Bokang Damane is a dreamer and an outsider with mad problems. Things only get worse when everyone thinks he wants to off himself just because he wrote an essay on suicide. Really? Talk about d.r.a.m.a. Life at the moment is just a sorry son-of-a-checklist of insolvable problems...
“Within the hour, I’m done washing and chowing; I head out the door with my backpack strapped on and beats bumping from my Walkman. I mission on foot to the other side of Beacon Bay, to my man JP’s spot. He’s this cool Afrikaans kid I get my blunts from.
His mom lets me in and tells me to go through to his room. She’s always nervous when she sees me, like they don’t get many of my type around here. Their little dog follows me, snuffling suspiciously.
JP sits on his unmade bed, strumming a guitar. He holds up a finger to silence me as I enter. He strums a few notes with his head bent over, his long hair hanging like the strands of a mop. ‘Whooaaaa …’ he says. Then laughs. He strums a single note. ‘Whooaaaa …’ He laughs again, leaps up, taps something on his keyboard, then sits back down and begins playing. A few seconds later, he’s tapping the keyboard again. He listens to the playback of what he’s just recorded, nodding his raggedy head.
‘Whatchu think?’
‘Sounds dope.’
‘Raaaad, bro.’ He stands up to give me a sliding handshake. ‘What’s going on, bro?’
‘I’m all good, man. I see you doing your thing.’ I point to the guitar.
‘Yeah, man, the sound is essential to the oneness.’
I’m not sure what he means, but this is how he always is: full of wisdom cooked up from the smoked pips of the finest weed.
‘Listen to this.’ From the PC comes the sound of the guitar segment he just recorded, layered on a drum pattern.
‘Yo, that’s banging, son.’
‘You think you could rip to this?’
‘Hell, yeah!’
‘All right, then. Let’s do it, man.’ We both take hits from his bong, which makes him cough like he’s about to hack up minced bits of his lung.
I spit a few bars on the mic, just some freestyles and a few lines from my black book, nothing serious. It’s dope to get it out there.
‘You really sick with the rhymes, man,’ JP says, moving from his desk chair to a bean bag in the corner. The little dog immediately jumps onto his lap. ‘Now I know why they call you the Supreme Khon.’
‘And you nice with the beats.’
We both laugh. It’s a moment. We silent. But it’s good.
‘You got any more blunt?’ I ask, taking a chance.
JP nods sagely, but doesn’t move. He holds up his hands as if he’s touching an invisible wall in front of him. The dog lifts its head, curiously watching his hands. ‘You got really great energy, bro, when you smiling.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, I wanna show you something.’
It’s crazy that I’ve been to JP’s place so many times before, but never actually checked it out in its entirety. But now he takes me through the crib. The little dog, Rasta, follows us; long hair covers its body, even its eyes – the same way JP’s hair covers his face when he bows his head.
“Don’t ever stop your art, bro. Not for anybody. Stay true to the spirit of the Supreme Khon.”
Different-sized family pictures line the passage walls. Both his parents are giants in every photo, which would explain his height. He also has a little sister I’ve never met. I tuck my elbows in as we walk through a dining room full of ornaments. The TV room is full of latest-model appliances. Back at our crib, we have a VCR and an M-Net decoder that don’t work. Only two out of five of our hi-fi speakers work. But everything stays on the room divider, just for show.
We exit into the back garden with its neatly cut lawn. From the front, you’d never say there’s so much space out back. Cutting this lawn would be a bummer, for real. Neatly trimmed bushes line two of the walls and two huge pine trees, one of which has a swing hanging from it, stand close to the third wall. A covered pool takes up one side.
We walk all the way to the end of the garden, under the trees with white flowers (JP tells me they’re magnolias) to a pond with dark waters. We stand on the bridge peering down at the fish swimming below.
JP points.
‘What?’
‘Koi, bro.’
‘Yeah, I see them.’
Red-and-white fish, or koi, swim down below, maybe eight or nine of them. We stand there staring, not saying much. I’m not sure what we supposed to be seeing. The fish are pretty and all, but I don’t get why we out here. JP stands leaning on the wooden rail smiling down at the water; his eyes are slits.
‘How many do you see?’
‘Er, nine. No. Eleven?’
JP’s smile widens, his eyes thinning even more. ‘Twenty-one, bro.’
Down in the water, the fish swim in constant motion, moving over one another in slow and steady rhythms. They’re pretty big. Some are as long as my forearm and hand together. While some are white-and-red, others have black-and-gold patterns. Some have more than three colours. The patterns on the koi are startling; they make me grin. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’
JP laughs. ‘Do you know why people keep koi?’
‘Nah, bra.’
‘They’re peaceful creatures. They don’t get diseases like other fish, and don’t fight among themselves, or with other fish. Having them around brings a lot of feng shui.’
‘Fun what?’
‘Feng shui, bro: peaceful energy.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. That energy spreads to those that spend time with them.’ He nods like a kung fu master.
‘Right.’
‘I’ve never brought anybody back here, man. This place is sacred. The way you flow with those rhymes, it reminds me of how the koi swim.’ He uses his hand to make the motion of a fish swimming. ‘Don’t ever stop your art, bro. Not for anybody. Stay true to the spirit of the Supreme Khon.’
He taps me on the shoulder and gives me a stiff smile. With that simple action, the moment changes; the magic is broken.
We head back to his room in silence. When we get there he doesn’t sit down. Instead, he opens his cupboards and drawers as if he’s looking for something. He searches the pockets of a pair of pants he picks up off the floor. I know these signs. When JP is restless, it usually means he wants his visitors to leave.
‘Yo, man, I think I’m gonna go.’
‘Cool, man.’ He pulls out his stash – the good stuff – and gives me a fat head wrapped in a piece of paper. ‘That’s for your journeys. Safe travels and respect.’ He bows to make his point.
We walk to the front garden, outside the kitchen. ‘You know my friend Gert?’ he says. ‘He has this chick, Carla. Real Afrikaans meisie. They’ve been together forever. She doesn’t really dig me, and I don’t really dig her.’ JP’s mom watches us through the kitchen window. ‘She has this swak energy, you know. When you around her, it just takes over everything. You know what I mean?’
‘Nah, man.’
‘Everything with her is like hectic. She never knows when to stop; kinda kills the mood. Know what I mean?’
‘Why you telling me this, man?’
‘Just don’t give up your art, bro.’ He gives me another shoulder tap. ‘And know your limits.’
Extracted from The Second Verse by Onke Mazibuko, out now.
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