Cousin Tuk in
Durban 5
by Albert Russo
I heard Tuk meowing
something terrible, like them cats in heat that
roam around your garden in the middle of the
night and raise a racket that can go on for hours.
Well, I wasn’t dreaming at all, in spite of
being quite drunk, with my insides still sizzling
- whew all that curry was churning and churning
like them American B fortresses busy launching
bombs on nazi Germany during WWII. At that very
moment I happened to look under the table on
account that my napkin fell on the floor, and
what did I see, bleary-eyed as I still was? Tuk
was kicking furiously at his lover’s ankles
while the poor guy kept wailing and sniffling,
begging him to stop. You know why my cousin was
punishing poor Panty? He was jealous, jealous of
me, receiving these blown kisses from that cute
lil Indian boy I was falling in love with. Yeah I
was really in love with him now, specially since
he was being tortured because of me.
That same evening, I got
totally flabbyghosted, on account that I
saw the most beautiful woman in the world
entering the restaurant. She was tall, slender,
superbly proportioned - with lovely curves, not
like them anorexic models who are always half-starved
and want to commit suicide every time they
swallow the teeniest bit of zero-calory dog-biscuit.
Her long and silky hair cascaded on her shoulders,
undulating at the slightest movement, while
scintillating, as if it contained a thousand blue
diamond pinpricks, flashing on and off in
sequence. Her skin had the diaphanous quality of
a Meissen nineteenth-century porcelain doll. She
donned a silver-hued sari with a cobalt-blue
stole. Wearing almost no jewels and hardly any
make-up, she just looked regal. Goddess Holy
Mother of Shiva! She stunned every diner in the
room to the point that they remained silent long
after she had walked passed them, as if they’d
seen an apparition. Now, if you think this
description is high literature, you’re damn
right. I wrote it with the help of my uncle who
keeps on quoting them word magicians of yore like
Shake’m Pears, Keats, Shelly (not
Shelly Winters, the gagagenarian actress,
you nerd, the poet) or Longfellow.
Who could that surreal lady
be? An authentic maharani, a famous Bollywood
actress, who came to spend some time in Durban?
And who was she expecting? Prince William, Riz
Khan, George Clooney? We never knew coz she soon
disappeared behind a heavy velvet curtain, never
to reappear. Were we ever so disappointed!
After we had eaten our last
morsel of honey cookie, Tuk got up and said:
“Im taking you to THE
discothèque every one raves about, it’s
called The Gay Lord. The music there is just
fantastic and I personally know the DJ, he’s
the cutest and liveliest jock you’ll ever
meet.”
From
the GOSH ZAPINETTE! series (15 episodes in all)
9//21 Excerpted from Zulu Zapy wins the Rainbow
Nation, by Albert Russo.
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