I imagined that one day she’d be mine.
Her father taught karate at school, so it suited me perfectly when my parents decided that my brother and I should start taking lessons. Liesl, however, had no interest in me. All I wanted to do was impress her, but she paid me no attention. I just couldn’t win. I couldn’t achieve anything. What a washout; it was terrible. Later, I began to hate karate, too, and begged my mom not to take me any more.
Steadily withdrawing myself from all interpersonal activities, or anything involving a group, I was a void among all the other kids – without knowing where I fitted in, empty and uncomfortable in my own skin. Nothing could fix that sense of alienation.
My reputation as a crazy child forever preceding me, it had by the end of grade seven created a few challenges that my parents needed to face.
Several high schools in Pretoria East had been reluctant to accept me: I’d been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). My mom explained that I was too naughty and that the high schools weren’t prepared to deal with me.
A teacher once remarked that I was a problem child who’d end up in an orphanage one day. I kept many of these remarks from my parents: in those days they would’ve taken the teacher’s side, anyway, and I would’ve been in more trouble.
I was anxious, however. It scared me; I couldn’t sleep for days. Even though those teenage years at my mom’s home would turn into a nightmare, it was the last place I wanted to leave. Countless times I was threatened with boarding school if I didn’t behave. As a young boy, I could never understand it: why is no one ever on my side?
I was only thirteen years old.
My mom realised only later that I was, as I still am today, acutely distractible and hyperactive, but in those days no one really knew about these things. There was also no available medication for attention-deficit (ADD) or hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many were of the opinion that I actually belonged in a special school – those stigmatised colleges where the young misfits of society were sent.
After a meeting with the Transvaal Education Department, Afrikaans high school Die Wilgers agreed to take me in. The principal made it clear: one misstep and I’d be out.
Life in high school officially began and day one was fantastic. I could start over: new friends, new persona. My bag slung over one shoulder, my socks pulled down to my ankles, untucked shirt, loose tie. I immediately set out to find the smokers and meet a couple of like-minded friends. I wanted everyone in my grade, as well as the older kids, to know who I was. What I stood for. I wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me what to do.
Once we were divided into classrooms, we were ordered to our homerooms. Entering the classroom, I noisily hacked up a ball of spit and spat it on the floor, wiped my shoes over it and brazenly shouted, ‘Now this place is a dump!’
Despite the principal’s continual warnings, I still became unravelled. In any case, I thought he was an idiot. I quickly discovered how teachers chose their favourite kids and didn’t care about the rest. I’m not suggesting that they should’ve accepted me with all my faults, but not a single teacher took me by the arm and tried to get to know me. No one seemed to care about what interested me, or what I thought, as a child, as a boy, as a person.
In those days, there were only two adults who seemed to believe in me, and they certainly weren’t schoolteachers: Pastor Jorrie Potgieter from Lynnwoodrif DR congregation (today Dr Jorrie) and oom Kriek Dreyer, my Sunday-school teacher.
Oom Kriek won me over by allowing me to smoke a cigarette with him after Sunday-school class. To me, that was incredible. Here was a parent who understood me, someone who didn’t condemn me. Who wanted to build a real relationship with me. He naturally understood that smoking wasn’t good for me, but it was a thing we had in common and he earned my trust that way. We laughed a lot and it was fun spending time with him.
I always made sure that I did my Sunday-school homework, and listened when oom Kriek spoke. Oom Kriek knew that preaching about sin didn’t work; to keep on threatening kids and making them feel guilty would not give them true freedom – although I’m not in any way saying that parents and teachers should simply accept children’s unhealthy and defiant behaviour without consequences.
But oom Kriek? He did everything for a purpose. He knew he couldn’t preach about a principle he didn’t respect himself. He knew, in contrast to my schoolteachers and the principal – who smoked in front of us but beat us with a switch when we were caught – that children mimicked adults. Children do what adults do, not what they’re told.
Integrity is this: do what you advise others to do.
Oom Kriek has since died, but his packet of Mills cigarettes, his friendly welcome and his Sunday-school classes are etched in my memory.
Despite his guidance, I couldn’t silence the restlessness in my soul. I felt like I didn’t belong, anywhere. It was only by messing around with guys like myself that I felt I could be part of something.
Alcohol played an important role in my life. I couldn’t wait for weekends to go partying with my friends. I looked forward to getting as drunk as possible. Even when I was underaged, there were always ways to get alcohol. A couple of beers were never enough – I had to overdo it. Peers regularly asked me why I couldn’t just drink one or two beers and leave it at that. I was always the one who would throw up somewhere and pass out.
I also didn’t care where this happened: whether it was in the trash, in the middle of a park, or outside on the pavement in front of a friend’s house, it was all the same to me. I allowed the alcohol to take control and followed wherever my drunkenness led me. It was fun, people gave me attention. Today I know that from early on my addiction was pretty apparent. I’m just thankful that, in my drunkenness, I was never in a very serious car accident or got an underaged girl pregnant.
I lost my virginity in grade nine with a girl from school. We’d hung out at a bar in Pretoria East one night, and got plastered. Butt-naked in a field next to the bar, on top of a dump heap, we ended up having sex. I didn’t have a condom and she wasn’t on the pill. It was stupid and irresponsible. It was my first pregnancy scare: for a whole month, I was convinced I was going to be a father.
Anyone who has been there will know that this is the time in your life that you pray the most – whether or not you believe it. You swear on your heart and soul that you’ll turn your life around and go to church every Sunday, as long as that girl hasn’t fallen pregnant.
The alcohol abuse became more frequent, as well as my dagga use. I didn’t even have to travel a kilometre from our house in Lynnwood Glen to buy dagga. The petrol attendants at our local petrol station sold it to me. It wasn’t the best in the world, but back then I thought that’s all there was. Smoking dagga was exciting. Because it was illegal, the lure of smoking it became all the greater. It fuelled my rebelliousness and made me feel like I belong. It gave me a sense of identity. It also gave me a feeling of power, because I was the one who knew where to get it and I could give or sell a stash to my friends. I realised I could make money from distributing it but, more importantly, I began to earn respect from the people around me. I sold dagga to my peers and the older pupils. In my eyes, I was The Man.
Numerous times I stood on the verge of being expelled. During my first school dance in grade eight, the principal caught me passed out with my head in a bag of benzine. We sniffed benzine and paint thinners, because it was a crazy way of getting high. It was a pretty common and a very easy thing to do. Of course, the principal wasn’t impressed.
Ihan, a friend from a neighbouring English school, was also caught.
