Mature And Sure

 

What do I know about having sex with very young women? Not a lot. The first woman with whom I had sex was 36, the second was 32 and the third was 27 and the latter is also then the youngest so far. When I had what might be called a mid-life crisis I had an affair with a 40-year old married lawyer who lives in Johannesburg while I live in Cape Town. Before that happened I was almost hustled by a 26-year old single mother with a new baby but that is only part of the story of the affair and I never had sex with the younger woman who lives in Cape Town and who was not only available but also, I suspected at the time, very keen on finding a step-daddy for her little girl. This non-daddy was not about to step into that position.

 

There had been the 14-year old (who could pass for 16) I went out with a few times on visits home during my first year of National Service but since it was purely a tentative and very platonic relationship I guess she does not quite count. Other than that I have yet to have the pleasure of bonking someone in her late teens or very early twenties. There were no girlfriends during my high school years and none during my varsity years and though I've been out with the odd young chick I've found that I get on best with women around about my own age or within striking distance of it, possibly because they are more worldly and less intolerant of human frailty, more mature and better educated and have their own careers and cars and are less likely to want to move in together straight away, if at all. Also, as the blues song has it, older women don't swell, don't tell and they're grateful as hell.

My friend Lise gave a 42^nd birthday party where she had all her gay male chums and all her twenty something female acquaintances who were seemingly all in media or PR or both and who were one and all frighteningly ambitious to the extent where, by the median age of 25, they had already developed a dissatisfaction with whatever brief career path they'd been following since varsity and were almost ready to start running huge international conglomerates. Maybe my perception reflects badly on me who never had a notebook with dreams, ambitions and five year career plans and who, at age 25, had barely commenced my career, but these young women scared the hell out of me and made no sense to me, at least, not on superficial acquaintance. I listened to one such woman who was a radio PR person and occasional newsreader with a very sexy low-pitched voice with a delectable Swartland accent, chatting to a young man who was clearly very interested in her – they'd both recently broken up with their respective lovers – and the two topics of mutual interest were Grand Prix racing and computer games, neither of which interested me in the least and were indications to me that I would not be able to get through to this young woman who, although apparently highly motivated and with a career vision, sounded a tad limited in her intellectual development.

I was reclining in an easy chair, whisky in hand, while I listened to this exchange on the other side of the lounge. Eventually she realised that my attention was with her conversation.

"Hey, Mister Silent Man!" she said, "What do you say? You haven't said a word."

"Better to be quiet and to be thought a fool than to speak and prove to be one," I quoted some ancient maxim. "Anyway, I'd much rather sit here listening to your voice."

"Thank you kindly," she said, and resumed her chat with her Grand Prix loving buddy. She is still on the radio in mid-morning but I've never run into her again. My friendship with Lise has also died a death.

In the middle of last year I had to find a correspondent in Johannesburg for an important High Court interdict matter I was running from Cape Town for a local client but which had to be conducted in the Witwatersrand Local Division. My first thought was to use a buddy of mine from National Service days but at a meeting between client en our Cape Town advocate it was decided to go with a larger firm – the recommended attorney was someone else's ex-Army buddy -- and I sent off an instructing e-mail. It turned out that this guy was the team leader of the labour law division of the firm and he passed on the instruction to one of his associates, Carly, the attorney with whom I then worked on the matter which did not end successfully for our client a few weeks down the line.

Carly and I exchanged faxes, e-mails and phone conversations. The first were very businesslike and so were the phone conversations but in the e-mails, which went directly to her own inbox, I felt less constrained and started to express my exasperation with the matter and the advocate dealing with it. Major miscalculations had been made, documents could not be found and all in all the matter became a comedy of errors that led me to believe very early on that the application was doomed anyhow, and I conveyed this message to Carly in ironic and sardonic e-mails that she apparently found highly amusing.

One Friday afternoon she phoned me while I was sitting in a new advocate's chambers – the original man had somehow become "unavailable" probably because he could see the way the matter was shaping up to be a disaster – and somehow we had a chat about going for long alcoholic Friday lunches, or at least it was a conversation about those lunches we used to have but did not seem to get around to doing anymore. It was, other than a few perfunctory comments, not a particularly professional chat about business at hand; not exactly a billable conversation.

Carly has a very highly educated, rounded pukka accent and also a low-pitched voice and it was most certainly a pleasure to listen to her talk to me and it was with that chat that I realised that I could quite get to like this woman and I regretted the circumstances of life that had brought about that we practised law in two, far apart cities.

The matter was brought to its unhappy conclusion and for a week or two there was no need for any more communication with Carly, until the question of paying costs came up and I had to e-mail her again with some mundane queries.

This was part of Carly's reply:

Hello stranger - I was beginning to feel very neglected - no more quirky mails to cheer me up - oh well, that's the lot of a correspondent with no correspondence.

 

My surprise was great and pleasant.

 

This was part of my response:

How am I supposed to feel? You never write, never phone...

Those e-mails were very serious indeed and were not intended to cheer anyone up. Obviously I've completely missed my target audience.

At least you're not a patient with no patience.

I trust the above represents an elegant sufficiency of quirky.

The rest is history – it is now, anyhow. Our exchanges quickly escalated from friendly joshing to flirtation and then outright suggestiveness, the latter aspects emanating from Carly who very early on saw a potential in the situation that had escaped me, particularly because we were living and working in separate cities and because Carly was married to boot.

 

Pretty soon we were exchanging SMS messages, such as this series that refer to a parallel developing situation in Cape Town.

 

Not satisfied with salacious cyber skinner the phantom phone finger finds another forum!

 

Love that alliteration. U r 2 good 2 my mind. 4ever 4midable.

Interesting lecture, lotsa wine, yummy snacks, exciting company (even an invite for motor racing). Now languishing content in hot bath. Mood much improved!

 

Who wants to race your motor? My evening so far quite interesting too.

Dare I ask, or would that be interrupting something?

Back home, weirded out. Shall I just write?

All ok? If so I guess e-mails best? Luv & smooches!!?

Sorry, have really crap signal @ home, esp. in bathroom, & no landline. Pointless even trying 2 talk. But SMS & call in office anytime 2morrow.

 

Now worried about u. Can't pick up yr message (why can send & rec SMS but not calls?) All ok?

A ok. Reading your last mails of today.

Sleep tight. XX etc.

U r so special, qt!

That's plagiarism! U, however r da sugarest eva!

 

The back story to this exchange had its origin about a month before when a young woman called Leonora came to see me on a legal matter that concerned the non-payment of salary due to her.

 

Leonora told me her whole legal problem over the phone and then came to see me an hour later and repeated it almost verbatim, and along the way I also learnt (without any prompting from my side) that she was a 26-year old single mother – she'd brought the baby -- who was born in Italy and raised in Malmesbury and therefore fluent in Italian, English and Afrikaans, used to live in Milnerton but was now living with her mother in Plumstead and that her one year old daughter suffered from chronic ear infection. On the last topic I could bond with her since a late friend of mine had a boy who at one time also suffered from the same complaint and at least from second hand experience I knew how terrible it was for parent and child.

 

Leonora was quite pretty, with a round baby fat kind of face, very long honey blonde hair and she wore a top that showed off a very decent cleavage. I must admit that it was a strain to keep my eyes on her face and off the generous expanse of milky white bosom that almost gleamed on the other side of the boardroom table. I was reminded of a few Playboy centrefolds I'd seen.

 

I took on the case, wrote a letter or two and eventually settled the thing in Leonora's favour. Her ex-employer undertook to pay her what she was claiming and then Leonora asked me kindly to accompany her to her previous place of work to pick up the cheque. She did not trust her old boss. I was going to be in Wynberg on that day anyway, so we arranged it that she picked me up on Main Road from where we'd drive through to Mowbray where she'd worked. A few days earlier, before the offer to pay had come, Leonora had, jokingly I'd thought suggested that we go for drinks if she got what she wanted from her ex-employer. On the way to Mowbray she broached the subject again, seeing as how the matter had been almost successfully completed. I was surprised that Leonora actually intended going through with the drinks suggestion and I said yes and we agreed to do it that following Friday evening.

 

The Issue of the Forward Client (as I thought of Leonora) puzzled me to a degree. Granted that my brutally handsome matinee idol good looks, intelligence, wit, charm and raw animal sexuality might have impressed the hell out of her, not to mention my successively more forceful letters to her ex-employer's representatives, culminating in threats of merciless legal action, that resulted in us going to collect the salary cheque, might have made me a desirable drinks companion in her eyes, but I was still a little uneasy with the concept of actually going out and socialising with an (ex) client. I've done it exactly three times before. The first time it resulted in a six month relationship that broke up due to circumstances, the second time the jealous boyfriend walked in just as we were having coffee and I had the feeling that I'd been a pawn in that particular game and the last time (10 years earlier) it was a short, sharp shock of a scene that ended about as abruptly as it began. Since then I'd kept a strict distance.

 

It was probably a bit far fetched to think that Leonora wanted to pay me in kind (I've always thought that kindness particularly a perk of divorce lawyers) and my guess was that she possibly just wanted to get out a little. The one thing I did not know, and did not ask about, is why exactly she's a single mother (I mean, I knew why she was a mother, but not why she was single) -- and this was a convenient excuse for her.

I doubted that she was my type, or I hers, and she was a bit young too. Loved her voice though. Well-educated, melodious, sweet but not pukka.

And she was the kind that used trendy abbreviations in text messages. Cute, no? No.

The following examples of SMS "dialogue" on the day of the drinks date are reproduced completely accurately.

 

BEFORE: LATE AFTERNOON

My mother wants 2 know what Star sign u r?I 4got 2 ask u?

Aries. Is this important?

Ha!Ha!C u laterrr.!

 

The goods news was that Leonora declared that she thought I'm "too good for this world" and "so Special" and "DA SWEETEST EVA". You guessed it; the latter was yet another text message. Leonora likes her red wine chilled, smokes Peter Stuyvesant Blue, said she doesn't take drugs or approve of them, believes in a non-denominational God, is an excellent catcher of fish, is a Pisces, talked a lot, is probably quite bossy yet curiously sweet and naïve with it, was impressed that I knew where Calabria is (that's the part of Italy she hails from; her father used to own a beach there), likes to dance, is a healer and medium, is in fact not a natural blonde, claimed to have almost no friends left and insisted that the father of her child is just about completely absent from her life and she's made no effort to claim maintenance from him (yet).

Seeing as how she was 26 - jeez, I could be her father and, utterly, totally scarifying, Leonora's mother is just 4 years older than me - and further seeing as how she hadn't been out in a while, Leonora wanted to go to a place with music "in the background". I took charge in a sophisticated older guy kind of way by suggesting that we go to Café Bardeli since it was sure to have some kind of music and some relatively chic young Capetonians. It used to be the hippest of the hip places but is now at best at the bottom of the Premier Division, maybe top of the First League, but it's close by my home. Leonora arrived in a very nifty, white 2000 model BMW -- not actually her car, which was a metallic coloured oriental product. Leonora's version was that one of her Italian cousins was coming out from the old country to visit to the Dark Continent and sent her R160 000 to buy him a set of wheels for his holiday use. He was due to arrive in about 6 weeks' time and in the meanwhile Leonora zipped around in it though she had trouble parking it. As soon as we'd parked at the Engen service station close to Café Bardelli, and please notice the following very sweet yet blatant manipulation, Leonora handed me a set of mounted studio portraits of her and her baby, a ser of prints she just happened to have in the car. I cooed appreciatively, as one does.

At Bardelli we found a comfy couch near the DJs (yes, real live DJs who spun platters all night long) and I started off with a shaken and not stirred Martini and thereafter graduated to my good friend Jack Daniel's fine product for the rest of the night. Leonora stuck to her chilled red wine throughout.

The music was so loud that I could barely hear myself talk and I soon developed a bit of a hoarse voice. Fortunately Leonora had so much to say that for the most part I got away with smiling enigmatically and nodding my head. Some of what Leonora said did penetrate through the aural fog but a significant amount of information and opinion passed me by. As the evening progressed we moved closer to each other, perhaps in both senses, and there was even some light touchy-feely stuff. The scariest part was when she told me that she knew at our first meeting that I believed in nothing – a retort apropos my declaration that I didn't believe in God - and when she said that she could sense I have a wound on the left side of my body. As it happens there is a crescent shaped operation scar in that very locality. Oh, and it was very scary that she twice said that I was too good for this world. At that point it didn't seem like a good idea to enquire as to the exact meaning of this averment.

While Leonora was chattering and I was smiling and nodding, not quite catching all she was telling me, I did this writer's thing where I tried to observe the scene from a distance and to imagine how I would write about it. Maybe this meant that there was no sexual magnetism. Quite feasible. I was getting pleasantly pissed and feeling all warm and benevolent but there was stirring of the old fleshly desire type of thing.

We left Bardelli at about 01h00 and Leonora dropped met outside my block of flats. I didn't invite her up to my place for coffee. Leonora actually asked whether we'd see each other again. Quite touching. Of course I intimated that I would love to see her again and in the heat of the moment I might have well have believed it too.

I guess it was a successful evening. I paid strict attention to Leonora, plenty of full body eye contact. Not too difficult, she's pretty enough. She wore black pants that were tight to the knees and then flared out, with long slits up the sides, all the way up, with crisscross laces to keep her decent, and a black CK top, with a black jacket over this, and black stack heeled shoes. I guessed that she wanted to appear slimmer than she thought she was and that she wanted to gain some height. It was a curious mixture of high fashion sexuality and a slightly off kilter concept of what is sexy, somewhat low rent disco slut chick. Only the sweetness leavened the effect – and the fact that Leonora was a tad too plump to pull the look off with complete success.

The only slight bitchiness that popped into view came about when I was distractedly staring at something in the distance, and there happened to be a young woman standing there in my line of vision and Leonora made some pointed remark about this other person's "nice ass" and when I asked what she was talking about Leonora pointedly remarked that she could see that I was staring at the "nice ass." Well, then I did give the ass in question close scrutiny, to see what she was going on about. It was a cute donkey. In fact Bardelli was full of attractive young people. When I told Loren how old I was, she was acted surprised, said she hadn't thought of me as old. I would like to know how old she thought I was but stupidly I didn't ask. Her flattery was life enhancing despite my follically challenged head, which she allegedly saw as sign of great intelligence. It seemed impertinent under the circumstances to point out that baldness also denotes great virility - so I've been told.

Leonora had to drive all the way home to Plumstead and I thought it might be a polite gesture of modern manners to send her a text message to give her some comfort on her lonely journey.

 

AFTER: SAME NIGHT

Thanx for the healing. Let me know when you're safely home. X

 

It's a pleasure,I had fun2!Wish u would allow me 2 heal u completely!U r so Special. Xx

XXX

 

XXX XXX

 

The next day I strolled into town for breakfast at the Wimpy in St George's Mall and there, mindful of the requirement of a follow up phone call on the morning after, I sent another brief message.

 

Good morning! Still feeling special. X

 

A little later I was so full of bonhomie and the delights of a few cups of Wimpy coffee that I decided to cal Leonora and when I got hold of her it was raining and I had to skulk underneath an awning and place a hand over my free ear to hear Leonora over the din of the passers-by and the rain drops falling close to my head. We exchanged but a few words when Leonora disappeared off the airwaves and redialling did not alleviate the situation. Leonora could not be contacted. I wondered whether this failure to communicate should be seen as a sign that a long-term relationship was not to be.

 

Therefore I all but gave up on Leonora until later that afternoon when her texting finger ran riot.

 

Sorry my battery vrekked. My mom was cross bcoz I came so late,but shes ok now.She worries bout me driving alone,dangerous,shes rite.Glad u had fun 2.x

 

WARNING: GET URESELEF A BOTTEL OF DOOM CAUSE ANTS ARE ATTACKING ALL THE SWEET THINGS IN LIFE AND I KNOW THEY'RE COMEING 2 U CAUSE URE DA SWEETEST EVA!

 

This last message profoundly disturbed me because it was so over the top to be completely insane in the circumstances of our brief acquaintanceship that Leonora could have been truly that impressed by me and it also showed a deep childishness that was equally disturbing in a 26-year old who'd claimed to have been a financial director at her previous employer but one. I knew Leonora was a lot younger than me but I had not appreciated exactly how young. The eleven year old daughter of my best friend would not have thought of such sickly sweet nothings. My only material response was to attempt to debunk the silliness and to test Leonora's sense of humour.

 

Shouldn't that be sweetest Adam? You're a honey 2. X

 

Sadly Leonora did not respond. My guess was that she did not quite share my sense of humour. I was kind of freaked out by the second text message. Firstly because of the teenage clever-cleverness and general over the top cutesy-poo nature of the beast. It seemed to me that Leonora was perhaps not nearly as emotionally mature as she might have liked me to believe. The second disquieting aspect was the over the top response to a simple, not exactly ecstatically wonderful evening. Of course I am a great guy and a sweet person but Leonora's way of putting it was just too much for my tiny little mind.

 

Obviously the question now was: quo vadis? The last time I'd been out with a 26-year old was when I was merely 9 years older than the woman and at the time that seemed like enough of a gap. Leonora seemed to want to move in very quickly which was fine if she wanted a "fwiend" to take her places, and that kind of companionship thing that one might need if you'd had a lot of time at home because of your new baby. I was not so sure that a "relationship" was a good idea. I was probably the wrong person for her – psychologically-speaking and age-wise - and secondly I'd grown quite fond of living in my own space and at my own pace. The result of the few times I'd shared space is that I'd come to realise I'm too much of a loner to be completely at ease under such circumstances.

Leonora is very sweet and deserves a person who will make a long-term commitment, and I guess that's what she wanted. I was not that person and I was at that stage of my Personal Development where I would prefer just to be good friends with someone I was not going to fall in love with rather than going through the motions where by and by I'd get more and more reluctant to spend time with the person because I had no emotional commitment. Fortunately there was no need to create or sustain an artificial "relationship" because I can stand to be alone.

Incurable romantic, that's me.

Up to the following Tuesday morning I heard nothing more from Leonora and as a result I thought that it was all over. That my smart arse text message had not pleased her. Strangely enough, given my view of the viability of any relationship with Leonora, this lack of response made me feel quite despondent. In a grim mood I caught the train to Wynberg to conduct some legal business there. On the way I got a call from Margaret whom I'd trying to get hold of all weekend to share the interesting new developments. She and her new boyfriend had been away for the weekend and now she had tick bite fever all over again, he was full of flu. The main reason she'd phoned was because they'd run across a small Karoo farm which was to be sold at an insolvency auction the next day and she was madly keen on buying it. I briefly shared my news about Leonora and Margaret agreed that it was one strange situation. Once my business had been concluded I had coffee with Kim who, at age forty, was pregnant for the first time from a guy who lived in Durban and, from her account, sounded crazy. Kim, with whom I had a "scene" for about two years, said she expected me to be the kid's godfather and perhaps even perform additional fatherly duties, seeing as how the biological father would probably be more or less permanently absent from the child's life. My response was a cautious and conditional yes.

Afterwards I returned to Wynberg station to catch the train back. As I walked to my intended carriage I walked straight past my bete noire, Karen, the woman with whom I'd had a very long, stupid situation through most of the Nineties. I hadn't spoken to Karen since the day after the general elections in 1999 when I for the first time, finally told her that our paths had irrevocably parted. I'd seen her once from a distance since then but had never spoken to her again. Even then we exchanged no words, just walked past each other. I was so surprised that there was just no time anyhow. So, why at this particular point in time would I run into her of all people? Weird enough to make my day, already.

Okay, later in the morning I got an SMS from Leonora. She hadn't responded before because she had no airtime but wanted to "meet later." We agree that she would pick me up at the office after work. At about 17h00 she phoned to say that she was on her way and would I mind if her baby Mirella, her mother Mirella and the mother's boyfriend Hannes came along too? What could I say? They collected me and we ended up at an Italian place at the top end of Kloof Street, called Baccini's, quaffing Nederburg Baronne (Hannes's best red wine), eating a little supper and generally sussing each other out.

How's this? The second "date" and my future mother in law came with! That is what amused me endlessly and weirded me out - okay the red wine helped - the apparent assumption that Leonora and I were going to be some kind of a permanent thing. "You can have your honeymoon in Calabria," Mirella senior suggested. Leonora didn't yet want me to pick up baby Mirella, because "she must get used to your voice, she'll be nervous because you're a stranger." Mirella senior enquired after my eating habits and preferences and told me of the wonderful meal she'd cook me when I came to dinner. About the only counter blow I got in was to confess that I was not the romantic person suggested by my star sign,

Johnny Winter has a song called "Hustled Down In Texas" and it kept coming into my head, except it was the variation called "Hustled Up In Kloof Street."

I know I'm a fabby dabby person, but it's not often that one is co-opted into the family so quickly and summarily. It's like the Cape Muslims. If you date one of their daughters, you'd better be serious about marrying her.

Later that night I had to phone Margaret who could only say that for once I had utterly outweirded her. I explained about Leonora's apparent lack of a sense of humour and brittleness, and the problem with the Pisces bossiness. M's advice was either to fuck the woman for as long as I could stand her company (that is, get while the getting is good) or sit her down to enquire from her whether I was correct in thinking that I was a target in this single minded quest to find a step-daddy for baby Mirella.

Anyhow, I was feeling absolutely giddy with the joy of the ridiculous chutzpah of it all. Was this really happening? Was I suddenly in some outrageously weird alternative universe?

At 23h20 that night Leonora texted me.

Hope u enjoyed our evening with us.My mother likes u a lot,me2.Slep well.Sorry im writing so late.Xx

Had fun! Glad I was okay. Sweet dreams.

 

Leonora replied at 23h25.

    I just saw a smartie advert and thought of u,coz u're cute, colourful, devine and very sweet! WOTALOTUGOT!!!

U 2

 

Had this woman not progressed beyond the age of 16? How could I possibly take the risk of fucking her, even just once?

Sometimes I just love my life. And it was not as if I were some smooth Casanova type with dozens of notches on his bedpost, far from it. My planets must have been in some weird congruence/confluence/alignment.

Why me, Lord, what have I ever done, to deserve even one …

I just want to do a sanity check here. The following is the next SMS from Leonora, sometime during Wednesday morning.

Twist ur mind!dis is cute:I+opposite of W+initial of ICE+twice da letter b4T+ 3/4 of X+15th letter+1/2 O ...text me if you've figured it out. :)

Was I the kind of person who would be hugely amused, titillated and otherwise impressed by this sort of thing, to the extent that I would fall madly in love/lust with the sender?

Would I be a hopeless non-romantic if this cute message gave rise to pause rather than applause?

I felt like the little boy who went down to the beach to paddle in the shallow water and got bowled over by a freak wave.

Of course I deciphered the message but once again my quirky sense of humour got the better of me, after I'd written the decoded message down in one single word, "IMISSYOU",and the following was my reply.

 

    I'm a shoe?    

 

Once again, Leonora did not respond, either because my reply baffled her or she had no airtime and for the next few days until Friday night, there was no further contact between us. I had vaguely promised to phone her again, to make arrangements for the weekend but as time passed and I gave the matter more and more considered thought I felt it my gut that it would be foolish to go on seeing Leonora, to attempt to build a relationship of some sort. She seemed to have her eye on more than friendship and I was not keen at all on the prospect of working at a relationship with this type of starry-eyed immaturity. I could foresee that it would not work out and my very real anticipation of Leonora's short-term goal was to move in with me, to form a little nuclear family with baby Mirella and the last thing I was interested in at that time was to share my flat with anybody, much less a young woman with whom I could not see much common ground and who would be bossing me about in a very short time once she's settled in.

 

The sensible, adult thing would have been to phone Leonora, maybe have one last drink with her, and to explain to her that, nice and pretty as she was, there was no sense in pursuing the mirage of a possible relationship and that if she indeed wanted more than mere friendship she should not waste her time and energy on me. I have not often been known to do the adult, sensible thing and Margaret was not available to advise me on the best course of action and as a result I did what I was good at, nothing. I ignored Leonora.

 

Late Friday night she sent me this SMS to which I still did not respond.

So,u 4got me quickly.

 

The weekend passed and on Sunday night Leonora texted for the last time.

So,u did 4get me.

You'll note that she no longer compared me with any kind of sweet.

 

 

Uit Die Wroeging

Hierdie kêrel De Soto de Witt is 'n man wat hom nie graag blootstel aan openbare bespotting nie en wat daarvan hou om sy privaatlewe privaat te hou, alhoewel hy nie omgee om so elke nou en dan uiting te gee aan sy emosies nie. Hoekom het hy op 'n natterige en koue dag verlede maand langs die Setlaarsweg gestaan met 'n plakkaat in sy hande waarop daar in groot, vet swart letters gedruk was: SAY NO TO POLICE BRUTALITY.

Hy het daar bly staan vir 'n volle uur terwyl die spitstyd verkeer verbygekruip het en terwyl die motoriste en hut passasiers dikwels onsmaaklikhede kwytgeraak het oor De Soto se manlikheid en verstandelike vermoëns. Sommige het selfs dreigemente van fisiese geweld geuiter en ten minste een vrou het die hulp van God ingeroep om De Soto met 'n bliksemstraal te straf.

 

Ek het by die De Witt huishouding gaan kuier om agter die storie van hierdie storie te kom.

Die onderwerp van ons belangstelling woon in Observatory, Kaapstad, in 'n huis wat ruim is, maar definitief 'n kandidaat is vir wesenlike renovasie pogings. De Soto het verduidelik dat hy bitter graag die nodige werk sou wou doen of laat doen, maar hyself is nie 'n man wie se hande vir niks verkeerd staan nie en ongelukkig het hy ook nie die geld om 'n bouer aan te stel nie.

 

"Die bouwerk sal moet wag totdat die Zen Calviniste ryk en beroemd is, of totdat my ma sterf," sê hy met 'n ironiese vonkeling in sy oë.

 

Natuurlik woon by nie alleen in hierdie huis nie. Sy metgesellin, 'n Joodse meisie genaamd Yvonne, deel 'n slaapkamer met hom en dan is daar ook nog in paar katte en Yvonne se Toy Pom, Mottie. Af en toe bied die De Soto-huishouding ook herberg aan mense soos Tsafendas Jordaan, mede lid van die Zen Calviniste, Vusi Mafenuka, 'n AZAP0 aktivis uit Crossroads, of Katie Abrahams, 'n bergie dame vat somtyds net inval by die huis, haar tuismaak vir 'n week of wat en dan weer verdwyn vir 'n paar maande of 'n jaar.

"Ek smaak ou Katie," sê De Soto. "Ek like haar verskriklik, 'n Sin vir humor. En al daai stories wat sy kan vertel, 'n heerlike karakter, eg-Kaaps. En sy is min moeite, hoor. Sy slaap onder een van die struike in die agterplaas en leef op witbrood en meths. Eintlik een van die beste gaste wat ons hier het."

Yvonne is 'n vietse dame met die klassieke Joodse skoonheid wat net in Fresnaye gekweek word. Ofskoon sy seker al moeg is om te verduidelik hoe sy, Seepunt kugel extra-ordinaire, nou eintlik verlief geraak het op 'n Swellendamse boerseun, was sy steeds bereid om die storie aan my oor te dra. Dit blyk dat hulle ontmoet het in die Indaba klub, nou reeds saliger, toe sy op die daktuin rondgedwaal het op soek na 'n Camel Plain en sy hom in 'n hoekie sien sit het. Hy was, soos gewoonlik, besig om te skryf en hy het toevallig 'n pakkie Camel sigarette by hom gehad. 'n Gesprek het ontstaan, en binne twee weke het sy by hom ingetrek.

Dit is duidelik dat hulle albei nog verlief is op mekaar. Dit is juis hierdie wedersydse liefde en gepaardgaande ondersteuning wat die oorsaak was vir De Soto se Setlaarsweg protes.

 

"Yvonne is 'n aktiewe en entoesiastiese lid van die Black Sash," verduidelik De Soto, "en die Black Sash doen elke nou en dan een van hierdie 'stands,' Hulle wit protesteer, 'n stem laat hoor, jy weet, darem wys dot daar nog mense is wat nie bang is om hulle opposisie teen regeringsbeleid en onderdrukkingsaksies te toon nie. omdat die noodtoestand en alles wat daarmee saamgaan, politieke vergaderings en openbare protes verbied, en omdat omtrent enige groepie van meer as een persoon wat 'n politieke stelling wit maak as 'n onwettige byeenkoms bestempel word, moet die Black Sash dames, as hulle openbare protes wit hou, so een-een staan langs die pad. Natuurlik staan so vyf of ses langs dieselfde pad, hulle maak beurte, een uur op 'n slag. So: hulle protesteer en hulle kan nie gearresteer word weens 'n onwettige byeenkoms nie. Slim, nê? Anyway, op daardie dag moes Yvonne in 'stand' gaan doen, maar sy het siek geword en toe in plaas van om 'n ander vrou te kry om in haar plek te staan, het ons gedink, wat de hel, ons is mos saam in die ding, saam in die land, ly onder dieselfde regime en het dieselfde verpligtinge teenoor die onderdrukte massas, as witmense, jy weet. Toe besluit ons ek sal haar plek volstaan -- as jy die woordspeling sal vergeef -- en toe gaan staan ek daar."

 

Was dit nie baie koud en nat nie, en was die motoriste nie onbeskof nie, selfs dreigend?

 

"Wel, dit was net vir 'n uur. Ek het my anorak aangehad, niks nat geword nie en warm gebly. En wat die motoriste betref: niemand het uit 'n kar geklim en nader gekom nie. Skreeuery maak niks, dit is eintlik half amusant gewees. En in elk geval moet 'n mens in gedagte hou dat dit vir in goeie saak is. Die bietjie ontbering weeg nie juis op teen wat deesdae in die townships gebeur nie. Police brutality, jy weet."

 

Ons sit buite op die patio. Terwyl ons gesels, bak Yvonne 'n sjokoladekoek vir die namiddag koffie. De Soto dra sy welbekende blou jeans en The Children Shall Be Free! T-hemp. Een van die katte is opgekrul op sy skoot en die ander een lê so 'n entjie van ons af, uitgestrek in 'n kolletjie sonlig. In die voorkamer speel die musiek van Bob Marley op 'n Technics kassetspeler, die enigste teken van yuppie aspirasies.

 

"Ek's nie 'n ou vir flashy high-tech goed nie," sê De Soto, geamuseerd dat ek in sulke onbenullige aspekte van sy bestaan belangstel, "maar by klank wit ek die beste hê wat ek kan bekostig. Die speakers is 'n stel B & W speakers wat 'n ou pal van my afgebring het van Jo'burg af in '84."

Het jy 'n sterk belangstelling in Reggae? vra ek. Dit is nie meer in modieuse musiek nie.

 

"Ag, ek het 'n paar albums. Ja, ek weet die fad het verbygetrek, maar dit was gister die herdenking van Bob Marley se dood, toe dog ek 'n man moet maar hulde bring op 'n manier. Net om te wys dat modes kom en gaan, maar so 'n ou se musiek bly classic."

 

De Soto de Witt is lank reeds bekend vir sy humanisme en nederigheid. Hy is 'n goeie voorbeeld van die tipe mens wat sy talente benut so goed as wat hy kan, nie 'n grootkop ontwikkel nie en altyd in aanraking bly met sy eie menswees en die menslikheid van andere. Hy is 'n digter, romanskrywer en musikant, dog is skaam om oor hierdie aspekte van sy lewe te praat, asof hy bang is om sy gespreksgenoot te verveel.

Jy is 'n Swellendammer, nê?

 

"Daar grootgeword, ja. Gebore in Kimberley, maar nooit daar gebly nie. Swellendam is al wat ek ken uit my jeugjare."

 

Stellenbosch?

 

"Universiteitsjare. B. Com. Drie jaar van studie en wilde tye, meestal wilde tye. Wild Oats, jy weet!"

En nou?

"Old Mutual. Ek verkoop versekering, kan jy maar sê. Maar nou nie eintlik werklik nie, meer 'n konsultant in die ware sin van die woord. As ek regtig assuransiepolisse verkoop het, het ek seker meet geld gemaak. Maar dis 'n job."

Die digter, skrywer, musikant?

 

"My pa het kitaar gespeel in 'n boeremusiek orkes in die Swellendam omgewing. Huwelike, naweekdanse, verjaardagpartytjies, die gewone. My ma het klavier gespeel. So, ek het 'n keuse gehad en ek het kitaar gekies. Die band was hale meer opwindend vir my as jong lat. So, my pa het my touwys gemaak en ek het ook maar so op my eie aangesnork. Speel vandag nog nie juis te wonderlik nie. Gangbaar."

 

Waar kom die literêre belangstelling vandaan?

 

"My ma het ons kinders altyd aangemoedig om te lees. Ek het baie gelees. Nie eintlik vriende gehad nie, baie verbeeldingsspeletjies gespeel, stories opgemaak. Later begin skryf, sommer net storietjies, toe gediggies. En as 'n mens lank genoeg bly skryf, raak jy mettertyd beter, taalbeheersing en al daai, en soos jy ouer word, raak jou insigte meer volwasse."

Wanneer het jy begin publiseer?

 

"Op Stellenbosch. Ek het tot Afrikaans Nederlands III gevorder, by die poetry workshop beland, kennis gemaak met die mense wat tel in die geslote kring van Matieland se literêre dampkring, die mense wat jou kan boost of breek. Daai jare gedomineer deur dykes en moffies. Meer dykes. So, 'n man moes maar talentvol wees en taktvol in jou opinies oor seksualiteit -- jy kon nie juis jou pad oopslaap nie. Die meisies miskien en sommige van my manlike kollegas wel, maar nie 'n hetero soos ek nie. Toe besluit ek dit sal maar die beste wees om net eenvoudig goed te wees. Quality sells. Anyway, daar was Penseel en ook 'n blaadjie wat begin is deur Karina Hugo, Boosheid was die naam daarvan. ondergronds en links. Het alles en almal gekritiseer, dit wit nou sê daardie mense wat nie deel was van die groepie nie. Ek het ook in Stet gepubliseer. Ag, oral, almal wat bereid was om 'n gedig te plaas."

En jou prosa?

"Dieselfde tipe storie. As 'n mens genoeg sade saai, moet een of twee iewers opkom."

 

Jy is bekend daarvoor dat jy orals op allerhande plekke en by allerhande geleenthede sit en skryf.

"Ja, miskien is dit 'n slegte gewoonte. Mense raak vies partykeer as ek in die geselskap skielik my notaboek uitruk en begin skryf. Soms dink hulle ek skryf af wat hulle sê. Mense wat my nie ken nie dink ek is 'n spy of iets. Maar as die idees kom, wil ek hulle neerskryf, vars uit die oond. Meestal net frases, 'n sin of wat, maar soms hele gedigte of groot gedeeltes van stories."

 

Daar is die digbundels Paradigma van Paranoia en Waansin Kom Te Laat en die roman Die Nuwe Hebsug. Alles binne 'n bestek van vyf jaar. Voel jy trots dat jou uitgewer soveel vertroue in jou stel?

 

" 'n Mens is dankbaar as die goed gepubliseer word. After all, wat is 'n skrywer as hy nie publiseer nie? 'n 0u wat in kafees rondsit en sanik oor sy work in progress en bitch oor die onnosel uitgewers wat nie sy genialiteit kan of wil herken nie. Nee, ek is bly my naam is in die markplek, die publiek weet van my. Dis 'n lekker gevoel alhoewel ek nou nie op partytjies gaan staan en my bek rek daaroor nie."

 

Veral jou eerste bundel was baie kontroversieel: vol politiek en seks. Daar was sprake dat dit verban sou word. Hoe het dit jou geaffekteer?

 

"Comme ci comme ca. Ek skryf wat ek wil skryf, ek lewer my beste. Die uitgewer het vertroue gehad daarin. So, as iemand dit onsmaaklik of uitdagend gevind het, tough luck. Selfsensuur is uit die bose. Ek wou 'n statement maak en ek het."

 

Wat wou jy sê?

 

"Afrikaans word al jare lank bestempel as die onderdrukkerstaal, omtrent die enigste taal ter wêreld wat so bekend staan. Anyway, so daar was al baie teenstand teen die taal, veral onder die anderskleuriges, die Swart massas. Alhoewel, snaaks genoeg, hier in Kaapstad, op die Cape Flats, is daar 'n, as jy dit so wil stel, skool van skrywers, digters, dramaturge, en so aan, wat doelbewus in Afrikaans skryf, as soort van 'n bevrydingstong, dit wil nou sê die Afrikaans wat Cape Flats spreektaal is, nie AB Afrikaans soos ek en jy dit ken nie. Hierdie skrywers vind dit goed m hulself in hut moedertaal uit te druk en om ook hut eie mense te bereik. So, toe dink ek hieroor, by 'n paar skrywersberade so gesit en luister, en toe tot die konklusie gekom dat ek ook myself polities kan uitdruk in my moedertaal en my mense bereik sonder om te skroom, sonder om doekies om te draai, sonder om in die gewone slaggate van Afrikaner denke te vat. My tesis is dat 'n mens die taal 'Afrikaans' moet verwyder uit die knelgreep van die volk 'Afrikaner."

 

omdat 'n groot persentasie Bruinmense Afrikaans praat as voertaal?

 

"Ja, presies. Een van die groot geforseerde mites van ons tyd, geskep deur 'n sekere groepie Afrikaner intellektuele, die soort wat getipeer kan word as bleeding heart liberals as jy hulle wil slegsê, en ek sou dink hulle moet maar sleggesê word, die mense wil nou gehad het dat alle Afrikaanssprekendes, of dan seker eintlik net die Bruin Afrikaanssprekendes, onder die begrip 'Afrikaner' ingedefinieer moet word. Die sogenaamde 'Bruin Afrikaners.' Let op hoe selfs hulle nie kan wegbeweeg van 'n rasse- en velkleur beheptheid nie, Maar my punt is dat ons moet vergeet van hierdie mites. Afrikaans as taal moet op sy eie staan, los van Afrikanerskap, waarvan die taal maar een komponent is. Sedert omtrent die ontstaan van die begrip Afrikaner het daardie begrip se politieke, godsdienstige, morele en sosiologiese inhoud die taal heeltemal oorskadu. Dis hoekom Afrikaans die onderdrukkerstaal geword het. Ek sê ek kan in Afrikaans skryf, enigiemand kan in Afrikaans skryf, sonder om myself as Afrikaner voor te hou, sonder dat die publiek my moet sien as 'n Afrikaner-skrywer. Ek is 'n skrywer. Ek skryf in Afrikaans. Dis al."

 

Soos die toeval dit wou hê, het De Soto skaars hierdie woorde uitdagend tot die wêreld daar buite gerig, toer Yvonne met 'n varsgebakte koek en koffie by ons kom aansluit. Die gebak ruik en smaak heerlik.

 

"I guess at heart I'm just an old fashioned Jewish mother," glimlag Yvonne as ek haar komplimenteer. Sy luister so 'n rukkie na die gesprek tussen my en De Soto, maar verkies om niks by te voeg nie en raak in elk geval klaarblyklik verveeld en gaan weer die huis binne. Dit is seker nie die eerste keer nie wat sy hierdie filosofiese uitings aanhoor.

 

En die eksplisiete seks?

 

"Dis 'n belangrike deel van my bestaan. Ek geniet seks, ek het seks soveel as vat ek kan. Anyway, omdat dit so integraal is, skryf ek daaroor, dis ook deel van 'n liefhêproses. Onvermydelik raak 'n mens nouer gebonde tot die objek van jou wellus as jy ook van die persoon as mens hou. So, ek skryf daaroor en ek wil onbevange wees as ek daaroor skryf, wat ek voel, hoe ek voel. Daar was ook hier altyd 'n tipe taboe dat 'n mens in Afrikaans maar beskaaf moet wees, verkieslik kuis, maar as jy na seks wil verwys, meet dit verkieslik skalks wees, versluierde, slim metafore en woordspeletjies uitdink, Moet net nie direk wees nie. Moenie die ou tannies en dominees afskrik nie. Ek het nie tyd vir daai benadering nie. Die woorde, frases, uitdrukkings wat ek gebruik, kom in Afrikaans voor. Hulle is deel van ons taal, hetsy die Afrikaanssprekende witmense van die platteland of stad of die Bruin sprekers op die Cape Flats. Die taal bestaan, die inhoud is daar. Hoekom moet ek dit verswyg? Maak of dit nie bestaan nie of, nog erger, voorgee dat dit so derderangs is en onsmaaklik is dat dit nie op skrif gestel mag word nie?"

 

Paradigma het groot kontroversie ontketen. Dominees, vroueverenigings, literatore, politici, almal het iets te sê gehad. Meestal afkeurend.

 

"3a, daar was nogal ernstige pogings gewees om die bundel te verbied. Al redding was, dink ek, dat daar nie ook Godslastering by te sleep was nie. As daar soiets was, sou die Publikasieraad seker sonder twyfel iets gedoen het. Maar nou ja, dit is nie verban nie en die moleste het nie die verkope skade gedoen nie. En natuurlik het dit my 'n openbare figuur gemaak. Household name, jy weet."

 

Dit klink vir my soos 'n uitdrukking van sinisme.

 

"Jy weet, die literary fame game in hierdie landjie is maar 'n ou klein speletjie. Die mense lees Wilbur Smith, nie literatuur nie. Digbundels is net amusant vir bestudering ten tye van Afrikaans-Nederlands Honneurskursusse. Wie is bekende skrywers of digters in hierdie land? Brink? Kennis Van Die Aand. Verbied. Etienne le Roux? Magersfontein. Verbied. Breytenbach? Was in die tronk vir sabotasie of hoogverraad. So, die name is bekend, maar wie lees ooit die werk wat gepubliseer word? Paradigma het goed verkoop, Waansin het goeie resensies gehad en is seker 'n bietjie aangehelp deur Paradigma se berugtheid, Hebsug sukkel maar. Niemand het daarvan gehou nie, ek dink die uitgewers het vyf honderd boeke verkoop. Nog nie veel geld gesien nie. Ek verstaan daar is buitelandse belangstelling, Nederland, België. Seker omdat die boek nie vertaal hoef te word nie."

 

Dis bemoedigend, 'n buitelandse deurbraak. Hoe affekteer negatiewe resensies jou?

 

"Dit maak my kwaad. Volgende vraag."

 

Die sonnetjie het intussen uit die agterplaas verdwyn en die tipiese Observatory koue windjie is te koud om in skadu getrotseer te word. Ons gaan sit in die sitkamer waar die Bob Marley musiek plek genaak het vir Tracy Chapman, Dit is Yvonne se keuse, haar gunsteling plaat van die jaar. Voordat ek gaan sit om die gesprek verder te voer, maak ek 'n vinnige draai by die boekrak. Hegel, Nietsche, Bertrand Russell, Dostoevsky, Proust, Chandler, Theatre of the Absurd, Philosophy of Language, Tom Robbins, Pynchon, Le Toit, Hambidge. En vele meer. Geen deurlopende tema nie.

 

"My belangstellingsveld is te wyd om te sistematies te wees," verduidelik De Soto. "Ek lees waarvoor ek lus voel op daai oomblik, Hierdie is net 'n deel van my boekery. Die res is in my slaapkamer, by my ma se huis en versprei onder 'n paar vriende. Ek gaan my biblioteek aan my volk bemaak. Die De Soto de Witt Biblioteek. 'n 0u Kaaps-Hollandse huis op Stellenbosch."

 

Jy het sterk idees oor Afrikaans se rol as taal. Wat is jou houding oor jou Afrikanerskap?

 

"Ek is nie 'n Afrikaner nie."

 

Jy is gebore as kind van Afrikaner ouers, jy het in 'n Afrikaner gemeenskap groot geword, is opgevoed in Afrikaner akademiese instansies. Ensovoorts. Hoe kan jy volhou dat jy nie 'n Afrikaner is nie?

 

"Al wat ek en die standaard Afrikaner in gemeen het, is dat ons albei Afrikaans goed kan praat. Ek het die hele res van die komponente van Afrikanerskap afgesweer, verwerp, uit my sisteem uitgekry. Ek weier om aan 'n groep te behoort omdat ander mense vir my sê ek behoort aan die groep, of omdat ek kwansuis in die groep ingebore is. Ek is vry om my eie groep te kies, as ek aan 'n groep sou wou behoort. Maar eintlik wil ek nie aan 'n groep behoort nie. Ek is 'n individualis. Ek assosieer op vrywillige grondslag met ander mense, ek is onafhanklik, ek is my eie man. Ek weier om 'n Afrikaner te wees. Ek weier om die stigma te dra. Afrikaners is eng, Calvinisties, rassisties, onverdraagsaam, onvolwasse, gewoond aan niks, Xenophobies, kleinlik, ag, noem wat jy wil. Afrikaners het min goeie eienskappe en selfs die wat hulle het word eintlik net geopenbaar teenoor die volkseie. As jy nie deel is van die groep nie het hulle nie tyd vir jou nie. Die Afrikaner ly nog al die jare aan 'n minderwaardigheidskompleks. Selfs na 1948. Nou nog. Die Afrikaner as volk moet in analysis wees."

 

'n Sterk, maar baie kontroversiële, opinie.

"Ek mag verkeerd wees oor die Afrikaner. Ek mag verkeerd wees. Al wat ek sê, is dat ek nie ingedwing wil wees in 'n groepering bloot vanweë 'n geboorte toeval nie. Ek sal kies waar ek staan."

 

Sal jy ooit in 'n ander taal skryf, byvoorbeeld Engels?

 

"Miskien. Ek is tweetalig, ek het al so 'n bietjie in Engels geskryf. Maar op hierdie tydstip dink ek dat Afrikaans meer treffend is as 'n medium, 0m te sê wat ek sê kan ook in Engels gedoen word, maar dit het meer trefkrag in Afrikaans, Ons sal binnekort kniediep in die derde Afrikaanse taalstryd wees en ek wit deel wees daarvan. Verkieslik iewers naby aan die voorpunt."

 

'n Derde taalstryd? Wat sal die oogmerke van 'n derde taalstryd wees?

 

"Bevryding van die taal, eens en vir altyd. Dit moet weggeruk word uit die greep van die Afrikaner establishment, die FAK, die Broederbond, Nasionale Pers. Die taal moet gestroop word van sy volkskonnotasies. Afrikaans en Afrikanerskap moet van mekaar onderskei word, van mekaar verwyder word. Soos wat ek jou voorheen gesê het, dis nie net witmense wat Afrikaans skryf of lees nie. Gepaard met hierdie ontkoppeling, ek sou dit 'n destigmatisering noem, moet ons poog om die taal te omskep in 'n internasionale instrument, ons moet dinge sê wat nog nie voorheen gesê is nie, en nie net politieke dinge nie, maar ook net eenvoudig weergawes van hoe dit werklik is om in Suid-Afrika te leef. Deesdae is dit omtrent net township-literatuur wat enigsins poog om selfs op hut propagandistiese manier 'n realiteit uit te beeld. Ek wil die realiteit van wit bestaan uitbeeld. Ek wil toon hoe dit is as witmens met 'n nie-rassistiese lewensuitkyk, om hier te leef."

Ek kan jou net sterkte toewens. Dit klank na 'n groot taak. Die derde taalstryd is 'n baie interessante konsep. Dalk kan jy wel die segsman van 'n nuwe generasie word: Die Geslag van Negentig.

 

"Ek hoop dit gaan nie so uitdraai nie. Dit klink te veel na net nog 'n Afrikaner literêre beweging."

 

Hoe pas jou musiek bedrywighede in met jou skrywerslewe?

 

"Dit is nog in die beginstadium, ons rehearse nog die songs, maar my band hoop om binnekort deel te wees van die nuwe Afrikaanse rock beweging. Lekker dinge is besig om te gebeur, die vibes raak reg."

 

Wat is die groep se naam?

 

'"Deesdae noem ons dit die Zen Calviniste. Tot laasjaar was dit die Zen Psychedelic Calvinist Band. Omdat tye verander en omdat ons onsself op 'n nuwe terrein begeef, het ons gevoel om die naam te verkort en te verafrikaans. Al die lirieke is in Afrikaans."

 

Dis nog 'n interessante wending. Is daar 'n nuwe gees onder musikante, dat dit nou aanvaarbaar is om rock musiek te speel en Afrikaans te sing?

 

"Ja, daar is 'n nuwe gees, Dit hang saam met die hele Nuwe Afrikaner sindroom en ook die idee dat daar wel lede van die onderdrukte massas is wat ook Afrikaans kan praat. Daar is 'n hele klomp mense wat as 'n soort van anti-hip hip statement wil sê dat dit cool is om in Afrikaans te sing. Die storie kom al 'n rukkie aan, meestal onder Engelssprekendes wat noue kontak met Afrikaners gehad het iewers in hut verlede, soos byvoorbeeld James Phillips, die hele Oos-Rand myndorp ding, of onder Afrikaanssprekendes in bands wat eintlik net Engels gesing het. 0p 'n tyd het omtrent elke hip band, of wat gedink het hy is hip, een of twee Afrikaanse liedjies in die repertoire gehad. Nou is dit tyd dat ons bands het wat net in Afrikaans sing en gatskop met rock'n'roll."

 

FINIS

 

Raisin’ A Praisin’

THE BRIEF YET EXCRUCIATING TALE OF A STRANGE AND WEIRD JOURNEY INTO THE TWISTED WORLD OF SAVAGE, BEER DRINKING, PILL POPPING PSYCHOTICS HELL-BENT ON WORLD DOMINATION THROUGH THE CULT OF PERSONALITY BASED ON THE WRITINGS, ORATIONS AND APOCRYPHAL ATTRIBUTIONS OF THE MILWAUKEE MESSIAH

 

The Alonzo Porter Auditorium was heaving with a seething mass of humanity baying at the lone, slight figure on the stage hard at work doing his limited best to persuade the excited throng to calm down before the main event could commence.

"People, please! Please, people! Brothers and sisters, I beseech you," he bleated into the microphone, "I implore you. I request you in all humility with all the properly vested authority. Please, calm down; please quieten down! Y'all just relax now, settle down in your seats. We cannot go on with the proceedings until you are quiet, peaceful and can contemplate properly what you are about to experience..."

His wispy, amplified voice floated into the farthest reaches of the room like the long dead soul of Tinkerbell looking for a last resting place. The three thousand exuberant souls congregated in front of him refused to heed him. They were here to party and by goddamn they were going to party!

This was the opening day of the United Trinity Gospel Church of the Wayfaring Pilgrim Flesh-to-spirit Actualization Seminar and Thanksgiving Ceremonial. The congregants had arrived here from all points of the compass, from humble trailer parks to upper crust gated residential enclaves, all united in one purpose, one goal, one ultimate higher aim: to gather together in this vast auditorium, to worship under one roof and to hear the inspiring words of the great prophet, and to give thanks for his blessed presence here, in this hall today, and on this blighted, sinful earth where he remains out of duty and not merely pleasure.

His presence had blessed the event much as it had already blessed their lives. The happy initiates wore T-shirts with screenprint images of his face, waved little flags emblazoned with the church's symbolic rooster, chanted the words of the prophet's own personal gospel, as translated into fifty international languages, and growing by the day. If he was not everywhere at once in the physical sense then his holy spiritual presence at least had spread across the globe. There was no place on earth that had not at least been touched by his sanctified spirit.

But spiritual presence by and of itself alone is not completely satisfactory. The crowd had gathered to experience a touch of physical togetherness, with each other and also with the prophet who was scheduled to make one of his increasingly rare personal appearances on stage here tonight. He might be a distant, small figure at the rostrum, especially to the people right at the back in the farthest corners of the room, but his mere presence in the room, his corporeal materiality right there, in front of their eyes, right here, right now, would validate the entire life journey they had embarked upon, would be the culmination of a vast sea change in their various lives. Up until now they had read the words, perhaps listened to the audio tapes, definitely eagerly viewed the video tapes, but very few had actually been anywhere close to the great prophet himself, none have had the pleasure of touching his hand, or just the hem of his robe, none have heard his voice in the flesh as it were, none have had the experience of visiting with the prophet even if only from the distance of the seats of this hall.

Hell, no! The crowd was in no mood to be quiet, peaceful and contemplative. They were in the mood to kick up their heels with joy, to burst out in chants of praise, fainting spells, speaking in tongues, to raise a little sanctified hell.

The compére gave up. He could recognize a hopeless situation when he saw one. He retreated to the side of the stage, disappeared behind the curtain.

The crowd whooped and hollered, danced in the aisles, pranced like veritable Dionysian billy goats in anticipation of the grand celebratory feast.

From my vantage point right at the back of the hall -- close to the exit, just in case there was a spontaneous stampede for the streets inspired by a single, mass urge to convert this entire nation right this very minute -- the atmosphere was unlike almost any similar gathering I had ever attended. Sure, Baptist Holy Rollers really had the knack of seriously getting down in their churches when the spirit moved them, and boy did the spirit move them often enough! But somehow this scene was even more extreme. The spiritual fervor coursing through these Wayfaring Pilgrims was probably as sanctified as any Holy Roller's and I guess they were seriously devout and holy in their own right; yet somehow I sensed a bad craziness in the air, a mood that was dangerous not merely for the tangible fanaticism but also the hysteria that was palpably visible and audible in front of me. The dancing was not pagan, as if dancing and religion could ever be identified with each other, the chants were not satanic in any manner or form identifiable by cultist observers, nobody called on ancient tree spirits or Aztec gods, or anything as clearly weird and beyond the white Christian pale as that.

It was just that ... somehow, I could not really pin point it, at least not yet ... somehow, there was an evil afoot here, a dangerous masquerade of menace and threat.

Maybe these people were all drugged to the gills with a potent, yet poisonous variety of speed.

I decided I should have to get some too.

My very survival, my spiritual survival definitely but probably also my physical survival, could very well depend on the quality of the drugs I could chase down.

I bent over and addressed a small, excitable, middle-aged woman to my left who was doing a close approximation of an Irish jig whilst yodeling a high, keening tune of ancient Bornean origin. Or something.

"Excuse me, sister," I hissed, "but can you tell what you're on? Have you got any more? I could really use some extra refreshment."

I did my best to look like a long lost, despairing soul searching only for salvation and a better after-life.

"I'm gone!" she shrieked happily, not quite meeting my eyes and continuing her whirligig dance, "I'm gone! I'm gone and I ain't coming back! What's that you said?"

"Have you got any more of what you're on?" I pleaded with the sinking feeling that this was not the way to true happiness. I would almost certainly have to seek out the main source.

"Get your own, brother! Get up off your lazy ass and get your own!" she shouted at me, spittle flying from her thin, sneering lips, all signs of merriment gone now. She was a harpy, a demoness, transmogrified into a creature of hate and loathing. And all just because I had asked her for something nice to ease my way through the night! Clearly in her eyes charity did not begin at thy neighbor.

The Pilgrims around her looked equally as unpromising as contributors to the cause of slaking my great thirst for the strongest possible synthetic stimulants known to man or beast.

"Damned! You are all damned!" I cursed them, once more with feeling. "Damned and doomed! You ugly, stupid, evil, selfish swine! May your semen putrefy in your testicles! May your unborn babies rot in your wombs!"

Jesus Christ, my Redeemer! Did I just say that? Was it me who uttered these vile remonstrations, spewed out these base pejoratives? Surely not. It could only have been the inner voice of a lonely, desperate man psychically starving from the lack of chemically induced good cheer amidst the horde of orgiastically celebrating religious fanatics. Yes, indeed. That was it. It was not really me; I had simply been driven into the arms of the slavering, erotic goddesses of craziness, madness and irrationality.

Pursued by these demons and hounded by ever circling, destructive vulture-like hallucinations, I ran out of the hall into the lobby still decorated with banners, double life-size posters, balloons, slogans, tables stacked with commemorative programs, T-shirts, badges, CD's and all the other paraphernalia of the international media crusade and public relations hype.

The street outside was strangely empty. No passing cars, no strolling pedestrians.

I hesitated for a few moments, wildly swiveling my head from side to side searching for the familiar figure of a dealer in long leather overcoat and hat brim drawn low over the eyes, skulking on a street corner, not quite in the shadows, not quite standing in the bleak yellow circle cast on the damp, dirty sidewalk by a solitary street lamp.

No one. Not here, not now. I was desolate, lonely, lost. Was ever a man so utterly out of synch with his need and the reality of the lack of supply?

I sank down on my knees clutching my throbbing head. The faint, far-off sound of a lone trumpet snaked sadly into the melancholy darkness of the city night. That guy on the horn was feeling the blues too.

This was a defining moment. A moment when the earth stood still, the moon ceased to move and all the stars stopped blinking.

"Oh no!" I cried in my utter misery. "If there is a God in the sky beyond Uranus, let him comfort me! Let him reach down and lay his touch on my soul and give me succor!"

Or some good speed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoekom Huil Jy?

Lise bel my net na halfnege op die Sondagaand.

"Ek's terug," sê sy, "en my huis is vol mense vir wie ek nie lus is nie. Kan ek kom kuier? Ek het 'n halfbottel gin hier as jy miskien tonic kan kry. Gee my net 'n kans om te shower en dan's ek daar."

Sy was vir 'n week in Johannesburg vir diverse werksverwante aangeleenthede en om 'n Mediaskrywer van die Jaar-toekenning te ontvang. Die vrou wat haar aaneenlopende sit- en eetkamer by haar huur en omskep het in 'n bachelor-eenheid, se familie het kom kuier en daar is te veel van hulle om eensklaps te hanteer.

Ek stap na die Madeira vir 'n liter Indian Tonic en 'n pak O'Gradys Plain Salted. 'n Mens moet iets in jou maag hê as jy drink.

 

Vyf en veertig minute later skink ek die aanvangsdoppe. Dis my eerste ervaring van gin en tonic en die soeterige smaak verbaas my. Dis miskien omdat dit so soet is en ek so onkundig is daaroor dat ek meer gin saam met die tonic gooi, so helfte-helfte, as wat gesond is vir 'n mens se ekwilibrium.

Ons sit op die mat, Lise met haar rug teen die rusbank, ek met my rugteen die koffietafel, met die gin en die tonic binne maklike bereik. Lise se een kaal voet vroetel in my bekken rond en maak die meneer daar onrustig, terwyl ek met haar ander voet en ronde toontjies speel. Sy vertel my van haar toekenning en oor die ou vriende wat sy in Johannesburg gaan opsoek het, maar meestal luister ek hoe sy kla oor haar werksgenote, haar huismaat en die man vir wie sy al die regte seine gooi sonder dat hy blykbaar enigiets opmerk, of miskien ignoreer hy doelbewus haar flikflooiery. Kerse brand luilekker en Steely Dan se "Babylon Sisters" speel rustig in die agtergrond.

Dis toe die telefoon lui en ek opstaan om te gaan antwoord dat ek vir die eerste keer agterkom hoe die gin my geklap het. Ek steier tot by die telefoon en stut myself met 'n hand teen die muur om my balans te behou.

"Will you accept a reverse charges call from a Ms Du Preez?" vra die Telkompersoon.

Alda het oor die naweek 'n bruilof gaan bywoon in Bloemfontein, as metgesel van haar nuutste belangstelling, 'n mediese dokter wat sy wie weet waar ontmoet het. Alda bel net as sy iets wil hê of nuus het van nog'n ramp in haar lewe. Kanse is goed dat die naweek met die dokter nie goed afgeloop het nie en nou wil sy op my skouer huil. Ek huiwer in elk geval nie veel om die oproep te aanvaar nie.

"Hello, Neels," sê Alda, "Ek's by die huis. Ek's lus om te gaan vir drinks. Wil jy my nie kom haal nie?"

Nou werk my brein teen hoë spoed. Dis tienuur in die aand en sy't waarskynlik so pas teruggekeer en afgeloop na die Gardens Centre om te bel, dus wil sy graag met my praat. Dit kan wees dat iets groots, goed of sleg, gebeur het; dit kan wees dat sy net nie na die lang heen en weer reis lus is om vroeg in die bed te klim nie, of ten minste nie nou al nie. In die gewone loop van sake sou ek onmiddellik ja gesê het, in my kar gespring het, en haar uitgevat het vir die drinks om haar die geleentheid te bied om haar sê te sê.

Ek kan maar net vir Lise sê, jammer, dit is 'n noodgeval, moet gaan, lekker gekuier, sien jou weer. Lise is 'n vrou wat altyd sal sê sy verstaan en sonder teëstribbeling sal loop. Op daardie stadium is sy egter te dronk om te bestuur. Ek weet hoe dronk ek is, en ek sal 'n idioot wees om te probeer kar bestuur, selfs al is dit om Alda te gaan sien. Ek kan nie verwag dat Lise moet huis toe ry nie.

In elk geval, ek is die moer in vir Alda. 'n Week gelede het ek een aand uit desperaatheid na haar woonstel toe geloop omdat my kar skielik nie wou vat nie en sy het nie eers die hoflikheid gehad om my in te nooi nie. Sy was sommer ooglopend vies dat ek durf waag het om aan haar deur te kom klop. Miskien was die nuwe ou daar en sy wou nie hê dat ons ontmoet nie. Alda se kak houding was baie ongeskik en het my woedend kwaad gemaak, maar soos gewoonlik het ek bloot omgedraai en teruggeloop. As daar niemand anders is nie, kan sy my maklik bel en sê: "Ek's lus vir 'n burger en 'n movie, maar ek het nie geld nie." Wanneer daar 'n meer geskikte vooruitsig op die toneel verskyn, word ek tydelik nie meer benodig nie, totdat die nuwe vooruitsig ook blyk nutteloos te wees as langtermynsukses.

Aan die een kant, dus, het ek 'n dronk Lise wat ek nie kan wegjaag nie en aan die ander kant is dit tyd dat ek 'n slag nee sê.

"Jammer," sê ek vir Alda. "Ek kan nie nou kom nie. Ek het mense."

"O," sê Alda met 'n tikkie teleurstelling. "Okay, ek sal jou weer bel."

Lise het reeds orent gekom en is besig om haar skoene, handsak en karsleutels te soek. Ek vermoed sy kon uit my stemtoon raai wie dit was wat gebel het.

"Ek sal loop," sê Lise. "Alda het seker groter aandrang op jou aandag as ek. Moet my nooit beskuldig daarvan dat ek jou style cramp nie."

"Nee, nee, bly asseblief," sê ek. "Ek gaan nêrens heen nie."

"Is jy seker? Ek weet sy's baie belangrik vir jou en dat ek tweede kom en dis okay, ek ken my plek. As jy nie gaan nie, gaan sy kwaad wees en sy gaan jou terugkry. Jy weet jy's veronderstel om te hop as sy net haar pinkie lig."

"Fok haar!" sê ek met dronk bravade. "Jy's hier, ons is besig om 'n lekker tydjie te hê. Ek sit liewer hier by jou as om na haar toe te ry om te hoor wat haar storie is."

Ek omhels Lise en vroetel met my neus in haar lang roesbruin hare waar dit oor haar ore val en adem behaaglik die reuk van haar sjampoe in. Die meneer skrik skielik heeltemal wakker. Heita! Ek's jags omdat ek vol dronkliefde is vir die warm lyf teen my en omdat ek woedend is.

Lise en ek het al vir 'n ruk lank mekaar so uitgekyk, die flirtasieding gedoen en 'n paar keer in dieselfde bed beland sonder dat iets gebeur het. Sy't nog elke keer vir my laat verstaan dat sy nie 'n one night stand wil hê nie en dat die deel van 'n bed nie beteken dat ek lisensie het om my op haar af te dwing nie. Ek het dan maar agter haar rug ingeskuif, lepellê aan die slaap geraak en ons het mekaar die volgende oggend bly respekteer.

Die gin is op en dit is amper 'n gesamentlike besluit dat ons moet gaan lê. Beide van ons is onvas op ons voete en ons skuifel met arms om die skouers na die slaapkamer. Die ander kere het Lise altyd 'n T-hemp by my geleen. Nou trek sy uit tot by haar Woolworths-panties met die rooi rose - ek was toevallig saam toe sy hulle gekoop het - en kruip in.

Onmiddellik toe ek my kop op die kussing neerlê, word ek so naar en duiselig dat ek weer kiertsregop moet sit.

"Sit jou een voet op die vloer," is Lise se raad.

Dit werk uitstekend. Ek sit regop in die bed met my linkerbeen uitgestrek voor my en my regtervoet op die vloer. Ek is steeds dronk, maar nie meer naar of duiselig nie. Lise gooi haar regterbeen oor my linkerbeen, draai na my en begin my borskas streel, oor die tepels, die skamele haartjies. Sy lek my arm.

"Jou vel ruik so lekker," sê Lise, "dit moet wees omdat jy nie vleis eet nie."

Lise kom orent, handeviervoet, laat sak haar kop en begin ligweg met tong en lippe my borskas liefkoos, dan sagte happies. Haar swaar borste en toringtepels skuur vuurwarm oor my lyf. My skag beur teen die onderbroek en ek leun terug, maak my oë toe en kreun van genot.

"As jy wil weet hoe om 'n vrou te plesier," sê Lise, "let op hoe sy vir jou plesier en dan doen jy dieselfde vir haar."

Haar tong seil stadig af teen my bors en maag, kom tot ruste by die onderbroek se rand en dan sit sy weer regop, swaai om en gaan lê op haar rug. My beurt. Ek vou my vingers om die een bors en streel die tepel totdat dit weer kliphard staan, dan leun ek oor en proe versigtig daaraan.

"Ek waarsku jou, gaan so voort en jy's nou-nou in die moeilikheid," sêLise.

Ek lig my kop op om uit te vind of dit 'n waarskuwing of versugting is. Haar oë is toe.

Ek gaan sit wydsbeen oor haar bobene en betrag Lise met aandag. Haarlang hare lê uitgesprei oor die kussing weerskante van haar kop. Die twee borste rus gemaklik op haar borskas, half ontspanne, half op aandag. Onderkant die borste maak haar buik 'n wesenlike ronding. Lise het in haar laat twintigerjare doelbewus begin ooreet en te veel gedrink en baie vet geword. Toe ek haar ontmoet het, omtrent agt maande voor hierdie aand, was sy besig met 'n intensiewe oefeningsprogram by die gym, met persoonlike afrigter en als, om ontslae te raak van die oortollige vet. Sy is nie meer vet nie, maar die buikspiere kon nie meer heeltemal tot hul vorige platheid terugkeer nie.

Wanneer Lise staan, en loop, lyk sy soos 'n stoeier met breë skouers, gewoonlik beklemtoon deur die tipe baadjies en tunieke wat sy dra, met 'n musclebound armswaaiery. Haar bene is effens te kort vir die bolyf. Dis snaaks, as 'n mens na haar kyk, sou jy as onkundige raai dat sy moontlik lesbies is, weliswaar een wat by geleentheid chiffonrokke dra, maar nogtans, terwyl die persoonlikheid absoluut so sag vroulik is as wat kan wees, en sy staan sterk daarop dat sy nie seksueel belangstel in vrouens nie. "Sal nie weet wat om daarmee te doen nie," sê sy. Tog roem sy haar daarop dat sy soos 'n man dink en meer van 'n man is as al die gay mans om haar.

Ek skuif af oor haar bene totdat ek op die grond voor die bed kniel. Ek trek haar panties af en laat val hulle eenkant. Dis te donker in die vertrek om detail in te neem, maar ek let op die welige bos krullerige skaamhare, waarskynlik ongeskeer, en 'n gapende, nat grootlip-vulva. Eers druk ek net my neus in om die malse, wulpse reuk van 'n seksueel opgewonde vrou in te asem en op my reuksintuie rond te rol soos wat 'n mens wyn op jou tong proe. Ek sit my hande op Lise se bobene en kan voel hoe gespanne sy is. Haar asemhaling is ook effens vinniger as netnou. Ek kyk op van waar ek kniel en dis vreemd om die ronding van die buik bo my te sien uitstaan. Ek kan nie Lise se gesig sien nie.

Dan duik ek met my gesig in haar nat hitsigheid in en ek lek met kort en lang hale, ek knibbel, ek blaas, ek suig, ek sluk haar frank, wilde sapperigheid in. Lise se lyf skud heen en weer op die bed. Ek lig haar op onder haar boude sodat ek haar kan nadertrek en 'n beter hoek van betreding kan bewerkstellig. Haar bobene klamp vas om my kop, druk my ore omtrent binne-in die skedel in. Sy gryp my kop vas en trek dit in haar in. Ek weet nie hoe lank dit gevat het nie, maar eensklaps voel ek 'n trilling deur haar bobene wat nou eers soos 'n ysterklamp vasgryp sodat ek begin seer kry. Sy lê plat op die naat van haar rug en bokspring soos 'n lammertjie. Geen klank nie, net die wilde onbeheerste spierbewegings.

Nadat Lise haar bobeengreep om my kop laat vaar, draai sy haar om ophaar linkersy en begin huil. Hortend, luid. Ek is verstom. Het ek iets verkeerd gedoen? Al waaraan ek kan dink, is om agter haar blad in te kruip, haar met een arm vas te hou, met die ander een haar hare te streel en aanmekaar idioties te fluister: "Dis orraait, dis orraait, huil maar, alles orraait", soos 'n mantra.

Ek skat dis meer as tien minute voordat Lise in so 'n mate tot verhaal kom dat sy kan praat.

"Wat's verkeerd?" vra ek. "Het ek iets verkeerd gedoen? Dit was onbesonne van my, ek's jammer."

"Nee, nee, jy hoef nie jammer te wees nie," snik Lise. "Ek huil omdat ek gedink het jy wil my net pomp, maar jy wou liefde maak."

 

 

A Blithe Disregard

How fucking dumb are people who are not legal practitioners? This dumb: at parties everyone who meets you for the first time always has just two questions to ask you and the first one is without exception, "what is the difference between an attorney and an advocate" or maybe, if you get a really bright spark, "what is the difference between an attorney and a lawyer?" The question that follows as surely as death follows taxes is, "how can you defend someone who's committed a crime when you know that person is guilty?"

I've thought of carrying laminated cards with the answers to these life-enhancing questions and then I could just hand a card to whoever was asking the questions at the time, and move swiftly on to the canapés and the drinks table. After a while even the faint hope of getting leg over is no longer any incentive to continue that particular conversation.

The least thrilling scenario ever, though, as a stage setting for the questions, occurred one early morning at my local pub where a colleague and I had stopped off for a nightcap after a long night's drinking. My colleague had gone to powder her face and I was leaning against the bar when this obviously tiddly, ageing hippy chick came up to me and declared, "You are either a minister, an undertaker or a lawyer." Admitting to being an undertaker would have saved me some of the ensuing tedium, both that night and over the next few weeks, but my colleague, whose timing was not always of the sharpest, chose that moment to return to my company and to cheerily admit to being a legal person herself. Hilarity ensued. No, wrong sitcom.

In truth we were then treated to an abridged version of the faded hippy chick's life story – three marriages, abusive relationships, alcohol and drug issues, and more – before she got to the main feature, which was her alleged rape at the hands of two police officers the previous year at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. She was pissed out of her skull, caught at a roadblock, the cops offered to take her home but first drove to a deserted spot where they raped her. Since then she'd been on a quest to obtain justice and redress but had been kind of tilting at windmills. She made it sound as if there was a general and nationwide conspiracy by officialdom of all kinds to suppress her case. She needed help, she needed sympathy, she needed someone to believe her and in her cause.

Never, never talk to tipsy middle-aged hippy chicks in bars at 2 p.m. but if you are drunk or stupid enough to do so, never admit to being an attorney, lawyer, advocate or even just someone who works in the office of the Clerk of the Court.

Diverse and Nefarious Complexities

I badly need that coffee.

I slump into a booth next to the plate glass windows at the front of the joint and wait for the waitress to come over to test her sex appeal on me. The name tag on her blouse informs me her name is Carla. Carla is a tall, thin-faced bottle blonde who has not paid too much attention to that Clairol bottle recently. Her sex appeal consists entirely of her short skirt and over-ample bosom barely contained by a blouse that came back from the wash two sizes smaller than when it went in.

"Hi, honey," she drawls around the piece of gum in her mouth, giving me a straight-lipped smile that could be the result of a motor coordination malfunction. "What'll it be today?"

Her bosom is at eye level. I consider whether it will be rude to ignore this prominent offer of bountiful comfort. I decide to look her straight in the eyes because they are not likely to hold temptation.

"Coffee," I croak, "make it strong and as black as my current state of mind."

A sense of humor is the best defense against waitresses.

"Sure thing," Carla says with no indication that my wit slays her, "there's fresh brewing right now. Be no more'n a minute, you can hold out that long. Rough night, huh?"

Sure it has been a rough night. It's been a rough life.

"Chatty, ain't you," Carla sniffs when she realizes I am not about to come up with a snappy comeback. She turns around to hand in my order at the service hatch. Outside the diner it is already raining heavily. I stare out at the poor dumb slobs scurrying for shelter like roaches running for cover when you switch on the kitchen light. Well, I have been feeling like a roach myself just lately, hoping to reach safety before the big boot stomps down on me.

Where is that goddamned coffee!

Carla comes up with a cup and a big jug of steaming java. She clunks the crockery down on the table in front of me and pours.

"Here y'are, hon, black and strong like you ordered it," she says, giving me a sly conspiratorial grin as if we are partners in crime in some top secret subversive plot. This person must have seen too many low budget spy movies.

I grimace and take a mouthful. Hot damn! It is strong. Strong enough to kick my ass for a wake up call. The fuzzy feeling in my head starts clearing away and I can feel the life returning to my weary bones, slowly and with great dragging of feet like a reluctant child called indoors at the end of a perfect summer's day. Another cup and I might start acting like a human being again.

The other citizens in the diner come into focus too. Ordinary, everyday Joe and Joan Publics with nothing on their minds but the great moral dilemma of deciding to have their eggs fried or scrambled. Do I envy them and their peaceful, uneventful lives? The lives of mortgage loan worries and pondering over how grocery prices rise inexorably week by week, and gripes about goddamn kids today and their lack of respect for their elders. Is it time to trade in the old clunker for a brand new auto, maybe with leather seats and a state of the art stereo system? All these problems and worries, these crises of potentially life changing decisions. These people dress neatly, have clean-shaved faces, neat hair, polite manners. No public turmoil, no public angst, no public presence here in plain sight in front of me.

I bet they look at me and think they see nothing but a gaunt, paranoid looking individual in need of a decent haircut, clean, fresh clothes and a good night's sleep -- and maybe a good psychologist or the love of a good woman. In no particular order.

Okay, so you're wondering about me, my story, my total reason for living and all that. Well, career-wise I have the life-affirming job of being an official police photographer which means I get to hang out at crime scenes a lot, snapping lurid full color pics of brutally murdered citizens and of the surroundings their poor dead asses find themselves in. My photographs are vital for the record, to assist with the reconstruction of the crime, and for presentation at the trial of the killer or killers in a court of law should there ever be an arrest and a prosecution. I take pride in my work. There has been praise for my close-ups, my ability to capture the gruesome yet telling details in bright, often sickening, color. I guess it is a combination of a good eye for a composition, careful framing and dedicated dark room work.

As a rookie I often tossed my cookies after a job but lately it's no sweat having breakfast coming straight off an assignment where I'd photographed a corpse left with only half a bloody face. I guess that's part of what's been riding me. My senses are dulled and I think I've managed to mislay a real major part of my humanity. Food for thought and these are thoughts I want no part of. Rather be a work-a-daddy worrying about his mortgage than be a burnt-out headcase of a weary-to-death police lensman who can't even muster revulsion anymore.

Carla comes past to take another swing at impressing the hell out of me with her worn-out sex appeal. It must be a slow morning for her. Once again I pass on responding to the vampiness and settle for a refill on my coffee.

"You look kinda beat, hon," Carla remarks, giving me the once over, trying to win my attention with the age-old sympathetic waitress schtick, "better git your tired ole ass into bed before you fall over in public. It ain't dignified."

Dignity! That's an old-fashioned concept in this post-ironic world. I give Carla the benefit of a bleary grin.

"You pour the coffee," I reply, "and I drink it. If we can stick to this simple division of status roles we could just develop a great interpersonal thing here. Don't you think?"

Carla flounces away in a huff. Some people take umbrage.

Sonny Boy Williamson II (Aleck Ford to his parents, pre-fame also known as Rice Miller) is probably the last undisputed master of the unamplified blues harp and Little Walter Jacobs is the first harp player to male full use of amplification to make his instrument into essentially a new thing. Walter, the younger man, is killed in a bar fight when he is about forty whereas Sonny Boy's recording career only starts after he turns fifty-three. He travels around, goes to Europe, but dies in his mid-sixties in bed at home in the Delta. The older man is born down South and he is straight out of the Delta conceptually and sonically. Walter plays with the older, down-home guys, the heavy bluesmen transplanted from the Delta to Chicago but as a solo recording artist he outsells the lot of them. He takes from the Delta sound exactly what he needs to inform and fuel his music but he is not about to get bogged down in that old timey country jive. Walter is a bright lights, big city type of guy. That's how he lives, that's where he dies.

So, which of the two is the more authentic bluesman?

These are the questions I grapple with when I'm too tired to go home. There is not much to go home to anyway. Two dreary rooms, bathroom, kitchenette. Sometimes I work double shifts just so I won't have to go home. Somehow I feel more at home sleeping on a gurney down at the morgue than when I am at my apartment. The shrink says I should take a holiday. She says the stress is eating away at me, I'm facing a nervous breakdown if I don't take a long break from my professional duties.

Carla is back.

"Another refill?" she asks with a waitress's timeless generosity when angling for a big tip.

The caffeine is starting to kick in, that queasy, wired feeling I get when I drink coffee on an empty stomach. I need to find a warm, dry spot to crash and I will not be able to sleep if I keep on boosting my nervous system with coffee.

"Pour it," I say. I can sleep when I'm dead.

Sonny Boy or Little Walter?

Just two nights ago I am called out to a crime scene where some kid has his face carved into bloody shreds and his chest and abdomen slit open, probably with the jagged edges of a broken glass bottle neck, like some mocking street level version of an autopsy. The homicide guys say it is a drug deal gone wrong; the poor dead slob probably tries to burn someone, maybe his dealer, and learns an important life lesson the hard way. Too bad he will never pass it on to his children. Anyhow, I take these close-ups of the bloody mutilations, all lurid red flesh. Afterwards in the lab the prints lie on my work table before they go off to be filed in the case docket and I study them. For a minute or two I do not even know what I am looking at. I cannot identify the subject matter, it might as well be some abstract design by an artist who really likes working in shades of red.

I guess bloody corpses just become abstract-expressionist after a while, especially in close-up. Action painting from the bastard offspring of Chaim Soutine and Jackson Pollock.

At the other end of the diner two young women are having a loud argument. They are dressed like punk rockers, with razor cut short hair, dyed trendily white, and basic black wardrobes. Their faces are very white and they wear no make-up except for thick black eyeliner and a very dark shade of lipstick. The argument gets uglier. It seems to me they're fighting over a mutual love object. Both of them smoke with furious intensity. I wait for one of them to attempt stubbing out her cigarette butt on the other's arm or face.

I also photograph burn marks. Once I am called out to do a young woman who has burn marks all over her arms. She is stabbed to death by her boyfriend but the cops think she is tortured first. It turns out that she is just a severely unhappy young woman who makes a habit of burning herself when she is in a particularly depressed state of mind. Apparently she somehow feels that God deserts her. So she imitates the effect of the eternal hellfire on her own body. Maybe she is a performance artist too and has not found her audience yet; nor a reputable art dealer or gallery.

These true-life action artists find only drug dealers and shooting galleries.

On the whole I think I'll go for Sonny Boy over Little Walter. The latter is not deep blues enough for my taste and Sonny Boy just seems to swing that much more because his country ways are less frenetic, more expressive. Walter is a pop music kind of guy where Sonny Boy is an unreconstructed Delta bluesman .

My craft is not a vehicle to fame or fortune even if I am the equal of any fine art photographer you could mention. I read articles in glossy art magazines where art critics blow off steam on their perceived need for reality in art, a grounding in real life they call it, as if artists come from another planet and are incapable of getting a fix on the world they now find themselves in. Well, the images I deal in are nothing if not real. In fact, they are so hyper-real that your ordinary, everyday art critic might find them quite fantastic. But there is an infinitesimal distance between the images and the reality in which they originate, just enough to convince the viewer of the dirtiness of murder without exactly causing more than passing anxiety and a quick, routine grumble about the state of the world today.

The two punkers conclude their acrimonious discussion and get up to leave. Both outwardly unharmed if psychologically scarred. Mad as hell but not physically dangerous. They hesitate at the door. It is still raining and they are not keen on braving the wetness, maybe they do not want their spiky punk hairdo's ruined. After a few moments they resign themselves to the inevitable and dash out onto the sidewalk, turn left and run like mad.

I am ready for another cup of coffee. To hell with the after-effects of caffeine!

Carla is nowhere to be seen. The short order cooks and the counterman are where they should be, in position at their posts. The other patrons are fully engaged in their designated diner activities. It is only the damn waitress that is missing in this picture. I suppose she's either having a pee break or maybe she's stepped out to the back alley for a quick cigarette. This diner does not exactly look like a non-smoking zone but nowadays one cannot tell. With so many non-smokers around you can find yourself in a place where you don't see anybody smoking and then you don't smoke either because you figure a smoking ban is operative while all the time it's nothing of the sort, it's just that the clientele consists of a preponderance of non-smokers.

So, there are smoking bans in force in public spaces and corporate environments and you see these poor, desperate schmucks who cannot survive their working day without a puff or two on their portable lung cancer facilitators, standing on the sidewalks outside their buildings in little clumps of smoker solidarity, smoking their cigarettes with an outlaw intensity. I bet they all inhale.

Where is this waitress? If she knows just how much of a lifeline the caffeine is to me, she will not torture me like this. On the other hand, maybe she does it deliberately to get back at me for not worshipping at the altar of her sex appeal. She is not bad looking by any means, if you consider the matter carefully. Too skinny perhaps and slightly too long in the tooth but otherwise not too shabby. Good tits if you get right down to it. It could be the Wonderbra.

A lot of men go for waitresses. It must be that waitresses are desperate to escape from this drudgery and so they're real encouraging if they see a man they think is a viable proposition to carry them off to a life of luxury, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Some theorists, on the other hand, hold that you cannot read anything significant into a waitress's smile except for the assumption that she is schmoozing in the hope of a bigger tip than you might have left otherwise, assuming, for the sake of the argument, that you had intended leaving a tip in the first place.

The scurrying figures on the rain-drenched sidewalk distract me. Almost none of the fools has an umbrella. If this weather holds, I am going to have a busy night. This is crime weather. When the good citizens stay in to escape the inclement weather, the felons see their opportunity to venture out in pursuit of their trade and cold wet nights somehow make it easier for homicidal crazies to cast off constraints. Somewhere or other there will be a murder tonight, whether it's committed as a crime of passion with no premeditation, or committed with malice aforethought, or is a killing that is merely incidental to another sphere of criminal endeavor.

If there is a dead body I will soon be on the scene with the tools of my specialized trade. I ain't no Richard Avedon or Herb Ritts but I guess I can sure immortalize a corpse.

Snap 'em and wrap 'em is my motto.

Last night, or earlier this morning if one insists on a more accurate rendering of the time frame, I go on a bit of a bender straight off the job.

The crime scene is a small walk-up apartment in a less fashionable district. Two flights up and across the hall. A deaf old woman opposite. Facing the rear of the building, there is a family apartment, the address I had been called out to. Two kids, a couple of girls, eight and ten years old the homicide guys say. I guess someone in the building tells them this because I sure as hell cannot tell just from looking at the bodies. The man kills them with a shotgun, obviously fires many rounds at the bodies until they are almost literally blown to bits. The wife is in the bedroom, tied to the bedposts, gagged. The homicide guys say they figure he ties her down so she can listen to him kill the girls and then he comes back and carves her up with a safety razor. They say they reckon he does it slowly so that she takes a long tine to die. The neighbors probably just turn up the TV when the noise from the apartment becomes too much. I do not quite get the exact nature of the relationship between the man and the woman, whether he is a boyfriend or a second husband, but I believe they aren't his kids. There's an APB out on him. They will lethally inject his ass if they ever lay hands on him. That is, if he isn't most unfortunately and regrettably shot whilst resisting arrest.

I take an hour to do my shit. I point and snap, point and snap. And somewhere along in there I guess I snap also. A Kodak moment of my own.

After I develop the film, make the prints, write captions and put them in the envelope for the Homicide guys, I stop off at a bar where my credit is good if I am ever temporarily under-funded. I put whatever cash I have on me on the bar counter and tell the bartender to start pouring and not to stop until I fall over. Many hours later I am still standing and no longer interested in drinking another drop. That is when I get really scared.

This diner is about a block from the bar. Short walk, long distance.

Sonny Boy dies from the consumption, but he plays blues harp right up to the very end, coughs up blood into a tin can. He is tall, proud, tough and mean as a rattlesnake, sly as a back-country bootlegger. Hardly anybody ever messes with Sonny Boy. They say there is a lot of voodoo in him, he has some powerful mojo hand. And he is pretty handy with a blade.

Little Walter is slicker, in some ways sharper, a big city mover but always with the insecurity of the orphan kid who hustles tips from the first day he walks and who sleeps on pool tables just to have a warm place to be in the cold Chicago nights. He is a slight figured man, fragile, and quick tempered, the street bred kid who takes no disrespect from anybody and is always ready to challenge any guy twice his size. Especially if he thinks he can take the man's woman away from him.

The return of Carla.

"Still doin' fine?" she asks. "More coffee? Breakfast to go with it? Pancakes, bacon, hash browns, eggs the way you like 'em, whatever you want. We can fix you up with something nice, take it from me, you look like a guy who could really use some solids to go with all that coffee you're drinking. You may think I'm just pitching you a line but the breakfast here's good. Guarantee you that."

Good sales pitch, kid. Didn't you ever hear of psychological hunger?

"I'll stick to the coffee," I growl.

Carla gives me a look which I do not confuse with a come hither invitation. It more than likely invites me to drop dead, but not on her shift. Waitresses! Will they ever learn that they are supposed to serve and not to suggest.

Anyhow, this has better be my last cup of coffee. Sometime in the near future I will have to go home to get a few hours sleep before reporting in, ready to rock'n'roll for another night's worth of exquisite fun with photography. The prints from last night are products of remarkably high quality because I took good care of that negative. I do not why it was so important to have really high quality prints of this particular commonplace bloodbath. Usually I just drop my film at the all-night police laboratory where the dedicated staff are always happy to oblige. I guess they feel that it is a great honor for them to participate in my art in this technical, mundane but very necessary process. To them the pictures are of even more abstract nature than they are to me. Back at the lab they care nothing about the content as long as the color values and tonal gradations are correct. In my case they have learnt to do justice to my work by cranking up the various tones and shades of red and by getting a really sharp definition on the wounds and abrasions. They do some good shit there.

I guess it makes a difference if all you have to go by is a scientifically calculated color chart and you never come face to face with the subject matter. There must be something to be said for creative distance. That reality check interface may just mess with your artistic integrity in ways even your personality actualization books will be at a loss to explain.

The paparazzi have nothing on me. Someone has to stalk the celebrities, I guess, and get those images of unguarded decadence and secretly invaded privacy. It is difficult, even dangerous work but at least the subjects are generally on the hoof, so to speak, unlike mine where I am seldom called in if a live one is found. Sure, I do assault victims, people who survive car crashes, and such like. And part of the job always is to take pictures of the crime scene itself, the physical surroundings with all the scattered inanimate objects, some of them displaced in a life and death struggle. These photographs have the quality of still lifes. The shots might have been styled. The difference is that I know different and so do the detectives who investigate the case and study the pictures as aides memoire of what the scene looks like when they first step into it. All of us know of the violence that precedes the deceptive serenity of those photographs.

Somehow breakfast starts sounding like a good idea. Pancakes and syrup may turn out to be just the ticket I need to get me out of this state and into a new one where the trains of thought run on dimes. And some fried eggs, sunny side up, once over easy. The smells from the kitchen don't hurt my nose. There's rumbling in the pit of my stomach. I guess the engine room has just woken up and has decided that if it is feeding time, it had better let me know it is still alive, if not completely well, down there.

I beckon Carla over.

"Pancakes and syrup," I say, "and plenty of it. And two fried eggs, sunny side up, once over easy. Please. My appetite is big and ugly."

"Oh you!" Carla simpers. "You are such a kidder! I'll bet a big boy like you can put away plenty. Won't be but a minute if you can wait that long."

Is there any choice but to wait for as long as it takes?

I give my fellow diners a once over once more: still nobody of particular interest or intrigue. No mysterious, beautiful women or sinister looking men with hats pulled low over their eyes. No down-at-heels gunmen, cheap hustlers, or flashy pimps either. This world is not all that romantic. The sleaze happens elsewhere, carefully concealed behind securely locked doors, out of sight of these work-a-day men and women whose only, remote, contact with that world is by way of the scandal sheet tabloids, and even that reportage is so veiled and glamorized that the real life protagonists will never recognize their own world if they are not mentioned by name in the stories. Every now and then the tabloids cover a particularly lurid and sleazoid crime I photograph but of course they do not have access to my pictures so they rely on archive prints or on images from the photo banks. Anyway, the tabloids prefer action pictures of the once living, taken when they are very much alive and sexy, doing whatever it is that they do that makes them media darlings in the first place. Close-ups of messy exit wounds are not actually all that titillating unless perhaps you are a blood junkie or a forensic specialist.

Otherwise I can have a lucrative, if illegal, side-line income from selling prints of my own modest efforts in the celebrity photography field, albeit of dead, messily killed celebrities. As it is I earn a standard cop's salary which is just about enough to keep the very real wolf from the flimsy front door of my apartment. These werewolves are really something, let me tell you.

The breakfast arrives and looks and smells good. Carla musters a bon appetit and leaves me alone to devour the food. That is just what I do. It is good and there is plenty of it. A man will not starve on this diet.

"That as good as I said?" Carla asks as she leans over my table to refill my coffee cup.

"Not bad." I say. Unqualified praise does not come easy.

"Not bad, huh!" Carla snorts. "Way you were shoveling it in, I'm surprised you tasted any of it. Want anything for heartburn? Food is gonna settle in your stomach, one big ole lump, take hours to digest. You gotta chew, you know."

Momma! I've found you again, after all these years! It has been a long time, hasn't it?

"I'll chew next time," I say. "If I ever come back here."

Carla seems to want to share something with me, then decides not to and flounces off, breasts straining even more unwillingly against the tight blouse. Such a pity to waste all that sex appeal on an unreceptive bastard like me.