Katle’s introduction
He was the kind of man who used bible quotes to coax women into taking him seriously. He figured since he sported waves and changed his earrings depending on his outfit, he came off a little shallow. And even though he was, he at least wanted a chance to make himself the exception to the rule. The one about men consistently distracted by their reflection in everything from a parked car’s window to a still puddle in their path. It wasn’t his fault he was this way. Katle had seen his parent’s marriage fall apart precisely because Thando, his father, couldn’t keep up with his mother’s healthy routine of plundering through their savings for a procedure here and a pilates class there. Katle figured dearest mama Janet had never come to terms her body’s inability to shed excess weight after giving birth to her precious baby boy. And Janet loved to hold a grudge when it came to her metabolism’s indefinite hiatus. Growing up, Katle couldn’t even tell if she was angry with him or his father. Thando would drown teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar in his peanut-butter porridge and she’d just stand there on the other side of the island in the kitchen. Glaring at first, then slowly her hands would move to the side of her hips and she’d begin massaging her love handles with this pasty look in her eyes.
With her son, her disdain was a lot less subtle. Janet would sit with a tub of gel to smooth out what she liked to call the clumpy mess that was his hair. Then she’d take the thinnest comb and sort through knots tight enough to give a 7-year old whiplash whenever she made it through to the back of his head. Listen baby, no one likes an ugly fucker. The easiest way to keep people around is to keep up your appearances. Don’t let baba’s nasty habits rub off on you. There’s nothing attractive about scratching your ass and sniffing your finger nails to check if you need a bath. Of-course this was an exaggeration. Thando was no less cleanly than the next man often struck with bill for just a nip and tuck my love.
This is not to say that Katle and his mother were not close. In fact, their co-dependence is likely what complicates his self-image as he grows into a man. He could pinpoint specific moments his mother had tweaked his world view in the bad kind of way. He used to enjoy the tummy rubs she’d give him before bed. All until he’d watched Janet in a rage after her daily appointment with the bathroom scale. She stormed into the living room, her kitten heels slapping against the bottom of her feet like an applause for the all the steps she was getting in (all of this before their daily school-run set for 7:15 am). She ripped the newspaper out of Thando’s hands and straddled him, shifting her weight forward so their pleasure parts were only separated by her pyjamas and his faded corduroy pants. It scared Katle for a moment, he’d never seen them this close. And luckily at 9 years old he didn’t know what usually happened when a woman sat atop her husband so hungrily. Only what happened next managed to alter his brain chemistry in a different way. Janet placed her hands onto Thando’s beer-gut and tried to sink her 50-dollar acrylic nails into his skin. She hissed at him, leaving specks of spit against his neck and chin, relaying all the different ways he revolted her. What was it she’d said?... Ah yes, I swear if I have to watch you jiggle and shuffle around like a pregnant woman…I’ll cut you open…What exactly got you heaving like a fucking cow in labour?... Thando hadn’t said a word. What was there to say? It was clear that the disgust he boiled inside of her was beyond extraction. For a moment he’d been excited, mistaking her hatred for a spur of passion he hadn’t received from her in years. This was the only introduction to marital intimacy Katle ever received and shortly after, every time Janet offered to give him a belly rub, he sucked his stomach in, lest she try and rip out the packet of crisps he’d eaten in the corner of the pantry.
By the time Katle was 12 his mother had moved out. And a year later, she’d brought home a man who insisted that Katle call him ‘papa’ even though they were only seven years apart. The man…boy?... was Thando’s aesthetic opposite. So precisely sculpted that Janet pretended to cut herself against his skin every time she wanted to have some fun. The first time Katle heard his mother giggle was with this faceless Narcissus, which pretty much cemented the philosophy he lived by now; no one likes an ugly fucker. And if he didn’t know it then, he wholly understood that the only gift worth cherishing his mother had ever given him, was a healthy dose of body dysmorphia. Whatever it took to keep being the smooth operator he was now. That and of course the Bible quotes.
— Matikudza Chiromo
