Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,14
go-go boots, both arrested in some forlorn pose of retro cool. The patrons don't dress half as nice.
I shrug Sloth off at the holding pen by the door. He sways himself onto the branch of a dead tree hung with fairylights and already well populated. A doughy Squirrel quickly stuffs the remains of a chocolate bar into her mouth and chitters reproachfully at Sloth, then bounds higher, past a preening Indian Mynah and a Boomslang looped casually from a fork in the branch, as motionless as the mannequins.
"Don't get too close, buddy,' I warn Sloth. Unofficially, there's a code of conduct, but animals are still animals. And animals can be assholes, too. The Mongoose is curled up in the corner in the sawdust. He slits his eyes open, then pretends to go back to sleep.
Benoît and two of his boys, his roommate Emmanuel and that sgebenga D'Nice, are in the usual spot by the foosball table. I pick up a tonic water at the bar (the closest I get these days to the full equation of gin &), and drop down next to them in the corner booth. The aircon is on the fritz as per usual and their beers are sweating. D'Nice's Vervet Monkey is sitting on the table surrounded by at least two rounds of 750 ml empties, toying with a coaster nicked from the Carlton Hotel circa 1987.
The TV is blasting some godawful crunk rap thing, jiggling sweaty bodies intercut with gritty images of a city burning. Giant fireballs light up the Las Vegas skyline. The singer, wearing a leopard-print vest and chains, skulks between the girls with a Hyena padding beside him. The animal snarls in close-up, baring yellowed teeth. It's an act so dramatic, it causes the girls to burst into flames too. Luckily, it doesn't seem to bother them too much. Flames lick over their taut gyrating bellies, fiery arcs tracing the curve of buttocks peeking out from sprayed-on hot pants.
"That for real?" I say, indicating the TV by way of greeting.
"You're kidding." Emmanuel is deeply shocked. He's a sweet Rwandan kid, only twenty, working piecemeal jobs. Doesn't have an animal, but there's no rule saying it's obligatory. We're all about tolerance in Zoo City. Or mutually assured desperation.
"Give me a break, Emmanuel. I'm thirty-two. I don't know this shit anymore."
"Cha! Zinzi! How do you not know Slinger?"
"What kind of a name is Slinger? That's so metal."
"You hurt me. Your words. They physically hurt me."
"You haven't seen me try to hurt you, Emmanuel."
"Yes, it's real!" he says, defensively. "Nigga took a bullet to the face and lived to tell. Bounced off the side of his skull, shattered his jaw, they had to wire him up, reconstruct the whole thing."
D'Nice chips in, waving his beer, slopping it around. "You know a hyena's jaws are stronger than a lion's. Got to get through skulls, to the marrow." The Vervet Monkey perks up at the sight of the spillage. She drops the coaster and leans forward with great deliberation.
"Skulls don't have marrow," Benoît says. I realise they're all already slightly drunk.
"You know what I mean," D'Nice mutters. The Vervet Monkey wipes her paw through the puddle of beer. She raises her hand to her face and examines it before licking her palm. She shivers at the aftertaste. Then licks her hand again, pink tongue searching out the cracks. Did I say slightly drunk?
"Listen!" Emmanuel says. "So Slinger's not standing for that, right? Gets out of hospital, half robot with all the metal bits they've had to graft into his head, and goes looking for the niggas who did this to him. Finds them in some strip joint in South Central. Walks right through the front doors. And bam! bam! bam!" Emmanuel mimes blowing the motherfuckers away with an imaginary gun so gigantic he has to hold it with both hands.
"Takes them out, like eight of them. Half don't even get a chance to react, the other half get as far as reaching for their guns, maybe standing up before he blows them away. Strippers running out of the building naked and screaming and stuff, all covered in blood!"
"You know, I think I saw that movie."
Emmanuel's grin drops from his face like a kicked puppy, bounces on the pavement and tumbles into the gutter with a little pitiful yelp. On the TV, Slinger and his Hyena have given way to a Mouseketeered kwaito duo, a boy and a girl, all sweet teen provocado.
"Zinzi, stop being a mean old