Planet Savage: an extract from Tuelo Gabonewe’s book

His parents are alcoholics, seem to neglect him, and his life in the township is a fraught and violent one. But part of the delight of this book is how a moral core of family values emerges from this messy, dysfunctional home. The true value of what he has only emerges when he is sent to the rural areas to his grandparents. Gabonewe brilliantly and beautifully explodes the myth of the rural homeland as a place of Africa tradition, culture and solid values.

What the blurb says is true: “Planet Savage is a shining début novel, filled with humour, from Tuelo Gabonewe, who will leave you with some profound insights while you roll on the floor laughing.”

Extract

I am nine years eleven and my name is Leungo. An unlucky kid wedged with no chance of escape in a world of savages. That’s me. My old man, my mom, their friends, their friends’ friends, our relatives, the lot of them. There’s a barbarian everywhere you look, and this is not even a creature feature. My father is a man of medium build. He’s neither sturdy nor is he slight. He’s got a terrific personality and sense of humour and everything, but as far as looks go, he’s an indigent. I can’t for the life of me imagine what it is my mom sees in the dude. Good thing my mom’s genes overpowered his or I’d be in the same swamp as my old man. Here’s a sketch of the fellow in question for you: he has a beard that lines his mandible in dots like an aerial view of a rural Zulu homestead.

The whites of his eyes are eternally yellow, beige, like the moon at noon, and believe me when I tell you that the wise gods were feeling a great deal generous the day they blessed him with a head. You won’t believe this, but he’s got beautiful legs, smooth and without a scar, greatly unbecoming when put together with the rest of the pieces that collectively complete the curious piece of creation that is my father. That’s my old man right there. He’s thirty-six five. A knockout beauty’s my mother. The prettiest face in the world, fat brown lips and all, smooth ebony skin from crown to instep, sweet white eyes, an exquisite torso with Phobos and Deimos side by side, holding up. Curves. Legs.

A stretch mark here, a love handle there, but that’s nothing. She’s thirty-nine eleven.

We live in a township, my kind and me. We live in Tlhabane, one of the biggest, busiest locations of the North West Province. My dad works at a building materials factory or corporation or whatever the thing is called. He’s been working there since the Middle Ages. Malome Jobe and company often mock him: ‘I say, Rasta, when are you going on pension, bloke? Come bro, Geez, you’ve been working at that place forever. ‘Take the piggy bank and run. Surely there’s enough in there by now to take care of your ass until you croak?’

My old man’s head, the same oversized pumpkin, is smooth as a spoon yet everyone calls him Rasta. There was apparently a time in his life, probably before I was even conceived for I have sure as hell never with my eyes seen a wisp of hair on his scalp, when he wore his hair in dreadlocks. His response to the question why he doesn’t take his pension and call it a day is always the same: ‘That’s my boy’s money, boys. Anyway, you fools would kick your mother’s potties if I ever left work. I’m the bishop of this clique. Y’all should start calling me Dad.’

I know immediately what he means. He says it like it’s some joke but it’s not funny. My dad is a thief and I’m not ashamed to say it. In the middle of the month, and this is like every month, when pockets are parched and heads are hung, it is him who takes it upon himself to drive the pack back to the river, or at least to a pond if times are really hectic. I don’t know how he does it, and I’ve been to his place of work quite a few times and have noticed that there is always a guard on the wide-eyed watch at both the entrance and the exit of that huge hall crammed to the ceiling with building materials, but my father always escapes with chilisi, as he calls the stuff he plunders. Twenty litre paints, brushes, window frames, wheelbarrows, hammers and nails, iron rods, crooked pipes that I don’t know what they’re called, adhesives, small stepladders, vices, the works; I’ve seen them all. The longest it ever takes him and the pack to score a buyer and get rid of that chilli is, on average, forty-five minutes. And so it goes: the deal is clinched and a cash payment is made, and the heaven’s reservoirs’ valves snap, and it rains.

Planet Savage is by Tuelo Gabonewe. You can follow the author on Twitter @Tuelo_Gabonewe

ISBN: 9781770097513
E-book ISBN: 9781431403042
168 pages
Review written by Brent Meersman for GroundUp.