Zoo City Part 14

"And more!" I say, in chipper imitation of Carmencita. "I'm on the case and and I've been put in my place." I've been put in my place."

"Don't take it personally, sweetie."

As the car pulls away down the drive, Huron appears in the doorway. I turn to look back over the headrest, past Amira and her creepy bird. He's rocking back on his heels, his hands embedded in the pockets of his jeans, just the picture of laidback cool. It's a junkie look. That desperately pretending that everything is hunky-dory, you're not stressed at all about anything in the world, when inside your jeans pockets, your hands are clamped into sweaty fists, fingernails leaving grooves in your palms. If Huron's grooves were an LP, they would be playing the Johnny Cash cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt". And the tentacles would be waving along in time.

CALEB CARTER.

HM Barwon Prison Australia

"I didn't have the Tapir when I got here. She came on the second night, after I was jumped by a couple of the 4161s from Melbourne. Lucky my mate Len was already inside, and knew their game. He gave me a shank when I arrived, and it ended up in the neck of this one guy, a tattooed f.u.c.kwit called Deke.

"That night, at about the same time Deke was dying in a hospital in Geelong, the Tapir appeared outside my cell. I heard her scratching at the door of solitary confinement. Scared the h.e.l.l out of me. The guards said she was still covered in jungle mud when they found her.

"I mean, there's cameras everywhere. And this thing's from a different continent. How come no one saw her arrive? How did she get here? If she can walk through walls or fly or something, why can't she carry me out of here?

"Anyway, I love her. They let me look after her good, take her on walks around the yard. She's a stupid-looking creature and she's dopey as s.h.i.t, but when the guys here see her at my side, they remember what happened to Deke. They remember not to f.u.c.k with Carter."

ZIA KHADIM.

Karachi Central Jail Pakistan

"They keep our animals in cages in another part of the prison. We don't see them. When they want to torture us, they put them in the back of a car and drive away to Keti Bandar. The pain is unbearable, you scream, you vomit and you say anything.

"My Cobra was with me when I was arrested. I was nine. The police saw me walking on the street with my Cobra round my neck, and they grabbed me. They said I robbed a house. I didn't do it, but they beat me until I said I did.

"When they brought me here, they threw my Cobra into one room with all the other animals. The animals would bite each other and get infected and die. The Undertow would come every night for the prisoners. Too many people died. Now they keep the animals in cages, but they still don't let us see them, not unless we give a big bribe, a month's salary for a guard. I don't have that money.

"I haven't seen my Cobra since I was arrested. I'm now fourteen years old."

TYRONE JONES.

Corcoran USA.

"It's crazy in here. I know you can't tear a man from his animal. Ain't right. But some of these n.i.g.g.as got real wild animals, man. One guy's got a Cougar. You can't tell me that's right, letting a prisoner walk around with a Cougar.

"There's an order to things, too. Don't matter what you did, you got a bad-a.s.s animal in here, you're a bad-a.s.s too. And it don't matter how many people you killed, you got a Chipmunk or a Squirrel, you're gonna be a b.i.t.c.h. Way it is.

"Then there's me. I got a b.u.t.terfly. Keep it in a matchbox. I oughta be p.i.s.sed off, man. You can guess what it's like being in here with a b.u.t.terfly. Except for the stuff it lets me do.

"See, when I go to sleep every night, I wake up as someone else. For the time I'm asleep, I live the day of someone else on the other side of the world. Man, I've been kids in Africa and India, I was once this old Chinese woman. Mostly I'm poor, but sometimes I get lucky and I'm rich.

"What I'm saying is, I can't hate the b.u.t.terfly. b.u.t.terfly breaks me out of here every night."

Excerpt from Caged: Animalled Behind Bars Caged: Animalled Behind Bars Photography and interviews by Steve Deacon HarperCollins 2008 Photography and interviews by Steve Deacon HarperCollins 2008 Traffic in Joburg is like the democratic process. Every time you think it's going to get moving and take you somewhere, you hit another jam. There used to be shortcuts you could take through the suburbs, but they've closed them off, illegally: gated communities fortified like privatised citadels. Not so much keeping the world out as keeping the festering middle-cla.s.s paranoia in.

"I'm going to need my own ride."

"What's wrong, sweetie? You don't like my driving?" the Maltese says, but the jibe is half-hearted. He's been off-kilter since we left Huron's. Even the Mutt is subdued, although we're still hitting the green lights at speeds better left to rocket ships.

"Not particularly. But mainly it's that whole little dog thing."

"You just don't let up, do you?" Mark whines. For the first time, it seems like I've got under his flea collar.

"I need to do this alone. It's how my shavi shavi works. I need to talk to people, to pick up a sense of her." This is all monkey c.r.a.p, but it's not like they know any better. I'm hoping to stumble on a lost thing that will lead me right to the girl, but I can't count on it. works. I need to talk to people, to pick up a sense of her." This is all monkey c.r.a.p, but it's not like they know any better. I'm hoping to stumble on a lost thing that will lead me right to the girl, but I can't count on it.

"I thought you could just see things?" Marabou says.

"Sure. If the person is in the room. But then you wouldn't need me. So this is how we're going to work. You can introduce me to people, but then you have to p.i.s.s off. You can't expect someone to open up to a crowd. One's an interview, three's an interrogation."

"Ve hav our vays und means hav our vays und means," Marabou says from the backseat evidence that she may have a sense of humour after all.

"I don't need anything fancy."

"No. We wouldn't want you to be hijacked," Marabou says.

"That would be bad," I agree, but the words come out on autopilot, because I'm ambushed by the memory of the bullet that tore away half my ear before it ripped through my brother's skull

"A Kia, then," Maltese says, oblivious to my mental picture of Thando sprawled in the daisy bushes, my mom screaming, running down the driveway in her favourite dressing-gown with the j.a.panese print. Afterwards, she had the daisy bush ripped out, the gra.s.s concreted over.

"What?" I say, dragging myself back.

"Or something secondhand. A skedonk skedonk on its last tyres. A car that fits your lifestyle. The kind of thing you'd expect a disgraced zoo girl to drive." on its last tyres. A car that fits your lifestyle. The kind of thing you'd expect a disgraced zoo girl to drive."

"Gee, thanks. How about if it doesn't drive at all? We could get me a gutted sh.e.l.l on bricks. That would suit my my lifestyle lifestyle."

It takes us an hour and a half to get to Midrand and the golf estate where S'busiso and Songweza Radebe share a townhouse next door to their legal guardian, Mrs Prim Luthuli, all generously sponsored by their record label. Another ten minutes to get past the gate guard, who grills us and insists that we all step out of the car to be photographed by the webcam mounted on the window of his security booth.

"Animalists everywhere," Mark says through clenched teeth, as the guard raises the boom and waves us through. "They'd bring back the quarantine camps if they could."

"What do you call Zoo City?" I say.

"Just be glad we don't live in India," Amira says.

Mark revs the Merc unnecessarily. "Because who knew there was a caste below below untouchable?" untouchable?"

The townhouses are variations on a theme of relentlessly modern, with trim front lawns and rear-facing views onto the golf course.

"I always get lost here," the Maltese says. The numbering system is completely insane and the estate is huge, so it takes us a few minutes to find H4-301. From the outside, it looks identical to all the other cookie-cutter townhouses with their perfect green lawns and chorus line of hissing sprinklers.

"Aren't there water restrictions?" I ask.

"Borehole. There are underground water reservoirs all over this area. Costs a fortune to tap, of course, but if you run a golf course..." he shrugs.

It would appear no one is home at H4-301, domicile of one Mrs Primrose Luthuli.

"Maybe we should have phoned ahead."

"We can talk to the boys in the meantime."