Sello, chief clerk, mabalane at Consolidated Gold Mines in Johannesburg, phoned his wife Rebeka in Moruleng every month to find out how she and the children were doing.

One day he phoned and instead of his wife answering the phone, a rough male voice said “Hullo, who is this. Ke mang?”

Sello’s mouth fell wide open. He did not know what to say. He felt his gorge rising and feared he would puke into the phone if he did not close his mouth.

There was a man in his house!

Rebeka was cheating on him!

“Hullo. Hullo, can I help you?” the voice said.

Sello slammed down the phone.

“Bloody swines. I’ll show them. They don’t know me. I will show them who I am.”

He rushed out of his office, a corrugated iron shed in front of shaft number five at Consolidated Gold Mines where he had been working for the past twelve years as a clerk.

Many clerks on the mines regarded their work as more important than that of miners sweating it out and risking their lives deep in the bowels of the earth; the so-called magoduka, migrant labourers from all over Southern Africa, who enriched mine owners and could afford visiting their own wives and children only once a year.

Sello, though he was better paid as mabalane, and even had a car, did not visit his family as frequently as one would have expected. He stayed away from them even longer than magoduka did from their families. He rationalized that he was saving money by doing that, but he was lying only to himself, because everybody knew that he was squandering all his money on alcohol and that woman he was cohabiting with, doing vat en sit with, in Soweto.

Sello had not been home for three whole years. He had become what popular Radio Motsweding talk show host ‘The Boss’, called a
‘married bachelor'.

Sello headed for his supervisors office and told him he was going home. There was an emergency. He would be back as soon as possible. He needed 'Family Responsibility' leave for a day or two.

Before the supervisor could ask him what had happened, he had run out to his car, a battered ancient Mazda, jumped into it and driven off, black smoke billowing from the exhaust pipe, the engine backfiring two or three times.

As he drove out of Johannesburg, it started raining. He drove non- stop through the rain for four hours. When he reached Moruleng it was already dark, which suited him fine. He parked his car in front of the yard and strode to the gate.

After entering the yard, he tiptoed to the front door and put his ear to the door. He heard laughter and afterwards the voice of that man again, right inside his house.

Sello reached into his back pocket, gatsak, to check whether the Okapi knife he always carried with him was still there. It was. He however regretted not having bought that unlicensed stolen gun ‘the boys’ had offered him at a tavern in Soweto the previous week. It would have come in handy.

He turned the handle of the door, opened it slightly and saw the man sitting with his wife on the sofa in front of the TV. He took two steps backward, kicked the door open and stormed into the room, his right hand in his gatsak.

Rebeka and the man sitting with her jumped up from the sofa
as Sello rushed at them. Sello however stopped dead in his tracks a short distance away from where the two stood petrified. The man appeared vaguely familiar to him. He stepped closer to have a better look at him and nearly fell on his back.

The man was Boy-Boy.

It was Boy-Boy his own son who had been a mere adolescent with a breaking voice, three years before, when he last saw him. Sello marveled at how fast he had grown.

“Sello! Sello, bathong! What is happening? Why are you here and why are you throwing yourself into the house like a policeman raiding a shebeen? And why did you not tell us you were coming? We have not even cooked. We were going to have sphatlo, bunny-chow for supper as I have just arrived home now. Bathong ! You gave us such a fright. Sjoe!” Rebeka said before slumping to the sofa again, clutching her breasts.

“But why are you here at this time of the year?” Rebeka said, standing bold upright again. “They have not chased you away from work, have they? Sello, tell me !”.

“No. No. They have not chased me away. I…I…I have come to fetch something I forgot last time I was home. My… my…my ID. Yes I left my ID behind last time. Now they want it at work. I think it is in the dressing table drawer. Let me go and check it there.” He said as he backed into the bedroom and shut the door.

Rebeka and Boy-Boy stood in front of the closed door, looking at it as if it was going to tell them what the hell was happening to Sello. A minute or two later he ran out of the bedroom.

“Look! Look I found it.” He shouted brandishing his ID book and dashing out of the house.

“Bathong! Sello, Sello! Where are you going?” Rebeka said, following him to the gate.

“I have to go back to work. I will see you next week. I mean next month. Next year.” He said as he jumped into his car and drove off, the smoke billowing from its exhaust pipe causing Rebeka and Boy-Boy standing at the gate to choke and cough. When the car backfired, they jumped, thinking Sello was now shooting at them.

“Your father has gone mad Boy-Boy, I am afraid. I have always heard stories in the past about people working on the mines becoming addicted to dagga and running mad because of it. Now I am seeing it with my own eyes happening to your father. I thought shift bosses only gave those who worked underground dagga so that they don’t tire quickly. But your father, he doesn’t work underground. He is mabalane. Mabalane Boy-Boy, do you hear me? Can you imagine! And I was so proud of him when he got that job”. Rebeka bawled, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Boy-Boy hugged his mother around the shoulder and gently led her back into the house.

“Don’t worry Mma. Things will be all right. I’ll look after you.” Said Boy-Boy who worked as croupier at the nearby Sun City casino.

“Thank you my son .Thank you.”

From that day onwards, Boy-Boy insisted that he be called Man-Man, no longer Boy-Boy.