It’s the morning after the night at Naughties’ Nightclub and Silas chucks the condoms at me. ‘You’re a loser and a freak,’ he says. He tells Mondli that they’re wasting their time with me. I failed the third test. I didn’t get laid last night. I’ll never be a real man like them. I must voetsek.

I tell Silas he’s so right. I don’t want to pass his stupid tests. I don’t want to drink shooters and smoke Swazi. And I don’t want to sleep with some girl whose name I don’t know and who doesn’t want to know mine. Not today.

Today I want to dance with a girl called Babs who likes my moves even when I move all wrong. And tomorrow, when I learn if her real name is Barbara or Babalwa, and when she asks if I’m Francis or Franklin, maybe I’ll take the third test.

Maybe me and Babs will take the test together. But maybe it will be some other girl who also likes me just the way I am. And if it’s not tomorrow, it will be in my own good time.

My homies Silas and Mondli say they’re going now, will they check me tomorrow? Silas voice cracks when he asks me.

And I say maybe.

THE END

Image: Griffith Chris

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