I tend to refer to South Africa as a dear disaster wherever and whenever I can. After everything’s been said and done, it remains a nation torn at its core. While the shit-stained boot of racial politics sits firmly on the other foot nowadays, it hasn’t stopped the rickety baby grand of rainbow-hued harmony being kicked to sorry hell, with both ebony and ivory splinters flying everywhere. Yessir, such is honky-tonk and so it goes.
Corruption, crime, poverty and inequality remain running rife as the haves and have-nots, having cast down their gaze from the once lofty promise of democratic reform, eye each other with growing scorn across the schism that separates them.
And yet, the band plays on. After all, this is big sky country. The earth yearns for your weary feet and whispers your true name. Honestly, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the Namakwaland come into bloom in spring, or sat stoned on your lonesome high up in the Drakensberg, sighing sweetly with the breeze. As a white boy having grown up here with the silver spoon of privileged Afrikanerdom - which I’ve somehow managed to whittle down to a jaded shiv in a prison of my own design - shoved squarely in my fist, one gets used to this schizophrenic two-step between sun-drenched natural splendour and the dark heart of human suffering. Once you’ve been gone for a while, though, it rips right back into your weathered hide.
One early summer morning, having just returned from the shores of China where my woman and I have finally decided to quit selling our souls in well-paid jobs and rather chance the blunt devilry of home, I was strolling to the beach through a sleepy settlement in our native Overberg that we’d figured would offer a cushy landing. In the distance, the shacks of the sprawling black township on the edge of town stood etched against the plush double-storeys of white suburbia. It was weird being back. Slightly hungover and lost in thought, I was already questioning our decision. The red carpet hasn’t exactly been rolled out for a hero’s welcome. Our friends and family seemed vague, aloof, distracted. Given the utter Trojan horseshit that had enveloped the world as the four masked riders of the Apocalypse seems to have at long last bolted merrily forth in those times, I guess we couldn’t blame them. My old man was so pissed at our spurning the rare fool’s gold of gainful employment that he hardly spoke to me. It hurt. I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was so upset about. Christ, I didn’t know what I was going to do with the rest of my life either. As I finally stepped out onto the dunes, the first rays of the sun - bouncing of the barbed wire fence enclosing a massive vacant property on the shoreline that could have easily housed a hundred hungry men - cut my eyes to slits.
Little, it seemed, had changed.
Still, it felt good to be alone. Flanked by the gloss of murmuring waves, I ambled on aimlessly as the chainsaw in my head slowly began to splutter in salty, static calm. Eventually I gave in to the silence. For a brief and easy eternity I was just a little kid again, idly picking up shells as my footprints staggered the sand.
Looking up, I was surprised to see a tall figure a few yards up ahead. He was approaching with a strange, nervy shuffle, a drawn yellow hoody blazing bright against his dusky skin. When I saw his eyes, I knew I was in trouble. With an absurdly fluid motion, he slowly took a 9mm pistol out of his pocket and cocked it.
No, no, no, my blissed-out brain tried to scream itself awake, this is just some silly joke. It has to be a fucking joke, right? He took a few more steps before raising the gun, aiming carefully at my sickened smile.
“Phone,” he said. “Money.”
For a middle-aged geezer I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve been in loads of sticky situations, and I know how to handle myself. It comes with the territory. But I’ve never had a piece shoved in my face before. Honing in on the wide, wooden stare that burned into mine with white-hot hatred on the blunt side of the barrel, I realized that there was no way for me to close the distance between us. Also, I couldn’t feel my legs.
With one's entire existence tethered to your phone in cashless China, I haven’t carried a wallet in almost two years. And I’d since been making a point of weaning myself from my mobile as a matter of principle.
“Brother,” I heard myself saying from afar, “look.” With shaking hands, I quickly turned my pockets inside out, tossing the lone shells onto the sand. They looked forlorn and out of place, like the distant alien remnants of some other, bygone age.
I flipped my palms toward him. “Nothing.”
Clearly agitated, he didn’t move. Sucking in the big breaths now, I felt myself slowly sinking under a queasy iron tide. As a scathing last resort, I flung off my shirt and wheeled all the way around, hoping to show that I had nothing to hide. He did not seem impressed. As the mute seconds slipped horribly by, the lack of loot seemed to both confound and enrage him. Although he was holding all the cards, we seemed to have reached some bizarre kind of stalemate, neither of us knowing what the hell to do next.
“I’m going to kill you,” he suddenly offered, stepping in and driving the steel right between my eyes.
Shit. I’ve slept with the wives of rich and powerful men, and got within arm’s length to monarchs by virtue of press passes. I crisscrossed Europe on frozen back roads, high on cough syrup and fear, aging overnight in the rearview mirror. I played Tetris with wolves, and broke in thoroughbred stallions worth more than any throne. I had never been to war, but I bore in my soul the thudding of starfire.
And here I was, about to be shot dog dead by a hophead who didn’t even know my name. I shut my eyes. What in God’s name has it all been for?
“Nothing,” I said one more time, choking on the snot and fury.
I felt the gun being drawn away, leaving an icy welt on my brow. Blinking in the glare, I was stumped to see my assailant slowly backing off. This time he did not meet my gaze.
“Fuck off,” he hissed. “Get the fuck out of here.”
I grabbed the shells and left the shirt. Sprinting like a dassie across the rocks, I made for the water’s edge and tried to keep low, should he for some reason change his mind. He probably figured I wouldn’t go to the cops, as that would be a nightmarish ordeal in itself and nothing was stolen.
The bastard was right. It wasn’t worth the hassle and I didn’t have the time. Deep down, I already knew I would be back there with all my gear soon enough, sweating out a horrible cure.
I picked up my pace. Damn, it felt good to have my legs back again. I thought of my woman at home, still sprawled in sleep like a swastika, and my old man’s strong, beautiful hands. This was a day for righteous jubilation. This was a day for beer and fires.
The sun seared into my shoulders. I imagined what I must have looked like to the vast and broken earth as I sped away, faster and faster but still somehow locked in place, pale as shredded silver against a sky bruised black and blue.
Brother, I could almost hear it chuckling at my feet, welcome home.
