Black Like You

by Mashaba, Herman;

  “I can fix your exhaust pipe; I picked up a welding machine at the factory before they dismissed me,” an auto repairman would say to a villager whose car exhaust dragged along the bumpy dirt road.

  “What do you need – paper with or without lines? Just be patient and I’ll bring it next time I’m in the stationery room at the office,” a mother would reply to a child nagging for a new exercise book. A supermarket packer could often be seen walking home with a full tray of tinned food balancing on his head – tins that hadn’t made it from the store room to the supermarket shelves. So many good people in the village felt the pressure of having to reconcile pressing family demands and insufficient wages. As children, we eavesdropped on the conversations of our parents and their friends, so it was an inevitable reaction that we, too, did whatever it took to ensure that our needs at home were fulfilled.

  Theft in these instances was not a malicious, misanthropic or criminal act, it was an act of pure survival. We attended church on Sundays and we said our prayers with solemn faces and sincere hearts, but every week we chopped firewood that we’d stolen from a nearby farmer’s land, and in the middle of the night, using only the moon to guide us, we climbed through another farmer’s barbed wire fence to steal water from his dam. We usually carried out these clandestine activities in a group so that we could keep an eye out for the farmer, and when I cast my mind back to those days, I wince at the fact that we were so desperate; the game farm where we stole water was vast, and wild animals roamed about in the bush, but we were more afraid of the farmer’s wrath than of being attacked by the wild animals. However, necessity often influences a person’s choices. Securing water and wood went some way to satisfying our thirst and need for warmth, but it did not satisfy our hunger.

  “Hey, we can’t go on like this,” I said to Louis one day when we were particularly hungry. Louis and I, like many other township kids, used to buy small amounts of dagga, which we smoked secretly, away from adults and teachers.

  Louis looked at me quizzically. “What do you mean, my friend?”

  “This is nonsense, it’s getting us nowhere, just buying the stuff and smoking it, and buying more, and smoking it, day after day. What if we bought the dagga and sold it ourselves?”

  We discussed this, and you could say that we decided to become dealers. Moersekont was our supplier, and his name left no room for doubt as to his being a hardened gangster. We negotiated with him to supply us with the dagga, packed it into matchboxes, and sold it for about 20c a box. We made a good return on our money, and we could now afford to feed ourselves from the profits we earned. It certainly wasn’t an ideal way to earn a living, but resources and opportunities for two starving school kids were far and few between at the time.

  Sometimes when I watch my own children today, turning their noses up at a stew that doesn’t appeal or a cut of meat that does not look appetising, I remember those days. I know Connie gets mad when I complain that the children are fussy, but I cannot help recalling how absolutely empty and ill one can feel from hunger. Those memories live with me. And while I know that I cannot put an old head on young shoulders, it concerns me that it is so easy for privileged people who live in a throwaway society simply to tip a meal into a dustbin, and to make another one at a whim.

  Although Hammanskraal was fairly remote, it was home to several important black institutions. In 1962, the first Deaf School for African Children was established there by Dominican nuns, and in 1967 the St Peter’s Seminary for Catholic Priests was built; but a less welcome feature on our landscape was the Hammanskraal Police College. Black South African policemen were sent there for training. It was there that they learnt how to enforce their apartheid employer’s laws. Because our village was so close to the training college, it was in GaRamotse that the latest set of police recruits got to sharpen their blades of tyranny. Dressed in their dark blue uniforms, with their menacing sjamboks, they patrolled Hammanskraal, their keen eyes scanning for any “suspicious” people or activities.

  On many nights, we were roused from our beds by overzealous police officers banging on doors with their coshes. The neighbourhood dogs barked and howled, and we awoke, blinded by the torchlight that the police officers shone on us as they yelled, “Wake up, wake up! Where are you hiding him? We know he’s here!”

  It was humiliating to be at the mercy of the police, and yet we had to tolerate these invasions in silence. They carried out their raids under the pretext that they were checking to see who was sleeping in the house – looking in particular for men who should not have been there, men who were in transgression of the pass laws. The rough police officers commandeered the living room or the kitchen, their blue bulk dominating the room, their gruff voices barking out orders for the occupants of the house to present themselves and their passbooks. We despised those intrusions, but we grew used to the invasions. In fact, we felt far more threatened by the police when they confronted us on our streets.

  During 1976 the police presence in the area rose steadily. The authorities realised that many Soweto kids were being sent to the rural areas, and they wanted to ensure that no new fires of discontent were ignited – they did not want another “cheeky” uprising to be sparked in the rural areas.

  The police were everywhere, and my illicit business ventures were growing. In addition to dagga sales, I had embarked upon a career as a knoxman – the person in control of the dice during a gambling session. My one regret as a high-school boy was that we had to go to school on Fridays. A weekend of commerce beckoned, and if I’d had Friday morning to prepare for the weekend, I’d have been able to make a lot more money, a lot earlier in the day on Saturday and Sunday. Over the weekends, I relieved many hard-working residents of extra cash that jingled in their pockets. They were given recreation and entertainment, and in return I could feed myself.

  One Friday afternoon after school, Louis and I elbowed our way through the throng of learners, eager to get to our gambling den at Patel’s Café so that we could buy a packet of candles and secure the dice – as the knoxman, I had to arrive early to ensure that I had a set of dice for a game.

  “Come on, Louis, hurry, man. We have to go and buy the candles.” We needed candles so that the gamblers would be able to see the dice when they played in the dark confines of Patel’s Café. Although Pramlal Patel – the owner of the café – was not a gambler, his brother, Mosotho, was keen to throw the dice. That particular afternoon, we were carrying a stash of dagga that we had tucked into Louis’s schoolbooks in case the police caught us. We were aware that a new contingent of gung-ho police recruits, eager to exercise their newly acquired skills, were out patrolling the streets. The punishment for being caught with dagga was a five-year jail term; and back in those days five years meant five years, no negotiation was entered into.

  I felt tense, anxious as we hurried along. I was well-acquainted with fear. Whenever I saw a policeman, I broke out in a sweat. My mouth dried up, my armpits prickled and my body felt hot. The intimidating presence of the police in Hammanskraal continually made us feel as if we were a community of criminals waiting to be caught. I knew, too, that police officers had far-reaching rights in rural areas, and since there was no public prosecutor resident in GaRamotse, the police themselves could institute criminal proceedings.

  On our way to the gambling den, a man stopped us.

  “You’d better pasop, watch out for the police up there, at the bridge. They are stopping anyone who comes. And they’re also searching people.”

  Louis and I looked at each other in alarm; we were in a predicament, but we were already approaching the bridge where the police officers were pacing in anticipation, and we had no option but to keep walking.

  “Act normally; they won’t even notice us, we’re just school kids. Just keep cool,” I said.

  We rolled our shoulders and slowed our strides, adopting the typically nonchalant amble of township kids. We hoped that the school u
niforms we were wearing would be to our advantage: the police would surely not expect schoolboys to be carrying passbooks. We hoped, too, that we looked younger than our sixteen years – anyone older than sixteen had to carry a passbook.

  Being caught for any offence was a terrifying experience that Louis and I sought to avoid at all costs. Two of our friends had been arrested for passbook offences and sent to jail for the obligatory three months. When they were released, they displayed criminal tendencies far more severe than stealing wood or putting a loaf of bread under their coats. Or selling dagga or engaging in gambling.

  Louis and I were so afraid of being questioned by the police ahead of us at the bridge that we barely managed to maintain our pose. A police officer stepped in front of us.

  “Ja, julle – kom hierso. Show me your passbooks,” he demanded.

  “No, we’ve just come from school, we have not got passes yet,” Louis said while my eyes darted in all directions, searching for an escape route.

  Without looking at us, the policeman held out his hand. “What are you carrying there – schoolbooks? Let me see them. Ja, ek ken julle, you outjies think you’re too clever for the police.”

  Louis handed over the books to the policeman and even though I was poised to flee, I realised that we would not get very far; in any case, even if by some miracle we did manage to escape, our names would be on the books and the police would track us down. I was barely breathing as the police officer gave the schoolbooks a cursory glance and then handed them back to Louis and waved us on our way, clicking his tongue in annoyance.

  “You two have got nonsense written all over your faces; but I’ve got my eyes on you, don’t think you’re too clever,” he said, watching us until we were out of sight.

  Although I’d felt nauseous from fear, I had managed to behave normally; I breathed out a long sigh as I said, “Eish, those boere.”

  “Ja, that was close,” Louis said.

  “Yes, too close,” I said, realising I had just learnt an important lesson: the best way to avoid conflict was to mask my feelings. It was humiliating to be barked at by the police, or to be yelled at by teachers, but I had witnessed friends who had reacted emotionally to degrading situations, and their reactions, while understandable, only enraged the authority figures and exacerbated the situation for my friends. My cool attitude had kept us out of trouble.

  Our dagga sales provided pocket money for food, but it was gambling that gave us extra money for entertainment. My mother had returned home due to illness, and the responsibility of providing for the entire household had fallen on my shoulders. Dagga sales did not bring in enough money to provide for all our domestic needs, and my mother had grown suspicious of the numerous visitors who came to score. So Louis and I focused our efforts on gambling.

  On Friday nights, men and boys were out for a good time; the men had money in their pockets and wanted to alleviate the ache of the week’s work, while the boys aimed to impress the girls. Most of the local men gathered at Patel’s Café to gamble their hard-earned money in the hope that they’d win a bit more to take home to a nagging wife or an unemployed mother. Boys, on the other hand, needed whatever money they could lay their hands on to get the attention of a girl.

  Impatient feet shuffled as the gamblers waited to place their bets. As the knoxman, it was my responsibility to keep law and order during the games. The punters gathered in a group around the burning candles and waited for the dice to roll. I threw the dice, and punters called out their numbers.

  “One!”

  “Five!”

  “Come on six! Six!”

  If one of the numbers was rolled, the punters who had bet on that number won, and I got a percentage of their winnings.

  Playing dice is a dangerous game, particularly when you have high rollers, as there were always arguments when men lost their money. Gamblers who bet high stakes were usually armed, and I often found myself caught in the middle of grown men stabbing or attacking each other to settle an argument. The knoxman was feared and respected, and I tolerated no bad behaviour. When the big guns played, I knew it wasn’t a place for young school children because I knew how volatile the situation could become, and how the game could degenerate into bloodshed over a couple of rand.

  “Tšwaa, tšwaa! Out, get out! I shouted, pushing the kids out of Patel’s and sending them into the darkness, even though I knew some of them needed to win a buck to stave off their hunger.

  I had some lucky escapes – I could have been killed on several occasions. The gamblers were not the only danger; we often had to avoid holding a game at Patel’s because of police raids. But I could not afford to lose money by giving up my position to another knoxman, so I had to be inventive.

  “I’ve heard that the boere will be raiding us again, so let’s set up a game in the bush,” I said to Louis one night. He then told the usual group of gamblers where to meet.

  I left the game early that evening as it was cold and I was losing money, but some of the punters tried to prolong their winning streak and were a bit too lively with their shouts. The noise alerted the ever-vigilant police, who soon descended upon them. They scattered and ran through the darkness, but Louis wasn’t fast enough.

  “You thought you were too clever, hey? Well, this is what you get for being too clever,” the policeman yelled as he grabbed Louis by the neck. He spent three days in jail and was given sixteen lashes for gambling. I avoided sleeping at home during this time, fearful that the police might connect me to the events of that disastrous night. For days afterwards, the welts on Louis’s bottom oozed blood – this was harsh punishment indeed for such a small offence. I felt very bad that he’d been caught and I’d left early, and after his release from jail I helped him to dress the wounds, ignoring his moans as I did so. To this day, Louis has the scars from this incident. Gambling was a seriously dangerous activity to be involved in – as quick money schemes usually are. Knowing what I know now, I would not have been a knoxman for any amount of money, however desperate the circumstances.

  If I had been prepared to travel to Pretoria with my friends over weekends to work as a gardener in the suburbs, I could probably have earned enough money to see my family through to the end of the month. But I had no intention of allowing anyone to strip me of my dignity. Working for a white man meant having to call him Baas, and to call his son Kleinbaas – a boy who might be ten years younger than I was at the time. I had no intention of calling anyone Baas. And I had no intention of holding out my hand to a woman who said, “Kom boy, hier’s jou middagete.” The token meal was likely to be a stale bread-and-jam sandwich on a tin plate with a chipped mug of tea, which I would be obliged to eat at the bottom of the garden, out of sight of the white family and their guests gathered around a braai. Afterwards, while I pulled up weeds that grew between the flowerbeds and piles of dog shit, I would hear my tin plate clattering as the maid stored it under the sink in a cupboard together with cleaning detergents and pesticides. In addition to this indignity, half the pittance paid to me would have to go towards transport costs. I just could not bring myself to do this work; I would not allow myself to do it, even though there were times when I was lethargic from hunger and my friends urged me to go with them.

  “Ag, come on, you’ll get hot tea with three sugars if the madam is nice,” they said. But I ignored the temptation, gritted my teeth, and refused.

  While my friends worked as weekend labourers, I stayed home and studied or socialised, but by 5pm I was at the train station to welcome them home. I laid out my dice on a smooth patch of ground next to the station platform, and all my friends rushed to greet me.

  “Hey, you missed out, High Man; we had Oros today instead of tea!” one of them shouted, trying to rile me.

  Once the greetings and the news and the teasing were out of the way, we got down to business. Everything they’d earned over eight hours, I won from my friends in eight min
utes; it made no sense at all to sweat a whole day in a suburban garden for a few rand and a glass of Oros.

  “You’re lazy, man!” my friends cried when I refused to accept their offers of a job with employers who needed an extra hand during the holiday season.

  Florah also joined the chorus. “Why don’t you go and earn yourself some pocket money?” But I ignored all the jibes and the insults. I had another very good reason for not heading into the white suburbs – I was afraid.

  Every family has its stories, and I remember sitting on my mother’s lap once, wrapped in a blanket, as she and her friends chatted, listening to all the stories. When my mother’s turn came, she told a story that shaped my early concept of whites. My mother settled on the rickety chair, ensuring that I was comfortable, and then she put a Lexington between her lips and lit up. She slowly inhaled, then exhaled, enveloping me in a pale grey cloud of smoke.

  “Working for whites; it’s not what I want for my children,” my mother said. “Yes, yes, I know you get some good whites,” she conceded as some other women clucked, but she wouldn’t be swayed from telling her story. “My grandfather worked on a white farm, working that white man’s lands from sunrise to sunset, turning the soil until his hands ached, planting until his spine couldn’t straighten, and what did he get at the end of the month to show for his work? A bag of mealie meal. And then, when my grandmother had given him more children and the bag of mealie meal wasn’t enough to feed them all – you know what happened then?” My mother stubbed out her cigarette and slumped in the chair.

  At this point, my body tensed, just like the rest of the people listening; the room was so quiet you could have heard a snake slithering in the grass outside.

  “The farmer’s son wanted to show his father how good he was with his rifle; the silly boy was no higher than the tall grass on the farm, but he lifted the rifle, he held it steady, and put his eye to the sight. Then he swung the gun round, slowly, as he looked for something to shoot. The farm workers were bringing in the harvest, and there were plenty of targets for the farmer’s son. Then he chose my grandfather and pulled the trigger.”