Potato Dance

By Bonga Zondo

Temko is an ex-freedom fighter. The story shows the tenacity of the human spirit in a cruel and unfair world. It is aimed at helping those that have gone astray, and praising those who have stuck to their dreams of a better tomorrow. Every hard situation comes with a coping mechanism, and as long as that mechanism is not to the detriment of your life and those who live around you, use it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Felicty Keats Morrison
• Release date: Aug 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476034164

Book preview

POTATO DANCE

by

BONGA ZONDO

umSinsi Press

© umSinsi Press

© Bonga Zondo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, without the written permission of the publisher

Second Impression 2007

First published 2006

by

umSinsi Press

PO Box 28129

Malvern

405 5

KwaZulu Natal

South Africa

Web: http://www.umsinsi.com

ISBN 9781869007348

Cover Design by Qap’s Mngadi

Smashwords Edition

FOREWORD

The struggle for liberation required the involvement of young people as they were actually the ones fanning the flames. As a result, many of them were thrown into jails, and thus their education was disrupted.

Their immense contribution gave birth to freedom, as the huge yoke of apartheid thrust upon the masses was removed. This meant that iniquitous laws entrenched by the former divisive government were rescinded, and a new interim constitution was adopted. The new government was tasked with the responsibility of unifying society, and making better lives for the previously disadvantaged communities.

Due to the youth’s selfless participation, some found themselves lacking civil skills to contribute to the new dispensation. This led to the feeling of being left out of the process aimed at redressing the inequalities and developing the country they had fought so hard for. The pulls of life became too hard, and sadly, some of them began coughing out their wrath on their communities by getting involved in criminal activities.

Potato Dance is a story of a patriot caught in the harsh socioeconomic conditions. This is the story of Temko, a disgruntled ex-freedom fighter and his so-called comrades.

From a jerry-built Polio House comes a story about an arduous struggle for a better life, a story of a man who was not willing to let his country down. But more importantly, this is a story of the incredible tenacity of the human spirit in a cruel and unfair world.

Potato Dance is a book aimed at dissuading those that have gone astray, and also lauding those who have stuck to their dreams of a better tomorrow. It promotes a notion that every hard situation comes with a coping mechanism, and it says that as long as that mechanism is not to the detriment of your life and those who live around you, use it!

Chapter 1

THE POLIO HOUSE

He gave out a deep hopeless sigh and looked as far as he could, where the sky met the land. The structure of gigantic kwaMashu spread its wings like that of an overfed, man-eating vulture. His rolling eyes carried him from section to section. He had seen the township a thousand times, but this late afternoon, the size and the vastness of the planet earth itself, left him with a feeling of being too little for it. In this titanic world, he felt like a soft bodied snail without its protective shell. He could feel the convulsion of unshed tears weeping inside him.

Is this what freedom means? Is freedom a ticket to disrespect, and to forget who you are? he cursed, his slitty eyes darting up to the sky as if trying to find an answer up there.

A sole sparrow hovered disdainfully overhead, leading his eyes to a balloon like condom bobbing about in the air. He looked at the condom descending like a deflated parachute without actually seeing it, his mind still wrenched by the incident of the late Monday afternoon.

Freedom is not for scumbags like you! a voice shot up and raucous laughter crashed from behind. Strings of gratuitous insults rained on him. Intense anger seethed inside him, demented his mind, and made his dagger accustomed mouth to fly out a four-letter word aimed at smashing their egos. Then he threw his bushy head back at the throng to assess the damage caused by his scurrilous remark. To his surprise, all his effort seemed null and void. His insult was like a soccer ball that was kicked by him to them, and they took it nonchalantly, juggled with it, and kicked it back to him amidst adrenaline charged laughter. A tide of indignation engulfed him. Clench fisted, teeth gritted and mouth fuming, all he wanted now was to sock them. He was going to fix them one by one. His slender body faltered at the thought.

Years of malnutrition had reduced his body to that of a scrap. Poverty had worn him out. His bones lacked calcium and phosphate. Crying in need were his muscles for proteins which were scarce. So like a poorly made, rag puppet, his rickety legs continued hobbling down Orlando Road. He was only twenty-two, but looked thirty and more. His uncropped hair was matted. Bags of woes sat defiantly beneath his eyelids. His cracked mouth was cornered by white patches due to protein deficiency. The same mouth was made up of a fine upper lip, and a lower lip that was divided by a scar. His left cheek had been grazed by a dagger from turbulent days. The sickle shaped scar on the chin was obvious for all to see. His beautifully curved nose was a waste. It could not salvage the hell of his swarthy face. Sheepish ears peered through the sides of his mango shaped head. Poverty had chewed up all his once sturdy well built chest of his boyhood and left a ravaged rib exposing torso. His enduring skinny neck held his head struggling, cantering it to the side.

That sounds like cheap American talk, Temko mouthed out angrily as he entered the room with Benedict.

What? Ben’s voice had risen in anxiety and urgency. We love Africa! We care about Africa! And you say you care about me?

Yes, I do!

That you’re my brother?

Sure.

And all that crazy stuff. And you know what?

What?

I call that hypocrisy. That’s nothing but rotten crap. Temko was still fuming.

But, Temko, I do care about you. You’re my brother, and I just wanted to know what went wrong, entreated Ben, kicking away his shoes and consequently discovering a giant cockroach that was hiding under them. It hurriedly scuttled away to its hole, struck with fear.

It’s bloody scoundrels! Temko shouted in controlled fury.

Scoundrels? Scoundrels from where? demanded Benedict.

"Scoundrels from everywhere! Scoundrels from the city!

Scoundrels from Polio House! What’d you think? It’s bloody scoundrels from Orlando, for God’s sake!" Temko complained, sidling a round in the room.

Ben stooped over the tape recorder, and murdered the melodious voice of Gloria Bosman as preparing himself for the whole story.

What really happened? See, I can’t get you, Temko.

I don’t know.

What do you mean you don’t know?

I don’t know. Maybe they were right. Maybe I am a goof, after all.

Who called you a goof?

Them, can’t you hear? See, Ben, I almost socked them. I nearly throttled them and squeezed their brains.

What started all this? Ben poured a bottle of cold beer into a glass, before proffering the glass to him.

Temko took it. After mumbling his gratitude to him, he gulped down the whole thing to douse the crumbling embers of his anger.

There were many of them. Drunk, goofed and looking ugly as always. They were sitting on the pavement. Down there, right down there at Orlando Road. And they were crushing bottles across the road, Temko quipped, before burping.

What were they crushing bottles for?

It was craziness, Ben. Stupid craziness. And all I did was to ask them to cut it out. And you know what?

What? Ben’s brow creased in concentration.

They started swearing at me. They called me all sorts of names, and were all laughing.

So they were drunk, those little bastards, Ben said thoughtfully.

Drunk and mad they were, those sons of monkeys. After all that, I kept my cool, and ask them nicely to apologize, and guess what happened? Temko paused for an answer.

Did they refuse? Ben was licking his lips.

No, no, no! Temko thumped the bare floor.

What did they do then?

They threw more insults.

And what did you say?

I said, ‘same to you, you bloody morons. Go to hell, you sons of monkeys.

And what did they say?

What can an uncircumcised toad do? They continued croaking like wild, sexually obsessed toads at the pond.

And so they left you?

Who said that? A goofed toad can’t shut his rotten mouth. Insults were flying high and low like wild sparrows, Temko said, receiving a cigarette. He rammed it into his mouth.

Joe, a fellow tenant, walked down the veranda passing the room, and greeted them with nonchalant familiarity. They retorted their response, still locked in their conversation. Temko pulled twice at his cigarette, and belched. He watched a cloud of smoke circling before him. He puffed the cigarette thrice before giving it to Ben. Then he rose, and marched through the kitchen to the veranda. Angry thoughts were still swaggering in his mind. Certainly, they were drunk. Probably it was two or three brandy bottles that had sent their brains out of their huge heads. Or perhaps it was their stinking ganja, or even cocaine that had befuddled their wicked minds. If he was ugly and filthy, that had got nothing to do with them. Was he the only ugly man on earth? Angry thoughts lingered in his head, forcing greyish phlegm to dive from the corner of his contorted mouth.

KwaMashu looked sad and worried under the angry face of the sky. The punctual sun that had risen in the morning, baked the houses at midday, and settled in desperation over the township in the afternoon, was now held hostage. It was the ravening clouds. They were the same clouds that had been sailing innocently all the day long, as if they had nothing against the township. Dark and grey, they had converged over the place, threatening a rainy evening. A large flock of swallows flew across the place, also heralding rainfall. These agile fliers shrieked their way to the horizon, and disappeared before his eyes. Murky and rain threatened, the roads, crisscrossing a t rectangles, were sprinkled with people gravitating to different destinations.

This was the township, less than twenty-five kilometres from