There's work, and then there's WORK!

The work was coming along nicely. There had been two exhibitions at Spaza Art in Troyeville, and Wayne and Karl had asked him to exhibit with them at their studio in Newtown.
There had even been sales. And Vusi was at last getting a grip on what he was trying to say with the work. “You Get What You Give” he had called the last exhibition. It was all about self-determination. How you make your own reality.
He’d done it – made his own reality – so he knew what he was talking about. His name wasn’t even Vusi. It was Tinashe. But Vusi Zulu is a nice, South African name, one that comes without any kind of Zimbabwean baggage, any kind of perceived political agenda. He wanted his themes to be universal, so Tinashe had shed his cultural baggage at the border and become Vusi.
The themes? Hmn, what were the themes... “A colourful celebration of the individual’s search for himself,” the art critic woman had written in The Star Tonight.
She was probably right, even if she was only trying to get into his pants with a sympathetic review. To give her credit, she’d pulled it off too. Nicola. With wild auburn tresses and rings and the nose stud and that hippy vibe he had such a weakness for.
It was not the first time his work had got him laid, nor did he expect it to be the last. A cat on a motorbike had got him laid that time. A chubby orange ceramic Persian on a scooter with a sidecar. And a frog with goggles along for the ride.
That was the one Nicola had liked best, although Vusi’s favourite was the violin bow having sex with the violin. Of course that one was one of the only two pieces that had failed to sell.
Still, he’d made thirty grand off that show – plus a killer commission for some corporate work at Standard Bank. It looked like he’d be able to kick in the day job fairly soon.
Or the night job, more accurately. Manning the all-night pizza hatch at Tarquino Bake, serving double-cheesy pizzas to people so drunk some of them struggled to pronounce “ham and salami”.
But you only exhibit once every few months and the J.O.B. helps tide you over between gigs, Vusi told himself as he sliced up some salami discs and sprinkled the cheese on.
He was working on some new stuff, so it helped to have some day-to-day income to cover materials and rental for the studio.
He was gonna call the new stuff “Breakout,” maybe. Or perhaps just “Freedom”. It was going to be about transcending the boundaries of what you’re supposed to be. Inspired by the cat and the frog on the motorbike, sort of. The first of the new lot was a tree on a diving board, with its branches spread out like it was about to dive off. And instead of a swimming pool, there was a big pudding. A peppermint whip with chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top. Now did that say “Breakout” or “Freedom”, Vusi wondered as he delicately extricated the pies from the oven and began boxing them.
It was probably going to be “Breakout”, come to think of it. Freedom was just a little to clichéd. Particularly in South Africa. Now in Zim, freedom meant something completely different.
Done. “Two ham and salami,” Vusi called through the hatch to a guy in a pink blazer. “Hey! Two ham and salami” The guy was having some kind of altercation with someone on the Jolly Roger balcony.
His mate eventually came over and paid for the pizzas. He turned and took them across to his irate buddy on the pavement. But the craziest thing was what this drunk, angry dude did with his pie. He opened the box, and without even examining the contents, grabbed the doughy, cheesy disc and threw it Frisbee style across the road at the Jolly Roger balcony.
Vusi watched the flying pizza with interest. It wasn’t a solid disc, like a Frisbee, so it actually wobbled a little as it floated. Like it was flapping its wings.
A flying pizza! It was to be the last pizza that Vusi ever baked.
That night he started work on his next piece for the breakout exhibition. He began by flattening the clay out into a disc, then rippling the edges a little and fashioning some feathers. Like the pizza was flying…