Zukiswa Wanner

Chapter 4

 Sli, on the other hand, continues to blame my eventual fall from grace on alcohol. She says my family seems to have serious issues with the substance and whenever we consume a certain amount we go over the top. She went even further one day when she was cross and said it had something to do with my hotnot genes, though I always believe the genetic excuse is nothing but a cop-out. But she is a doctor. And she knows more about these things than I do. Maybe she is on to something there. Didn’t one of my maternal cousins roll on her baby and kill him when he was a mere three months old while she was drunk? So maybe Sli could be right.

Personally, though, I often choose to blame my mother. She did not drink, why then had she never told us not to drink? Surely the reason she did not drink was because she noticed a family history of bad relationships with alcohol? And lately I have been watching Oprah. Blaming your parents is very valid.

But most of the time I blame me. It was all because of me that I got into a fight with some American R&B star at an After Party. There, I have said it.

Mea culpa, as the old Catholics would say.

But at the end of the day, alcohol or no alcohol, I would still do the same thing today. So here is what happened.

I am sitting with my woman at this party and this retard of a singer tries to come on to Sli, right? He absolutely ignores me and comes up and stands right in front of Sli on those tall bar stools and says, ‘Wattup, shortie? We hevin’ a drink in my penthouse later, wanna join us?’

The man’s lines were as lame in person as they were on stage. There was no doubt about it, he was his own pathetic songwriter. I had only gone to the concert because I had free VIP passes and Sli thought the guy was good. Ja, whatever. But, who did this takalani think he was and what right did he have to come and shine his gold tooth at my woman and think because his ass was coming from the US he could disrespect the men out here?

I tried to be cool, you know, said to him before Sli could answer, ‘She is with me, man,’ hoping he would respect that.

But no. The fool of a singer looked me up and down a couple of times and instead of apologising said, ‘Well, if she is with you she only got to say so, ain’t she, dog?’

Okay. Perhaps I had had one too many and wasn’t inclined to tolerate crap. Especially from a man who knew no boundaries with other men’s women.

I answered loudly, ‘I am not your dog, man. Maybe your mother is. A female one at that.’

By now everyone was openly staring and trying to see where this was going.

‘What did you say about my momma, man?’ Then, turning to one of his bodyguards, ‘Did he just say something about my momma, dogg?’

The guard nodded, starting something.

By then Sli had stood up and was pulling my hand, ‘Asivaye, Mfundo, leave this shit alone.’

‘Yeah, man, go with your bitch before you embarrass yourself.’ Motor mouth singer clearly didn’t know who he was dealing with. Everyone had formed a semi-circle around us by that time and I knew it was now a matter of honour. This boy had not only disrespected me but had also had the nerve to call the woman I loved with everything in me, the woman I hoped to be the mother to my children one day, my girlfriend, a bitch. Jozi is my home and I would never have been able to walk it with my head held high if I had let him get away with it. And heaven knows, Johannesburg is small enough as it is. What’s a man to do? I mean, really!

I stood up, to my full six foot two frame, then threw a lightning punch at the American singer, who did not see what was coming to him. The loudmouth fell on the floor like a sack of potatoes and then I remember stepping on him with my canvas boots. Sli says it took four men to remove me from the poor guy, whose broken jaw ensured he would not go to play his Durban and Cape Town legs of the concert. The promoter, a well-known bigwig in the music industry, was furious.

He came up to me as I was walking out with Sli and said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, ‘I don’t care how brilliant a trumpeter you are. Your sorry ass is finished in this town and I will make sure you never play again, you little arsehole.’

Perhaps that’s when I overreacted. I shoved him out of the way, according to Sli, saying, ‘Fuck you and fuck your little American boy, and if you come in my face again, I will mess you up worse than your little boy over there.’

That led to my fifteen minutes of fame.

For the next week, breakfast shows on all the leading radio stations were asking listeners to call in with different opinions on the fight.

From one famous DJ, ‘How much disrespect should Africans take from Americans?’ Which ended up spinning out of control with callers talking of American tourists in Cape Town. Another asked, ‘If it were your woman, what would you have done?’ And from a female DJ who caught a lot of flak with her two-part question: ‘Does Violence Solve Anything? In Our Already Volatile Society, Shouldn’t Mfundo Dlamini Have Walked Away?’

With that one fight, I had single-handedly managed to blow the telephone budgets of a whole lot of offices. The country was on my side from the Cape to Beit Bridge. And many also agreed that I was a brilliant trumpeter, a Kippie incarnate.

Only problem was, no one was brave enough to want to cross swords with the music promoter and business mogul known as Emzee. He had made a pronouncement in everyone’s hearing, and it would be foolish for anyone to try to go against his stated wishes. In one week, I had got my fifteen minutes of fame and ended up with nothing to show for it. Well, except for when the media decided to give Emzee the platform on the fight, which ended with me being labelled Moegoe of the Week in one of the Sunday tabloids he co-owned.

I remember it. It read: Moegoe of the Week: Mfundo Dlamini. Violence does not solve anything. A woman is not taken, she goes, you moegoe. As if I didn’t know that. Of course I know a woman is not taken, but a man does not disrespect another in a crowd.

Do I have any regrets?

Yes. I regret that I broke only one jaw of lenja leyo.

But I was in a fix now, ke. My musical career had come to a screeching halt. I decided I would continue practising and writing tunes at home and also see how many underground free gigs I could take part in. After all, it was rumoured that it was only a matter of time before Emzee died. Z3, it was whispered by those in the know. I would bide my time and as soon as Emzee died, people would be beating a path to my door. I just knew it.