A Little Mess - Max Sledge (philippa perry book .txt) 📗

A Little Mess

By: Max Sledge
(For Major)

The room was so full of smoke that I could barely see to the other side of the hut. Round in shape and grey, the hut was made of mud. If you wanted to rub your cheek up against the walls, you could, they were that smooth. All of the native huts I had seen in Zimbabwe since arriving from the states were made this way. They had roofs made of grass and shaped into a cone. I made my way through the haze of smoke and faces moving my feet to a rhythmic beat. Every time the sound of the drums changed I shouted out with everyone else the lyrics I had just picked up, “Mambo Jesu! Mambo Jesu!” As I circled the fire shuffling my feet to the beat of the bongo drums, a noticeably pregnant woman in front of me began to blow a whistle as she leapt into the air. Behind me, my new friend Smart shook a tambourine in rhythm with the song. My heart was racing and I began to sweat. This was at least the tenth song we had sung, and every song required dancing. The muscles in my cheek were beginning to burn because smiling wasn’t a hard thing for me to do. The cooking fire was located in the middle of the room and the flames illuminated twelve friendly faces. I wasn’t sure what time it was. All I knew was that the sun had gone down and it wasn’t going to come up again for a while. I glanced up and saw the roof made of reeds stained black.
“Do you dance like tiss in America?” Smart screamed into my ear over the pandemonium that surrounded us.
“We don’t, and I wish we did!” I screamed back at Smart as we danced around the fire. The drum beat changed again and everyone jumped into the air and belted out the lyrics. Smart was twenty-eight years old, six years older than I. He was tall and thin, a body type resembling mine. Smart was always smiling. The black color of his skin amplified the whiteness of his teeth. He was wearing a bright white collared dress shirt and tan khaki pants that were too big for him and blue sandals. Finally, the song ended and nine of the twelve that had been dancing and singing with me in Smart’s hut left. As each one filed out I cupped my hands and clapped them together to show my respect and they did the same for me. The strange thing was, though, that each time I showed respect to a man they laughed as they exited the hut. After all the guests left only three people remained. Smart’s wife was busy preparing food in a large iron pot that hung over the fire while Smart’s young daughter, named Mess, sat on the floor. I sat down next to Smart in a chair close to the door as we waited for dinner. I was still trying to figure out why only the men laughed at me. Smart cupped his hands together as I had done for the guests and his eyes lit up.
“I saw, you did it well!” Smart said. Earlier in the day while we ate guava from his tree Smart had taught me the proper way to formally greet his neighbors that would be coming over to dance and sing.
“Yeah Smart, but why did the men laugh when I did it to them?” I asked.
“They laugh? I did not see. Show me how you did da greeting.” Smart said. I cupped my hands as I had been taught one hand at an angle and the other pointing straight away from me and clapped them together.
“Oh no!” Smart said trying not to laugh. “You gave da men da women greeting!” Smart laughed out loud and then explained that for the men both hands were cupped but pointed straight out in front of you not at an angle. I had to laugh and Smart patted me on the back. I could see that Smart’s wife was ready to serve the food, and because I had seen what had been put into the pot earlier that day I prepared my stomach.
“So are you ready to eat? It tiss good food, my wife, good cook, you see?” Smart chimed.
“Sure, lets do this!” I said trying to overcompensate for my nervousness.
Smart laughed and then gave me a high-five. I was dreading the very thought of eating Tom. Tom was the name of the goat I had gotten to know earlier that day upon arriving at Smart’s house. I had given Tom some carrots to eat. That was just before Smart’s wife pulled out a machete and murdered Tom in front of me, dismembered him and shoved him in a large iron pot. Apparently, Smart had Tom killed in my honor. I did feel extremely honored but this was going to be the second time that day I had eaten goat.
“Sudsa for you Mr. Brain.” Said Smart with a wide smile.
My name was Brian but earlier that day when Smart had introduced me to his family, his young daughter, named Mess, had pronounced my name Brain instead of Brian. Smart refused to let this humorous occurrence go unnoticed and, consequently, had been calling me Mr. Brain the whole of the afternoon. Mess was lying on a piece of cardboard clutching her stomach when I met her. In a nonchalant way Smart had told me that she was suffering from malaria.
“Pile it high and deep please,” I told Smart. With a wide smile Smart’s wife put a
massive globule of corn maze (sudsa) onto my plate. Next came Tom, rounding out the meal from hell. The sudsa I could eat because it really didn’t taste like anything but Tom was a different story. As I lifted a piece of Tom to my mouth I noticed fur sticking out of the meat. “Are you kidding me?” I thought. As Tom entered my mouth, little Mess stood up from her seat and promptly vomited all over my lap. The room was silent. I was in complete shock. I had Tom in my mouth as well as Tom on my lap. Mess looked at me as if to say “Shit happens”. Smart was sitting next to me when the event occurred and was speechless for five seconds. The first white person who had ever entered Smart’s house had been vomited on by one of his own children. For Smart, the embarrassment must have been tremendous.
“Ooh! I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry!” Smart said as he yanked Mess out of the way and began cleaning up the vomit that was beginning to sink into my pants.
“It’s okay, It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Things happen Smart and she is sick. It’s not her fault.” I replied with such a light-hearted attitude that Smart calmed down a bit. Now at least I had an excuse for not finishing my meal. Smart looked at my vomit soaked jeans and offered me an alternative. Taking me to his sleeping hut, separate and located adjacent to the kitchen hut, he pulled out from underneath his bed what must have been his prized possession.
“My father gave it to me” said Smart with pride.
To my utter disbelief Smart handed me the 1990 (bright and may I add flagrantly shiny and gold colored) M.C. Hammer parachute pants.
“Thank you Smart,” I said. From the way he was looking at me I could tell that he wanted me to try them on to see how they fit. I pulled my vomitouse jeans off which Smart took and handed to his wife. As I slid my legs into the gold lame' I told myself not to worry, I only had to survive twelve more hours in the bush. The next day a vehicle would come and take me back to the hospital. The hospital had running water, bathrooms and food you never made friends with. My feet squeezed through the small elastic opening, which then immediately sucked to my ankle. The pants were so baggy that I could have used just one of the legs as an all-weather sleeping bag. Smart was gleaming. I was wearing his pants and he couldn’t have been more proud.
“Mr. Brain. I wonda. Will you come wit me to da township. Mess, you see? She is seek. I need to get her medicines.” Smart said this with such longing in his voice that if I were to refuse his offer, his feelings would undoubtedly be crushed.
“Of course I’ll go. How far is the township?” I said. Smart immediately let his perfect white teeth show and then gave me another high-five followed by a short laugh. He explained that the township was only four kilometers away and we would be there and back in forty-five minutes. The happiness that enveloped me while dancing was now all gone, and the fear of the unknown took hold. “You will be okay man.” I kept telling myself that as I stepped out of the hut and into the darkness. As I looked back, Mess was waving at me and smiling. I had hoped that she would be feeling better and I was glad that she was up and walking.
As we made our way through Smart’s cornfield I began to take in my surroundings. The air was cold and crisp. I looked up at the wide sky and saw the Milky Way. A white stripe traveled across the sky, giving us just enough light to walk. Little lights from fires of neighboring huts were spread out every couple of kilometers or so. “I guess this is Zimbabwe’s version of the suburbs.” I thought. Earlier that day, upon arriving at Smart’s house, I remembered the landscape consisting of low-lying brown brush and hilly shrub-land spanning wide in every direction. Now the landscape was masked by darkness. There were barely any sounds as we walked, only silence. The only thing breaking the silence was the sound of my pants rubbing together while we walked. With each stride I took, a sound that resembled quickly pulling up the zipper on a jacket echoed through the countryside, “zip-zip zip-zip”. After walking along the small path that led away from Smart’s house we arrived at the main road that went to the township. The road was dirt and in complete disrepair. Oxen-drawn carts were the main vehicles that traveled it. Consequently, deep grooves had developed in the road. This made walking by starlight some sort of sick game of chance. Your ankles were always one misstep away from breaking. “Zip-zip, zip-zip”, I followed closely behind Smart who navigated his way through the darkness like he was walking in the noonday sun. Suddenly, I saw some figures start to appear coming toward us in the opposite direction.
“Maswerasay,” Said Smart.
“Da swera maswera wo” the group responded in unison. I glanced up and saw a