militant. After the so-called minister molested me and one of the other girls, and I was told I was going around like a cow on heat, I ran away from them to another outreach group that was more spiritual than Christian. There wasn’t the same judgemental element that I experienced with the Christians. I felt much safer. And immediately at home.
Shelter for teenage runaways and drug-addicted prostitutes, read the sign at the front door.
The place was run by an Afrikaans couple who taught me more about life than I had learned in twelve years at school. The first thing I learned was: Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. It made unbelievable sense. If someone does not want your help, don’t be arrogant and go raping their psyche with your patronising, know-all rescue effort. Leave them alone!
We therefore only helped those druggies who wanted help. Nobody was forced to dry out if they didn’t want to. Help meant simply providing clean needles and a place to bath and eat for druggies, and condoms for prostitutes.
It was not a rehabilitation centre. The approach was: If you have to do it, do it responsibly.
I was a chaste eighteen-year-old. I had never used, or had anything to do with drugs. I was actually also simply trying to escape the hard reality of my parents’ bitter divorce.
But it didn’t take long for me to become helluva curious about the bloody, crimson haze of sleaze that was Hillbrow. I developed an obsession with the underworld because it reflected the dark emotional maelstrom within me.
My memories of Hillbrow are vaguely surreal: a pinks addict spurting blood against the walls of our bathroom; camera crews from the TV programme Carte Blanche; the other girl living there dancing with me to the music of Frank Duval in front of the windows at night while lonely single men in their cars slowly cruised by, looking for one of the prostitutes lingering on the pavement out front; or the two of us just sitting side by side in the night breeze that smelt of pollution, dagga smoke and freedom; us throwing glass bottles against the wall to give vent to our inner confusion; a gangster storming in and telling us about the Thrupps gang of which he was a member; an addict who tried to rape me and all I could utter was a shocked giggle (fortunately I was able to escape with only a slight tear in my trousers). We lived off Fontana chicken and creamy hot chocolate from the Three Sisters. And I fell in love with Jacques.
Jacques (I can’t remember his surname) was a former policeman turned drug addict. He lived with a couple of prostitutes in a decayed block of flats nearby. I was quite hot for him and regularly fantasised about how we would have riotous sex and how he would brutally vanquish my virginity.
He had to go to Durban to pick up some mandrax, he told me one night, and he would spend a little more time with me after that. He never returned. We just heard he was dead. Cheeky and Shane, two crackheads, also died.
And Elize. Of an overdose of heroin. Shame. We would have become friends, she and I. She might have become a writer. Or a poet. Or something else. Anything other than dead.
Shortly after her body was removed from the room next door, I discovered a diary in which she had written every day. She wrote to a guy by the name of Manny. I didn’t know who or where Manny was; I had never met him. I assumed he was someone she had known at school, or someone who lived in her imagination. She was sometimes not only on another planet but in another universe.
I kept the diary and paged through it again recently. And read:
I ran away, Manny.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
Fuck them and their selfishness.
I’m here in Hillbrow now.
I climbed into the monster’s mouth and he is slowly swallowing me …
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Do you remember Kariena?
I bumped into her yesterday at Pop’s. She was looking for a CD, something by Madonna. She told me how she never wanted to visit me again because my mother screamed at me so badly, calling me “a dumb fuck” because I didn’t put our coffee cups in the kitchen sink at the end of the visit.
I had already forgotten about it. Kariena scratched open all the wounds again.
I remember the screams now. Like yesterday – how my mother went crazy; how every night, red faced and pop-eyed, she yelled at my father as he sat in front of the TV: “You spineless jellyfish, shit excuse for a man!”
I taught myself to be deaf.
I no longer hear the screaming.
But I remember.
I remember how she called me “crazy”, a “little sex-crazed whore”, how she chased you away with a knife. She once threw that knife at me; I swear I’d have been dead if I hadn’t ducked in time.
She said I didn’t love you. I only want to fuck you like a rabbit, like a dirty slut. What went wrong with her, Manny? No one can tell me, and I don’t understand. Love isn’t dirty, is it?
And I remember her shoving her fingers up into me when I had a bladder infection. I swear she thought I had some venereal disease or other. Her fingers were cold and hard and hurt me. “You filthy little slut!” she shrieked.
I miss my dad.
Like you wouldn’t believe.
I phoned him. He cried, but I didn’t tell him where I am. He was always so gentle and nice with me; he never hurt me, and now I’m doing this to him. I probably am a cunt. I felt safe with him. Safe.
Safe-safe-safe.
I long to be safe.
I prayed that they would get a divorce, because I wanted to stay with him. Away from her in peace and quiet. But I had to stay with her and I couldn’t stay there any longer.
You know I couldn’t, but I never told you exactly why.
Now I’m here. I don’t know what will become of me.
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
You must come and fetch me. If you don’t come and fetch me, I will die.
Hillbrow took many lives. It’s heartbreaking. I was lucky; I danced in the monster’s mouth but got out in time. I was not swallowed. Elize’s parents were never found – not as far as I know.
It’s ironic that one of the main reasons I studied psychology was to understand my mother better. She really didn’t cope after the divorce. My sister saw her condition as a chemical imbalance. A condition that could be officially and accurately diagnosed, which was probably correct, but I believe one must look deeper than mere science allows.
I believe that because she made the choice, later on, to live a loveless life, she hardened herself to everything around her, and that it inevitably drove her to a psychiatric institution.
Lovelessness, I believe, drives you insane.
Elize
