CRIMES OF A SERIOUS HACKING NATURE
I've always loved hitching. I love the feeling of losing msyelf in my surroundings, in the long walks to better spots, and in the intimate chats I have with complete strangers. So when I flew into a warm March afternoon at Jan Smuts, after a few years in London, I put my thumb out and headed for my sister's place in Secunda.
Very soon though, it all felt horribly wrong. The highway was a brutal, juddering horror of screaming metal and closed, suspicious faces. I was slightly drunk, and it was getting late - half past three - and I had valuables on me. My fancy leather jacket was folded over my arm, and my Cannon camera was tucked into my backpack. I felt like a walking beacon for any enterprising mugger as I trudged along, and it felt like every eighteen wheeler bellowing past in the slow lane was out to get me - wing me on the hip and leave me to die a slow death, in full view of this rushing, paranoid horde.
I managed to get to Bocksburg just before five. I found the taxi-ranks and walked around in the fading light until I found a ride. Then I sat in the back seat waiting for the taxi to fill up. This wasn't so bad for the first hour, because there were quite a few seats that needed to be filled. But during the second hour, when it got dark and there wasn't enough space left for a piccanin, we all began to grumble.
Eventually the driver strode up and we set off. We rocked along quietly, no one making a sound in the creaking little space, until the small man beside me began to ask questions. There was something in his tone that I didn't trust, so when he asked me where I was from I told him England. I thought this had a nice, neutral ring to it.
"Yes,' he said. 'England is a nice place. The black people there are not treated like animals, like they are here. Here the black live like animals, in the locations' - he hissed the word. What did I think about this? Did I think it was fair, that the white people had everything, while the black people had nothing? He was talking quietly but urgently, and his voice was getting louder. I could barely see him. He was just a small presence beside me in the dark, pressing against my shoulder.
'No, that sounds wrong,' I said nervously, thick tongued from the beers I'd drunk earlier at Jan Smuts. I made an effort to sound like a happy tourist. 'But I don't know anything about this. In England everyone is the same, everyone is equal.' I shifted uncomfortably and my leather jacket, folded and bulky and aromatic in my lap, creaked slightly. Everyone else was silent, listening.
'Yes, but do you think is fair that people are made to live like animals, while the white people do not live like animals?'
No, I didn't think this was fair at all. I could see where this was heading: You are a white man, and you have everything, so you must give me something because I have nothing. He kept crowding me in the dark and I kept fending him off and trying to keep the conversation casual. I think if I'd pretended to be a hard nosed Boer, or if I'd just been honest and said I was South African, he would have left me alone. But as a dorky tourist I was asking to be fleeced. I sensed in the quietly bobbing heads that the rest of the taxi wanted him to shut up; but I also sensed, in the distant, brooding quality of the silence, that no-one disagreed with him either.
He grew gradually louder and more insistent, until I eventually just turned away and ignored him. I pressed my nose against the cool pane of the window and stared at the headlights bearing down on the dark stretch of highway to Secunda. After a while he gave up and left me alone.
We drove into Embahlenhle township outside Secunda. I'd been here once before at night, when I'd been hitching and had to catch a taxi to escape the dark. I'd been expecting all sorts of horrors, but it had turned out ok. This time, however, we went nowhere near the bright busy centre of the township. Instead we turned off early, and ended up at a derelict one-pump petrol station. In the black glass of the battered pump cherry red numbers glowed, and the nozzle was unlocked; but there was no sign of an attendant. If he was inside the shell-shocked little building he was locked in, because wire-mesh frames barricaded the door and windows.
The driver parked behind the building and everyone piled out and disappeared into the night. I followed him as he wandered around to the pump. He stood frowning in the weak light flickering down from a single fluorescent tube on the garage roof. Was he searching for the non-existent attendant? I joined him and asked about a ride to Secunda.
'You must take one of those taxi's,' he said, pointing at two dimly white rectangular shapes on the road, out in the black. I walked towards them, and I thought: now this is more like the township of my nightmares. The air was thick with wood and coal smoke from cooking fires. I could smell it, and I could see it drifting past in the baleful islands of yellow light where tall security lights hovered at regular intervals over the crusty floor of the rooftops. It was only when I neared the first Hi-Ace that I saw the two teenage guys standing by its open doors. I asked the more smartly dressed of the two, the one wearing a shiny green Kappa shirt, about a ride to Secunda.
'You must go ask the driver of that taxi,' he said, pointing to the second white Hi-Ace, about ten metres away. It was parked facing away from us, tilted slightly down where two wheels rested off the road. A shadow slouched against the side facing away from the road. The two teenagers began walking over, and I followed them. As we walked I watched a figure emerge from the dark wall of the road ahead. It grew into a white shirt that passed by with a sliding glimmer of eyeballs and the faintest gleam on the knob of a cheekbone. Then we were at the second Hi-Ace. I had my hand in my jacket pocket, holding my stylish Kershaw fold-out blade. I felt for the notch at the base off the blade, so I would know which was to flick it open. The shadow came away from the side of the Hi-ace and the sliding door murmured slightly on its runners. He was tall, and I could just make out, in the exhausted light coming from the petrol station, that he had a beard and a large afro.
He looked at me, while the two teenagers flanked me, and he said simply, 'Give me some money.' My heart gave a single great thump and my scalp froze, became ether. His head seemed suddenly the size of a zeppelin. It loomed over me, and in the dim light my binocular eyes sucked in every detail of his sly, brooding face. A thin scar sliced across his forehead. Above it the outline of his afro was a black corona eating into the electric blue black of the night. I'd seen this face somewhere before, on Police File, where Micheal DeMorgen in his sensible square glasses reminded us to keep our doors locked and under no circumstances to confront Mr Afro as he was extremely dangerous and had committed many crimes of a serious hacking nature ... the bearded head frowned and beneath it the shoulders shifted uncomfortably. The head spoke. "If you want me to go to Secunda you must give us some money. There is only you and these two boys. You must give me extra, otherwise I can't take you. It will be too expensive.'
I became aware of the two young guys looking at me hopefully. 'If you've got forty Rand I can take you,' the driver said. He took my silence as deliberation and added matter of factly, 'There's no more rides to Secunda, and if you stay here it's going to be bad for you.'
I hauled my wallet out with trembling fingers and brought it close to my face. Three green tens glimmered faintly. I took them out and, holding them pinched between two fingers, pulled my wallet wide and held it out so they could see. 'It's all I've got - thirty Rand. It's my beer money! I heard as if from a slight distance my voice braying too loudly, laced with hysteria.
The two teenagers laughed obligingly, but the driver gave me a brooding look. "O.K I can take you.' He took the tens and I climbed into the back and sent the sliding door rasping shut; the two teenagers piled happily into the front. We set off and I sat back with my hand in my pocket, fondling my Kershaw fold out blade. I'd completely forgottten about it during my crisis. After a while we lurched over a big pothole and the three heads bobbed in tandem. Where the hell where we going? The last time I'd caught a taxi from here we'd emerged from the brawl of shack within minutes. Now we were driving deeper and deeper into a dark maze of dirt roads. We dipped into a grim isolated depression where rubbish was dumped. Then we passed a sinister clump of bushes on a quiet stretch of road between shacks. Each time I thought here: this is where they're going to pull over and chop and hack me to death.
But we kept going, and going, jouncing over the potholes, until suddenly and blessedly the shacks fell away and we were hissing on tar beside what seemed to be an open stretch of countryside. Even here though, when we pulled over to drop the two teenagers at a mysterious little dirt road that led to nowhere - to a grim, deserted farmhouse, with scull fragments littering the floor, and a human tooth embedded in the wall - I thought: here, where no-one can hear me scream. But they merely climbed out and gave me the thumbs up and yelled, 'Bra, thanks man!' as they slammed the door.
We drove past the million tiny lights of the two Sasol plants glittering on the veld like a vast, intricate fairy city in the cold night. And then this big, brooding driver took me right past the dangerous taxi-ranks on the outskirts of town, right into the heart of the Dutchman suburbs where my sister lived - and where he was clearly uncomfortable, nervously watching for cop cars and crazed vigilantes cruising about under the guise of Neighbourhood Watch. When he dropped me off he grunted at me impatiently as I tried to put too much heart into my farewell. And then he sped off, leaving me within yards of my sister's front door. For my thirty Rand I got doorstep treatment.
Very soon though, it all felt horribly wrong. The highway was a brutal, juddering horror of screaming metal and closed, suspicious faces. I was slightly drunk, and it was getting late - half past three - and I had valuables on me. My fancy leather jacket was folded over my arm, and my Cannon camera was tucked into my backpack. I felt like a walking beacon for any enterprising mugger as I trudged along, and it felt like every eighteen wheeler bellowing past in the slow lane was out to get me - wing me on the hip and leave me to die a slow death, in full view of this rushing, paranoid horde.
I managed to get to Bocksburg just before five. I found the taxi-ranks and walked around in the fading light until I found a ride. Then I sat in the back seat waiting for the taxi to fill up. This wasn't so bad for the first hour, because there were quite a few seats that needed to be filled. But during the second hour, when it got dark and there wasn't enough space left for a piccanin, we all began to grumble.
Eventually the driver strode up and we set off. We rocked along quietly, no one making a sound in the creaking little space, until the small man beside me began to ask questions. There was something in his tone that I didn't trust, so when he asked me where I was from I told him England. I thought this had a nice, neutral ring to it.
"Yes,' he said. 'England is a nice place. The black people there are not treated like animals, like they are here. Here the black live like animals, in the locations' - he hissed the word. What did I think about this? Did I think it was fair, that the white people had everything, while the black people had nothing? He was talking quietly but urgently, and his voice was getting louder. I could barely see him. He was just a small presence beside me in the dark, pressing against my shoulder.
'No, that sounds wrong,' I said nervously, thick tongued from the beers I'd drunk earlier at Jan Smuts. I made an effort to sound like a happy tourist. 'But I don't know anything about this. In England everyone is the same, everyone is equal.' I shifted uncomfortably and my leather jacket, folded and bulky and aromatic in my lap, creaked slightly. Everyone else was silent, listening.
'Yes, but do you think is fair that people are made to live like animals, while the white people do not live like animals?'
No, I didn't think this was fair at all. I could see where this was heading: You are a white man, and you have everything, so you must give me something because I have nothing. He kept crowding me in the dark and I kept fending him off and trying to keep the conversation casual. I think if I'd pretended to be a hard nosed Boer, or if I'd just been honest and said I was South African, he would have left me alone. But as a dorky tourist I was asking to be fleeced. I sensed in the quietly bobbing heads that the rest of the taxi wanted him to shut up; but I also sensed, in the distant, brooding quality of the silence, that no-one disagreed with him either.
He grew gradually louder and more insistent, until I eventually just turned away and ignored him. I pressed my nose against the cool pane of the window and stared at the headlights bearing down on the dark stretch of highway to Secunda. After a while he gave up and left me alone.
We drove into Embahlenhle township outside Secunda. I'd been here once before at night, when I'd been hitching and had to catch a taxi to escape the dark. I'd been expecting all sorts of horrors, but it had turned out ok. This time, however, we went nowhere near the bright busy centre of the township. Instead we turned off early, and ended up at a derelict one-pump petrol station. In the black glass of the battered pump cherry red numbers glowed, and the nozzle was unlocked; but there was no sign of an attendant. If he was inside the shell-shocked little building he was locked in, because wire-mesh frames barricaded the door and windows.
The driver parked behind the building and everyone piled out and disappeared into the night. I followed him as he wandered around to the pump. He stood frowning in the weak light flickering down from a single fluorescent tube on the garage roof. Was he searching for the non-existent attendant? I joined him and asked about a ride to Secunda.
'You must take one of those taxi's,' he said, pointing at two dimly white rectangular shapes on the road, out in the black. I walked towards them, and I thought: now this is more like the township of my nightmares. The air was thick with wood and coal smoke from cooking fires. I could smell it, and I could see it drifting past in the baleful islands of yellow light where tall security lights hovered at regular intervals over the crusty floor of the rooftops. It was only when I neared the first Hi-Ace that I saw the two teenage guys standing by its open doors. I asked the more smartly dressed of the two, the one wearing a shiny green Kappa shirt, about a ride to Secunda.
'You must go ask the driver of that taxi,' he said, pointing to the second white Hi-Ace, about ten metres away. It was parked facing away from us, tilted slightly down where two wheels rested off the road. A shadow slouched against the side facing away from the road. The two teenagers began walking over, and I followed them. As we walked I watched a figure emerge from the dark wall of the road ahead. It grew into a white shirt that passed by with a sliding glimmer of eyeballs and the faintest gleam on the knob of a cheekbone. Then we were at the second Hi-Ace. I had my hand in my jacket pocket, holding my stylish Kershaw fold-out blade. I felt for the notch at the base off the blade, so I would know which was to flick it open. The shadow came away from the side of the Hi-ace and the sliding door murmured slightly on its runners. He was tall, and I could just make out, in the exhausted light coming from the petrol station, that he had a beard and a large afro.
He looked at me, while the two teenagers flanked me, and he said simply, 'Give me some money.' My heart gave a single great thump and my scalp froze, became ether. His head seemed suddenly the size of a zeppelin. It loomed over me, and in the dim light my binocular eyes sucked in every detail of his sly, brooding face. A thin scar sliced across his forehead. Above it the outline of his afro was a black corona eating into the electric blue black of the night. I'd seen this face somewhere before, on Police File, where Micheal DeMorgen in his sensible square glasses reminded us to keep our doors locked and under no circumstances to confront Mr Afro as he was extremely dangerous and had committed many crimes of a serious hacking nature ... the bearded head frowned and beneath it the shoulders shifted uncomfortably. The head spoke. "If you want me to go to Secunda you must give us some money. There is only you and these two boys. You must give me extra, otherwise I can't take you. It will be too expensive.'
I became aware of the two young guys looking at me hopefully. 'If you've got forty Rand I can take you,' the driver said. He took my silence as deliberation and added matter of factly, 'There's no more rides to Secunda, and if you stay here it's going to be bad for you.'
I hauled my wallet out with trembling fingers and brought it close to my face. Three green tens glimmered faintly. I took them out and, holding them pinched between two fingers, pulled my wallet wide and held it out so they could see. 'It's all I've got - thirty Rand. It's my beer money! I heard as if from a slight distance my voice braying too loudly, laced with hysteria.
The two teenagers laughed obligingly, but the driver gave me a brooding look. "O.K I can take you.' He took the tens and I climbed into the back and sent the sliding door rasping shut; the two teenagers piled happily into the front. We set off and I sat back with my hand in my pocket, fondling my Kershaw fold out blade. I'd completely forgottten about it during my crisis. After a while we lurched over a big pothole and the three heads bobbed in tandem. Where the hell where we going? The last time I'd caught a taxi from here we'd emerged from the brawl of shack within minutes. Now we were driving deeper and deeper into a dark maze of dirt roads. We dipped into a grim isolated depression where rubbish was dumped. Then we passed a sinister clump of bushes on a quiet stretch of road between shacks. Each time I thought here: this is where they're going to pull over and chop and hack me to death.
But we kept going, and going, jouncing over the potholes, until suddenly and blessedly the shacks fell away and we were hissing on tar beside what seemed to be an open stretch of countryside. Even here though, when we pulled over to drop the two teenagers at a mysterious little dirt road that led to nowhere - to a grim, deserted farmhouse, with scull fragments littering the floor, and a human tooth embedded in the wall - I thought: here, where no-one can hear me scream. But they merely climbed out and gave me the thumbs up and yelled, 'Bra, thanks man!' as they slammed the door.
We drove past the million tiny lights of the two Sasol plants glittering on the veld like a vast, intricate fairy city in the cold night. And then this big, brooding driver took me right past the dangerous taxi-ranks on the outskirts of town, right into the heart of the Dutchman suburbs where my sister lived - and where he was clearly uncomfortable, nervously watching for cop cars and crazed vigilantes cruising about under the guise of Neighbourhood Watch. When he dropped me off he grunted at me impatiently as I tried to put too much heart into my farewell. And then he sped off, leaving me within yards of my sister's front door. For my thirty Rand I got doorstep treatment.
posted by Krisstoffel at 8:42 AM
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