St. Peter’s was built in 1916 on a property three blocks long and a block wide. An open sports field with tennis courts next to it led to the grounds of St. Agnes’s dormitories, where the seventy girls lived alongside the rooms of their nuns, Sisters Elsa and Elizabeth—the latter came to be known as Sister Piggy. Next to the boys’ hostel stood the priory, the monastery that was the residence for the monks and novices who were studying for the priesthood at St. Peter’s Theological College. Archbishop Desmond Tutu graduated from here. It was also here that Father Trevor Huddleston, who was the chaplain of the entire complex, lived. Fathers Winter and Carter, the founders of St. Peter’s, also lived here, as did Fathers Millington and Jarret-Kerr, who composed all the incidental music for the school’s church services. My uncle, Lincoln “Putugwana” Motsoene, was in his senior year as a novice priest at the seminary.
Jerry took me to my dormitory, Number Four, “the Fort,” named after the notorious jail in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow Section, where the city’s best-known gangsters were incarcerated. Jerry suggested that I choose a bed in the middle of the hall. Forty boys would live here.
Father Rakale, the warden, was already in his office across the quad from Number Four. This was the priest Rose-Innes had warned me about. He was a tall, gaunt, lean man of about forty, very dark in complexion, with a pock-marked face. His features were a cross between Bob Hope and Stepin Fetchit, and when I first laid eyes on him, he was twirling his false teeth in his mouth, jiggling them around with his tongue. He spoke with an Oxford English accent, something he undoubtedly picked up while studying theology in Yorkshire, England. “Masekela,” he told me, “we believe in dignity, discipline, hard work, and good manners here at St. Peter’s. You better behave yourself or you will be punished, suspended, and possibly expelled.” After this sour introduction, I sized up Father Rakale as an asshole.
Damn, I thought, I just met this man and he’s already on me. “Yes, Father,” I replied meekly. Jerry didn’t make any eye contact with Father Rakale. After we left the office, he said, “Don’t take him too seriously. He’s like that with everybody. He’s a shitty bastard. Just avoid getting into any trouble with him.”
I was one of the first new students to arrive on campus, so I continued exploring my new environment. I watched more of the returning student fanfare and then turned my attention to the girls coming through the gate at the top of the football grounds, heading toward St. Agnes. In a few months I was going to be thirteen. I was beginning to grow pubic hair and hair under my arms; I could smell my body odor and feel that throbbing sensation in my groin. Eyeing those girls made me contemplate the possibility of going further than just peeping under their dresses.
As I was daydreaming about Bessie’s thighs, a fat boy walked up to me and introduced himself. “Heita daar [hello], I’m Woodrow Lekhela from Potchefstroom.” Woodrow told me his father was a school supervisor and his mother was a school principal, and that he came from a prominent family in the western region of the Transvaal. Before I could get a chance to talk a little about my family, we were joined by a group of guys who said they were from Sophiatown. Stompie, Monty, and Lawrence spoke the latest Afrikaans slang with a flare that made me envious. Stompie’s brother, Nchi, was a very sharp dresser and an established saxophonist in Johny “Boetie Vark” Selelo’s Savoys, one of Sophiatown’s top bands. Stompie inherited all of Nchi’s hand-me-downs, manufactured by America’s most fashionable clothiers and shoemakers. Monty and Lawrence, along with Stompie, carried on endlessly about American clothes, records, the latest dances, and the clothing styles of the Young Americans, Johannesburg’s most colorful gang. The Young Americans specialized in robbing goods-trains and trucks. They were the pride of Sophiatown. All of these guys were sharp dressers. They said I could be part of their clique if I shed my South African clothes. Stompie made it clear: “You can hang out with us, but not wearing those John Drake shoes. Those are for squares, man. You would cause us too much embarrassment. We could get mugged by thugs who might mistake us for country bumpkins.” Stompie had a machine-gun-paced banter and an unbelievable gift of gab that was matched only by Monty’s. They fed off each other, rattling on about Sophiatown, and how the Young Americans dressed better than American film stars. I was impressed, but with only one pound in my pocket, and my school fees about to take a huge bite of my family’s budget, I was thankful for the few clothes I had, even with Johanna’s homemade labels stitched in them.
These boys did not intimidate me. I knew I would soon find a group of friends in my class with whom I would feel comfortable. But it was good to get exposed early to all sorts of cliques, clubs, and gangs. I, too, was from the streets. I had known fast talkers, had had my share of fights, and had seen people murdered. I’d lived half of my life in a shebeen where I had heard all kinds of rough talk, had watched my grandmother beat the shit out of rowdy customers, and had heard stories about my father and uncles beating the shit out of thugs during township fights.
The aroma of bad food hanging in the air signaled that dinner was soon. But before my first meal, I was introduced to “Blood,” the head prefect and his deputies, Bra T, Vlieg, Abzie, Phungwayo, and Sinuka, a mean-looking, muscular group of seniors. Prefects monitored students in the dorm, dining room, classrooms, and the school grounds in general. They were all basically ass-holes, especially Vlieg, the assistant head prefect who was assigned to the Fort. I also met students from different parts of the country and neighboring African countries. This group, along with the nerds and the conservative religious students, were considered to be boring squares, especially because they went overboard trying to endear themselves to the school authorities, monks, and nuns. Most of the boys despised them, as did most of the girls at St. Agnes. They were the laughingstocks of St. Peter’s. Ironically, they scored the highest academic marks.
When the dinner bell rang, all dormitory and school ground activities ceased. Bad-food jokes aside, I was hungry and it was going to be a long time before I was to taste Polina and Johanna’s delicious cooking again. The newcomers were the last to enter the hall. Second-year students ushered us to our places at the back of the dining hall. We all sat on long wooden benches and ate on wooden tables. The servers were students assigned to kitchen duty. Everything was done in precise military fashion. No one sat down before Father Rakale entered the dining hall and took his seat at the head table with some of the prefects and senior students. After countless monotonal responses of “present, Father,” to the call of our names, he began his tirade.
“Welcome back to St. Peter’s. The year 1952 will mark an even stricter disciplinary code than we had last year. All those who did not answer roll call will be gated [restricted to the campus] for the rest of the year. For those of you who are new, roll call is every day at six p.m., after which the classrooms, the tennis courts, the lab and carpentry shop, the football grounds, the area outside the school grounds, and St. Agnes are all out of bounds. Anyone found in these areas after six p.m. will be expelled. The dormitory lights will go out at eight-thirty p.m. Anyone found outside their dorm, except going to or returning from the toilets, will be expelled. There will be no talking whatsoever after eight-thirty p.m. Anyone caught talking will be severely punished. Visits to St. Agnes will only be allowed after school from three-thirty p.m. until five p.m. on weekdays and after lunchtime to six p.m. on weekends. Anyone found there after curfew will be expelled. You must have an exit permit to leave the grounds to go shopping after school, and you must be back by five p.m. Fighting is not allowed. Only seniors may smoke, and only in designated areas. Prefects are here to help you follow these rules, and anyone who challenges them is challenging me! Your work details will be posted on my office door tomorrow morning before breakfast. Rising bell is at six-thirty a.m., at which time you must go and wash and be ready for breakfast in one hour. Anyone caught in bed after six-thirty will be severely punished. There is a sick bay in my office. The medical officer will attend to your illness. If you are seriously i
ll, he will report to me and I will make arrangements for medical treatment outside the school. Anybody caught faking an illness will be severely punished. If you don’t like these rules, you should leave the dining hall now, go and collect your things, and leave! Let us pray. May the Lord bless the food we are about to receive, Amen.”
An eerie silence swept through the dining hall. The tables where the new students sat were especially quiet. I didn’t know what to think. All I could hear was the clanking of the spoons against the metal plates and mumbling. I had been at St. Peter’s less than three hours and was already homesick. I longed for my mother’s cooking.
The bell rang and my roommates and I hurried to our dorm, where we jumped into our pajamas and talked until the lights went out at eight-thirty sharp. It was hard to go to sleep right away. My new friends and I quickly figured out how to break the “no talking whatsoever after eight-thirty p.m.” rule. We muffled our laughs in our pillows while assigning everyone a funny nickname, told quiet dirty jokes, and passed silent farts. This went on until Vlieg came to bed. Then there was silence. The only sounds came from those who were snoring. Exhausted from the excitement of the day, I drifted off to sleep pondering the challenging days ahead and my mother’s words ringing in my head: “Boy-Boy, you’re gonna be just fine.”
The rising handbell was rung by Father Rakale or a prefect at 6:30 a.m., walking in and out of every dormitory. If you were in a deep sleep, the bell would be rung in your ear. Mornings were the most painful time of the day.
My first-period class started with Dr. Benade’s mathematics class. He fit Rose-Innes’s description to a T. His “you stupid little kaffir” remarks were part of his daily diatribe. I developed an instant dislike for math that persists to this day. In the next period, my algebra teacher was a pompous, sharply dressed, pretty boy. Mr. Dubazi had a habit of whacking you across the back of the neck if you messed up. He, too, was an unpopular teacher, albeit admired for his sophistication.
For English, I had Sister Elsa, a sweet, soft-spoken nun who wore the black, ankle-length religious habit. One hot afternoon, following lunch, I was seated in the front row in the classroom. Sister Elsa was standing by my desk, when in the middle of a sentence she accidentally released a silent yet potent gas bomb. She took a few steps backwards to ease her embarrassment. I and the rest of the class lowered our heads to keep from laughing. I assumed nuns never farted.
Sister Elsa was a welcome change from some of my male teachers. I actually learned something in her class. She opened a whole new world to us, introducing us to Dickens, Shakespeare, Browning, Yeats, and Byron. She actually made learning fun. It was exhilarating, funny, and sometimes complex and mysterious, but generally a new adventure into a world far removed from the township culture many of us had been accustomed to.
As the year wore on, I began taking an interest in the girls from St. Agnes. During one lunch break, Mopedi and her friend Seleke struck up a conversation with me. It turned out that Seleke’s father knew my parents. They were both very pretty, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make my move. Suddenly I felt confident; I figured my chances were better than usual because these girls had initiated the conversation.
Ready to display my best adolescent rap, I got tongue-tied. I couldn’t believe it. My mouth became dry. I tried to think of something to say. My brain went blank. My palms were sweaty. The girls, sensing my immaturity, left me standing. I watched these two beautiful girls walk away arm in arm, giggling at my weakness. I felt like a fool.
My afternoon classes were a daze. I sat through each class wondering if I was ever going to get another chance to redeem myself. After school we all crowded around the principal’s office to check out our work assignments, gather school announcements, and get caught up on the latest gossip. I was assigned to one of the eight intramural soccer teams. Every boy had to play soccer. I was chosen captain of the Benade Dynamites. I figured this would be a way to take my mind off my shyness around girls.
After supper the boys headed to the classrooms for an hour-and-a-half study period under the watchful eyes of the prefects. Our day classes were coed, but we were segregated during study periods. The girls studied in their dormitories. Few of us liked the study-hall prefects. We saw them as spies, Uncle Toms, and sellouts for the school authorities. Blood, Vlieg, Desmond, and Absalom were the most feared and reviled. Bra T, on the other hand, was loved by the students, but mistrusted by his fellow prefects because he would cut us some slack.
After study hall we filed to chapel for evening prayer, called Evensong. The boys sat on the right and the girls would file in minutes later and sit on the left. Following the benediction and closing hymn, both sexes marched to their dorms under the watchful eyes of the priests, prefects, and nuns.
Once the lights went out, we got our second wind. But first we had to wait until Father Rakale made his rounds. Wearing his black cassock and Count Dracula cape, he’d stroll through the dorms shining his flashlight and barking, “Manana go to sleep! Shut up, Shoarane! Mohosh, report to my office in the morning! Masabalala, you will wash all the dorm windows! Mathlare, you are gated! Ngidi, you did a sloppy job on the toilets. Lekhela, I am calling your father in the morning! Molopyane, you are suspended!”
Father Rakale would turn out to be our worst nightmare. While he walked his rounds of the other dorms, we’d giggle, fart, tell dirty jokes, assign more nicknames, make fun of the priests and nuns, and fantasize about the pretty girls and make bad jokes about the unattractive ones. One night after listening outside our dorm window, Father Rakale came bursting through our door without warning. He flicked the lights on and began a rant unbecoming a man of the cloth. He slapped around anyone within the scope of his radar. “I will make certain that you live to rue this night, never to forget my name, and to obey the rules of this hostel.” Grabbing one poor soul out of his bed, then another and another, he continued, “Get up this minute and march straight to my office and strip off all your pajama bottoms.”
He slammed the door so hard the windows rattled. It was so quiet in the dorm you could hear a rat lick ice. Minutes later we heard a belt tearing into flesh and boys screaming for mercy. “Please, Father, it wasn’t me! I’m sorry, Father! I won’t do it again, Father!” Some boys refused to cry during their beating. This further infuriated Father Rakale.
I’ve never figured out how a priest could be so cruel. And worse, how a black clergyman, who claimed to be a servant of God, could be so mean and vindictive. Rumor had it that a student who had been expelled had returned and shot dead Father Rakale’s predecessor, Father Bayneham, who had been everybody’s darling. I sometimes feared for Father Rakale’s life. I was certain somebody would reach the breaking point and kill him. A few months later, Father Rakale did cause, I believe, the death of Godfrey Mochochoko who slept next to me by giving him aspirin for a “fever” that turned out to be brain meningitis. Father Rakale was transferred to another mission in Soweto. After St. Peter’s closed in 1956, I never heard of him again.
When Father Rakale was away on a retreat, Mr. Darling, the school’s principal and science teacher, pulled triple duty as dorm warden. Generally, he was more pleasant than “Bankbroke.” Respected and feared, Mr. Darling relied on the classroom monitors to assist him and the other teachers in keeping order. Vlieg, Blood, Phungwayo, Desmond, and Abzie loved to get us in trouble with half-truths and lies. One day I got into a heated discussion with our Afrikaans teacher, Meneer Mijnhaardt. Both of us were fluent in the language, but we disagreed over what was proper Afrikaans versus street Afrikaans. Since my mother was colored, Afrikaans was her family’s first language. We spoke it every day, as did many of her relatives. “Properly,” I told Mr. Mijnhaardt, “not with any slang!” I guess I pushed Mr. Mijnhaardt a little too far. He stormed out of the class red-faced and furious. Mongezi, our class monitor, rushed to the office to tell Mr. Darling his version of the story.
“My dear boy, your shabby behavior has come to my attention
. I am granting you three options. First, you can receive a blistering caning on your buttocks. Your second option is to wash the windows of each classroom for the next six months. Your third option is the simplest: You can pack your bags and leave.” I got six whistling strokes from Mr. Darling’s wooden cane. The pain was unbearable. The swollen welts made it difficult to sit down. With tears in my eyes, I apologized to Mr. Mijnhaardt in front of the class and was ordered to take my seat. “That’s a good boy, Mr. Masekela,” Mr. Darling continued as I eased into my desk chair. “For those inclined to act as Mr. Masekela did, please inquire of him what the consequences will be.”
When Bankbroke returned, his temper tantrums returned, and the morale around the campus sunk to new lows. After school, life centered around chores, detention, soccer games, tutoring, ducking and dodging Father Rakale, and getting caught up on the gossip about who got caught and expelled for drinking and which boy from St. Peter’s got which girl from St. Agnes pregnant. The exchange of juicy details was always followed by the sadness that the young lovers were caught and, of course, expelled.
Still Grazing Page 7