Free The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga

tell them to reverse the transaction, can I? I mean, we’re lucky having that much money in the account hasn’t raised any suspicion to begin with. Now what if I go in there and start tampering with it? Then what? That’s a sure way of getting people to ask me things I have no answers for. The only option we have is to meet him.
    He’s right. I tell him I agree. Then I let another moment pass before I say I quit my job.
    Ruan turns around. You quit?
    I walked out before cashing up.
    He takes a moment to look up the street. Maybe you’ll find another one, he says.
    I sigh. I guess he’s trying to encourage me. Which is good. I could use more of that.
    Jesus, Ruan says then. I did the same thing.
    I turn to him, surprised. He falls back on the fence and knits his fingers together. Ruan stretches his arms out to crack the knuckles on each hand, and I notice an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. It reminds me of a game-show contestant I once saw as a child on a show called
Zama Zama.
The contestant, a man from the rural Eastern Cape, had directed a similar smile at the host, Nomsa Nene, at the crowd, and then finally at his family, after choosing the wrong key for the grand prize.
    It was a shitty job, I say to him. When you told us about the money, I don’t know. I just took my cap off and left. The strangest thing was that I hadn’t even decided about accepting it. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
    Ruan nods. I felt the same way about the firm, he says.
    We go quiet over another cigarette. Ruan smokes it down to the filter and throws it away. Then he lights another one and I take it from him when he’s done.
    It’s a favor, you know? To both myself and my uncle. He even spits, now, whenever he sees me in the office parking lot.
    I nod. Ruan’s told us this story before.
    The company he works for lies in an old office park in Pinelands. Their building, one of fifty five-story units that face out to Ndabeni, an industrial suburb north of Maitland, came as a last resort to him. Early on, when Ruan started applying for posts as an assistant network administrator, he ruined his CV by losing three jobs in succession. The reason for dismissal was a slew of unforeseen panic attacks: from the copy machine to the kitchen area, he could be found curled up, or fainting on carpet tiles or buffed lino. Even though he always went back to work a week later with an apology, and sometimes a note from a doctor he’d paid to say it was epilepsy, he was always fired. Over the phone, even as his former employers expressed their sympathy and good wishes, they described him as too great a liability to keep on a payroll, and suggested he seek out a program for special care.
    For a while, it felt as if there had been no options left open to him, and then—after a series of emails, all dispatched with great reluctance, but pushed by the pressure of an increasing interest rate—his uncle relented and put him on a conditional intern’s contract. His uncle’s oldest son had recently relocated to the UK, and this freed up the flat in Sea Point, where Ruan was to stay, paying rent into his uncle’s account. This is what led to his present situation. Ruan’s probation period extended itself to more than four years, and even though he renews his contract every twelve months, there’s never any mention of a pay increase. This is how he still gives a lot of what he earns to his uncle and the bank.
    I squash the cigarette ember with my toe and kick it towards the gutter. It rolls in a light breeze, stopping just shy of the pavement’s lip.
    I don’t know if I thought of myself as having already taken the money, Ruan says. I just saw it there, when that SMS came, and I thought other things could happen.
    I move away from the fence and settle myself on the edge of the pavement. Ruan doesn’t follow, and for a while the two of us speak without facing each