Kill Baxter Read online

‘Yeah, I guess …’

  ‘I mean, my parents were both killed in sinister circumstances when I was little. That forges character, right?’

  ‘Shit. I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But I wouldn’t know. My parents are both still fine. My dad’s into viral marketing, so I suppose that’s something …’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘Your parents are both fine? Well, that sucks for you. But I guess we all have our life-defining challenges.’

  ‘All Hexpoort students please board the train,’ a smoothly robotic voice announces.

  I grab my cases.

  ‘So what’s the deal?’ I say. ‘Do we just get on the train?’

  Hekka drops his voice. ‘I know you’re new, but you must be somewhat acquainted with … you know …’

  ‘Magic?’ I say.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ He smiles.

  ‘A little,’ I say.

  He points to a pillar. ‘In order to get to the registration desk, you need to run at that pillar.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  He laughs and puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘I know, I know. Lame, isn’t it? It’s just a stupid little gimmick that they use to impress new students. There’s a lot of stuff they just blatantly copy from books and movies. If I’m honest about it, they’re really not very creative.’

  ‘So it’s kinda like the veil around the Freak Quarter?’ I look at the pillar.

  He clicks and points a finger at me. ‘Exactly, man. Just run at it,’ he says with a smile. ‘Trust me.’

  Alarms are going off in my head. Look at the way he’s leaning in, a part of my mind screams. He’s too enthusiastic. He’s not just casually giving you information. I suppress it viciously, like a riot cop pepper-spraying a crowd. ‘Sometimes you’ve got to trust people, Baxter,’ I whisper under my breath.

  I hold a case in each hand and begin to run. The pillar grows in my vision.

  ‘Faster,’ Hekka shouts from behind me. ‘It won’t work unless it’s fast.’

  I pick up speed and hurtle towards the pillar, the wheels of the cases thunking on the concrete.

  It’s at the last moment that I consciously realise what I’ve known all along. But by then it’s too late. I slam into the pillar, ricochet off at an angle, trip over my own feet and fall hard on to the platform.

  Laughter explodes from Hekka and a group of cronies who have gathered around him. He saunters over and leans down next to my ear. ‘I’m the hero at Hexpoort, Zevcenko,’ he says. ‘You’re a fucking Crow. Did you really think you were going to waltz in here and take over?’

  I lie there on the concrete, breathing hard.

  CrowBax: Get up! Gouge his fucking eyes out!

  SienerBax: You promised. Remember that. You promised.

  A figure looms over me and I ball my fists up involuntarily. But it grips my arm and pulls me to my feet.

  ‘Don’t worry. Those fuckwits got me with that last term.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say and look at him.

  He’s a young black guy in a trilby, tweed suit and bow tie, with a fat set of headphones around his neck. There’s a restless energy about him that seems familiar. He bounces on his heels as he helps me up. I look over to where Hekka is re-enacting my stupidity, miming hitting the pillar and falling backwards in slow-mo.

  ‘I’m Nom, by the way,’ he says and we bump fists. He hands me a card. It features a URL and an illustration of a goat wearing Ray-Bans. ‘My street style blog,’ he says.

  ‘And that douche over there is Hekka Jones,’ he adds darkly. ‘Total asshole.’

  ‘Yeah, I think I picked that up.’

  ‘He thinks he’s some big shot because there’s a prophecy about him being the Chosen One or some shit. Walks around the school pretending to be all conflicted about his destiny. It’s so fucking pretentious it makes me want to throw up.’

  ‘The Chosen One, like for real?’

  Nom shrugs. ‘Fuck knows. It’s all a little vague. Crescent scar, dead parents, born during a certain moon or something.’

  ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,’ I say.

  ‘Come on,’ Nom says. ‘We better get on the train.’

  The inside of the train is covered from floor to ceiling in graffiti; generations of Hexpoort students making their mark.

  I go to sit down in the first carriage but Nom grabs my arm. ‘Nooo, kemosabe,’ he says. ‘That carriage is Pondscum’s.’

  ‘And Pondscum is …?’

  ‘You don’t know about the clans?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Shit, dude, you don’t know anything. There are three clans. Pondscum, Broken Teeth and Carrion,’ he says as he leads me to the back of the train.

  ‘Wow, very pleasant.’

  ‘Yeah, well, when we get to the Poort, you’ll see they’re kinda appropriate.’

  ‘Which one are you?’

  He lifts his sleeve and shows me a hideous tattoo of a mouth full of smashed teeth on his forearm. ‘Broken Teeth for life,’ he says, tapping his chest with his fist.

  ‘So you’re like the good guys?’

  He snorts. ‘Hell, no. We’re all as bad as each other. All the clans are plentifully supplied with assholes of the highest order, though I’ll admit that Hekka being Pondscum does lift their average. Carrion control most of the porn, we have the best alcohol and drugs and Pondscum are like the enforcers.’

  He looks at my face and frowns. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Just a sickening sense of déjà vu,’ I say.

  He shrugs. ‘What did you expect? It is high school.’

  We find a seat at the back of the train. I slump down on a seat that has been slashed with a knife but Nom can’t keep still. He gets up and looks out the window, then sits down again, all the time keeping up an incessant stream of talking that I am forced to just let wash over me.

  ‘You’re pretty … high-energy,’ I say eventually.

  ‘Hey, I’m an orphan raised by the bok-people in the Transkei. I can’t help it,’ he replies with a grin.

  ‘Bok-people, really? Do you know Klipspringer?’

  ‘Oh yeah, sure,’ he says. ‘All us bok-people know each other.’

  ‘No, it’s just—’

  ‘Just kidding, man.’ He taps me on the shoulder. ‘Relax, relax.’

  ‘So that must have been interesting,’ I say. ‘Growing up like that.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m the Xhosa Pan.’ He gives another huge grin. ‘It was like with any other family, it just kinda felt normal, you know. I’m glad, though. I learnt their animal communication magic.’

  I laugh. ‘Animal communication? That’s almost as bad as my stupid abilities.’

  Nom shrugs. ‘I like it. Look.’ He points to a cockroach that is scuttling across the carriage floor and then widens his mouth and emits a soft modulated hissing sound.

  The cockroach stops in the middle of the floor and hisses back.

  Nom hisses a couple more times and then the cockroach scuttles off beneath one of the bunks.

  ‘Interesting chap,’ Nom says. ‘Quite philosophical, actually. Most cockroaches are. Something about their—’

  He’s interrupted by a small kid with long grey hair pulled back into a ponytail. He’s clutching a hessian sack, and two white rats scurry across his shoulders and head like they’re on a racetrack.

  ‘What’s up, Stevo?’ Nom asks.

  ‘Lotsa junkies in the batch of newbies,’ Stevo says. ‘It’s going to be a profitable term.’

  ‘Speaking of newbies, this is Baxter. Baxter, this is Stevo, Broken Teeth’s chemist.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ the kid says. ‘Oh, and these two are Hunter and Timothy.’ He stretches out his hand and the rats scurry on to it. Their eyes are huge and dark and they stare at me with extreme intensity. He holds out two tiny pieces of paper with the other hand and the rats bolt down his arm to chew on them. ‘They’ve been taking psychedelics since birth. They get a bit pissy if they don’t have their daily trip.’

  ‘You t
alk to them?’ I ask Nom.

  Nom rolls his eyes. ‘I try not to. Always going on about mind expansion and the Buddha and shit. It’s tiring.’

  Stevo looks at me and holds up the hessian sack. ‘What about you, newbie? I got hooch, I got dope, I got the best mushrooms you’ll ever have. What’s your poison?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I say.

  ‘C’mon,’ Nom says. ‘Have a drink with us to celebrate your first day. Give us some Runeshine, Stevo.’

  Stevo reaches into his sack and pulls out a dirty bottle filled with a clear liquid. He balances two plastic cups on the seat and pours us each a shot.

  ‘To new things!’ Nom says and holds up his cup.

  I grab the other and pour the liquid into my mouth. It hits the back of my throat like the flame from a propane torch and I begin to splutter. ‘Holy shit,’ I cough, but instantly a pleasant feeling settles over me.

  ‘It’s good, am I right?’ Nom says with a grin.

  ‘Yeah.’ I mirror his grin. ‘You’re right.’

  Stevo sits down next to us, Timothy and Hunter on each of his shoulders like gargoyles. They look like they’re staring through the window at the secrets of the universe.

  ‘So … what happened to your hair?’ I ask. ‘Was it always like that?’

  ‘Magic happened,’ he says. ‘I tried a spell to make a marijuana plant grow to four times its natural size. Good idea, but I was punching way above my weight magically and I totally overextended myself. Well, the plant exploded into a fiery ball and I went instantly George Clooney.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say.

  ‘Still, it could have been worse.’ Stevo shrugs.

  ‘How?’ asks Nom. ‘You look like an old man. How could it possibly have been worse?’

  ‘I was originally going to use it as a dick enlargement spell,’ Stevo says with a grin.

  The train starts purring, proceeds to screeching and then shudders violently as it pulls away from the station. Cape Town begins to jog by outside, slowly at first, then rushing by all at once. I lie back on the seat and watch the colours of the city – ash, brown, silver and white – give way to a blurred palette of wheat, viridian, rust, ash and vivid blue. The smells change from oil and cars, underscored by the scent of the sea, to dry earth, brush and manure.

  The Runeshine settles like warm sand in my brain and I begin to drift in and out of consciousness to the metronome clacking of the train on the tracks. I feel the familiar throb in my forehead. I’m starting to be able to distinguish the various sensations that spew from my third eye like bilge water during times like these. Sometimes it’s just a sensation of the vast emptiness that lies beneath everything, the empty screen on which the icons of life glow and blink reassuringly. At other times it’s like my nervous system is a tree of lights and I can watch the electrical impulses complete their circuits and feel the vast miasma of desires and aversions rise and fall within myself. It would be quite cool and Zen if it weren’t so utterly terrifying; this experience of being a single entity gurgling and pulsing away in an empty universe.

  My eyelids start to flicker and the inside and outside worlds begin to merge, the train feeling like it’s travelling down my brain stem and into my spine.

  When I open my eyes again, things are different. Very different. The kind of different that makes you wonder whether reality is just a giant game of Twister played by unimaginably powerful beings to keep themselves entertained. Which is one thing to think when you’re stoned and looking up at the night sky, but quite another when you’re in a place where everything is saying your name. Even the rocks.

  ‘Baxter,’ says a small rock in front of me. ‘Baxter,’ adds another older, chubbier-looking rock conversationally. Next to them trees drip multifaceted pastel jewels into ponds with cherub faces that sing like choirs of angels, ‘Baxxxxxteerrrrrrr.’

  I rub my eyes confusedly, which, to be frank, is the only really acceptable response in a situation like this. I look into the radiant blue sky above me, where languid waterfalls run backwards through turbines that power the wings of huge bird-shaped flying machines all humming the name ‘Baxter’.

  The noise rises to an unbearable crescendo and I have no other choice but to huddle down with my hands over my ears and try to block out the thronging chorus. It does absolutely no good. The noise is as much in my head as it is anywhere else. I think I’m about to go mad because I just can’t fucking stand my name any more. It’s got to stop. Please, it’s absolutely got to stop. It really, really, really just has to …

  ‘The Conscious Self,’ a deep booming voice says. ‘Never thought we’d actually ever meet you.’ I’m so pathetically grateful to hear anything that’s not ‘Baxter’ that I open my eyes. Four people are standing in a loose circle around me. Four people in pastel-coloured, rhinestone-studded jumpsuits.

  I want to say something, but the Baxters are still ringing in my skull like terrible bells. ‘Say your name,’ commands the deep-voiced man. He’s wearing a peach-coloured jumpsuit, has an unimaginably huge afro, and sports a grey-streaked soul patch on his chin.

  ‘What?’ I croak, my head feeling like it’s going to split under the pressure.

  ‘Say your name,’ the man repeats, ‘quickly.’

  ‘Baxter,’ I say. The terrible noise stops instantly. There’s a silence that is better than anything I’ve ever experienced. I bask in it, gulping down the sheer lack of Baxters like milk after a hot curry.

  I look at the man and he raises an eyebrow.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ I ask.

  ‘Feedback,’ he says. ‘You’re the Conscious Self and this is your psyche. It’s like you put the microphone too close to the speaker, you dig?’

  The truth is, I don’t dig. I don’t dig one little bit. The man looks at my face and grins. ‘Welcome to your own psyche. Take a look around. Enjoy the view.’

  I look around. Jewelled trees shuffle down yellow-brick roads humming to themselves. A herd of skeletal mechanical elephants stride past, trumpeting through ornately carved pipe-organ valves that jut from their ribs. An elegant flock of white evening gloves fly overhead, each pair flapping their fingers in perfect unison. In the distance I can see mountains made of a complex of radiant interlocking symbols framed by giggling lavender clouds.

  The man walks over to a tree hung with perfectly shaped globules. He pulls one from a branch. It wobbles in his hand. ‘Breastfruit,’ he says, removing the jewel from the nipple, then putting the fruit to his mouth and sucking out the liquid. ‘Try some.’

  I shake my head. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Don’t get too caught up in it all,’ the man says, clapping me on the back. ‘It’ll drive you crazy.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I say carefully. ‘Your world is very beautiful and I have no desire to harm it. But is there any way that I can … leave it?’

  The man and his companions all laugh. ‘Leave it? You are it! But you’re understandably confused.’ He extends a large hand. ‘I’m Tyrone, your genital phase.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  He points to the rhinestones on his jumpsuit. Up close I see they’re arranged to form a picture of a man with a beard smoking a cigar.

  ‘It’s Freud, man,’ Tyrone says.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  I’m shaken violently from side to side. Some vast, imageless presence has me in its teeth and is going for the jugular. I fling my arms up in front of my face. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Please, let me go.’

  ‘Whoa there, tiger.’ Nom grabs my arms.

  I peek through my hands and see his concerned face bouncing up and down in front of me. I rub my eyes. ‘How long was I asleep?’

  He shrugs. ‘An hour? Maybe I should have warned you that Runeshine can be a little hallucinogenic.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe you should have,’ I say with an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Well, grab a bunk and have a proper sleep. It’s a long ride to the Poort.’

/>   I climb into one of the uncomfortable bunks. Sleep doesn’t come easily. I’m a bit homesick already, and whatever the hell that dream was, it has me spooked. I lie staring at the ceiling until sleep eventually gets tired of waiting and just grabs me in a headlock and pulls me under.

  4

  THE POORT AT THE END OF THE WORLD

  I WAKE UP with a headache and several moments of wide-eyed panic before remembering where I am. But luckily my dreams are dim and insignificant in my memory and didn’t involve people in rhinestone jumpsuits.

  Nom claps me on the shoulder and hands me a sandwich. Stevo is still asleep, Hunter and Timothy curled up and snuggled together on top of his head.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Nom asks as I climb off the bunk.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Don’t know what happened there. Sorry.’

  Nom waves a hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. Runeshine hits everyone hard the first time they drink it.’

  I bite into the dry sandwich and force myself to chew and swallow.

  ‘If you need to use the toilet, do it now,’ Nom says. ‘There’s always a rush before we get on the buses.’

  I take his advice and walk the long corridor to the toilet. On the way I encounter a threesome: a guy and two girls. One is blonde and perfectly made up. The other has raven-black hair, purple eyeshadow and a pierced nose and lip. The blonde looks bored and is scrolling through her phone. The goth is clearly into it. She winks at me over the shoulder of her white-arsed lover. I half smile, avert my eyes and walk quickly past.

  Some kids are smoking meth in the toilet and I have to wait until they’re finished. I squeeze into the small cubicle, kick a small burnt glass pipe and needle out of the way with the toe of my shoe and sit with my head in my hands. I hate Hexpoort already and I haven’t even got there yet.

  I take out my phone. I have three bars so I give it a try and dial the number.

  ‘Esmé?’ I say.

  ‘Hey, magic boy,’ she says. ‘Are you there yet?’ It’s so damn good to hear her voice.

  ‘Nah.’ I try to sound nonchalant. ‘Still on the train.’ I hear a voice in the background and Esmé laughs.

  ‘Who you with?’ I say.

  ‘Oh, just my friend Troy.’