White Paper, White Ink

by Jonathan Morgan

  Today I got called to the head warder’s office. My file was open on his desk. A big fat coloured guy, his khaki uniform straining at the buttons and zips, his brown shoes polished and shining. Stupidly I was expecting good news, maybe even that they had found the real guys who did the crime and that I was free to go.

  “Your case has been postponed for six months,” is what he told me.

  My worst fear is of being sodomised. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not homophobic or anything, but I’m straight as an Apache arrow, and sooner or later my luck is going to run out. I can stare people down, look like a coloured gangster, bring out the knife on odd-but-called-for occasions, but sooner or later I know I’ll get zapped.

  Just imagine staying here for years and years, always hungry, a prisoner and a slave and, on top of that, fucked up the arse by these scaly Number scumbags. If I kill somebody just defending myself my chances of ever getting out go down to zero. Every day I see others picking up food and paper from the floor, hungry and mad people. Don’t think I can take this any longer.

  “All rise,” they say

  As he enters his court

  So much power he wields

  Over life or death

  Freedom or not

  Is that a grin

  A groan

  A frown

  Or God knows what

  Fleeting emotions passes his face

  How I wish he had a good night’s sleep

  That today is one of his better days

  “All rise,” they say

  As he enters his court.

  – ‘The Magistrate’, Sipho Madini,

  Homeless Talk, February 2001

  I am not at all sure I can handle this. Every second day brings a new challenge or attack. The worst for me is that some people have been sitting here without ever coming to trial. For two to three years, they sit waiting for a ‘fair sentence’ or any sentence at all. There are stories of those who have been sitting for up to eight years! The guilty, but also the innocent, just waiting for a trial. Imagine that – eight years in here and with no trial. It’s normal here. They call it stokkies. Sun City is the place where you languish.

  Through Bokkie – your average Eldos coloured whose bunk is near mine – I hear that if you are prepared to plead guilty and forego a state lawyer, you can be sentenced within a week, get transferred immediately, and begin to serve your time. I go to the warder and tell him this is what I want. Next thing I’m in front of a bushy lawyer, a coloured, who has an office in the prison. We sit across a huge desk on which the photos of his wife and children are angled more towards me than him, taunting. “MacLean,” he says, flipping through my file. “Forced entry, electronics store, June 8, 2001, positively identified by owner of store and security guard at identity parade… but no one hurt, not armed robbery or manslaughter… Seems cut and dry, MacLean… If you sign an agreement and plead guilty, I think you will get two years but then, as you know, it is Papa Mandela’s birthday coming up, and the new Constitution is soft on criminals, so you can expect parole or even amnesty. You might be out in ten to twelve months. But then you might not. I’m not here to make promises…”

  Our eyes lock.

  “But,” he takes in a deep breath, “if you give them a hard time, and plead innocent, or even mention that you are innocent, they will still find you guilty. And they will give you four to six years.”

  Okay, guilty it is. Who ever cared a damn about the truth anyway? I am escorted back to my cell and there is a spring in my step. Bokkie, who sleeps in the bunk across from me, wants to know how it went. It worries me that although he encouraged me to do this, he hasn’t done it himself. Maybe he’s smarter than he looks.

  The next week is somehow easier to get through. I keep telling myself I will be out of here by December, a homeless but free man.

  The morning of my trial I feel emptied by nerves, and I’ve got the runs. The prison has its own court, easier to bring the judge to the prison than the prisoners to the judge. Standing slighty behind me is the court orderly, in the uniform of the South African Police Service. His job is to escort me up the steps to the witness box. Ahead of me sits the magistrate, a whitey, in a wig. At a desk beneath him sits a young black lady with a red top, the translator or clerk of the court, I presume.

  “Michael MacLean…” drones the magistrate across from where I stand. “You have been arrested on charges of burglary. How do you plead?”

  I don’t hesitate but it comes off hard from my tongue, having to lie to find a kind of truth and freedom.

  “Guilty.”

  Then it’s as if I am watching scenes from a movie about my life, or reading my own poem written over a year ago: the judge, his wig, the smell of polished wooden benches, me, Sipho Madini, the boy who grew up in Kimberley, handcuffs biting my wrists. It takes less than 30 seconds for him to sentence me to three years with immediate transfer to Piketberg.

  The wooden hammer is down. This is not how the script was meant to go. I didn’t say, “Guilty, yes, but I’m innocent.” Fuck the lawyer, fuck Bokkie, fuck this life. How can nearly four years of my life just be taken away from me because of a case of mistaken identity? So much for freedom after apartheid for Sipho Madini.

  “Where is this Piketberg?” I ask the warder who is leading me away from the court.

  “The Western Cape, up near the coast, on the edge of the Karoo, near Namibia. That judge must own a potato or grape farm there that needs prison labour. I heard there are some heavy Number gang madotas there, those they don’t want to mix with the others – you know, gang leaders. Piketberg Prison is where they park these gangsters to rot in jail and to keep the other prisoners in line.”

  My nerves and my stomach give in and I have to run to the toilet with the warder still handcuffed to me and shouting, “Hey, slow down! Slow down,” laughing at me. “It’s not all that bad, a farm in the Cape is better than a prison in Gauteng. moenie jou broek kak nie.” Don’t shit your pants. Like that’s all I’ve got to worry about.

  A prison vehicle makes its way along the N1, South Africa’s main arterial motorway linking the north and the south. It’s a stretch of tarmac that links Cape Town to Johannesburg to Beit Bridge to Cairo. An SAA Boeing 747 flies high above the clouds following the same route as the prison truck. Sitting on the plane is Jonathan, his wife Kyoko and their two children Masego and Taiji. Jonathan has a book in his hands, Finding Mr Madini. It has a bright red cover with doodled images of Hillbrow Tower and the Longsbank building where the writing workshops took place. Valentine and Steven and others walking down Rissik Street, silhouetted against the Jo’burg skyline. This is the complimentary copy each member of the group received at the book’s launch. Jonathan’s copy, on the inside covers, and in the margins beside various pieces written by different members of the group, has signatures and messages from the group, which he now reads.

  As he pages through the book, he says to Kyoko, “The trail for Sipho has gone cold, dead you might say. Just these few leads.”

  He points to some notes on the back inside cover of the book, notes with clues relating to Sipho’s disappearance.

  Gamama Malichi – Johannesburg Hospital, Ward 394 (a nursing sister who someone said might have treated Sipho)

  Shinge (082 4587 987), Sipho’s cousin in Kimberley

  Noxolo, an aunt in Kimberley, shack 19045, Diamond Street, Pennywhistle Location

  After a while he puts Finding Mr Madini into the netted pouch on the back of the seat in front of him and begins to read the in-flight magazine. One hundred minutes later the Boeing 747 approaches Cape Town. It descends to 500 metres, lowers one wing and banks in a wide arc over the ocean. Jonathan leans over his four-year-old daughter Masego, who is in the window seat, and cranes his neck. He has an aerial view of the most perfect breaking, peeling waves.

  “We are going…” floats a voice through my muffled consciousness.

  “Muzeke zeke, haya muzeke” comes the answering chorus.

 
“Problems problems, yes problems…”

  “Ama’rapes, ama’roofs; ama’moords…”

  “Muzeke zeke, at’a muzeke…”

  “We are going…”

  The voice is plaintive, challenging like a youth who has made peace with his fate.

  “Problems problems, yes problems…”

  Three days and two nights locked in the back of a big truck with a small cubicle toilet to avoid the risk of having to let us out and have us escape. My first and only trip out of Kimberley was to Jozi. I always dreamed of travelling elsewhere… but not as a chained prisoner in the back of a police truck.

  Time passes and I sing and clap my handcuffed hands. My palms are beetroot-muddy red. I feel as if I want to cry. I swallow a sob but the tears don’t come. I am bobbing slightly, clapping my hands, and chorusing something unintelligent. So do the more than 20 others curved around me, into a horseshoe, slightly stamping their feet. None of us, I think, really feel like singing but it’s strangely comforting and gets you into this trance, away from this feeling of being caged and shipped like a sick or dangerous animal. My body is aching and stiff by the time the truck stops for the last time and we spill out into the prison yard.

  The admissions hall is nothing like Sun City. This is a small prison, about 1000 as opposed to Sun City’s 12 000, but I’ve heard that security is tight on account of the heavy guys here. The hall is built from big blocks of cement bricks, and we enter through a huge green armoured door. Our handcuffs and footchains are taken off and we all stretch like in a PT class without the instructor having to say anything.

  Each of is given a small plastic bag with soap, a toothbrush and a yellow jacket. Then we are made to go down on our knees as our names are called. The warders here are big boere and coloureds. We go into the office block and sit on a chair in front of a wooden desk, while our names are put in the computer. To the left is a small court. The head of the prison, an old but huge bull called Swanepoel, addresses us. He does not bark or shout but speaks softly, daring anyone to talk or not listen.

  “This is not Sun City. Here we don’t tolerate gangs,” he begins. Who is he kidding? “If you have spoon-knives or fork-knives or any knives, throw them away now. If we find them on you, you will be sorry – very, very sorry. Remember there is no Number here, if you are thinking Numbers, we will get that Number out of your head.”

  Then we are given another bag with an orange shirt and pants and a sun hat. And then another big black refuse bag with a blanket, foam mattress, two sheets, a pillow case and pillows, plus a skaf tin. With all these presents, as well as my thicker-than-usual elastic around my underpant and a lump in my left shoe I am led stumbling towards my cell.

  In a wide courtyard separating two rows of cells, prisoners from behind bars shout, “Hola, homeboy! Give us a cigarette!”, “Homeboy! Hoor djy?”, “Wasmzini!”

  The cell has a toilet, shower, basin and single bunks in an open space with a few double bunks. Sun City cells used to hold 50 to 100 beds. I count the bunks here and there are only 24. Once we have been locked in and the warders have left, I am able to take in more of the cell and who is in it. Just by looking, you can tell who runs the cell and my eyes take me to four guys sitting on bunk beds at the far end of the cell. It seems my eyes are not the only ones drawn to this spot.

  The first one, I can see, is coloured – from the way he moves, even before he talks. He has curly-curly-curly hair and soft pink cheeks, scrunched-up but pretty eyes and a yellow-yellow-yellow face. He pushes out his chest with dangerous energy.

  “Hey, you cunts, why you just fucking standing around? Gets yourselves lives. Julle poese, wat staan julle so fokken rond? Kry julle lewe.” He shouts this welcome in both languages as he feels the newcomers’ eyes on his tight group. No one says anything and after a while he calms down. I’m beginning to have doubts about the Numbers not existing in this prison. Those ouens have very much the 27 about them. It seems like we have the day off after the long journey, and I spend it lying on my bunk, sometimes dozing off.

  Even though I have only been here a few hours, in this place I feel more at home. Maybe it’s because I look like a coloured and this is the Cape, home of the coloureds. The smell is different too. It’s the sweet-sour fragrance of mandrax, but mixed with a more farmy smell of compost and manure, both filling your nose and seeping into the cement. Not all that bad.

  At about 4 pm one of the madotas from the end of the cell approaches my bed. I get up so he cannot look down at me.

  “Wie is djy en waarvandaan kom djy?” The old Number question. I answer that I am MacLean, but before I can go on he continues, “Ons het so gehoor, ja, the young 27 soldier. Yes, we heard about you. The madotas will met djou praat – the kapteins want to talk with you.” I begin to explain that I am not a 27 or any other Number but he cuts me off.

  Just then the warder unlocks the cell door and I am led out down the passage into another cell, which the same warder unlocks, letting me and some other guy through, and then relocking the gate behind us. All eyes are on me as I walk the gauntlet into a courtyard chamber created between four curtained bunk beds at the very end. Sitting on the top bunks are two guys and on the bottom ones two others. Even I can see that these are heavyweights. A replay of the scene in Sun City?

  One is very, very dark, black-black-black, like the Nigerians I used to see in Hillbrow. But he has kind, soulful eyes. Everything about him is slow and rolling and it looks like he – or someone – has tailored his prison clothes to look like an Armani suit. One of the other guys also looks dignified with an almond-like face but eyes that are colder. The third has a skerp nose and cheeks and reddish features. And the fourth, who is still young, looks like a Tswana, short with a pointed head and a short goatee.

  All of them, their faces included, are covered with tattoos, either with the word ‘sonop’, which means sunrise, or the number ‘27’. This is a sure sign that the Number is your life and, more importantly, so is the prison. No one who expects to live outside again, get a job or be part of that other society would ever tattoo their face. There are no 26s or 28s in sight. You could say it’s a straight suite of Sevens.

  I look at my shoe but then lift my head, showing what I hope is a scowl on my face. All are bigger than me, neatly dressed, each possessing a natural authority. But somewhere I sense a softness that even a spell of harsh life cannot wash away. Maybe I will not need Mr Knife. Though the identity question, “Wie is djy and where do you come from?” is repeated, my answer is always, “Michael MacLean.”

  “Maar, Michael MacLean, wie is djy?” asks the one on the bed nearest to me. His face is red, even his hair, and he is liberally sprinkled with freckles. He was well on his way to being an albino, but somewhere along the line his Maker decided the contrary, and gave him a small helping of red pigment. I do not know if it was a good decision. He looks rusted. I glance at the group and my eyes return to the one who asked the question. Nose flared, challenge in my voice. “Wie is ek, who am I? I am Michael MacLean.”

  “We heard how you took down Rasta in Sun City, that you are handy with a knife. You know who we are?”

  “I guess you the 26s,” I say, reading the tattoos off their skins, mostly guns and daggers.

  “That is correct,” says the almost-albino guy. “We operate only by night, we don’t take wives and blood is our language.”

  I nod but say nothing, thinking that this gang culture is pretty heavy stuff. It’s also a bit like men still playing the games of teenagers.

  “You are still a frans and we hear that you don’t like to be anyone’s servant. That is a problem here. Either you are a frans or you are a Number.”

  Still I say nothing.

  “Okay, let’s get to it,” says Almost Albino. None of the others says a word, and just nod a few times. All carry on staring at me.

  “You have already passed your test. What you did to Rasta counts as your passport into the Number. Our kaptein Benny September has asked us to talk to
you. As a 26, you will be protected from moffies, and can live a life of honour – but know that once you have joined us there is no turning back.”

  “Sorry,” I say, “no offence, but I don’t want to join any gang.”

  We sit there in silence until I can take it no more, excuse myself, part the curtain and walk to the front gate where the warder is still standing. He opens up for me and escorts me back to my cell where I sit on my bed with the scratchy blanket.

  The pressure to join the gangs is relentless – not only the 26s, but also the 27s and 28s. They all want to swell their ranks and they see it as a failure if one of the other gangs gets you to join up. Beneath each ‘recruiting officer’ is a gangster but also a person, and all they really want is for you to become a friend. They want you to become a brother – but until you are a brother, you are a threat or an enemy.

  Most often in times of crisis I just push my foot down to feel the knife, but more and more I find myself repeating Jonathan’s cellphone number in my head.

  This morning I woke up to the sound of a barking dog and for a moment I thought I was back in Sun City. It was a part I had, like, blocked out my mind. We felt more like animals back there. Animals ruled by the warders and the gangsters, but also by the dogs. The dogs were all huge German shepherds, polisie honde. I still dream about their snarling fangs, those beasts straining at their leashes to maul us, having to pass them in the narrow corridors, with the warders all the time screaming at us. The warders had to be extra tough and hostile and not give an inch, with only one of them for every hundred of us.

  Compared to Sun City, this place is okay. Now I am government property and I have rights. But I still watch my back (and my backside), careful not to be sucked into the gangs, which is where most guys find their place and their meaning in life.