1 HoneyCrisp 1 - Granny Smith

HONEYCRISP

By Temba Magorimbo

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Temba Magorimbo was born on the 9th of August 1966, Tuesday in Gweru, Zimbabwe. His basic education was from 1973 – 1983. Contemporary fiction romance forms his major cocktail of creative writing

DISCLAIMER

All the characters, events and the story in this novel HONEYCRISP are all figments of my runaway imagination. The story starting in Harare’s Hatfield suburb and ending on a cricket stadium in Perth, events and characters have no direct/indirect relationship to anyone living or dead. Should there by chance be such a relationship, it's regretted as being purely coincidental. However, should I have misrepresented facts, I stand to accept correction.

BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Boomerang Butterscotch [Meet Me In Alberta] Child Of Promise aka hearts Of Oak For All Have Sinned HoneyCrisp If Women Can Weep Lake Of My Heart Let Close On Me Off The Eagle's Claws Hearts At Stake Splash In The Loch Tigers Hunt At Night

TYPES OF APPLES

1. Granny Smith

2. Fuji

3. Ginger Gold

4. Pink lady

5. Ashmead Kernal

6. Envy

7. Gala

8. Pazazz

9. Arkansas Black

10. Black Jazz

11. Red Delicious

12. Braeburn

13. Cameo

14. Holstein

15. Golden Delicious

16. Blushing Golden

17. Lady Alice

18. Hidden Rose

19. Jonagold

20. Ambrosia

21. Empire

22. McIntosh

23. Gravenstein

24. Black Twig

25. Keepsake

26. Jersey Mac

27. Blondee

28. Liberty

29. Pacific Rose

30. Lodi

31. Opal

32. Cortland

33. Jonathan

34. Crimson Crisp

35. Hokutu

36. Idared

37. Evercrisp

38. SweeTango

39. Mutsu

40. Macoun

41. Earligold

42. Cox's Orange Pippin

HoneyCrisp was first composed on an HP 255 laptop and an HP desktop alternatively, in no order. It is the first of my book projects to be completed on a phone, a Huawei Y360-U82 using WPS Word and a Lenovo 4HRQ3 laptop. It works. I meant the WPS Word, or even the Huawei Y360-U82.

You cannot fault the cricket team for losing the last five games in a row. At least they won the toss thrice. After all there was a notice board which read like CRICKET HAS NO BOUNDARIES. A cricket ball that crosses the boundary earns 4-runs. One that flies over it and lands the other side gets the batsman 6-runs. So where is the boundary then?

He lived during the Rhodesian 70s. Those were the days when they watched the pictorial show of Razorman. I am surprised, in the wild, you will see the Secretary bird. I have never seen a glimpse of the boss.

The government has issued Treasury bonds through the Central Bank. No bank has offered any other type of bonds including vagabonds.

A man wearing a maroon suit and red shoes was asked why he didn’t follow the wedding reception dress code. He replied, “The dress code said black and white. I thought it meant black and white people.”

1. Granny Smith

“Is this kombi heading for Scott Road? That is near the extremities of Hatfield almost the edge not via Chanz?” the lady had asked. “Most kombis go into the internal organs of Hatfield like St. Patrick's before emerging in and around Scott Road.”

She was talking to a tout who stood blocking the sliding door ‘vetting’ would be passengers. He was alert to make sure that municipal and the national police in plain clothes did not board the vehicle. That would be straight impounding which cost them time, procedures and money as every day was counted and paid for.

Touts were in charge when kombi were ranked in the city or their bus stops elsewhere. They normally shouted destinations while hanging to sliding doors of their passenger vehicles. They did this as a cat and mouse game with the police. Touts who made a living shouting destinations or convincing passengers to get on board where illegal. The shouting out of destinations, jostling for passengers and noise was outside the scope of the law. Blame it on deregulation of the transport sector.

She did not have a sing-song or beautiful voice. There were no tenor notes to caress his hearing apparatus. She could have been any one. The voice was not soft or harsh. Had he been looking elsewhere, he could not have told if the voice was from a male or female. He had been gazing outside. There was dim light. He had seen her and other people walking by. She had been making a beeline for their kombi. Grown up people had no way of preventing their swing. Their left and right legs exchanged position lifting up and down with hips sympathizing.

She was tall with some flesh all over. She was adorned with wide hips for child birth. The bosom cavity was almost full to straining but not overloaded to be called extra-large. The sitting apparatus was such that she didn’t sit on her body skeletal bones. Who did? Like other ladies her backsides were big and spoke of maturity. The hind quarters created a cushion so she could not hurt when she was sitting. She was a lady large enough to be part of an Amazon regiment. She was the type of a woman of whom had she stood at an escape route, he would have thought twice about tackling. Pity, a person’s size and looks could not be used to judge wisdom, intellect, knowledge, character and humility. Height from an even portion of the ground, he judged she clocked around six feet and about two to three inches added without calculating the highest point of her hair do. That was counting up to the last edge of her scalp above her forehead.

When she had walked towards the open sliding door of the kombi, he had been seeing through her thinking of something or someone else. The feet were clad in peep toe ladies high heeled shoes fashioned in leather with wide space between the base of the shoe and the peeping toe. She didn’t need think twice about steeping onto wet surfaces. She may have weighed in at about ninety kilograms. Even in the dim light she was light complexioned though she had speckles or freckles on her face and parts of her body. It was an almost unnoticeable discolouration.

One never knew if ladies were light skinned or their skin was the recipient of skin lightening creams or medications which were percolating through illegal border points some with disastrous results. Some became so artificially tanned they looked like half-baked mixed breeds coming from creation’s oven. The skin under their ears attested to their true natural colours. Her dress came down to slightly above her knees. Her hair was made up into intricacies of female deft hand art. The Asian continent was supplying most of the hair used in elaborate head designs. The normal African women’ hair was kinky, brown or black. It grew like a bush to be thick and tangled if not rough. When treated with hair shampoos, oils and natural hair ointment hair grew into bums turning black, loose and lovely. She had on a handbag held loosely with a poncho or a cloth tugged under the handles.

He was not given to romancing the ladies in the night. He was extremely tempted at times. Personal discipline taught him otherwise. You never knew what type of fish or rotten apple you ended up with in the morning light. With the advent of diseases like HIV-AIDS this was a serious issue. He didn’t like waking up to see his grandmother’s cousin in his bed. It was like night trawling for bream only to end up with a few piranhas. The problem would be there would be bloodletting either side. It was like pulling a big fish trap at night. When you opened it in the darkness, there was a reptilian monster inside writhing mad. It was like yoking an African ox and a buffalo. One of the two seethed with rage. It would go in for the kill. One was good at kicking out. The other was a goring Olympic champion of the African bush.

He had a tight schedule. He was a rolling stone. He was here today and there tomorrow. When he tried to find out where his dates had gone, he discovered they had not waited on him. The economy did not help. He could hardly sustain himself at times. To date steadily required some financial muscle. It was like a man seriously dating a woman when the man gets arraigned before the courts. When he comes back from the jail house four years later, the woman will have moved on. It was like a guerrilla meeting a woman he ditched for the war front years later.

“Not exactly, we travel down Chiremba Road. We turn right into Twentydales Street. We go down. We end up turning right into St. Patricks. We then stop at Kilwinning Shopping Centre in Kilwinning Road. Scott Road requires those kombi that call for Chanz which drive down it coming back to link with St. Patricks’.”

“Hey, and it’s late now,” she complained. “Very late for me.”

“You can get a ride to the Kilwinning shopping complex. From whence there will be private vehicles working as taxis to ferry the drinkers home,” the tout had suggested. “Chanz/Scotts Road ranking point is a little bit way off from here madam. They also ply Epworth better via Chiremba Road than through Scott Road. Scott Road is used like St. Patricks to link between Chiremba and Seke Road. At night there is a drought of these kombi providing the links though kombis within Hatfield are plenteous. There is a better load of passengers and the dollar factor at night.”

Messing with conductors, their fellow workers called drivers or touts was like starting a guerrilla war in a hot desert during the day. Conductors became active when their vehicles were loaded or overloaded. Before, the muscle belonged to the touts. Touts like him made their clout from convincing passengers to choose the kombi they were touting for. They earned their bacon though they were illegals. They could move as far as twenty metres away from a kombi vetting would be passengers before bringing them in. The ranks were overcrowded with vehicles to choose from which saved passengers time when touts accosted them. That way they worked on getting the same amount that a single passenger paid per ride. Their competitive behaviour at times ended in sour industrial relations between workers. It was uncommon to have verbal abuse including unprintable language. At times they entertained their passengers to free bare knuckle boxing.

Messing with the combination of commuter omnibus drivers, vendors, their cantankerous conductors and their estranged urban cousins people called touts was like attacking a German outpost that had a machine gun and concrete without artillery and close air support. Only the elite police units nicknamed “black boots” and the military had a reputation of cowering them. The military was known to call in reinforcements. They did not need aerial support, tanks or tear gas canisters. It was either bare knuckle, boot power or the butt of a rifle. Since touts did not wear uniforms, when the police or military moved in they did not take prisoner. There were bound to be broken bones of people caught in crossfire or mistaken identity.

The touts on the other end made passengers aware of which kombi had a right to take passengers by calling different destinations with loud shouts. The vehicles had a perking order per destination of which was filling up first come first saved. They competed for the same routes at times loading two to three different vehicles trying to make each other underdogs.

By looking at the destination boards passengers could do the same without noise. Imagine touts shouting destinations at a large London bus terminus or the underground for that matter. Paddington here. Charring Cross. Buckingham Palace or Big Ben here passengers! In some countries they would be arraigned before the courts for noise pollution and manhandling of passengers. In between touts and the other staff worked pick pockets.

“That will cost a lot of time. I am behind schedule already.”

“Lady, it may cost more but it preserves your limbs. From Chiremba Road to walk down Scott is not a pretty sight. Even here there are thieves you have to watch out.”

“Do you mean the uniformed ones?” one passenger joked.

“The pickpockets, the sleigh of hand, those who walk around holding a newspaper,” replied the tout.

At least he was wise.

“Let me try the other rank,” she had said with indecision.

He had interfered in their conversation with the conductor. His mouth had shot ahead of his thinking capacities like a foot that went slipping on muddy ground. He was behaving like a group of soldiers waiting to ambush an enemy. Imagine what the commander would think when one stood up and opened fire without instruction?

“The rank is about a kilometre away. Walking through these streets at this time is not pleasant. You can end up with your foot in a hole dug and unfilled by the city works department. Besides which there are drunkards and male street urchins,” he volunteered.

“I don’t have much of a choice.“

Half his brains were not working. He came off his seat at the extreme end of the bench behind the driver. He had had advantage of a window. That meant giving up fresh air and the tourist views. At night the views were clouded by lack of street lights and power outages.

“I will tell you what choice you have,” he had replied. “Get in the kombi. I will see you into another vehicle. I eat my supper at the Kilwinning shops. I am in Rockfern Road, much closer to Scott Road. There will always be vehicles going that way.”

He worked his way to the open sliding door.

“Do get in lady,” another passenger had advised. “There is space for one passenger then off we go home. The food there is getting colder by the minute. There is electricity load shedding. My stomach is complaining.”

She fitted in with him closing the space. They were made to sit four abreast of each bench seat. In South Africa and Malawi it was three across. Maybe here people were thinner. After all with the economic crunch, brain drain and yoke of diseases, maybe people were eating less healthy foods. They talked about the weather. When the vehicle hit a rough patch of road they talked about the dearth of the city’s engineering department.

“Thanks chomi,” the conductor had said to him for convincing a passenger to get in. Every fare counted in this trade. It added to the profit margins.

“Not to mention bro,” he had replied.

He sat very uncomfortably close to the sliding door. These mechanical contraptions had endued overuse. As the vehicles plied the roads for passengers, overloading, general mishandling and inefficient servicing, they could open on their own if leaned against. They could lose their grip and start scrapping the road before shuddering as they fell off. What had been on top of the bag was a cloth she spread around her waist as she sat down. For a moment her light tan lady legs were taken away from view.

Passengers needing to get off behind him meant he and she had to stand up. He had to get out alongside the conductor while she fitted somewhere in her standing posture to allow the passenger getting out room. The one getting one had to move head and torso bent. Then she and he had to work out occupying the seats of the departed freeing space at the front row by moving into the interior. This was how public transport operated.

Once in Hatfield proper, the volume of passengers getting in and out did not disturb them. They were out of the area of folding seats. It was used as a passage. The trip was a money bags one. The kombi stopped for people getting out. More came in which the driver and conductor had not even seen. Pick and drop worked well for the profit margin. It was like hiring a vehicle that was already on a programmed journey. They were soon near the shops. He got off at the shopping complex.

“I can make it home on my own,” she had said.

“I made a promise. A solemn promise to a lady must be concluded. I am not a maniac. I was taught manners. I vouch that I am a good gentleman.”

“I am not a fly by night, just in case,” she had warned.

“Neither do I search for those too,” he had replied. “I am not tempted too. Ladies of the night are galore here at the drinking holes. Had I wanted one I wouldn’t have bothered you. Most of the funeral parlours are filling up with those who partake of such joys be they male or female, innocent or guilty. Death does not choose, it just calls at the appropriate time.”

Why was he saddled with a lady whose history he knew not? How many men had tried helping a lonely lady only to end up with a knife behind the back, all valuables gone? He had escorted her to the side of the road that acted as a bus stop. He inquired of every vehicle that carried passengers that stopped to drop one or two people. They were some that were ferrying passengers for the extra money while others were dropping workmate or relatives but did not carry whom the drivers did not know.

“Home is less than two kilometres away,” she kept protesting.

“This is not the correct time to walk. Even during day time, the heat is oppressive. Here the rule of thumb is not to stop any private vehicle. Kombis have to have another set of passenger looking people in them just in case.”

“Yes. Certainly there are boys patrolling the dark patches. Near my home there is such a stretch which is best crossed in a vehicle. Most of the thieves that operate here and around the dark patches elsewhere come from the sprawling suburb of Epworth.”

“I could take you as far as your address if you don’t mind.”

“And how will you come back seeing as it is that you will have to cross a dark patch again?”

“Don’t worry ma’am. It’s not yet too dark.” he had replied. “I am called Keith.”

“I am Keisha,” she had replied. “My first preferences are public transport vehicles like kombis or the odd taxi driver shunting on his way home desperate for fifty cents.”

“I play cricket for a local team. I have been trying my stretch in South Africa. It is more like being asked to come and do a franchise game so talent scouts can recommend you. You wonder if the scouts are asleep. At times I wonder why I was saddled with a talent that isn’t moving me where others are going, higher planes.”

“I am a professional interior designer. What is your profession besides playing cricket? In this country you would starve on the sports allowances alone.”

“I and my elder brother play class “A” cricket. He runs a shop here that is closed by now selling animals feeds. He didn’t really make it much for the national team but he does play first class cricket.”

“Sorry, cricket was never my favourite. I know more about golf clubs, links, birdies, balls, one-stroke or two stroke postures and holes. I can talk about caddies and the type of golf clubs than any other sport. Besides, I play tennis. I can tell you about the performance of the gold ball depending on heat, the layout of the field, hazards and the appearance of the links which popular people call grass.”

“You must be related to Nick Price. Or better still, you must be Nasho Kamungeremu’s sister. I only know there is a golf club along Arturus Road, somewhere in Malbereign then somewhere near Isis Road in Vainona and in Mufakose too. I have never tried putting.”

“I accompanied my father to the golf course when he wanted to play. Then he didn’t need a caddy. I got my materials to experiment with soft furnishings in return. That was a symbiotic relationship. I learnt a few tips about golf. There were oldies of all races willing to teach a young girl how to putt.”

“I would have liked to ask you to a game of golf. Unfortunately I know nothing about the spot. I have played soccer, cricket, baseball and basketball. I am yet to find where I am king. In cricket it was my older brother who influenced me. Between him and me is a married sister. You know things you learn from an elder sibling like some types of music. I ended up hooked to reggae. I listened to him playing cassettes of reggae greats.”

A few minutes later they got a kombi that dropped her in her home stretch. He walked her home. She had to leave Scott Road walking up a tarred road with some point where there were mazes of rocks. The city planners had left the rocks out like a rockery. Trees and foliage attached to them made the area dark at night especially when there was load shedding which was a totem of a socialist economy. They looked like some giants had piled about eight of them in four positions.

Two had been flipped upside down to provide birds with a swimming bath when it rained. Trees had grown haphazardly through the rocks providing shade during the day. At night they provided a hideout for muggers especially within a circular turn of the road to avoid these rocks. The curve also followed the contours of the stream further down. She wouldn’t have relished walking here alone.

“My home stretch is less than a kilometre away. I have to flag kombis down by the tarred road. There are dark spots where tsotsis lie in ambush.”

“Don’t be tempted to walk. Thanks for the service. I don’t think it would be appropriate if we came in together. I live with my parents and family. We are very conservative Christians.”

“Do you normally get home this late?” he asked.

“No I was coming from a mid-week wedding service for a church member. You know our thing, a mid-week wedding is scheduled to start at 1700hrs. It begins and hour and a half later. They have to move with the program cutting corners to fit the time slot. My transport didn’t turn out to be what I had assumed.”

What had drawn him to a lone woman from the hundred that were walking at night in Harare? Why the one getting into a standard kombi from the city for Hatfield? Why her when the same 18-passenger vehicle had had about seven other women with two more attractive and younger looking than this one? Why hadn’t he been drawn to that one who constantly checked her artificial hair do that appeared like an upside down baobab tree over her head? Why hadn’t he been drawn to a younger looking one with a skirt that looked like it was a short, whose hair had been braided?

Was it appropriate to ask if her husband and perhaps kids were at home? Why had she not phoned honey to wait for her at the bottom of the street? What if she was in marital difficulties and she started confiding in him? The street had its dim lights which testified to the dearth of proper municipal service. Everything was falling apart like overripe avocados from an economic tree which was tilting with the rest of the country. What had failed to work in North Korea, Cuba, China, Bulgaria, Russia and the eastern bloc had been modified with disastrous consequences.

“Thanks Keith, see you.”

“See you Keisha,” he had replied at her gate.

How many novels had he read of innocent men charmed out of their love hideouts by foreign or unknown women who ended up in the jail house charged with crimes they hadn’t committed. Judge, all I did was sleep with a ravenous looking lady. I didn’t murder her millionaire husband. The judge would be very sympathetic while dishing out a sentence that would close the blue sky for an innocent lovelorn man for twenty-five years or more. He wondered. Were James Hardley Chase, Franklin W. Dixon, Caroline Keene and Nick Carter lone prolific writers or trade names used by a set of writers? Where they corporate names like Harper Collins?

The perimeter of the residence was a precast wall now hidden by a hedge from within which was growing taller than the top of the wall. The gate posts were brick mixed with rock. The walls appeared jutting outwards like two palms open. Within he could not see much except part of a black tiled roof and white walls. On both sides of the gate posts were mounted ordinary bulbs in glass holders. They lit right into the road. Residential street lighting by the municipality had now become a national historic heritage or folklore issue.

“Can I have your phone number Keith?”

“Do you want the land or cell?” he had asked.

How many strangers had she given her land line or cell phones? How many of them had telephoned to arrange another date? Well. It was part of being human. Would there ever be a time she would say, ‘No Garry, wouldn’t like me giving my contacts’. ‘You are married?’. ‘Engaged to be married.’

“Sure. I will give you my cell.”

He turned and trotted down the carving road heading towards where he could get transport back to the shops. She could hear the sound of his heels on the road. He moved in the middle of the street. One way of preventing getting jumped upon was moving in the middle giving yourself ample time to judge situations. He had not eaten his supper. He didn’t like cooking when he was living by himself.

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