ICON OF THE FIGHT

Chapter 37

We were confined to one cell now, probably because the powers that be believed there was no longer any risk in us colluding. The space was small and cramped, dirty, with no air conditioning whatsoever. The heat that came off the bare walls was slowly and surely baking us dry into biltong. We had been in the cell for four hours now, since the sentencing. As we waited to die, we sweated in the court's concrete oven. The scabbing cuts on my back were itching from the salty perspiration coming out of my body.

We waited some more. I felt drained, both physically and emotionally. I wanted to stand up and rant and curse and shout but at the thought of getting up from the floor my body seemed to grow heavier. I couldn't even summon up the strength to open my mouth and talk to Chido who lay on her back on the floor. I thought about asking her to continue her story about her nightmare teenage years but she looked so peaceful as slept with her hands folded on her chest and her mouth slightly open. Besides, I didn't feel like talking, so I settled for pondering and wondering about my life. Even if I wasn't able to run around, I could at least let my mind wander.

To think that barely five years earlier I was on the top of the world, being number one on all the radio stations across the country, with every dancehall chanter worth his salt  requesting to feature me on their projects. Man, those were the days. I could not get out of the house without getting mobbed by fans, who all wanted a piece of me, sometimes figuratively and sometimes physically. In those days of heady success, everything I touched turned into gold. I headlined shows from one end of Badara to another, giving interviews to a select few media outlets, whose platforms my manager deemed perfect to catapult me into even higher levels. Eish, to think that there were talks of a feature with Zimbabwe's Jah Prayzah, Botswana's Vee Mampeez and even Yemi Yalade from Nigeria. In those days it seemed possible. Hell, it could have happened easily. I had the YouTube subscribers, the Facebook likes and Twitter followers. J Kits was a household name. Board a bus in any part of the country and my album was on repeat, get into a bar and "Yolo!" would be blasting out of the speakers.

Yeah, I had it made, flying high and chanting my way to the bank. I was making serious money, as well as friends, mostly of the female gender. These girls were all collectively adoring and individually willing to please. Later, I discovered that what they loved was not me, Josphat Kito, but the brand of J Kits and its attractions and its money. Especially its money.

So when my manager screwed me up and vanished with takings from two fully-booked concerts, along with my pimped out BMW X3, leaving me in debt and with a pregnant girl who in one breath threatened to sue me and kill herself if I didn't marry her, the star of J Kits became to wane. That I fell in love with said girl and wanted to spoil her rotten, did not help my finances any, especially since I became saddled with the worst artist's block ever. I should have recorded a track of the incident, brushing it off or apologizing to my fans like Zimbabwe's Guspy Warrior in 31 October. Then I would have gotten a new and better manager and went on to make more hits and fulfilling more of my dreams. But I got gun shy. Every prospective manager seemed suspicious, crafty. So I didn't get a manager. J Kits dropped out of circulation and became another has-been. I became a father and fell into the rut most ghetto-raised young men fall into - hustling this and that, buying here and selling there, sometimes winning and mostly losing.

The truth was, Chido came into my life at it lowest point. And then she had taken me on the most frightening rollercoaster ride of my life. Being honest with myself, I admit it wasn't all bad. If it weren't for her, I would never have known Molly was cheating and most certainly, I wouldn't have crossed paths with the director of BIO.

"What are you seeing in that creative imagination of yours that has you smiling like that?" Chido demanded, startling me.

I looked at her. Despite the disfigurement to her face, she was pretty, beautiful even. Her short hair, smooth forehead, small nose and that half-smiling, humorous mouth, all served to show she was a vibrant and fun person. To unsuspecting observers, she was an innocent disabled girl, who probably got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. They couldn't fathom how such still waters would be so deep and dangerous.

I cleared my throat and said, "I was just thinking about you... wait, how did you know I was smiling?"

She laughed. "Jos, how many times do I have to tell you? I got my ways."

"Seriously, how did you?"

"You were making those little distinctively happy sounds, Jos, thats how I knew."

Man, she was creepy sometimes.

"Quit staring at me like a perv and be ready, its nearly time for our Shaming."

***

The sun was now on its descent into the distant horizon but the heat was still stifling, unaffected by a small breeze from the north that tried to make its way through the urban jungle of concrete and steel. A few feathery clouds were rising in the east, seemingly following the sun at a slower pace.

As we emerged from the front of the courtroom, a sizeable crowd welcomed us with boos. We were on foot, legs shackled and hands cuffed behind our backs and linked together. The prison guards pushed us forward then followed us from a few metres back. Sijabula Street was closed for our Shaming and our subsequent execution. I looked to our left at the workmen setting up the temporary hanging poles. My heart rate increased and I quickly averted my eyes.

People in the crowd had plastic bags and some were wearing gloves. I knew that in the bags were various kinds of rubbish: rotten fruit, wet leftovers and empty cans. As a concession to the pre-colonial traditions, when victims and survivors of a condemned man were allowed to vent their rage on him publicly by flogging and stoning him until he died, the Badaran government allowed the survivors of crime to "shame" the criminal by pelting them with dirt and shit.

I braced myself.

When the first missile came, it landed squarely on my forehead with a squelch, dripping down my face and falling on my feet. I shook myself like a dog and prepared for another hit. With my hands cuffed behind my back, there was no way to shied myself, except bending over and hunching my shoulders to reduce my face's exposure. From the periphery of my left eye I saw an incoming irregular shaped dirt brown object flying at me, I ducked and it missed with whoosh and smacked directly into Chido, who was doing nothing to protect herself. An over-ripe pawpaw landed on my ear and splattered my whole face, blinding me. Before I could recover, another pelted me on the head, on my nose and  I was stumbling around without seeing. What the crowd lacked for in numbers, it certainly made up for in enthusiasm. They yelled and roared like crazed dogs, hurtling things at us: rotten avocado pears, spoiled pampers and sanitary pads. Before long I was on the ground, my head tucked between my knees, letting my back take the hits. On my right side, Chido leaned close to me and yelled above the noise of the Shamers.

"Any minute now!" she said. "Get ready."

I couldn't risk opening my mouth to answer and accidentally swallowing a rotten fruit, or worse. But I was ready, had been ready since the morning when Zimele had outlined to us the plan. Getting out of here in broad daylight was in broad daylight was going to be challenging, but it was doable. After all, hadn't an inexperienced musician and a blind girl infiltrated a highly secured government building and blew it? With Chido and God on our side, anything was possible.