get a headache if I drink too much.”
“Babelas,” Pieter says and laughs. He ends up coughing again and spits out another big blob of green.
“David, ek kan nie meer drink nie. My maag is seer, man.”
Me and David polish off the bottle.
“Is jy honger?” he asks after a while.
I shake my head.
“Is jy dronk?”
I nod and burp.
“Jy’s ôraait nou. Ek is ook van daai kant. Daai Vaalie mense, ek verstaan hulle nie.”
I get up and stumble.
“Stadig, ou kêrel,” David says.
I open my pants and take a piss in the spotlight. The light makes my eyes strain. I piss for a long time and sigh with relief.
“Nothing like a good piss,” David says when I’m done.
I drop next to him on the sand, my head spinning with wine.
“Waar’s jou skoene?”
I take out my strops from my jacket.
“Daai’s nie skoene nie,” he says flatly.
“I lost them,” I say and put them carefully in my jacket.
“Where?” he yawns.
“In town.”
Pieter is already sleeping. David curls up next to him. I doze off for a while sitting next to them. Not long after dozing off I get up. I stumble to the edge of the water and open my mouth. Brown stuff pours out my mouth like a fountain. I puke till I squeeze my stomach into a pea. Then I take a sip of seawater from another place and rinse my mouth. My hunger soon returns but it is late and I’m tired. Too tired to walk back to my sleeping place. So I get up the stairs leading to a pathway for people. They have a fancy name for it in English but I forget it. It’s a word that I learned in school once. I walk towards the drinking hole near the Men’s toilet. I don’t want to wake up with a babelas so I drink lots of water. It fills my stomach but doesn’t take away the hunger. My back stiff, I walk back to the swimming pool.
A few cars run down Main Road. It is late. People are sleeping. My breath stinks. I want to take another piss but hold it in. It’s not much further to go to where I sleep. The air is a little misty. I go down Broken Bath and walk towards the corner near the swimming pool. The shells are ruthless on my soles. But my feet are hard. They don’t tear or bleed easily. I take a long piss near a bush. Bafana is nowhere in sight. He’s probably frying his brain.
I curl up on clear plastic which I hide near a bush. I cover my head and face with my large oversized jacket and sleep like a rock.
6
I still can’t get a trick and I’m too scared to go into town to wash and park cars in case Gerald sees me. Besides, he’s always got eyes in town. Pigeons, people, they are all the same. At the end of the day they are just rats. They’ll take you out for a few crumbs of bread. Gerald, you won’t guess who I saw in town today. You know that laaitie who called you a kaffir? And Gerald will only be too happy to let them kick the shit out of me. Beat him till those eyes of his turn purple. Kick the sunshine out of his little smile, that little moegoe calling me a kaffir! Who the fuck does he think he is? Just because he’s got blue eyes, fuck him, he’s still a kaffir. Does he know who I am? Does he know the Twenty-Eights? Does he know what I can do to him? And after that I must apologise to Gerald because Gerald is a clean coloured with straight hair and light skin. And then I must give him some money because my hands are too dirty to buy him anything.
And Allen, I can’t go anywhere near him without a cent to my name. I haven’t seen Joyce for days as well because I’m too embarrassed to go without shoes. What will I say to her? She still leaves out food for me in the morning.
The sky is dark. Stars light it up. I hang around the park in Sea Point hoping that one of the moffies will pick me up. The problem is that at night the ones who go there go for quick free sex. There’s usually no tricking. But if I choose wisely, I’m sure I can have my way with one of them. Some of those sick bastards would only be too happy to give it to me up the bum for a small price.
I walk slowly round the trees. There are about six guys. One of them is so horny he’s got his piel out. I can see him playing with himself. No one seems to be going near him. He’s too desperate, he’ll fuck anything that moves. He won’t pay, I say to myself. The others stand in the semi-darkness and rub their crotches as I walk closer. I take off my jacket and T-shirt and sit on a bench facing the trees. I sit with my arms open, resting them on the top of the bench. Not long after one of them comes over and sits beside me.
“I’ll do anything you want for fifty bucks,” I whisper to him.
“Anything?”
“Anything that I can do.”
“And what is it that you do?” he says softly in a mocking voice.
“Depends on what I’m asked.”
“What if I wanted to fuck you?”
“I can do that.”
“You mean I can do that.”
“Ja, you can do that if you want. For fifty bucks.”
“Fifty bucks. Don’t worry about that. What if I said I wanted to fuck you in my car?”
“You can do that too if you want.”
“Of course I want.”
We go to his car. His ring shimmers in the night.
“Do you always wear your wedding ring?” I say just so that he doesn’t take me for a fool and try and cheat me after the sex.
“If I give you sixty will you shut up?”
“I can do that. I can be quiet.”
The married ones are always the horniest and by far the roughest. He takes me in his family minibus to a dark beach near the V&A Waterfront. We are the only ones parked there. He takes me to the back seat and oils me with cooking oil before he takes me like a beast. I bite the seat in front of me while he grunts and moans. He goes at it at least for an hour before he comes into a condom. As soon as he is done he zips up his pants and takes out his wallet.
“It’s your lucky day. I’ve only got two twenties and a fifty.”
My face lights up even though my asshole is sore.
“Oh, but I’ve got coins,” he says. He couldn’t resist getting me back after I said he was married. Me and my mouth; I’m always on guard. He gives me a fifty-rand note and two five-rand coins.
“Do you want to do this again?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’m always at the park at night.”
“Great.
