NATIVE TONGUE Bafana Khumalo
‘OH, Lisa! What you gon’ an’ done now, baby? What your mama gon’ and made you do?” I was sitting at a piazza at the Oriental Plaza, throwing bits of bread at the doves and shooting the breeze with my good friend, Ali.
“Lisa Marie, mah baby, why now?” he cried, curling his upper lip, throwing the samoosa he was eating at the doves who scattered in terror.
Ali’s pain was caused by the discovery that his daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, had just become Lisa Marie Jackson. He was beside himself with anger.
Ali’s real name is Elvis Aaron Presley. Ja, he is alive. Don’t believe all those stories about him dying — I have seen him and I would not lie, being in a noble profession like journalism. Elvis has been living in South Africa since he faked his death for he was tired of all the grief his ex-wife, record company, Colonel Parker and the Memphis Posse were giving him.
After he arrived at Jan Smuts Airport in 1977, the first thing he did was to dump a pair of blue shoes lovingly crafted out of suede in a garbage bin because a burly, moustached official looked at him and said: “I don’t know about those shoes, swaer, if I were you I would lose them.” Indignant at being called what he thought to be a “swine” and the dismissal of his ultimate fashion statement as a symptom of deep-seated social deviance, he lost his blue suede shoes along with his name, adopting Ali. Ali kinda sounding like Elvis.
He then travelled around the country for a few months, while attempting to get rid of all the hangers-on in his life. This done, he settled in Fordsburg; assuming that it was the last place anyone who did not believe the yarn he spun about his death would suspect him to be in.
In Fordsburg Ali has made a life for himself, acquiring a taste for samoosas and setting up a clothing shop to keep body and soul together. A final touch to his new life style — something he is proud of — is affecting what he thinks to be an Indian accent. After 17 years of trying to blend in he does a reasonable job of it, except when he is stressed, and then the Southern drawl just jumps out and refuses to go away.
This was one of those times and he was drawling away to his heart’s content.
“What is your problem?” I asked, absent-mindedly cleaning my glasses. “You should be happy, bra, she married a sensitive talented man who’s going to make her happy.”
He glared at me with the look reserved for the most hopeless of Neanderthals and said: “Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with her getting married an’ all, but it’s the name, man … Jackson. It just don’t sound right.”
Surname? There is something wrong with this script, I thought to myself; there is more to Ali’s distress than the sound of the surname, so I ventured a question which I knew very well I should not ask but all the same had to. “Does Jackson sound … black?” I said, attempting to be as nonchalant as possible.
The lip curled. “Aw man, that’s low. Look at me man, Ah ain’t got no problem with his race and all, if Ah did, Ah woulda not assumed an injun name. Aw come on, man. If Ah was racist, Ah wouldav taken an Ayfrikayner name, being a white man an’ all.” I shrugged, while wondering how he would have fitted into the southern suburbs with his penchant for wearing brightly coloured tight fitting pants.
“Mah problem, Bayfanah” — I gave up trying to teach him the correct pronunciation of my name in the first two months of our meeting — “the thing mah baby got hitched up to ain’t black, ain’t white. It ain’t no boy and it ain’t no girl either.” This was a pained delivery and he had stopped dipping his hand into the samoosa bag and its contents were growing cold. “It’s that Priscilla with her Scientology man. Couldn’t she go to a regular church like everyone else, back home in good ol’ Tennessee?”
I disregarded this crack, seeing religion is not that important to me. “The man can dance,” I ventured, not really enjoying the sight of my friend in so much pain but at the same time not being distressed as much as he was.
I was about to reassure him that there was something positive in this union. I was going to tell him that with the combination of his pelvis thrusting genes and that of Jackson’s the grandson might be one hell of a dancer.
But it dawned upon him before I could say anything and caused more distress. “Ah was a God fearin’ man an’ never, never — not once — touched my crotch. What would mah mama have said? Mah mama wouldav skinned me alive!” The words were spat out half confessional and half denial, sort of saying: “I might have been bad but not that hopeless.” Thinking that that part of the rave was over I sat back, waiting for his next wave of anger, but he continued, “And I ain’t never howled like no cat either.”
My little reserves of sympathy were depleted and I just sat and listened to Ali ramble a nightmare about a grandson who was not going to be able to play ball and go out paintin’ the town red ‘cos his father is a wimp. “He ain’t no man at all, he ain’t no man.” Ali kept on repeating this like some mantra.
At this point I wasn’t interested, on account of I was thinking of the money the Jackson couple had, with all those Beatles songs that Jackson bought a couple of years ago. I volunteered this information to Ali. That is when I ruined our friendship, forever, I fear. It pushed him over the edge for he stopped whimpering and said decisively: “Presley blood, singin’ ‘All you need is love”? No way, man. It ain’t going to happen.”
This talk of Jackson’s acquisitions reminded him of something too terrible to contemplate: the remains of the elephant man. “Aw no, man, the freak is going to make mah grandbaby play with those things. Ah gotta do something man, Ah gotta stop this madness.” It then struck him that if he were to try and right the situation, he would have to deal with all those women who claim to have borne his love children. Who could tell who they’d married his children off to? It was too many. That would never do.
He might not be able to right the situation but he could take out his anger on the person he saw as responsible for his pain: “That lyin’ cheatin’ preacher who wed ’em. Ahm gonna git him. Who does he think he is marrying mah daughter off without mah knowin’ about it?”
The pain in his eyes was gone, replaced by an animated look, an expression of one who has purpose. Ali jumped up and ran to his apartment on Bree Street where he took all the money stashed under his bed. “Ah got business to take care of, young brother,” he said, when I caught up with him and asked what he was doing. “Got to get a flight out of the country and kill mahself a preacher.”
The last time I saw Ali he was dialing the international code on the phone trying to find out which priest could have dared officiate at his humiliation. The operator told him to hold on and he did, singing at the top of his voice: “Ahm gonna get me a pistol, Ahm gonna shoot me a preacher, Ahm gonna make him die …”
His clothing shop has not been opened for a couple of day and I fear I will not be seeing him again. Cheers Ali, it’s been great knowin’ you ol’ boy.