I've spent most of my life explaining to people that winter is my favourite season. What's not to love? An excuse to be indoors? Yes. Excessive coffee consumption under the guise that it's cold? Yes. Better sleep? Fuck yes. You can't find much fault in the frigid air. Of course, my arthritis-affected gran may beg to differ (the elderly in general actually), but I firmly believe that winter is where it's at.
That was until today when I, weighed down by three blankets and the weight of an existential crisis of sorts, decided that winter really isn't where it's at. It's damn dark for 6AM. It's cold. And for reasons unknown to me, I'm always fucking hungry. My skeletal-like appearance might suggest that that really shouldn't be a problem (a special mention has to go out to my fast-metabolism), but staying fed costs money - and that's something I don't have much of. Of course, my residence would suggest that to be the case. My house is in the bluest of blue collar neighbourhoods where everybody's employed but ironically broke. Where skin scraping screams from Mrs. Archibald across the street are ignored because we've all got our own shit to deal with. Besides, Mrs. Archibald isn't the only one dealing with her husband's drunken fists. I mean you have our next door neighbour Mrs. Roberts, who is affectionately known as Aunty Rebecca, who gets beat to the point where her 60 rand shades have become a permanent fixture on her face. Normally, one would try to make a joke out of the fact that we've only seen her light green eyes twice in the past 2 months, but it's just so... normal. It's about as normal as stopping by the shop after 6 for a loaf of bread and wandering into the bottle store on the way back. You just don't joke about mundanities like that. It makes for bad comedy and even worse gossip, why? Because it's everywhere. This is life on the South Side. You see things, you know they're bad, but you don't say anything about it because you've got your own shit to get through (unless you're Mrs. Green or anybody living at number 6 actually).
Luckily, I've never witnessed a man beating a woman up close. No, my dad wasn't exactly a saint. I've been licked enough times to know that the man has boundaries, expectations and quite possibly a repressed sadistic urge. It's just that my mom left. We don't discuss her absence much in the house because my father believes that a man has no time for that type of thing. Bitches come and they go, apparently. I don't know if that mantra resonates with me, after all that is my mother we're talking about, but for his sake (and mine) we uphold it. My aunt has told me a lot about my mother and how I have her eyes - light brown and drenched in passion, soaked in wanderlust. Aunty said that when my father was young he went to the same bakery that she worked at for 3 months, not because the danishes were bomb or because the bread was particularly fresh, but because my mom was there waiting for him behind the counter. She said that my mom's ever enchanting gaze transformed what I know to be a stoic man, a man absent of feeling, a man ensnared by his shitty job, a man mired in frustration - into a lover. Love is the catalyst for change it seems. Then again, so is heartbreak. And I guess the lover Aunty knew became the man that I now know. Cold and distant, disillusioned with life and most definitely disillusioned with love.
Before I turned 2, my mother had upped and left. So can I blame my dad for being the man that he is now? Not really. I mean it wouldn't hurt to smile more, or to care for more than Lotto and Liverpool's fortunes and the welding plant and Castle Lager, but at the same time I understand. He just wants the fire rekindled, and not by just anybody wielding a match but by her - Evelyn Adrienne Frost, the girl with the curly hair and the enchanting gaze, the girl with an innocent gap-toothed smile and a penchant for wisecracks about his job at the welding plant. I guess I do too. I always wanted her back with my dad because she'd be back with me, back with us. I wasn't the only one being raised by a single parent in the neighbourhood, most people's father's had fucked off long before they were born. What made me the anomaly was the fact that I was the only one that was being raised by a single father. Maybe my mother didn't see the lure in the concrete, in the grime. Love couldn't give her the future she wanted. What was waiting for her other than children, a marriage bound together by nothing other than convenience and a life wasted in love faded by the hardships of existence? She had to get out. And I really want to believe that wherever she ran to, the life she wanted stood waiting for her with outstretched arms. I want to believe that that made her happy. Whether it did or not, I never knew, but I'm determined to find out somehow someday.
