The Power of One (12 page)

We set off with my tackies under my arm. The main street was only a few hundred yards from the mess, and there didn't seem to be too much happening. Every time a truck passed it sent up a cloud of dust, and by the time we got to the shop Hoppie was looking for I could taste the dust in my mouth and my eyes were smarting. It sure was hot.

The shop we entered had written above the door
G. PATEL & SONS, GENERAL MERCHANTS
. On its verandah were bags of mealie meal and red beans and bundles of pickaxes, a complete plow, and a dozen four-gallon tins of Vacuum Oil paraffin. Inside it was dark and hot and there was a peculiar smell quite unlike anything I had previously experienced.

“It smells funny in here, Hoppie.”

“It's coolie stuff they burn, man. It's called incense.”

A young woman dressed in bright swirls of almost diaphanous cloth came out of the back of the shop. She was a mid brown color, her straight black hair was parted in the middle, and a long plait hung over her shoulder almost to her waist. Her eyes were large and dark and very beautiful. On the center of her forehead was painted a red dot.

Hoppie nudged me with his elbow. “Give me your tackies, Peekay,” he whispered. I handed him the two brown canvas shoes, which had endured no more than twenty or so steps and showed no sign of wear.

“Good afternoon, Meneer, I can help you please?” she said to Hoppie.

Hoppie did not return her greeting, and I could tell from the way he looked at her that she was somehow not equal. I had thought only kaffirs were not equal, so it came as quite a surprise that this beautiful lady was not also. “Tackies, you got tackies?” he demanded.

The lady looked down at the tackies Hoppie was holding. “Only white and black, not brown like this.”

“You got a size for the boy?” Hoppie said curtly. The lady leaned over and looked at my feet and went to the other end of the counter. She brought a whole lot of tackies tied together in a bundle back with her. She unpicked a pair and handed them to Hoppie, who said, “Try them on, Peekay. Make sure they fit, you hear?”

I slipped into the tackies, which were white and looked splendid. They fit perfectly. “Tie the laces,” Hoppie instructed.

“I can't, Hoppie. Mevrou didn't show me how.” The beautiful dark lady came around the counter, went down on her haunches, and started to tie the laces. Her coal-black hair was oiled and the path down the center of her head was straight as an arrow. When she had finished tying the laces, she tested the front of the tackies with the ball of her thumb, pressing down onto my toes. Then she looked up at me and smiled. I couldn't believe my own eyes: she had a diamond set into the middle of one tooth!

She turned to look up at Hoppie. “They fit good,” she said.

Hoppie waited until she was back behind the counter. “Okay, now we make a swap. Those tackies for these tackies.” He placed my old tackies in front of her. The lady stood looking at Harry Crown's tackies and then shook her head slowly. “I cannot do this,” she said quietly.

Hoppie leaned his elbows on the counter so he was looking directly into her eyes. His back was straight, his jaw jutted out, and his head was held high. His whole body seemed to be threatening her. He allowed his silence to take effect, forcing her to speak again.

“These are not the same, where did you buy these tackies?” She picked up one and examined the sole. Then she turned toward the door behind the counter and said something in a strange language. In a few moments we were joined by a man with the same straight black hair and brown skin but dressed in a shirt and pants just like everyone else. The lady handed the tacky to the man, speaking again in the strange language. He seemed much older than she, old enough to be her father. The man turned to Hoppie.

“We cannot make a change, this tacky is not the same. See, here is the brand, made in China,” he tapped the sole of the tacky with his forefinger. Then he walked over to the bundle on the counter and pulled one tacky loose from the pile. “See, by golly, here is altogether another brand and not from China, this time made in Japan. That is a different place, you see, this is a different tacky. You did not buy this tacky from Patel and Son. You must pay me three shilling.”

Hoppie appeared not to have heard, and, leaning over the counter, he tapped the man on the shoulder. “Outside it says ‘Patel and Son.' This is your daughter, but where is your son, Patel?”

Patel's face lost its aggrieved look. “My son is very-very clever. A very-very clever student who is studying at University of Bombay. Every month we are sending him money and he is sending us letters. Soon he will be returning B.A. and we will be most overjoyed on his returnings.”

“Sixpence and these tackies, Patel. I can't be fairer than that, man,” Hoppie said emphatically. Patel bent and twisted the tacky in his hand, a sour look appearing on his face.

“One shilling,” he said suddenly.

“Sixpence,” Hoppie said again. Patel shook his head.

“Too much I am losing,” he said.

Hoppie looked at him. “Patel, this is my last and final offer and only if the boy gets a
bansela,
I'll give you another ticky, take it or leave it, man!” Patel shook his head and clucked his tongue and finally nodded. Hoppie took the ninepence out of his pocket and put it on the counter. The beautiful lady held out a yellow sucker. “Here is your
bansela,
” she said with a smile and I caught another glimpse of the diamond. I thanked her for the sucker, wondering what yellow tasted like. I still had one red one, and with this one I would have two for the fight tonight.

“Thank you, Hoppie,” I said, looking down proudly at my new white tackies. I can tell you they looked good and I could walk in them just like that.

“Better take them off, Peekay. If you're going to be in my corner tonight we don't want you wearing dirty tackies, man,” Hoppie said with a grin. I took the tackies off and Hoppie tied the laces in a knot and hung them around my neck. I turned to thank Patel. He seemed to have become very excited and was pointing to Hoppie.

“Meneer Kid Louis, I am very-very honored to meet you! All week, by golly, I am hearing about you and the fisticuffs business. This morning only, the telephone from my brother in Mica and my brother in Letsitele is ringing for placing a wager. My goodness gracious, now I am meeting the person myself!”

Hoppie laughed. “Bet the ninepence you rooked out of me on me and it will pay for your son's education, Patel.”

“No, no, we are doing much, much better. Ten pounds we are wagering on Kid Louis.”

“Holy shit! Ten pounds! That's twice as much as I win if I win.”

Patel proffered the ninepence he had been holding. “Please take it back, Meneer Kid Louis, it will bring very-very bad luck if I am keeping this money.”

Hoppie shrugged and pointed to me. “Give it to the next welterweight contender.”

“You are a boxer also?”

I nodded gravely; in my head it seemed almost true. Patel dug into his pocket and produced a handful of change. He dropped

the ninepence amongst the coins and selected a shilling. “Here is for you a shilling,” he said fearfully. Turning to Hoppie he said: “Please, you must be fighting very-very hard tonight.”

Hoppie grinned at him. “You don't know what you just did, Patel, but it is a very good omen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Patel,” I said, my hand closing around the silver coin. Granpa's change was safe again, and I must say it was a load off my mind.

As we left the shop Hoppie gave me a bump with his elbow. “You're a funny little bugger, Peekay. You don't call a blery coolie “Mister.” A coolie is not a kaffir because he is clever and he will cheat you any time he can. But a coolie is still not a white man!”

“That lady had a diamond in her tooth, Hoppie.”

“Yeah, the bastards have got lots of money all right. You never see a poor
charak
Behind the shop is probably a big V-8 Pontiac.”

“What if she swallows it?”

“What?”

“The diamond—if it comes loose or something?”

Hoppie laughed. “They'd be sifting through
kak
for days!”

We stopped at a cafe and Hoppie bought two bottles of red stuff. The old lady behind the counter took them out of an icebox, opened them, popped a sort of pipe, only made of paper, into the tops, and handed them to us. I watched to see how Hoppie did it and then I did it too. Tiny bubbles ran up the bottle and went up my nose and it tasted wonderful. On the side were the words
AMERICAN CREAM SODA.
The stuff was like a raspberry sucker only different. It was the first bottled soft drink I had ever tasted.

We arrived at the railway club just before five o'clock. The club manager, who came onto the verandah to meet us, said the temperature was still in the high nineties, the rains were overdue, and there was already severe drought in the Kruger National Park at the far end of the Murchison Range.

The club was cool with polished red cement floors and large ceiling fans. The manager told us the boys from the mine had already arrived and the railway boys, including Hoppie's seconds, were with them in the billiard room having a few beers. Hoppie took my hand and we followed the manager into the billiard room.

The room contained three large tables covered in green stuff on which were lots of pretty colored balls. Men with long sticks were knocking the balls together all over the place. In the far corner some twenty or so men were seated at a long table covered in airplane cloth on which were lots of brown bottles. They all stopped talking as we walked in. Two of them put down their glasses, rose from the table, and came toward us, smiling. Hoppie shook them by the hand and seemed very happy to see them. He turned to me and said, “Peekay, this is Nels and Bokkie. Nels, Bokkie, this is Peekay, the next welterweight contender.” Both men grinned and said hello and I said hello back. We walked over to the group of men who had remained sitting around the long table.

Bokkie cleared his throat and put his hand on Hoppie's shoulder. He was a big man with a huge round tummy and a very red face with a fiat nose that appeared to have been broken several times. I noticed that Hoppie was staring at a man who was sitting at the table with a jug of beer in front of him. The man was looking straight back at Hoppie, and their eyes were locked together for a long time. Hoppie was still holding my hand and although his grip didn't seem to increase I could feel the sudden tension. At last the man grinned and dropped his eyes and reached out for his glass.

“Gentlemen,” Bokkie said, “this is Kid Louis, the next welterweight champion of the South African Railways.” The men at the side of the table nearest to us all cheered and whistled and a man on the other side of the table stood up and pointed to the man Hoppie and I had been staring at.

“This is Jackhammer Smit. Stand up, Jackhammer, where's your manners, man?” he grinned. The miners surrounding Jackhammer whistled and cheered just as the railway men had done a moment before. Jackhammer rose slowly to his feet. He was a giant of a man, with his head completely shaved. Hoppie's grip tightened around my fingers momentarily and then relaxed again. “This is one big gorilla, Peekay,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. Jackhammer took a couple of steps toward us. His heavy eyebrows were like dark awnings above coal-black eyes. A growth of several days made a bluish stubble over his chin and gave him a permanently angry look. His nose was almost as flat as Bokkie's, and one ear looked mashed.

Hoppie stuck his hand out, but the big man didn't take it. The men all fell silent. Jackhammer Smit put his hands on his hips and, tilting his head back slightly, he looked down at Hoppie and me with eyes of anthracite and doom. Then he turned back to the miners. “Which of the two midgets do I fight?” The miners broke up and beat the surface of the table and whistled. Jackhammer Smit turned back to face us. “Kid Louis, huh? Tell me, man, what's a Boer fighter doing with a kaffir name? Shit, man, you should be ashamed of yourself. Kid Louis? I don't usually fight kids and I don't fight kaffir
boeties,
but tonight I'm going to make an exception.” He laughed. “You the exception, railway man. Every time I hit you you're going to think a bloody train shunted into you!” He turned and grinned at the seated miners, who shouted and cheered again. Then he walked the two steps back to his chair, where he slumped down and took a deep drink from the jug of beer.

Hoppie was breathing hard beside me but quickly calmed down as the men turned to see his reaction to Jackhammer's taunts. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “All I can say is, I'm lucky I'm not fighting your mouth, which is a super heavyweight.”

Jackhammer exploded and sprayed beer all over the railwaymen seated opposite him. “Come, Peekay, let's get going, man,” Hoppie said, moving toward the door to the cheers, whistles, and claps of the railwaymen.

Bokkie and Nels followed quickly. Hoppie turned at the door. “Keep him sober, gentlemen, I don't want people to think I beat him ‘cause he was drunk!”

Jackhammer Smit half rose in his chair as if to come after us. “You fucking midget, I'll kill you!” he shouted.