Blind Date at a Funeral (8 page)

The silence touched me in ways I cannot describe.

I swear I felt Hendrik standing right there next to me up on the roof.

I opened the book.

Took the microphone …

Looked up into the sky …

And I began to read to Megan as loudly as I could.

(Soundtrack: ‘I Can Make You a Man' from
The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

It was not easy to be a stud while growing up in South Africa!

Especially when there were movies like
Saturday Night Fever
,
An Officer and a Gentleman
and
Top Gun
.

I swear, if I walked down Eloff Street, swinging my backside like John Travolta did in
Saturday Night Fever
, someone would have decked me for sure.

Film stars like Steve McQueen, Roger Moore and James Dean were all hunks and the girls went crazy for them. And us skinny, pimpled, highpitched, fashion-challenged South African adolescents had to compete.

It was tough!

I was a short and very scrawny teenager. And my nose grew quicker than any other part of my body, and not because I told lies or anything. I was like a walking nose with feet. I was certainly not a chick magnet like those actors were, and definitely not somebody the girls fawned over. Those movie stars ruined everything for me in the girl department, I must say.

Then something even worse happened. The movie
American Gigolo
was released.

The film opens with Richard Gere doing exercises on a crossbar in his living room. He has this device where he puts on some special boots and hangs upside down and does these fancy lift-ups. Twenty-four-pack stomach and all.

The girls went crazy.

I was so fed up with those damn movie stars. Screw them all. Travolta, Rob Lowe, Stallone, McQueen, Newman, Tom Cruise, Redford, to name a few.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

It happened about a week before I was going to one of those things we called ‘socials'. It was like a community dance for school kids. I think this one was at Barnato Park School if I'm not mistaken. We heard there were going to be some hot babes there. So I decided to get buff and fit and powerful … in one week. Yes. One week.

We had no television in those days so there were no ab-thrusters, buttblasters or jiggle weights to order by phone. And we could not get any of the amazing things advertised on the back of American comics like X-Ray Specs, Woo-Pee Cushions, Magic Sea Creatures, Joy Buzzers and … wait for it … Charles Atlas Spring-loaded Body-building Kits, guaranteed to make even Reggie Parks bigger.

So I went local.

Yes, local. South African Gigolo style.

I erected a crossbar, just like the one in the movie, in the doorway of my bedroom. It was actually a towel rack. I filled my socks with sand from the building site down the road, got some bricks, and I was ready for action.

I was ready to build. Build big muscles. I was going to do exactly what Richard Gere did in the movie. I was going to get myself some muscles in one week. It would be a case of: ‘In just seven days, I can make you a man.' Just like they sang in
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
.

My guns were going to be so big, I was going to roll up my sleeves and show off my big biceps, like the power Lebanese, Portuguese, Italian and Greek guys did in my neighbourhood.

I warmed up with some stretches. Old-school style. Like jumping jacks and silly Monty Pythonesque knee bends.

Then I went to my old portable, red record player and put on the
American Gigolo
soundtrack. Unfortunately, my motivation was quickly usurped. The record was warped and it sounded awful because there was a long scratch across the whole side. All I heard was ktchhh, ktchhh, ktchhh.

Damn it, my sister had been using my record player to listen to the Bay City Rollers again. She must have damaged my
American Gigolo
record. So I put on my reel-to-reel tape instead. On came Blondie's song ‘Call Me'.

I was ready. I hooked myself up to the towel rack, reached up and …

CRASH!

The whole thing collapsed. That towel rack smacked me on the head. I had a lump the size of a golf ball on my forehead.

Apparently that muscle-building technique was a bust, so I tried to use the sand-filled socks as weights. I almost hit myself in the eye because the socks were elasticised and as I launched them, they came flying back towards my face and proceeded to swing back and forth, this way and that, trying to knock me unconscious. I tried to use the bricks as dumbbells, but they were too heavy and too awkward for my skinny little arms to lift.

After a few minutes, I gave up and went back to being a short and scrawny teenager, which was a lot easier and less dangerous than being a muscular hunk.

(Soundtrack: ‘Whiskey in the Jar' by Thin Lizzy)

It was one of those days when you want to turn back the clock. Rewind time. Do it all over again.

No one likes to disappoint one's dad, especially if he is a great guy.

The whole debacle actually started off rather innocently to tell the truth.

Let's go back.

Johannesburg, South Africa, last century.

I can see it now. I was about sixteen and my brother was fifteen. For some reason my brother was always the ‘older' brother, even though he is about sixteen months younger than I am. He was also taller than me. Stronger than me. Less afraid than me. More adventurous than me. And he was more of a delinquent than I was.

I was sitting in my room with my guitar. I wanted to be a rock star. I had a headband around my head and I was trying to channel my inner Carlos Santana. My eyes were closed and I was playing ‘Black Magic Woman' very badly and croaking out of tune at the top of my voice. I was swaying and bobbing and weaving to the music. (In my head it sounded perfect of course.)

I didn't hear the door open, but I sensed someone was in the room.

It was my brother. He curled his upper lip and looked at me like I was crazy. ‘What the %@&* are you doing?' he said.

‘Nothing,' I replied, highly uncomfortable. My brother was way cooler than me and I felt embarrassed.

‘C'mon,' he said. ‘I found a secret.'

And, because I'm a dolt and I always allowed him to lead me by the nose, I followed.

He took me to my parents' bedroom. They were not home at the time and he strode boldly over to my dad's wardrobe.

‘What are you doing?' I whispered urgently.

‘They're not here, man,' he said, reaching under the bedside table and feeling around for the cupboard key. We all knew where the key was hidden, including my mom, my sister and the domestic worker, who reached under there to get the key when she put my dad's clothes away after ironing.

My brother produced the key and opened the door. He pulled over the chair from under the window and climbed onto it.

‘We're going to get into kak,' I said.

‘Only if you tell,' he said, reaching behind my dad's jerseys piled neatly on the top shelf.

He dug around for a second then pulled his arm out. In his hand he held a full bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch whisky.

‘There are three other bottles up here.' (My father was often given booze as gifts from his clients during the December holidays and, because he didn't drink, he stashed them away up there.)

‘What are you going to do with that?' I asked.

‘Duh. We're going to drink it, you idiot.'

And that's pretty much where my flirtation with hooch started. And because we would only have a few sips at a time we never got wasted on those bottles. We just got a buzz from the Scotch. That was good and bad. The bad part was that we didn't get so drunk that we threw up, which often deters first-time drinkers from ever doing it again. (Except for my brother.)

No, sir, over the months we polished off those bottles.

Two important caveats need to be inserted here.

Number one. We didn't get busted because my brother cleverly filled the bottles with water that was coloured with a tea bag so it looked like the bottles were filled with whisky.

Number two. Because my father did not drink, those bottles sat in his cupboard for years. He saved them in case someone came over for a drink (except that nobody ever came over specifically for a drink per se, and if they were drinkers, he forgot to offer them one).

He also believed that Scotch got better with age.

Fast-forward a number of years. My brother and I are both in the army and are home on a weekend pass. We are having dinner at my house and my dad has one of the big wigs from the Johannesburg City Council to dinner.

My mom has made a wonderful dinner. And, yes, my father offers the VIP a Scotch.

Holy crap.

My brother and I look at each other totally bewildered.

My dad says to my brother, ‘Boytjie, please go to my cupboard and get a bottle of Scotch for me. You know where it is, right?'

My brother sort of clears his throat and says, ‘You mean up at the top, like, behind …'

Before he can finish, my dad says, ‘Yes.'

My brother comes back with a bottle of Scotch. My dad pours the man a tot and offers my brother and I a shot.

We decline. I mean, who wants to drink Johannesburg tap water that has been steeped in tea for five years?

I can only imagine the horrified looks on our faces.

So the dinner guest makes a toast and takes a sip.

My heart stops. I close my eyes. I cringe inside.

I open my eyes.

The man wipes his mouth with his serviette. ‘Good stuff,' he says. ‘I like the Chivas.'

He had three more during the evening.

When everyone retired to the lounge and no one was looking (except for the domestic worker, who reprimanded him and swatted him with a dish towel), my brother took a swig from the bottle. He grimaced like the whisky drinkers in the cowboy movies always did.

‘It's Scotch,' he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Strue's God.'

For the next twenty years, my dad never said a word about it and for some reason, we boys kept schtum.

As it often does, time dissolved that memory and we all pretty much forgot about the incident until it surfaced recently when I started working on this book.

And, if my belief system works like I expect it to, and there is life after death (and I'm hoping there is), that's one of the first questions I'm going to ask my dad when I see him again. That, naturally, will come after the hugging and laughing and backslapping stuff of course.

(Soundtrack: ‘Every Breath You Take' by The Police)

I did not mean to be a stalker.

Well … I did … but I didn't … sort of.

It wasn't stalking in the biblical or reality TV sense. Not your average voyeur-type thing. Firstly, because I was too chicken to be a real stalker and secondly, because I was a skinny, short guy and the stalkee had legs all the way up to her armpits and could have taken me out with her guitar rather easily.