Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (21 page)

We spent that day hanging around the hotel. The next day was Christmas Day. Someone told us about this long isolated beach where the sand was white and stretched as far as the eye could see, so we planned to go check it out the next day. We left early as usual, with all our beach luggage. We also took with us champagne, party caps, whistles and rattles – and of course I brought along the drugs.

As before, we all popped some LSD before we set off. We found the beach easily enough, but accessing it was more difficult. We ended up walking across some sort of parade ground that had a flagpole at the edge of it; it looked like a Scout camp. It was very isolated, though; there wasn’t even a dog in sight. We still had to walk quite a distance along the shoreline to reach the beach we were looking for. While walking we noticed a barrier reef just off the coast. Already the LSD was starting to kick in, and Penelope and I decided to go out onto the rocks and explore.

While we were looking for shells among the rocks, I happened to look towards the coastline and saw Marco, waving frantically and calling my name. I couldn’t understand what the fuck he wanted, so I chose to ignore him. Then he shouted so loud I nearly fell off the rocks. I turned around and saw Gerald holding his forearm. Something had happened. I assumed that maybe a snake had bitten him.

I made my way back to the beach. Marco looked so shocked I thought his eyeballs were going to pop out of his head. What the fuck was going on? Gerald looked down at his forearm; when I followed his gaze, he released his hand and, to my horror, revealed a huge hole in the flesh. I could see the muscle inside his arm. It was a gruesome sight.

What had happened was that he had taken the broken bottle neck we used as a pipe to smoke marijuana and stuck it in the pocket of his baggies, but had left the end sticking out. When he’d bent down to pick something up his forearm snagged on the jagged head of the glass, slicing his arm open so deeply that you could see the tendons.

Where the fuck was the hospital? What the fuck was
I
supposed to do? I was tripping on acid, we were in the middle of fucking nowhere, and I just couldn’t believe it. It bummed me out immediately.

Even in my state of being high, I couldn’t help noticing that there was no blood. Gerald was dark-skinned but his face was as white as snow. He was in deep shock. I tried to take stock of the situation and formulate a plan. It was decided that Marco would drive Gerald either back to the hotel, where I was hoping they would have a first-aid kit, or somehow get him to a fucking hospital. We would stay behind and wait. It was still early in the morning and there was no point in all of us going along. Once Marco and Gerald had left, I needed a joint. Then the girls and I opened the champagne, plonked ourselves where we were on the warm sand and started partying. There wasn’t a soul around. We lay on our towels, switched on the music and just enjoyed the morning sun.

About three hours passed and we all started getting irritable because Gerald and Marco had not returned. Then Andrea freaked out and said she was leaving, so off she flounced. It was weird: the further she walked the smaller she became until only her head was visible, and then she simply disappeared. The whole scenario was repeated in reverse when she came back again. I thought I was seeing a mirage. Well, I suppose you might call it that.

By now we were more worried than irritated. We wanted to leave the beach but there was so much luggage it was impossible for me and the girls to carry it all on our own. Luckily, two couples came walking along the beach just then and they agreed to help us. Still raving out of our heads, we made our way up the embankment and onto the parade ground, where we walked slap-bang into a platoon of policemen who were marching there. It was bizarre. I was as high as a kite, but the shock of seeing the police jolted me back to reality. I had weed in my bag and LSD in my wallet. I thought I must have looked guilty as hell, but the police didn’t even give us a second glance. Maybe we did look like regular holiday-makers.

Marco and Gerald eventually returned to the hotel. They had managed to find a local doctor, who had stitched up Gerald’s cut.

As far as I was concerned, it was time to leave the Transkei, but there was one more stop to make: Coffee Bay, with its famous natural wonder, the Hole in the Wall. From there, we meandered down the coast – I was popping acid and everyone was smoking joints – and the view was magnificent. When we got to Cape Town, we stayed in Bantry Bay in an apartment overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Town was buzzing. It seemed like the whole of Johannesburg was down there. We hooked up with a bunch of our friends who were members of the Houghton Country Club, one of whom was Barney. He told us how he and his crew had spent a day in a nature reserve, Bain’s Kloof, about 120km northeast of Cape Town, where there was apparently a beautiful waterfall. It sounded great, so we decided to head out there the following day.

There were about eight of us, all togged out in our Ray-Bans and beach gear, and a couple of us had eaten slivers of LSD. The waterfall wasn’t all that exciting, but it was good to be out in a nature reserve on such a gorgeous summer’s day. We put on our music and made ourselves comfortable around the picnic area. In my travel bag, which went with me wherever I went, I had ten plastic bank bags filled with weed. I settled down with my back against a rock, took a handful of weed, placed it in a Frisbee and proceeded to crush and separate the stalks and the seeds. We made a few joints for everybody; what remained in the Frisbee was enough to fill about half a matchbox.

Andrea came over and asked me if she and the other girls could have the remaining weed. I handed the Frisbee to her, warning her to be careful and not to leave it lying around. We guys were standing away from where the girls were sitting. We had just finished smoking when three park rangers turned up. In their green uniforms, armed with rifles that were so old they could have been from the Boer War, I couldn’t help thinking they looked really funny. I was really high by then, of course. I pointed towards them and said loudly, ‘Hey, guys, look, we’re being attacked by Israeli paratroopers.’

Within seconds, the rangers came down the slope in a cloud of dust, rifles trained on us. We were told to freeze. Andrea still had the Frisbee and the marijuana in her hand. Luckily they didn’t search us guys there and then. The rangers were more interested in catching Andrea than anyone else. We were ordered to follow them to the office, which was about 400m away. I deliberately walked slowly and managed to fall a little behind the others. I took out all ten bank bags, which were in a yellow plastic supermarket bag, folded them as tightly as I could and stuffed the bag down the front of my Bermudas. It was far too bulgy and anyone could have seen I was hiding something, so I tied my towel around my waist, but still the bag stuck out. So I let the travel bag hang from my shoulder and over the front of my pelvis and tried to look casual. When we got to the office, the rangers took Andrea inside while I walked to the car and, as nonchalantly as I could, opened the door. I pulled the plastic bag out from my crotch and placed it under the car. I threw my travel bag on the front seat. Then I walked back to the office, where by now the rangers had summoned the police from Worcester.

Andrea was crying. She asked me to take the rap. Normally, I might have owned up, but I had specifically warned her, and she’d been caught red-handed … I mean, all she’d had to do was drop the Frisbee. We were all standing around waiting for the police when I happened to turn around; from where we were standing, the yellow shopping bag containing the ten plastic bank bags of weed was in full view. There was no other litter anywhere around. I almost crapped my pants. Apparently what had happened was that our friends from the Houghton Country Club, who’d been there the day before, had caused so much havoc that the rangers had immediately assumed we were the same group. And this time around they weren’t going to let us get away with anything.

The rangers ordered us to bring our cars over to the office, but nobody spotted the yellow bag. As I got into the driver’s seat, I scooped up the bag. I managed to park on a sand hump, so when I got out of the vehicle I hurriedly slipped the bag behind and in between the front wheel and the hump.

Two white boys in blues arrived soon afterwards in a police van. By now Andrea was on the verge of hysteria, so Penelope agreed to go with her to the police station. The police then conducted a thorough search of my vehicle. Clearly, they were not very well acquainted with drug paraphernalia. There was a broken bottle neck behind the driver’s seat and a piece of silver paper rolled into a spiral filter, but they didn’t seem to be bothered by these. When Andrea and Penelope were put into the back of the police van, I suddenly had visions of Andrea’s parents, both of them pointing their fingers and scolding me. I imagined her father being so mad that he was practically frothing at the mouth, about to grab me by the throat and squeeze me to death, telling me he had trusted me with his only daughter, and now she was in jail. Andrea’s whole protected little world was crumbling around her. Here was a good Jewish girl being busted, and that desperate look of innocence on her face, almost as if she was heading for the gallows, stayed in my mind for a long time. The police told us that we should come to the court in the morning, as the girls would appear first thing.

Fortunately, Andrea got off with a R150 fine, her father didn’t kill me, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

After that, we stuck to visiting the beaches and tourist attractions in Cape Town.

Come January, all my friends who were at university withdrew from the social scene, soon to be lost in their studies, and I went back to my job as a salesman. One night, after we had been out jolling and smoking weed till the early hours, Penelope’s father put his foot down. As we opened the door to her house, he was standing there in his boxers, grandpa vest and these funny slippers. I pissed myself laughing, but he didn’t see anything amusing in the situation. He grabbed Penelope by the hair and told her to go to her room. I started shouting at him, warning him not to touch her, but he slammed the door in my face. After that, I was banned from the house. Although I still cared deeply for her and we saw each other from time to time, Penelope became caught up with her studies and it was difficult to sustain our relationship. At the end of the year, her parents bought her a ticket to travel around the world. I was heartbroken. When Penelope left, I felt abandoned and I looked for consolation by smoking weed and getting high. This would become a pattern for me – living on the edge, dangerously and destructively.

I went to work for a company called Fedgas. I was the youngest member of a strong sales team. The company put us through a vigorous training course, and it was a very challenging job. Proving to a manufacturing company that it was more cost-effective to use gas than electricity required a sharp mind. Negotiation took place at executive level. I loved that job; it was stimulating, and I envisaged myself having a good future with a company that was already well established in the industry. When I joined I was given a basic salary, a company car and a medical plan; I was also assured that in the months to come a commission package would be worked out on the sales I made.

I was young. There was no real rush to be successful, and during my time with Fedgas I cleaned up my act. While I was still selling weed on the side and partying and smoking at weekends, I had also saved enough to buy myself a CB900F Honda motorbike with a modified Kerker exhaust, and I was living in a spacious one-bedroomed apartment that led onto a garden with a communal swimming pool.

I had a steady girlfriend named Lana, whose father, Ronnie, was a partner in a top law firm. Lana was a good and stable influence in my life. Ronnie drove a Porsche 928S, which on occasion Lana and I stole while her parents were out of town. Anyone who drives a Porsche will know that keeping to the speed limit in a car like that is almost impossible. Lana was the worst backseat driver I had ever met, but she was surprised at how easily I was able to drive the car, when her father had been taught by the agent.

One Saturday night I took the Porsche at quite a speed through the infamous S-bend on Louis Botha Avenue, which was known as Death Bend. The car handled beautifully. Although she’d sat tight through the corners, Lana was having a fit. Unless I slowed down, she threatened, this would be the last time she’d ever allow me to drive the Porsche. Actually, I didn’t really care whether I drove it again or not, because that experience alone was worth it.

Anyway, we drove to a party at her friend’s house where everybody was smoking weed and getting pissed. I didn’t drink any alcohol that night because I felt a certain responsibility about getting the Porsche home unscratched.

Around midnight, we left the party, slightly stoned, but I still jumped behind the wheel. Lana was freaking out, but I stubbornly insisted I was fine to drive. On the freeway, I opened her up and clocked almost 300kph. If we’d gone any faster, we would have taken off. Amazingly, nothing happened and we got the car home safely, but even so Lana kept to her word: we never took the car out again.