Let's Trance

ONE

 

It is just after 11h30 on the Sunday morning of the Foolish Moon trance party at the Hangklip Hotel. I am tired, I’m wasted and I want to go home.  Anna must drive us home but at this time she has no clue where her car keys are or how to access the functioning parts of her mind. 

 

Anna sits on a patch of scrub grass under a milkwood tree, with her feet in the sand, doing that thousand-yard-stare thing you do after a long night of chemical excess.  About twenty paces away to our right a large crowd of strong young people are shuffling around in the sand in thrall to the beat of the relentless trance rhythm. It’s already a hot day but these kids appear to be, well, in a trance, and some of them have been out there since the previous sunset. Whether they’re on adrenaline or something more synthetic, it sure must be strong stuff. 

 

Anna seems to be of firm intention to go home but the true state of her mind is quickly revealed when I ask her whether she’s got her stuff together. 

 

“Where are my car keys?“ Anna asks in a dull, little girl’s voice. “I don’t know where my car keys are.”

 

“Where were they the last time you saw them?”

 

“I don’t know. I’ve lost them. They’re gone. I don’t know what I’ve done with them. I don’t know.”

 

Anna scratches around in her small tote bag in a third attempt to find the keys in its dark, mysterious, though not very expansive, depths and this attempt is as fruitless as the first two. I take the bag and let my fingers wander around in it but I can do no better.  Anna’s key ring holds car and house keys and the whole thing is made even bulkier by an ethnic beadwork “flag’ and it should be a doddle to put one’s finger on this conglomerate even in the world’s largest, most crowded handbag, which this one is not. Without a doubt there is no bunch of keys in this bag. I have an unpleasant vision of asking strangers for a lift back to Cape Town, with an addled woman in tow.  

 

“Can’t you try to remember where you saw them last?”

 

“No.”

 

How truly helpful. The lights in Anna’s eyes flicker like candles that have burnt down to the very bottom of the wick. In Anna’s case the lights will go out and nobody will be home. 

 

“Did you say goodbye to Tommie and Corné?” I ask.

 

“Yes, I think so. Just now. A while ago,” Anna says as if it were yesterday or the day before yesterday. 

 

“Wait right here. I’ll be back just now.” I say. “I’m going to have a look and see if I can find the keys at their tent. Don’t go nowhere.”

 

While I walk to the tent I’m holding thumbs so tightly I’m scared I’ll permanently damage the circulation. 

 

Tommie and his buddy Gys are indolently stretched out on the grass outside the tent. Ricky is curled up in the foetal position way back in a rear corner of the tent.  Corné is not present.

 

“Anna and I are on our way,” I say. “Have any of you perhaps seen Anna’s car keys?”

 

Tommie and Gys deny all knowledge of any such thing. My heart is beating slowly and there is a painful tightness of the chest. Were I in any way the type who panics easily and is prone to tearful nervous breakdowns, round about now would be an opportune moment to lapse into hysterics. I cast a weary and despondent eye over the area around the tent. There are the two Coleman coolers, the fold up chairs, the beach towels draped over the guy ropes, the empty two litre Coca Cola bottles, a baseball cap, a lone sandal.  Ha! What is that sticking out behind the Coleman? I step closer, bend and with the most intensely pleasurable feeling of satisfied relief I pick up the bunch of keys.  

 

“Found them,” I say. “Cheers people, thanks for the hospitality.”

 

Finding the keys is only half the battle. I am not at all sure that Anna is in any shape to drive us all the way back home. It’s been a while since I’ve driven a car for more than a kilometre but I guess that with a little concentration and judicious application of extreme nervous tension I could manage to drive at least as far as Gordon’s Bay and with any luck Anna’s normal service will have resumed by then, or at least enough of it to be able to drive home from there. 

 

Anna does not quite share in my jubilation over finding the car keys. To tell the truth, I am beginning to think that Anna is no longer compos mentis. I help Anna to her feet, hand her the tote bag and stride off in the direction of the exit, mistakenly assuming that Anna is capable of looking after herself.  As far as I’m aware Anna knows we are heading to the exit to make our way home and she knows that she should simply follow me but, lost in her own reality, if one could call it that, Anna makes a sharp turn to the right and strolls over to the catering area. I am already at the exit when I realise that Anna Is not right behind me. Fortunately I spot her in the distance before she can disappear from view around a corner.  

 

I run after Anna.

 

“Oh, hi,” Anna says. “I’ve been looking for you, hey. We must go home now.”

 

I grip Anna firmly by the upper arm and guide her through the gate and to her white Uno.

 

“Shall I drive?” I offer.

 

“No, it’s fine, it’s okay. Once I’m behind the steering wheel I’ll make it,“ Anna says, with more determination than insight into the perilously confused state of her mind.  

 

Each of us has had two and a half E’s since the previous evening, but after my second E and before I dropped the final half a pill, I ate breakfast while Anna’s tummy is still empty. Anna is a small woman and I guess her metabolism just can’t deal with that last straw, not with a stomach containing only beer and Coca Cola.   

 

I do not want to upset Anna by indicating that I have little confidence in her present ability to drive her car and so I hand her the car keys and we get into the car.    

 

“Just give me a minute to get myself together,“ Anna says.

 

The minute stretches to ten minutes before Anna has an adequate grip on her hand-eye coordination and motor functions to the extent that she can switch on the engine and ease the Uno slowly and carefully out of the parking area and onto the gravel road that leads to the highway back to Cape Town. My very silent sigh of relief is immeasurably huge and my equally secret prayer of thanksgiving shoots straight to whatever is up there to hear it.  

 

 

TWO

 

The adventure had been conceived on the previous Friday evening when Jen, my current fuck buddy, and I dropped in for a drink at the Harbour Tavern in Kalk Bay. At first we chose to sit in the relatively quiet atmosphere of the back room but our sweet nothings were disturbed by the arrival of a young couple who seated themselves on two barstools in a corner, tuned up acoustic steel string guitars and sang excruciatingly sweet folk melodies. Jen and I immediately moved to the main room of the bar, to a table at a window overlooking Main Road.  Shortly thereafter and to my complete surprise Anna arrived in the company of a large, gray haired man. I’m at least a foot taller than Anna and this guy was taller than me. 

 

In accordance with the typical Cape Town coincidence it turned out that Jen knew Anna’s friend from somewhere and when Anna greeted and hugged me with great exuberance and joy and immediately monopolised my conversation, Jen and the gray haired guy were fortunate to have something in common too and carried on a conversation of their own while Anna and I conspired together like long lost lovers. Not that we have ever done that thing.

 

“The Vortex crowd are putting on a trance party at the Hangklip Hotel this weekend,” Anna said. “They do the best trance parties! Let’s go! I have to work until five tomorrow afternoon and then we can hit the road. Are you up for it?”

 

I’d never been to a trance party, the prospect of attending one was kind of sudden and I was not altogether sure that Jen would approve of me going to any kind of a event with Anna, much less something as decadent as an all night trance party at Hangklip.  On the other hand, it is not always a bad thing to go on a spur of the moment adventure and Anna is attractive and nice enough, and was apparently very happy to run into me, and it could only be an interesting experience.  Also, Anna didn’t know the exact nature of my relationship with Jen, and for various reasons I did not want to let on that Jen and I were more than mere drinking buddies. 

 

“I’m in,” I said.

 

“Good man! Be ready by seven. I’ll fetch you.”

 

Anna and her friend had one more drink before saying their goodbyes. It was time for me to empty my bladder. The “Gents” at the Harbour Tavern does not have the customary urinal but only individual stalls that are as wide as passages and about as deep. Just as I closed the door of the stall it opened again and Jen stepped inside. We knew each other well enough that there was no performance anxiety on my part and I had a relaxed, satisfying piss. 

 

“That woman is after your cock,” Jen said. “I know you’re enjoying it. She’s just your type, that one, isn’t she? A short, dark-haired dwarf. I know it makes you horny when her head only reaches to your middle. She doesn’t have to bend down so far to get to you.”

 

“Anna is not a dwarf. We are merely good friends and it’s not my fault if she’s happy to see me.”

 

“Have you put it in?”

 

“What?”

 

“Have you put it in already? Have you two done it yet?”

 

“I’m telling you she’s no more than a friend and I haven’t seen her for months.”

 

By that time my bladder was quite empty. Before I could tuck the trouser snake back into its hideaway and zip up, Jen grabbed firm hold and started manipulating it with excessive zeal. 

 

“Let’s do it here,” she said.  “Sit on the toilet lid and I’ll sit on top of you.”

 

“No, man, it’s a public toilet! People will come in and hear us!”

 

“Fuck them. Do you think the short dark-haired dwarf would do this for you?”

 

Jen pulled up her long skirt above her hips to show me her red panties with the butterfly on the front.  I meekly turned down the toilet seat, dropped my underpants and pants and sat down. Jen pulled the gusset of the panties to one side and slowly sat down on my lap while using one hand to guide me into her sopping wet, warmth.  Jen is tall enough to plant her feet on the floor on either side of me and this gave her enough leverage to piston her hips up and down to ensure maximum penetration. She leant forward and nibbled at my left ear while she bucked up and down on my lap. Two guys entered the room and now I seriously wanted Jen to stop but fortunately we made so little noise and the newcomers were so loudly drunk that they failed to notice any compromising social activity in the toilet stalls. Jen licked deeply into my ear only twice before I came. She got up off my lap and both of us grabbed handfuls of toilet paper to wipe away the sticky effluvia.

 

“Let’s go home,” Jen said. “I want to have a bath with you. Then I want you to do me long and slow. I’m sure you’ll probably wish the short dark-haired dwarf was in the bath and bed with you.”

 

Jen is a tall woman with wild, honey blonde hair and motherly breasts and womanly hips. Anna is much shorter and though she has the breasts she does not have the Renoir hips that Jen has.  Interestingly all three of us share the same star sign. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THREE

                         

I should give some backstory here.

 

Anna had been the girlfriend of my mate Henry. At about three years in duration, it was the longest relationship he’d had since I’d met him but I also didn’t know when it ended and exactly why, at the time anyway.

 

It was about a month after I moved to Muizenberg that Anna, and I don’t know how she got my new phone number or address, phoned me out of the blue one evening.

 

“Hey, stranger, long time, no see! Can I come over?” she said. “I’ve got drugs.”

 

We hadn’t done drugs together before but, hey, if this is what she wanted to do now, it was more than okay by me. 

 

I was a tad surprised by the call though. I’d spent some time with her and Henry when they were together, but it hadn’t been a great deal of time, so we never quite became great friends. I’d liked Anna, who was indeed my physical type, yet also quickly saw that her personality, especially when she’d had a few drinks, wouldn’t quite gel with me.  When she was tipsy, she became quite excitable and highly indignant about the injustices of life in a manner that just irritated me, and I could see how we’d ever be compatible other than as friends though not necessarily close friends.

 

Obviously, had retained a fond memory of me and perhaps she’d gotten my phone number from Henry.

 

Anna had a gramme of good quality coke, I had some scotch and we settled in comfortably on the couch in the lounge while she chopped the lines on a plate on the coffee table and I kept refilling our glasses.

 

The thing Anna wanted to discuss with me was that relationship and the reasons why it didn’t work out and broke up.

 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with Henry,” Anna said, “but he wasn’t such a great guy to be in a relationship with. We’d go to a party and he’d ignore me and flirt with all the other women there; be miserable with me and amusing and witty with them.  Some nights he’d masturbate in bed when there was a perfectly willing, sexy and horny woman in bed with him. The worst part was, when we had sex, he was always depressed afterwards as if he’d done some bad thing. I took it for two years but then just couldn’t anymore, for my own sanity’s sake. I felt so worthless so much of the time.”  

 

He’s probably bipolar,“ I said. “Explains the mood swings and opposing behavioural patterns. I’ve heard this kind of story from two different woman before, about their very similar relationships. He could also be actually gay and conflicted. He’s a Catholic, you know, and he believes that shit.  Just know, it wasn’t you, it was definitely him.”

 

The doctor is always in.

 

“Thank you for clarifying this for me,“ Anna said. “It’s a real boost for me. My self esteem was shattered. I thought I couldn’t even be attractive enough for a guy.”

 

Anna was plenty attractive, no doubt about that, and feisty, and probably a warm, sexual being. Somehow, we never got around to trying out that sexuality. With the deep, intense conversation and with the slow but sure consumption of the gramme of coke, it was dawn before we knew it.

 

She left. Both of us had to go to work in a couple of hours.

 

We could’ve had at least a  brief fling after this reconnection but we never did.

 

 

FOUR

 

On Saturday evening Anna arrives at seven sharp and gets down to cases.

 

“I think we must get some drugs, don’t you agree?”

 

Why had I guessed in advance that this necessity would be foremost on Anna’s mind?

 

“Yes, good idea, to help us through the long night. If I have a vote in this, my vote is for E or half a cap of acid, rather than C.” 

 

“You’re right. It’s been a while since I’ve had good E. Anyway, it will be difficult to find privacy for schnarfing and I’m so tired of just doing coke all the time. Anyway, the quality you get nowadays is terrible and it’s getting expensive again.”

 

Neither of us have any camping gear. I have my duvet for just in case but nothing to protect it from getting dirty on the ground and I do not own a tent anyway. I put my trust in the organisers of the event to ensure the availability of all required conveniences. In any event it had previously occurred to me that Anna would want to take some kind of chemical stimulation that would mean little or no sleep for us and that the duvet will not be used at all. 

 

Anna immediately phones her supplier.

 

“Hey, Ike? Howzit, man? It’s Anna, yes, Anna, you remember me? Cool, man. Listen, I’m looking for something to take to a party.  No not that, I’m looking for the little blue thingies. D’you still have them? Cool, man. Can you get some?  Only two. How much are they? Where are you? Okay, Ike, it’s cool, man. We’ll come through but I want good stuff, hey? I’m bringing a friend. Okay?  Bye.”

 

“Ike is cool,” Anna says. “A beautiful, sexy Nigerian dealer. Mister Supersmoothblackdude. He’s got something for us but because I only want to buy two hits we have to go meet him in the city. It’s fifty bucks a pill. He says it’s not really E. He calls it R. It’s a kind of pseudo-E. Are you okay with that? Ike says it’s better than E.”

 

“Whatever,” I say.  

 

We are in Muizenberg. Anna says we are supposed to meet Ike under a bridge in the vicinity of the Good Hope Centre.  Thirty minutes later Anna parks her white Uno in a parking area just below the campus of the Cape Technikon. It is already dark and there are no other vehicles in the parking area and it doesn’t take much to make me nervous. It is also quite clear that Ike is not present. I am the kind of hypocrite who does not say no to the offer of a drug, but I will never buy anything unlawful directly from a dealer.  I much prefer it that my friends do the purchasing. That is why this situation is not contributing to my happiness, though Anna remains her normal happy and excited self.  Maybe it is merely my own paranoia that makes me see visions of police traps, arrest and humiliating imprisonment. If it were not for fear of appearing to be a scared dwackhead, a cowardly dwackhead never mind, I would suggest to Anna that we forget about the drugs and just rely on the alcohol that will be on sale at the trance party.

 

Ten minutes later there is still no sign of Ike and both of us are getting a tad restless. I’m nervous because I‘m expecting the imminent arrival of the police and Anna is annoyed by Ike’s tardiness. Somewhat naive of her. Drug dealers are notorious for always being late. Lou Reed said it all Waiting For The Man.  Anna starts developing the suspicion that she got Ike’s directions wrong and she phones him but the subscriber is not available. Anna concludes that we are waiting at the wrong bridge – the only bridge in our immediate vicinity is an overhead pedestrian crossing that connects two parts of the Technikon campus. 

 

The solution is to embark on a mission to find the correct bridge where Ike might well be patiently waiting for us.  First Anna drives across the bridge over the railway lines and passes the parking deck on top of Cape Town station and heads towards Oswald Pirow Boulevard where she turns right and drives back in the direction of Muizenberg, passing under the Eastern Boulevard, on the not entirely logical assumption that Ike might think of the elevated Boulevard as a bridge.  Anna thinks that Ike drives a red Toyota Corolla and we keep a lookout for any red vehicle. There are none in sight. Anna turns right again and drives back to the city centre along Darling Street and makes her way back to the Technikon parking lot, which is still empty.  Anna phones again. The subscriber remains unavailable. 

 

Once again we cross the bridge over the railway lines but this time Anna carries on straight across the intersection until, for no apparent reason, she turns into a side road that gives access to the quite abandoned rear section of what used to be the old Culemborg site of what used to be the South African Railways.  This section lies under another part of the Eastern Boulevard, which could yet be the mysterious bridge for which we are now kind of desperately searching, and this industrial part of Cape Town does seem like an excellent, dark, hidden place to meet your drug dealer.  Anna drives deeper into the dilapidated industrial landscape that has not been used by the railways for a very long time. The road twists and turns, crosses rusted rail tracks, disappears behind ruins, and it seems to me that we are driving deeper and deeper into a pit from which there might be no escape. There are no streetlights. 

 

By now I’m officially nervous. I do not know this part of the Cape Town, it doesn’t look as if Anna knows what she’s doing and I’m really starting to get the Fear. Any moment now any number of Cape Town gangsters could appear out of the dark, force us to stop, haul us from the car and drive off in it, probably after shooting us. At that place and that moment the relative minor danger of a police trap no longer worries me. After endless minutes of driving around in this maze of an industrial waste land we arrive back on Oswald Pirow and Anna decides to return to that parking area we know quite well by now. I pray that we will not run across a patrolling police vehicle. The cops will have to be blind and drunk not to get suspicious of this white Uno that is clearly driving around with no purpose yet keeps returning to the same empty parking area. Doesn’t this apparently aimless driving telegraph drug deal?

 

Anna phones again. Thank God, this time Ike answers. He claims that he’s been waiting for us in the parking area on top of the Cape Town station, barely six hundred metres from where we are parked. It seems that he is at the spot to which he directed Anna in the first place. We probably drove straight past him in our stupid, fruitless search for the mystical bridge that might exist only in Anna’s superheated imagination, or maybe she is so excited by the prospects of the drug buy that she confuses “on the bridge” with “under the bridge.” If Ike was watching us consistently and senselessly driving past him he must think that he is dealing with two wasted and brain dead individuals who hardly need more stimulation of their already overloaded synapses.     

 

 Anna parks in the station parking lot and soon a tall, thin but broad-shouldered Black dude gets out of a red Toyota and casually ambles over. He wears a white tank top and white jeans. Anna winds down the window and the dude leans into the car and gives us a big grin.  

 

“How are you doing?” he says in a cultured foreign accent and gives me long, careful once over. I smile back in a completely open, harmless fashion. 

 

“Hey, Ike, man, it’s cool,” Anna says. “This is my friend. We’re going to a trance party at Hangklip and we thought we’d get something to keep us going, you know?” 

 

Ike may well know what a trance party is, but I suspect that he’s never been to Hangklip and has no idea where it is. All I want to do here is to get the deal done and to fuck off at a rapid rate of knots whereas Anna is into the whole schmooze your sexy Nigerian dealer kaffeeklatsch thing.

 

Fortunately for my tense nerves Ike is a goal-oriented businessman.  He stands back, gives the immediate area a wide sweep of visual reconnaissance and leans back into the car and casually drops a small paper envelope on Anna’s lap while she hands him two tightly folded R50 notes in a smooth transfer from palm to palm. Ike stands back again, sweeps the parking area and ambles back to his car.  Anna and I feel a warm glow of excitement and relief. 

 

“Thank god that’s done. Let’s hit the highway,” Anna says. “It’s a good thing these trance parties only really get going quite late in the evening.”

 

FIVE

 

We arrive at Hangklip at about half past ten.  I was 14 years old the last and only time I’d visited Hangklip on a Voortrekker bicycle tour when our group camped out under the milkwood trees for five days, close to the isolated holiday cottage that belonged to the family of one of our gang. In those days the area was virtually unpopulated. Now there are ugly houses all over the flat scrubland between the national road and the seashore. It is very dark and there are no streetlights, which makes it difficult for Anna to find the small Foolish Moon route markers that are probably intended for navigation by daylight. There are no other vehicles on our stretch of road and it is with palpable relief that we spy the distant lights of the Hangklip Hotel. The parking area outside the hotel is rather full but Anna does manage to find a space for the Uno.

 

We pay the entry fee, get our luminous plastic bracelets and enter into the alternative universe of Foolish Moon.

 

There are a number of gazebos in the immediate vicinity of the entrance, where traders sell all manner of handmade artefacts such as suede bikinis, necklaces made from wire, feathers and small stones, incense holders, dagga bongs, dream catchers, unframed watercolours on homemade paper, and much else. To the right of the entrance there is a large covered section with groundsheets and all. I suspect that this must be a chill out area. To the left and around the corner from the entrance there is a lapa, or whatever it’s called, where there is a bar counter and a small, low stage. Beyond that, stuck away around another corner, there are food tents where a variety of fine vegetarian fare is on offer. The caterers have their own sound system that presents a permanent alternative to the music from the stage or the tunes from the DJs. 

 

Directly across from the entrance, and on the other side of some milkwood trees there is a large expanse of beach sand. The PA tower and the DJ booth of the trance jockeys are on the far side of the sandy area and this means that the faux beach must be the dance floor. In the area between the dance floor and chill out tent and dotted around under the milk wood trees there are many occupied tents and probably many more of those even further back in the deep interior of the site.  I’m reminded of Kommetjie Caravan Park without the caravans. 

 

We get some Windhoek Lagers from the bar and embark on a walkabout of the area.  My first impression is that I’ve stepped into a neo-hippie skate punk world. The dominant impression is of youth and shapeless baggy pants and all kinds of loose clothing of natural fibres. Very whole earth and lentils. Tribal. The majority of the people are dark-haired and this is a phenomenon that really strikes me the next day, in the daylight. Is it that blondes don’t do trance? These people might look kind of like surfing hippies but maybe they are all secretly new age Goths in Indian clothing and beads. The sweet aroma of dagga is everywhere. Everyone is friendly, has large eyes and appears to have lost contact with the reality of earth.

 

Anna suggests that we neck our Es so that we’ll peak at just the right time, somewhere in the vicinity of midnight. We move to a shadowy spot where Anna carefully removes the two little pills from her purse and tries to be highly inconspicuous when she hands me one.  We each take a large swallow of beer to help the little things swim down the gullet. Now our respective dice have been cast.   

 

Benguela are about to play on the stage next to the bar and we find ourselves a comfy spot in the sand approximately ten metres from the stage.  Benguela consists of a guitarist, and upright bass player and a drummer, and there is a fourth person who manipulates the electronics to provide extra electronic rhythmic texture to the basic trio sound so that we have a trance beat with live musicians improvising over that bedrock. The guitar is channelled through electronic echo and the notes chase their tails to give the effect of perpetual motion and most of the set exists of instrumental songs that start slow and then inexorably grow to a faster and heavier pace but with an ambient vibe all the same. The audience is sitting down on the sand. There is no dancing.  Halfway through the set I feel warmth rising up through my body.  The E has taken hold!

 

An acquaintance of Anna comes over to chat to her and a young woman sitting cross-legged on my right starts talking to me. I do that thing where I appear to listen to the young woman but in reality I’m only concentrating on the music and I barely hear what she is saying. Mostly I just nod and look as if I’m hanging onto her every word. The music is getting very visceral and it’s taking me somewhere. Don’t know where yet. Around us people are having spontaneous friendly conversations. The vibes are getting cool. 

 

Colourfields are on after Benguela and they’ll play a live trance set from the DJ tower. Most of the crowd stroll across the white sand to congregate in front of the tower. Colourfields’ music comes with a stroboscope, lasers and psychedelic lights. The interesting part is that though the tunes are all electronically generated there is a person playing drums along to the thumping dance beat. Some people dance but the majority remain static and do nothing but stare at the tower or maybe the light show.  Anna and I stand at the back of the crowd and wiggle our hips every now and then. 

 

Colourfields play for an hour and as soon as they thank the crowd at the end of the set, the first DJ takes over with a slow building trance tune. The E has kicked in nicely and as soon as the thumping beat and electro squeals waft over us I move to the centre of the dancing mass. At first Anna is with me but she soon returns to her spot at the rear of the crowd. She retreats slowly but surely until she is just outside  the main group where she dances on one spot. Anna does what most of the others do. She stands on her spot, barely moves her feet, gently moves her torso from side to side and makes some graceful arm movements. My preference is for the centre of the action where I move around in a small circle to give me room for some hot moves.  Unfortunately my energetic approach does not work too well in a fairly closely packed mass because no one else wants to move around and my neighbours do not approve of me stumbling into their space. 

 

The really funny part is that the people are arranged in rows facing the DJ tower even if there is absolutely nothing to see in that direction except maybe for the pilot lights of the DJ equipment and the dark, huddled form of the DJ turning knobs on the sequencers or adjusting “faders” or whatever it is that a trance DJ does. The scene could be a smaller, live version of the dance scene from the movie Antz. I am probably the only dancing person who is in constant motion. I keep moving in a slow circle so that I can have a good look at my fellow dancers, and incidentally also to keep an eye on Anna. 

 

By two o’clock in the morning Anna is either tired or just feels like taking more drugs. She pulls at my sleeve. 

 

“I think we need more E,” she says. “I’m going to take a walk around to check if I can find someone with extra supplies, okay?”

 

I’m still feeling quite strong but I wouldn’t say no to a little pick-me-up. Anna disappears behind the milkwood trees and I keep jumping around until Anna returns with a big smile and beckons me to join her in a quiet corner. 

 

“I’ve run into these cute 19-year old boys,” Anna says. “They’ve got everything back at their tent, E, acid, poppers and zol. And they had no problem selling me two pills. They call them Smurfs.”

 

“More pseudo E?”

 

“Probably. They tell me it’s good stuff though.”

 

We return to the bar on a quest for water. The bottled water is sold out and there is hardly any ice water on the bar either and so we have to share a Windhoek to aid the inward journey of the tablets before we return to the dance area. 

 

Some time later Anna again plucks at my sleeve. 

 

“I’m going back to go sit with the boys to chat for a bit,” she says.

 

My guess is that one of the boys is a sexy young stud whose physical attributes are seriously stimulating Anna’s chemically supercharged hormones. And why not? She is a mature woman with a mature woman’s sexuality, who could really have a good time with the power and insatiable energy of an available young guy.   

 

I have no idea of the time but I am most certainly on a planet of my own and my spastic dance moves become more and more wild and it is not long before I apparently step on someone’s toes. He is a tall, thin, blond Nazi officer look-alike with hair that is cut short on the sides and much longer on top with a widow’s peak and he has a very thin line of a moustache skulking on the upper lip. If I were casting a movie with a role for a nasty SS officer I would give him the nod, no question. The Gauleiter gives me a mean look and makes a gesture to indicate that I am intruding in his space. I move away. Not long after he taps me on my shoulder, smiles evilly and again uses sign language to tell me to get the fuck out of his space.. He leans over to talk to a chunky dark-haired guy next to him and points to me and the chunky guy also turns around to give me an appraising look. This development scares me because it is not my wish or desire to be assaulted by these two and I suspect that if I were to leave the dance floor they will follow me and beat me up in the dark shadows of the milkwoods. I move away from them and attempt to moderate the enthusiasm of my hot dance moves. For a while I try to stay on my spot, far away from the Obersturmbannführer, but by and by I again move more energetically yet keeping a sharp look out for the Afrika Korps at all times. Fortunately, he and his buddy disappear after a while and I never see them again.

 

Slowly but surely night fades away and the eastern sky grows pale pink. The eponymous Hangklip rock towers over us and the sun rises from behind its bulk. A voluptuous young woman of maybe 18, with very long dark hair and in an ankle length turquoise dress with spaghetti straps, and apparently no underwear, is doing her own special trance dance to welcome the sunrise. She looks up at the rising sun, head flung back, makes Egyptian arm movements, gyrates slowly and smiles ecstatically. The other dancers keep shuffling determinedly with no sign that they notice either the girl or the sunrise. 

 

By 08h00 I’m kinda tranced out. My legs are stiff, my sandals and lower legs are full of dust, and I suspect that my shorts and shirt are as dusty. It’s full daylight and I’m hungry and thirsty. I buy a Windhoek Lager at the bar and go to the food table where I have to settle for a cold vegetarian curry on day-old pita bread because they only have leftovers from the night before and haven’t started any kind of breakfast yet. The curry is not half bad, even cold. I go looking for Anna to ask her whether she is hungry too. Coincidentally she is looking for me and we run into each other close to the dance area where there is still a group of diehards shuffling in the dust. Anna doesn’t want food and gives me half of a Smurf as a morning pick-me- up to carry us through the rest of the day. She also invites me to come around to meet the 19-year old boys.    

 

The boys’ tent is just behind a clump of milk wood trees that form a barrier between the dance area and the main camping area. You can’t see the dancers from there but the continuous thud of the electronic percussion is pervasive. Our host is Tommie, with brown hair, bags under the eyes, an open, friendly, hospitable smile and a firm handshake. 

 

“How can I improve your day?” is how Tommie greets me. 

 

Tommie’s friend goes by the name of Corné and he is less friendly. Corné is tall, blond, with broad shoulder, narrow hips, permanent sulk and a tight T-shirt. He knows how good looking he is and how buff his body is and like a cat he is forever taking up a position and a pose that is calculated to show him off to best advantage.  I study the interaction between Tommie and Corné and realise that I am misjudging the reason why Anna finds them so interesting. She likes them precisely because they won’t be hitting on her, and no doubt also because of their copious supplies of recreational drugs. 

 

I gather that Tommie and Corné are a couple of recent standing and it actually annoys me to see how hard Tommie has to work to keep Corné happy.  Tommie soothes, encourages and hugs Corné as if he were a large, bored toddler who has to be kept happy with constant attention and distraction.  Corné accepts the emotional stroking as if it were his God-given right to be pandered to, and he gives Tommie nothing in return.  I feel sorry for Tommie and will not bet on the longevity of this relationship. 

 

I want some Coke and Tommie is such a gracious host that he goes to his car to fetch yet another Coleman cooler filled to the brim with cool drinks and ice. There are already two other Colemans at the tent and I marvel at the level of home comforts they can put into this camping thing. The contrast with my pathetic lack of preparation is sickening. 

 

I drink my Coke and lie around at the tent with Anna. Gys strolls up. He is small, thin, and dark and looks like a real rascal and has a great sense of humour. Anyhow under the circumstances he does seem to be very funny.  Gys crawls into the back of the tent to change his clothes. It is quite pleasant to recline half-asleep in the sunshine, just listening to the crap the others talk, observing Tommie’s romantic attentions to Corné and chuckling at the steady stream of jokes from Gys.  Yet another buddy, Ricky, returns from his perambulations and finds himself a comfy spot in the back of the tent. He is exhausted after the long night’s jol. In the distance the trance rhythms thud on relentlessly and suddenly the whole scene makes utter cosmic sense. I have no idea what it means but I do know that I’m at ease, comfortable and at peace with the world.  

 

That feeling lasts until it’s time to go home and I find out that my companion has no idea whether she’s home with the lights on or off.

 

 

SIX

 

 

Surprisingly, once Anna gets behind the wheel; of her Uno, she does seem quite capable of driving the thing home, though there are some nervy moments when she’s manoeuvring her way out of the parking lot onto the road connecting the hotel with the road home.

 

Anna drives carefully but at a good pace and seems to wake up more and more the further we go.  When we reach Gordon’s Bay she stops at a restaurant along the Beach Road where I buy her a full English breakfast and plenty of strong coffee.  Both of us are still wasted, though alert, and the conversation is desultory. We don’t seem to have much to say to each other.

 

I’m very glad to be home again. The first priority is a hot bath to wash off the sweat and crusted dust, the second is to pass out on my bed.  I don’t invite Anna in when she drops me off, she doesn’t suggest that she’d like to come in, we just say goodbye and she drives off.

 

With hindsight I should’ve invited her in to share a bath with me and/or should’ve undertaken to phone her later for further arrangements. However, the jury was still out on whether it’d be a good thing to start something with Anna and, anyway, there was Jen who wouldn’t take kindly to Anna’s more significant presence In my life.

 

Even all that pseudo-E hadn’t made me change my mind about Anna.