Mindf**k Read online

  I fell down on my bed, laying there wearing only my boxers.

  I tried sleeping but didn’t know if I actually nodded off. I had a pulsing headache. Or was I dreaming I had one?

  And was I dreaming when I heard my mom’s car coming up the driveway? That she entered the house, stopping at my door, wondering if she should come in? That she touched the handle, pressed it down and released it again without entering? That she walked away?

  Night Ride

  I woke up with a start. It was already dark outside. What time is it, I wondered? I couldn’t find my watch, looked on my cell phone. Eleven o’clock. I lay quiet for a while, listening for any movement around the house, trying to find out if anyone was awake, but I heard nothing.

  There hung an awful stench in my room. Something like the smell of old food. I got up to open a window. I wasn’t in the mood to look for the source of the terrible stench.

  My mouth felt bitter and dry. I strolled to the bathroom, pissed and gulped down a few sips of water directly from the tap. The face staring back at me from the mirror didn’t look like me. It was pale, had a two day old beard, red eyes and cracked lips.

  I felt terrible. The bitter taste was still in my mouth. I pressed out a squirt of toothpaste on my tongue, took another sip of water and rinsed my mouth with toothpaste. My toothbrush was still in my dad’s car.

  The car. I wondered if it was still there. If my dad had come to fetch it.

  I was alone in the house. I made my way to the front door.

  The car was still in the driveway. Amazing that he hadn’t come to fetch it, I thought. After all the SMSs and voicemails. Perhaps it was because of the thing between him and my mom. And the other man.

  The key was still in the ignition. I got in, opened the electronic gate and reversed into the street. The gate closed again. A block further on I remembered that I hadn’t locked the house. The front door was probably still wide open. Ah, what the hell.

  I drove into town.

  I needed a beer. And a spliff.

  I drove down Nelson Mandela Drive, past Tempe, the Brandwag Centrum, Mimosa Mall. The street’s name changed to Zastron Street. Past the orange and green lights of Stadium Fast Foods (busy as always).

  Where should I go? Cool Runnings? Mystic Boer? Maybe to the Waterfront?

  But the very thought of all those people crowding those places by now made me realise that I didn’t really crave a beer that much. I didn’t want to see anyone.

  Perhaps I should just cruise through the town centre, I thought. No, not there either. It is a dangerous place at that time of night. Some people don’t even go there during the day anymore. I have no idea how all those businesses survive.

  To Naval Hill then, I decided. I turned left at the Checkout store on the corner of Zastron and Kloof Street. The traffic light at the old stone church stopped me. I waited. There were no other cars approaching. Should I drive on? No, wait.

  Over on the sidewalk I saw someone walking. A girl. In the streetlight I saw she had long black hair, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She looked around for a moment … and my heart stopped.

  It was Partygirl!

  The traffic light was still red. I shot a glance at the other one to see if it had turned orange already. No, it was still green.

  She strode away further and further. It seemed as if she was aiming for a side road. It was dark there.

  The light was still red.

  Fuck that.

  I floored the pedal. The car shot forward.

  It was her, I saw as she reached the next streetlight.

  Suddenly there were screaming tires behind me. I spotted a white car in the rear-view mirror. How it crashed into the sidewalk. Dust and a honking horn. I probably should’ve checked if there were any cars coming.

  I wasn’t going back. No ways.

  I was again on the lookout for Partygirl. I found her in Second Street. She walked with her arms folded across her body. I drove closer. Stopped the car, jumped out, leaving the door open.

  ‘Partygirl!’

  She glanced over her shoulder at me. I could see that she was scared. She quickened her pace.

  It wasn’t her.

  It wasn’t her.

  I got back into the car and sat bent forward over the steering wheel. Should I have cried? It was what other people would have done. But I couldn’t.

  I made a U-turn and turned right at the crossing. I wasn’t in the mood for Naval Hill anymore. I was on my way home.

  The white car was still parked on the sidewalk in front of the church.

  The driver noticed me again. He probably hoped that I’d come back, but I drove past. He gave me the finger. And I returned the favour.

  Back through the darkened streets. Past the liquor store, Receiver of Revenue, the blue glass building, and then I saw her again …

  Partygirl.

  The same hope.

  The same disappointment.

  Peace at last

  Kelly hammered on my bedroom door. I’d noticed that she was home but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. She would only bitch and moan about Mom and Dad and how shit it was that they wanted to separate, and about the other guy who fucked everything up in our household. (As if it weren’t fucked up a long time ago.)

  Point was – I didn’t need it. Not right then.

  My mind was muddled and my body felt like an ant farm inhabited by millions of little moving black ants tunnelling through my flesh. Scurrying about, carrying pieces of cut flesh out of me. I could almost feel their small feet tickling in my intestines. And I felt like one of them – I wanted to keep on moving and moving.

  I scratched around in my closet until I found a small suitcase. (My old grade 1 bag, could you believe it?) It was where I kept everything my parents weren’t supposed to see. They always went through my stuff when I wasn’t around. Thought I didn’t know, seeing that everything was already in such disarray. But I knew, as we understand our own bedevilment. There’s a kind of fuzzy logic behind everything.

  In the suitcase I had an unsmoked spliff. Heavy stuff which I intended saving for a special occasion. I removed it and stuffed it in my back pocket. There wasn’t anything special in my life anyway.

  I removed the burglar bars. I had sawn them off a long time ago and they were basically just décor now.

  I hopped through the window and strolled on in the dark past the fruit trees. I could still hear Kelly hammering on my door. How she cried for me to open up.

  In the corner of the yard there was a Wendy house, where we kept the gardening tools. I sat down behind the house, made myself comfortable on the ground and lit the spliff. Its mellow sweetness rushed through my body.

  Peace at last.

  I watched the tip glow. Then I lay down on my side on the ground. While gently floating away I wondered what Kerbs and Sky were up to. If they also thought about Partygirl.

  The dreams came fast and furious.

  One of them was more like a voice and probably not a real dream. At first the voice was far away. Then it came closer. It called … my name …

  ‘Burns …’ The word echoed in my mind.

  It was Partygirl.

  ‘Burns, I am not dead.’

  Lost

  I woke up, soaking with sweat. The Wendy house’s wall was against my back and the ground right at my face. It was still dark.

  ‘I’m not dead.’

  I glanced around. It felt as if the voice had whispered it in my ears just now. Maybe shouted, because it was still so clear. It couldn’t have been a dream.

  She was there!

  Partygirl was alive.

  I have to find her, I thought. I jumped up, felt my stomach aching with hunger pangs. The munchies. But fuck that, I thought, I had to find her.

  ‘Partygirl!’ I cried out into the night, stumbling around in-between the trees. ‘Partygirl!’

  My voice echoed against the neighbours’ houses, returning to me in the dark, abandoned and empty.


  I climbed through my bedroom window. She might be waiting for me in my room. No, she wasn’t there either. I threw open my cupboard door. Nothing.

  My heart raced as if I had run the Comrades marathon in a record time. Anxiety thickened in my throat, stole my breath. I unlocked my bedroom door and darted through the house. From room to room. I called her name. Screamed her name.

  Nothing.

  ‘Chris!’ someone called my name. I turned around.

  It was Kelly.

  ‘Have you lost it completely? What’s going on with you? Just look at you!’

  Only then did I notice how filthy my clothes were – from the sweat and the sand. My skin was sticky and there was sand under my fingernails. My mouth tasted bitter as if a dog had lifted its leg inside it. I felt sick, nauseous and hungry.

  Lost.

  Empty.

  Kelly stared at me as if I were roadkill.

  ‘Why didn’t you open up the door earlier?’

  ‘She isn’t here,’ I said.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you. Shit, I just want to talk to someone. You know you can’t with Mom –’

  ‘She isn’t here.’

  ‘They’re getting a divorce, Chris. And what will happen to –’

  ‘She isn’t –’

  ‘Mom’s with the other guy, Chris. I know she’s not here.’

  ‘Not Mom.’

  ‘What? We’ve been talking about Mom the whole time!’

  Kelly seemed to be hovering across the carpet. Past the TV, the hi-fi … hazy white like an angel.

  ‘Chris!’ Suddenly she was right back where she was before. In focus. It looked as if she wanted to cry.

  ‘Go talk to one of your boyfriends, I don’t wanna fucking know. I don’t care what Mom and Dad do.’

  ‘You’re a real dick, do you know that?’

  I know.

  What would you do, Jack White?

  Sunday felt like a dream. Kelly went to her boyfriend’s. She had a whole bag full of stuff with her when she left. I didn’t know if she would come back. My mom was probably still with her boyfriend, my dad probably at a friend’s place or in a hotel.

  He still hasn’t come to fetch his car. Shit, I hoped he wasn’t hanging somewhere in a hotel or lying in a tub with slit wrists.

  No, he’d rather go drinking. Feeling sorry for himself. Trying to forget.

  I trudged around in the house feeling anxious. She’s alive, the thought rushed around in my mind. I was certain of it. I just had that gut feeling. I saw her hand moving in the tent. I thought then it was a trick of the light, but it wasn’t. Her hand must’ve really moved.

  I looked around for my cell phone. I had to phone Sky, to tell him. I found the phone on the carpet in the TV lounge. The TV was on. They showed re-runs of old animal programs. The presenter whispered excitedly as a cheetah chased down a springbuck, grabbing it by the throat, and pulling it to the ground. Dead.

  Sky’s phone rang and rang. The voicemail didn’t even come on for me to leave a message.

  I phoned again. The same story. Then I tried getting hold of Kerbs. After the second ring I hung up. No, I decided, leave Kerbs out of this. I shouldn’t speak to him. Not now. I was still pissed off with him. (And that’s putting it mildly.)

  I stepped inside the kitchen to get something to eat. Partygirl’s face haunted my thoughts.

  Show me your happies. And she really did. I smiled.

  I knew she would show them to me again. Once we’re alone. Like we were that Friday night. And this time Kerbs wouldn’t come and fuck everything up. This time it would be perfect. She would lie in my arms and she would be mine. Mine, all mine.

  While I was eating the sandwich I’d made, I typed a SMS.

  i think partygirl is alive.

  I sent it to Kerbs and Sky.

  I sat waiting for fifteen minutes. Not one of them replied.

  I went outside to remove the camping gear from my dad’s car. Whatever I could, I packed away. And whatever I couldn’t, I hid away.

  Entering the house, there still wasn’t any reply to my SMS.

  I went to my room and lay down on my bed whilst deciding what I should do.

  ‘What would you have done, Jack White?’ I asked the man with the pale face on the White Stripes poster. Jack White didn’t reply.

  I decided to go and look for Partygirl.

  I saw her at least three times, somewhere, walking the streets of Bloem, but I couldn’t stop in time to catch up with her. She also didn’t come when I sounded the car’s horn.

  Kelly came back on Sunday morning. The bag of stuff that I thought she had packed to leave for good, hung over her shoulder. The boyfriend obviously had other plans.

  My mom arrived shortly afterwards.

  ‘You probably heard,’ she said to me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what, Mom? You can do as you please. What do I care?’

  ‘You know your father and I …’

  ‘I said I don’t care. Leave me alone.’

  She seemed too tired to fight. With me anyway. My dad arrived home later that night. Then all hell broke loose. Things were being smashed to pieces against the wall. Doors slammed. My dad pleaded for another chance. The whole soap-drama.

  On and on and on.

  Then he got in his car and drove off.

  The cheetah had seized its prey and ripped out its throat.

  Eventually everything comes to an end.

  Lost anything?

  Monday morning I woke up and decided to go back to Aldam. (Fuck school.) Partygirl came to me again the previous night. In my dreams.

  Her hands moved across my body. I could feel her breasts against my back. Her legs folding around mine. Her fingers curling around my dick, starting to move slowly. ‘I’m not dead, Burns,’ she whispered. Like a freezing Free State winter night. When I woke up, my body was icy cold but dripping with sweat.

  She was gone.

  Only the cluttered room lay around me. And Jack and Meg White stared like ghosts from the red and black poster.

  I had to go back to Aldam and take a look.

  I had to find out what my dream meant. If it was true.

  I tried phoning Sky again. He didn’t answer. Where was he?

  A guy in a pickup truck gave me a lift on the N1. He probably thought that I was going to sit at the back, but I thought – forget it, I’m not sitting in the wind all the way to Aldam. It was also looking like rain again.

  I got in next to him. I saw his lips parting as if he wanted to say something. Perhaps wanting to protest. I pretended not to see it.

  ‘I’m on my way to Aldam, and you?’

  ‘Kroonstad.’ His voice was uncertain. He probably didn’t know what he’d let himself in for right now.

  ‘All right then.’

  He pulled away. I saw him glaring at me from the corner of his eye.

  ‘You don’t have any luggage,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you going to do at Allemanskraal Dam?’ he asked with a heavy Afrikaans accent.

  ‘Ah, you know.’

  He frowned. I could see he wanted to know more, but bugger him, he wasn’t my father.

  When he saw I wasn’t in the mood for chit chat, he switched on the radio. Radio Sonder Grense. Can you believe it? I thought all their listeners had bloody well died already. Well, that was how the presenters talked to them. As if they were scared to wake the dead, leaving that for the Second Coming.

  ‘It’s now ten o’clock and time for the news,’ the presenter said in Afrikaans.

  His words struck my mind like an echo in an empty room.

  What if they carried a story about Partygirl on the news? About her disappearance from her mother’s house. That she went missing. Perhaps something about a body that was found at the Allemanskraal Dam … Maybe that the police were on the lookout for three boys in their late teens that could help with the investigation. (Translated meaning: the guilty f
uckers.)

  The news reader drawled from one story to the next. Robert Mugabe who was still refusing to get off his throne like a full of shit teenager, giving the world the finger. The ANC protecting their wickets. The enormous Aids pandemic wiping out people all over Africa. (And the South African minister of health who wanted to stop it with garlic and beetroot.)

  When a story about another farm attack came on the air, the old guy just said ‘fuck’ and switched off the radio.

  Nothing about Partygirl.

  We drove on in total silence. At the Aldam exit he dropped me off. I started walking to the gate. A game warden picked me up halfway and dropped me off at the resort’s swimming pool. (I told him that my friends were waiting for me there. I couldn’t really tell him that I came to see if we actually buried Partygirl.)

  When he drove off I started making my way to the dam. Down the stone stairs, past the trampoline and put-put course, the new swimming pool and the super tube, to the camping area, where the main stage was.

  Cleaners were already busy picking up the rubbish. It looked like a dumping site: beer cans, papers, used condoms. The fine grass was in bad shape after the weekend. In places you could see the rectangles where the tents had been.

  I tried working out where our tent stood. It was close to the water. I walked alongside the dam. Everything looked different. I stopped at a flat patch of ground. Was it here? It didn’t look as if the ground had been tampered with. I looked at the area again. The trees in the distance. The distance from the main stage. (They were busy taking it down.) No, it wasn’t there.

  I strode further.

  My heart missed a beat when I saw it.

  Unmistakable for someone who knew, but if you didn’t know, you would walk over it without noticing anything.

  The ground made a slight bump even though we took a lot of it out and dumped it in other places. The Beetle’s hubcap was still lying there. I picked it up, turned my back on the workers and wiped it clean with my T-shirt. Just in case there were some fingerprints on it. Then I dropped it again.