Red Pill

An elegy for a friend.

we are born free
they said,
but everywhere we are in our chains
they said
choose the red pill
and know the truth; be free
so we stood in the shade of a snot apple tree and enoch g. mlalazi’s palsied hand
thumped against the seam of his pants
he watched the white boy for a moment
the arrogant and foolish white boy
and determination set his jaw
he cleared his throat
and his quiet voice trembled as
he called to the white boy standing
on the pile of dhambo sand
hamba lapa isandlha, mfama
what did he say, the white boy asked me
his eyes confused his place in the world suddenly lost
he said bring me the hammer, boy
he said bring me the hammer, white boy
and as I said this, a tiny smile curled
across enoch g. mlalazi’s old man face and I saw him swallow the red pill
and he stood like a man when the world turned upside down
I saw him; he stood like a man
it is never too late, Morpheus, to free a soul
it is never too late
to break chains.

I wrote this poem after a small exchange I witnessed and took part of in western Zimbabwe. Mr. Mlalazi was a local man I hired as the day to day supervisor of several projects for which I was responsible. He was past retirement age, but based on many recommendations from people who knew him, he became part of our team.

More than merely a part of a team, he and I, from backgrounds so completely. different from one another, became close friends. He grew up in Rhodesia under a white minority government, lived through the long, brutal war for independence and harsh international sanctions. After Zimbabwean independence, because he was from the minority ethnic group, he faced discrimination and another brutal war against his people by Robert Mugabe’s government, a small war called the Gukurahundi, "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains,” during which as many as 20,000 people were murdered by Mugabe’s North Korean trained 5th Brigade.

Through it all, he never lost his humanity. He was one of the kindest, most decent men I ever knew, and maybe the wisest. Only once do I remember him telling me of the struggles he experienced during the wars and changing governments he lived through. “Even though everything keeps changing and they say we are now free, for me nothing has changed.”

I think often about him and what he meant to me these days. He passed years ago from Parkinson’s disease, but I was living far away and couldn’t be with him. Now I am remembering him and honoring him publicly. I wrote about him in a recent piece I called “Why Kids Should Learn History,” because the incident in the story revealed his playful nature and the fun we had as colleagues.

The poem above is about an incident that took place on a job site after I hired the son of an American professor at the request of his father, with the understanding that the boy would receive no special treatment and would be Mr. Mlalazi’s gofer boy.

In the context of Zimbabwean history, the word “boy” was a heavy, ugly word used to describe African men, no matter how old. I think it was even more offensive to me than the other ubiquitous slur “kaffir,” and it sickened me to know my friend Mlalazi endured hearing it during his lifetime.

In the incident described in the poem, I heard Mr. Mlalazi ask the white kid to bring him a hammer in the local language. It amused me, because he called the kid “boy,” which was a completely innocuous use because the kid was, afterall, a boy. But as I watched Mlalazi use the word, I saw an almost imperceptible grin. I looked at him and grinned broadly, and we both started laughing, to the temporary bewilderment of the kid. Somehow that little incident stayed with me and taught me something profound. After a lifetime of verbal abuse, when he had a chance to turn the tables, he did it with humor and without malice. He used the word the way it should be used.

I loved him for that, and for his friendship, and for the deep lessons of life he taught me.

Mr. Mlalazi, rest in peace. You were a quiet giant among men, and when you had a chance to abuse, you always chose grace. God bless you.

P.S. The red pill reference is from a movie called the Matrix, where people could continue living in a false reality of someone else’s making if they took the blue pill, but if they took the red pill, they could free their minds from external oppression, constraints, and prejudice that kept them in a false bondage.