Zoo City

PART TWO.

26

.

Yellow light slicing across my pillow like a knife would be the appropriate simile, but it feels more like a mole digging its way into my skull through my right eyeball. There is a boy in my bed, or at least I think it's a boy. It's hard to judge gender by the back of someone's head. But I have my suspicions, based on the sandy curls and the snippets of last night that my brain is starting to defrag.

A man built like a tank in a red and black tuxedo beside the velvet rope, because I couldn't face going to Mak's to get fucked up.

'Ro off tonight?'

'You want I can give him a message?'

'Can I give you my phone number?'

'Baby, you can definitely give me your phone number.'

'Get out,' I half-shove, half-drag the curly headed thing out of my bed by the ankle and dump him on the floor.

'This is something special,' Babyface Dealer says, chopping out another line, grainy like salt crystals on the dashboard of his car. Technically, he's not supposed to indulge with his customers. I can be very persuasive.

It burns going up, like speed cut with rat poison. He says that's just the magic. Sloth whimpers unhappily. Then the inside of my head lights up like a Christmas mall display and my heart surges up in my chest and the world drops away in graceful slow-mo.

'What the hell?' Babyface Dealer yanks at the sheets around his legs.

A girl gyrates with an albino python in one of the elevated archways, pulling it between her legs and bucking her hips. It's the drugs or maybe her shavi, but lust seems like a tangible current moving through the crowd on the dancefloor.

A used condom is still attached to his limp dick.

'House special,' Babyface Dealer says in the bathroom as he chops out another line. 'Specially imported.'

'Odious maximus.' I giggle and he shushes me, but I'm not sure if it's because he doesn't want to be bust or if I'm not supposed to mention Odi's name.

'It was wonderful. You were great. Now get the fuck out of my house.'

There is a singer from Mali up on stage crooning into the microphone. Also specially imported. Or maybe procured. 'Not exactly a house,' Babyface Dealer says, yanking on his pants, commando, over the shrivelled condom. 'Is it, love?'

I tip the marine biology student bartender my last R1000. 'Buy yourself an oceanarium, honey.'

'Don't get mugged and die on your way out,' I snap. He slams the door behind him.

Despite the evidence, I consider going to the pharmacy for the morning-after pill. Maybe a shot of anti- retrovirals. Sloth is not speaking to me. He refuses to move from his perch in the cupboard and when I try to pull him out, he hits out at me, scratching my cheek. I had it coming.

I strip the bed, bundle up the sheets and throw them out the window. They get caught up in the branches of the trees below and hang there like dead things. Flaccid ghosts. Or my own personal white flag.

I think I've been here before. Rock fucking bottom.

27.

This was inevitable. This grubby church basement with its grubby sign that reads NEW HOPE. The grubby men and women with grubby animals chanting the miserable litany of their grubby lives, mine included. It's supposed to be all relative. Degrees of awful that contextualise your own suffering. But what it really is, is painfully monotonous. There are only so many ways to screw up your life. We cover most of them in the first twenty minutes.

Even when the rich kids from the Haven join us halfway through, the only difference is in the details. But I feel saner for going. I also considered Phoenix, Fresh Beginnings and even Narcononymous, but I'd already established the credentials of the New Hope programme. Same principles as its plush sister facility, although there are less cheekbones per capita and I imagine the food isn't as good.

Lunch consists of day-old sandwiches sealed with stickers that proudly announce their providence as DONATED FROM THE KITSCH KITCHEN FINE FOODS DELI – CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Could have done with real cutlery instead of plastic, but hey, the patrons of this fine twelve-step establishment are a little rougher than those that frequent the Haven.

A cute black girl who came in with the rich kids slides in next to me and greets Sloth: 'Hey, fuzzybutt, I thought I recognised you.'

Sloth reaches out his arms to be picked up, and she takes him from me and gives him a cuddle.

'It's Naisenya, right?' I say, recognising Overshare Girl from the Haven. 'You can keep him, if you like. He's not exactly thrilled with me right now.'

'Is that why you're here?'

'I could ask the same of you.'

'Day trip. I'm the driver.' She tilts her head at the rich kids, who are getting a nasty taste of what hitting real bottom involves. 'We come visit every Sunday.'

'Guess that makes me a passenger. The old revolvingdoor ride.'

'No free will,' she agrees and tucks into her only slightly stale pastrami sandwich. She offers Sloth a bite.

'He only eats leaves.'

'Sorry, didn't bring any with me. I would have saved you some weeds if I'd known, cutiepie.'

'Hey, did Songweza ever come here with you?'

'Oh yeah, Song was practically a regular. Wouldn't know it, huh? High-maintenance girl like her. I think she kinda gets off a little on slumming it.'

'I get the same impression.'

'This is where she met her poet.'

'Would this be Jabu by any chance?'

'I see you're familiar with the tragic romance of Song and Jabu.'

'Broke up with her via SMS?'

'Harsh, huh? Those two fell hard. Pop princess and wannabe-novelist breadline kid living with his charlady mom in Berea. He wrote poems for her when he managed to stay off the mandrax for long enough to catch the words. She promised to turn them into songs. And then, poof! He just never came back.'

'Can't be that unusual. This isn't rehab proper. No one's exactly checking in.'

'Sure, you get the drop-ins, drop-outs. But that was cold, even for a junkie. How do you know Song anyway?'

'Let's say I used to be in the music industry. Very briefly.' I pack the Kitsch Kitchen wrappers and the plastic cutlery into the box, and stand up to go.

'See you again?' Naisenya asks, hopeful. I think she has a crush on Sloth.