Too Many Tsunamis Read online

  TOO MANY TSUNAMIS

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Jimmy’s Place: A Man’s Pub Is His Castle

  Jo’burg, die blues en ’n swart Ford Thunderbird

  Kringfluit

  TOO MANY TSUNAMIS

  A TALE OF LOVE, LIGHT, AND INCIDENTAL HUMOUR

  Vincent Pienaar

  Published in 2018 by Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd

  Company Reg No 1953/000441/07

  The Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441, South Africa

  PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

  [email protected]

  www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za

  © 2018 Vincent Pienaar

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  First edition, first printing 2018

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  ISBN 978-1-4859-0336-9 (Print)

  ISBN 978-1-4859-0398-7 (ePub)

  Cover design by Nudge Studio

  Cover photograph courtesy of iStock/sekulicn

  Text design by Fahiema Hallam

  Set in Bembo

  Respectfully dedicated to those who dared to create the unexpected and got away with it. That would include, among many others: Gabriel García Márquez, Etienne Leroux, Miles Davis, James Joyce, Hunter S Thompson, Leroy Anderson, Virginia Woolf, Damon Runyon, Pablo Picasso, Scott Joplin, Eugène Marais, Robert Johnson, Frank Zappa, Janis, Akira Kurosawa, Joseph Heller, Elmore Leonard, Martin Scorsese, the Mississippi Delta as the anonymous creator of the blues and the Delta’s illegitimate child named Rock n Roll, Brian Wilson of Pet Sounds, Lennon–McCartney and Harrison for the opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”, Lennon–McCartney and George Martin for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band … and Jaska and my mum Marguerite.*

  * Yes, I know, Janis wasn’t entirely original and she didn’t get away with it, did she? But I simply can’t leave her out. “The illegitimate child” comes from a quote by Little Richard who reputedly said, “The blues had an illegitimate baby and we named it Rock n Roll.” I don’t really know Akira Kurosawa’s work, but I include the Japanese filmmaker not only to impress the reader but also because I saw both The Magnificent Seven (a thousand times) and Seven Samurai (only about ten times). My mother gets a mention because I discover every day how courageous, loyal and brave she was, making a virtue out of “suck it and see”. (My friend’s Black Russian dog, Jaska, who never did anything more daring than loving his people, died during the final editing of this book.)

  CONTENTS

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  PART 2

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  PART 3

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  ~ PART 1 ~

  ~ 1 ~

  Suicide was serious shit.

  And seeing as the thirty-four years of his life would end in about an hour, he wanted the entire world, or at least the three or four people in his life who would notice, to know it was exactly what he wanted.

  As he had done a number of times that morning, he again went through his inventory.

  On the bedside table: three bottles of Thiaminine, one behind the other, within easy reach, next to two Guinness pint glasses filled with water.

  In the full-length mirror: Bert Laid in blue jeans.

  It had taken him hours to decide, but in the end, he’d selected the most comfortable pair. He had newer ones but they were low-riders – the crawl-into-your-crotch type – and he didn’t want to lie there with his balls knotted. He had decided on the broad leather belt his best friend had given him, with a big, pressed-steel, cowboy-type buckle that read “STUD” – a cruel misnomer.

  The snow-white sneakers with the red laces had an ironically playful feel about them, and he liked that.

  The underpants had taken some deciding. Sooner or later, almost all corpses find themselves being undressed by a stranger and the wrong underpants would be terribly embarrassing.

  Regular scants seemed comfortable but old-fashioned. He’d settled for navy-blue boxer shorts with a simple diamond pattern – the lime-green ones with the little red hearts seemed somehow inappropriate.

  Initially, he’d considered wearing the tie-dyed T-shirt Mother said she’d worn at Woodstock, but he rejected it in favour of a plain white shirt with a high collar. Somewhat funereal but undeniably elegant, it would definitely look the part.

  The idea of expiring was certainly making him feel a little light-headed, but he had also deliberately not eaten for a day and a half so that he wouldn’t shit himself. That would have an extremely negative effect on the ambience.

  Bert sat down at his desk. There was still one thing to be finalised – the cherry on the cake: the writing of the suicide note.

  He knew exactly what he wanted to write. He had been thinking about it on a conscious level for months and, he suspected, he had been writing it unconsciously for years.

  He had lost count of the number of writing competitions he had entered. Remembering how many competitions he had won was a lot easier. Wins? None. Second places? None. What about honourable mentions? None. This was going to be his final attempt and it was going to get him quoted in the Internet lists of famous last words or – as Groucho Marx said about living forever – he would die trying. But to win this one, he knew he had to come up with the tightest, funkiest and most economical copy possible.

  He pushed his laptop to the side, opened a drawer and produced a yellow A4 note pad, the kind that Neil Simon used to write his plays on, and placed it directly in front of himself.

  Then he wrote a phrase so simple, just three blistering words, ones so rich with pathos, style and elegance (not to mention the simple, smooth, sweet alliteration), that he had great hopes it would be a winner, remembered for at least a century:

  Too many tsunamies

  His spelling had always been bad, but now, with the help of Microsoft’s spell-checker, it was worse than ever.

  “Fuck!” he said.

  He tore off the page, checked the next for ballpoint indentations, then tore off another three pages, one at a time so as not to leave a rough glue-edge, and wrote the words again:

  Too many tsunamis

  He looked at it critically. It was perfect. He didn’t date the page. That would imply he’d anticipated lying there, undiscovered, for more than a day or two and pinpointing his demise was going to be tricky. He didn’t sign the note either. The idea that he would be found by somebody who didn’t know who he was had an unthinkably macabre undertone.

  He casually tossed the pen onto the pad. It rolled off, so he tossed it again. And another three or four times until it came to rest at an angle he liked.

  The moment had come. He lay on his bed.

  Like a battle-scarred Bruce Willis pulling the pin on a hand grenade, he took the first bottle firmly in his right hand, twisted the top off with his left, popped some pills in his mouth and took a few small sips of water from the Guinness glass – a well-rehearsed action.

  Another few pills, chased with water, then more.

  He sighed contentedly. Everything was perfect.

  Well, almost perfect. Uninvited, a squeaky voice jumped into his head. “What will Mother make of your note, Bert?”

  Bert kept his eyes clenched shut.

  “Hello, Conscience.”

  “Hello, Bert.”

  “Good timing, Conscience. As always.”

  “Thank you. Timing, as everybody knows, is everything.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I’m your conscience, Bert. It’s not easy getting rid of me.”

  Bert’s eyes were still clenched shut but behind his eyelids a brightly lit character morphed into view: a disgusting little gargoyle-like creature with a ridiculous leprechaun’s top hat and knee-high Puss-in- Boots boots dancing on his chest.

  “Mother will make nothing of the note. It was written like this so people will be impressed by its simplicit
y and profundity. Nobody can be blamed for anything. Nobody will feel any responsibility.”

  Without opening his eyes, he swallowed some more pills.

  He didn’t expect to be awake at this late stage of the proceedings. By this time, he was supposed to be cruising gently in the back of a ’58 Cadillac to the glorious writer’s retreat in the sky.

  But Conscience – and the question – refused to go away.

  What would Mother make of the note?

  “Oh God.” He opened his eyes and rolled onto his side, stared at the bottles staring back at him.

  He swung his body sideways, placed his feet gingerly on the floor and staggered to the bathroom.

  Slumped next to the toilet, its cold porcelain against his cheek keeping him awake, he stuck his finger down his throat and threw up a lump of semi-dissolved pills. He realised what he had to do. He couldn’t leave Mother with any doubts. After all, if he was dead she couldn’t phone him on his cellphone. But if she could, the conversation that played out in his mind made him want to throw up again.

  “Where are you, Bert?”

  “In heaven, Mother.”

  “That’s nice, my boy. Now tell me. What does it mean, too many tsunamis?”

  “My whole life is just one tsunami after another, Mother.”

  “But we live in Jo’burg, Bert. There are no tsunamis here.”

  “Not real tsunamis, Mother. It’s a metaphor.”

  “I’m not stupid, Bert. I’m joking, of course. Have you lost your sense of humour?”

  Now was not a good time for humour.

  “It means there’s just too much shit happening to me right now, and—”

  “Don’t swear, Bert. You know I don’t like it.”

  “Sorry, Mother. Just lately I’ve had all this stuff going on and it’s become too much for me, that’s all.”

  “So your suicide hasn’t got anything to do with me, then? It was a very short note, you know.”

  “Don’t worry, Mother. It’s got nothing to do with you. It was all the other stuff and I just—”

  “So why didn’t you just say so?”

  “I thought my note said it all, Mother.”

  “All that minimalistic shit?”

  “Sorry, Mother.”

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks, Mother.”

  “Anyway, Auntie Grace is coming around for lunch so I can’t chat. Have a good time, okay?”

  “Thanks, Mother.”

  Bert knew he couldn’t change the note – there was still a place in literary history to win – but he needed to reassure Mother she was in the clear.

  He would write her a short, separate note – a few additional sentences.

  Bert stood up slowly and wobbled back to the bedroom.

  He didn’t want to move the pen lying at a perfect angle on the writing pad so he scratched around in the bottom of his laptop bag for the one he knew would be floating around in there. He found something round, but it was only an empty paper casing of a Benson & Hedges cigarette, the brand he’d smoked until he’d given up a year ago. He stuck his hand in again and came up with some old tobacco twigs that should have been in the cigarette tube and a ballpoint pen bearing the joyous “Love Life” slogan.

  He opened the cover of his printer and took out a sheet of paper. It would certainly spoil the effect of the real note if he used the same paper from the yellow note pad.

  He moved the chair so he could sit down at the corner of the desk, the pen poised over the paper – but then he got up again.

  Creased denims would never do, and worse still, a shirt creased in the crook of his elbow was unforgivable.

  He didn’t want to rethink his outfit so he undressed carefully, laying the shirt on the bed, smoothing out any potential wrinkles, and even taking the belt out of the loops so his jeans could lie flat as well.

  He placed the snow-white sneakers with the red laces out of harm’s way, then took off the boxer shorts and laid them down next to the shoes.

  Finally, he sat down at the desk.

  “Dear Mother,” he wrote. “This is a private note to you to clarify a few things.”

  He put down the pen. There were already two things wrong with the sentence.

  In the first place, nothing was ever private with Mother. He recalled standing in front of her as a small boy, knees slightly bent, hands in his crotch, telling her he had a problem with his willy. It was sore. She looked up from her G&T and said he shouldn’t play with it so much. He ran away, red-faced, to blush in private. He hadn’t been brave enough to tell her he had never played with it. The next day, Auntie Grace, with a twinkle in her eye, wanted to know if he had cut back on his, you know, “naughty” activities. She wiggled her hand, smiled lecherously and winked. He ran away again, resolving he would never ever tell her his biggestest secret.

  So, no. Asking Mother to keep his suicide note private was pointless. Nor was attempting to clarify anything. She was the one who did the clarifying. Anything he said would be half-heard, totally misunderstood, instantly misinterpreted and end up meaning something completely different.

  He would have to write it in very clear, very simple language that even she could not put a spin on. The note would have to be longer than the two or three lines he’d first intended, but it should not detract from the main, three-word, prize-winning note lying undisturbed on the desk.

  The next sentence was entirely unexpected. It slipped out of the tip of the pen before he could stop.

  “Please, Mother. I don’t want you to make anything of this note, other than what it says, okay?”

  It sounded like whiny pleading and an accusation all at once. It was exactly how he felt, but she didn’t have to know that. He considered re-doing the note but decided against it. This was not an essay and he wasn’t about to stagger into the rewrite routine. That would take an hour to do and he wasn’t going to give it more than a few minutes. He had other things to do.

  He carried on: “As you know, none of my plans have worked out the way they were supposed to and it has all become just a little too much for me.”

  He sat back and read the line again. It was good. He thought he would sign his name at the bottom (so Mother would know who it came from), leave the note on her bed and that would be that. But then it wasn’t. The “as you know” bit wasn’t correct because she didn’t know. He would have to explain.

  He had just written “First, there was the thing with …” when the squeak, squeak, squeak of the front gate interrupted his creative flow.

  He jumped up and ran to the lounge window, slipping like a barefoot clown at an ice show because, he realised, he was still wearing his socks. Mother’s car was coming up the drive. He felt totally naked. Perhaps it was because, apart from a pair of socks, that’s exactly what he was. He shuffled into the bedroom, managing to bump his head against the doorframe, but he would have to ignore the pain until he had time for it to hurt.

  Right now, he had to fix his room. Nobody wanted to explain a suicide note, not even a prize-winning one, while they were still alive.

  What Bert did want to tell Mother was life was simply too much for him. That it was just one tsunami after another. Long days, longer nights, waiting for replies from publishers, staggering from one dinner party to the next, wondering where the next tank of petrol was coming from.

  He knew he was alternatively cute and witty and sometimes even both at once, but he really would have liked to be taller, thinner, and he really wished his long, wispy hair was wavy with little curls framing his face.

  Nothing ever worked out. Planning, trying, failing. An endless cycle.

  He had become so good at it, he knew he was going to fail while he was planning, which did lighten the burden. He could go straight from diligently planning and then admitting failure minus the effort of the trying bit in the middle.

  Like the wiggle-waggle waltz of looking for work. Intro: See a job on the internet, send a CV. Verses: Interviews, tests, questions, all positive. Chorus: “We’ll let you know, we won’t forget you, yes, we’ll let you know.” Finale (big ending!): The Dear John email. “Thank you for … however—”

  Now an expert job-hunter, he would see the advertisement, think about it for a day or two, then go straight to dealing with the disappointment of not getting hired, all of it punctuated with almost nothing in between.