The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga

leaving St Peter’s Square. The sky seems to darken as the minutes pass, and, turning back, I tell my friends I can’t think of anything else.
    Dude, I’m sold, Ruan says.
    He seems nervous. This is how Ruan talks when he’s nervous. I watch him pound a fist into his palm.
    Then Cissie nods. I mean, what else is there to do?
    She’s right. There’s nothing else we can do, I say.
    The worst thing that can happen in this story, Cissie says, is that someone dies, and that’s already kind of happened, hasn’t it?
    From across the road, the
gaartjie
calls for Claremont.
    He doesn’t look much older than us. He’s wearing blue overall pants and a black woolen beanie. I watch him skip between shoppers. He offers to help carry their packages.
    On Station Road, we get off and walk past three lit-up hair salons on the main road. Most of the salons are still open in this area, even this late in the evening. Their windows throw yellow puddles of light onto the curb, drawing us a path to the four-way stop at Shoprite: a blurry line that changes this part of town into another suburb, before Rosebank becomes Rondebosch. We head east just before the police station, down St Peter’s Road. We find Champs on the right, close to the bend. It has wide window panes with white vinyl letters on the glass. There’s an eight-ball pattern on each side of the door.
    We start off at the bar. Ruan and Cissie take seats on the high stools near the entrance; I step out to buy a filter from a vendor outside.
    Somalia, he tells me, when I ask him where he’s from.
    The sound of the traffic mixes with the conversation of the pedestrians behind us, and we face each other across the scarred surface of his wooden cart. He’s a thin man, wearing a kufi cap. I haggle him down to one rand fifty, but he has no change, he tells me, so I let him keep the two rand. Under the streetlight, I feel my buzz begin to fade, but when I ask him for khat, he shrugs and shakes his head. Then he starts to pack his wares, and as I watch him push his cart up the main road, I begin to suspect that being here might be a trap. Maybe Bhut’ Vuyo knows I can be lured with money. That I have a price and I’m easy to find. I walk inside the bar. The smell of stale smoke clutches me like a glove.
    We sit facing the packed beer fridges. The vodka and brandy bottles reflect the dim light, and my eyes feel dry as they glide over the whiskey and sherry. Green swathes fall across the counter in a soft pattern, the result of a soccer match playing on the sets.
    I use my sleeve to wipe the sweat off my temples. I can hear my heart tapping inside my chest. I recall what I know about the pharmacology of
tik:
in one of Olive’s stories, a baby was born with its intestines unspooled outside its body.
    Maybe we should get a drink, Cissie says.
    I lean forward and raise my hand for help. The woman tending the bar smiles under a helmet of bleached hair. We watch her standing at the other end of the counter, her back turned to us. From our place at the bar, we can see her texting on her phone. Now and then, she raises her head to laugh with a man in a cowboy hat. The man looks around fifty. He’s wearing a white shirt under a brown suede blazer. On close inspection, his features are unremarkable, and I discount him as a candidate for our client. The match blares on a set above him: a game between Sundowns and Chiefs.
    Our throats dry, the three of us fall silent. We spend the next minute leaning over the counter. I remind myself to take in normal breaths, which reminds me of Olive: the damage that makes her throat whistle.
    What would you drink on your last day on Earth?
    This comes from Cecelia, and it’s timely as always.
    She says, what if Last Life was moved up to now?
    Ruan and I take a while to answer. Cissie plays with the strings under her chin.
    I don’t know, Ruan says eventually.
    I don’t either, I tell her.