The Disappeared (19 page)

‘The
Chinkies are taking over the world. Fact. Okay? Fact!’

Duke took a
big swig from the bottle of Carling Black Label. He grimaced at the warm flat
beer. ‘America’s not in charge anymore. They haven’t been since uh, nine
eleven, ok. And Obama ... Obama is their fucking bitch. The New World Order,
okay? They all planned this economic shit together. I mean, Obama is the
anti-Christ. You know that, right? The fucking anti-Christ, I am telling you
now, my
ou
.’ Duke George Antill took a long nervous drag from the
Lexington cigarette, clutching the brown beer-bottle in the same hand. He
looked over at the teen huddled in the passenger seat of his 1987 Volkswager
Passat. The cold Johannesburg winter evening painted his breath with white
condensation. Duke punched the longhaired boy in the shoulder. ‘Hey, you
fucking listening to me? I’m not talking to myself here. This is deep shit,
man.’

Joshua Paul
Kingsley looked over at the older boy with barely concealed irritation. ‘Yeah. The
Chinkies are taking over the fucking world,’ Johsua said. He felt nervous. Distracted.
And afraid. ‘I heard you dude.’

The heavy
rain – unusual for this time of year – slammed against the car roof and
streaked greasy neon tears along the windows. They were parked in a back street
of the commercial section of Brixton. In the distance, the Bixton Tower – the
tallest free standing structure in Africa – blinked a red eye in the dark sky.
The traffic had almost disappeared at this time of night. The heavy rains meant
that there were no pedestrians on the dingy, littered street. Joshua looked at
his watch. His heart skipped a beat. Almost time.

‘Dude, if
you don’t believe me, you should take a look at China. Okay. All the cities
have moving pavements, dude. You know, like erm ... fucking escalators. True’s
fuck, dude. I saw it with my own eyes ... when I went there. With my own two
eyes.’ Joshua knew for a fact that Duke had never even been outside
Johannesburg – let alone the country. But he said nothing. ‘So don’t feel bad
about what we’re doing, my bru. Okay. These fuckers deserve it.’

Duke sucked
the last smoke from the cigarette. He opened the window and flicked it into the
darkness. With a squeak-squeak that rasped in Joshua’s ears, he wound up the
window of the old Passat. He took another swig from the Black Label. ‘I mean,
just the other day I read in the paper that the Chinese are planning to
re-colonise Africa. Hell yeah. I mean why else do you think you see so many of
these fuckers over here. Huh? I’ll tell you. They wanna come here, shit in your
toilet, fuck your mother and eat your dog. Fucking Ay, dude.’ Duke fumbled in
his grey overcoat and pulled out yet another cigarette and nervously lit the
tip. He drank the last beer from the bottle and threw the empty dumpy into the
back seat. ‘You wanna beer?’ Joshua shook his head. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said
ripping another Black Label from the plastic wrapped six-pack. ‘So, as I was
saying. I mean take these fuckers.’ He pointed at a mini-market across street.
It featured a bright yellow neon sign that said CHINA PALACE. A stylised wooden
pagoda hung over the sign. ‘I mean, look at them. They come here, all the way
from China, to steal our jobs and pollute our streets.’

‘Taiwan.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘They’re
from Taiwan. Not China.’

Duke
slapped Joshua on the cheek with the back of his hand. The cigarette clutched
in his fingers left a swoosh of ash on Joshua’s face. ‘Listen! You tryna be
clever here? Huh? Huh? I’ll fucking
bliksem
you, my bra. If you wanna
snotklap
,
just lemme know. Okay?’ Duke sniffed loudly, taking a long deep drag from his
crooked cigarette. He stared challengingly at his partner. Josh pushed himself deeper
into the tattered passenger seat. Sullen and morose. Blushing with anger and
humiliation. He knew it would be a mistake to provoke Duke. His brutal
ever-ready capacity for violence was legendary on the tough streets of Brixton,
Johannesburg. And to become a legend in the large working-class suburb was ...
well, no mean feat.

‘Good. We
don’t want any trouble now, do we? Especially before we hit these fuckers.’ Duke
used the beer bottle to indicate the CHINA PALACE Mini-Market. ‘I mean, like I
was telling you, bra. Don’t feel bad man. Okay? I know this is your first time.
But don’t worry about it. These people don’t believe in God. And they eat dogs,
man. Fucking dogs, dude. I mean dude, it’s like throwing a spike up Lolly’s
ass, toasting her over a
braai
and chowing her.’ Duke was referring to
the Kingsley’s Golden Retriever. ‘You know what I’m saying, man.’ Duke chuckled
sardonically. ‘Barbarians. They even use dog meat in sushi. I mean, fuck,
everybody knows it. That’s why, man, you’ll never see me in one of those fancy,
fag-ass Sandton Sushi joints. Insane, man. You know what Mckenna tells me – ‘

Joshua’s
anxiety-ridden mind starting drifting. Even at the best of times it was
difficult focusing on Duke’s blind, staggered rambling. For Joshua however, his
racist monologues fuelled by cheap booze were the worst – and the most tedious.
He looked over at the drunken 22-year old and gave the obligatory nod. Yes Duke,
uh-huh...

His mind
drifted to earlier that morning. And the exchange he had had with his brother.

‘What’s up,
Josh? Something’s up. Don’t bullshit me.’ Joshua had averted his eyes, trying
not to meet the steady gaze of David Kingsley. As usual his older brother could
read him like a book. That morning Joshua had gulped his scalding hot coffee,
wanting nothing more than to escape the cold incision of a David Kingsley
interrogation. He had moved about awkwardly in the tiny kitchen of their
Brixton house as if, by remaining in motion, he could prevent his brother from
learning that he was planning his first ever-armed robbery. As he fled from
their little cramped but tidy house Davey had shouted after him: ‘Josh! Don’t
go do something stupid, you hear?’

David
William Kingsley. The socially awkward and introverted older brother who had
managed to avoid all the detrimental temptations of the Brixton streets by
spending the greater part of his youth locked up in his bedroom with a library
of books. The shy and unassuming older brother who had slaved his way towards a
scholarship at the University of the Witwatersrand – at a time when the incumbent
policy demanded that these scholarships be awarded to black students. That
morning, as Joshua fled the quiet censure of his older brother, he had felt
further removed from him than ever before.

‘Dude, it’s
time we kicked them out of the Goddamn country,’ Duke said aggressively. He was
starting to slur slightly.

And Joshua?
What about Joshua Paul Kingsley? Josh grimaced as the thoughts bounced around
his mind like a rock in a washing machine. Josh and his older brother couldn’t
be more different. ‘Are you sure they’re from the same father?’ He had once
heard Aunty Magda ask his mother. Yeah. Good question.

Unlike
Davey, Joshua had left school before graduating. Nothing more than a grade
eight certificate. The constant tedium of academic requirements together with
the rigours of dozens of brawls at school had been too much. And so he left. It
was as simple as that. No amount of pleading and crying from their
long-suffering mother could change any of that. That had been a year ago. And
so he had entered the adult world. And had soon experienced the wearying sting
of responsibilities unique to that world. From job to job. From commitment to
commitment. And yet ... no further along the path to any kind of lasting
satisfaction.

‘Joshua’s
malaise springs from the absence of any significant father figure’
. That’s
what the guidance counsellor wrote. Fuck her! What the hell did she know? He
never needed that useless sonofabitch bastard anyway. So what if he walked out
on them. It was his loss. Not theirs. People liked to shove complex problems
into tiny little neat packages and post it to P.O. BOX NOW I FEEL FUCKING
BETTER. But it wasn’t as simple as that. In the short time that Josh had been
alive he knew
that
much for sure. For as long as he could remember he
had had this nagging feeling that nothing mattered. That nothing was really
worth the effort. That life was ultimately composed of corrosive rituals like living,
loving, breeding, working and ultimately, dying. You’re born alone; you shit
alone; you die alone. And then somebody pisses on your grave. Whoopee fucking
doo. What was the use of it all? Josh only had to look around himself to answer
that question. Ole man Robinson who had worked his whole life for Harmony Gold
Mines, just to lose his job five years shy of retirement. Now the old fuck was
guarding cars in Melville while snooty bastards half his age tossed R2 coins at
him while expecting him to grovel in gratitude at their generosity. Or Oom Van
Schalkwyk who had lost his wife of forty-three years to a drunk driver ... and
now had to watch his own face rot right in front of his eyes due to the skin
cancer that was digesting him alive. Or ole fag Francois – the homo from Bree
Street – who had tried to shoot his brains out with his lover’s revolver but
missed and in the end succeeded only in blowing his left eye and half of his
jaw away. A few years later he died an agonising death of AIDS anyway. An old
fag ... unable to chew his food; forced to wear an eye clap to cover the gaping
hole in his head. Like some camp pirate. Like some twisted tunnel of love.
Yeah. That was why we lived. That was why we suffered and sweated and bled. To
rot away. To be tossed away. To have our loved ones wrenched away.

There were
others who felt like this. Many others. Josh knew that. This pervasive
unfocused dissatisfaction. It was an affliction of his generation. Or maybe it
was just the oldest complaint in the world. This – what did Davey call it once
– this paralysing nihilism. And so Josh went from job to job. Never achieving
anything. Looking for something but never finding it.

‘Hey dude,
it’s time.’

With that
kind of attitude – in a neighbourhood like Brixton – it wasn’t long before Josh
met up with the likes of Duke Antill. The rough and bulky Duke with the tattoo
of Lucifer on his right arm. The guy who had
twice
put his alcoholic
father in intensive care. The petty criminal who had been the youngest guy in
the neighbourhood to do time in ‘Sun City.’ In the bland world of teen
pregnancies, dingy supermarkets and dirty streets, the world of Duke Antill
offered a welcome escape; a fast track to big money, cheap girls and chemical
thrills. It was a gritty promise that was infinitely more real than a dismal
life spent working towards a lonely death in a squalid old-age home.

Hey, bra!
It’s time.’ Duke roughly shook Josh out of his reverie. Josh looked at him
sourly and stifled a sudden need to tell him to go to hell. ‘Let’s do this
thing.’ Duke jumped out into the rain. For a moment Joshua remained behind,
caught between the past and the present. Then he too clambered out of the car.

The neon of
the storefront illuminated the wet empty street in garish puke-yellow. Besides
an old Toyota parked further down the street, theirs was the only car in the
street. At the entrance to the CHINA PALACE an old Chinese man was busy pulling
the heavy trellis security door into place. Duke pulled a gray balaclava over
his crew cut. ‘Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!’ Joshua quickly slipped on his own
balaclava, his heart pounding madness in his chest. He sprinted after Duke. Despite
the adrenaline that was pumping through his body Josh felt ridiculous with the heavy
woollen balaclava over his head. His breath heaved in his ears. Hot tendrils of
excitement and fear shot through his limbs. In the short distance to the
entrance of the mini-market, they were both soaked in the torrential downpour.

Duke was
the first to reach the astonished old man. Josh saw the dark glint of a pistol
in his hand, glistening in the pelting rain. He felt for the cold metal of his
Glock, tucked into his belt. He hated guns. But tonight he felt comforted by
the steel of the German gun.

Duke
grabbed the old man by the collar. And forced him down onto the floor, pistol
to his head. ‘Inside! Let’s go. Let’s go.’ The old man cowered on the floor,
hands held protectively in front of his face. There was pure naked terror in
his eyes. ‘I said, let’s go inside, you motherfucking gook.’ A pulsating vein
throbbed stark and violent against Duke’s forehead. He pulled up the old man by
the neck and shoved him inside the store. He turned to Joshua. ‘Get the door.’
Josh grabbed the trellis gate and quickly pulled it shut, leaving the heavy
French door open.

There was a
sudden loud scream of anguish. Joshua spun around. Fuelled by the heightened
reflexes of an adrenaline rush he had drawn his gun – unwittingly. He faced the
interior of the store. It was a landscape with which he was intimately
familiar. Three checkout tills were lined up at the mouth of the store. Beyond
these stretched the half dozen or so aisles of the medium sized mini-market.
Immediately to the right was a larger counter where cigarettes and tobacco were
sold. A large yellow Lotto machine squatted at the one end of the long counter.

Duke was
forcing the old man towards the nearest of the three tills. Behind them stood
an old Chinese woman – the source of the anguished scream. She was crying
hysterically gnarled hands tearing at her contorted face. Her entire body shook
violently as she stared in horror at the man who was holding her husband
hostage. A few paces behind the old woman – standing on the other side of the
cigarette counter – was a young girl. The daughter. For a split second Josh was
totally frozen – transfixed by the clean lines of her beauty. He barely had
time to wonder at her strange calm before another agonised scream broke his
thoughts.