It is a warmer evening than any other from within the recent weeks but spring has not yet brought all its vivid colours. I am trying to get my Blackberry back. It went missing with a morphine addict I made acquaintance with back in high school. He has been living with his mother in the same neighbourhood where I live and this made it an easy decision for me to exit my mother’s house for a stroll embarked on with faith in the probability of finding him.

I had also moved back to my own mother’s house 9 months prior to this day after losing the cashier post I had been tasked to fulfilling daily at a men’s clothing shop. The store traded in a small town near my grandma’s village. I had stayed with her for almost a couple of years then.

My relocation to her house followed squatting at a friend’s house during a period in which mother had kicked me out of the usual living space I’d kept in Rustenburg. That was actually the second time in which she had demanded that I leave her house. I made this departure on an evening in which alcohol had me ready to let my temper loose if vexed, and a stubborn skepticism as to it being my fault that the microwave oven was not working correctly dictated my response to the accusation with a fury.

On this current evening, after realising that the chances of me finding Flough (my junky acquaintance) are somewhat minimal, I then decide on visiting Smokey. He is also a dude I have known from my high school days and been friends with since. His companionship is made much more worthwhile by the level of decency he has done well to maintain throughout the years, even those following our graduation from Grenville High School.

The last time I had paid Smokey a visit I found him pacing in front of his yard holding a phone to his ear, trying to get himself back on good terms with the female voice on the other end of the line. Similar situations had become consistent in our respective lives.

I arrive to find him in a much calmer demeanour on this Sunday. Our chatter is of an idle sort. There is not much else to report on after he lets me know that he is without the fees needed to let us partner up in diminishing a common thirst with the sedative contents held by beer bottles. Being bereft of such refreshment during this moment is consolidated by the slight buzz I had been carrying after having made a stop at a pub in my neighbourhood before journeying to Smokey’s house. The relief of the drink had me feeling as though mother’s attempts at attrition had me at their helm. She has still seemed to desire witnessing hardship break the peace my mind settles in. My annoyance with this has on occasion had me missing the skateboard I had left on a minibus about three years ago in 2012. I had often used it when escaping to allow myself time relishing solitude.

When I had left it on the vehicle my focus was solely on making sure that I offboarded with a girl courteous enough to keep me mesmerised with fellatio during the ride back to Rustenburg. We were returning from a show held at a park in one of the communities near Sun City. On stage I was impressive enough to be gifted all treats on offer from her. We had sex in the morning.

I could do with some of that on this very night too but even that sort of opportunity has its occurrence given less chance by the predicament of missing a cellphone. A month had gone by since Flough had disappeared with it. A few more days from this most recent afternoon of searching would pass before I bumped into him again. His desertion with it was brought about by my need to buy tickets for an annual hip-hop event scheduled to take place in town on the day we had last met. I was flat broke when he pithed the possibility of getting a loan through a connection of his. The misfortune of hearing him utter this luring garbage was brought about by an unexpected encounter on a busy street. Fun booked for an evening soon coming turned me desperate. I allowed him to use my personal property in making a phonecall relevant to business I thought would be provisional to my goal of being speedily financed. Sequentially to the phonecall we walked towards the bus terminals. That is where we were supposedly meant to meet up with the loaner.

Flough had his girlfriend joining us on that day. He had notified me during our travel that he would be the one amongst us best suited for heading forth to go make the request for cash. This was, according to him, in relation to the issue of gaining trust from the other party, which, of course, could only be done through familiarity.

The phone was to remain with the sought lender and I would get it back upon repayment of the money provided.

We were sudden to hold position under one of the shelterring structures built for people waiting to become passengers on our arrival at the bus depot.

“Wait right here. I’ll be back just now,” Flough made the announcement as he moved away for a short distance to engage with comrades of his. He moves more quickly now than he did when he was one of the fatties in high school. I stood with his girlfriend in waiting; smoking on cigarettes as I considered him set to handing me the advantage of a budget to afford entertainment for the night which ensued.

It was conversation with his girlfriend which made the first few minutes of him having ventured away from sight skip my notice. I took stride to go look for him, leaving his girlfriend behind.

”Don’t be gone for too long.”

I respond by letting her know that I intend to be brief with my scouting. The surprise of her absence from the spot where I had left her brought about my initial suspicion of having been robbed by agreeing to a fictious plan. I waited at that same location telling myself that he would not be foolish enough to rob someone heftier than he is and also just happening to live within close proximity to him. I’ve become heftier than he is now with ever since he became a morphine addict. I let an hour pass. Dreams of how I was going to get back at him were shrouding my mind as I walked back to my neighbourhood. I had my supper then pocketed the handcuffs which used to belong to my traffic-cop stepfather. A deep desire for vengeance inspired my intentions with them. With his wrists fastened he would be renderred helpless while I damaged the bones in his body and bloodied him savagely.

I had familiarity of the places he favoured most for stationing himself at for getting high. He was at neither of them on that night. The show which drove me to go look for money to buy a ticket for attendance produced its fun without me. The days which follow include a lot of drinking and hanging out with homies that usually organise a congregation of nymphets to complement the sittings. I had nothing better to do besides drink my weekends away after someone at home had broken the screen on the laptop I had been making musical work on.

                                   ‘’’’’’

I leave smokey after what I estimate to have been an hour of conversation. On my stroll which is to lead me straight to bed I have a young girl choosing to accompany me for a bit of the distance. She lets me know that her birthday is due in three months.

I found this to be a bit strange. Three months left of anticipation make it too soon a time to herald an upcoming birthday. The weirdness of it was something I attained realisation of only after we had parted ways. She told me that she would be turning sixteen. I could only suppose that such early presentation of excitement was something not too irregular for her age. 

Iam rudely woken up by another high-pitched dialogue mother and her daughter are having while preparing to get to their separate schools on the first Friday of September. Shirley is a high school teacher and her vociferous last born child is a learner at a primary school.

The loud chatter is of a sort which could not have them unaware that anyone sleeping in the small house is being disrupted. Plausibility of it being intentional carries weight. Shirley believes that I am a complete failure and in turn regarding me with the least respect possible is a lesson her children are continuously taught. Her middle child is the least thorough learner of that lesson as he has been living with our grandmother just as I had done for my first thirteen years ensuing birth.

Academic results reflecting truancy had me expelled from the University of Johannesburg at the end of my freshmen year. This had moved her to view me with scorn. I had enrolled to study a course referred to as Corporate Communication. I am still clueless as to what the rudimentals of the subject are. While missing classes and enjoying time with peers on campus, I was getting high of marijuana and also consuming alcohol surprisingly early during the day. When the sun had set maintaining intoxication was the objective I prioritised above that of studying for any upcoming test.

I get up from bed pissed-off by their noise. As I brush my teeth I remember the promise I had made to walk a teenage girl to school in conversation a week before. I will only have my breakfast after attending to it.

Luck could grant me the opportunity of enquiring on her plans for the weekend by first allowing us to meet again.

I await her to make an exit from the house she had told me is her home. Portia’s the name she introduced herself with. After waiting on luck long enough to lose my patience I move myself away from the street corner which was allowing a decent view of her house to go have my morning cereal. Not having a cellphone sucks.

After smoking some weed and taking a bath I head to town to do some writing at the library for the sake of trying a different location. I do that believing it might be condusive towards productivity in the exacting task.

I find a seat right next to Desiree. She is a familiar social network-contact I still had not informed about the loss of my phone. My usage of the term ‘crackhead’ when speaking about Flough is something she advices me to be against doing although she has never met the imbecile. The last time I had met with her was actually also the first time, which was when I got her numbers.

I am excited by the sudden opportunity to spend a bit of time with her. I waste none of it when I feel a necessity to remind her of my loathing towards mentions of her boyfriend when we conversate. I have no qualms brought about by the realisation of having rationed more focus for her than I had given to the task I initially came for when the time to exit the library arrives.

“When are you buying a car,” the question is directed at me. The upcoming task of having to walk home while bearing the lethargy induced by the day’s fluster prompted her to ask this. She is a Mercedes Benz-dreamer, I immediately find out.

Her reluctance to give me a kiss after I had enquired as to wether that was the thought she had momentarily seemed pre-occupied by has us only saying goodbye with a hug.

‘’’’’’

It took me less thean 15 minutes to arrive at Charles’s tattoo parlour for a hang-out. I find him absent from his place of business and Flough is not at the spot either. He had seemed to regularly make the decision to spend his time there on some of the days within weeks past. Charles is also a former schoolmate. When the time came to select the option of enrolling at a tertiary institution or following whatever route one deemed necessary, he opted to open the doors to his very own business.

He’s one of the few people who chose to be of assistance to my survival through some extremely dire straits. His grandmother let me stay at her house after he voluntarily to persuade her into doing so for the sake of making me less homeless. At the time I had secured myself a job as a sportswear salesman, often showing up for work with a backpack containing all my clothes as I was regularly unsure as to where I would sleep before early daylight came again. My weed-smoking habit had initially brought to me the chance of an interview for the employment. It happened while I was headed for town through a street in Rustenburg North, homeless and looking to go get a job then maybe also some clothes by doing a bit of shoplifting after having realised the simplicity of it a few days before. A fellow stoner walking in the same direction with skunkweed lit agreed to share the smoke. After a long conversation he let me know that he managed a clothing retail store. He took the only CV I had and after a few days we were both getting drunk on my wage.

I quit the job after continuously being overwhelmed by work which was not commensurated by its paycheques. I had already moved back home by then. Five months had gone by since I had been kicked out on the eve of my 21st birthday. I am very glad to have conquered the obstacles brought about by that dismissal from home.

Mother wastes no time in getting to speaking about the history of having kicked me out before in assembly with the parents from the yard at the back of ours on a Sunday morning. Their 15 year-old daughter made claims stating that I had sexually harassed her while she was standing in line at a nearby tuck-shop during the previous night. I had been doing a lot of drinking before stumbling into her. I do not remember where nor do I remember with whom it was I had been drinking. I can only recall playfully asking her to buy me some candy without being touchy to such extremes when doing so. None of the eyewitnesses of my interaction with her saw anything which could prove her story truthful. I did not smack her arse or squeeze her tits. She happens to be the very same girl that oddly informed me of her birthday too many weeks before the date. I am not sure at all what it is she is trying to prove with the tale she is telling. The best solution I come up with to get us all closer to adjourning the ridiculous meeting is to voice a suggestion for the kid to keep the hell away from me in future.

I had actually reached the resolution of no longer being social with her like I usually had been when I had assurance of her being too young for adult curiosity.

During an instance in which I had been standing in the same line as her at another tuck-shop the past week, I actually did not bother to make the effort of greeting her along with any of the other people that were present there. The beginning of my deprivation of special attention unto her. She turned my way after noticing my presence. I was momentarily set out of my newly chosen disposition of paying her no attention by having to respond courteously to her greeting before I moved on ahead of the line to purchase my cigarettes.

During this sitting where I am supposed to bear the miserable role of a falsely accused defendant she lies by claiming that I was actually the one who greeted her. Her mother’s face shows disappointment passing in a jiffy when I prove the child to be dishonest when she agrees to my correction of her claims by stating whom it really was that first greeted whom and thus showed more intent for making contact.

Perhaps becoming aware of my choice to be less involved with her created a fierce determination to regain our acquaintance of before with a vengeance. She has always seemed fond of maintaining a level of sociability which somewhat popularized her in our neighbourhood.

The meeting concludes with the child’s parents opting to not press charges. I am doubtful as to wether the magnitude of the predicament I would have been bound for was something she had realisation of. I could have been in jail.

I am celebrating the commencement of my freedom with drinks at a bar video-shoot an hour later with some homies from around my block. They all rap. The video-girl I tried to seduce has one of the owners of the venue we are shooting at as her boyfriend. She leaves with him after all the footage which brought us there is taken. I do not get laid.

The braai we have while hanging out has me glad to be making commensal with the fellas after having skipped breakfast earlier.

‘’’’’’

In my neighbourhood Flough is taking a walk with his crackhead-girlfriend. I had just made it to his street after being dropped off by car after the video-shoot. I let him know that it has now gone far past the deadline for him to give me what he owes.

He does not search his pockets as I had suggested for him to do in case he has my belongings with him but simply forgot due to effects from some of the drugs he had probably consumed. Instead, he tries to give some sort of explaination but I smack him on the face midway his delivery of jibberish. He exposes the innards of his pockets and lets me know that he has nothing on him while portraying that message in gesture too with his hands spread to his sides. I smack him with the left hand this time. He hesitates to respond with whatever is on his mind so I smack him again.

The bystanders who are familiar with him as their neighbour intervene. They drag me away from him and hold me back from furthering the assault. I get to the liquor store needing a calmer. A false notion about me wanting to hear him trying to explain why he is unprepared to hand me back what he took has him standing in front of me close enough to get himself slapped again. I am again stopped by people near the scene. This time he vanishes while I am being kept from getting anywhere near him. My decision to go home is one I make after advice to do so was given by a friend who was also at the spot where the conflict arose.

‘’’’’’

My grandma’s visiting and I find her watching television in my little sister’s bedroom when I arrive at the house. She came with my aunt. She is the same aunt I had been living with in Johannesburg when I was a freshman. I was baffled to hear my auntie on the other end of the line when I had made a phonecall to my grandma after being confronted on suspicions of paedophile defining behaviour by one of the parents from the morning. She actually took the phone from my grandma to talk to me. My aunt used to let her sexual curiosity get the better of her with me being manipulated into playing along in the experimentation driven by her trashy fantasies. I believe it caused disgust that still affected me while we were living with each other in Johannesburg. She even requested that I penetrate her anally. Lust reached me quite early.

I have always perceived her preference to refer to herself as my second mother as somewhat sordid. That would make me a motherfucker in the truest sense.

Grandma gave me advice using statements I had already directed to myself in suggesting that I avoid any further affiliaton with that young girl that almost gave me a criminal record.

I plug in my little brothers Xbox after giving attention to granny talking. He is also visiting with her and I am relieved by his decision to have brought the gaming console along. After a few matches of virtual soccer on a popular video game I make my way to bed.

‘’’’’’

On the Monday morning following a hectic weekend I smoke weed with some friends from around the corner before getting on my way to playing a few games of pool at the nearest pub. A beer-loving companion has me tipsy while we both let time pass by trying to keep our focus on the cueball.  The intoxication is not of extents which can keep me from attending soccer practice at sunset. I have always loved the sport. Back in high school a lot of my friends made the team. I did not have boots to join them. The request for a pair was ignored by my father just as he has done with much of my existence. I became a smoker instead but still made the effort to stay fit through basketball. The sneakers I used to wear regularly were of a sort good enough for fastbreaking on the courts. My favourite team to watch has been the Houston Rockets simply because their name is slightly similar to that of a team I played for with friends. We called it Tlhabane Rockers. Often, we would entertain each other in a freestyle cipher while walking the way home from the basketball courts.

Except for grandma buying me a skateboard, my stepfather provided the only other instance I can recall where someone I considerred family was actually in support of my particpation in a sporting activity when he bought me spikes for running on a track. He was, in actual fact, lightyears away from being an ideal father to me. It was decided amongst him and Shirley that the responsibility of giving me pocket money would be his to attend to as she had been living and working a great distance away from what became my hometown when they married. I lived with him for my first couple of years in Rustenburg.

There was a slut lying on mother’s side of the bed on a morning upon which I was running late for school as I then proceded hastily into his half-open bedroom to request my pocket money. Startled, the whore quickly covered her face in shame with the duvet. My stepdad tried his utmost best to repress his embarassment as he searched the pants lying on the floor right besides his bed for his wallet so I could be set on my way.

Mother had for many years known about the guy’s extramarital affairs. She tried to anchor him to their marriage by bearing another child in early sequence to having given birth to her other son instead of just leaving the guy. It was after agreeing to mother’s insistence that I accompany her on a traffic-filled day with pale skies to the hospital when taking her daughter for HIV–testing that I came to experience perhaps the most emotionally overwhelming day of my life. This was before we moved to Rustenburg.

‘’’’’’

When I relocated away from grandma’s house to live in the city which has been my hometown for over a decade, I first stayed at the hostel built in the yard of my high school. Breakfast was always delicious at the dining hall but I had to wake up very early just to be able to shower with water that was usually only luke warm. I moved out of the hostel after six months. The house which would have me living with my stepfather was bought then.

During the time I had lived there with him I was constantly denied sleep by the many parties hosted in it partnerred by the regular eruption of latenight conflict during every weekend mother would make her visit. Regardless of the strains brought about by all this, I still managed to do well enough in academics to qualify for studying for a bachelor’s degree when I eventually matriculated. While enrolled for studies in Corporate Communication and failing to show the dedication necessary for gaining all qualifications, the experience I relished most by being in a lecture-room came when I occupied one alone with a girl I had being seeing for a week after giving an affirmative response to her enquiry as to wether I had a condom with me.

My grandma had volunteered to finance my next chance at a tertiary education. The chances of that happening had been smeered by my scuzzy aunt after picking up bits of marijuana that spilled out from my pockets and onto the carpet I had been sitting on while playing video games. She hastily presented her findings to my grandma; gave her verdict of how symbolic the grass was of my unworthiness to attend school and immediately halted my chances to progression out of that village I had been in. That was just another input of atrocity into my life from her. She really is a pain. With that act, I believe she just really wants to see me bashed.

Fortune bestowed unto me the cashier post which allowed for a few pleasures to come my way after my aunt had set me back from leaving the village known as Vaarkvlei. I spent my earnings on alcohol, prostitutes, and marijuana. At some point during my stay there I had moments of elation from knowing that I had a few lines of cocaine left on the dresser after having already snorted some of the powder to start of a sunny morning. Having experienced my childhood days within the community gave my presence amongst the villagers a measure of familiarity.

 The cousin I grew up with in my grandma’s house was my bestfriend. Attending the same school with him also strengthened our bond. We had a housekeeper to watch over us because grandma and grandpa were usually away at work during many of the hours that passed weekly. She would tell on me for spending more time on my TV-game while refraining from doing my homework. The choice to expose my deeds was made harsher by the fact that I was regularly in detention-class attendance.

‘’’’’’

It had been in the previous year from this one which I had started with a lost Blackberry in which I was most intensely gripped by the anxiety of facing jailtime. The force of that feeling came over me while I watched my uncle lying motionless on the kitchen’s floor at my grandmother’s house with blood leaking out from his head. I had renderred him unconscious after striking him with a 3-foot wooden spoon which broke in half on impact. He was showing intent to harm my grandma with a broken wine glass before I had attacked him. A kitchen chair held up by my granny in defence from his advance is what kept their quarrel mild before I responded to her shout for help.

Having minimal interest in exchanging fists with him made me walk to the pantry so I could arm myself with the huge utensil I collapsed him with. I had already beaten him in a fist-fight a few weeks before then. That knuckle-brawl was stopped by my grandpa. He is a retired taxi-driver and a husband that just stays at home.

After been found guilty of extramarital affairs by grandma, he had been demoted to sleeping at a backyard room which used to shelter our housekeeper. Grandma actually wanted him out the yard..

He refused to leave as grandma had requsted of him to do. Apparently, as he had advised, his leaving would have brought shame unto the family. I was very skeptic towards the validity of this excuse. Changing my surname back to his has now become an idea I am unsure of. The surname mother attained after marrying the dude who was my stepfather is the one I have been using until such that it was printed onto my high school graduation-certificate and few identity documents. My actual preference, as I had told mother, was to not change my surname at all even after she got married but she managed to change it behind my back regardlessly.

Now, after considerring how significantly both surnames have lost their preference with me, I have decided on the surname Troffee or perhaps only a name to publish with. It is the backward spelling of the word ‘effort’, which is something I believe to be essential for getting past setbacks. The extra letter is simply for giving the word similarity to the word ‘coffee’. I’m a fan of refreshing with roasted cocoa-beans. Choosing Dikkinz as a name has its emergence for  adoption from an award I received in primary school. Both my parents missed the ceremony at which I was given the Dickens trophy for being the best English language and literature pupil. It was the first award I had won during my rebellious childhood. It provided superb influence to my self-esteem in a school I had many times also been told I would amount to nothing.

I consider myself good enough too for giving a name to the individual I am if any of my parents are befitting. Mother once adviced me to hang myself for being the nuisance I was some time during my teenage years. She showed that she is the sort of woman who believes that the best way to confront the situation of finding a porn magazine hidden beneath a child’s bed is by calling him to get a peak of his own parent posing naked with a foot placed onto a bed while holding a banana pointed at her private parts to see if that might maybe make him puke as punishment. She somehow believes that she is the last thing standing between civilised behaviour and the end of the world even after having been that disturbing in her conduct. My father just chose to not have much involvement in my life. I am skeptical towards representing their beliefs about me by keeping the names they had given to me.

I still have not managed to progress myself out of my mother’s house and I wake up bearing the small misery of a hangover on a humid Sunday morning. There’s toast, eggs and a sausage to digest with my coffee before heading out in the direction leading to Portia’s house. As soon as I get to her street I am met by stares coming from the faces of the kids that are always playing there. She is nowhere to be seen outside. I still do not have a cellphone. Out of caution toward the possibilty of her father’s presence in the yard I decide to walk past the place.

A burly woman asks that I stop right where I am as she approaches from further on behind. She lets me know that she had actually mistook me for a certain fella who snatched a cellphone from one of the children I had just strolled past in an incident from the previous evening. Apparently that same person is acquainted with the same dude I was now on my way to hanging-out with; has the same height and skin tone as I do and also tends to come looking to meet with Portia. I become perplexed by this description of the criminal as the reason to why the children had paid that enormous amount of attention to me unfolds.

I choose to still go to Venter’s house to watch a soccer game regardless of how doing that could add to making me even more of a suspect. The woman lets me know that everyone living on that street is on the look-out for this guy with a profile shockingly similar to mine.

I later find out that the woman who had actually stopped me as I walked is Portia’s mother. That was a very ingenious strategy to distance me from her daughter. I have never tried to visit Portia ever since. I do not believe she is worth the trouble I now foresee.

I watch the soccer match as I had intended to do then set myself on a trip to the pool tables. The exit I make from Venter’s house on this day will conclude the very last visit I make to his home for a long time. Within the week that follows he will inform me that he had been given a blow-job by a gay guy. The homosexual boy lives in the neighbourhood and the probabilities of him heralding such an incident are plenty. I consider further association with Venter to be potent in directing geopardy towards the status I have been working to establish as a rapper after such a thing.

“I wasn’t sure if the dude was gay,” his excuse for putting himself in that situation is as stupid as the way in which he let himself find assurance.

The dissociation between me and him is made more purposeful within the upcoming week. He tells me that he sincerely hopes I do not acquire the success I seek in the music industry. He made this statement after I had been at my most insulting in response to him trying to poke fun at me by calling me a paedophile. I, of course, created ammunition out of his newly found acceptance for being involved in homosexual activity. They guys laughed. It was tremendously silly of him to even start that war. It became the final lengthy exchange of words we had on that night at Allister’s house while we were all being competitive on a Playstation. That is where I immediately set myself towards after playing pool again today.

My desire to continue the fun of gaming is met by reward. I find Allister already sitting in front of his TV with the Playstation switched on.

We became friends earlier during the year. His friendship has been awesome and he allows me to sleep on his floor at times when I feel too drowsy to walk home after excessively indulging in beer. Tonight there is no beer. We are chilling without crisp refreshment again. The video-game offers therapeutic distraction from the difficulties of being broke. We take a break from the animation by heading to the small complex a few blocks away to ease our craving for cigarettes.

Surprise seizes me when I encounter Thabo at the barber shop. He works there but has been absent for at least three months. He provided me with shelter at a time when I was going through my second take at life after being kicked out of home. The day’s work is done for him and a 750 millilitre bottle of beer is already open in his grasp. He shares it with me. This is a sort of kindness I had become accustomed to from the time he was keeping me away from vagrancy. His girlfriend would always prepare a plate for me too everytime she cooked. I spent the three months of living under their roof usually glued to the Playstation in the sitting-room while lounging on the sofa-bed I slept on nightly and usually getting high with their other housemates.

I meet up with Allister again a short while after having told him that he may walk on ahead without me when I met Thabo and free beer. I do not stay long at Allister’s because of how late it already is. Before an hour passes I am already home letting the taps fill the bathtub with water so I can scrub myself clean before bedtime. 

‘’’’’’

It had been in the previous year from this one which I had started with a lost Blackberry in which I was most intensely gripped by the anxiety of facing jailtime. The force of that feeling came over me while I watched my uncle lying motionless on the kitchen’s floor at my grandmother’s house with blood leaking out from his head. I had renderred him unconscious after striking him with a 3-foot wooden spoon which broke in half on impact. He was showing intent to harm my grandma with a broken wine glass before I had attacked him. A kitchen chair held up by my granny in defence from his advance is what kept their quarrel mild before I responded to her shout for help.

Having minimal interest in exchanging fists with him made me walk to the pantry so I could arm myself with the huge utensil I collapsed him with. I had already beaten him in a fist-fight a few weeks before then. That knuckle-brawl was stopped by my grandpa. He is a retired taxi-driver and a husband that just stays at home.

After been found guilty of extramarital affairs by grandma, he had been demoted to sleeping at a backyard room which used to shelter our housekeeper. Grandma actually wanted him out the yard..

He refused to leave as grandma had requsted of him to do. Apparently, as he had advised, his leaving would have brought shame unto the family. I was very skeptic towards the validity of this excuse. Changing my surname back to his has now become an idea I am unsure of. The surname mother attained after marrying the dude who was my stepfather is the one I have been using until such that it was printed onto my high school graduation-certificate and few identity documents. My actual preference, as I had told mother, was to not change my surname at all even after she got married but she managed to change it behind my back regardlessly.

Now, after considerring how significantly both surnames have lost their preference with me, I have decided on the surname Troffee or perhaps only a name to publish with. It is the backward spelling of the word 

I am drinking beer on a budget I should have allocated to getting studio time to record vocals onto my music. Even going on a date with Desiree would have been a wiser option. A lengthy amount of time has passed since I had last seen her. The way into town leading to her crosses my mind but I settle for a different option: drinking more, playing pool and getting high on cannabis. She had actually requested that I help her improve her billiard skills on any given weekend. That is a task I hope to perhaps attend to on another day.

Today is the last Saturday of the month. This means I will have to get myself to Rustenburg North for an experience of open-mic performances and enjoyable music. The event takes place on the last Saturday of every month. I arrive at the pub where it is always held and the venue is empty. The patience to wait and see if the organisers will show up is not with me. I decide against buying a beer and hanging around for them to show up when the bartender walks back in, heading to his post while asking if I am in need of anything. This event I was looking forward to attending actually led to me getting the face presenting the cover of this book of mine. An ambush by a group of fellas I had told to fuck-off from chatting up a girl I was busy trying to lure back to my room had me bloodied. I believe that my superb performance on stage during that night created further drive to their want to see me bashed after they stuck around for it.

  The pub is only a 5 minute walk away from the highway which comes before my street. I make my way past the turn that would take me home instead to return to the drinking spot I had spent the bigger ratio of my afternoon at playing pool. I buy another Carling Black Label. It does not take me long to diminish the liquor and I am making my way home within the hour.

A deep desire to have a bit more fun halts me on my route when I hear familiar voices pitched excitedly on the bridge giving outlet from the neighbourhood. A dude known as Stuv is amongst the trio of silhouettes heading into town. He is the homie living closest to where I stay. I make the quick decision of joining him and the pair homies on their trip to town. It is probably almost 10 o’ clock. We make a stop at the bus depot to smoke morphein before commencing toward a tavern where we will keep at consuming the drug. I feel experimental I suppose.

There’s a minibus-load of guys from my grandma’s village parked outside the tavern and I become ecstatic when I stumble into a few of the familiar amongst them. They keep me well supplied with beer throughout the night. Sadly, they have to inform me about the death of a friend I had spent most of my weekends with while I was at the village during the past year. This is the second time in less than a year that I am given news of a close friend having passed away many months after the funeral had taken place.

Bethuel too was amongst friends with whom I had developed one of the strongest bonds with. I only heard about his car accident 3 months after it had occurred. I missed his funeral. Now I have also missed Peter’s. I might not know where the burial took place but I sure am glad to have met them in this world.

‘’’’’’

Barbara offered me the place I am seated on after I had left the tavern to get to the other party-friendly place directly opposite to it. I have not spoken to Barbara for at least a whole month. This is due to me not having a phone and I explain that to her. We met only once before.

One of the dudes within the circle of friends she is with is a familiar asshole from my neighbourhood. His boring presence makes it easy for me to decide on not sitting with their group for too long. Amongst many other bullshitty things he has proven capable of, the scumbag has apparently also been going around claiming to be fucking my girlfriend while actually referring to a neighbourhood slut I have not been in communication with in over six months. I suppose bad guys really are seen as cool but he is just trying too hard to portray himself in that image for the sake of his fickle esteem.

A new month is due within a few days. I am crushing reefer on a street corner with three other stoners on the last Monday afternoon of this September. I have placed myself close enough to Smokey’s home to make the journey to his street less strenuous. The delay to meeting with him is brought about by my recollection of his working hours. I will have to wait for at least an hour before he arrives from his job after getting high on marijuana.

Amongst the dudes I am with sits also the somewhat talented buddy who made the very first instrumental I had recorded on. That was three years. When the blunt is done burning we both go to his house so I can complete making the instrumental I had started working on earlier during the day. The urge to recite some raps he wrote does not convince me that he has actually become worth a listen once he gets to it. He is a graphic designer first above many other things. The written verse he lets me hear is not worth saying much about just like many others he wrote and insisted that I lend an ear to the recitals of.

I take my time to complete the arrangement of work I had intended to do expecting this to add to the probability of finding Smokey when I leave. It is Smokey’s mother I first meet when I arrive at his place. He shows up after being informed about my presence at the doorstep. I will not be getting the funds he promised to pass my way for studio time when this current day came. I will have to wait for another week. I would have liked to get the money immediately for the sake of getting money immediately. I do not mind this not happening too much as I had recently been offered free studio time somewhere outside the city by my other friend, Zweli. I still owe Zweli money from the time I had asked for help in catching a taxi travelling to the town nearest to my grandma’s house in an escape from some troubles when some troubles needed to be escaped from. He had told me that he was still looking to get a new microphone for his studio the last time we spoke. I have been trying to release a project for quite some time now.Spending money on masterring which could have been undertook with better effort and also being fired from work made a combination of occurences amongst many others which have contributed to me being held back.

I want to travel around the world and maybe also get to see Bilbao in Spain. An exchange student to one of my cousins’s school described that hometown of hers as a wondrous place while she was staying under the same roof as me during her visit to the Republic of South Africa. I found her to be very attractive and I would whole-heartedly relish meeting more people like her. She even taught me how to make a potato-omelette while telling me about the beautiful place she calls home.

‘’’’’’

I am on course towards the supermarket with Smokey to go get biscuits for his father. He has the privelege of being lent the BMW SUV by his parents. I regularly let him know that I envy this. I would have probably had an even more grand appearance if grandma never minded lending me her convertible Jeep. That would have made me even more despisable to the population of dudes around the village where she lives, many of whom also envy the fact that I have always had a toilet that flushes shit away with water and a few other things which have offered a certain simplicity throughout my life. A lot of them wanted to see me bashed but I won most of the bar fights we went at each other in while I resided in their vicinity. The fight which now holds more value in the way of victory attained is that of making a name for myself in the music industry. 

Barbara offered me the place I am seated on after I had left the tavern to get to the other party-friendly place directly opposite to it. I have not spoken to Barbara for at least a whole month. This is due to me not having a phone and I explain that to her. We met only once before.

One of the dudes within the circle of friends she is with is a familiar asshole from my neighbourhood. His boring presence makes it easy for me to decide on not sitting with their group for too long. Amongst many other bullshitty things he has proven capable of, the scumbag has apparently also been going around claiming to be fucking my girlfriend while actually referring to a neighbourhood slut I have not been in communication with in over six months. I suppose bad guys really are seen as cool but he is just trying too hard to portray himself in that image for the sake of his fickle esteem.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Helen for being the first to give me a word of motivation to write and complete this book. I would also like to thank Tshepiso ‘Sparx’ for giving me the same on the night of our high school reunion while I was cockblocking him after joining the delightful stroll to get Helen home. She is an ex-girlfriend to whom I was the first boyfriend she got to love until allowing to make her virginity get its riddance. I still value her very much. I would also like to thank my homie, Solid, for letting me type this book to its last chapter at his internet café.