The Last Call

Most people enjoy waking up to peace; to the sound of the wind caressing curtains into a slow sensual dance while bacon crackles on the stove, its smell awakening hunger within you before you even open your eyes. This was the sort of awakening Mbuso craved as he shaken to a stir by someone who also happened to be spitting on him as she barked her orders for him to wake.

“Wake up man! This is MY bench, not the park!” The person shouted, spraying more saliva on him each time she smacked her lips.

Mbuso, dishevelled and annoyed with his newfound wetness, leapt up and started wiping himself.

“Why were you sleeping on my bench? Didn’t they tell you where the newcomers sleep?”

Mbuso opened his eyes to look at the woman who, as far as he was concerned, was probably one of the girls they had picked up at Kitcheners the night before. He was shocked to find that they were, in fact, outside and that the woman was a random homeless person.

He anxiously started digging through his pockets and was relieved to find his wallet and phone safely tucked in one of them. The wallet was definitely missing some money but they easily could’ve spent it on a drunken decision if it was this easy for them to end up in unknown territory at the end of a drunken night. He just felt lucky to still be in possession of his things. His phone was on 4% with 12 missed calls. His mom was responsible for eight while his wife was responsible for the remaining four. He rubbed his head, suddenly remembering the reason he needed to get drunk.

“Wh..- where are we?” He stammered, much to the woman’s amusement.

She laughed hysterically as he distorted his face while he took in his surroundings. He was in an informal settlement with houses that were made with zinc and boxes, in a part of town he didn’t recognise and he had no idea where his friends were or how he had gotten there. An emaciated dog ran past and a litter of kids, all laughing and all carrying sticks, immediately followed. A woman emerged from one of the houses and shouted for the kids to keep it down. His friend, Trevor, came out behind her.

“Trev!” Mbuso shouted as he sprinted towards the familiar face.

He wrapped his arms around Trevor and squeezed him like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

“I’ve never been more happy to see your ugly face!” He exclaimed, planting a thankful kiss on Trevor’s cheek.

“Chill man,” Trevor responded coolly, “Where are the others? And where the hell are we?”

“I have no idea man. Unlike you, I didn’t even have enough sense to find a proper bed sleep. I slept on that bench!”

“MY bench!” The homeless woman shouted back.

“I heard you, gosh!”

“You slept with her?” Trevor asked with a disgusted expression on his face.

“What?! — no! I just slept on her bench!”

“Oh,” Trevor laughed, “one can never be too sure!”

“I’m not the one who woke up next to a woman that isn’t my wife.”

The smile was immediately wiped off of Trevor’s face.

“At least I’m sort of happy with mine so you never really have to question why I’m still with her. Can the same be said for you?” He clapped back after a brief pause.

Mbuso lunged forward in attack but someone held him back. It was their friend Samkelo, affectionately known to all as ‘Uncle Sam’ because his twin brother Sandile was the only father in the group. 

“Really?!” Sam said in exasperation, “I just woke up and the first thing you’re forcing me to do is stop a fight?!”

“He started it!” Mbuso yelled.

“And I’m finishing it!” Sam yelled back

“DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE WE ARE?” Sandile said showing up from nowhere.

His sleeping arrangements had obviously been the worst as he was covered in dirt and even had a wet stain on his shirt. He was just a mess.

“I’m sure Trev knows, seeing as though he was the only one of us who managed to secure a bed,” Mbuso smugly noted.

“Only? I don’t see any dirt on Uncle Sam’s clothes. Why do you think that is?”  Trevor responded.

There was a beat of silence as Mbuso and Sandile directed their gaze towards Sam and realised that not only was he clean, his clothes looked crinkled up — meaning he didn’t sleep in them.

“You DOG!” Sandile shouted before breaking out into laughter.

“So you two are the reason we ended up here!” Mbuso said

“Wrong again,” Sam quickly corrected him, “we came here ‘cause of you.”

“ME?!” Mbuso asked and then the memory hit him like a ton of bricks.

“I’d rather sleep on the street, where I know it’ll be cold than spend another minute convincing myself I’ll ever experience warmth in that marriage again,” was what he had said before running from his friends when they tried to put him in an uber so he could go home. They chased him for seven streets before following him into the informal settlement he claimed to find by heeding the call of ‘Ubumnandi’ (a nice time). He passed out on the bench as his friends joined in at a party they walked in on.

“Does anyone have a phone? I can’t find mine and I just really wanna go home,” Sandile whined.

“They’re dead. We did a lot of snapping last night,” Sam responded.

“And we can’t charge them now because they have load shedding.”
“Load shedding?” The woman who had woken Mbuso up repeated, giving the men a bit of a shock,“We haven’t had power since Zuma took that shower.”

Shock overcame the men. Sandile shouted out a string of profanities while Trevor kicked dust.

Mbuso took out his phone. It was now on 3%.

“I have my phone,” he lowly declared.

The declaration brought a brief moment of hope for the other men. Hope that was crushed by the revelation that the phone only had 3% battery power.

“It would be too risky to request an uber on that percentage,” Sandile warned.

“Bold of you to even assume Ubers come here,” Trevor scoffed.

“Let me call Todd, he’ll come fetch us ASAP. That man is a real man’s man,” Sam snatched the phone out of Mbuso’s hand and immediately started dialling — voicemail.

Sandile grabbed the phone and dialled a different number but the person he called claimed to be too busy to make it.

Trevor called his wife but only managed to ask if she had gotten to work on time as his guilt wouldn’t allow him to ask her to come him up.

The phone was on 1%.

“You could just call Tori and have her come fetch us,” Sam advised, charging the atmosphere in a sort of awkwardness that no one was willing to address.

Tori was Mbuso’s wife and the very reason they had ended up in this predicament.

“Or call your mom!”

Mbuso suddenly felt searing pain in his right temple. He raised both hands and rubbed his temples. Ideas of what would happen if he called either woman flashed through his mind, worsening the pain. His mom would want to know if he was finally going to take her advice and leave his loveless (and childless) marriage and Tori was going to use this moment to remind him how he was a failure of a husband who always sides with his mom.

“This is probably the last call you’ll be able to make, Mbuso. Please make it count.” Trevor said as Mbuso walked away from the group with his phone in his hand.

He thought about who he’d ordinarily call if he was in a tight spot and realised that it would most likely be the men he was standing in that very settlement with. They might not all be related but those were brothers to him. He knew they’d bail him out of any situation which is why he had to force himself to make a choice.

See, Mbuso has been married for five years, to the woman of his dreams, but his life had since become a nightmare because of the friction between his wife and his mother. His mom was a devout methodist who went to church three times a week and dedicated the rest of her time and effort to running a household and raising children, while Tori was a medical doctor who didn’t believe in the existence of a god. Upon finding out Tori couldn’t bear kids, his mom asked who they’d pray to for a miracle instead of offering any real support. That caused a huge rift between Mbuso and Tori. She didn’t want to be around someone who could blatantly disregard her well-being for a chance to prove a point while he wanted her to forge a stronger relationship with his mom so they could better understand each other.

He was struggling this hard with the decision of who to call because his mom was currently at their house, visiting for what was meant to be a one-week stay which ended up being three. He knew that his wife and his mom were both awake and the moment he called one, they would make sure the other knows who he called first.

He took out his phone and almost instinctively went to his mother’s contact. His mom was the one person who had always wanted what’s best for him and she never missed his calls so they were guaranteed to at least let someone know their whereabouts if he chose to call her. This was the woman who had taught him love, in its most basic form and taught him to love himself so fiercely that no one could convince him he wasn’t worthy of love so he really struggled to see her as anything but a source of love. He hadn’t liked some of the things she said but understood that they came from a place of love and was always willing to forgive her then he remembered that this was the last call and anxiety overcame him.

Before his brain even commanded them to, his fingers dialled a number.

“Hello,” the person on the other side of the line said.

“I’m about to send you a location. We’re stranded and I’m on 1% so we can’t talk for too long.”

“Ok.”

Mbuso’s phone died the moment two ticks appeared next to his text so the men said their goodbyes and waited outside the settlement, unsure if anyone was coming, till a car pulled up and Tori’s serious face motioned for them to hop in from behind the steering wheel. After dropping everyone off in their respective houses, Mbuso was finally home. He had dreaded going there before but something in him had suddenly changed. He took Tori’s hand, “You were right Tori, I was failing you and I’m sorry.”

Tori stared at him in utter confusion, tears filling in her eyes.

“I know I could’ve called mom and that she probably would’ve come through for us but I didn’t want to. Today I realised that even though you’re probably not the first person I’d call if I was in a crisis, yours is the last voice I’d want to hear.”