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“ Then I see this guy swaying on the dance floor drunk out of his mind! And some little girl whispering in his ear!”

The room erupts with laughter.

“ Wait…wait… then she puts her arms around his neck says something to him and this fool laughs at her!”

Howls of laughter fill the room once again reaching noise levels to disrupt the ear drum. Xolani is sprawled across the long sofa hitting his hand on the floor and digging is face into the arm rest. Jerry is bent over holding his stomach, jumping up and down to express the agony that the laughter is causing, his low voice transformed into a high pitched cackle. J.T sits behind him in a corner and smiles at the room from behind the mixing desk. Ndumo crawls in circles on the carpet gasping for his breath, with tears streaming down his face.

“Hau what was I supposed to do? She goes to school with my little sister!”

“No wait, what I wanna know is what that girl said to you...”

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Ndumo announces from the floor. He rolls over onto his back and still choking on laughter. A sneer slowly crosses his face. His big and lazy eyes concentrating on him, his afro makes a cushion for his head to relax itself without having to touch the navy carpet. He pulls out a cigarette box from the pocket of his baby blue skinnys that he sags just below his ass. He takes a cigarette out from the box, pops it into his mouth and takes a box of matches out the other pocket strikes a stick and ignites his paper cancer cylinder. Xolani sits up on the couch lays his head back on the rest, he slides his back down pointing his knees out while keeping his feet flat on the couch. He also reaches for his cigarette box and finds it empty after flicking it open.

“Skyf.”

He calls to Ndumo. Ndumo throws him the cigarette box which Xolani catches with one hand against his chest without having to move too much. After tossing the box aside he takes his lighter out his pocket and lights the cigarette on the second click. Once he’s done the lighter is tossed aside.

“ Kuluma ndoda, sifunu’kwazi!” Ndumo directs at him.

Xolani begins a routine that they were all too familiar with. It was described as X’s performance. It was the thing that made him such an endearing performer. The enigmatic ability to hold a secret from an audience yet allure them to the fact that they needed to know what it was, making them hunger for more while he gave them nothing. It started with his head going down showing the top part of his head while his dread acted as a veil. Then the cigarette disappearing behind the veil and his hand coming back empty.

“Hey! We’re not your fucking groupies! Hurry up and tell us the story so that we can get back to lacing this song!”

J.T had a way of controlling everyone when they let things go too far. Being the oldest in the group this didn’t really surprise anyone. Behind the spectacles a short and stout man with a bolding head. Xolani snaps out of his trance and whines in a high pitched voice

“ J.T why you always got to kill my buzz?” Xolani lifts his shoulders and hands to the side.

“Cause you’re buzz is killing me. Now what did that little chick say?” Xolani sucks air into his mouth placing his front teeth on his inner bottom lip to express his disapproval.

“Whatever man.” He says clearly deflated.

“She was just like I’m willing.”

The room goes quiet everybody holding in their laughter anticipating the punch line on its way.

“ And I was like willing to do what? And she was like willing to take it as far as you want as I wanted to. That’s when I laughed at her…”

The room stays silent except for a few awkward chuckles that come from Jerry. J.T and Ndumo quietly look at each other and shake their heads.

“So Xolani tell us again…” Ndumo begins “Why didn’t you do big things with this girl?”

Jerry protests on Xolani’s behalf “The man is recently married guy!”

“Since when was that an excuse?” asks Ndumo.

He gets up to put out his cigarette on the ashtray on the desk. He leans his backside on the mixing desk next to J.T sitting in the corner. The baby blue skinnys divide the white shirt from the his white sneakers almost making him look smurf like. His height and skin pigment give rest to this notion. Ndumo puts his drumsticks into the back of his sponge like fro making the seem like antennae, he then crosses his arms focusing his big and lazy eyes on Xolani.

“Truthfully what I really wanna know is, if the model older brother is indeed living the life that he projects to his little sister or if he’s fallen off the wagon.”

J.T stands up next to Ndumo and he too crosses his arms then stares and smiles at Xolani.

“Fuck off. I don’t need to explain myself to you guys. Let’s just finish up here.”

“Run all you want, you’ll just keep coming back to the same spot and we’ll still be here waiting for the answer to the same question. Hey! You could use that in a song lyric, that’s some deep shit right there. I love the shit I can make up on the spot.”

Ndumo professes clearly chuffed with himself. J.T sits down and turns to face the mixing desk. Ndumo takes the sticks out his fro as he walks into the recording booth to record his drumming. He begins to sing the words he just said to Xolani. He does a fast drum roll starting at his legs and making the last snap on his feet to accompany his horrific singing voice. Xolani gives him a look that turns him around sits him down and get ready to start drumming. All the while Ndumo lazes his gaze right back at him, without letting the sneer fade.