The Down Days
Page 5
The virus was also unlike anything anyone in the medical community had seen. Another untamed frontier. An opportunity to break new ground. Make a name for herself. Excel. As if there was this chart tattooed onto her brain, like the one her mom taped above her bed as a child, and she was always working out ways to add more mental stars. Her whole life up to then had been about toeing the line and racking up stars. So of course she packed a suitcase and signed up, got stationed at the Green Point Sanatorium.
Things were good at first. Exciting, even. But as the days wore on, every little thing she saw pecked away at her. So many corpses: women, men, children, babies . . . Parents separated from their daughters, sons. The pain of telling a six-year-old boy that his entire family had succumbed and were now lying forgotten under a sheet, soaked in their own blood, vomit, piss. Wanting to hug the crying boy, but not being able to because of the yellow suit.
The fear she saw in her patients’ eyes every day when she approached them in her mask and gloves and goggles like a giant yellow Teletubby to usher them into the examination room. The way they acted like she was some kind of monster, a demon, a tokoloshe.
As the sickness spread, her family and friends (the ones who hadn’t already fled) started making excuses not to see her. “I’m wearing protection,” she’d say. “No need to be scared; I miss you, let’s meet up.” But they’d just smiled politely, saying, “It isn’t that. I’m just busy, that’s all. Next week, let’s make a plan, or the week after that.”
The other volunteers weren’t always too friendly, either. Packed together in the same tented quarters twenty-four seven, sharing the same tiny kitchen, sleeping in dormitories, touching and feeling and breathing on each other day in and day out. What if the woman with the red-rimmed glasses snoring in the bunk next to you, or eating her apple alongside you in the cafeteria, hadn’t been careful that day when she was taping up her suit? What if she had been distracted, thinking about her daughter, whom she missed so much all the way in London, and slipped up? She could be standing there, trying not to smile too much while you told her your favorite joke (the one about the married couple who go to the drive-in), but inside her skin the Laughter was already starting to pull the strings and you were next.
Soon the nightmares came. She’d wake up in the middle of the night sweating, the anxiety burning through her body and mind like a virus. In her head she’d be screaming, but like an actress in a jerky silent film, no sound coming out. Get a grip on yourself, don’t be such a cliché, she’d tell herself while lying there alone, trapped within her own mind. Then she’d look down at the tattoo on her wrist, trying to make out the black lines in the dark, and swear at God and Asclepius and whomever else would listen, while the bodies next to her snored and stirred and farted.
It started out with plain old codeine (Ngoma, Captain Cody, or Purple Rain, as some of her codeine-head patients called it). A swig here, a swig there, straight from the bottle, just to take the edge off.
After a while, she needed more, and moved on to fentanyl. Just a little at first. You prescribe fentanyl to a patient, but instead of giving them the whole needle, you inject a little into yourself. Share the fun.
She knew what she was doing but after a while she didn’t care. As the need grew, she’d pocket syringes when it was her turn to restock the pharmacy, swap whole needles with dirty, empty ones that she filled with saline. Then the sharing of needles gave her hep C, which she ended up passing on to a few of the patients. Maybe more than a few. But she couldn’t stop and people were dying left, right, and center anyway, so no one was noticing. At least not at first.
When they finally did, Piper’s whole perfect world folded in on itself.
Things were different now. Her new profession didn’t come with an oath to do no harm. Hell, the meaning of that word was ambiguous anyway. Take euthanasia, for one. The way she figured, she was doing the little street rats she was scooping up a favor. Sure, her technique lacked a certain finesse, the way she had to drug them and grab them. But they were out cold for most of it, and when they woke up they were sent to a better place. A win-win as far as she was concerned.
She was making a difference, making the world a better place. One day someone would thank her. Track her down, maybe even make a TV documentary about her. Once this was all over and everyone had gained some perspective.
Yes. They’d thank her. Give her some kind of medal, they would. She was sure of it.
- 13 - MAJOR
The Sisters of Godiva House of Holy Hair stood behind a graffiti-clad brick wall in Sea Point. Gulls swooped above the garden shrine where ponytails strung up to dry whipped in the wind.
Under the shaded courtyard awning, the sisters sat in cross-legged rows from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day, their bald heads wrapped in blue turbans, electric razors in hand while devotees queued, ready to offer up hair in exchange for health.
The sisters washed the hair in basins of tepid water, then tied it tightly into ponies before cutting and shaving each head. The younger sisters kneeled alongside with baskets, taking the ponies away to be sorted and strung in the wind to dry. Each strand was a unique DNA fingerprint, a piece of soul awaiting a holy, ritual burial. Give but one pony, they said, and you and your loved ones might be spared for another year or two, the Laughter kept at bay.
Major had been working at the convent for thirty years, since back when it used to be a boarding house for single girls run by the St. Mary’s convent. These days his employers were more airy-fairy. The sisters with their blue turbans, colorful saris, and bindis were an odd bunch compared to the nuns in their penguin robes. But in the end, the job remained the same: trim the hedges, water the flowers, sweep the hallways. Keep your head down, don’t ask too many questions, keep nosy visitors away.
Tonight the ponyjacker was late. To pass the time, Major unlocked the convent’s processing room. The high-ceilinged hall with its scratched and faded wooden floors where the sisters sat each day testing each braid’s virginity, then weighing and sorting them while gossiping in a mishmash of languages with the radio blaring, was eerily quiet.
The caretaker walked through the silence, past the long metal tables piled with pyramids of human hair in every texture and color, to turn on the radio. Sitting down on the sofa by the window, he took out the rolled-up copy of the Daily Truth that was wedged in his back pocket and shifted his attention to the sports section. He picked up the mug of cold tea off the table next to the couch, took a sip, put it down again, marveling for a moment at the nice little coffee table he’d recently fashioned using some old books he found in Mother Superior’s library. He was quite proud of his makeshift table. The books were just gathering dust in there anyway, so he’d rescued some of the heavier ones, stacked them on top of each other, and thrown a sarong on top. Now he had somewhere to put his teacup while he read. He was smart like that, he liked to think. Always coming up with clever hacks like these to make life easier.
When the clock struck nine and the ponyjacker still hadn’t turned up, Major picked up the phone and called Sans. There was no answer but that wasn’t unusual—with an increasing number of cell phone towers giving up the ghost, it could be a mission to find a signal. Major was lucky that the convent was in a signal-friendly zone, but not everyone had the same good fortune. In Sans’s section of the city, having a phone meant daily treks up the stairs of the old Absa building with the rest of your neighbors to check messages and make calls, with some prick at the top charging R2 a pop to let you onto the roof. Lucky for Major, Sans was a man who lived for his phone. Network coverage meant business and business meant money.
An hour later he had a text from Sans, saying he’d sent one of his kids to do the drop tonight. Looked like the little street rat had stood him up, but no worries, just wait a sec, he’d be right over to sort things out and make the drop himself.
- 14 - SANS
The moon hung cold and white in the sky like a blind eye when Sans reached the convent. Hunching his ne
ck, he pulled the hood of his jacket farther down to cover his face. As the rain pelted down, he thought back to the first time he came here. The perfectly manicured garden was a wreck. Weeds sprouting every which way. White paint peeling off the walls in chunks like a melting iceberg. But now the place looked properly pious. Hair extensions were big business these days and the sisters were doing a roaring trade. Back in the day, folks used to get most of their ’dos from India, Russia, and Vietnam. In Venezuela, too, gangs had been cashing in on ponyjacking for years. But now that the borders were shut, Sick City was warm for the hair trade, too, with pony gangs like Sans’s sweeping the streets for tails.
Train stations used to be easy pickings for the ponyjackers. You walked through the cars, checked the heads, and took your pick. If the train was full enough, you could risk it, get the job done right there and then. But mostly it was a waiting game. You followed when she got off at her station. Hoping for an empty street. A broken streetlight. A two-man operation—one guy to hold the knife in front, for show, the other to tie a ponytail and snip. Virgin hair that had never seen the inside of a bottle of L’Oréal paid best. Thick, shiny, straight hair got first prize. But a good head of dreads could also get a mint.
Nowadays, getting hold of ponies was easier. In Pollsmoor, prison warders traded prisoners their locks for smokes. Coroners were getting in on the pony game, too, phoning him if a good head of hair found its way onto their slabs. But the lion’s share came from the sisters. Sure, there were downsides—you had to fork out cash to make cash, and the sisters weren’t cheap—but the risks were low, the merchandise came prechecked, cleaned and sorted, and, best of all, you didn’t have to scrounge around, living from pony to pony all the time. You just picked them up in bulk each week.
“Good to see you, brother,” said the caretaker when Sans showed up. He held out his jerseyed elbow and Sans brushed it with his. The Down Days being what they were, handshakes were a thing of the past. Sick City’s new ritual greeting was deemed much safer. “What happened to your kid?”
Sans had no idea, but he wasn’t about to tell Major that. “The flu,” he lied, wiping the rain from his eyes with one palm. He tugged at his wet jacket and shed it like skin, then threw the thing over a chair by the door where it lay in a dripping heap.
“Not the bugger of all bugs, I hope?” Major asked, handing Sans a towel that used to be red at some point, but was now more of a dirty faded pink.
Sans pulled it through his leaking hair. “Nah. Nothing that serious. Baby flu. Sneezes and sniffles. He’ll be on the job again before the weekend. Anyway, how’s your nephew?”
“Good, good,” said Major, and ushered him into the processing hall.
“Happy as Larry with that job you hooked him up with. His mother’s not too charmed, though, seeing that it’s not totally aboveboard and all—blue-collar. But I keep reminding her that it’s the end times now and the apocalypse is not a place for prudes, right? You have to adapt or die.”
“Damn right, guy. Damn right. Talking about adaptation, rumor is that the government has started growing dope now—what with the medicine shortages and everyone bartering for meds in the Truth and social media. Earmarked an area on Table Mountain for it. They’re busy taking out the fynbos. Prepping the soil as we speak. Using the grinners as fertilizer. Which will surely help with all the smog from those bloody cremation factories. Anyway, apparently they’re thinking of legalizing a few other illicit substances, too. Your nephew’s little business included.”
“Really? My sister will be over the moon if that happens. Such a stickler for the rules, she is. And for keeping up appearances. I keep telling her that way of thinking is for better times and other people. Only rich people can afford to live by the rules now. But every argument I make she has a blasted Bible verse to counter with. You can’t argue with Jesus, she says. Well, I’d love to bloody phone Jesus up and ask him how I’m supposed to stay on the straight and narrow road if the whole fucking thing is turning into one big blasted pothole the size of bloody Kimberley. Does Jesus have a hoverboard I could borrow to navigate the thing? No. Didn’t bloody think so.”
While he was talking, Major was laying out this week’s sample bags on an empty table. Sans opened one up. Took out a strand with one gloved hand. Checked for variations in color. Sniffed for chemical odors. Ran his fingers up and down each strand to check for cuticles. Normally, running his hands through all these ponies would give him one hell of a rush, but today he felt nothing. Couldn’t help looking at all the hair spread out before him and thinking how none of it even remotely compared to the locks that had draped his bed only a few hours ago. Although it felt like years already. How did that work?
He felt numb and sad and out of whack, like a junkie who had chased the perfect high and could never go back. But it wasn’t the same thing, though, was it? He would see her again, right? He would chase that high again. Touch it. Skim it. Breathe it. It would be all right.
Sans pushed the girl to the back of his mind, took out his lighter, and set the tips alight. Watching as they turned to ash. Burning with white smoke. White was good; it meant the follicles were totally human. The synthetic stuff would have melted like the Wicked Witch, and the smoke would have been much darker.
He stuck his fingers in his shirt pocket and took out a small plastic bottle of neutralizing shampoo, applied it to the strands to check for added chemicals. After making sure each sample was properly virginal (you could never be too careful, even with longstanding suppliers—he’d caught more than a few trying to cut the merchandise with synthetic hair to stretch stock), he gave Major the go-ahead. The caretaker unpacked the rest of the merchandise, carefully weighed each pony, placed it in a clear plastic bag, and packed it into a cardboard box.
“You got the cash?”
Sans held his breath to think. Blew out. “I’m a little short this week. You know how it goes. Nothing serious. Stick me until the end of the week?”
“How much?”
“Ninety thou?”
“Sho. That’s not chump change, is it? Don’t know if Mother will be too happy.”
“Major,” said Sans, putting a hand on the caretaker’s shoulder and squeezing in a way that he hoped was brotherly. “How long have we known each other?”
“Ten years or so, I guess,” said the caretaker, shifting from one foot to the other while fingering the rolled-up copy of the Daily Truth that had found its way into his back pocket again.
“That sounds about right . . . And Major?”
“Uh-huh?”
“When have I not been good for it?”
The caretaker took out the creased tabloid from his back pocket and drummed one rolled-up end against his open palm while chewing his bottom lip.
“Um”—Major cleared his throat, a nervous tic he’d been stuck with since his teens—“I’d love to give it to you brother, in the aid of good customer relations and all that. I mean, you’ve been real good to me these last couple of years. To Mother, too. Don’t think I don’t know it. I mean, it’s easy to forget, but this place used to be a real shithole before you approached us with your little business plan. But Mother’s a real shrew when it comes to money. And a total stickler for the rules, too. You know that. She’ll never fall for it. I’m sure you can rustle something up quick, right? You’re a man of means and ways, right? We can just postpone the pickup to later this week?”
“Yes, sure,” said Sans, trying to act cool. “Come to think of it, I know a guy who owes me. Let me sort it.”
“You sure, brother?”
“Positive.”
“Why so glum?” the caretaker asked, packing away the ponies again. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed: you’ve been skulking around with your tail between your legs since you arrived. You sure we’re cool about this money thing?”
“Totally. I told you—I know a guy.”
“Then what?”
“Ag . . .” Sans fingered the bag filled with freshly dug up ponies.
- 15 - FAITH
Like its neighbors, house thirteen teetered against the cliffs above the ocean. Most of these glass mansions used to be holiday hangouts for filthy-rich foreigners—investment bankers, movie stars, and the like—who came here in the summer to escape the snow. Now they were home to everyone else.
Faith opened the front door and made her way up the spiral concrete staircase. (The lift hadn’t worked since before she’d moved in.) At her floor, she passed room after room where bodies were packed together like measuring cups. A cavernous guest bathroom housed a family of six—with dishes cramming the ceramic his-and-hers sinks and a double-bed mattress hugging the floor of the glass shower, shirts and socks strung on a piece of rope across its chrome taps. On a table next to the toilet bowl, she counted four half-empty coffee cups. A trio of baby crocodiles, their jaws open, tails swaying, tiny claws splayed apart like Chinese fans, swam in the big oval bath. Cute. The head of the family was a traditional healer who made extra cash selling them as muthi for a whopping six thou a pop. Folks forked out to bathe in the critters’ blood, which was supposed to give you fat stacks of good luck. Faith didn’t really believe in all that muthi stuff, but she liked to keep an open mind.