SHORT STORIES                                                                       (Copyright - Pierre du Toit)
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TOWNSHIP BOY

Sunnyboy was eight. Inside his box, a dust brown shoe box with a string for a handle, was one thick slice of bread, half an exercise book, a stump of pencil, and a brand new white handkerchief his aunt had insisted he should have on this, his first day of school.

Sunnyboy waited near the taxi rank. His instructions were not to move, to stand up straight, and not to talk to anyone. And his aunt had described to him many times how, when the taxi man arrived, the one with the hat with the green feathers in it, he had to greet him nicely, give him the rand which was wrapped in the handkerchief, and mind his own business.

The dawn was full of people, waiting getting in and out of taxis buying and talking or sleeping against bags or boxes or parcels or haggling with the hawkers as they waited. And Sunnyboy stood there with his eyes large and white in the receding township night.

Not once did Sunnyboy's box touch the ground. The people grew shadows under the burning sun. Very few taxis came and went now, and of those which came none had a man with a hat with green feathers in it.

It was getting on for noon when Sunnyboy first became aware of her presence. Out of the numbness of the wait there rose within him an excitement. The sweat in his palms was new, fresh, and had nothing to do with the heat. When he saw her, he knew it was her, first time. Not that he had never seen her before. He had, in a well-thumbed faded picture his aunty kept in her bible: "There, there, wasn't she lovely?" But he knew her, unmistakably. She was beautiful, shatteringly beautiful and his knees were shaky. She came right up to him, her eyes on a level as she stood in front of him, smiling. Her eyes were huge, dark, welcoming, the eyes of a mother. But her mouth was the mouth of a woman.

"Come," she said softly, turned and walked along the dust. They stopped at the front door of a square little house, the same as a hundred thousand around it. "We have it for an hour."

Inside the air was gentle and the room smelt of Eden. For the first time she lifted her hand, and with a devastating softness she touched his cheek, confidently. He held its coolness against his face. Then he steered her to the bed, the size of the house. The carpets were soft under their feet. He went over to a cardboard box on an elegant little table against the wall and snapped off the string around it. From it he lifted a rose, an exquisite red rose, still fresh and wet, its fragrance permeating the room. He pulled off two fine, thinly veined petals and put them over her closed eyelids. When he finally crawled in next to her, her fierceness drew his very being to deep within her hungry, mourning womb.

The sun was directly overhead when Sunnyboy finally sat down, the box next to him on the ground. He loosened the string. The hard, round coin was still in the handkerchief. He took a bite of the bread. All the time his eyes searched the dark space in every taxi for a man with a hat with green feathers in it.                                         

But then, like birds before a storm, the taxis were gone. The crowd at the other end of the open ground grew rapidly. Voices rose above the murmur, especially one, intermittently, fearful, indignant, sharpened by the edge of hysteria. Someone was down on the ground. Around him fists were in the air, the growl had become a roar. A few were silent, their faces pulled, their bodies twisted but their voices silent like their faces. For a moment Sunnyboy saw the man, his eyes - white, wide, so wide it looked as if they might fall into the dust. His uniform was in tatters. His brown black shoulders glistened in the sun and sweat ran down his neck. Killer! Traitor! White man's pig! Rhythmic waves of hatred crashed against him, bent him turned him swirled him round and round.

Sunnyboy edged towards the front, pushing and slicing through the writhing anger. Did he know the man? Or was it just his fear? Some youths broke forward. The crowd howled wildly, cheered. They spun a tread-less tyre high above their heads. The man held out his arms but the weight crashed down with such a force they snapped, the left arm awkward outwards backwards at a silly angle. A big hand grabbed at Sunnyboy's guts.

"Killer! Killer cop! Killer dog! This one, he's the one who shot my child!"

The words cleansed the sickness from his stomach. Again the woman screamed: "Child killer". Then she broke down, wailing, crying, her arms around her head, her face banging into the ground so that sand stuck to the skin. He knelt next to her. "He shot my child,” she whispered, “he killed my baby boy." She looked up at Sunnyboy, her face a mass a frown of bloody mud. But her eyes were bright with darkness, her grief a flame of hatred.

He stood up slowly. "This man shot my mother's son. He's mine. His blood must burn. My mother’s grief will burn this man!" He grabbed the box of matches from a bewildered youth and held it aloft. "Burn this man my brothers, burn this killer of my mother's only son!" The fire from the chorus sparked the sulphur and the flame engulfed the twisting figure the heat pushed back the crowd the sting of burning rubber twined with boiling flesh which burnt and burnt their maddened senses.

The taxis came again, a few, then more. People got in, furtively, others oozed into the heat and sniffed the air. And still the drivers had no hats, or had hats without the longed-for feathers.

He was waiting in a cooler place now, between two houses, away from the sullen crowd.

"Boy, come here." He looked around.

"Boy!"

Round the back of  the house was a low, wooden coal shack. A woman leaned against it, her face hidden behind a rag. Again he felt he knew her.

"In there. It's in there. Help him, for both of us, help him!"

Sunnyboy looked at the low opening where the woman was pointing. For a moment her legs were in the way, they were bloody, the stockings round her ankles were drenched in blood. He pushed aside the greasy curtain. When he looked around the woman was gone. He forced the string of his box around his neck and carefully crawled inside. He felt more than saw the movement in the darkness. Frightened by what he might be holding, he clutched the bundle and backed out through the opening.

He stared in horrified wonderment. In amongst the grimy rags he saw a face, a miniature face smeared with blood and slime. The tiny puckered mouth, the sealed eyelids, moved, constantly, too much. He shook the bundle. A great, choking closeness was taking hold of him. He lightly slapped the tiny cheeks, carefully, anxious as to how hard he dared do it. His head was light and a big hand pressed his chest and stomach. He couldn't breath. "Wake up! Wake up!" he shouted, but there was no air to make the sound. His legs were weak and cramps consumed his muscles. He staggered away from the shack, his eyes wild, his one hand around the bundle the other tearing at his shirt. A tap! He fell onto his knees. With an unknown strength he broke the tightness on his chest and held the small blue face under the stream, washed it, wiped it, fought the darkness. Then the baby heaved, it screamed, one long howl which filled their lungs with fire it screamed until their face turned red as gusts of air rushed through them and they screamed their joy into the world their voice defiant above the thunder of the township reached through smoke and dust beyond I am alive there's life here I'm alive to prove it, look, just look!

Sunnyboy was back where his aunt had placed him early in the now distant morning. His box was still around his neck, but his arms were firm around the softly breathing bundle. The afternoon crowd was building up again but he stood his ground. The man with the hat with the green feathers in it would simply have to take the baby too. Both of them, for that one round rand.

First he heard the drone, and then he felt the trembling under his feet. People screamed and ran, crouching, stumbling primates faces turned away from something. A few stood fast, erect, their chant defiant. He didn't move. He didn't know which way. Everywhere they ran they ran in all directions. Then he saw them. Two, three then five green beasts with flashing eyes and man-high tires jumping, flattening fences a crash which took away the corner of a house the youths moved forward stones and rocks and someone clambered on the back a crack he fell more shots with people tumbling crawling…something wrenched his bundle...black...the face was gone...their face was gone...he's strolling on a thin line spanned between the clouds their taxi speeds towards the sun the hat is grey the feathers tucked into its side - are green.

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