in a floral dress kneeling by the window, her arms stretching inwards.
‘That’s a door,’ said Stephi. ‘Open it. Walk. Piss.’
A big guy in a flapping red shirt and shiny grey pants strode up to the kneeling
woman, shouting. She cowered away. He swept a roundhouse gesture at the parking
lot, the glittering glass, the shifting knots of onlookers, the staggering blonde, her hair
now streaked scarlet, the bodies on the black tarmac. The kneeling woman turned to
him, cheeks shining, reached up a hand, and tugged at the tail of his shirt.
He kicked her.
‘Aaah nooit,’ said Stephi.
A wall of baggy-rappers had gathered behind the car and they broke in a roaring
wave, tumbling around it, swamping him. He went down hard. The youths morphed
into a boiling rosette of fists and feet. A hand clutching an iron bar rose and fell, rose
and fell, rose and fell. The woman in the floral dress crawled out, her nose pouring
blood, her mouth open in a red wail.
‘But this is crazy,’ said Ariel. ‘Why doesn’t somebody-?’
Gunshots punched through the air, flat, hard, dominant. A shock swept the crowd
and it splintered apart, splitting and turning, ducking and diving. One of the baggy-
rappers grew a red bloom from the back number of his basketball shirt, patted in
puzzlement at his chest, staggered and fell. Another, turning, had a splattering red
chunk torn from his forehead. Heads bobbed and craned, twisting to catch the direction
of the guns. Cars came to life all over in a roar. Headlights swung to the exits.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Let’s split! Go go go! ’
124
‘Wait. Stay low. Keep quiet. You wanna get caught up in that?’ Stephi pointed at the
jumbled gridlock below.
Ariel cast her eyes around. Camilla was parked on a gradient, alongside a vast
advertising board – YOU ALWAYS WIN AT GAME! - shining behind a wire fence. A
block of raw brick lay shadowed behind them, and movement snagged her eye in the
side mirror. A group of men lurked beyond the brick corner, watching, their shifting
shapes faintly lit by the backwash of the billboard lights.
‘I really need to piss.’
‘SO GO! Asshole.’
Plastic cracked the door open and gangled out. Ariel watched him in the side mirror
as he peered left and right and stumbled in a crouch towards the brick building. She
clicked back to the scene in the windscreen.
Most of the bodies were gone, spirited away to back seats. The platinum red-head
was hobbling on heels, crippled by her too-tight jeans. She flounced from car to car, lost
in the supermarket parking lot yet again, this time in a real nightmare. The yellow-shirt
baggy-rapper, and the other, lay dead, Ariel could see, sprawled flat, non-humanly flat,
garbage flat, shirts rippling like plastic bags in the breeze. The BMW lay with no
movement inside, headlights reaching out.
Cars were beginning to flow now, out into the street. The hooting faded as the
thunder of acceleration rose.
‘Hullo? Cops? Report an incident. At the corner of < the parking of < shit, where
are we?’
Jori told her. She relayed his spooky voice into the phone, her own firm and grim.
Ariel glanced into the side mirror, then rolled down the window and twisted out to
look back. Plastic, arching and holding his dribbling thing, had been joined by another,
a tiny, skinny man, swaggering toward him, arms buoyed in ape-like aggression. Their
voices reached her.
125
‘Watcha doing, huh? Who said you could do your business here?’
‘Huh? Whatsa problem?’
No other men. Ariel scanned around and realized that they must be hiding, waiting
behind the small brick building.
‘Fuck you! Who said you could piss here?’ The tiny man bounced his palms off
Plastic’s back, the push, the invitation. In confusion, Plastic jerked at his zip and then
shrieked as it caught.
‘Plastic? That man is not alone. There are others behind the–’
Plastic caught the voice, but not the accented words. The pain in his penis roared
through his ears, and at the same time he realized that the lovely, foreign, sweet-
smelling, unattainable lady, who had been floating a tantalizing car-seat away – a
universe away - and had never quite looked at him, was watching. Watching him! Be
brave! He zipped up with a reckless twist and involuntary whimper. He turned to the
man – so tiny, so impossibly harmless – and threw a punch.
With a gleeful ‘ Hah! ’ the bait ducked and scuttled and immediately the brick corner
erupted. Plastic turned to flee and caught the first blow on the side of his head. He
grunted and threw his arms around his face, elbows jutting, bounced off the fence and
was surrounded.
‘Stephi! Schau! Schau!’
Stephi turned and blinked. The boys followed her eyes. Plastic was down, the kicks
flying in.
‘You boys gonna help y’ friend?’
‘Urk,’ said Jori.
‘But,’ said Nihil.
‘ Mensch! ’ said Ariel, and kicked open her door.
‘You!’ said Stephi. ‘Can you drive?’
126
Jori nodded.
‘In my seat!’
As Ariel approached, the men paused, wary as hyenas. They fanned out, watching in
a taut, stooped glower, their fists clenched. The tallest took a step forward, his orange-
peel, bristly face in an incredulous leer. He looked beyond Ariel as the driver’s door
opened – another girl – and at Ariel’s empty hands.
‘Stop this. It’s unnecessary. You are behaving like animals.’
A low chuckle traveled around the semicircle. The tall man pounced at Ariel and
plunged a hand around her throat.
‘Didn’t Mama tell ya mind ya own business?’ he growled, his breath foul, his face
spittle-length from hers. ‘Now ya getting the best fuck of your short life.’ He tightened
his grip, horribly strong in the milk of her throat, and dragged her back towards the
shadows behind the building.
tschid-tschick
‘Woaah, baby. Chill,’ said the tall man.
‘Let her go. NOW! YOU!’ Stephi swung the point of the gun, held high and two-
handed, to cover the others. ‘HANDS! Let’s see ‘em!’
The tall man backed off, palms raised and shaking, teeth bared in a dog’s grin.
‘STOP SMILING!’ She kept the gun close and level, sighted by a bright eye. ‘I swear. I
fucken swear I’ll put a bullet through your fucken teeth.’
He slapped his lips together and shook his head.
‘Now, gentlemen < run away, please. The first one to stop gets shot.’
They took off in a spurt, vanishing into the murk beyond the lights. A scuff in the
road behind made Stephi spin around - and Jori and Nihil, arriving at last, dived out of
the way.
‘I told you to stay put. What are you doing here?’
127
‘I thought you needed-’
‘Get back in the car! You,’ she pointed the gun at Nihil. ‘Help your friend. Hurry.
We’re sitting ducks out here.’ She squinted into the darkness. ‘You alright, Ariel?’
Ariel, fingers in an exploratory caress at her throat, nodded. ‘That poor boy. What is
he doing?’ Plastic was on all fours, crawling in aimless circles, plucking and peering at
little things on the ground. Nihil stood alongside, scratching his head.
Stephi strode over. ‘What you doing?’
‘I loft my teef. I fink I mufta fwallowed ‘em.’
‘And if you find them? What’re you gonna do? Stick them back?’
Plastic gazed in round-eyed confusion up at her.
‘Come. We must go. Can you walk?’
He nodded forlornly, clambered up Nihil’s arm and staggered down towards
Camilla, now revving loudly. With a last look back, the girls followed. Within moments
they were a distant pair of tail-lights, gradually absorbed into the soft black fabric of the
night.
A rat emerged, inch by trembling inch, and assessed its world with a quivering nose.
It sniffed along the fence and melted through, each tiny, clawed step a conflict between
fear of the massive unpredictability all around and the smell of fresh blood. It snuffled
the site of Plastic’s beating, glances darting, then suddenly squeaked and flashed back
through the fence. A cat, stalking, raised its feral head and strolled over to the pools and
spots of black glisten. It lapped with careful precision around a tooth and then
delicately washed the stain of blood from its lip with a forepaw. It sat back on its
haunches and yawned, surveying the parking lot with narrow-eyed contempt.
128
8
Camilla idled as they argued.
Ariel listened to Plastic’s mushy-mouthed protests, and couldn’t understand a word.
Accent, slang, the soaked-feather consonants < but clearly he was refusing to go to the
hospital.
‘For goodness sake, why?’ she asked.
‘Moron here thinks they’re going to do a blood test and bust him for drugs. Which
they’re not. Paranoid.’ Stephi sat sandwiched in the back seat between a dripping,
gargling Plastic and a wan Nihil. She was squeezing herself inwards to avoid touching
either, arms straight, hands between her knees.
‘Well, let us just take him, then. What else can we do?’
‘Take him home, like he says,’ said Jori gruffly, lounging over the steering wheel.
‘His ma can look after him.’
‘Is she a doctor?’
‘Uh no. But she’s cool.’
‘But he may have < was ist Gehirnerschutterung?’
‘Concussion,’ muttered Stephi.
‘Or worse. I don’t see that we have a choice. He needs a doctor.’
‘If my chommie says he wants to go home, then it’s home he’s going.’
‘And if I shoot you in the head then we kill two birds with one stone.’
Jori looked in nervous appeal at Ariel.
‘You are being illogical. He could die. Please be sensible.’
‘O fer futhk thake!’ sprayed Plastic ‘Thake ‘e thoo the hothpithal. I’th gonna puke any-
a.’
129
‘Shit!’ Stephi recoiled away from Plastic, throwing herself onto Nihil’s lap. He
squeaked like a rubber toy. ‘I’ll drive!’
But Jori had set his jaw in a grim sulk and, torturing Camilla’s gearbox, he drove off.
‘Uh Stephi? Miss?’
‘What?’
‘Could you < please < your gun? Its poking my < you know.’
‘What?’
‘My dingus! Jesus it’s sore!’
‘Don’t worry. We’re going to the hospital.’
‘Pleeease <’
‘I’m not sitting next to him.’
‘Please. I’ve got a phobia. What if < what if it goes off? ’
‘Then you’ll be a dickless earless cunt,’ said Jori, and laughed so hard he bounced a
tire off the pavement. Plastic gurgled from far away, ghoulishly. Stephi started laughing
too, a giddy laughter that took her and shook her and bounced her up and down, to
agonized whimpers from below.
Ariel sighed, rubbed her tired eyes and settled back. Then a hand clawed over and
grasped her shoulder, startling her. Plastic’s battered, filthy mask followed and he
spoke in an inexplicably clear voice:
‘You risked your life < for me, for nothing. For nothing. No-one’s ever done nothing
like that. I’ll never forget it.’
She looked up and saw a tear, a smooth, gleaming globe, glowing passing blue neon,
as fragile as light, slide down his blood-speckled cheek.
Jori sat and squirmed in Camilla’s driver’s seat, wrestling with his conscience.
130
Astonishing it had survived. Should have been out for the three-count, flat on the
mat. It had been throttled and thrown, smothered and bent, smashed against the ring-
post. It had staggered and fallen, gouged blind, over and over. Yet here it was again,
arisen from impossible punishment, the hero, pinning Jori down in the Milpark
Hospital parking lot.
Plastic would give a false name, he was pretty sure. The German chick had flashed –
actually offered! – cash from her fancy little handbag, so the hospital would ask no
questions. Isn’t it? Nihil would sprint and disappear, wise to the score, once he saw the
empty parking space, knowing he’d be well rewarded for the long walk home. The road
ahead was clear, but Jori was beaten. For three deep breaths his hand itched on the
wheel, then he collapsed back and dropped his foot from the pedal.
And when Stephi knocked on the window he awoke from a dream, floating on a
gentle breeze through sun-dappled woodland, floating in an endless moment of soft
afternoon floating up from a distant, fuzzy childhood. Cradled in the arms of his
conscience, tired and warm, he took a coke from Ariel and a long sweet draught of
peace.
‘The engine’s still running! What the hell’s wrong with you?’
‘Uh < I slept. Sorry.’
‘Why didn’t you < you’re coked to the eyeballs. How the hell could you sleep?’
‘I < dunno. I forgot. Didn’t notice.’
‘Hell. Goofball. Come. Move up. I’m driving home.’
‘Can you drop us- ’
‘Sure, wherever. Plastic’s okay, by the way. We phoned his ma. She’s got medical aid,
thank heaven, so they’ll do something about his teeth tomorrow. Implants, I think. Poor
guy. Didn’t want to let Ariel leave.’
‘You phoned his ma?’
131
‘Ja. She’s coming.’
‘So he gave his name?’
‘Sure. Plastic Fantastic. Of course he gave his name. Laughlin McLaughlin. I kinda
insisted, you know, in case you were stupid enough to steal my car.’
‘Oh.’
Stephi noted the note in his voice with a nod to herself. The throttle rumbled
contentedly beneath her foot, and tired silence washed over from the back seat. She
settled back.
Then the engine died. They coasted, slowed, and stopped.
‘Well. That does it. Out of fuel.’
‘Oh no. I’m so sorry. I’m such a fuck-up.’
‘It’s okay. Don’t worry. There’s a petrol station a coupla kays away.’
They sat for a while in silence, then creaked the doors open and shuffled out.
A half-thawed chicken sat on its frozen tail in the middle of the pavement. It waved
its pointless little wings and leaked greasy water.
‘Look at this.’ Ariel was some way ahead, her legs, toned by the hills and bikeways of
Bavaria, unable to be patient with the toiling, sweaty trio behind her.
‘Weird,’ panted Stephi.
They stood in a puzzled ring around the flaccid, naked mystery. Shrugging, Ariel
walked on. She turned back at the queasy sounds of crunch and squelch. Nihil had
stuck the chicken on the toe of his boot, and was stomping like a squirting Quasimodo
towards her. He made odd, ape-like grunting noises. A pair of headlights approached,
and Nihil feinted into the street, ducking back as the car swerved and dopplered past,
hooter blaring.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘Playing chicken!’
132
Stephi growled: ‘Oh, for-’
‘Hey! Why did the chicken cross the road?’
The chicken squelched, quizzically.
‘Cos I had my foot up its ass!’
‘Can I shoot him? Please?’ said Stephi. ‘Look! There’s another.’
The second chicken lay as if mugged in the oily street-gutter. Further along there
were plastic tubs of frozen chicken liver, scattered around and glowing white in the
lamplight.
‘You think it’s the rain?’ asked Jori, scratching his head.
‘What?’
‘Ja well, sometimes it rains fish, you know. And frogs and stuff. It’s nature. I saw it
on TV.’
Nihil suddenly screamed, dancing and kicking, flailing his foot in the air. The
chicken clung on for a horrifying moment and then it flew, wings flopping, in a high
parabola over their heads, over a prefab wall and into a dark garden.
‘What happened?’
‘It leaked into my shoe! Aaaagh! I can still feel it!’
Stephi turned and walked. Ariel took a second to shake her head and followed.
In a front of small shops – corner café, hairdresser, laundry, copy-and-print – they
found the source of the chicken exodus, the coop from where the refugees had flown: a
butcher shop with a smashed window. A blackened meat cleaver lay on the pavement
outside, next to a haunch of glittering beef. Inside was chaos: overturned, buckled cash
register, smashed display glass, formless lumps of meat and sinister footprints all over
the floor. Blood oozed between the shards of glass.
Ariel surreal picked up the meat cleaver and weighed it in her hand. She was about
to toss it back into the shop when Jori stepped in the way, leaning his head in.
133
‘There’s still like lank meat here. Anyone want some?’
‘Are you mad?’ said Stephi. ‘What if the cops come?’
‘Ag, kak man. The place is already broken. Can’t sell this stuff. Come, Nihil. Give us
a leg up.’
The boys helped each other gingerly through into the murk inside. Nihil slipped,
flailing against Jori’s steadying arm. He straightened, flexed and threw himself into a
slide, skating across the slippery floor. Jori whooped and followed. They clattered
against the meat counter and leaned in, surveying the wares.
‘Hey! There’s still chops. And steak. And ostrich. Ou’s didn’t like ostrich. What you
want?’
‘Come on, Ariel. Let’s get outta here.’
They turned to walk away, and saw a gleam of headlights arc slowly around a
corner. She recognized the van-shape from the afternoon.
Police.
Stephi stepped back to the broken window: ‘Guys! Guys! Boere!’
‘Wors? Why? There’s expensive stuff here.’
‘ No, you fool! The cops! We’re splitting!’
They walked away down the street, the clip of their heels irrythmic, panicky. Ariel
felt exposed by the bright shoplights, and suddenly very scared. She broke into a trot.
‘Stop! Wait. They’re trained to spot body language. Don’t run. You look guilty.’
Stephi pulled up alongside, her face pale and frightened. She whispered, ‘My gun, it’s
illegal. And < you. Why the hell you carrying that?’
‘Oh God.’ The meat cleaver. The sound of the police car’s engine drew closer.
‘Listen! Ariel listen. Don’t drop it yet. They’ll spot that too.’
Ariel stuffed the cleaver into her handbag, shielding the move from behind with her
body. The weight bit the thin strap into her shoulder.
134
‘When we get to the corner, run like hell, find a wall and go over. Run through the
garden, then over another wall. Then hide. They won’t chase us through all that. Are
you ready?’
Tires squealed, the sound of car doors booted open, shouts, a crash, a shatter of
breaking glass. A deep voice swept up the street: ‘You two! Girls! Halt! I said stay
where you are!’
They broke and ran.
The first house was impossible: vicious palisade with peeling spikes. Then a waist-
high wall and bare, paved yard, the windows and door massively barred. The third was
ramshackle split-pole, stuffed with dense bushes and topped off with wheels of razor
wire. Ariel, gulping air, began to despair.
‘Split up!’ shouted Stephi from behind. ‘I’m going that way!’
Ariel ran faster. Then she saw it: a weak spot. A metal streetlight pole stood flush
against a two-meter clinker-brick wall. The pole had two parts, the lower thicker, a thin
lip for a foothold. She launched herself, found scrabbling purchase, and climbed, her
handbag swinging and bumping against her back. With one bare knee on the rough top
of the wall, her back a catlike curve, she paused and looked back up the street.
Nihil with his arms raised. Their eyes met for a brief second as a cop strode up
behind him.
She dropped down into the garden.
It was dark and quiet. She had landed in the corner behind a bush on both feet, the
impetus carrying her into a crouch. She shifted quickly sideways to look beyond the
bush. The scent of flowers, fresh from the rain, mingled with a darker, fouler smell, a
familiar smell <
Oh no. Dog.
135
A single, bare bulb shone weakly from above the back door of the house. The lawn
glittered with raindrops. She sat with her back against the wall and her knees drawn
up. The gusts of her breath slowed and quietened. A sigh in the air through the leaves.
She waited.
Footsteps came, on the pavement on the other side of the wall, one set firm and
heavy, the other a scraping limp. She turned her face up towards the streetlight,
listening.
They stopped. ‘So where your chicks now, huh, fuckhead?’ The cop’s voice – must be
- dark and soft. ‘Left you to be fucked up the ass, hey? Where are they?’
‘I don’t know < why are you <?’ Nihil.
‘Call them. On your cell phone.’
‘I don’t <’
‘Fuck you.’ The wet thud of a punch. ‘You think I brought you here to talk? Think
you can run away? Gonna beat you to death now.’
‘You can’t <’ Nihil was crying. ‘You can’t do this. I got my constitutional rights! ’
A moist, throaty chuckle and the sound of another punch, then another. Nihil
groaned, but said nothing. The thuds continued, horribly close, behind her, on the other
side of the wall. Ariel lowered her head into her trembling hands, her eyes clenched
tight. Then silence, a satisfied grunt, and a single set of footsteps walking away.
A low growl came at her through the bushes. She opened her eyes. A huge, black dog
– Rottweiler! - stood on the lawn, eyes glowing red and bared teeth shining, the muscles
of its powerful shoulders gleaming. It was staring straight at her. She brought her hands
up and the dog broke into a run, fanged jaws agape and snarling, across the sparkling
grass.
136
9
Ingwe, standing protectively over her sleeping kitten, love and maternal worry
aflame in her wild heart, has none of the constitutional rights that floated so high and
unsullied above Nihil.
S24 of the South African Constitution is clear: ‚Everyone' has the right to an
environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being, and to have their
environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations. ‚Everyone',
present and future, means one species, people. And only people. You and I. In the eyes
of the law, Ingwe is just a thing, notwithstanding the love in her beating heart.
In case of doubt, the drafters of the National Environmental Management Act have
fenced her in her