Unpresidented

by Paige Nick

  I call the Apple helpline. They tell me to bring it in, but they warn me that if there’s water damage, there’s not much they can do. I’m too ashamed to ask if the same applies in case of Listerine damage.

  That’s it. I’m never drinking or doing drugs ever again. That was the absolute last time. I’ve never felt so shit in my life, and that includes the time I made up a bullshit story claiming that a cancer patient had given me his tell-all exclusive, complete with fake quotes, and published it in a highly regarded national magazine. I even feel shittier than I did that time I set my girlfriend’s couch on fire and traded her French Bulldog for drugs. And even worse than the time I was almost beaten to death by a Malawian drug dealer’s built-like-a-brick-shithouse, wannabe-writer sidekick. I never thought it would be possible, but I feel worse than all of that. Much, much, much worse.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. Just one line! What a load of bollocks. Clearly I have a problem, because I cannot ever do just one. I know that, Michelle knew that, and obviously Elijah knows that.

  So that’s it. I’m never doing that again. Not if Elijah gives me a whole bag of drugs for free. Not if the Danish volleyball team arrived on my doorstep and begged me to help them finish five kilos of cocaine because they were getting on a plane to go back to Denmark the next day and they couldn’t possibly take it all with them, and they needed a handsome stranger to help them finish it all. Even if that happens, I won’t do it. This is it. I’m finished. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

  I step into the sunshine and shield my eyes from the acid glare of the sun. There’s a trodden-on cigarette butt lying in the dirt outside my rondavel. I pick it up and wipe the end of the filter before I put it between my lips and light it. My lungs burn as I suck the last two drags out of the second-hand stompie and look at my watch. It’s exactly five minutes until the time I agreed to drive the ex-President of South Africa to the clinic to have his infamous ingrown toenail looked at.

  At the time I hoped it might be an opportunity to pump him for more info for the book. But I couldn’t really give a rat’s arse right now. I’ll drop him off, then take my laptop to town to see if there’s anything the techies can do. Maybe everything will be fine. The thought of starting this book again from scratch makes my already sore kidneys hurt even more. I hear a growl – it’s that fucking dog again. I growl back at him, then head into my rondavel to try wash my face off.

  THE EX-PRESIDENT

  ‘Bhuti wam’, let me in front of you in the queue and one day soon when I am Our Glorious Leader again, I will do another cabinet reshuffle and you can be Minister of Foreign Affairs.’

  ‘I already have a job. I’m a security guard at the Engen garage.’

  ‘Okay, nay’ instizwa. Excuse me, you look like a fit man, do you play soccer? Let me in front of you in the queue and when I am leading this country again, you can be Minister of Sport.’

  ‘Kanti uyabheda, I’ve been here for two hours already. Go to the back of the queue like everyone else.’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

  ‘Yes, you are the man who is at the back of the queue.’

  ‘Hello comrade, let me in front of you in the queue, and one day I will give you a big tender to build some roads.’

  ‘I don’t know how to build a road, I’m a gardener. Ikhanda lam’ is killing me, I’ve got ihigh-high, and I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Ah, I know how you feel, I have an ache in my buttock. But don’t worry so much about the roads, my friend. You don’t actually have to know how to build a road to win a tender to build a road. When the time eventually comes to build it, and I can tell you, these things take a lot of time to happen, we will just change our plans and reroute. And the best part is you will never have to stand in another queue again in your whole life, except the queue at the airport when you want to travel to your own private island in the Bahamas.’

  ‘The where?’

  ‘The Bahamas.’

  ‘Is that near Braamfontein? My nephew has a bookshop there.’

  ‘No, it’s an island.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Hmmm, this is bad, eh. And to think I paid so much attention to education when I was in power. You’d think nobody had ever heard of off-shore banking, comrades in Dubai, or tax havens,’ Muza mutters, traipsing to the back of the queue. After an hour, the line has barely shuffled forward by a metre, so he limps back to the parking lot to find the writer.

  THE WRITER

  ‘Writer, wake up, we’re going home,’ Muza says. He slams the car door so hard my head explodes. ‘I have to say, comrade, you don’t look very well.’

  ‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black,’ I snap.

  ‘Your racist tendencies are showing, Mr Stone.’

  ‘Did you see a doctor?’

  ‘Yes, and I can report that the medical systems I put in place while I was the President of South Africa are smooth-running and efficient.’

  ‘What did he say about your toe?’ I ask.

  ‘He said too many things for me to repeat now, I am a very busy man, but I can tell you that he did a thorough examination. Should I dictate a chapter to you about my stellar work on the health-care system while I was in power?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ I say.

  ‘Today was really something. You should have seen the people at the clinic. When they saw me there they were so excited, elated in fact. The queue parted, and they immediately let me in front of them. I insisted that I am one of the people, just like them, and that I was happy to queue with them for as long as it took, but they were quite insistent that a great leader such as myself should not be forced to wait in the queue along with mere mortals. The only thing that slowed my process was stopping to give all those autographs. There was even applause, and they all said that they will definitely support my struggle once again to lead our great country. I truly am a man of the people.’

  I cut my eyes at him sideways.

  ‘Hey, what about that for our book title?’ Muza says, ‘“The Man of the People”. It sounds very majestic, don’t you think?’

  ‘More like “The Man Who Fleeced the People”,’ I say under my breath.

  13 DAYS TILL DEADLINE

  THE EX-PRESIDENT

  ‘Dear recording machine, yesterday was a new low in the history of South Africa. I am a strong man, but this thing on my buttock is an even stronger opponent. I tried to see a doctor, but it was a total waste of my time. I didn’t even get to see the insides of the clinic. I did almost see the front of a man’s fist, though. These people, they don’t know what kind of opportunity they missed. One day when I return to power, I could have made all their dreams come true. Their loss.

  ‘The irony is not lost on me that because I didn’t give the state of public health care enough attention while I was the President, now I’m suffering the consequences of my actions. I had to sleep on my stomach last night. These are dark, painful times.’

  Muza clicks off the recorder, then practices signing his name on a piece of scrap paper, something he hasn’t done in a while, but he needs to stay autograph-fit for when the cheering crowds return.

  When he’s filled the page with his signature, he reaches for a jar of hot mustard, sticks his middle finger into it, sniffs it, then touches it to the tip of his tongue. It’s not so bad. Next to it is a jar of Elijah’s horseradish. He bypasses his finger this time and just sticks his tongue into the jar, submerging it as far as it will go. His eyes bulge and water streams from them, his spectacles steam up, his head explodes. He runs to the sink and ducks his open mouth under the running tap. But the heat persists. He’s heard milk is good for taking the sting out of chillies, so he grabs the carton out of the fridge and tips it into his mouth. A lump of milk plops onto his tongue. Milk’s not supposed to be solid, is it? He spits it out into the sink, and drinks more water from the tap, this time from cupped hands.

  ‘Bubbe,’ Elijah says, stepping into the kitchen.

  Muza straightens,
coughs, then greets his friend with an elaborate handshake, ending with a series of finger clicks and slaps.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. Oy, are you okay? Your eyes are red, have you been crying?’

  ‘Of course not, I’m fine comrade, just some allergies.’ Muza coughs again. ‘How are our plans coming?’

  ‘The details around the plane are being finalised as we speak, I don’t foresee any issues from my side. And I have been in touch with the factory in China, and our showerhead order will also be ready for delivery to our plane on time,’ Elijah says.

  ‘This sounds truly excellent, so now we are simply waiting for you to supply the cash for my Waterval connection.’

  ‘I will have it for you very soon, Muza. Everything is going according to plan and on schedule.’

  ‘It is, yes, but, except for one thing that I need to talk to you about, my friend. I’m afraid there has been one very small bump in the road.’

  ‘What now?’ Elijah asks, the temperature in the room instantly dropping ten degrees.

  ‘It’s nothing serious, nothing to worry about at all. I got off the phone with my comrade at Waterval earlier, and it looks like we’re going to have to line a few more pockets there to ensure an absolutely safe and undetected entry on the night.’

  ‘But you said you had Waterval all stitched up, that you’ve done it before for the Guppies, and you’d do it again now for our plane and our showerheads.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can and I will, there’s really nothing to be concerned about. You have my word. It’s just that my comrade took a lot of heat the last time he helped me with this situation, and so it looks like we are going to have to make it a little more worth his while this time. Think of it as simple inflation.’

  ‘How much more do we need?’ Elijah asks, leaning against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms over his chest.

  ‘Only another hundred thousand, that is all,’ Muza says. ‘Surely that’s change in amongst the couch cushions for esteemed entrepreneurs such as yourselves.’

  ‘Gevalt, my friend, that’s a lot of money.’

  ‘But it’s worth it. You shouldn’t worry so much. When we launch our business, we will both be rolling in it, my friend. You will see, you will get your investment back times a billionty. And anyway, all great business minds expect a small bump in the road on the way to great wealth. Think of it as an investment in your future wealth.’

  ‘Muza, I’ve got to be honest with you; my people are going to be very disappointed to hear about this. And these are not the kind of people one wants to disappoint,’ Elijah says.

  ‘There’s no need for disappointment. If anything, we should be celebrating. If we make this one small payment, you can still expect smooth landings. Everything will go down without a hitch.’

  ‘It had better, because we’re making a big investment in this endeavour,’ Elijah says as his phone trills yet again. ‘That’s them. I’d better take it,’ he says, stepping out the kitchen.

  Muza watches Elijah walk down the corridor, his cell phone pressed to his ear. Then he reaches for the dictaphone again.

  ‘Victory is so close I can almost taste it, I must just endure my troubles a little longer,’ Muza says. He presses stop, shoves the dictaphone back into the kitchen drawer, and goes back to practicing his autograph.

  THE WRITER

  I can’t stop a jag of self-pity as I take my new laptop and my iPhone out of their packaging and place them on the desk, my credit card still smoking in my pocket. As I go through the whole rigmarole of setting up passwords and iStore connections and downloading apps, the Apple guy’s voice plays in my head on repeat, ‘Irretrievable and irrecoverable, irretrievable and irrecoverable.’

  There’s nothing left of my last two weeks’ hard labour, and of course with no wifi out here, nothing got saved to the cloud. It’s gone. All of it. Like my name, my reputation, my life. Gone. Irretrievable and irrecoverable.

  I sit at the desk, head lobbed back, staring mindlessly at the thatch. My old Nokia rings and I ignore it. I’m too depressed to get up and walk over to it, and I can’t think of anyone good who might be calling. Chances are it’s the bank, to tell me they’ve changed their minds about giving me the kind of credit I’ve now burnt through in the Apple store. For a second, I wonder if it might be Michelle, but that call isn’t coming any time in this lifetime. The phone eventually stops ringing, which is a relief. But only momentarily, because it starts ringing again a moment later. This is never going to end. I groan as I finally answer it the fifth time it shrieks at me.

  ‘My favourite writer! How’s it going, champ?

  ‘Great, Dumi, just great.’

  ‘Excellent, I’m so glad.’

  ‘I was being sarcastic.’

  ‘Oh? I can never tell with you.’

  ‘You can’t? Because I think it was pretty obvious from my dead, humourless tone.’

  ‘So you’re not okay?’

  ‘No Dumi, I have like fifteen cracked ribs, a broken nose, a split lip, a black eye and a broken finger.’

  ‘Whoa, what happened?’ Dumi asks.

  I realise I may have exaggerated my injuries slightly, and I don’t really want to talk about it. ‘And you never answer your phone, Dumi,’ I whine. ‘I could die out here in the middle of nowhere, alone in a pool of my own vomit, and nobody would notice. It would be weeks before anyone found my body, crawling with flies and maggots. My face eaten by a stray dog.’

  ‘You writers, such vivid imaginations, hey?’ Dumi laughs. ‘So, are you still writing up a storm, champ?’

  ‘Sure, Dumi, if by a storm you mean a tiny trickle of water that gets soaked into the brittle, dry, unforgiving, drought-ravaged earth.’

  ‘Great, great, good to hear.’

  ‘Wait, are you even listening to me? Where are you?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m at my office,’ Dumi says.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like your office, it sounds like a bar.’

  ‘It’s two-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon, why would I be at a bar? I’m at my desk, beating down people’s doors to try and get the very best work for my clients. That’s just the kind of selfless agent I am.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  ‘Anyway, the reason I’m calling is because your publisher called, and he’s keen to see some words.’

  ‘Ha!’ The word belches out my mouth.

  ‘And last time I heard from you, you said you were doing really well, so I told them I didn’t think you’d have any problems showing them what you’ve got so far.’

  ‘Wait, when did I say it was going well?’

  ‘The other night, on the phone, remember?’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort.’

  ‘Such a kidder,’ Dumi says. ‘The other night, remember, you left me like a billion messages saying how well it’s going, how you’re a fountain of words or something, and how much you love me. But it’s okay, they’ve only asked for the first ten thousand words, which is easy. And of course they understand that it’s your first draft, they’re expecting it to be super rough. Anyway that’s what the editor is there for, to sort it all out for you. They want to get a feel for where you’re headed, you know, so marketing and sales can start doing their thing and get the cover finalised within the next three weeks.’

  I draw in a sharp breath.

  ‘So, when will you deliver, champ? How about Monday?’

  ‘This Monday?’ I breathe into the phone.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Zsdkfjsakfadkj skfjsjflsjlasdf … I can’t hear you, bad reception, I’m going through a tunnel … can’t hear you.’

  ‘Matt? Matty, are you there? Can you hear me now? Let me move around and see if I can get a better signal … and now? Can you hear me now, Matt? Shit. I’ve lost you.’

  ‘Your Moët, sir?’ I hear a voice close to Dumi’s phone. I hang up and turn off my phone.

  I return to my desk and open a fresh document in Word. Here we go again – one more time with feeling. I eye the flashing cu
rsor and start typing:

  The Once and Future President, by Jeremiah G. Muza

  CHAPTER ONE

  The best stories are the ones you could never imagine happening. This is such a story.

  ‘Blech,’ I say out loud, then copy the words and paste them into a new ‘Extras’ document.

  I abandon my desk in a fug of disgust and self-loathing, and open the mini-bar fridge hoping to find something to drink, which would be a miracle given I’ve never actually put any alcohol in there.

  12 DAYS TILL DEADLINE

  THE PAROLE OFFICER

  ‘Oh good, I see you brought your colleague with you again, Mr Muza,’ Vuyokazi says, her voice dry. ‘We discussed this last time, and I still don’t think it’s appropriate…’

  Muza cuts her off, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, beautiful, just pretend he’s not here.’

  ‘Mr Muza, please don’t address me like that, and I cannot pretend he is not here, because your friend is indeed here, I see him with my own two eyes. He is sitting right there using his mobile phone as a recording device, are you not, Mr Stone?’

  ‘That is true, Mrs Ngcobo, I am, but as Mr Muza’s memoirist, it’s of utmost importance that I am able to document his life post-incarceration.’

  ‘I am a very busy man, Muntuza, my toffolux, shall we begin?’

  Vuyokazi removes her spectacles and rubs the bridge of her nose, battling the sudden onset of a splitting headache.

  ‘I’m afraid that you absolutely cannot record these sessions, Mr Stone,’ Vuyokazi says. ‘It goes against every privacy principle we adhere to.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the writer says, swiping at his phone, then slipping it into his pocket.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you left that on the table, Mr Stone, so I can be sure that it’s not recording,’ Vuyokazi says.