by Ben Trovato
A couple of years before the bear, you forked out a massive amount to one of your receptionists after she accused you of sexual harassment. What the hell is wrong with your country? Lying to the police, killing animals and fondling the staff are some of the things that make America great. They should have given you a goddamn Congressional Medal of Honor.
Anyway, Walter, old buddy. I’m off to murder an elephant for lunch. I generally use an RPG-7 rocket launcher. The explosion is quite spectacular and the animal is reduced to handy bite-sized chunks. You should try it sometime.
Yours truly,
Ben Trovato
THE LORD’S PRAYER WON’T HELP IN PATERNOSTER
One of my disciples – I prefer to think of them as disciples rather than fans – invited me to address a seminar in Paternoster, a town of no real consequence a couple of hours outside Cape Town. I suppose I should have asked for more details but this was, after all, a woman with a doctorate in linguistics. If you can’t trust these people, who can you trust? How was I to know that “address a seminar” was a euphemism for “ravage me senseless”? Or even that she was mentally ill?
The experts tell me I’m a sapiosexual. This is not as perverted as it sounds. It means someone who is attracted to another person for their intellect. I have in the past, however, made considerable allowances in this regard.
With Zimbabwean roots and Portuguese and Scottish blood – a dangerous hybrid – she fenced like a true professional when verbal swords were drawn. It was a bit one-sided at times, what with her PhD and me with my matric, but I thrusted and parried as best a man my age could.
I was at least confident of being able to beat her at the bloodsport of sustained beer-drinking, given my pedigree in this field. It was touch and go. I lasted longer but she started earlier. And by earlier, I mean 5am. Most mornings I woke to the crack of a Black Label can opening.
I kept reminding her that I had to keep my wits about me if the seminar was not to be a complete disaster. She, in turn, kept accusing me of not being able to recognise a euphemism if it smacked me across the head. She smacked me across the head.
“Another euphemism?” I said. Apparently not. Apparently that was punishment for suggesting we take a brief break from drinking and have something to eat. Weighing what appeared to be nine kilograms, she was living proof that beer is the perfect diet food.
There is an inexcusable paucity of roadside bars along the N7 that runs up the West Coast and for that reason alone I will never vote for the Democratic Alliance. What the hell kind of province are they running that they don’t at least provide stalls selling adult beverages to psychologically disturbed motorists? It’s this kind of cavalier approach to human rights that will cost them dearly in the next election.
“There’s one!” shouted the doctor, grabbing the wheel. I wrestled the car back under control and skidded to a stop outside something called Route 45 Waterhole. I didn’t even know we were on Route 45. It wasn’t so much a bar as it was an agricultural shed of the kind you see full of dumb animals at the Royal Show. This one was also full of dumb animals of the kind you see at Boeremag meetings.
The décor was neo-Voortrekker with a mix of patio furniture, car tyres and lounge suites from the ’70s. The floor was sand. A woman’s touch was evident by the vases of flowers on each table, the flowers being stinging nettles and the vases being beer bottles. There was a traffic light at the bar. It was green, which was all the encouragement we needed. It turned out to be the only encouragement we got. The surly bartender, a woman with the feminine qualities of a tractor, seemed to think it was the time of day when decent God-fearing men should be out shearing cows and milking sheep and women of child-bearing age should be getting themselves impregnated instead of guzzling beer and laughing openly at the customers while seeming to lose control of their faculties.
We didn’t stay long. Down the road was a sign. “Warning. Zombies 500 metres.” A bit further on was a wooden chair that stood three storeys high. On the side it said, “Poplap se stoel.” Things were getting too weird for me and I got us the hell out of there.
I had booked accommodation before leaving Durban. This was while I was still under the impression I’d be speaking at some sort of seminar. I had in mind to invite some of the delegates around and found a place at the farthest edge of the village where nobody could hear the screaming.
It’s a good thing there was no seminar because the place was way too small to entertain a crowd of more than, say, two. I had been to Paternoster a few years earlier and paid R500 a night for a place this size. It’s not even one bedroomed. It’s just a bedroom with a bathroom and kitchenette. A steal at R1 800 a night. Pity it’s not me doing the stealing. At some point, the owner of one of these faux-Greek whitewashed hovels must have had an aneurysm and spontaneously tripled her rate. This sparked a stampede of greed among the other owners, who should be put in stocks and pelted with roadkill as penance for their shameless gouging.
There’s a stone sculpture on a plinth at the top of the sandy road. It’s a disfigured head with a hollow-eyed, haunted face and it’s titled The Cry. I couldn’t think of anything more fitting for an idyllic beachfront setting. Who needs dolphins or mermaids when you can have a deeply unsettling bust of a man in torment? At the bottom on one side are the words, “Herman van Nazareth”. So he has a name. Could he have been Jesus of Nazareth’s brother? The one the family pretended didn’t exist? No wonder he looks so miserable. On the other side are the words, “Children of Paternoster – never stop talking.” What? I can’t even … I just … what?
The Panty Bar is still there. It’s a festering rat-hole in the Paternoster Hotel frequented by thick-thighed Anglophobes wearing black moustaches and khaki shorts. Hundreds of pairs of panties hang from the ceiling. The doctor seemed impressed by the quality of some of them and wanted to ask the barman if she could try them on, as if she were visiting a branch of La Senza. I restrained her.
All the restaurants start shutting down at 8pm and there are no takeaways. Thanks to the doctor, we have enough anti-psychotic medication to last for weeks. No food, though. A person could die of starvation out here. But at least we won’t go mad.
GOD GAVE US GUNS – ALSO, THOU SHALT NOT KILL
Guns don’t kill people. Arseholes kill people.
Don’t get me wrong. You won’t catch me hugging any bunnies, but that’s largely because I am afraid of them. It’s not funny. Leporiphobia is a real thing. I don’t come around to your house and laugh at your phobias, but I will if I have to.
Right, then. We have established beyond doubt that shooting deaths are caused by arseholes with guns, whether it be the paranoid 26-year-old arsehole who killed nine people at an Oregon college or the 28-year-old arsehole who killed Reeva Steenkamp.
Then there are the tens of thousands of people around the world walking the streets today who have shot and killed people. Some of them even got medals for it. They are soldiers, former soldiers and that guy at the end of the bar who you really don’t want to bump into. Are they all arseholes? Of course not. But mostly, yes.
I like the idea of guns more than I like guns themselves. They’re a bit like women. And I don’t mean loud and capable of going off for no good reason at all. I mean you feel invincible when you have one at your side, but take it away and you spend your nights in the foetal position crying yourself to sleep.
Guns are weirdly supernatural. I don’t understand how they work. I also find television and electricity weirdly supernatural. Did you know that Superman is the only person who can travel faster than a speeding bullet? It’s no wonder we haven’t seen him in ages. He probably overshot Hillbrow in the 1960s and has been trying to find his way back from the Andromeda Galaxy ever since.
The idea of being able to kill someone sitting on the beach a kilometre away is one that I find strangely compelling. You needn’t even have to stand up. Simply put your beer down, rest your rifle on a small child’s head, aim and pull the trigger. Bam! One less
person on the beach.
Google spits up 381 million results if you search for “guns”. I googled “sex” and got 1.6 billion results. Then I got distracted. Later, I googled sex and guns and got 96 million results, one of which was a story out of an American town called Blacksburg. “A small community in Virginia mourns as a man dies after having sex with his revolver.” It got worse after that. The next few results pointed me to sites about Guns N’ Roses, a band that toured Europe in the late 1940s, precipitating the early surrender of the Nazis.
I prefer knives to guns. When you’re not stabbing someone, you can use it to put Marmite on your toast. Try doing that with a gun.
Perhaps I need to learn how to love guns. Embrace them. Not in the way the guy from Blacksburg embraced his, obviously. Besides, I’d have a hard time inserting my … never mind.
I’m not a complete stranger to guns. When I was a kid my father would take me and his Walther PPK pistol down to the mangroves near Blue Lagoon. The first time it happened, I thought he was going to kill me. Especially when he sat down and polished off half a dozen beers. Instead, he lined up the empties in a row. Then he put the gun in my little hand and told me to pretend the tins were communists. If this was a rite of passage, I failed miserably. “Go a bit closer,” he said every time I missed. Eventually I had the barrel pressed up against one of the cans. It was like an execution.
If I do get a gun, I’ll probably order it from America. You get two-for-one Tuesdays, plus a Happy Meal voucher, and they all have their serial numbers intact. I found Springfield Armory online. I liked the sound of it because the Simpsons come from Springfield. If it’s good enough for Homer, it’s good enough for me.
According to their website, in 1777 George Washington “ordered the creation of Springfield Armory to store revolutionary ammunition and gun carriages”. I won’t bore you with the details of what happened between then and now. There’s a saying that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I failed to learn history and got 17 per cent in matric. I was damned if I was going to repeat it.
Their website says, “Let us help you find the firearm that fits you best.” Fair enough. Who among us hasn’t seen a toddler struggling to load her AK-47 and thought, “If only she had gone to a shop that cared.”
They have seven categories of guns including competition, concealed carry, home defence and short to long range. We don’t mess about with categories in South Africa. We just go a township and ask around. Or take one off a sleeping policeman.
I was immediately drawn to the concealed carry category because I have always liked hiding things. This probably explains my two failed marriages.
They offer 19 types of handguns. “Whether you’re looking for the most possible capacity or the deepest possible concealment, you can find it here.” I suppose one shouldn’t expect impeccable grammar from arms dealers, but how deep is the deepest possible concealment? And if we’re talking womb or upper bowel, how would you get it out in a hurry?
The multi-purpose category has 25 handguns to choose from. “Perhaps you want something to put on the nightstand after spending the day with it on the range. Or maybe you want something that you’ll shoot as often as you carry it.” I don’t understand what any of this means. I want to be able to pull the trigger and have a piece of lead ejected at 1 000 metres a second. That’s all that matters. Forget all this talk of nightstands. You don’t want your gun reminding you of bed – you want to be reminded that it makes living things dead.
Home defence, or defense as they say, because Americans can’t spell, has 26 options. “The good news is that Springfield Armory produces several ergonomically pleasing and feature-rich firearms with plenty of capacity and power.”
This is good news for victims. Imagine the indignity of dying in a pool of your own blood after being shot with a firearm that was less than ergonomically pleasing. What a horrible way to go.
It’s not all handguns, of course. “When it comes to long-range sustained fire, you can do no better than the M1A.” Sounds a bit too close to MIA for my liking. There’s only one situation I can think of when an ordinary person might need a weapon capable of long-range sustained fire, and it involves Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I’m disappointed that the shape of guns has barely changed since they were invented. Look at the range of bubble guns in toyshops. I saw one the other day shaped like a seahorse. Why can’t we do the same with real guns? I, for one, would be far more inclined to arm myself if I could buy a pistol shaped like a mongoose or a dolphin. Come on, gun people. Let’s put the fun back into fundamentalism.
Lastly, I agree with those who say that mental illness is to blame for all the mass shootings in America. The National Rifle Association alone has five million mentally ill members. In 2013, a proposal on gun control was torpedoed when 45 mentally ill Republican senators voted against background checks and a ban on assault rifles. Half of America’s adult population opposes stricter gun control laws. That’s 120 million mentally ill people right there. With that many crazy people on the loose, no wonder everyone wants a gun.
South Africa has never looked more sane.
YOU COULD DO WITH A VISIT TO THE MENTAL HYGIENIST
The human body is an incredible machine. With one exception – its teeth. What a terrible oversight. What an appalling design flaw. My liver has put up with years of abuse and yet it continues to filtrate without complaint. My swollen heart still beats like a djembe drum. My knees bend, as do my elbows. My feet have been walking ever since I was two and all 10 fingers work like a charm. I need no help putting on my socks and I can go from sitting to standing in four seconds flat.
But my teeth. Sweet babbling Jesus. My teeth.
They started giving me trouble when I was just a pup. Wisdom teeth don’t, as I was led to believe, make you wise. They make you scream and beg for mercy. We aren’t born with a surplus of spleens, so why do we have these superfluous things in our mouths?
“Ah, look,” cried my mother. “He’s got his first teeth!” Then they became all wobbly and started falling out. Imagine we were born with baby arms that withered and dropped off, allowing our permanent arms to grow. Would an Arm Fairy collect the limbs while we slept, leaving a pile of loose change in their stead? I like to think so.
Teeth, you might assume, would be programmed to grow straight. We don’t, as a matter of course, put our children’s legs in calipers when they turn 12, so why is there an above average chance that they will turn into snaggletoothed monsters if we don’t make them wear braces?
When I was a child, I had a dentist who drilled without anaesthetic. His name was Dr Aitken. How fitting. There must have been other dentists – kinder, gentler dentists – so why did my mother keep taking me to the one man who could, without fail, be relied on to inflict excruciating pain? I couldn’t have been that naughty.
I brushed my teeth every night and yet by the time I left school I had so many fillings that whenever I laughed, light would refract off the silverware and temporarily blind whoever I was with. At one point I had elastic bands holding everything in place. Now and again one would shoot from my mouth and hit someone in the eye. Friends started wearing safety goggles around me.
As I grew, my bones firmed up, my muscles developed, my hair thickened and my teeth crumbled like ancient Egyptian papyrus. Toast, biscuits, peppermints and bacon all took their deadly toll. An apple a day might have kept the doctor away, but the amount of shrapnel regularly embedded in Granny Smith ensured that I was no stranger to Dr Aitken’s torture chamber.
Over the years the fillings have cracked and fallen out. Molars have split like miniature icebergs succumbing to global warming. Incisors have been scarred and chipped from opening too many beers.
We are carnivores, dammit. We should have teeth like dogs. We should be able to eat our way through not only the steak, but the T-bone, too. Evolution has failed us miserably.
I had a tooth pulled – upper right bicustard – some time ago. A
woman I knew told me the gaping hole gave my face character. I suppose it did, if your character was a diseased old sea dog on a South Pacific pirate ship.
My current dentist is a good man, and I am not just saying this because there is a chance he will read these words before my next appointment. I used to see him regularly until I decided not to. He was picking up way too many things that needed to be done and I simply couldn’t cope with the kind of decisions he was expecting me to make. Two years went by.
The other day I grabbed a torch and took a good squiz in the mirror. It looked as if a tiny car bomb had detonated inside my mouth. I went back to the dentist. He inspected my chart and, without even looking into my cakehole, provided a rundown of what still needed to be done.
“Er, things have changed a bit,” I said. “Best you take a fresh look.”
Lie back. Sinking feeling. Light on. Mouth open. Eyes shut. Sphincter clenched. Prod, scrape, poke. Silence. Please say something. One of us should. And I clearly can’t.
“Mmm,” he said. In dentist-speak, this translates to, “If you had listened to me two years ago, you stupid bastard, I wouldn’t have to deal with this run-down graveyard of a mouth.”
Then come the options. All I really want is a patch-job and my parking ticket validated. He doesn’t say so, but it is clearly too late for patches of any kind. As far as I can make out, my options include implants, a plate or bridgework. Leaping from the chair and running away seems like the most sensible option.
Apart from that nasty business of screwing each individual tooth into your jawbone, implants are ridiculously expensive. My father has a plate. When I was a kid, he would take it out while I wasn’t watching and suddenly come at me with no front teeth. It took years of therapy to recover. I’ll skip the plate. Bridgework it is, then.