Growing Pains.

Mann, Chris

Growing Pains

   Ten years old and in my pyjamas
   I stood on the staircase of a hotel
   and saw my father talking in the bar.

   It must have been well after dinner
   in a small country town, Bothaville,
   Kroonstad, it doesn't matter which.

   We'd driven all day in his Dodge.
   Maize stretched to every horizon
   as car after chrome-trimmed car

   cruised down the hot straight road
   towards the watery bright shimmer
   floating at the top of every rise.

   This was the deep south of Africa,
   its shacks, goats and skinny dogs
   a kind of rural Mississippi ghetto.

   and ours that festive cavalcade
   the Mobilgas Economy Run
   whose Pegasus fiew on every car.

   Dad was the Regional Manager
   and I was so proud In every town
   men at the garage shook his hand.

   I can still see how he stood in the bar,
   a beer in one hand, his white shirt
   open at the neck, the collar turned up

   as he slung an arm around a mechanic
   who'd come into the bar in overalls
   when everyone, all of a sudden, laughed.

   I turned on the stairs and sliding a hand
   along the banister went up to my room
   and lay on the bed, baffled and miserable.

   I was, I realise now, discovering
   separation, foreboding and love,
   all feelings a boy had yet to name.

   My mind was a windstorm, shooting up
   and whirling thoughts that went nowhere
   like dust-devils scampering on a plain.