K Sello Duiker an advertising copywriter living in Johannesburg, was born in 1974. He grew up in Soweto and East London, and studied at Rhodes University, where he started a poetry society with a few friends. After graduating with majors in Journalism and Art History, he studied copywriting in Cape Town. His first novel, Thirteen Cents, was awarded the 2001 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region. A second novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, was published by Kwela Books in 2001. Sello says that his mother, an insatiable reader, inspired his decision to become a writer.

Garbage

K Sello Duiker

I’m walking down Pretoria Street in Hillbrow. As always the pavements are jammed with hawkers selling their wares and yelling prices. Crack dealers stand on street corners, vigilant like vampires sizing up their prey. A man hides his prick while he urinates against a tree. Taxis hoot frantically. Litter drifts through streets as though traveling on an invisible conveyor belt. It’s like being in the township. Hillbrow has become another sprawling ghetto only the decay reaches to the sky in high rise buildings.

I go across the road to Chicken Licken and rummage through bins. The manager soon comes out and threatens me with a bottle. I walk away. How people love to feel like there is always someone worse off than them.

But I wasn’t always homeless, a shadow, human flotsam. I once had a life. I was a family man and I thought I was carving a decent path for myself. And then that terrible thing happened — life fell on me with tragedy.

A newspaper headline from a street pole catches my attention. ROBBERS FOUND BUT MONEY STILL MISSING.

I walk to Joubert Park and find Mani under a tree near the museum.

“Don’t even start ek sê,” he begins and offers me some bread. He doesn’t so much chew as suck the bread because he doesn’t have many teeth.

“We could have made nice money. You should have come help me with those bottles.”

“Ag you know those ouens was going to cheat us anyway. If they in a good mood they give you a nice deposit. But if they in a bad mood you get peanuts. Now why must I give myself a headache. I mos rather beg,” he says and I let it go.

“So where you sleep last night?”

“There by the station,” he says and offers me some wine to wash down the bread. “But I must tell you a story. My friend, I nearly die yesterday?”

He goes on.

“They robbed the bank, my friend, nine nine. I was there minding my own business. You know going through bins. Next ting I know shooting, people screaming and people running. Hey I just dropped to the ground. These lighties ... I don’t know how many of them but maybe there was five. They mos killed a few security guards and hijacked the security van with the money. Yo! With all those bullets flying everywhere I thought I was going to die but I was lucky my friend,” he says and laughs in his phlegmy voice.

“And the cops?”

“Yes they was everywhere. Skop skiet en donner. They even killed two of the lighties and the others got away with the money.”

“But I saw in the paper that they got them.”

“With crime like that, how can you get away with it? At least in our days we just used to frighten people with a goney but no guns.”

“But you know they didn’t get the money.”

“Ja well the cops chased them through the city. Hell it was like a movie man.”

There’s a small park where I sleep at night in Hillbrow. It’s quiet at night except for the tsotsis who rob stupid moegoes. I go behind the toilets where a garbage bin is hidden from sight. I use it as my wardrobe. I feel cold and shiver with hunger. Riot lamps light up the night. I dig into the bin and search for my fetid blanket but instead I find a large black refuse bag. Underneath is my blanket. I take the bag towards the light. It is a little heavy. I notice blood on my hands as I try to untie the knot. Body parts, a thought comes to me. Nothing unusual about that. I have just about seen it all from aborted foetuses to decapitated heads. What is a person’s life worth nowadays?

I finally open the bag and carefully put my hand inside. And it is not flesh or hair that I feel but cloth. I take out a small white bag with a familiar bank stamp. Stunned I look into the big bag and see other small white bags. I look around and know that I’m alone. I stare at the small white bag and hesitate to open it. Perhaps life is falling on me all over again.

boontoe

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