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Read the third phase of this story

Phase 2:

Joburg Special

Thabang often smoked dagga.
     It was not a new experience for him. But still his hands shook when he took the bottleneck, and he was embarrassed when the others laughed. The sweat on his fingertips sizzled when he touched the hot glass.
     He licked his lips to guard against burning them and put the neck gently to his mouth, only just touching it. It was from a wine bottle, the best for the job because of the long neck, to cool the smoke. He hesitated and then took a long suck of burning smoke, feeling it singe his throat and lungs. He took another and then another.
     To impress.
     He could taste something other than the leafy, vegetable coating the dagga left on his tongue and the inside of his nose. This was a chemical taste that seemed to suck all the saliva from his mouth. For the edge, they said. Better than brandy. It wasn’t the first time for dagga but it was the first time for that stuff and it was the first job he was doing for Elias.
     The feeling was different.

The usual dagga buzz was making his muscles melt and settling like a blanket on his skin and brain but there was something else, something new. He felt energy, awake, like he could run for miles without losing his breath. His mind was clean, fresh, fast.
     It felt good. So did the slippery black steel of the 38 Special revolver in the pocket of his baggy jeans, warm from the heat of his thigh. Every few seconds his hand would slip into his pocket and stroke it, getting to know it. It was an amateur gun. A Joburg Special. Not like Jeremiah’s. Not a nine millimetre. Not a Browning semi-automatic. Only six bullets. But — as Elias had said to him when he gave it to him — “If you still around to shoot number six, you dead.”
     Still, Jeremiah’s gun was nicer and even better — he owned it.
     He was a tenner, 10 jobs.
     Five jobs and you keep the 38.
     Ten, and you keep the nine mil.

The interior of the car was full of the thick, sweet smoke. All the windows were closed so as to not waste it.
     “Ja, Thabang, feels nice, eh? You gonna ride on the wind tonight, my brother. Smooth. No problems, neh?”
     Jeremiah was thin. Very thin. And tall. His long legs were folded up on the dashboard of the car, his Niked feet stuck to the windscreen. His cheeks were sharp like elbows under the skin of his face and his lips were long, barely covering the huge white teeth so that he always looked like he was smiling. Like a Bushman. But he was an Ndebele.
     Angry half-brother of Shaka.

Thabang had sat outside Elias’ office at the back of the shebeen every day for weeks after his mother died. Finally, Elias had called him in.
     “So, you want to work for me?”
     Elias’ voice was deep. He was missing the thumb on his left hand.
     “Why don’t you get a job in town? Messenger boy or packer.”
     “Those jobs are for old men. They pay shit. Not enough for even for beer.”
     Elias had laughed. Thabang had hoped that Elias would give him to Petrus Jerry’s crew. He didn’t want to be with Jeremiah. There was something about him that made you nervous. Like a dog you walk past, and even when its lying down, you feel like it will bite you any second. Elias felt sorry for Thabang since his mother had died. He used to buy beer from her.
     “She was a good woman...but now she’s dead and you not a boy anymore. You going to work hard and listen to Jeremiah.”
     Thabang had nodded. It still felt strange to hear someone say his mother was dead.

Jeremiah’s cellphone rang.
     He slipped it off his belt, looked to see who was calling and hit the button.
     “Ja, Stripes.....en waar’s julle? Tight....Tight.....we’ll be there in ten.”
     He turned to Thabang in the back seat and grinned:
     “It’s on.”
     Thabang just nodded and then stared out the window so Jeremiah wouldn’t see the fear in his eyes. Jo’burg was turning gold as the sun set over the skyscrapers, like the city was sucking up the gold from deep underground. The car was weaving in and out of traffic on the highway. It was a Jetta, 1995. Thabang had never been in such a new car. He fingered the upholstery. It felt soft and furry.
     Clean.
     His heart was beating too fast. He looked down at his shirt to see if its thumping was visible.

He had done dangerous things before.
     But not like this.
     He had mugged a man in Hillbrow, stolen a few car radios, thrown rocks at the cops in high school.
     “Kid’s stuff,” Elias had said when he told him. Elias was the big man of Zone 6. He had at least 50 guys working for him. No-one knew where he had come from. Some said he was a commander in MK. Others said he was from Swaziland. But he was rich.
     Very rich.
     And the guys working for him wore nice clothes, expensive, and had cellphones and cars. They could have any woman they wanted.
     “I’m going to buy a Golf CTi”, he thought, to calm himself down, “....dark green, tinted windows...”

The car dipped into the long concrete tunnel and sped past John Vorster Square with its steel shields over the windows. Thabang shivered involuntarily at the sight of it. Studla, who was driving, caught him doing it in the rear view mirror and laughed deeply like a big drum.
     “Don’t worry Thabang....you not going near there, my brother.”
     “Ja, and if you do.....either we’ll get you out....or.......”
     Thabang looked at Jeremiah.
     “Or we’ll kill you.”
     Thabang forced a laugh. Jeremiah didn’t join him.

There were five in the team. Stripes and Tab were already on the job, following the target to his date with fate. Thabang, Jeremiah and Studla would be there when he arrived. If everything went smoothly.
     “Hey fuck off, man!” Studla shouted at a taxi that had just cut him off. The taxi shot an arm and then a finger out of its window.
     “He’s lucky we on a job...” Jeremiah muttered.
     Jan Smuts Avenue was jammed with traffic and Jeremiah swore viciously.
     “Studla, you’ve got five minutes, neh?”
     Studla nodded. He stabbed the accelerator pedal and the car roared. Thabang was thrown back into his seat and watched with admiration as Studla manoeuvred the Jetta aggressively through the queues of cars to the sounds of hooters and tyres squealing. Men in sunglasses and ties shouted silently from behind tightly rolled windows.
     Soon they had left the traffic behind and were cruising down a long avenue lined with Jacaranda trees in full bruised bloom.

Thabang hadn’t been to the Northern suburbs since he was a child visiting his mother, when she worked as a maid for the Benjamins in Houghton. As they drove past the huge houses with their impossible walls and electric fences, the old memories floated up, memories of playing in the back yard with the Benjamins’ son, Geoffrey. He had never seen such green grass before. It didn’t look real and felt new and alive under his bare feet.

They stopped at a robot behind a young white woman in a white Toyota. Thabang saw her eyes slide to the rear-view mirror and watch them cautiously as her car began to edge impatiently over the white line. When she saw them looking at her, she looked away quickly. The robot turned green and she was gone, like a mouse into the dark tunnel of the avenue. Jeremiah shrieked with laughter.
     “See how they scared of us now.....not like it used to be, neh, Thabang?.”
     Thabang thought about one particular township dog that used to hassle him on the way to school.
     “Don’t look him in the eye,” his mother had said. “Dogs think that means you want to fight.” She gave him the same advice about the police on their trips into town. Now he had a gun. He could look anything in the eye.

Jeremiah punched numbers into his cellphone and barked into it:
     “Ja...en nou. 11th Avenue? Sharp. “
     Jeremiah pulled his gun from out of his pants and pulled back on it hard. It jumped back with a thick click.
     “Ja......Nandos afterwards, guys. I’m buying........turning now? How fast?.....okay....... You ready, Thabang? You gonna lose your cherry tonight, bra. Tonight you a man.”
     Thabang’s heart began beating hard again. He took the gun out of his pocket. He had never shot one before. He wondered what it felt like.
     He felt strong holding it. Like the guys on TV. He wanted to look in the mirror and see what he looked like holding it.

Geoffrey had a shiny new bicycle and in the afternoons when he would come home from school, he would call Thabang from the back door. They would wheel the bicycle to the front garden where he taught Thabang to ride around the swimming pool.
     He had cried when Geoffrey took the bike back into the house.
     “But it’s not your bike, Thabang,” his mother had told him while holding Geoffrey’s hand.

Jeremiah’s voice was tight and he was speaking fast now.
     “Red robot at Osborne...okay....don’t get checked...how many cars back are you?....sharp.”
     He shifted in his seat so he could catch his reflection in the rear-view mirror.
     He was shocked. His eyes were wide and lifeless. Like an animal. He told himself to calm down and do the job.
     Just do the job.
     “Okay....is julle gereed?...time to boogy.”
     Jeremiah sounded like he was enjoying himself. Thabang felt very strange. He was excited. He felt like a man going to work. Hard work. Only for the guys with balls. Deep inside though, there was a little boy’s fear, frantic and on the verge of tears.

Studla turned the car into a narrow street and slowed down. Just then a large black BMW prowled round the opposite corner and pulled into a driveway in front of a large iron gate. Stripes and Tab were behind it in a Golf.
     Thabang stopped breathing.
     Studla jammed the accelerator and blocked the car’s exit.
     Jeremiah screamed:
     “Nou, nou, nou!” and leaped out of the car, sprinting to the driver’s window screaming: “Get out, get the fuck out. Now. I’m going to kill you. Get out.”
     Thabang felt like he was split in half. His body was jumping out the car and running to the passenger window. The gun was in his hand, leading him to the car. His mind was everywhere, like it was trying to catch up.
     He couldn’t get his mother’s face out of his mind. Her face was grey after she died.

The man in the car was young. Maybe 30. He was shaking and nodding his head very fast. He turned to look at Thabang. His eyes were wide and looked like they were about to cry. His lips were shaking. He was saying:
     “Okay okay okay okay........”
     Jeremiah was still screaming. He looked like a madman. His eyes were wild.
     The car smelt new.
     And like aftershave.
     Jeremiah pulled the man out of the driver’s seat. Thabang slipped into the passenger side.
     The radio was playing cool jazz. From the corner of his eye, he watched Jeremiah stick the gun in the man’s face as he roughly patted him down, shouting at him.
     The front of the man’s pants were wet. Jeremiah punched the man hard in the stomach, opened the back door of the car and threw the man in like a bag of mealie meal.
     He watched Studla reverse the Jetta and pull off in the direction they had come. He gave Thabang a thumbs up, grinning.
     The man smelt of piss and sweat.

Thabang felt like he was blind. His body was making a lot of noise. His heart and lungs sounded like a thunderstorm in his ears. All the blood seemed to be pumped in front of his eyes. Everything was swirling. The thunderstorm didn’t stop until they were speeding down Louis Botha, dodging the taxis that were stopping every few metres to pick up people on their way home. In his mind, he could see his mother waiting for a taxi. Standing on the side of the road, with a blanket wrapped around her waist in the freezing Highveld winter. Shifting her huge body on old flat sandals.
     The sun was almost down.

“Hey, hijack device?”
     Jeremiah was serious again. The man didn’t understand.
     “Wha...what?”
     “Hijack device, you bastard. Tracker. This car got a fucking tracker?”
     “No...nothing.”
     “If it dies, you die, neh?”
     Thabang was breathing very fast. Too fast. He was still very high.
     He tried to take hold of his mind which felt like it was scattering like ants. He looked out the window to try and relax. A young white boy was riding a bicycle along the road. They passed him and then came to a halt at a red robot.
     “Fuck!” Jeremiah spat and hit the steering wheel. He looked around him nervously.
     Thabang was still staring out the window as the boy on the bike came to a stop with a squeak of tyres beside them.
     He looked at Thabang and then quickly away.
     He was a pretty boy. The same age as Geoffrey was in those days. Geoffrey had caught him when he lost control of the bike and nearly fell into the pool.
     He had grazed his knee and was crying.
     Geoffrey was standing over him.
     “It’s okay, Thabang. It’s okay. Everyone falls. Everyone falls.”
     He had watched as Geoffrey collected some pool water in his hand and poured it over the wound.

He wanted to see the man. Almost to punish himself. He leaned back and turned his head around slowly. He inched his head forward along the seat so that he first saw only black leather then the back door of the car and then a blond head. The face was red and covered in tears. The eyes were shut tightly. Then they opened and looked at Thabang. They looked terrified. Like the eyes of a dog after you kick it. Thabang moved back in his seat.

Geoffrey was tall and thin. He always wore shorts or swimming costumes. Thabang’s mother said he was a good boy. Except when he wet his bed and she had to clean the sheets. He laughed a lot. Thabang remembered him crying only once. When his father caught him riding his bike in the middle of the road and gave him a smack. His face was also red.

He shivered. This he could never forget. Not like the other bad things he had done.
     This wasn’t just taking money or stealing something from someone. This was hurting someone. This man was crying. Why did he ever think he could do this job? He thought of what his mother would say about the tsotsis that would harass her at the shops sometimes.
     “They are animals...dirty animals with no respect.”

Jeremiah wasn’t going to kill him.
     He was just taking him for a drive in case there was a anti-hijack device. And to keep him from talking to the cops and the security guys too soon.
     That’s all.
     He would drop him off after a while.
     Why would he kill him?
     If you got caught afterwards, you’d be in shit. The cops would shoot you before you said a word. No, he wouldn’t kill him.
     It was okay.

He and Geoffrey would play cops and robbers in the garden. Geoffrey was always the cop but he let Thabang use the best gun. It was plastic and made a noise when you pressed the trigger. A noise like a drill.
     A red cone at the end of the barrel would light up when you pressed the trigger.
     He looked down at the gun in his hand. The gun with his hand around it.
     Somehow he felt that they weren’t his hands. That they had been switched with someone else’s. He still hadn’t fired it. Had anyone? Had anyone shot someone with this gun? Anyone killed someone?
     This gun knows more than me, he thought. This gun has killed someone.
     He could feel it. Through the worn rubber grips. He wanted to throw it out the window. He imagined doing it. Watching it roll down the dried grass into the Jukskei river and sinking.
     “The dagga is making me mad,” he thought.

Jeremiah was driving to Alex. They would drop him off there.
     Some old woman would help him.
     Then they would go home and he could forget it all. Tomorrow he would go into town to find a normal job. Without guns and men that cried on the back seat.
     He watched as the land along the river bank started sprouting shacks instead of electrical pylons.
     Alex.
     Dark City.

“So, what’s your name?”
     Jeremiah sounded friendly, at ease.
     “Jan....Jan Pretorius. “
     The man was sniffing away his tears.
     “What should I do with you Mr Pretorious?”
     Jeremiah had lit a cigarette and dangled the hand holding it out of the open window. He switched the radio to a Kwaito station. Arthur was singing “Oi, Oi.”
     The man in the back seat began to stutter.
     “Please...don’t kill me. I won’t do anything. Please. I understand you guys. I know. I know. You need the money. I have money. I’ll give you money. I’ve got R20 000 ....in the bank. I’ll withdraw it for you. I ...won’t say anything.”
     “You can’t withdraw R20 000 with a card these days, Mr Pretorious. Too much crime....”
     “Uh ......uh...a thousand rand. ...I’ll give you a thousand rand. Whatever you want...”
     “I make that in a night.”
     “Please....I......I’ve given you no trouble. I’ll ....I’ll only call the police tomorrow. I’ll say it happened tomorrow. You’ll be long gone by then. I haven’t seen you. I’ve kept my head down....”
     “You’re lying.......”
     Thabang looked at Jeremiah. His mouth was smiling.
     He peeked around the seat. The man still held his head tightly in his arms, as if protecting it.
     “No, Mr Pretorious. I think the only thing to do is to kill you. Kill you and then, in a few days, when everyone stops visiting, go to your house and fuck your pretty wife”
     The man began to pray softly in the back — “Ons vader....”
     Thabang was terrified.
     What was Jeremiah saying?
     It was one thing to kill someone if they fucked with you or your girl or if you hated them. But this was different.
     Thabang didn’t hate this man.
     Maybe Jeremiah was just playing.
     Just messing with the guy’s mind.
     Just for fun.
     Just to scare him so he wouldn’t talk.
     Thabang’s heart dropped as the London road offramp went by in a blur of lights and they passed Alex with its haze of smoke. Maybe Jeremiah would still let him go.
     Somewhere in the darkness. Far from a telephone.

He summoned the courage necessary to dare.
     “Jeremiah....?”
     “Ja. What!”
     “Are you ....we....?”
     “Suga wena. Just shut up. I’m the boss. You know vok all so just shut up.”
     The car was slowing down now. Jeremiah steered it across the highway and onto an offramp.
     It was getting dark.

Jeremiah pulled the car onto a dirt road and then off the road into a field where some sunflowers were growing.
     “Get out!” he shouted.
     The man was pleading again.
     “Please.....I’m begging you.”
     Jeremiah got out the car and opened the back door.
     “Get out or I’ll pull you out and shoot you right here.”
     The man sat up and slowly got out with his hands up.
     Jeremiah waved his gun at Thabang.
     “You too, wena!”
     Thabang did as he was told.
     “Walk!”
     The man started walking forward. Thabang felt like vomiting. His knees were shaking.
     Jeremiah turned to him and spoke in Tswana.
     “Right boy. Time to earn your pay. Do him.”
     Thabang almost fainted. He did nothing. The man’s back was to him.
     “Hey, you deaf? Do him! Do him now!”
     Thabang raised his gun at the man’s back. His hand was shaking, his finger on the trigger. The man was swaying. The end of his life.
     The back of the man’s shirt had a large sweat stain down the middle. For a moment, Thabang imagined that it was blood.
     Thabang tensed his finger on the warm trigger.
     It felt like the gun wanted to go off.
     To do its job.
     It was waiting.
     Just for a little squeeze.
     Then everything would change.
     Innocence would leave.
     And never come back.
     Riding a bike around a swimming pool at dusk with a rainstorm on the horizon.
     Tears blown from the eyes by the wind and laughing at nothing in particular.
     Would leave. His mother’s face was grey and her dead eyes were staring at him.
     He lowered the gun and Jeremiah was screaming:
     “Do it now, you woman. You like a little girl. He is nothing. He hates you. You want to work or play....hey? Work or play with the girls?”
     Thabang felt Jeremiah’s hand slap the back of his head hard.
     He turned slowly to look at Jeremiah. His eyes were huge and his mouth open in a scream. He looked like a wooden mask of a demon that Thabang had once seen in a muti shop on Diagonal Street. He felt Jeremiah’s gun at his temple. The blood was rushing through his ears. He watched Jeremiah’s mouth move but could not hear the words he was saying.
     He saw it before he heard it.
     Jeremiah’s body crumpled as if a string holding it up had been cut. Thabang felt warm liquid spray onto his face and then he heard the gun shot. Thabang heard shouting behind him.
     “Put it down. Put the fucking gun down, now, kaffir!”
     He turned to see two men running toward him. One was pointing a gun toward him.
     Police.
     No.
     Private security.
     How?
     Tracker device.
     He had to force his fingers to let go and drop the gun. It hit the ground with a muffled thud.

Then he saw sickly black as he felt the butt of a gun on his skull. Everything was dark for what seemed like months. Pool water diluting the blood from a graze on his knee. The sound of a bicycle. His mother’s voice, wrapped in a blanket.
     Someone was slapping him.
     “Wake up, skelm. Wake up, man.”
     A coloured man kneeling over him. Young. Same age as him maybe.
     “You in deep shit now, kerel. Deep, deep shit.”
     He felt a hard slap on his cheek.
     The white guy was standing at his feet. Thabang looked over at Jeremiah’s body next to him. He was lying strangely, his one arm mangled under his body. He couldn’t see the face anymore. Only blood.
     Some blood was trickling down to his face, collecting dirt and stones like a little river.
     His head felt like it had a nail in it.
     “Get up.”
     He was being kicked.
     He struggled to get to his feet, wincing as his head punished him for moving.
     He could feel sticky blood at the back off his head.
     Then the ground shifted and he fell down again, trying to stop his fall before realising that his hands were handcuffed behind him.
     They kicked him again.
     He stood up, closing his eyes to the pain.
     He felt like an animal. Trapped and helpless. He wanted to cry.
     The men were wearing dark blue uniforms underneath bullet proof vests. They were still holding their guns.
     The white man was talking.
     “So Meneer Pretorius, it’s your choice. We take him to the cops and he escapes tomorrow. All the cops are corrupt. You earn two grand a month and some bastard gives you five to close your eyes for a sec....you check? Otherwise, if you agree.”
     The man was smoking a cigarette. His hands were still shaking. He looked into Thabang’s eyes.
     Blue eyes red.
     Thabang could smell a storm coming. Big black clouds were covering the moon.
     “I’m going home. You do what you like.”
     The man walked past Thabang without looking at him.
     “You not gonna phone the cops tomorrow and ask when’s the court date, hey Meneer Pretorius?”
     There was no answer.
     Thabang heard the car start and reverse down the road. The white man was in his face. His breath smelt like booze and cigarettes.
     “Right, china. This is it. Nothing personal. Part of the game. Just improving the odds, you check? We get you before you get us. Next week or tomorrow. Whenever....”
     Thabang could hear the clank-clank of an old bicycle coming over the hill.
     “Quick man, Hannes. Not from close range, man!”
     This time Thabang heard it, echoing back from the clouds.
     Everyone falls. Everyone falls.

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