blacks have never bothered her, ‘Africans’, she called them. “Africans my gat EK’S Fokn Afrikaans vrou.”, he had explained years back, when they were on speaking terms; after the Event, after he’d left the others. “Hulle. Is Kaffers. Verstaan?”, Gert explained patiently, “‘n Kaffer is ‘n Kaffer. Nie ‘n Effriken nie.” She smiled serenely, went on about the cosmic powder vibrating strangely; said it was coming. They never even stole from her, the Blacks!
“Wat fok?” Gert quizzed himself. Naturally he didn’t approach her, kept his stump going. Listened to the snatches. Yelled something. Then he was sitting. “Ek’s deurmekaar Xhosa. Maar ek’s deurmekaarder.” A car rode slowly by, heading down in its shimmer of money. The driver didn’t notice Gert sitting there on the curb, it was simply too incongruent (this was Upper Arcadia). That kak they call music shouting and leaping from it. Gert fucken hates music. “Sag isit ‘n muskiet. Hard isit ‘n piel in jou fokn gesig. ‘n Fokken piel. Vat dit weg.”
Gert had only been raped once in his seven years on the streets; by ‘n White oke nogal. Thankfully the guy was poesing him over the head with something all the while, which was kind of diverting. But not enough. Gert had never entertained the possibility of losing his virginity again. Not that one. Not that way. Gert didn’t speak to anyone for a month or so after that; and about a week into his silence he nearly beat someone to death, for guessing and venturing advise. After that everyone knew what had happened. Ou Gert het nie Sit-siekte nie. Nee meneer.
Gert sat long and hard. And then he started getting up.
The English lady had no name. It wasn’t that her memory had gone. It was just that her name was her own; had nothing to do with anybody else. No-one dared assign her one, sensing not to. Sensing that no name would stick to her anyway, but her own, which was hers. The English lady, for one of the first times in eight years, was outside of her home. For the first time of her own accord. She had been evicted twice before, years back, by the police, who were trying to safeguard one of the last untainted skirts of Sunnyside. Keep it free of the poor. And the lost. And the violent. But several residents eventually ushered her back; feeling a foreign guilt welling in their chests. This woman was not a beggar, and this was her home, it explained to them. She belongs more than you do.
Soon after that the police let her be; as did the bum collective, and the odd bum solo. As, cryptically, did the gangs and other criminals.
The English lady was heeding the powder from above; it had explained to her that, finally, the time had come. Showed her where to go. And so the English lady felt no regret, no loss at leaving home. And there, in Upper Arcadia, moving ghostly between the embassies and BMW’s and conservative mansions, the powder showed her Gert Groetrek hobbling by; half a block away. It whispered into her ear, and the English lady moved on, nodding.
***
That scene in Alexander
Pork por-ki-pies into the lounge. Following the ripples. Takes up his seat. Peach is already up to her whiskers in fun. She’s picked insect today, it seems. Quite a vigorous fellow too. Up it goes again, and up she goes, paws practically clapping in the eternal recurrence of her kittenish delight. After a brief romance across the tumbling rug (the only Persian Peach condoned in her presence), the little mouse that could paused to take stock. Something was very wrong here. And it was beating hugely in its little cavity. And symmetrically! The little mouse that could realised that it was still very much alive. Everything inside the little mouse that could was well-versed in the knowledge that this was highly improbable. It should have long succumbed to the Maw of Darkness. All of its dreams – her intransigent visitations, her inverse echoes – had concluded much more economically. The little mouse that could twitched its whiskers. Maybe.. just maybe it really could! The mouse made an altogether impressive dash for the garden door, where Peach lay waiting.
Pork glances over his shoulder. Their Slow One was coming. Pork’s tummy smiled happily. The little mouse that could blinks up at Peach, who gives it a friendly swipe. Peach swishes excitedly when the front door opens and the Slow One walks in.
A careful study of Peach’s romps with her various short-lived toys, reveals her to be an accomplished and highly imaginative choreographer, who excels in what may be called instant composition. Her playthings were for the most part mere pawns, deftly manipulated, and unaware of their own contribution to Peach’s skilled improvisations.
But there was a secret behind Peach’s experiments with the limits of organic continuity; one that only her Slow One had begun to sense. Peach was a direct, self-conscious contributor to a healthier future for our rodent and feathered friends. Peach, in her genius, was actually training her toys; knowing that the longer they last, the more they learn. The more fun their future selves would be. Peach knew that the evolutionary learning-curve communicates, and communicates perhaps most crucially, beyond the salient channels of the reproductive. And so, patiently, and guided by love, Peach was training the Future.
“PeeaHch..!” Peach loved that sound. Her Slow One’s eyes glinted approvingly, dotingly. “RRRrrrrrrrrrrHHHHHHRRRRR .”, he went on, in that embarrassingly crude attempt to mimic the nestle-texture of Purr (Peach didn’t mind, he was only human after all); her inner acoustica responded automatically.
Pork’s eyes swooned as his Slow One’s fingers led jagged ripples down his spine. Blinked wetly up at him. The Slow One considered the game. The mouse was pretty worn down but still looking vital, eyes flashing. Its humble genome was blinking several times a second, processing information at desperate velocities. After another acrobatic stint with Peach-the-Juggler, the little mouse that could got up, turned to face its nemesis, little eyes working. And then the little mouse did something that only dim legends had done in ages too far back for domestic currency to recall. The little mouse reared up, on its hind legs, its brave little paws defiantly lifted; its eyes roaring black specks. Like that horse in that scene in Alexander. The room was dumbstruck. If squeaking hadn’t been so intrinsically diminutive, the little mouse would have squeaked. Pork looked on, rapt. Peach was infinitely less impressed. Took the opportunity to stretch. Cleaned her left paw. Sent the little mouse that could twirling up, up, up. Peach considered the alarm in her Slow One’s eyes. Silly Romantic.
And then the little mouse that could was no more. In littler and littler bits. The room looked on in silence. The Slow One stepped out for a cigarette. Pork yawned.
***
Hierrie strate is gevaarlik.
“Goeie KAKK!!” Gert was upset. Tore through his useless bed, which bled and burst in green and brown. Gert knew he wouldn’t find it. The kaffers had stolen it; he had seen a group of them an hour before he had found what he thought was a safe, tucked-away bush. “Fokken Kaffers!” He kept ripping and snapping the innocent, sentenced bush; there being nothing more substantial through which to convey his disappointment. When his hands were tingling with blood and sap, Gert stopped. Breathed for a while.
Then he saw them, three of them, walking obliviously (”Kak fokken kaffer leuenaars..”) on the other side of the cement canal. He watched them, trembling and hating, until they were gone. “Wat nou Gert? Wat maak ons nou?”
“Petrus se vrou doen dit. Michael se fokken vrou doen dit. ALMAL se vrouens doen dit!”
“Nee, Gert.” Gert had experienced fellatio only twice in his thirty years, unconsummated (Gert didn’t know that fellatio, like sex, had a very vivid conclusion; but let’s not distress him more.) And now his wife was ruling that his future would be strictly missionary. Gert realised that anger was not working. “Maar Maria, Skat, dis. Dis normaal, mense praat net nie daaroor nie.” “Daar is ‘n rede hoekom daar nie oor gepraat word nie, Gert.” Silence. “Ek sal dit nooit doen nie.” She looked at him. “Nooit.” The conversation was over. “Maria, dis ‘n normale ding tussen man en vrou! En jy. Is my vrou.” She was no longer listening and Gert knew this.
It was lunch-time, they were sitting in the bar on Vermeulen. “Hell yeah!! I grab mine by the hair when she does it, to help her along!” Die manne lag hard, as did Gert, who, looking for a blend-in, shouts, “Fok Ja!” “En jy Gert, hou jy daarvan om hulle in die gesig te pomp? Of staan jy stil!” “Ek laat myne die werk doen”, said Petrus, “Ek werk hard genoeg.” Howls of laughter. Gert’s eyes were streaming, he was missing out big time. “The other day,” Michael interrupted, always looking for ways to reclaim the centre, “she screamed at me for coming in her eye. Had to give her a smack.” General assent, a hesitant giggle. “Then I Really ‘pomped’ her!” And so it went. Gert made a mental note to introduce this new vista to Maria. Somewhat dampeningly, he realised she would never let him grab her hair. What can you do? Sometimes one must compromise to close the deal.
This was Gert’s last day of walking the streets alone; he would not be solo again for the next two years. This was Gert’s chance to invent his Street-reality, infuse it with His myths, rescribe everything and everyone. But Gert was just nog ‘n ou, and imagination was for children, who were too dumb to Know. Gert walked around for a couple of hours, “Ek speckie scene ouens”, Gert found this light-hearted throwback depressing, so he shut up while he walked around his new home, his new commune, and wondered how many people knew he was a bum. Gert was certain he didn’t look it yet, he was young and strong. And intelligent! Gert could do whatever he wanted, he knew, but he decided to go away. The problem with walking around like this is that if you sat down everyone would see you were a bum. So he kept walking. Then Gert got mugged by a grobble of teens. It was a pretty sterile mugging (he didn’t have anything), but successfully violent, successfully swift. Gert stood and breathed for a while. So, Gert Didn’t look like a bum. Then he chased after them.
Oops.
When Gert regained consciousness his body said to him what it had been trying to say for the last hour, while he was chilling, while he was taking it easy; a long, complicated Ow. Gert’s little messenger was doing the triathlon, trying to gauze the situations, find all the relevant spots, correctly colour and shape the various Ow’s. Gert’s consciousness didn’t understand where it was, just that it was. Gert’s consciousness was philosophically sincere. “whaaha-isjjj-nhhhhmbbbbb”, someone said, Gert’s consciousness told him, frowning. “WhHHEI!!” Gert’s pain was doing bright cartwheels, vigorous headstands; someone was shaking him, un-gently. “Hy! Wat’s jou NAAM Boet?” If Gert could he would pick up a brick and get to work on this guy’s teeth. And then cut him up into tiny pieces. And then douse those little nuggets in gasoline. Go bum some matches. Instead, he said, “uhhuuuhuhaHUhhuuu!!” This fashioned considerable pain.
The gross little smudged family squatting around him, were, in fact, bums. They were discussing whether or not Gert was going to live. Their little haikus prefigured what would, years later, become his permanent slow-then-fast carousel of unwanted, and, later still, unheeded spectral companions. With their random literature.
“Nee stront, man, hy’s jonk.” Someone seemed to try to shout at him. “Kom Kerel, lat hom le, fok hy’t fokol.”, someone else seemed to whisper to him. This went on for what seemed like days, which was quite convenient, his little messenger was still cataloguing, still categorising, still swearing and stumbling and standing up and falling and generally running around headless.
Twenty minutes later Gert, despite his garbled protests, was up, propped alarmingly
(”Christ what are you DOING!!? Don’t move him put him DOWN!!”, the missing paramedic
offers) by his adoptive family of patched crutches. “Broer. Jy’s nou deel van ons. Kom. Kom”, Kerel coughed as Gert trickled back into absence. Kerel had dreamt of Gert the night before; Gert and his R453,30. He had dreamt this.
***
Hansie Slim
Of:
Die tyd-kompleks
Metaphysics is fictional. And all fictional narratives afford a God’s-eye-view. A slow one, initially brimming with mute distortion, with things left not yet said (not yet known, to the young waking gods of design). This is the trajectory of all creation. And of tragedy. And of all Man’s joys and woe. The orgasms come at the end. Revelations. First we go and then we come. And off we go again, aiming for the next vista, next vibration. Gert only heard “end”, and “off”, and “God”. Gert had long resigned himself to these snatched voices; taunting, coaxing, musing, hugging in the vast tattered pages of his mind, his extra-cranial expanse; twirling in those Higher winds. This redeemed Gert from Logic, with its polite wife and DSTV and two grinning kids; with its money and responsibilities and blowjobs in the car (its secretary). It’s fucken ‘cellphone’. A rare Eureka - a brown, sullen eureka - came to Gert then, as he was climbing through upper Suburbia, the splashing lawns and racist Rottweilers (snobist, also), up his mountain: “FOK LOGIKA!!” God. End. Off.
Gertjie, unfortunately, didn’t see his Dassie again, nor its twin. He did manage to hit a bird; but it fluttered away, then flew, up away into the mountain’s dust-heavens. Into the browns. Gertjie sat down boyishly, looked at the Tok-Tokkie. Beating its drum. The Tok-Tokkie had the biggest drum on earth. Thabo had told him that. Its drum was the earth. “My dassie eet Tok-Tokkies..”, Gertjie decided. Propped the stone; aimed his kettie high; introduced the stone to alien reality: Welcome to velocity. Welcome, to SKY. Sheer terror. But the cosmos was kind. Naughty, but kind. The cosmos had its fun and then nestled the little stone back into its nest of stasis; its Mommy and Daddy of Still. Pat it reassuringly. Gertjie didn’t see any of this; just the initial, twanging delight of the stone’s ascent into brief hells.
Gertjie would never see another dassie again, but didn’t know this. Gertjie Would, however, see that naeltjie again (with his future, libidinous self panting on his behalf), twice more. And he would see other naeltjies also, transfigured, leading to other, more vividly humming centres of Eros.
Gert was cold. It was very cold out here, in the streets. Much colder than he had braced for. Gert, tossing about in the apologetic huddle of foliage that was his bed, was almost having second thoughts. But Life was convincing. Life had decided on his behalf. Du Preez & Kie Ingelyf would, obviously, not take him back. Not after that. And - toss, toss - he really didn’t beam at the idea of going somewhere else, a fugitive; the desperate scramble of shaving, and trying to clean, and combing and cutting and pretending. Gert didn’t know this, but
tomorrow he would meet his new life, his new family. “Broer. Jy’s nou deel van ons. Kom.” For now, though, Gert was alone. Wifeless, in all practical senses (she would petition for divorce soon; back in the real world, which still clung, still loomed large), he had no friends worth mentioning. Gert was childless too, something which he sensed had contributed to his escape; his final, violent shrugging off of Maria and the dull joyless life she had built around them. “Waar’s jy nou Maria?”, he smiled at the image of her crying and waning and crying into the faintly accusing embrace of her mother. Her dad (”Daardie ou bliksem.”), sternly behind them, arms appropriately folded. Crying with her newly acquired debt, her bleak future. This helped Gert find sleep.
In Gert’s central dream, the world of Right and Wrong and Responsibility was after him, in the form of some hidden beast, hunkered down and shivering with might just beyond his periphery. And in this dream Gert was hiding, then hiding some more; now hiding quickly, breathlessly, now hiding carefully. But Gert could not shake his periphery, it was everywhere.
When Gert woke up, his sole cushion was gone. His wallet with its ID and the four hundred fifty-three rand. The streets were showing him in.
***
The little mouse that could.
Pork, though innocent to this (as he was to much all of the presences and relations that defined and moved his feline reality), had only three legs. This had a, well, concentrating effect on his hunting. Brought it into simpler focus. Mice and birds existed only in sound and smell for Pork, and they were only very vaguely connected to Peach’s toys and surgically deft remnants; which Pork always inspected sniffily. No; to Pork was granted the flitter of fainter wings, the lepidopteral world which to Pork appeared (delightfully and exasperatingly, poor thing) as optical smells. And in Pork’s map of archetypes, mice had six legs (then five, then three..), and no tails at all. But, as with his fondest hobby, hunting was for Pork essentially explorative; curiosity that only sometimes (through a pang of deeper instinct) resulted in ingestion. Blink blink. Now where’d it go?
Excepting the dark, aggressive auras of other cats and territory, Pork’s world was all play – its sun of origin – that deep-furred, very First Purr – was purely aesthetic. And the secret key to the rhythm and nature of Pork’s universe, was his full name; an onomatopoeic phrase which contained descriptively both the rhythm of Pork’s gait, and the general gaiety of his nature. Pork E Pie.
Por-ki-Pie Por-ki-Pie. See Pork hobble, see Pork crouch, see Pork sniff.
Pork was currently curled up soft and tight in his Slow One’s cupboard, on said’s tastiest, furriest jersey (it was drizzling out). And there, outside, far from Pork’s dragon-foetile nap, Peach was elegantly poised; a frozen beauty.
Swish. Pounce.
Poor little mouse. Its world had suddenly become a black-and-white streak; that familiar, silent explosion (it had long haunted its genetic dreams; drawing irrevocably nearer to visceral revelation). The poor, shivering mouse had known not to venture out into this drizzle, this day. But what could it do.. she was calling. What followed was a long, slow, devastating blur. If the poor little mouse’s palpitating nervous-system could distinguish tactile sensation from the general, metaphysic roar, it would have been surprised at the calm, the gentleness with which the great maw cradled it. Peach struts slowly into the lounge, looks calmly about, ears pricked. She was looking for her Slow One. Showing off lent considerable polish to her hunts. Peach walked slowly through the lounge; considered the stairs; checked the kitchen. Oh well.
She delicately placed the vibrating wreck in the middle of the lounge. Sat back. Cleaned her paws while the little mouse gathered itself. Lick, lick. Peach was a cruel beauty. She put her right paw back down. Considered the mouse with philosophical clarity. Then, in concentrated silence, Peach moved toward the poor thing. By now the mouse could see again, the blur was clearing; epically, cruelly replaced by Peach’s calm approaching face. The game was about to begin.
Pork yawned, stirring from placid depths. Uncoiled himself. Lazily shook his head.
***
Die nag van die Agies.
“Onthou jy my naeltjie?”
Gertjie tried to ignore this, “..eN EK, hou hom in die dak want hy’s baie groot want”.
The night-sky was agasp with crickets, louder and louder. They were sitting on the stoep. He could sense the tension basking behind them, behind the doors, inside the farmhouse.
“Dis Stront man, dit moet stop. Sy’s my suster.” “Nou goed Gerhard. Praat jy met hom. Verduidelik dit aan hom. Deeglik.” There was a strange light in Mom’s eyes, like anger but softer. The next day they drove back to Oom Boet’s farm.
“Kom, Ma se ek’s ‘n Nuuskierige Agie..”, San-Marie grabbed his hand, still demonstrating it’s half of how the Dassie eats Tok-Tokkies and fights with the cat in his roof; and off they plunged into the crickety black. Throbbing throbbing. His feet smashed through stones and the stars pulsed brightly and then she stopped. “Ek is lief vir jou Sannie.” He had whispered this into her quiet, sleeping ear one afternoon. But San-Marie wasn’t sleeping yet; and the soft, tugging fabric of childen dreams had echoes of Gertjie, of Gertjie running and jumping (so high!) and bringing her thrashing, gleaming fish with dead shiny eyes and idiot-mouths; and so his words trickled into this playscape as she slid into the humming colours.
She was standing just ahead of him, moonlit, head demurely bowed (hands working). Then she spun around with bright face. “Jy’t nie die dassie gevang nie Dommie! Ek het gekyk.” “Hy bly in ons dak, ek moes hom wegsteek in die kar.” Gertjie’s face was burning. But he wasn’t angry – she wasn’t accusing. She stepped that little step toward him that inflicts the logic of Newton’s Gravity with vulgar distortions. The crickets softly, carefully removed their song from the sky (except for one last teeny crick; some kid who wasn’t yet hip to the rhythms and rules), and left on tip-toe.
It was just Sannie and Gertjie now; presexual and so tall and self-conscious and hungry they could explode; and the silence like a loud black sky. “Wys vir my jou naeltjie, Gertjie. My ma se as jy ‘n babatjie is is jou naeltjie ‘n toutjie na jou mamma.” All Gertjie heard was that fresh legend ‘naeltjie’, and the only slightly less mysterious, ‘babatjie’. And her mouth in the moonshine and her eyes looking down.
Then she picked up his shirt and he held it up with giant, numb hands and she lifted up her dress and she looked him brightly in the eyes. And they stood like so for several minutes with their tummies staring and their navels on pink fire. Then she smiled and they ran wildly back, Gert quiet like a secret.
They squished gasping through the door into the yellow pool of the kitchen. “San-Marie, dis tyd om in die bed te klim. Gaan saam met jou ma.”, Oom Boet said blandly. Gertjie’s mom hugged Tannie San for a long time, while the men stood there in their awkward universes. Then she led Gertjie to the car. Over his bobbing shoulder Gertjie saw San-Marie’s pretty hand waving. And her small, defiant smile.
***
Die Duiwel.
In his dream she smiled at him until he became afraid. Then sweetly said, “Gertjie, your thigh is calling.” Gert’s thigh was back from the Dead, wrapped in a blistering hangover. His eyes struggled out of the dream and its panicked claustrophobics; stumbled into life. Gert punched his thigh, out of habit. It almost hurt.. In response, Gert almost smiled.
Then he saw it. Shaking his head slowly, in protest, he moved the obscuring cardboard to the side. It was the bread. Eight fucken slices. Gert scanned the park. Mumbling to himself. His park. It was time to move. “Fok. Fok-fok-fok-fok-fok.”
She was the reason Gert had left the others, five years before. Well, from our point of view. Gert’s sense of time had long reverted, with certain exceptions, to that of a four year old. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And yesterday. That was pretty much it. The rest was the landscape of moments. “Hi mister.”
Gert spat in the direction of the omen. Bundled up his stuff. “Mister, I have to go soon. I’m happy you’re ok.” Gert heard something. Turned around. Hob-wobble. Creak.
The smiling face of a black. A child. “Fokof man.” The kid frowned, still smiling. “I have to go mister. Bye.” Gert creaked off. Making his way. “Berge toe manne. Berge toe.”
***
Like happy plants.
Or
Swim, swam, swum.
Peach wasn’t really impressed. She had it coming. She deserved it all. But it really was a palace. Flora and faun. The passionate pair. Eternally coupling couple. Flora with her pouting petulae, Faun all bristle fur. Her diaphene aroma, his excited stink. Boy he made her hot – she would pant if she could, so he did. They fucked like rainbows dove. Dive dive dive. More more more. See me arch, here her roar. This was all Peach missed, her only missing. Fucking was an elaborately hidden ghost in Peach’s otherwise pristinely gifted life. Enter Pork.
Peach smiled secretly, winked at herself in fur mirror. Poor gambolling game Pork, silly putty Pork. Her brother-soul, her weaker half. Her guilty pleasure. Peach gazed over at Pork. It was rather comic, she knew. Her eyes were clear, in case he happened to look up (Pork was rather unpredictable, to all including himself.) See Pork lick. His vague consternation. Pork was licking his stink off; and it wasn’t working. Pork was rearranging his stink. Pork’s fondest game in the world was sniffing at things. Smelly Pork sniffing. His moments of Eureka came when Peach glazed by with her tantalizing tail up. Pork confused his snout with his groin. See Pork bump. Little cloud of merry musk. See Pork pause, blinking widely. It was too much, every time. Peach’s tail twitches knowingly (she doesn’t break her stride, and knowing him to be obliviously behind her, smiles beautifully). Peach’s ass was catnip. Even human females, the prettier of the Slow Ones, admired, approved of Peach from behind. Approved? Naturally they were envious, but they approved, because she wasn’t human, and, therefore (they thought), not competition. Human males looked away, crossed their legs (cleared their throats); visualized fat, old, naked burping men in order to dismember their bobbing Bobs. “Mooi katjie, ne?” “Ja baby, dis ‘n pragtige kat.” The smarting smiles. Heeere pussy pussy puss.
Contrary to the logic of Sapien aesthetics, Peach enjoyed Pork’s stink. Loved licking it. Slow Ones couldn’t get their heads around it, shook their heads confusedly. But Pork’s stink doesn’t rub off; it Amplifies my floral..
When my Slow One has females over, Pork and I exchange secret looks. We like it when the females start moving more slowly, more deliberately. We like it when he becomes drugged. When he starts emanating. The sheen of sex beckoning. Teeny tiny crazy stars glinting in the room like mist. When they climb out of their broken fur we stretch out lazily, in anticipation. Swish. The Slow Ones are strange ones; if they were at all intriguing they’d be mysterious. They have their faults. But they make lovely air when they spangle into one another. We always watch. It’s not like cats fucking. It smells nicer, less desperate. More pawing than clawing. And elaborate, as if they were looking for more pussy, more cock; more constellations to starburst (sometimes it smelled like they found them.)
Their air smells like lush exotic plants. Secreting life.
Pork blinks in slow content.
***
Die berg is bruin.
“Eina!.” Gertjie looked down at his blurred, wobbling foot. Blinked desperately. Trembling lower lip. Sniff. Blink. BLINK. His foot swam around his hand. His little messenger rapped loudly on the giant red door. “Ow.. kak.” It was a very brave, very little ‘kak’. Gertjie sat down, plopped down hard. Wiped his eyes angrily. Looked up at the indefinite swell of mountain. Sniffed. His foot swam stop-motion back to itself. Resumed familiar (if smarting) form. Gertjie’s fingers found the vague locus of pain; but not it’s centre, not the design of its cause – that finger-licking demon with its brown reptilian wings. Gertjie rubbed the throbbing place; scratched at it angrily. The red door started shrinking. RED. Red. red. The messenger smiled paternally.
“Daar’s Monsters in daai berg. En Dassies!” Gertjie had seen a dassie once, here on Oom Boet’s farm. It was brown, and then it was gone. Smelt back into the browning surrounds. Brown is mysterious, invisible. Angels are brown. Demons have brown wings, like lizards, but redder. “Wat is ‘n dassie, Oom?” “Vet fokken rotte HAH HAH! HAH HA ha.” Gertjie was cautiously afraid of Oom Boet. Once he was very loud behind the wall and his mom looked at his dad, and the air became hard and still, like a bone. And then Tannie San came through the door and her face was funny and she made little sounds. And his mom looked down. “Dankie Susan. Dit raak laat.”, Dad said. Then we left. And Dad didn’t hug Tannie San. In the back seat Gert was thinking hard, he didn’t look at the clouds gliding the other way. His favourite part of the car. He was thinking of the air. And then Tannie San came in again. “Tannie San het gehuil ne Ma?”. “Nee Gertjie sy was net bietjie moeg Seun.” Sometimes his dad lied. It felt funny.
“Dassies is my gunstelinge. Ek gan een he eendag. My eie.” San-Marie was looking at her hands, they were pretty, “My pa se hulle maak siekte. En hulle byt dogtertjies.” Gertjie liked her hands, and her name. “Ek gee nie om nie. Ek gaan een vang.” Gertjie smiled. Then San-Marie smiled, still looking at her hands. San-Marie’s smile was like her hands. She was his niggie. One day she showed him her tummy, then she said “Kyk, dis my naeltjie. Het jy ‘n naeltjie?” The sky was throbbing. Then Tannie San called them. Then they had hoender-pastei but it was very hot. San-Marie licked her hands because she said “Eina.” Then Oom Boet looked at him. His dad was bigger than Oom Boet.
Gertjie stopped scratching, it was ticklish now (the door was Pink). He pressed it and rubbed it. It felt like a sneeze. Then he thought of San-Marie’s tummy, her naeltjie. And then he saw it. There were two! Their eyes were black and shiny. They were smelling something. Then they were gone. Gertjie stood up. Took out his kettie.
***