This time the narrative centres around the relationship of Michael, a successful but haunted corporate lawyer undergoing a mid-life crisis, and his wife, Rusty. Michael is a sex addict of sorts. Therapy sessions with Dr West provide the ruse for Michael to unpack the key relationships in his life, all of which trace back to one traumatic sexual event, revealed late in the book. Part of the novel is set on a university, a section that will intrigue many younger readers with its wry satire on campus politics. There is also a talking cat. The novel has many surprises, twists and turns.

Highly original, full of whimsical ramblings, amusing and colourful descriptions, Rusty Bell further develops Mohlele’s characteristic solipsistic take on the world.

In the extracts below, Michael describes Frank, his truck driver father.

Extract

There was, however, despite the potential of a fiery demise or driving into a bridge, perhaps great benefit in the routine and solitude of trucking – for I, without him saying so, wondered what open spaces could do to a mind.

What ponderous character did mile after mile of driving engender? What precision of thought comes with years of harrowing experiences: faulty brakes, tyre blowouts, gas leaks, engine failures, fever bouts and revolting bowels? He probably thought about these things when rocking on that chair, encyclopedia in hand, momentarily raising his eyes to ask: ‘Did you know, Michael … Ahmed Baba was a great African scholar. Timbuktu. Astrology. Astronomy. Philosophy. He authored over one thousand manuscripts.’ There were countless Did-You-Know questions, on subjects that struck him as worthy of knowledge. He always said, calmly and reflectively, that he would one day cease to drive trucks, noisy and unyielding things, and fly aeroplanes instead. This sentiment was oft repeated, without a deadline or concrete plan, the only measure of which was the thrifty way in which Frank lived, how he spent hours reading, anything and everything on aviation. The more I scrutinised Frank, the more I wondered if he was emotionally stable, if he could, as his dream job required, make countless split-second decisions …

No one, except Mother, seemed to believe he would one day leave Harmony Gas & Fuels, accept their fake gold watch, make a five-minute speech over muffins and bad coffee, shake hands with a representative of the representative of Harmony Gas & Fuels Inc. Group Managing Director: Southern Africa, pose for pictures taken with a picnic-like camera, possibly finally openly flirt with the fleet manager or receptionist, feign deep gratitude at receiving atrocious gifts from colleagues (cheap pine picture frames whose glue melted before his very eyes, a wall clock with all the hallmarks of pawnshop embarrassments, a pictorial book recording the cockroach species of the Amazon Basin), listen to selected people he knew hated him speak passionately and eloquently about what a loss his departure was to Harmony Gas & Fuels, more handshakes with fellow truckers suddenly realising the full weight of their paralysis, their enslavement, their limited options, pats on the back by yet more truckers who didn’t know what they did not know, wishes for a bright future by gossiping mechanics and morbid inventory clerks, matter-of-fact memories of truckers who perished in explosive infernos.

An accountant with stained teeth would remind him of R4.26c still owed on a R17 000 loan from 1985, the mumbled ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ sung tragically off key, the equally bland ‘hip- hip hoorays’ dripping with anxiety and petty jealousies. There was a sobering truth: even if the Group Managing Director did not delegate Mr Conrad Buthelezi who, owing to a Disneyland trip with family, further delegated a Mr Chamberlain, who came himself to thank my father, the ceremony would still have had false importance because for every Frank downing tools, there were millions others doing the same: truckers on icy Canadian routes, midwives throwing in the towel in Mongolia, army men being blown to shreds by bullets and mortar fire in Mosul.

Like all sorts of souls finally abandoning their yokes, their enslavement by the likes of Harmony Gas & Fuels, Father was not what you would call ‘Important’. He remained invisible between the cracks of modern South Africa, as employee No. 908/F of the Harmony Gas & Fuels Energy Division, driver of Truck 804, his importance obliterated by the middle class …

What if this man, whom I so revered, had nothing to offer beyond sharing, in jumbled alphabetical order, contents of an encyclopedia? What if he was not wired for wisdom, not a creature of true pontification and reflection? Was it possible, or at least conceivable, that he had little to offer other than daydreaming on a rocking chair, tending carrot seedlings, pruning rose bushes? What if his languid silence, his faint nods, were admissions of failure, of emptiness, stupidity even? More disturbing was whether offspring could or should judge the cracks in the Franks of the world, the Franks who have willed them into existence? In a world of seven billion and counting, there surely were fathers who were less than bright, limited in their exploration of the world. Stupid. And even if that were true, proven by life’s unforgiving yardsticks, voicing such in Africa, a continent in a world of dwindling cultures, was tantamount to exiling oneself in the eyes of many, who would without thinking say: ‘He starved to death, to prove he was wiser than his own father, a man he branded a fool!’ They would snub my wedding, my house-warming parties, some even my funeral, saying:‘Let him rise from those morgue refrigerators, dig his own damn grave if he’s so wise.’

… What did fifteen years of staring at the tarmac, inhaling diesel fumes, wrestling gas- cylinder tonnage, contribute to a man’s knowledge, his sensibilities? What secret observations were offered by the many greetings and conversations exchanged with toothless shopkeepers in small, obscure towns? Was his supposed refusal to bed whores, a lack, a hurdle that chipped away at proper mastery of life’s atypical musings: worlds of philosophical cats, egg revolutionaries, Kerushas with midnight calls announcing underwear phobias? What did this man, who had for a decade and half seen roads in all manner of variations: motorways covered in hailstones, some streaming with muddy rain water, others bloodied by carcasses of slain baboons, dusk and dawn cloud formations, the sweltering summer heat that reduced horizons to blurry, hazy conquests know? What did those lone hours, without the company of friend of foe, do to a man’s mind, how he weighed his worth in the universe? Were they, the hours serenaded by the drone of the diesel engine, of any use in revealing a man to himself – nudging him, later strangling him, forcing him for fifteen years to drive the same tedious routes with practised submission, chronic boredom, measured indifference?

Did this explain why Frank’s peers took to roadside vaginas on parade: to counter the dreariness, to resist death by boredom, to momentarily expel the bad breath from their many hours of solitude? What did years of roadside urine stops, to the music of chirping birds and speeding cars, the absent-minded inspection of his penis, shrivelled and sweaty, at times suddenly hard at the thought of what awaited in Alexandra, the trucker’s dictatorial rod, randomly terrorising ant and termite holes, with coffee, Coca-Cola and watermelon water that had become urine, a salty puddle, discharged with vigour and relief, much to the terror of unsuspecting ants? It was perhaps the unbearable loneliness that pushed Father to once in a blue moon haul his flammable and explosive cargo through our neighbourhood, park the giant truck before our humble gate, and surprise Mother and I with a beaming smile and some carrot cake.

The presence of that truck worked wonders, because I suddenly became a sought-after friend to my playmates, fielding an avalanche of questions. Did the horse and trailer truly and really belong to my father? How come it had so many big wheels? What would happen if they placed their palms under the giant truck wheels when Father drove away? I joined them in exploring the truck.We, with our little palms, felt our way around the truck’s massive wheel bolts (hot from the truck’s coastal trek under the blazing sun), accidentally dipped our fingers in greasy nooks, cringed at the colour splashes, green and orange hues from murdered insects: decapitated dragon flies, upside down butterflies, disembowelled moths. Our little hands continued their caress of the massive machine, including the solid steel step onto which Father climbed into the tiny door, the twin exhausts that curved in front of the front wheels, shiny exhausts that hissed diesel smoke as Father wrestled the beast into submission.

We caressed, used lollipop sticks to dislodge tiny stones, glass bits and chewing gum lodged in the treads of the giant tyres. I was nagged. Persecuted with questions. Bribed. Allowed to get away with crimes – petty crimes. It was criminal the way I treated those playmates, how I took them for granted, instinctively knew they would seek me out, cajole me, betray each other, sell their tender souls, shower me with sweets, gang up and save me from clutches of bullies, put their ashy arms around my ungrateful neck. In whispers they pleaded … Could I speak to my father, ask him to on his next home stop please allow them petty (but in their view profound) privileges like to sound the truck’s horn? Jiggle the steering wheel. Even a road trip, if at all possible …

Word of the truck spread to other streets, converting new disciples, eager entourages, whose only reward was a chance to caress the Harmony Gas & Fuels truck, to contribute to the urban legend of a truck that was like no other, a truck under whose carriage dusty rascals could lie, face up, counting bolts, sniffing at odd leaks, speculating why adults had hair in their armpits and, on daring occasions, confessions from Skinny Tefo, the discreet voyeur who wide-eyed and almost foaming at the mouth, yet in a whisper once said: ‘They have hair down here, too! And my father likes wrestling mother on the bed, doing a funny dance on top of her. Mother closes her eyes, licks her lips, makes strange sounds, and says: “Yes, Daniel. My God in faraway heaven! Thank you for this man! Amen, you animal you. I am all yours. Harder! Just like that. Oh, you are good … In the beginning was the Word. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Through the gates of Jerusalem we shall walk. Mmm. Oh my precious Lord … Danny, Danny, oh God, I’m on fire!” ’

‘It’s not funny sounds, stupid.’ Our wisdom and enlightenment came from an unlikely source, the bow-legged Thomas, my scruffy disciple to whose bicycles I had unlimited access. ‘They not wrestling, either. They’re doing each other, making babies and things.’

‘Really?’ came a chorus from the unconverted.

‘Yes, really,’ confirmed Thomas. ‘And …’ he added, scratching his scaly limbs, ‘they talk and breathe all funny. The men, too. I heard it’s very nice.’

Pule stirred, shell-shocked: ‘Like sweets?’

‘No,’ replied Thomas The Sage. ‘Like many things mixed together. Sweets. Prayers. Juicy meat. Custard. Sugar cane. Flames. Like biscuits.

Sherbets. Wild animals. That’s why they’re always groaning, licking their lips. It must be that it tastes like many things at once.’

‘You, Michael? You ever seen or heard anything strange? asked
The Sage.

‘No,’ I answered curtly: ‘My father is neither stupid nor a wild animal. Get away from under my father’s truck, all of you!’

They shuffled away, the sorry creatures, dusting themselves, unsure when the truck would return, uncertain how long they had to keep up with me, their temperamental Emperor, under whose father’s truck so many secrets lost potency.

Rusty Bell by Nthikeng Mohlele

University of Kwazulu Natal Press

ISBN: 9781869142872

Review written by Brent Meersman for GroundUp.

You can follow Nthikeng Mohlele on Twitter @BlueBeamHorizon.