PERIMETER MAN

I couldn't resist it. Before I hit the road I hit one of the pubs in Jan Smuts and had a few Milk Stouts. Then, adequately fortified, I made my way down an escalator. I wasn't sure where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to get onto the freeway that ran in front of the airport. From there I could hitch to Boksburg, and from Boksburg I could get onto the N17 that goes straight to Secunda.

The escalator led to the underground carpark. I watched in a drunken trance as the grooved silver stairs flattened and slid into the ground. I had to be careful stepping off because my rucksack pressed down on my back like a small piano. I had my IBM Thinkpad in there, along with my Cannon camera. My new leather jacket bulked stiffly in the crook of my arm. As I lumbered flat footed onto solid ground my lower back throbbed. A queue was waiting to stick money into the car-park ticket machine. I stepped around them, careful not to sidesweep anyone behind me with my pot-bellied backpack, and peered into the gloom of the carpark. A bright circle of daylight marked the exit at the far end.

I emerged from the cool concrete gloom into white light and stood blinking like a gnome at the mouth of his cave. Coming from a dark London winter I was bewildered by light. The sun hung almost directly overhead - a great white ball in a sky bleached like bone by the heat. My scalp crawled and felt tight and itchy as the rays penetrated my crew-cut.

Squinting fiercely, I began walking down a narrow one-way road. There were no pavements so I had to crab along on a grassy bank. Ahead was a blind corner. Between me and the corner a tall thin palm grew from the bank. I squinted up at its drooping leaves, like brightly rimmed grey cutouts in the baleful glare. My eyeballs ached. I trudged on and felt sweat trickle out of my armpit and down my side. Lovely. A red Polo Golf swept around the corner, a small hissing screeee coming from the tyres as they bit into the tar. Two young black men were talking and laughing in the front seats. Their windows were wide open and the car rushing at me between the quiet grassy banks somehow catapulted their voices high into the air above the golf - up near the glowing grey palm leaves.
I stood staring foolishly, a pale hermit crab caught without its shell, drooping with its treasures, while they bore down on me and I was able to see in a single intimate frame looking down into the passenger window a packet of Camels in the pocket of a lilac shirt. He had his head turned towards the driver and there was some sort of gold inlay on the side of his sunglasses. Their voices and the heavy beat of what could have been Kwaito crescendoed, and then they were gone. I stared after them. The Golf climbed a hill and floated over the crest,with nothing but sky ahead of it, so the two heads were perfectly outlined. I wanted to see if they looked back, or if the heads inclined towards their rear view mirrors, but it was as if I didn't exist. The Golf sank from sight like a small boat going down.

I crabbed on. For a stricken second I'd been convinced they were going to pull over and mug me. What was I doing out here? Other people, normal people, with families and loved ones to collect them, were walking through the airport, emerging through swishing automatic doors and climbing into air conditioned cars. Why was I stumbling around out here on the perimeter like a hobo?