REPARATION
Tebogo hates these trips from their lonely countryside in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, into neighboring towns on Edmund’s cheque expeditions. Well, they were Edmund’s, but he can now say they’re his too, and this further heightens his reservations. His heart races from the first steps out of the house until he’s back again.
Their last trip was an especially unsettling one, shocking him rather rudely. He and Edmund had sat in the open roof back of a poultry truck. He had not slept the night before, cutting and marking cheques, so neither the unending chorus of coos nor the suffocating smell of chicken poo could keep him from dozing. When the truck pulled to an abrupt stop and jerked him from his slumber, his heart skipped a beat and his eyes widened at the familiar scenery.
That hot afternoon, he had turned to Edmund, spilling his shock into words. “Wait…is this Soweto?”
Edmund had furrowed his brows before his broad face exploded into laughter. “Did you travel from Phoenix in a plane?” he retorted as he got up and climbed down from the truck.
Tebogo never knew two places could look so much alike. Most of Soweto was old buildings packed so tightly together you could peek into your neighbor’s house from inside yours, but he remembered going uptown with his grandmother to the community preacher’s beautiful home a couple of times. Mostly it was to plead on his brother Letlhogonolo’s behalf on the many occasions he behaved badly.
When they were younger, his grandmother would often tell Tebogo to be like his big brother, but with Letlhogonolo getting radicalized as the years passed, the reverse became the case. Since Letlhogonolo couldn’t make the kind of grades that had the church paying Tebogo’s school fees, getting him a job mowing the preacher’s lawn was a way he could pay the fees himself. It was an attempt to keep him in the classroom rather than on the street corners with boys who did nothing but smoke, drink, and swear at the white folks.
The preacher lived in a small neighborhood uptown where there were no Black people except the domestic workers. Tebogo always marveled at the fine houses and their white picket fences, the neatly mowed lawns, and the big buildings lining the streets in the neighborhood. He would tug on his grandmother’s wrapper and ask why they couldn’t live there. When he woke up to the coos and chicken poo that afternoon, it was the uptown Soweto neighborhood all over again. In his head, he always knew he never truly escaped South Africa. Seeing that upscale replica screamed Soweto in his subconscious like alarm-bells that keep nagging long after you’re out of bed.
That trip was two months ago, eight months since he arrived from South Africa. In that time, he and Edmund have made four such trips, each one contributing a few thousand dollars to their booty. The trip today is their fifth together.
He sometimes allows himself to bask in the freedom of America, a different place, albeit with its own demons but devoid of the horrors of apartheid and South Africa. The 50s had sparked an unprecedented independence rush, liberating so many African countries over the decades, including South Africa in 1961. But it is the 80s and the country is worse off, so much that the mere mention of the word “independence” can likely earn you nights in jail. When the news of his foreign scholarship arrived, he could not wait to get on the plane and leave everything behind. In the same breath, he cursed himself because his aged grandmother was a part of that everything, with Letlhogonolo—who was hardly ever home—the only real family he left her with.
***
So, it’s the first steps out of the house again today and Tebogo is reminded of how much he hates the idea of hitchhiking, especially because Edmund has a car and they could ride on their own terms, but as the mastermind, Edmund believes hitchhiking helps them keep a low profile. “No one will think a card or cheque game is a thing for a couple of farm Negroes who can’t even afford a ride,” he says.
A few moments later, Tebogo breathes a sigh at the back of a washed-up Buick, Edmund by his side. The interior carries a strong, almost choking air of stale sweat and burnt tobacco. From the rolled down window, he watches the landscape rush past: patches of semi-dry vegetation, a sprinkle of buildings, and hilly peaks like cleavage on a backdrop of smoke-splattered, blue skies. He shuts his eyes and leans forward against the gust of wind rushing through the window.
Unlike most drivers, the old man at the wheel is not chatty, only steadily nodding and humming to songs on the stereo: Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, then Nina Simone.
Tebogo cannot wrap his head around a white man listening to Nina Simone. She is Black, isn’t she? He wishes he could reach Letlhogonolo somehow, watch his reaction as he breaks it to him that it is actually possible for white folks to enjoy Black people and Black culture without any ulterior motives. Of course, Letlhogonolo would not believe it. They are the devil he wouldn’t dine with, even with the longest spoon, and Tebogo can’t really blame him.
Tebogo had been unbothered by all the racial tension for most of his early childhood, even on occasions when Letlhogonolo came home beaten and bruised after days in a police cell. He thought, like most people in their Black neighborhood and in church, that Letlhogonolo would do well to leave the whites alone and not end up dead or forgotten in jail like Nelson Mandela.
But at least on such days, Letlhogonolo came home by himself, on his own two feet, steady or staggering.
***
One chilly morning, before the cock crowed, his grandmother’s sobs and bitter mutterings pulled him out of a nice dream in which he was galloping on a horse with a few other riders, all white. He sighed and sat up from his mat, his eyelids reluctant to part, only to hear the old woman suddenly begin to snore, her figure heaving evenly in the semi-darkness of their one-bedroom shack.
He was used to her hiding tears and pretending to be fine, but Letlhogonolo had not been home in a week and she was doing a terrible job at concealing her hurt this time.
“Gogo,” he called, his voice low and croaky.
She continued to snore, a little louder.
He cleared his throat and called again. Still no answer.
Before he could call a third time, he heard a rush of feet advancing towards the front door from the outside, and a thud hitting the floor. Then the feet rushed away.
Gogo shot off her bed like pebble off a drawn catapult. Tebogo trailed with weary eyes as she raced to the door. The brother’s muffled cries greeted them before the gory sight of his badly beaten body sunk their hearts. The body was riddled with swellings and fresh, open wounds. A huge bump stood on the side of his head, a deep gash of red cutting through it.
There’s so much Tebogo will never forget about that morning, but mostly it is the sound of his aged grandmother’s pain, vocalized in low, riveting moans as she cleaned the wounds and cared for her brutalized grandson, triggering his own flurry of bottled emotions. That was the hammer that finally smashed open his floodgates of awareness and resentment towards white folks.
Tebogo is still lost in thoughts when the Buick pulls up a distance from the council building that houses the bank in this neighboring town, an hour drive from downtown Phoenix. He and Edmund wave good-bye to their driver. The old man waves back cheerily and pulls away, whistling along to Ray Charles’ powerful vocals. Tebogo shakes his head and smiles, greatly impressed.
Edmund leads the way up the marbled front-steps of the huge building, his walk tall and straight. Tebogo follows closely, his hands tucked into the side pockets of his faded denim jacket.
For someone who always talks about keeping a low profile, Tebogo thinks Edmund is too happy-go-lucky, always clad in standout native Nigerian agbada and fila, throwing smiles, hi’s, and hellos around like it’s a duty. When Tebogo tries to show him that it doesn’t work for a low profile, he says in Nigerian Pidgin, “Charisma no dey kill, my brother.”
Edmund, like Letlhogonolo, has the anti-establishment, revolutionary, emancipatory spirit that aims to set the Black man free by hook or by crook. Tebogo, however, likes Edmund’s methods better. While the brother is all strength, Edmund is all sense.
“They’ve hurt us, and the pain will take generations to heal. For this, we have to take reparation, not by fighting or making noise, but by hurting them back, economically. Take the money, that’s how.” These were Edmund’s words on the night Tebogo walked in on him straining his back over a cut piece of paper under a dimly lit lamp.
They had met at the Black Students’ Association meeting the evening before. Sethuya, an old friend from church back in Soweto, had been showing Tebogo around since receiving him at the airport when he arrived.
His first time at a BSA meeting, they ran into Edmund, and Sethuya introduced the bubbly and flamboyant young man as her boyfriend. Edmund took particular interest when he heard Tebogo had won a scholarship. He was also on a scholarship by the Nigerian Government. “I love smart Black men,” he had said.
They talked of the struggle in South Africa. Sethuya told Edmund how Tebogo’s brother was risking his life on the forefront of it. The talk went late into the night, mostly staying on the topic of Black liberation, touching on the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the continued imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
“Since 1962, brother. Full twenty years now, Mandela is still in prison. It is crazy,” Tebogo had said.
They ended up in Edmund’s apartment, an isolated bungalow in farm county some two hours’ drive from campus. Tebogo was still without accommodation. Edmund asked if he was interested in continuing the struggle, in a different way. Tebogo said yes and Edmund told him he could move in. He would pay his share of the rent from their struggle proceeds.
He would learn when he walked in on Edmund later that night that by struggle, his new friend meant designing and cashing cheques that were not exactly real. He had read about it somewhere. It was referred to as the newest form of 419.
“Look at me brother,” said Edmund with arms outstretched. “I did not come here on my own accord. My country thought I was bright and so they sent me here, but guess what? They have stolen all the money back home and no longer have any to service my scholarship. There’s corruption everywhere. Should I just be stranded here and not help myself?”
“But isn’t this stealing too?” Tebogo asked, pointing to the piece of paper under the light, a brow arched.
“Economics, my brother. This is called economics.”
Economically, this struggle has been beneficial for Tebogo. He has sent lots of money back home to Gogo and his brother. However, that has not stopped his heart from racing, even this time.
The long corridor to the bank is as busy as expected, and as people shuffle past the two men, Tebogo feels an unease he cannot explain. As they approach the entrance to the bank, he could see that next to the guard, there is a uniformed policeman. There are also two other men leaning against a huge pillar opposite the entrance.
By the time it all clicks, Edmund is already at the entrance, throwing greetings at the guard and the policeman. Tebogo slows down and turns away from the door. From the corner of his eye, he sees the policeman go in after Edmund. The two men have also peeled themselves away from the pillar and motioned toward the entrance. One uneasy glance over his shoulder catches the guard shut the door tightly.
Tebogo manages to leave the building and hit the steps without breaking into a run, his hands still hiding in jacket pockets. With his tail tucked between his legs, feeling like he just got caught with his hand inside the soup pot, he flags down the next cab, slides into the backseat and races away.
The pace of his heart is telling, but more telling is a familiar feeling that is enveloping him. It is the same feeling that journeyed with him from the point he boarded the flight from Johannesburg, knowing he could have stayed behind and tried to help save his brother from himself, or his grandmother from him.
The vision is clear to him through the guilt of disloyalty and the shame of a common thief. This is Soweto all over again, and yet he made the same choice of running away. Maybe he does not deserve reparation. A man who runs away in the middle of a battle—good cause or not—deserves no such thing.
***
Ibrahim is a Pushcart-nominated writer whose works have appeared in JMWW, Ake Review, Door is a Jar, Agbowó, Decolonial Passage, Pollux Journal, and more.
https://linktr.ee/HEEMtheWriter
