Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (24 page)

Twigs and Flattie looked at each other and then both of them looked at me. It was an uncomfortable situation. Flattie, being the smooth talker, eventually confessed to having pulled a move. My share of that stash was a third anyway, and he ended up convincing me to stay and join up with them. Once we’d sold the Mandrax, he persuaded me, we could move down to the Transkei, where he had a great connection for marijuana. We would use the Mandrax money to purchase a couple of sacks and move the weed in Joburg. Once sold, we would reimburse Brett and Dennis.

To me that seemed fair, so I agreed. Flattie, however, had no intention of following through. In the end we sold about half the stash and used the money for our living expenses. The rest we smoked ourselves.

Having spent most of my teenage years in Johannesburg, I fell in love with the beaches on the South Coast. Living there, I thought, would be the closest thing to living in paradise and I decided to stay on for a while. Flattie and I decided to see if we could find a place on the beach to rent together. We were in luck. I contacted a woman called Mrs Ling, whose daughters had spent some time in Arcadia and had been childhood friends of mine. Rather reluctantly, she agreed to rent us the downstairs playroom of their double-storey house on the beach, but insisted on a deposit and three months’ rent in advance. As far as first impressions went, I don’t think we did much to convince her that we would be the ideal tenants. Flattie had deep, dark, sullen eyes, sunken cheeks, and long, greasy black hair. In his heyday, standing at over 1.8m tall and extremely well built, he could knock somebody out just by delivering a flat-hand across their face – hence his nickname. But that was long before he became a Mandrax addict. Now he was thin and weak and spent most of his days looking into a broken bottle neck.

Nevertheless, we moved into our new hideaway. Mrs Ling’s was the only double-storey house in the area and it commanded a panoramic view of the bay and the shoreline. To gain access to the property, you had to negotiate an almost 90-degree turn in the driveway, which was shaded by a gigantic mango tree. The playroom occupied the entire west end of the house and was divided into two sections by a bar made from bamboo. There was a lounge area with a three-piece lounge suite and a wooden coffee table, and here and there were indoor palms in bright, colourful vases. It also had a three-quarter-size pool table.

From my bed in my corner of the room, through tall arched windows, I had a magnificent view of a large expanse of sea. I would lie there for hours, lost in thought, mesmerised by the sound of waves breaking on the shore. My thoughts often drifted to my childhood and the innocence of my youth. In my final year of high school I had been a lively, energetic young man, who, if I had put my mind to it, could have achieved anything. I had been an all-round sportsman and totally against drugs. Back then, I would never have condoned young people who were involved in the illicit trade, whether using or dealing. And yet, here I was – not only using drugs myself, but also dealing. Cynically, I thought how Janos, my stepfather, would have been proud of the son he never had. I wondered how long it would be before I ended up in prison, or met the fate of so many drug addicts. Death was the ultimate price for this way of life. Then I would think to myself, fuck it, what’s the difference whether you die young or old? I mean, we are born and then we die. Whatever transpires in between, in comparison to the frailty, the transience, of human existence, our time on earth is really of no relevance.

At that stage of my life, I hadn’t achieved very much. Looking around my new room, my only possessions were my revolver, my motorbike and a suitcase containing a couple of pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and a few pairs of sneakers. Flattie, on the other hand, had acquired two three-litre Ford Cortina bakkies through his unscrupulous shady deals. The older model had a hidden compartment built into the chassis on either side of the rear wheels, where he could safely hide up to 20kg of weed; the other customised vehicle, which had fitted mag wheels and Michelin tyres, actually belonged to one of Flattie’s ‘friends’.

I was quickly learning that my new friend and partner in crime only had enemies. He seemed to have fucked over every person he had ever made a drug deal with, myself included. Besides his dubious nature, there was nevertheless something about him I liked. Whether it was his I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude or his tendency to do everything to extremes (like getting fucked out of his head on drugs), he had this ability to manipulate, extort or steal money so convincingly that you simply had to admire his audacity. I wished to fuck I had his balls.

Flattie’s most prized possession was a metallic-purple Ford Capri Perana V8 convertible with a supercharger protruding from the bonnet. Fuck, she was a beauty! The only problem was that she guzzled petrol like a thirsty camel that had just crossed the Sahara, so invariably he couldn’t afford to drive the thing. When we did take it for a spin, I would practically shit in my pants. What made it more scary was that Flattie was shortsighted, but his ego prevented him from wearing glasses. He often said he’d rather crash than look like a nerd.

His least prized possession was a 750cc Suzuki motorbike that rattled so much it was falling apart. For two guys who were not employed, it probably wasn’t difficult to work out that we were involved in some underhand line of work.

After three months living in that beach paradise, it was time for me to go home, and so Flattie and I parted company.

I got back on my motorbike and headed north.

Some of the abuses I suffered as a child at the hands of my depraved stepfather and my victimised mother are still, even now, too painful for me even to think about, let alone talk about. Only now, four decades later, have I, for the first time, spoken openly about that part of my life and attempted to examine the impact those abuses had on me. That frightened little boy still remains imprisoned, crying out, begging to be freed. He calls out to me through the tears I shed whenever I am reminded, by some incident that triggers memories, of a terrifying moment in my childhood. This can happen at any time. I can be reading a book, watching a movie, or watching an affectionate interaction between a child and a parent. I get a knot in my stomach, I start to tremble, tears well up in my eyes, and, once again, I become that same small boy hiding in a dark corner, quivering with terror.

There was a time when this anguish would turn to hatred, anger and resentment. I found myself acting out by being defiant, unpredictable and at times even violent. I didn’t care about myself or the consequences of what I did. I was fearless. I was capable of killing. I hated the world and welcomed death. Death, as I saw it, was the ultimate freedom. I was completely incapable of making sense of the cruel and vicious hand life had dealt me – nobody who might have cared enough to listen could have understood. I was alone. It was easier just to block everything out. With practice, I became an expert at disguising my feelings and disconnecting from reality.

My earliest memory of how I reacted to being mistreated as a child was that I would climb and hide in trees. Trees offered a safe refuge for me from the world below. I would imagine myself as a bird, in particular as a swallow, a migratory bird. As a kid I was fascinated by how swiftly they would swoop through the air. Their long, pointed wings and forked tails only heightened their majesty. In one movement they would dive down on insects and feed while in flight. I would visualise myself as a swallow, effortlessly soaring through the vast skies.

One day, when I was about five years old, I decided that the screaming, shouting and the needless beatings were enough. I couldn’t take them any more. I climbed to the highest branch of a tree in our front garden, closed my eyes, stretched out my arms like a swallow’s wings, and leapt from the top of the tree, wishing with all my heart that I would fly. Instead I landed on our lawn, spraining my ankle and elbow. I cried silent, bitter tears, not from the pain of falling, but from the harsh realisation that there was no escape from the world. I was too scared to tell my parents what I’d done, so I was forced to conceal my injuries. My ankle swelled up so much that I could barely fit my school shoes on and I had to leave my laces untied.

At first, walking without a limp was difficult, but luckily our school was just across the road. With every step I took, it became less painful, and in the end I could walk normally. My arm was another story. Noticing my discomfort, my teacher asked what was wrong and then instructed me to roll up my sleeve. My arm was inflamed and bruised. Hesitantly, I explained that I had fallen out of a tree. The teacher quickly escorted me to the sickbay, where the school nurse bandaged me up, gave me some pills for the pain, and insisted I lie down for a while. I slipped into a deep slumber and only woke up at the end of the school day.

I remember one occasion when Janos and my mother were having an argument in the kitchen. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The open-plan design allowed me to witness everything. I saw Janos take a fair-sized piece of frozen steak and hit my mom across the face with it. There was a thud, followed by a shriek. My mom was crying hysterically, blood pouring out of her nose, as she begged and pleaded with Janos to leave her alone. By this time Janos had both his hands around her throat. I began trembling and crying, but I ran into the kitchen where I wildly punched and kicked Janos from behind, shouting, ‘Leave my mother alone! Leave my mother alone!’ and trying to free her at the same time.

Janos released his grip. I was pulling desperately on his trousers as he turned around, swinging his arm. He caught me on the head. I tried to flee towards the front door, which was ajar, thinking that was the best way to avoid his clutches, when he kicked me in the arse so hard that I literally became airborne. I landed against the stair railing, somehow grabbing on and managing to stay on my feet. The pain in my arse was excruciating. After that, I ran for my life and took refuge at the back of the building, near the parking lot, where the rubbish bins were kept. I curled up, crying and holding my backside.

‘
Hoekom huil die kleinbaas?
’ (Why is the little boss crying?), the night watchman asked as he came over to me. Before I could answer, he had his arms around my shoulders and was hugging me. I hugged him back and just cried and cried. His arms felt strong and his slightly tobacco breath gave me a strong sense of comfort. Here was an elderly man, who knew me by sight but had never engaged in conversation with me, showing me that he cared. This simple gesture of intimacy was something I never experienced with my stepfather. I instantly bonded with that man and I remember wondering why whites and blacks couldn’t or weren’t allowed to mix. I mean, here was a man showing me compassion like any other normal human being, a man whom white people would refer to as ‘boy’. I couldn’t understand it.

During those early years, I used to have the most terrifying nightmares. There was one particular dream that stuck with me right into my late teens. I would be walking somewhere at night and there would be this ‘thing’ lurking in the darkness, always close behind me, almost as if it was waiting to pounce on me. I would begin to run, but, with every step I took, my legs grew heavier as if they were sticking to the ground, until eventually I couldn’t run any more. My heart would be pounding. I was too afraid to turn around but I could feel this presence there, almost on top of me. It was at this point that I would wake up screaming.

It was also around this time that I was first introduced to the distinct sweet odour of marijuana. By chance one day I walked into the bathroom, where I found Janos sitting on the side of the bathtub. There was a piece of newspaper unfolded on top of the toilet seat with what looked like dried green leaves on it, mixed with these small greenish-brown seeds. In one hand Janos held a magazine, and with the other he was crushing the leaves and separating them from the seeds.

He ordered me to come in and close the door. Then he meticulously emptied the tobacco from a cigarette, mixed some of it with the leaves and placed the filter in his mouth. He held the magazine close to his face and sucked up the mixture of tobacco and leaves. I was fascinated by the whole ritual. After making sure it was tightly packed, Janos lit up with a match and inhaled deeply. Then he slowly exhaled, and while he did so he grabbed my arm, pulled me closer and blew the smoke in my face. It had a strange sweet scent and I recognised it. I’d smelt it before on numerous occasions behind the school where some of the ‘boys’ were responsible for disposing of the rubbish.

It was not too long after this incident that I first tried smoking cigarettes. Some of the seniors at school would go behind the ablution blocks and I would join them there. We smoked Lucky Strike. I would drag hard, remembering how Janos had pulled on his cigarette. I couldn’t understand why I always coughed and he never did. I kind of enjoyed the dizzy spell when inhaling a lot of smoke.

There was another incident that I could never erase from my mind. Janos liked to play a game in which I had to close my eyes, stretch out one arm and open my hand. Then he would place something in it – anything from an insect to a lizard or a stone – and I would have to guess what it was, identifying whatever it was by touch only. Sometimes it was money, and I would have to guess the amount in order to keep it. On this occasion, he put something soft in my hand; it felt unusually fleshy, almost human. I squeezed it; it was weird and warm. I rolled it around a little but it barely fitted in my palm. Startled, I opened my eyes and there in the palm of my hand was Janos’s cock. I got the fright of my life and snatched my hand away. To my stepfather, this was very amusing and he couldn’t stop laughing. I can’t explain the emotion I felt, whether I was upset about him laughing at me and having made a fool of me, or whether it was something else, but all I know is that it was traumatic and I felt violated.