[END OF CHAPTER 9]
"Hello?" Alone in this ghost shop in this ghost town, moving to the back of the store, I called again, "Hello? Tintswa-ah, I mean, Lindiwe?" Knocking on the office door got no response, but the door was open. The room was barren of human bodies or office technology. I pushed on the rear door, opening my way to the outside, the rear of the building. Then I pulled the door closed and tried to forget.
CHAPTER 10
On assignment, my subconscious is always writing, putting together the words I'll use later to describe something. It begins writing as a reaction, finding verbs and adjectives for the acts that I see. I have no control over it. If I had, I would not be overwhelmed with the diction penetrating my imagination. My brain would not be held down and forced to receive the hard truth over and over. It is an extreme situation to be violated in such a way that what was once sacred had been turned profane. For a moment, I tried to pretend it hadn't happened and that I could live life as I had before these words were thrusted into my tender, loving mind. The shark was available. I didn't need Tintswalo. I walked to the car and opened the driver's side door.
And then I was saying something to the gas station owner. I don't remember what. He was standing across from me and she was still on the ground. I had a gun from the trunk in my hands. He was begging for his life to me. I didn't know siSwati, but I knew that.
The few moments until I was standing over the gas station owner with his blood on my toes and his pants at his ankles, releasing a full clip into his corpse were a blur. I stopped only because I ran out of bullets.
Tintswalo was in shock. I picked up her pants and she vomited behind me. Helping her to the car, she had to stand half naked in public while I covered up the broken glass on her seat. She didn't care. Her brain seemed to have shut down, her body was going into shock. Some more pimp suits from the trunk seemed to help when I laid them on top of her in the passenger seat. She trembled as I drove us away and towards Lavumisa. Coming over the hill, I stared at South Africa across the border. We were so close. We were almost there. I looked at her, but that was the problem. The tears had smudged her make up. The gas station owner had disrobed her of her manly threads. She was in shock and incapable of passing off herself as himself. I parked at a motel and left her in the car.
"I'm going to get us a room, ok?"
She didn't answer.
In the room, I lowered her gently into the bathtub. She resisted the removal of any more clothing and I didn't push the issue.
I wanted to talk to her and make her feel better, but I didn't know what to say. Was there anything that could be said?
I went to the shark and popped the trunk. There was nothing that could be said, but surely there was something that could be taken. Some pill, some shot, some salve in her kit of kits. I brought in whatever looked relevant and carried them to the bathroom where Tintswalo was drowning herself. Dropping the drugs, I pulled her up out of the water. She coughed and I said nothing. There was nothing I knew to say.
"I brought drugs."
Comforting people wasn't/isn't/will not be my specialty.
Her hand trembled and it pointed to her suitcase. I got off the toilet and picked it up, but I stopped moving towards her.
"You're not gonna OD, are you?"
Her shoulders and hand dropped as if a viable option had been taken off to the table and the alternative was a difficult choice. She chewed a mouthful of salvia and laid back in the tub. I reached between her legs and pulled the stopper, then cleaned up the drugs and closed the door.
Fun Travel Tip:
Salvia is nothing to fuck with. It’s a strong hallucinogenic the Native Americans use for spirit quests, totem journeys, or whatever else excuses they call getting fucked up. Turns the user into something else. Shuts down higher brain functions and screws with the thalamus. Gives you a break from thinking. Salvia is good for that. No consideration, no regret, no self-loathing, self-blame, anxiety, guilt, humiliation, shame, or helplessness.
I wished I could have been there for her as she licked her hands in that bathroom, but there were no words in my dictionary to soothe this savage beast, escaping as she was into her primordial cortex. There was no television in this room so her mewling, screeching, and purring rang uncontested in my ears. After twenty minutes, she emerged, naked, on all fours.
"Thank you, Levi. I'm feeling betterrrr."
"Do you want some clothes from the car?"
She dropped a shoulder and rolled to her back, then rocked back and forth, rubbing her back on the carpet.
"I'm fine for now. Purrrrrfectly fine." She gave me a seductive eye as she said this. The rolled back to all fours and looked at me, then wiggled her ass in the air and pounced, jumping on me.
"Whoa! Hey! Tintswalo!"
She started nipping at my neck, but she would regret this when she sobered up. Pushing her off, I left the bed.
"Let's wait til you're straight," I said.
"I'm strrrraight enough, Levi, and if I die stopping Geils, I don't want that," she spat, "man to be the last I have." I backed up as she inched towards the side of the bed. "I'm already dirty and used. So, come on, Amerrrrican..."
"We're not going after Geils. We're going to the border."
"Oh? What about your story? What about saving the people?"
"These people don't deserve to be saved."
"Few people do."
Shaking my head, she finally gave up and pleasured herself while I watched her and made sure she didn't slit her wrists or hang herself as she slinked around the room naked and out of her mind.
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