Blind Date at a Funeral

by Trevor Romain

  ‘What are you doing?’ I whispered urgently.

  ‘They’re not here, man,’ he said, reaching under the bedside table and feeling around for the cupboard key. We all knew where the key was hidden, including my mom, my sister and the domestic worker, who reached under there to get the key when she put my dad’s clothes away after ironing.

  My brother produced the key and opened the door. He pulled over the chair from under the window and climbed onto it.

  ‘We’re going to get into kak,’ I said.

  ‘Only if you tell,’ he said, reaching behind my dad’s jerseys piled neatly on the top shelf.

  He dug around for a second then pulled his arm out. In his hand he held a full bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch whisky.

  ‘There are three other bottles up here.’ (My father was often given booze as gifts from his clients during the December holidays and, because he didn’t drink, he stashed them away up there.)

  ‘What are you going to do with that?’ I asked.

  ‘Duh. We’re going to drink it, you idiot.’

  And that’s pretty much where my flirtation with hooch started. And because we would only have a few sips at a time we never got wasted on those bottles. We just got a buzz from the Scotch. That was good and bad. The bad part was that we didn’t get so drunk that we threw up, which often deters first-time drinkers from ever doing it again. (Except for my brother.)

  No, sir, over the months we polished off those bottles.

  Two important caveats need to be inserted here.

  Number one. We didn’t get busted because my brother cleverly filled the bottles with water that was coloured with a tea bag so it looked like the bottles were filled with whisky.

  Number two. Because my father did not drink, those bottles sat in his cupboard for years. He saved them in case someone came over for a drink (except that nobody ever came over specifically for a drink per se, and if they were drinkers, he forgot to offer them one).

  He also believed that Scotch got better with age.

  Fast-forward a number of years. My brother and I are both in the army and are home on a weekend pass. We are having dinner at my house and my dad has one of the big wigs from the Johannesburg City Council to dinner.

  My mom has made a wonderful dinner. And, yes, my father offers the VIP a Scotch.

  Holy crap.

  My brother and I look at each other totally bewildered.

  My dad says to my brother, ‘Boytjie, please go to my cupboard and get a bottle of Scotch for me. You know where it is, right?’

  My brother sort of clears his throat and says, ‘You mean up at the top, like, behind …’

  Before he can finish, my dad says, ‘Yes.’

  My brother comes back with a bottle of Scotch. My dad pours the man a tot and offers my brother and I a shot.

  We decline. I mean, who wants to drink Johannesburg tap water that has been steeped in tea for five years?

  I can only imagine the horrified looks on our faces.

  So the dinner guest makes a toast and takes a sip.

  My heart stops. I close my eyes. I cringe inside.

  I open my eyes.

  The man wipes his mouth with his serviette. ‘Good stuff,’ he says. ‘I like the Chivas.’

  He had three more during the evening.

  When everyone retired to the lounge and no one was looking (except for the domestic worker, who reprimanded him and swatted him with a dish towel), my brother took a swig from the bottle. He grimaced like the whisky drinkers in the cowboy movies always did.

  ‘It’s Scotch,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Strue’s God.’

  For the next twenty years, my dad never said a word about it and for some reason, we boys kept schtum.

  As it often does, time dissolved that memory and we all pretty much forgot about the incident until it surfaced recently when I started working on this book.

  And, if my belief system works like I expect it to, and there is life after death (and I’m hoping there is), that’s one of the first questions I’m going to ask my dad when I see him again. That, naturally, will come after the hugging and laughing and backslapping stuff of course.

  The Stalker

  (Soundtrack: ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police)

  I did not mean to be a stalker.

  Well … I did … but I didn’t … sort of.

  It wasn’t stalking in the biblical or reality TV sense. Not your average voyeur-type thing. Firstly, because I was too chicken to be a real stalker and secondly, because I was a skinny, short guy and the stalkee had legs all the way up to her armpits and could have taken me out with her guitar rather easily.

  And besides, it wasn’t premeditated stalking. It was spontaneous.

  I was a teenager and she was my first full-on ‘South African celebrity crush’.

  Of course, I had experienced celebrity crushes before this. But they were the international beauties. Raquel Welch, Olivia Hussey from the original Romeo and Juliet movie, Ali MacGraw and Jacqueline Bisset, to name a few.

  I knew who she was the very second I saw her.

  It was Jenni Garson, sultry and sexy guitarist and singer from the famous South African all-girl band, Clout.

  I was having a very manly lime milkshake with a buddy at the Milky Lane in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, when she walked in.

  Did I say walk? Floated more like. Because dreams ‘float’ – they don’t walk.

  I just about had a thrombosis.

  I almost aspirated the milkshake.

  I could have sworn I heard a cartoon ‘boy-yoy-yoy-ing’ in my head as my eyeballs tried to detach themselves from their sockets and stretch across the room.

  My Adam’s apple did some kind of jig and I swallowed a number of times in disbelief.

  I stared at her like an insane fool. I think I was dribbling. I was going to get up and say hi, but I froze. I spoke to my buddy without moving my lips.

  ‘Jeennggggersann,’ I said, trying to use my head and eyes to point in her direction, without being obvious.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Jeennggggersann,’ I stammered, again.

  ‘What?’

  I leaned over and whispered, ‘That’s friggin’ Jenni Garson over there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jenni friggin’ Garson.’

  ‘Uhhh. I don’t know her.’

  ‘Clout,’ I urged, the word coming out high pitched, like I’d inhaled helium.

  I turned to point her out, but she had taken her shake and left. All I saw was a ghostly outline, lingering where she had been standing, right there in the Milky Lane. Then it was gone.

  I jumped up and rushed out of the shop. I saw her down the street. She was headed towards the Chelsea Hotel.

  I walked as quickly as I could. Actually it was more like an awkward walk-run that John Cleese would have been proud of. My confused friend followed behind, walking normally.

  Jenni ducked into the Chelsea Hotel.

  We waited outside.

  And waited.

  And my friend complained.

  And we waited.

  And then after what seemed like forever, she came striding out of the hotel towards us.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ I gulped. ‘Let me do the talking.’

  She walked past me and, in my best James Bond-Sean Connery impersonation, I said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, and walked right past us.

  ‘Oh crap!’ I yelled – inside my head, to myself, because I suddenly realised that it wasn’t her. I’d been stalking someone who looked like Jenni Garson, but wasn’t.

  ‘She looks like her,’ I stammered.

  ‘What does she look like?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’ve only seen pictures in magazines. And Clout was on Pop Shop on TV last week. But I swear it looks exactly like her …’

  ‘You know what?’ said my friend.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘
You’re a #$%$#@ idiot.’

  And, apparently, he was 100 per cent correct.

  Kindness Has No Colour

  (Soundtrack: ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Frankie Valli)

  I saw the beautiful girl again as I got into my car after buying warm, fresh bread at the bakery across the road from the Doll House in Johannesburg.

  And exactly the same thing happened. The world dissolved into slow motion the second I saw her.

  It was like being in a movie. Even the ambient sound was in slow motion. I watched her body glide, with velvet smooth movement, as she walked down the pavement towards me. The autumn leaves swirled around her feet in a slow, thermal, dance, drifting gently back to earth in her wake. Her long, silky hair flowed behind her, as if in water. I heard the soundtrack of a romantic movie in my head as she moved past me.

  And then, just like the first time it happened … she was gone.

  I got into my car in an absolute daze and pulled out onto Louis Botha Avenue. I failed to look properly and almost hit one of those three-wheeled delivery vans.

  I heard the screeching of brakes.

  Reality violently sucked itself back into the void in my head where the slow-motion scene had taken place. The delivery vehicle hooted and the African man behind the wheel started yelling at me.

  I lifted my hand in apology for almost smashing into him and drove down the road as fast as I could.

  But the man followed.

  He caught up to me and motioned at me. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could see that he was a big man with traditional ritual scars on each of his cheeks and he was going to beat the crap out of me.

  He yelled at me again, motioning me to pull over, edging his vehicle closer and closer to my car.

  Oh my God. This guy’s going to kill me, I thought.

  I accelerated through a red light and wove through the traffic, trying to get away from him.

  Unfortunately, I got caught by another red light, where the Astra movie house used to be. This time there were cars in front of me. I was trapped.

  He pulled up alongside me and, with venom, I yelled, ‘I said I was sorry, man! I didn’t see you. Leave me alone for @#$* sake.’

  I knew I had just invited myself to a beating because, time and time again, as kids, we were told how ruthless, aggressive and violent African men were. We read about their brutality in the papers every day. How they had no compassion and were known to beat people to death when provoked. This guy was going to friggin’ take me out.

  He got out of the van and strode towards the passenger window. I reached across and tried to close the window but I couldn’t wind it up fast enough and he leaned in.

  I closed my eyes and covered my head with my arms waiting for his fist. But it never came.

  ‘Master,’ he yelled. I opened my eyes to see him drop something onto the passenger seat of my car. He flashed me a beautiful, magnificent, genuine, pearly white smile. He waved happily, then turned and ran back to the delivery vehicle just as the light changed. He jumped into the van and raced off down the road.

  I looked at the object the man had dropped into my car and realised, with horror, that it was my worn leather briefcase containing my wallet and, as I was just back from an overseas trip, my passport.

  I was so entranced with the beautiful girl that I had left the briefcase on the roof of the car as I got in. It had fallen off the roof as I raced off and this kind man chased me all the way down Louis Botha Avenue to give it back to me.

  I learned two important things that day.

  Women who walk in slow motion are dangerous to your health … and kindness has no colour.

  Falling from Grace

  (Soundtrack: ‘Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet’ by Henry Mancini)

  When I was a young man, the quickest way to get me to do something was to tell me not to do it.

  Just like Debbie’s father did.

  I was in the army. Debbie was in matric and we were in love. I was visiting her on my weekend pass and we were sitting in her room and listening to songs on her cassette player.

  A cassette player was a device that was very popular in the last century, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. You would record songs from a record player or even from the radio onto strange things called compact cassette tapes. It was quite difficult to record songs from the radio without getting part of a radio commercial or the DJ’s voice or your sister screaming or a dog barking or a street vendor shouting, ‘Mielies!’ in the background. Often you had to take a pencil and fiddle with the spool of the cassette to loosen the tape if it wound up too tight.

  I was actually loosening a cassette tape with a yellow HB pencil when Debbie’s father burst into the room and told me it was late and I should be going home.

  But I wasn’t ready to go home.

  No, sir. We hadn’t even kissed yet and I was NOT going to go back to the army base for two or three weeks without getting a kiss or two. Not that we were going to do anything bad. I mean she was in matric and not ready for prime time, so to speak.

  ‘But it’s only 9 p.m. Five more minutes please, Dad,’ pleaded Debbie.

  I just shut my mouth and smiled. I knew better than to say anything. I felt invincible after surviving basic training and had a deep urge to give him some backchat. But, out of respect for Debbie and because I was rather besotted with her, I refrained.

  I am a bit of a chicken in general, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of her dad. He looked like a skinny male model out of a Volvo advertisement. He was lithe and wore black fitted trousers with a tight, white polo-necked jersey. He had gold wire-rimmed glasses and wore his blond hair quite short with a neat side parting. I kept on expecting him to speak with a Norwegian or Swedish accent, but he didn’t.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Just five more minutes.’ He walked out with ne’er a sideways glance.

  I can take you one time, boet, I thought to myself. I’ll klap you so many times you’ll think you’re surrounded.

  ‘He’s cross,’ said Debbie. ‘He gets that way when he drinks Scotch.’

  I knew that her mother and father were having a marital thrombosis and that her dad sometimes became violent after a few drinks so I agreed to leave.

  ‘I’ll come back later,’ I said, kissing her goodbye.

  ‘No, you can’t come back!’ she whispered.

  ‘But I want to,’ I said, kissing her goodbye again.

  ‘I know. Me too,’ she said, kissing me back, ‘but I’ll get into trouble.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, knowing full well that I would be back, knocking on her window in the middle of the night like I had done a few times before.

  ‘Don’t climb up to my window,’ she said. ‘He’ll get really cross with me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said.

  ‘Promise?’ she urged.

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  I walked out of the house full of confidence after cheerfully saying goodbye to her mother and father, who were watching TV in the lounge.

  I got into my little Mini and headed straight for the Radium Beer Hall in my neighbourhood, Orange Grove. The Radium was the birthplace of my delinquency and a place where most of my friends hung out. At any given time of the day, there was always some wayward Orange Grover at the Radium.

  As I expected, I found some people I knew at the Radium, including my brother, who was also my best friend. The Lion Lager beer flowed and before long I was quite intoxicated. My brother and friends encouraged me to go back and visit Debbie. I told them that it was probably not the best of ideas, but they mocked me and called me a chicken.

  That’s all it took. Someone calling me a chicken.

  And because I was young and an idiot and there were no roadblocks, or strict drunken driving laws in those days, I got into my little car and sped back to Debbie’s house.

  I parked down the road, around the corner, and walked up to her house.

  By that time it was about 11.30 p.m. and her house
was dark and quiet. There was not one light on – it was pitch black.

  I scurried across the lawn like a cat burglar in a Pink Panther movie and pressed myself against the wall, making sure I was not spotted. Not that anyone would have spotted me. It was so damn dark, you would have needed night-vision goggles to see me.

  The house was a mock-Tudor style and the side of the house was covered in ivy. I looked at her window one storey up and distinctly heard the theme from Romeo and Juliet in my head. I probably smiled, knowing me.

  The alcohol reduced my fear-factor quotient by a huge amount and I was ready to be with my love. I grabbed the drainpipe and started climbing up to her window.

  It was pretty easy shimmying up the pipe and when I got level with the window, I reached across to tap on the glass.

  That’s when it happened!

  I felt the pipe shift. I frantically felt around for something to hold on to. I suddenly realised that it was the gutter pipe and that it was totally corroded at the point where the brackets held it onto the wall.

  I froze, not wanting my movement to jostle the pipe any more. But it was too late. The pipe shifted again and then it slowly started separating from the wall. I wrapped my legs and arms around the pipe, hanging on for dear life.

  Then the pipe came away from the wall and, still clinging on for all I was worth, I fell backwards in slow motion. It soon became fast motion and I landed flat on my back on the lawn below.

  I was completely winded. I lay there, unable to catch my breath.

  Suddenly lights came on in the house and the front door opened. Silhouetted against the light, I saw Debbie’s father angrily wielding a cricket bat. By his body language I could tell that he was more than somewhat agitated.

  Adrenaline helped me find my wind and I scrambled to my feet and hobbled through the bushes like an old man in a cartoon. The old British word ‘scarper’ comes to mind. I had visions of him happily clobbering me with that cricket bat.

  I clambered through the neighbour’s hedge, ran down the road and hid behind some trees to catch my breath. Thankfully, he did not see where I went.

  Even though I was a few houses down the road, I could hear him cursing to himself as he checked around the garden.