Jaz & Miguel (22 page)

"Jaz, what the
fuck
are you doing?!" It was Miguel,
shouting from behind the gates. The security guards weren't letting him out.

She looked at him and then at the ground for the camera, then at
him. Someone must've kicked it away. It could be anywhere!

And then she saw him:
Abbey!
He was
limping, soaked in blood, and holding onto a wall across the street, the camera
parts clutched in his hands. Jaz twitched forward toward him—

Crash! Someone's shoulder blasted into her neck, momentarily lifting
her off the ground—then she landed on her back, woozy. This was followed by an
incongruous volley of apologies from probably the very person who'd just hit
her. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" The person tried to help her up but
then gave up when Jaz's delirium prevented her from moving.

More gunshots.

A police bullhorn telling the crowd to move.

"Jaz!!" Miguel's voice.

She got up on her elbows, her vision hazy. Dozens—
hundreds?
—of
people were charging toward her, eyes filled with panic as they ran from the pop
of rubber bullets bursting behind them like kernels of popcorn. She saw one man
fall on the ground and tumble. Her breath caught with panic as the
inevitability of what was about to happen hit her: she was either going to be
trampled, or shot.

Then she felt her body being lifted so that only her heels were on
the ground and someone had their hands underneath her armpits, dragging her
away like a sack of potatoes. She looked up.

It was Miguel.
He
was dragging her! She caught her composure
again and got herself to her feet and ran for the gate, some other students had
grabbed Candy and pulled her in. As they all got inside, a swarm of runners raced
past them.

Someone was giving CPR to Nita. Stefan and Candy were on the ground
but conscious, groaning. She saw Thandie, next to Sandile.

Then an ambulance siren. Since they'd gotten through the gate, a new
wave of protestors had formed outside, as if they came in tides, dispersing
with bullets and then reforming almost immediately after.

Miguel dropped down on his knees next to Thandie.

He shook his head and grabbed Thandie's hand. He rested his other hand
on Sandile's chest.

Thandie was bawling, her other palm to her eyes.

Miguel … was silent.

Miguel felt the burn of hot tar under his knees as he kneeled beside
Sandile just inside the Wits main gate, his hand on his best friend's chest,
waiting, for the ambulance. At one stage he slid his hand gently to his
friend's—his
brother's
—hand. It was getting
colder now, despite the scorching heat.

Miguel looked only forward at the ironwork gate—newly fitted only
six months earlier for situations just like these—vaguely apprehending what was
happening outside. People were chanting and singing and saying something or
other. How could so many people fill such a short space in so small a time?

He heard a siren, not constant, more like a burp. It was a burping
siren, as if the siren was a horn and its owner was trying to make its way through
the mass in front of it—a red flamingo wading through thick, muddy water.

Then it was there, its red lights lighting the ground ahead of him.
Red. There'd been so much of that today, hadn't there?

No one opened the gate for a moment, and the ambulance started
hooting.

But there was no rush. His friend's hand ... was cold.

Miguel could swear he was staring straight at the vehicle, but he
wasn't really seeing it—or anything else for that matter. All he was looking at
now was a picture in his mind, a series of events which had just transpired:
Tsepho, eyes frenzied with a high which must've been going on for three days at
least; a gun; a shot; another shot; a third; a car; an escape; that reporter; Sandile.

Eventually, he felt Sandile's hand leave his, and saw him being
carried away in a stretcher. That Indian girl that Jaz was friends with was also
on a stretcher. Had she died as well?

Miguel sat there, on his knees, looking outward.

At nothing.

Miguel
.
Baby, listen to me, Miguel.
It was a voice he recognized. A sweet, caring voice that he'd heard
some time before—a few days ago, actually. And then he felt someone run
something—a finger?—through his hair and a chill ran down his spine.

Miguel, baby, we should go. Come now. Miguel.

That was a sweet voice. He loved the owner of that voice.

And then, as if he had come up from under water, he heard the voice
and all the commotion around him, and the knobkerries hitting the gate.

"Miguel!" It was Jaz. She was next to him, and now all the
sounds were clear around him. There was a riot on outside—no doubt sparked on
by Tsepho's murder of Sandile, as if it had any relation whatsoever to the
protest at all (which it didn't—not in the slightest). From the periphery of
his vision, he saw Jaz by his side, also on her knees, her hands folded on her
thighs, talking to him.

Then he heard a popcorn sound in the background, and the owners of
the knobkerries started running again, and just like that, there was no crowd
anymore: that's how it had gone for the last—how long had it been?—three
minutes, five, ten? He knew they'd be back—ebbing and flowing until the end of
the day when it would all be reported in the news. And some would even say,
We
were there!
Maybe some of them would even die today—hit at close range by a
rubber bullet, maybe.

At close range, those things could be deadly.

But, so what? People die in this country. They die all the time. That's
the way it is down here.

That's why Jaz must leave.

"Miguel." Her voice again.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he said. He looked at her. "I'm
fine. Let's go."

Jaz was confused at his reaction, but she played along. Miguel had
been sitting there, staring into nothing for the longest time and then, as if
someone had dropped a glass of water on his face, he got up, and told her ...
he was
fine
?

He turned and walked away from the gate, as if going somewhere, but
also going nowhere. And, truth be told, where would they go? They'd have to
wait it out inside the gates before the insanity outside fully subsided. Then,
surmised Jaz, probably the best thing for Miguel would be to get him home.

She walked behind him as he idled around randomly across the
campus—to the International House, the College House that was being renovated,
the hockey field, the soccer stadium, outside the planetarium, the sports hall,
the library, back to the International House—on and on and on and on, ever
silent, only occasionally throwing a stone at nothing, not a tear in his eyes,
not even a tremble of his chin, just a vacant glare.

He must be in shock.

"Baby?" She called him
baby
because that's what he was to her—still. She knew she loved him. She knew it
didn't mean they would be together now—but this term just felt right to her now.
"Baby, um, are you OK?"

"Of course. Of course I'm OK," he said, not a tone of
anger or fear or sadness ... or even joy in his voice. Nothing. Deadness.

"Um—OK. Look, Miguel, let's ...." She wasn't sure what she
should do. She saw a concrete bench. "Miguel, let's sit."

"Sure, good idea."

He swayed over to the bench as if he was drunk and kept looking
around, his eyes flicking to a plant, a car, a window, to Jaz, to the bench,
the street, that same plant again.

They said nothing.

Miguel put his hands on his lap and looked around.

"On second thought," he said, "I think I'd like to
... walk, actually." He got up and they walked some more.

They walked for three hours.

Eventually, when Miguel said he was now ready to go home (equally as
distant and as if nothing at all had occurred), Jaz took him to the
International House where Thandie was and asked her if she could drive them
home.

There was no ways she was going to let him drive home alone.

Abbey sucked on a bottle of Johnnie Walker as he sank his aching
body into a chair, ready to write his Pulitzer Prize winning article. If he
didn't get called up by the CCB to be their official correspondent to South
Africa after this, then he'd at least get a raise or a bonus for his work from
The
Daily
. Heck, he'd even settle for
Official Correspondent for The Daily
—one had to start somewhere.

Abbey had never been very lucky. It had all begun with that
unfortunate incident in school when he was ten, with that girl on the floor,
and then the name calling. It seems his bad luck had continued on into his
later years, never really making it happen with the opposite sex, two failed
marriages, one alleged illegitimate child (the lying bitch).

But today he had been lucky. The right place at the right time. And
then that riot! And photos of everything!

This country was raw, passionate, alive! Blimey, he was beginning to
love these fucking South Africans.

He'd heard of that Tsepho character, deeply involved with some or
other Nigerian Drug-Lord (who liked to call himself "God" of all
things) and selling crack-cocaine and
tik
(why didn't they just call it
Crystal Meth like the rest of the English world?) to the students. Abbey had
seen from the glare in the man's eyes before he shot that Sandile bloke (an
unfortunate incident, really) that this Tsepho had been high on something. The
man's eyes had been rolling in confused delirium.

Now that he thought about it, maybe it hadn't been luck at all. Abbey
had hung around a little after seeing this Tsepho character lurking around the
school. And he did follow the guy as well—an innocent observer, just letting
the story take place.

A finer example of the journalistic code of ethics there had never
been!

And the fact that he'd taken that Sandile bloke's phone after he'd
left it lying on a wall surely had not influenced the story. Abbey threw the
phone in the trash now. There was nothing useful in there—not even an SMS to
that Elize girl!

Abbey thought of words—of all the words that could be selected to
portray this unfortunate incident alongside the expertly juxtaposed photos of
those protestors, and the final moment of that gunshot; both incidents linked
by general location, like a scene in a movie. But could they have been linked by
subject matter as well? And what
had
been the subject of that protest? Had
it not been based on ongoing wage disputes? And were wage disputes not simply
another
remnant of the Old South Africa, favoring one class over another? And was the
fact of Tsepho—a South African citizen getting involved in the drug-trade—not merely
another result of that inequality? Was he not, perhaps, simply trying to make a
living in a country which does not pay many of its workers a decent enough wage
for them to live on? Could that not have been the deciding factor in forcing
him into a life of drug-abuse and crime?

Inequality. Racism. Prejudice. Abbey could almost hear them rhyming
with the word "South Africa" in his mind. What poetry.

And then there was this Sandile, with a white girlfriend from a
neighborhood known for its racist attacks. What a fortuitous turn of events! Abbey
could see his photos being syndicated to all the major news networks across the
world. And all this from a "tabloid" (hah!) journalist. Kevin Carter,
step aside, there's a new member of the
Bang Bang Club
in town—and he's starting a whole new
club of his own!

Abbey sat there, his left arm gripping his broken ribs, his right
shaking in the direction of the bottle. Now was not the time to go to hospital.
Now was the time to start
selecting
.
He'd been doing his homework, placing the appropriate "GSM-goodies"
wherever he could. Now was payoff time.

But who would've thought that bastard would've pulled out a blooming
gun and shot the bugger!

Right Place. Right Bloody Time.
(No pun
intended).

The mantra had begun to repeat in his mind like a war cry from
someone who had never known anything but the losing side of war:
Right Place.
Right Time. Right Place. Right Time. Right Place. Right Time!

If he could only do that again ....

Ahhh, but he would. Which is exactly why, despite broken ribs and an
aching head, he'd taken the time to find this Miguel Pinto's car and deposit
one of his trusty friends underneath the chassis. The way that boy had reacted
to Sandile's murder (a truly unfortunate incident, truly) Abbey just
knew
the
stone of this Pinto guy's story had not yet been fully bled. More was going to
happen with this Pinto boy, he could feel it in his bones.

Right Place. Right Time!

If there was one thing Abbey had taken away from that whole
phone-tapping incident ("scandal" was such an ugly word; he preferred
"incident") it was this: how many newspapers had they sold? And who
gave a cat's whisker if
The News of The World
had closed down? The world
got
news
from it all—and that was the important
thing. Yes, there'd been that unfortunate situation with that thirteen-year-old
girl. A pity, really. But, in perspective with all the rest, had it really been
that bad?
It was not in Abbey's
mind to answer such philosophically deep questions (they gave him a headache—such
things—to be quite frank). He was a reporter, after all—and a reporter
reports
.
A true reporter doesn't get involved in the philosophical rights and wrongs of
a story. His job is to be impartial, not to take sides (Nick Nolte, Gene
Hackman movie). So he'd left that part of the "incident" open to
discussion, preferring (as always) to be a spectator (taking notes) whenever it
came up in conversation.

Abbey sat back and groaned, a grimacing smile on his face, dreaming
about the life he would soon have, and about all the news that was about to be
disgorged from the jaws of this good-for-nothing country.

The veld fire had been lit, and Abbey had not even had to light
it—not really.

He chuckled briefly, but then his ribs began hurting, so he stopped.