My Meat! by Christopher Mlalazi

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My Meat, by Christopher Mlalazi, was first published in the ’amaBooks collection Short Writings from Bulawayo II, which recently won third prize in the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association awards for Literature in English. Chris was born in 1970 in the Plumtree district, but brought up in Bulawayo. A fiction writer, poet, and playwright, Christopher represented the country at the Uganda Literature Festival last year and, this year, he attended the Caine Prize Workshop in Kenya. He has had short stories published in several anthologies and is working on his first novel. Six of his plays have been performed by various theatre companies, including Umkhathi and Amakhosi.

Books from ’amaBooks Publishers are available in Zimbabwe through amabooks@gatorzw.co.uk or elsewhere through orders@africabookcentre.com or info@booksofzimbabwe.com .



My Meat! by Christopher Mlalazi

He stood at the braai stand behind Emakhandeni Bottle Store, a quart of beer held in his left hand. In the right hand he held a sharp sliver of wood, which he used to turn the sizzling slab of meat on the braai stand, which, uncannily, was the size and shape of his long sloping camel-like face.
This morning Zama was drinking beer, and whenever Zama drinks beer, which is as infrequent for him as rain in drought prone Tsholotsho, his eyeballs bulge from their sockets, as if something is choking him, and his cheeks shine, as if from an overdose of Vaseline.
He poked the meat with the sliver of wood the meat sizzled furiously and he turned it over.
Then he jabbed a piece of meat-fat nearby, and slapped it all over the meat, oiling it. He brought the beer bottle to his mouth and drank from it - and choked as the beer went down his throat the wrong way. He coughed until tears came to his eyes. Snot ballooned in his right nostril, and he closed the other nostril with a finger, and blew his nose at the ground. He wiped the nose with the back of his hand, and wiped the hand on the seat of his trousers. Then he coughed deeply and swallowed.
A stray mangy dog represented the sole spectatorship at the braai stand. It stood a short distance away from Zama, ears cocked, watching him with an intense fixed stare, as if in disbelief at what it was seeing this morning at the braai stand Zama braaiing meat and drinking a quart of beer! Impossible!
It was a Thursday morning, overcast and chilly, an odd time of the day for drinking beer and braaiing meat. But Zama is one of those odd township characters you pass everyday, drinking masese behind the bottle store when you are off to work, and who is still drinking masese as you pass by the shops at sunset, when you come back from work, and who then greet you with a drunken plastic smile and an "Eh Bra! Buy one for a loafer!"
Zama looked sharply towards the township houses. A figure in dark overalls was approaching him unerringly from that direction.
Zama quickly and slyly grabbed the hot slab of meat on the braai stand and, his fingers burning, he slipped it into his right jacket pocket. He brought his burnt fingers up to his mouth and sucked on them in pain. He picked up the sliver of wood and jabbed the meat-fat and pretended to be turning it over.
The approaching figure in the dark overalls got nearer. It was Nsingo.
Nsingo took one look at the bottle of beer in Zama’s hand and exclaimed in surprise, "Ah! You are drinking beer!"
"What did you think I was drinking?" Zama asked him. "Do you think this is water?" He sneered, deliberately took a sip from the bottle, and smacked his lips.
"God is amazing!" Nsingo still could not believe what he was seeing. His mouth wide open, he clapped his hands together in applause. "You!"
Zama drank from the beer again. "Shef!" He exulted in a low voice. "Big shot!" He raised his beer against the sky, glanced at its contents, it was half full, then drank from it again.
"Buy me one too shef?" Nsingo asked, his head inclined in plea.
"A fool and his money are soon parted," Zama replied. He held the beer bottle between his legs, then, using both hands, he took the sizzling meat-fat from the braai and broke off a piece. The dog looked at his hands expectantly.
Zama brought the piece up to his mouth. The dog, whining softly, followed the move of his hand with its head and eyes. Zama looked up, opened his mouth wide, and dropped the piece of fat into it. The dog barked sharply once at him. Zama licked his lips. The dog also licked its lips with a long tongue.
"You should have braaied meat if you have money." Nsingo advised, licking his lips.
"I have already eaten it. Twenty thousand dollars worth. I gave a little to that dog." Zama pointed at the dog with the beer bottle. "Ask it, it will tell you." He chuckled, as if to himself.
"Don’t tell me!"
Zama pointed at the dog again. The dog’s brow furrowed as if in query. "That’s why it is looking at me like that."
The dog shook its head, and there was the sound of its ears slapping. Zama laughed briefly.
"Mmh!" Nsingo grunted in admiration, his face suddenly bright.
"All alone too." Zama repeated, smiling broadly, and one hand lightly brushing his lean stomach. The hand brushed over the piece of meat in the jacket pocket.
Nsingo’s eyes shifted to the visible bulge in the jacket pocket.
"Your pocket is full," he commented, his eyes still on the bulge.
"Money," Zama replied, his eyes hooded. "Big time."
The dog came nearer, its nose extended towards the bulge in the jacket pocket.
"But Zama my friend, you are unfair. You know I am also unemployed like you, and we always drink amasese together every morning, if we have money, but when you go to make deals, you leave your dear friend behind."
"Each man for himself." The meat was becoming uncomfortably warm against Zama’s side. "Very soon I will be drinking quarts only, and changing friends too."
He looked Nsingo straight in the eyes, then looked down at the ground in a blank stare. "People who drink masese and hotstuff are so troublesome, always asking and asking and asking."
He moved his hand over his jacket pocket as he was speaking, and slyly shifted the meat, which was now unbearably hot against his side.
The dog’s eyes were fixed on the jacket pocket.
"Please include me in your deals Zama bra."
Zama shook his head and pointed his beer at Nsingo. "You will die in jail Ah! Ah! Nc."
Suddenly, the dog, at lightning speed, leapt at Zama’s jacket pocket. Nsingo screamed. "Basop!"
The dog grabbed the piece of meat, which had been exposed by Zama trying to shift it, and it streaked away, the meat dangling from its mouth.
Zama swore. He threw the beer bottle at the fleeing dog. The bottle missed the dog and exploded against a stone. Zama, the tails of his jacket flying behind him, raced after the fleeing dog. Both the dog and the man disappeared down the street between the rows of township houses.
Nsingo stood open mouthed by the braai stand. He clapped his hands in amazement.
A man appeared around the corner of the bottle store. He was smartly dressed in designer jeans, sneakers and sweater. He carried a beer bottle in his hand. He came to the braai stand.
"Bra Marx!" Nsingo greeted him. "You are around? When did you come?"
Bra Marx worked in South Africa and, whenever he was around, beer flowed at the bottle store.
"Eita!" Marx replied. "I came last night. I left that fool Zama here braaing my meat. Where has he gone to now I shouldn’t have bought him that beer."
Nsingo burst out laughing and pointed at the street between the houses that Zama had disappeared into chasing the dog.
Then, between laughter, he related what had happened to Marx.
A few minutes later he was holding a full bottle of beer, and braaiing a large sausage. Marx had gone to the phone box in front of the bottle store to phone his girl friend in South Africa again….