Lambert stands on the front stoep, looking at the moon. It’s a golden-yellow ball floating just above the houses. He can smell braaivleis everywhere. People laugh and talk in their backyards and the air’s thick with smoke. It’s hot. Children play outside in the streets. It’s almost dark but the children carry on playing with their balls. Some of them have skateboards. The only time they ever give way is when a hot rod comes past. It’s policemen who dice like that; they think they’re big shots around here. As they come past you can hear the thump-thump of disco music, and when they turn the corner they leave a smell of hot rubber behind them. He can swear the inside of those cars reek of aftershave. He knows, he sees them on weekends at Ponta do Sol, all washed clean and shaved for their night out.
Here comes another one. Lambert checks out the policeman. His shiny hair hangs down in thin, curly little points on his forehead. He drives fast but he’s not even looking at the road. He’s looking out from under his hair, checking out the houses, left-right-left-right, with a kind of a fuck-you-fuck-me look on his face. His elbow sticks out of the window and he works the gears with his other hand. Big shot!
Lambert knows what he’s looking at. He knows what you see through bedroom windows on Saturday nights. Girls. Putting on make-up in front of their three-panel dressing tables from Morkels. They pout their mouths to put on lipstick and then they bend over with their bums up in the air, resting their feet on little dressing table chairs so they can paint their toenails. That’s before they slip into their flimsy little white sandals. They’ve all got dates.
Sometimes Treppie comes and stands next to him, so he can also check things out here from the stoep. But Treppie doesn’t look at the girls in their rooms. He looks at the wallpaper. At least that’s what he says. Lambert doesn’t know how he can see so far, but Treppie says all he sees are trees and dams and bridges, bunnies jumping on green grass and ducks and things. And blue hills in the distance. That’s now supposed to be all on the wallpaper.
For fucking crying in a bucket, Treppie says, how can people lie to themselves like that, with walls full of mock paradise? But that’s what happens, he says, when you take a place like this, full of prefab wagonwheels and aloes, rotten with rubble, and then give it a name like Triomf. Then people think they’ve got a licence to bullshit. But that’s a lot of crap, Treppie says, ’cause the only licence that counts is poetic licence.
He’s already asked Treppie what poetic licence means. Treppie says it’s the liberties poets take with life to make some things rhyme with other things. But, he says, those same poets have to live with poetic justice, ’cause words can boomerang badly, especially when they rhyme. He says there’s fuckenwell nothing in the world or the stars that actually rhymes. So, you have to watch your step and tread carefully if you want to play around with rhymes.
So why rhyme, he asks Treppie, if it’s such a lot of trouble?
But Treppie doesn’t answer. Sometimes he just shrugs and says it keeps him on the go. Other times he winks that devil’s wink of his and says it’s a family secret.
Another hot rod comes past. A blue one with its arse up in the air and loud music blaring from the windows. Lambert feels the bass from the disco-beat vibrate low down in his back. All day he’s been walking around with a hard-on from looking at the Scope centrefold – a blonde girl with big cans that she pushes out. They don’t even put stars on the nipples any more. Funny, he actually used to like those stars. Nipple caps. He burps. His throat burns. Heartburn. From polony and white bread. He wishes his mother would cook something so he can eat properly for a change. Potatoes and meat and sweet pumpkin. But she’s gone bad. Doesn’t give a shit any more. Just look at her kitchen. The other day he stuck some pictures of pretty kitchens on to the fridge. He took them from the Homemaker magazine that he finds in his postbox. But Pop took them off before his mother could see them.
He looks at the moon. It’s light yellow and a bit higher in the sky now. That fucken moon works on his tits. And just listen to the flying squad and the ambulances. Sirens all over the place, in and out of the Saturday night traffic.
Next door they’re playing Cat Stevens. They’ve been playing it the whole night. ‘Oh, it’s a Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody.’ Loud. They think they’re the only ones in the street, as if Martha Street belongs to them.
When he walked through the house from the back just now, he looked at his people sitting there in the house. They act like nothing’s wrong. His mother’s in the back, knitting Gerty’s jersey. Treppie’s in his room reading the Saturday Star classifieds. What Treppie thinks he’ll find in the classifieds Lambert still doesn’t know. Pop’s fast asleep in his chair in front of the TV, in the lounge. The TV’s playing loud.
He feels pushed. Pushed from fucken underneath and from fucken above. He goes back in through the front. Then he looks around Treppie’s door.
‘So, what’s new,’ he says. He lights up. Maybe Treppie’s got a story to tell. Or a plan.
‘So, what does that Jew-newspaper say tonight?’ he tries again.
Treppie looks him straight in the face. Here comes shit.
‘Just look at you again. Sis, yuk, go pull your wire so you can get some rest!’
‘Your arse, man!’ he says. What else can he say? He wishes he had something else to say. Something that Treppie’s never heard in his whole fucken life. Something that’ll make him sit up and be cool on a Saturday night. Something that fucken rhymes. How’s he supposed to help it if he gets a hard-on? He burps. Fucken hell! What now?
He looks into the lounge and sees Pop sleeping in his chair. A drop of snot hangs from his nose and there’s slobber running down his chin. It drops from his chin on to his chest. Toby lies under the TV table. His eyebrows and ears twitch when he sees Lambert look at him. Pop shifts around in his sleep.
He’ll still be sitting like that when he kicks the bucket one day, Lambert thinks. No, he doesn’t want to think about that. Fuck that. ‘Click-click’ goes the floor as he walks with bare feet to the back, to his mother. That’s another place. He knows when it’s okay to go in there. Now’s not really the time. It’s his mother’s room. Hers and his father’s, but more hers. He sticks his head around the door.
‘Nearly finished?’ he asks. ‘Can I see?’
She ignores him. Like she’s been doing ever since the last time. That was bad. He could feel things breaking inside her. If she looks for trouble, she’ll get it. But now he’s looking for company.
‘Has she tried it on yet?’ he asks. She doesn’t look up. He takes a step into the room.
‘Gerty,’ he says to the dog, who’s sitting stiffly against his mother on the mattress, ‘Gerty, have you tried on your new jersey yet, hey, old dog?’
His mother shifts away slightly. That means he must just not start looking for trouble again. Tonight it’s peace and quiet. He draws deep on his cigarette. It’s more than just trouble he’s got in his body.
‘What does the old dog say about her missus, hey? Also lost her voice, huh? Bad fucken company on a Saturday night, or what am I saying?’
Mol lets her knitting fall on to her lap. She looks at Lambert.
‘So?’ he asks. She says nothing. She picks up her knitting and carries on.
He takes a step closer. She shifts away some more. He squats next to the bed and pats Gerty on the head. Gerty looks up at Mol, making a little crying noise.
‘What does your old cunt of a missus say tonight, hey? What does she say, the cuntface with no teeth, hey?’ He’s whispering very softly to Gerty and scratching her between the ears.
Mol suddenly gets up. She walks across the mattress and out of the door. Gerty follows. He stays right there, hunched on his heels. He hears her go into the lounge. He hears Pop wake up and say: ‘What now? What’s it, Mol?’ His voice is thin. It’s all that slime in his throat.
She stays quiet, and then she says: ‘Lambert.’ Just ‘Lambert’. That’s all. Her fucken arse too.
He scratches his head with both hands and then he scratches his arse. His arse itches. Everything about him fucken itches. He gets up. He’s more than just ‘Lambert’, that’s for fucken sure. He walks out, into the passage and through the doorway to his den. There’s his bed. The thing’s legs are standing skew. The mattress lies at an angle on the bed. Its stuffing sticks out on the one side. Slept to death. He, Lambert, doesn’t even have a decent bed to sleep in. Fuck that. He grabs the mattress and throws it, with the Scope and pillows and blankets all still on it, against the open Tedelex. The empty Coke bottle on top of the Tedelex falls and smashes all over the floor. Fuck that too. He smacks the cabinet a shot with his flat hand. He can also make a fucken noise if he wants to! All night he’s been listening to other people’s noise. ‘Oh it’s a Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody’ over and fucken over in his ears. No, shit! He kicks an empty Coke crate with his bare foot. It flies into the scrap iron behind the door. A long piece of pipe comes loose, falling slowly across the room. It scrapes his painting on the wall before falling on to the floor. Silver paint comes off his mermaid’s tail. This Saturday night doesn’t want to work. This Saturday night is a fuck-up.
He walks out through the den’s back door. He wants to see what those fuckheads next door are doing. He stands in the long grass and peeps over the prefab wall, into next door’s backyard. The moon’s sitting higher now. It shines light blue all around him. Wherever you look next door it’s just yellow and red party lights, hanging from a wire between the gutter and the loquat tree. They’re fucken braaiing again. Them and their fucken meat.
It’s chops. No, it’s not chops, it’s T-bones. He counts eight of them. They cover the whole grill. The grill rests on a half-drum with four legs. There’s another grill as well, also a half-drum with legs. This one’s full of rolled-up boerewors. The wors sizzles and drips fat over the coals. Every now and again the flames flare up. Then someone has to douse them again.
He can’t see who’s killing the flames. All he can see is a hairy paunch and a hand going up and down. He can’t see so well ’cause he has to look over the prefab wall, and then over next door’s fast-food stands. That’s what they are, fast-food sellers. All of them. They sell hot dogs and hamburgers from their stands. He’s peeping underneath the flap of a plastic canvas sail and the stands below. All he can see is a strip of yellow light, some braaivleis and people’s bellies. Every now and again a hand with a can of beer goes up, and then drops down again to a hanging position next to a body. He can see seven bodies: men’s bodies and women’s bodies, thin ones and fat ones. Two women are wearing bikinis, a pink one and a blue one. They’re not so bad, even though they don’t look as smooth and as tanned as the Tuxedo Tyres girls. These ones have lots of dimples on the backs of their thighs. Pink Bikini stands with her arm around a man in blue jeans. The jeans are tight and there’s a bulge in front. Blue Bikini stands with her arm around Speedo. It’s a black Speedo with an even bigger bulge. His bulge stands at an angle, pointing to one side. Speedo’s got a big pair of thighs and a body-builder’s stomach. Hairy Paunch’s doing the meat. Lambert can see grey hair on his stomach. He’s wearing a towel that keeps slipping down. Then there’s another paunch, this one a little smaller, in khaki shorts. And there’s a thin little thing with knobbly shins in a cotton dress full of little flowers. She’s sitting on a plastic chair. Here comes another one, with big flowers on her dress. She comes and stands next to the fire.
‘Johnny, don’t burn those steaks now, you hear me, don’t burn them like you did last time.’
‘No ways,’ says Hairy Paunch, ‘these coals are just right now, just right.’ He takes a long sip from his beer. All Lambert can see is his elbow lifting up, but it doesn’t come down again. Big Flowers walks away.
‘Mom, go see if Ansie’s remembered the potato salad,’ Hairy Paunch says to Little Flowers.
‘Ai, Johnny, and I was just settling down nicely here,’ Little Flowers says, but she gets up anyway. She grips the arm of the plastic chair to push herself up.
Nice and pissed too, he sees. He knows it’s the old lady from Fort Knox. She’s the one who said they should take him, Lambert, and put him into a reformatory, that time he stabbed his mother in the cheek with a knife. In a reformatory or a madhouse, she said. Fucken old cunt.
It’s Treppie who came up with the name Fort Knox. He says it looks like they’re living on a heap of gold, like it’s America or something, the way they put up burglar bars and gates in front, and Spanish burglar-proofing over all the windows, and spikes everywhere. There’s a safe full of gold under the ground at the real Fort Knox. Fucken joke, that. As far as he can see, all they’ve got here is three fast-food stands and eight T-bones. And wallpaper.
‘This meat’s ready now,’ Johnny Hairy Paunch shouts at the women in the kitchen. ‘Bring the dishes. Where’s the pap and stuff?’
Here comes Big Flowers now. She’s got two bellies. One above the middle, then a deep fold, then another under the middle. Her dress creases into the fold. She’s carrying a big black pot full of pap. On top of the pap she balances a bowl of tomato and onion sauce.
‘Kiepie,’ she says to Khaki Shorts, ‘go fetch the dishes for Johnny. They’re on the table in the kitchen. The shallow one for the meat and the deep one for the wors.’
Kiepie Khaki Shorts puts down his beer, walks off and returns with the dishes, the shallow one and the deep one.
Blue Bikini and Speedo come over to the food. Speedo’s hand drops to her bum. They’re standing next to Johnny, who’s busy taking the T-bones off the fire. Kiepie’s holding the shallow dish for Johnny.
‘This here’s a proper piece of meat,’ Speedo says, bunching Blue Bikini’s bum into his hand and squeezing it.
‘Oh yes,’ says Johnny, feeling the meat with his fork. ‘Bought it at Roodt Brothers this afternoon. They know their meat there.’
‘Forty Years Meat Tradition,’ says Kiepie, ‘the best in Triomf.’
‘The best,’ says Johnny. ‘These were on special.’
‘Special, hey?’ says Speedo, moving his hand over to the other side of Blue Bikini’s bum. Lambert watches as he gathers the soft meat of her bum into his large hand.
‘Very special,’ says Speedo, slipping his hand under the bikini’s elastic, moving it lower and lower until he’s right in there, between the split, right down at the bottom.
‘Well,’ says Blue Bikini, trying to move the hand away, ‘if you ask me, it’s that wors that looks nice.’
Pink Bikini giggles.
‘Good Lord,’ says Big Flowers, coming out the kitchen with bowls of salad, ‘can’t you two control yourselves?’
‘Leave the children alone, Ansie,’ says Little Flowers, ‘horny is horny. Nothing to be done about it.’
‘He can at least go and put some decent clothes on,’ says Big Flowers.
‘Auntie, Auntie,’ says Speedo, ‘it’s like this, Auntie, I’m feeling too hot to get dressed. This way I can at least cool down a bit.’
Everyone laughs.
‘Come, let’s get the eating done now,’ says Little Flowers, ‘look how late it’s getting. Otherwise that meat sits too heavy on my stomach and then I can’t sleep.’
‘Okay, Mom, we’re just waiting for the pap and sauce to warm up a little here,’ says Johnny. ‘Make sure it doesn’t burn,’ he says to Kiepie, ‘I’m going back to get some more beers.’
‘Check if the baby’s still sleeping,’ Pink Bikini tells him. Blue Jeans rubs her on the shoulder.
This is how Lambert peeps at the people in Fort Knox. He listens to them as the moon shines blue light across his back. He watches how they take their seats on plastic chairs. He sees Big Flowers dishing up everyone’s plates to the brim, there at the stoep-table. He can see three bowls of salad, one with bananas in yellow sauce, one with tomatoes and lettuce and one with potato salad. There’s a T-bone and a piece of wors on everyone’s plate. And a heap of pap with sauce on top. They have to push their food back on the plates; there’s so much, it wants to fall off.
‘Now, let’s first drink to Fanus and Yvette,’ says Hairy Paunch.
‘Happy first anniversary,’ says Little Flowers. Blue Jeans’ and Pink Bikini’s faces turn towards each other across the plates of food on their laps.
Now that they’re sitting, all he can see is the top half of their bodies and the bottom part of their faces. Large bites disappear into half-mouths.
‘Well now,’ says Big Flowers. She holds her plate in both hands on her lap. ‘You wouldn’t say we’re in a recession now, would you?’
‘Eat your food, Ansie,’ says Little Flowers.
‘Don’t worry, be happy,’ says Speedo.
‘So, Kiepie,’ says Johnny, half laughing, ‘you figure the kaffirs are going to come and take their houses back, here in Triomf?’
‘Ag no, man,’ says Pink Bikini, ‘don’t start with that again, you know how upset Ma gets.’
‘Yes, don’t upset me,’ says Big Flowers, taking a large mouthful of pap and then a bite of wors.
Upset, Lambert thinks, upset! They reckon they know what upsets them. Let them just sit there nicely and eat their fucken T-bones. ’Cause right now his mother’s going to cut the grass. She doesn’t know it yet, but that’s what she’s going to do. Then they’ll see what upset means. The kaffirs wanting their places back is nothing, completely fuck-all. He’s going to set the blades so the revs run nice and high. And he’ll put too much oil in so the machine comes out smoking blue. He’ll see to it that the whole lawn gets cut, front and back, in the bright light of the moon. He’ll upset the whole of Triomf. It’s not just other people who can make a noise around here.
He walks with long strides back to his den, in through the back door and over the crates and pipes to the inside door.
‘Ma!’ he shouts down the passage before turning back to get the lawnmower from his room. Then again: ‘Ma!’ he shouts over his shoulder as he pulls the lawn-mower out from under the blankets in the room. And once more: ‘Ma!’ as he drags the lawn-mower, ‘rickatick-rickatick’, over the loose blocks into the lounge.
And then, again, as he walks in through the lounge door, he shouts so loud that the windows rattle: ‘Hey, Ma! Get yourself ready to cut. The grass is long!’
He pulls the machine into the middle of the lounge. Then he bends over, shoves open Pop’s knees, and drags out his toolbox from under Pop’s chair. He wants to set the petrol to ‘open’, but the lever’s broken, so now he needs long-nosed pliers to shift the broken piece of stub. But he can’t find the pliers. The fucken thing isn’t in his toolbox. With one flick of his arm he turns the whole box upside down on to the lounge floor. ‘Kabam!’ Pop rises slowly from his chair. He’s reaching out in the air for Mol. She’s been up a while already.
‘Where’s the oil? Where’s the petrol?’ he shouts at them. ‘Come, come, you’re all half-dead in this house. Move! It’s Saturday night!’
Treppie comes in, leaning against the lounge door. He says nothing. He squints at Lambert.
‘Hey, what you looking at, Treppie? What you looking at?’ Lambert shouts as he scratches among the heap of tools on the floor.
‘Me,’ says Treppie, ‘I’m looking at a mad fucker with a big dick, scratching around for small pliers on a Saturday night.’
‘Viewmaster,’ says Mol, lighting up a smoke. It looks like she’s surrendered. She’ll go through with it. Whatever.
Lambert’s up in a flash. He takes one stride towards Treppie and then lifts him up into the air by his shirt. Treppie has to stand on his toes. He shouts into Treppie’s face. Treppie turns his face to avoid the spray.
‘Now let me tell you what it is you see, you fucken bastard. You see a plastic pipe behind the bathroom door, and you see a fucken funnel in the den under the bed. You see an empty Coke bottle in the same place. You see how you siphon petrol until that bottle’s full and then you fucken see how you bring that bottle here. That’s what you see! Don’t look for shit with me now. Move it! Go siphon some petrol!’ He lets go of Treppie in mid-air.
Treppie finds his footing again, ironing out his clothes with quick, sharp little plucks at the edges.
‘Go siphon your own petrol, you mad fucken arsehole,’ he says, turning back to his room.
‘Hey,’ says Lambert, starting after him.
‘Hold it, hold it,’ says Pop. ‘Leave Treppie alone, I’ll get the petrol.’
‘Okay,’ says Lambert, ‘but let me tell you one thing tonight …’ And he turns around to face Pop and his mother, to tell them something as they stand there, next to each other, with their careful faces. ‘… and I’m going to say it just once.’ He wants to say it just once to his mother, who’s standing there and fingering her bun. And he wants to say it just once to Pop, who’s standing there half-asleep, pulling his braces over his shoulders with his thumbs. He wants to tell them, the two of them standing there like they’re going down an escalator into a big dark hole – he wants to say it to them, but then he says nothing. He’s forgotten what he wanted to say. It was too much to say. His eyes burn and his throat feels tight.
‘The GTX,’ he says instead. ‘The GTX. It’s under my bed. Don’t open the full can,’ he says, swallowing down the burning feeling and blinking. ‘There’s a can that’s half-full. Bring it here.’
He looks down. The long-nosed pliers. It’s fucken lying right in front of his fucken feet. He picks it up and goes down on his knees next to the mower. He sets it to ‘open’.
Mol fetches the oil while Pop siphons some petrol. Treppie’s swearing in rhymes in the passage: ‘Dammit, fukkit, dogshit!’
That’s better. He feels much better now. At least now there’s some action. A person can’t sit around like this and do nothing on a Saturday night.
‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed of the watermelon,’ he sings as he sets the blades higher.
‘Shuddup!’ Treppie screams, but Lambert just sings louder.
‘We must get a better siphon,’ he tells Pop after they fill up the mower. ‘This one messes too much.’ He’s talking loudly.
Pools of oil and petrol spread over the parquet floor. Mol goes to the kitchen to fetch a rag.
Lambert wants to start the lawn-mower, but the cord’s slack. ‘Grrr!’ He pulls. ‘Grrr, grrr!’ Once more: ‘Grrr!’ ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Fuck this piece of rubbish!’ He kicks the lawn-mower.
Treppie walks past in the passage, looking into the lounge.
‘I told you, you should pull your wire rather than pull that silly little string – then at least you’ll have something to pull.’
Lambert picks up a spanner and throws it in Treppie’s direction. Treppie ducks. The spanner hits the wall and falls on to the blocks. One of the blocks goes ‘click’ as the spanner bounces it loose. A big, thick piece of plaster goes ‘poff’ as it falls on to the floor and shatters into small pieces. Now there’s a big hole in the wall, with hairline cracks all around it. Lambert looks at the hole. He can see powdery red brick where the plaster came loose. Big cracks running in all directions.
He bends over and rips the cord. ‘Puff-ta-puff-ta-puff-ta-puff-ta-puff’ goes the engine, and then it takes. He sets the petrol further open. There’s a lot of oil in the petrol. Spot-on. The lounge fills up with blue smoke.
‘Ma!’ he shouts after Mol, who’s gone back to the kitchen with the dirty rag. ‘Come!’ he shouts. ‘Come, come, come!’
He pushes the lawn-mower towards the front door. Clouds of blue smoke rise from the machine and start pouring out of the door. He works the mower down the two steps. There’s a sharp noise as the blades catch the edge of the stoep. Sparks fly. Mol follows him.
‘It’s night, Lambert. I can’t see anything,’ she shouts above the noise of the machine.
He lets go of the mower. Then he turns his mother so she faces the moon.
‘There!’ he shouts, pointing up. ‘There! Can you see it? There’s your light, Ma! It’s a fucken heavenly spotlight! What more do you want? You start this side and then you go right around, hey.’ He pushes the mower to the strip between the house and the prefab wall, where the grass has grown long.
Pop comes out the front door. ‘Hey, Lambert,’ he shouts, but the noise is so loud he can’t hear himself speaking. He taps on his wrist where his watch used to be. It’s a long time since he had a watch.
He motions with his arms to the moon. It’s late, he shows with large movements. People are sleeping, he signals, folding up his arms next to his head.
Lambert signals back to Pop he must shuddup. He, Lambert, finishes what he starts. Everything’s going nicely now. He pushes past Pop, who’s standing there in the front door. Then he sits down in front of the TV, lighting up a cigarette.
Pop walks up and down between the front door and the lounge. He’d better just sit down now and stop walking in and out, in and out like a dog looking for a bone. He must close the front door now. Lambert hears his mother pushing the lawn-mower through the long grass on the side. ‘Choof-choof-choof-choof’ goes the mower’s engine as it slowly runs down. Then it cuts out. Dead. Now he’ll have to drag himself all the way back outside to his mother, ’cause the dumb cunt won’t be able to get the thing going again.
He’s up like lightning and out of the door before Mol even makes a move.
‘Ja!’ he shouts at her. ‘What’s your problem, hey?’
She points to the dead mower. God in heaven, surely he can see what’s wrong?
‘So, you let the thing die, did you?’ he shouts. ‘What you do that for, hey, what you do that for, hey? Hey?’
He bumps her out of the way, bends over and grabs the cord’s handle. His shorts are almost right off his backside, but he doesn’t pull them up. Let her look if she wants to. When he was a baby, his nappy also used to slip down like that. It’s ’cause his bum is too high. That’s what she always says. Stuff her. He can’t help it if his bum is so high.
He pulls the cord so hard the mower lifts right off the ground.
‘Put your foot on it so I can pull!’ he shouts. Mol walks round to the front side so she can do what he says. The engine takes after the third yank.
‘Right!’ Lambert shouts. ‘When she slacks off, you lift the nose up into the air, like this, and then you move the machine back, just a bit. Then you let it down again. Come, let’s get going. Move, move, move!’
He watches her as she pushes the mower back up the strip next to the house, where the grass is longest. ‘Choof!’ The machine chokes again. He waits for her at the stoep as she drags it back. He’s not going to let her off, no way.
‘Can’t you get it into your head, Ma, that you have to press the fucken thing down on your side so the fucken nose lifts into the air, so it can get some fucken air, so it can fucken run again, hey? Hey!’
He rips the mower out of her hands, steps on it himself, and starts it up again with one mighty heave. He shoves the machine back in his mother’s direction. Then he points at her. Stupid fucken old woman. How could she let it die a second time? Pop’s standing in the doorway, waving his arms like he’s trying to kill flies. Lambert pushes him out of his way.
‘Go sit!’ he says to Pop. ‘Go sit down so you can stop walking up and down all the time.’
Pop lights up a cigarette. He says nothing. They listen as Mol finishes cutting on the side, and they hear how she keeps saving the machine from dying at the last moment. She lifts the machine up on number ninety-nine, gets it up to speed again, and then brings it down for more cutting.
Treppie walks into the lounge with a bottle of Klipdrift and a litre of Coke under one arm, and three glasses in the fingers of the other hand. Then he steadies the glasses on to the sideboard.
‘So!’ he says. ‘Busy, busy tonight at the Benades, hey, Lambert. Sow the seed, oh sow the seed!
‘Sow the seed of the watermelon,’ sings Treppie. He does a few dance steps, holding the bottle above his head.
‘His mommy’s arse’s in the grass, his dad is dinkum telly-mad, his uncle’s dandy with the brandy, so let’s sow the watermelon!’
Treppie switches off the TV. Pop’s holding his head at an angle so he can hear how Mol’s doing outside. She’s almost finished on the one side. Now she must do the back, where the grass is also long.
‘A double for me,’ says Lambert.
‘But of course, Bertie old boy. Always double for the single man!’ says Treppie, first pouring the Klipdrift and then the Coke, ‘ghloob-ghloobghloob’.
‘Doubles are forever, doubles are for always, doubles to clink on, for double fuck’s sake, oh for double fuck’s sake,’ he sings to the tune of ‘He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’.
‘Doesn’t Mol get any?’ asks Pop.
‘Leave her be so she can cut the grass once and for all,’ says Lambert. He takes his glass.
‘The shit’s still going to fly here tonight. Here’s your drink, Pop,’ says Treppie, handing Pop his glass. ‘Drink up before it happens, ’cause when it does it’s really going to fly in a big way.’
They drink in silence. Behind the house they hear Mol lift the mower again. But she doesn’t put it down. The engine starts running fast and loud.
‘What the fuck!’ says Lambert. But he doesn’t get up. He waits. He knows what he’s waiting for. Then he hears the noise coming from next door. Two men start shouting over the Fort Knox wall.
‘Shuddup with that noise! Shuddup! It’s fuckenwell eleven o’clock at night! What the hell do you people think you’re doing!’
‘That’s it,’ says Lambert. He slams his hands down on his legs as he gets up. ‘They’re looking for trouble again. Think they’re big shots. Think they can stick their noses in our business. Stuff them too!’
He hears his mother let the machine down again. ‘Choof! Choof!’ It cuts out. Here she comes now, round the other side. She doesn’t want trouble with the neighbours. She parks the mower in front and stamps her feet to get the grass off. Then she fingers the bun at the back of her head. ‘Enough,’ she says. She pushes past him.
‘Finished?’ says Lambert.
‘Next door’s complaining,’ she says. She points to the sideboard. ‘Where’s mine?’
‘You’ll get yours when you fucken finish cutting the grass. That’s when you’ll get yours. You hear! Do you hear me!’
‘Next door,’ she says.
‘Fuck next door!’ says Lambert. He pushes his mother on the chest.
‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed,’ Treppie sings from where he sits. He smiles an old smile. His eyes are shining. When Treppie looks like this, then he’s into the game, then he wants to play along, then things start cooking. Fine, maybe something will cook up here tonight.
‘Mol,’ says Treppie. ‘Mol, you know what happens when the fucken grass is long. You know very well what happens. Then the shit starts flying. You remember what happens, don’t you?’
‘First rest,’ she says. ‘First sit.’ She goes and fetches herself a glass in the kitchen. When she comes in again, she pours herself a drink. She sits down heavily, flinging her legs wide open.
‘Close your legs, Ma, close your legs!’ says Lambert.
Pop lets his head drop into his hands. ‘Lambert,’ he mumbles.
Lambert shoots a look at Pop. If Pop has something to say then let’s hear it, he says. Didn’t Pop hear what Treppie just said about the grass? Or has Pop suddenly gone deaf? And can’t he even feel that long drop of snot hanging from his nose? Must he, Lambert, wipe it off for him?
Pop wipes the drop off with his sleeve.
‘Still is the night,’ Treppie starts singing.
‘Pop,’ says Treppie, ‘Pop, where’s your mouth organ? Hey, Pop, don’t go to sleep now, man. The night’s still young. Where’s your mouth organ?’
‘Leave him,’ says Mol.
‘You leave your glass, Ma,’ says Lambert. ‘That’s what you must leave, now, right this second! Go cut the grass, so we can get some peace around here!’
‘Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,’ Treppie sings. ‘Hell, but I feel like singing tonight.’ He gets up and pours himself another drink. ‘I feel like singing, singing and dancing. Waltzing. I feel like waltzing. And you, Mol, you also feel like waltzing?
‘Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,’ sings Treppie. He does a few steps with his arms held out. ‘Click-click’ go the blocks on the floor.
‘Outside! Get outside and finish the grass! Now!’ Lambert shouts. He plucks his mother up and pushes her out the front door, slamming it behind her. This is no time for dancing.
He watches her through the window. She stands on the stoep with her hands against her sides. Her one side is yellow from the stoep-light. Her other side is blue from the moon. Slowly she moves towards the moon’s side. Where the fuck does she think she’s going now? The mower’s right in front of the stoep. What’s wrong with the old bitch tonight? She must work the machine. She must make a noise. She mustn’t go wandering around now. It’s now or never. He goes out the front and starts the engine. His mother wants to get away from him. She grabs the mower and quickly pushes it away. ‘That’s more like it!’ he shouts after her. Then he goes inside and watches her through the side window in the lounge as she cuts the grass on the moon’s side. The lawn’s looking nice and even. Except for the patch where the grass grows long, near his scrapheap. All Flossie’s old parts. Pieces of the old Austin for just in case. He always keeps things for just in case. Then he knows he can look for things in the scrapheap. But he doesn’t always find what he’s looking for ’cause the grass grows too long around his stuff. Then he burns the grass. When he does that, everything else burns as well. All the metal stuff, till everything’s pitch black. But the grass has to be short, otherwise things get lost.
There she starts on the patches of grass around the scrapheap. Yes, he’s been waiting for it – right over a piece of iron. The engine dies. Sounds like a blade has gone too. Here she comes now, pulling that thing behind her again. He walks to the front window to watch her. She’s standing on the stoep. She’s sniffing, but she doesn’t come inside. She turns around. Then her eyes open wide. She didn’t think he’d stand here at the window and watch her! The old cunt looks scared out of her mind. He must go fix her up.
‘Nearly finished, nearly finished,’ she says as he comes out.
‘This is the last time, you hear me! The last time! You’re looking for me, Ma, and if you look for me you’re going to get me! You’re going to get me!’
‘Okay, okay, Lambert. Just start it for me. Quickly.’
Her hands show he mustn’t hit her, she’ll cut, she’ll cut till she falls over, but she’ll cut. She’s nicely broken in. That’s the way it should be. At least there’s one person in this house who does what he says.
It’s long after twelve. Lambert’s peeping over the prefab wall. He’s wearing nothing but his shorts. The moonlight’s bright now, but it’s still hot. His mother gave him no more trouble. She cut the grass obediently, but nothing further happened, and he began to get sick of starting up the engine all the time. So when Pop said it was time to go to bed he was actually glad. His mother was ready to fall over in any case. And Treppie was so drunk, he’d started shoving handfuls of grass into his mouth, ‘mooing’ like a cow on the front lawn. He had to help Pop carry Treppie inside, the mad wanker. They’re all sleeping now. The house is dark. Now he can peep over the wall in peace. Why Fort Knox stopped complaining he still doesn’t know. Must’ve had too much beer.
It smells of cut grass where he’s standing. They’re playing light music next door. He stretches his neck.
First he sees nothing. Then Blue Bikini and Speedo come shuffling past. Speedo’s got both his hands on her bum. Lambert can see he’s working her bum again. They’re dancing so close you can’t see Speedo’s bulge any more.
The faces aren’t visible but he can hear them kissing – it’s a sucking and spitting sound, like eating a mushy guava, as Treppie always says. Mushy guava and cucumber power.
Pink Bikini and Blue Jeans lie on a blanket. They’re kissing. All he can see is their legs, as far as their backsides. The flap of the canvas sail over the fast-food stand blocks his view. He can see legs folding over each other and feet clawing and curling into each other. The Cotton Prints and the Paunches are nowhere to be seen. Must be sleeping by now. Jesus, he wishes he could see a bit better. If he could just get a bit higher he’d be able to see over the top of the sail. But then he’d have to stand on the prefab wall and he wouldn’t have anything to hold on to.
He goes to his den and fetches some beer crates. He stacks six of them on top of each other, against the wall. Like this he’ll be able to hold on to the gutter with his one hand. But how’s he going to get up the crates? He fetches another three crates to use as a step.
He lifts himself on to the stack of crates by climbing on to the lower lot first. Now he’ll be able to see what’s what in Fort Knox! He’ll be two crates higher than the prefab wall.
As he finds his footing on the topmost crate something starts to wobble underneath him. He grabs the gutter and holds on, but he’s falling. He sees the wall and the middle food stand coming towards his face. It’s the hamburger stand. More than half his body’s already over the wall. He makes a grab for the canvas sail. ‘Crack!’ goes the frame. ‘Grrrts’ goes the flap as it tears in his hands. First he falls a dent into the hamburger stand, then he thuds down on to next door’s cement floor.
The next thing he hears are the screams of the bikini girls.
‘Kiepie, Johnny! Come quickly, it’s that piece of shit from next door again,’ shouts Speedo.
Oh fuck me, Jesus, what now? He’s jammed between the hamburger stand and next door’s wall. His one side’s on the cement, and now he can’t move. He’d better get a move on, fast! Now he’s really gone and made big shit. And now their fucken dog’s gunning for him too, biting and barking from under the hamburger stand.
‘Voetsek! Voetsek!’ Lambert shouts. He flexes his body and kicks wildly at the dog, making more dents in the stand. Speedo and Blue Jeans are worming their way between the wall and the stands from both sides to get at him. He lunges for the top of the wall. It’s easily two heads higher than on the Benades’ side. He heaves himself up, gets his feet on to the stall, and pushes himself right over the wall. But before he can clear it, someone gets hold of one of his feet. He gives a hard kick backwards and feels his foot sink into someone’s warm, wet mouth.
‘My tooth, my tooth, my fucken tooth!’ one of them shouts, letting go of Lambert’s foot.
He falls head first between the two heaps of crates. The skin on his skull splits open and warm blood runs down his face. His foot throbs from the kick. What the hell’s he going to do now? His head feels dizzy. Speedo and Blue Jeans are screaming at him over the wall. He sees their arms waving in the air. Then he sees Treppie’s light coming on. Within seconds Treppie’s outside.
‘What the hell’s going on now?’ he shouts in a voice that sounds like it’s breaking.
‘I fell!’ says Lambert.
Blue Bikini’s head pops up over the wall. She’s as blonde as a Barbie doll.
‘Fell? The hell with fell! He was peeping at us! The fucken pig was peeping, that’s what he was doing!’
Five heads pop up over the wall – Speedo, Blue Jeans, Pink Bikini, Kiepie and Johnny. There’s blood running from Speedo’s mouth and nose and he’s spitting out red gobs. The Fort Knox people are on top of the food stands, shouting and pointing at Lambert, who’s still on the ground, holding his head with one hand and his foot with the other.
‘He fell straight into his glory!’ says Little Flowers, whose head also pops up now.
‘He fell smack on his backside, that’ll teach him!’ says Big Flowers, joining the Fort Knox party. Little Flowers and Big Flowers are both in their nighties.
Speedo’s been back inside to change his shirt and put on a pair of jeans. He looks a sight. The whole of one side of his face is swollen. He grabs the prefab wall and climbs to the top.
Through the blood running down his face, Lambert sees him grab on to the gutter. Just two big movements and Speedo’s on top of the Benades’ roof.
‘Come,’ he says to Blue Jeans. ‘Come up here with me. Give me your hand, I’ll pull you up. Then we’ll see what happens to people who peep, to fuckers who peep at other people when they’re braaiing.’
‘Ja!’ says Kiepie.
‘Ja!’ says Johnny. ‘Let’s show them what happens.’
‘Just look at our sail!’ says Big Flowers, standing there in her flimsy yellow nightie.
‘Just look at our stand,’ says Little Flowers in her green nightie.
Pink Bikini, who still hasn’t said anything, comes storming out with a glass vase and throws it, ‘bam! ting-a-ling’, right through the den’s side window, glass flying everywhere.
‘Take that, you filthy rubbish!’ she shouts. ‘It’s ’cause you fucked up our whole night!’
Pop comes out the back door. His mouth hangs open. He’s in his shirt and socks.
Then Mol pushes past Pop. She holds the flaps of her housecoat together.
‘Lambert,’ she says. ‘Lambert, get up.’
‘Ja,’ shouts Speedo from the roof. ‘Get up, you fucken freak, so you can see what we do to people who break our things!’
‘And to people who peep at us when we braai!’ screams Pink Bikini.
‘Hoooo-haaa!’ shouts Blue Jeans. They run around on the roof.
‘Crack!’ they break off the TV aerial.
‘Crack!’ they flatten the overflow.
‘Crack! Crack! Crack!’ they rip the gutters out of their brackets and throw them, ‘bam! bam! bam!’, on to the ground.
‘Come!’ says Pop, pulling Mol by the sleeve.
‘Come!’ he says to Treppie, pulling him by the sleeve as well.
‘Come, we’re going inside. Lambert, come now!’ Pop says. But Lambert doesn’t want to go inside. He’s limping along the side of the house to see what they’re doing on the roof, in front. He knows his rights. What they’re doing now is not an accident, it’s malicious damage to property. That’s how Treppie explained it to him last time. This bunch from Fort Knox are breaking their house down, deliberately. With intent.
Lambert runs out the front gate to go phone the police. The women across the road must just let him phone now. But they say no, they’ll phone themselves. It’s ’cause they don’t want him in their house. He knows, he’s seen how they spray stuff to get rid of his smell when he leaves. ‘Jesus, but he honks,’ he even heard one of them say.
‘Ag, thank you very much,’ he says to the short thick-set one who comes to open the door. ‘Thank you, man, but they must come quick. We’re under siege here!’
The tall one dials one-one-one-one-one-one on the phone in the passage. He hears her say something about a ‘domestic disturbance across the street here’.
‘What!’ he shouts. ‘It’s a fucken war, man!’ He shouts at the top of his voice so the police can hear. Domestic disturbance, my fucken foot!
He runs outside again. Speedo and them are back on the ground and they’re busy in front now. They’re actually breaking his postbox. ‘Zack! Zack! Zack!’ go the little iron struts as Speedo breaks them off, one by one. Then he stands back a bit, dances towards the postbox at an angle and gives it a big Kung Fu kick. Lambert watches as the postbox and the platform fall right off the pole and on to the grass. One shot.
He stays where he is in the garden across the road, just behind the gate. But they’ve seen him.
‘Come here, you fucken fat pig, so we can smash you up a bit,’ shouts Blue Jeans.
‘Yes, come here, you waste of a white skin who peeps at us when we braai!’ shouts Speedo.
Waste yourself. He’s not going to move an inch.
Here come the police now. They come from all sides, in yellow vans and yellow-and-blue Flying Squad Golfs. Looks like a bunch of Coloured cops again. No, there’re two whites among them.
‘Evening, evening,’ say the men from the different cars. They know 127 Martha Street very well. But they never do anything. No one ever wants to lay a charge or make a case. It costs too much money. So they come and calm things down a bit, see that no one gets hurt too badly.
The whole lot from Fort Knox are in the street now. They’re waiting for him, Lambert, to come out. He knows the two from across the road are watching him as he stands here behind their front gate. Pop and Mol and Treppie are also outside. They stand on the front stoep, holding on to each other’s sleeves. They’re also waiting to see if he’ll come out.
Well, then, in that case he might as well do it. And let’s see if Johnny has the nerve to grab him by the throat, here in front of the police. The police won’t let them punch him around. They look cool, those police. They stand around with cigarettes, calming people down with their hands.
Toby and Gerty run up and down the lawn, barking.
Little Flowers looks like she’s flipped completely. She walks in circles around the Fort Knox bunch, who are now closing in on him. ‘Slip-slop’ go her slippers on the tar. They grab him and start pushing him around.
‘Knock him for a six, Johnny, knock him! Knock his fucken block off!’ Pink Bikini’s hair looks wild. She’s explaining to the constables. What does she know, anyway?
‘And it was my anniversary, my party for my first anniversary. And then he started peeping at us.’
‘Ja,’ says Johnny, ‘he peeps at us every time we braai, for years and years now, the fucken rubbish.’
‘They broke our window, on purpose,’ says Lambert. He knows that doing things on purpose makes a difference.
‘That was my fucken vase, my vase that I got for my anniversary!’ screams Pink Bikini. ‘What were we supposed to do? He came over our wall and jumped on the hamburger stand. So I threw him with the vase!’
‘Self-defence!’ says Johnny.
‘They broke our pipe, on purpose,’ says Lambert, pointing to the roof so the policemen can see.
‘Fuck your pipe, man,’ says Johnny, ‘and fuck you too, with or without a pipe!’
‘My mom and them are old, and now the TV’s broken and there’s no overflow on the geyser any more,’ says Lambert.
‘Ag, man, your mother’s cunt!’ shouts Speedo. ‘Your mother’s hairy arse!’
Lambert sees people coming out of their houses all the way up and down Martha Street. Dogs are barking for blocks around. Couples coming home late from their Saturday night dates stop their cars to look. They switch off the car radios so they can listen.
He breaks loose. His mother and them must come now. Why should he take the shouting all on his own? They’re also in this. But they don’t want to come out. They just move a little closer to the wire fence.
‘Just check, old Lambert,’ shouts Treppie. ‘People think we’re famous. Check all the people, Lambert. The fucken Benades’ fucken late night show! Scenes from forthcoming attractions. Bladdy movie stars, that’s what we are!’
Fuck Treppie. He’s fucken drunk and now he’s shooting his mouth off too.
‘What about our sail, hey? What about our stand, hey? Hey?’ says Johnny Paunch, pushing Lambert around. The constables hold Johnny back.
‘Come, Johnny, it’s enough now,’ says Kiepie.
‘Yes, enough,’ says Big Flowers. ‘The police also have to sleep.’ She smiles at the constable. Who does she think she is?
‘It was a plain accident,’ says Lambert. ‘There was no intention.’
‘No intention’s backside, you hear me, it’s backside! You, you peep at us when we braai!’ It’s Blue Bikini shouting at him now. She’s wearing a man’s shirt over her bikini.
‘Hit him, hit him, Johnny. Knock the daylights out of him,’ shouts Little Flowers. She still hasn’t stopped walking around in circles in the street.
‘Tell Lambert he must come inside now,’ he hears his mother say. ‘Come, Pop, tell him to come inside now.’ His people move a little closer.
Pop’s mouth hangs open.
‘Button up your pants and go and tell him now,’ says Treppie.
Pop walks up to the gate. He holds on to the fence with one hand and buttons up his pants with the other. He nudges the postbox with his foot, pushing it out of his way. It lies on the grass, its little arms sticking out in all directions.
‘Peeep’ goes the front gate as Pop carefully pushes it open. Lambert sees Pop coming. Pop works his way through the people, through big shoulders in uniforms. He pushes his way through, so he can get to Lambert in the middle. Then he finds Lambert’s elbow.
‘Come now, my boy,’ he says. ‘Come inside now. Everything’s over. It’s okay now. Just come inside.’
Pop pulls him out, backwards, backwards, away from the mob of people standing there. Some of them follow him, trying to block his way.
‘Just you peep at us once more when we braai, you fucken rubbish!’ says Johnny, who keeps following them as Pop pulls him further away.
‘Next time we’ll break your fucken overflow right off for you,’ says Blue Jeans.
‘We’ll pull your wire right out next time! Out, once and for all, you hear me!’ Speedo shouts into his face.
‘So you can stop peeping at us when we braai,’ say the two Bikinis, together.
‘Hey, you lot,’ says Big Flowers, ‘leave the poor bastard now. Leave him. That’s enough now. Come inside.’
Two policemen get into their car and drive off. Two other pairs stand around for a while. They look as cool as cucumbers.
‘Just look at the house,’ says the one. Lambert sees how they look the house up and down, with their hands on their sides.
‘Looks like it’s falling to pieces,’ says the other one.
‘Just look at all the rubbish under that roof,’ says the first one.
‘Bad,’ says the white constable. ‘Bad to the bone.’
‘Ag, Jesus, shame,’ says the Coloured constable.
‘At least the lawn is nice and neat,’ says another Coloured constable.
The radios in the police cars crackle and make ‘peep-peep’ noises. The cars are full of voices. Pop has pulled Lambert almost all the way to the stoep, backwards, backwards, backwards. His mother holds the door open. Treppie walks round the house. He chucks the broken pieces of pipe and gutter on to a heap. ‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed,’ he sings at the top of his voice. Then he goes inside.
The front door closes.
The stoep-light switches off.
Lambert’s mother pours him a drink. They all stand around looking at him. He’s sitting in Pop’s chair.
‘Your foot,’ says his mother.
His foot’s swollen blue and purple.
‘I kicked him slap-bang in the mouth,’ he says.
‘Black belt,’ says Treppie.
‘Your head,’ says his mother. The blood has dried in long strips down his forehead. Where’s the hole?
‘Let’s see,’ she says.
‘Don’t touch!’ he says, jerking his head away.
‘Tough,’ says Treppie. ‘Tough like Stallone.’
‘Bedtime,’ says Pop. ‘Come, let’s go to bed.’
They all leave. In the passage, his mother picks up the piece of plaster that fell off the wall. She looks at the wall.
‘Cracks,’ she says. ‘Just look at the cracks.’ She wipes her hand over the wall, once, as if she wants to wipe away the cracks.
He remains seated for a long time in Pop’s chair. He looks at the hole in the wall where the plaster fell off, at the cracks all around it. One by one he looks at the cracks, how they run up the wall, until he can’t see them any more, until they disappear into the high-gloss paint.
But he knows, under the paint they go on and on, invisible to the eye. Once it gets going, a crack in plaster is something that keeps running. Once it starts, you can never stop it.