The Nightlife of Oshikango

Elton or Adorene?

The old lady stopped at a picture on the wall.                                                                                                        It was a family portrait, a teenage boy flanked by his parents.

  'Our son sold his soul to Satan,' she said. 'Bitches, that's what our son started calling us women. A love affair with a girlfriend went sour and left him devastated. Elton developed an utter loathing for every woman on this planet. He made an oath to kill himself only after he has decapitated the most bitches he possibly could without being detected.'   

The old lady was addressing the framed photograph and seemingly oblivious of her two visitors.    'We were so embarrassed when we heard the rumors that our son had started sleeping with other men. We were so ashamed when the rumors were confirmed that the boy was having anal intercourse with other men, and with so many of them at that.'                                                                She went quiet and stood facing the wall for a long moment before turning to her guests.               'We took him to a psychoanalyst to unclog his mind and the doctor warned us that our boy has fallen prey to a progressively demonic cult.'                                                                                                      She could not continue and for a while the three of them listened to the old clock ticking away on the wall.                                                                                                                                                                             'We loved Elton. We wanted him back, but the devil turned our boy into a girl. Adorene Bruwer, that fake woman our son had become, was not welcome in our home.'

                                                                        ******  

Adorene Bruwer was looking at Bobby again.                                                                                                            'I have invited a couple of friends to my house for your welcoming party,' she said.                        He nodded, his eyes roving over the phone in his hand.                                                                                She threw a quick glance at the road and back at him.                                                                             'There's this one little thing, Bobby. I don't want you to call me 'Mother' or 'Mommy' in front of other people.'                                                                                                                                                                       'It's fine with me,' Bobby said.                                                                                                                                         'I don't want you to call me 'Aunt' or 'Aunty'. You can call other women by those names, but not me. I'm not old. I'm not fat. I'm not ugly. So you don't call me by those names.'                          Bobby nodded.                                                                                                                                                                   'It's fine with me,' he said.                                                                                                                                           'I'm not like any other woman. I'm unique. My name is Adorene. You call me by that name and that name only.'                                                                                                                                                                     'I understand,' Bobby said. 'I'll call you by your name only.'                                                               Adorene looked at his t-shirt and glanced down at his shoes.                                                                 'We'll be home in a short while. I want you to get rid of your dirty clothes and those ghastly shoes as soon as we have arrived.'                                                                                                                      Bobby nodded and looked at his sneakers with regret.                                                                                    He should have worn his church shoes.                                                                                                                    He wriggled his feet deeper into the car's footwell and looked ahead of him.