The Reactive Read Online Free Page A
Author: Masande Ntshanga
blows out a pair of smoke rings. Then her hand drops to ash the last of her cigarette, and she says it again, this word sheâs been using on us all morning.
Slavery.
On the bean-bag, Ruan doesnât respond. He goes back to reading and I take out my cellphone. I plug it into the charger next to the stove, and, using my other hand to stir, I read the text message from my uncle.
Lindanathi, my uncle Bhutâ Vuyo says,
ukhulile ngoku,
youâve come of age.
He tells me I havenât been seen in too long. I read this second line for a while before I delete the message.
Returning to the glue, the relief I expect to wash over me doesnât arrive. Instead, I think of each word Iâve read off the screen. I think of coming of age in the way Bhutâ Vuyo means. Then I think of my last night in Du Noon, and about those two words,
ukhulile ngoku,
and of coming of age once more.
My case manager calls my cellphone close to an hour later. Weâve put away Cissieâs cooked glue in plastic containers to cool off in the freezer, and weâve taken up our noses whatâs left of the tube of industrial-strength glue she keeps in her drawer. Itâs now just a little after one, and weâre sprawled sideways across Cissieâs living-room floor, our lungs full of warmth from n-hexane. When I donât pick up and answer my case managerâs call, my cellphone seems to melt inside my palm. Itâs a strange sensation, but one you get used to after a while.
With another hour passing, we watch as Ruan pulls his baseball cap over his forehead. He plays âBy This Riverâ by Brian Eno on his laptop, tapping the repeat button under the seek bar, and then the next hour arrives and Cissie hands us three Ibuprofens each. She pops them out of a new 500-milligram bubble pack, and we take them with glasses of milk and clumps of brown sugar. From where Iâm sitting, I can still feel the warmth from the glue expanding through me, a thick liquid spilling out from my chest and kneading into my fingertips. The sunlight casts a wide flat beam over the coffee table, and after weâve swallowed, we place the tumblers holding the rest of our milk between its narrow legs. I close my eyes again and hear my cellphone calling out for me. Its vibration feels like a small hand running over my thigh, and when I pick it up, my heart squeezes into itself as I think of Bhutâ Vuyo. I see Luthandoâs stepfather stretching his vest under his heavy blue overalls, sitting inside a sweating phone container and hefting a fistful of change, but then I look down and the code reads 011, connecting my line to the grid in Joburg.
I place the receiver back against my ear, hearing the sound of a hundred telephones ringing in unison, and then the sound of my case manager climbing up from underneath this din, shouting at me through a deep ocean of static. The missing copperâI imagine kilometers of it stolen from our skyline each yearâ leaves a yawning gap of silence between our sentences, and then a big wind pushes behind her voice when she tells me about missing another meeting, how it means my insurance will have no choice but to cut me off. She tells me they havenât received a sheet with my CD4 count for close to five months now, and that I should know better than to be this reckless with their program. Iâm sitting down as I listen to this. Since I canât do anything else, I nod at the table.
Something thatâs not difficult to figure out about me and my case manager is that weâve never gotten along. Not in any real sense of the word. I only know her as Sisâ Thobeka, never having bothered to ask her for a full name, and in my head, sheâs just one of the many medical bureaucrats Iâll have to pass through on my way out. She calls me from an air-conditioned office in Joburg, and there isnât much else to say about us. Except maybe this one time, when she took up my
Slavery.
On the bean-bag, Ruan doesnât respond. He goes back to reading and I take out my cellphone. I plug it into the charger next to the stove, and, using my other hand to stir, I read the text message from my uncle.
Lindanathi, my uncle Bhutâ Vuyo says,
ukhulile ngoku,
youâve come of age.
He tells me I havenât been seen in too long. I read this second line for a while before I delete the message.
Returning to the glue, the relief I expect to wash over me doesnât arrive. Instead, I think of each word Iâve read off the screen. I think of coming of age in the way Bhutâ Vuyo means. Then I think of my last night in Du Noon, and about those two words,
ukhulile ngoku,
and of coming of age once more.
My case manager calls my cellphone close to an hour later. Weâve put away Cissieâs cooked glue in plastic containers to cool off in the freezer, and weâve taken up our noses whatâs left of the tube of industrial-strength glue she keeps in her drawer. Itâs now just a little after one, and weâre sprawled sideways across Cissieâs living-room floor, our lungs full of warmth from n-hexane. When I donât pick up and answer my case managerâs call, my cellphone seems to melt inside my palm. Itâs a strange sensation, but one you get used to after a while.
With another hour passing, we watch as Ruan pulls his baseball cap over his forehead. He plays âBy This Riverâ by Brian Eno on his laptop, tapping the repeat button under the seek bar, and then the next hour arrives and Cissie hands us three Ibuprofens each. She pops them out of a new 500-milligram bubble pack, and we take them with glasses of milk and clumps of brown sugar. From where Iâm sitting, I can still feel the warmth from the glue expanding through me, a thick liquid spilling out from my chest and kneading into my fingertips. The sunlight casts a wide flat beam over the coffee table, and after weâve swallowed, we place the tumblers holding the rest of our milk between its narrow legs. I close my eyes again and hear my cellphone calling out for me. Its vibration feels like a small hand running over my thigh, and when I pick it up, my heart squeezes into itself as I think of Bhutâ Vuyo. I see Luthandoâs stepfather stretching his vest under his heavy blue overalls, sitting inside a sweating phone container and hefting a fistful of change, but then I look down and the code reads 011, connecting my line to the grid in Joburg.
I place the receiver back against my ear, hearing the sound of a hundred telephones ringing in unison, and then the sound of my case manager climbing up from underneath this din, shouting at me through a deep ocean of static. The missing copperâI imagine kilometers of it stolen from our skyline each yearâ leaves a yawning gap of silence between our sentences, and then a big wind pushes behind her voice when she tells me about missing another meeting, how it means my insurance will have no choice but to cut me off. She tells me they havenât received a sheet with my CD4 count for close to five months now, and that I should know better than to be this reckless with their program. Iâm sitting down as I listen to this. Since I canât do anything else, I nod at the table.
Something thatâs not difficult to figure out about me and my case manager is that weâve never gotten along. Not in any real sense of the word. I only know her as Sisâ Thobeka, never having bothered to ask her for a full name, and in my head, sheâs just one of the many medical bureaucrats Iâll have to pass through on my way out. She calls me from an air-conditioned office in Joburg, and there isnât much else to say about us. Except maybe this one time, when she took up my
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