kagablog

Hierrie strate is gevaarlik.

“Goeie KAKK!!” Gert was upset. Tore through his useless bed, which bled and burst in green and brown. Gert knew he wouldn’t find it. The kaffers had stolen it; he had seen a group of them an hour before he had found what he thought was a safe, tucked-away bush. “Fokken Kaffers!” He kept ripping and snapping the innocent, sentenced bush; there being nothing more substantial through which to convey his disappointment. When his hands were tingling with blood and sap, Gert stopped. Breathed for a while.

Then he saw them, three of them, walking obliviously (”Kak fokken kaffer leuenaars..”) on the other side of the cement canal. He watched them, trembling and hating, until they were gone. “Wat nou Gert? Wat maak ons nou?”

“Petrus se vrou doen dit. Michael se fokken vrou doen dit. ALMAL se vrouens doen dit!”

“Nee, Gert.” Gert had experienced fellatio only twice in his thirty years, unconsummated (Gert didn’t know that fellatio, like sex, had a very vivid conclusion; but let’s not distress him more.) And now his wife was ruling that his future would be strictly missionary. Gert realised that anger was not working. “Maar Maria, Skat, dis. Dis normaal, mense praat net nie daaroor nie.” “Daar is ‘n rede hoekom daar nie oor gepraat word nie, Gert.” Silence. “Ek sal dit nooit doen nie.” She looked at him. “Nooit.” The conversation was over. “Maria, dis ‘n normale ding tussen man en vrou! En jy. Is my vrou.” She was no longer listening and Gert knew this.

It was lunch-time, they were sitting in the bar on Vermeulen. “Hell yeah!! I grab mine by the hair when she does it, to help her along!” Die manne lag hard, as did Gert, who, looking for a blend-in, shouts, “Fok Ja!” “En jy Gert, hou jy daarvan om hulle in die gesig te pomp? Of staan jy stil!” “Ek laat myne die werk doen”, said Petrus, “Ek werk hard genoeg.” Howls of laughter. Gert’s eyes were streaming, he was missing out big time. “The other day,” Michael interrupted, always looking for ways to reclaim the centre, “she screamed at me for coming in her eye. Had to give her a smack.” General assent, a hesitant giggle. “Then I Really ‘pomped’ her!” And so it went. Gert made a mental note to introduce this new vista to Maria. Somewhat dampeningly, he realised she would never let him grab her hair. What can you do? Sometimes one must compromise to close the deal.

This was Gert’s last day of walking the streets alone; he would not be solo again for the next two years. This was Gert’s chance to invent his Street-reality, infuse it with His myths, rescribe everything and everyone. But Gert was just nog ‘n ou, and imagination was for children, who were too dumb to Know. Gert walked around for a couple of hours, “Ek speckie scene ouens”, Gert found this light-hearted throwback depressing, so he shut up while he walked around his new home, his new commune, and wondered how many people knew he was a bum. Gert was certain he didn’t look it yet, he was young and strong. And intelligent! Gert could do whatever he wanted, he knew, but he decided to go away. The problem with walking around like this is that if you sat down everyone would see you were a bum. So he kept walking. Then Gert got mugged by a grobble of teens. It was a pretty sterile mugging (he didn’t have anything), but successfully violent, successfully swift. Gert stood and breathed for a while. So, Gert Didn’t look like a bum. Then he chased after them.

Oops.

When Gert regained consciousness his body said to him what it had been trying to say for the last hour, while he was chilling, while he was taking it easy; a long, complicated Ow. Gert’s little messenger was doing the triathlon, trying to gauze the situations, find all the relevant spots, correctly colour and shape the various Ow’s. Gert’s consciousness didn’t understand where it was, just that it was. Gert’s consciousness was philosophically sincere. “whaaha-isjjj-nhhhhmbbbbb”, someone said, Gert’s consciousness told him, frowning. “WhHHEI!!” Gert’s pain was doing bright cartwheels, vigorous headstands; someone was shaking him, un-gently. “Hy! Wat’s jou NAAM Boet?” If Gert could he would pick up a brick and get to work on this guy’s teeth. And then cut him up into tiny pieces. And then douse those little nuggets in gasoline. Go bum some matches. Instead, he said, “uhhuuuhuhaHUhhuuu!!” This fashioned considerable pain.

The gross little smudged family squatting around him, were, in fact, bums. They were discussing whether or not Gert was going to live. Their little haikus prefigured what would, years later, become his permanent slow-then-fast carousel of unwanted, and, later still, unheeded spectral companions. With their random literature.

“Nee stront, man, hy’s jonk.” Someone seemed to try to shout at him. “Kom Kerel, lat hom le, fok hy’t fokol.”, someone else seemed to whisper to him. This went on for what seemed like days, which was quite convenient, his little messenger was still cataloguing, still categorising, still swearing and stumbling and standing up and falling and generally running around headless.

Twenty minutes later Gert, despite his garbled protests, was up, propped alarmingly

(”Christ what are you DOING!!? Don’t move him put him DOWN!!”, the missing paramedic

offers) by his adoptive family of patched crutches. “Broer. Jy’s nou deel van ons. Kom. Kom”, Kerel coughed as Gert trickled back into absence. Kerel had dreamt of Gert the night before; Gert and his R453,30. He had dreamt this.

***