MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA

For neither am I a man in the eyes of the law,
Nor am I a man in the eyes of my fellow man.

By dodging, lying, resisting where it is possible, bolting when I’m already cornered, parting with invaluable money, sometimes calling my sisters into the game to get amorous with my captors, allowing myself to be slapped on the mouth in front of my womenfolk and getting sworn at with my mother’s private parts, that component of me which is man has died countless times in one lifetime. Only a shell of me remains to tell you of the other man’s plight, which is in fact my own. For what is suffered by another man in view of my eyes is suffered also by me. The grief he knows is a grief that I know. Out of the same bitter cup do we drink. To the same chain-gang do we belong.

Friday has always been their chosen day to go plundering, although nowadays they come only occasionally, maybe once in a month. Perhaps they have found better pastures elsewhere, where their prey is more predictable than at Mzimhlope, the place which has seen the tragic demise of three of their accomplices who had taken the game a bit too far by entering the hostel on the northern side of our location and fleecing the people right in the midst of their disgusting labour camps. Immediately after this there was a notable abatement in the frequency of their visits to both the location and the adjacent hostel. However the lull was short-lived, lasting only until the storm had died down, because the memory tarnishes quickly in the locations, especially the memory of death. We were beginning to emit sighs of relief and to mutter ‘good riddance’ when they suddenly reappeared and made their presence in our lives felt once again. June, ‘seventy-six had put them out of the picture for the next year, during which they were scarcely seen. Like a recurring pestilence they refuse to vanish absolutely from the scene.

A person who has spent some time in Soweto will doubtless have guessed by now that the characters I am referring to are none other than some of the so-called police reservists who roam our dirty streets at weekends, robbing every timid, unsuspecting person, while masquerading as peace officers to maintain law and order in the community. There are no greater thieves than these men of the law, men of justice, peace officers and volunteer public protectors in the whole of the slum complex because, unlike others in the same trade of living off the sweat of their victims, they steal out in the open, in front of everybody’s eyes. Of course nothing can be done about it because they go out on their pillaging exploits under the banners of the law, and to rise in protest against them is analogous to defiance of the powers that be.

So, on this Friday too we were standing on top of the station bridge at Mzimhlope. It was about five in the afternoon and the sun hung over the western horizon of spectacularly identical coalsmoke-puffing roof-tops like a gigantic, glowing red ball which dyed the foamy clouds with the crimson sheen of its rays. The commuter trains coming in from the city paused below us every two or three minutes to regurgitate their infinite human cargo, the greater part of whom were hostel-dwellers who hurried up Mohale Street to cook their meagre suppers on primus stoves. The last train we had seen would now be leaving Phefeni, the third station from Mzimhlope. The next train had just emerged from the bridge this side of New Canada, junction to East and West Soweto. The last group of the hostel people from the train now leaving Phefeni had just turned the bend at Mohale Street where it intersects with Elliot. The two hundred metre stretch to Elliot was therefore relatively empty, and people coming towards the station could be clearly made out.

As the wheels of the train from New Canada squealed on the iron tracks and it came to a jerking stop, four men, two in overalls and the others in dustcoats, materialised around the Mohale Street bend. There was no doubt who they were, from the way they filled the whole width of the street and walked as if they owned everything and everybody in their sight. When they came to the grannies selling vegetables, fruit and fried mealies along the ragged, unpaved sides of the street, they grabbed what they fancied and munched gluttonously the rest of the way towards us. Again nothing could be done about it, because the poverty-stricken vendors were not licensed to scrape together some crumbs to ease the gnawing stomachs of their fatherless grandchildren at home, which left them wide open for plunder by the indifferent `reserves’. ‘

‘Awu! The Hellions,’ remarked Mandla next to me. `Let’s get away from here, my friend.’

He was right. They reminded one of the old western film; but I was not moving from where I was simply because the reservists were coming down the street like a bunch of villains. One other thing I knew was that the railway constable who was on guard duty that Friday at the station did not allow the persecution of the people on his premises. I wanted to have my laugh when they were chased off the station.

‘Don’t worry about them. Just wait and see how they’re going to be chased away by this copper. He won’t allow them on the station,’ I answered.

They split into twos when they arrived below us. Two of them, a tall chap with a face corroded by skin-lightening cream and wearing a yellow golf cap on his shaven head, and another stubby, shabbily dressed, middle-aged man with a bald frontal lobe and a drunk face, chewing at a cooked sheep’s foot that he had taken from one of the grannies, climbed the stairs on our right hand side. The younger man took the flight in fours. The other two chose to waylay their unsuspecting victims on the street corner at the base of the left hand staircase. The first wave of the people who had alighted from the train was in the middle of the bridge when the second man reached the top of the stairs.

Maybe they knew the two reservists by sight, maybe they just smelt cop in the smoggy air, or it being a Friday, they were alert for such possibilities. Three to four of the approaching human wall turned suddenly in their tracks and ran for their dear freedom into the mass behind them. The others were caught unawares by this unexpected movement and they staggered in all directions trying to regain balance. In a split second there was commotion on the station, as if a wild cat had found its way into a fowlrun. Two of those who had not been quick enough were grabbed by their sleeves, and their passes demanded. While they were producing their books the wolves went over their pockets, supposedly feeling for dangerous weapons, dagga and other illegal possessions that might be concealed in the clothes, but really to ascertain whether they had caught the right people for their iniquitous purposes. They were paging through the booklets when the Railway policeman appeared.

`Wha ..? Don’t you fools know that you’re not supposed to do that shit here? Get off! Get off and do that away from Railway property. Fuck off!’ He screamed at the two reservists so furiously that the veins threatened to burst in his neck.

‘Arrest the dogs, baba! Give them a chance also to taste jail!’ Mandla shouted.

`Ja,’ I said to Mandla, ‘you bet, they’ve never been where they are so prepared to send others.’

The other people joined in and we jeered the cowards off the station. They descended the stairs with their tails tucked between their legs and joined their companions below the station. Some of the commuters who had been alerted by the uproar returned to the platform to wait there until the reservists had gone before they would dare venture out of the station.

We remained where we had been and watched the persecution from above. I doubted if they even read the passes (if they could), or whether the victims knew if their books were right or out of order. Most likely the poor hunted men believed what they were told by the licensed thieves. The latter demanded the books, after first judging their prey to be weak propositions, flicked through the pages, put the passes into their own pockets, without which the owners could not continue on their way, and told the dumbfounded hostel men to stand aside while they accosted other victims. Within a very short while there was a group of confused men to one side of the street, screaming at their hostel mates to go to room so and so and tell so and so that they had been arrested at the station, and to bring money quickly to release them. Few of those who were being sent heard the messages since they were only too eager to leave the danger zone. Those who had money shook hands with their captors, received their books back and ran up Mohale Street. If they were unlucky they came upon another ‘roadblock’ three hundred metres up the street where the process was repeated. Woe unto them who had paid their last money to the first extortionists, for this did not matter. The police station was their next stopover before the Bantu Commissioners, and thence their final destination, Modderbee Prison, where they provided the farmers with ready cheap labour until they had served their terms for breaking the law. The terms vary from a few days to two years for loaferskap, which is in fact mere unemployment, for which the unfortunate men are not to blame. The whole arrangement stinks of forced labour.

The large kwela-kwela swayed down Mohale Street at breakneck speed. The multitudes scattered out of its way and hung onto the sagging fences until it had passed. To be out of sight of the people on the station bridge, it skidded and swerved into the second side street from the station. More reservists poured out of it and went immediately to their dirty job with great zeal. The chain-gang which had been lined up along the fence of the house nearest the station was kicked and shoved to the kwela-kwela into which the victims were bundled under a rain of fists and boots, all of them scrambling to go in at the same time through the small door. The driver of the kwela-kwela, the only uniformed constable among the group, clanged the door shut and secured it with the locking lever. He went to stand authoritatively near one of the vendors, took a small avocado pear, peeled it and put it whole into a gargantuan mouth, spitting out the large stone later. He did not have to take the trouble of accosting anyone himself. His gangsters would all give him a lion’s share of whatever they made, and moreover buy him some beers and brandy. He kept adjusting his polished belt over his potbelly as the .38 police special in its leather holster kept tugging it down. He probably preferred to wear his gun unconventionally, cowboy style.

A boy of about seventeen was caught with a knife in his pocket, a dangerous weapon. They slapped him a few times and let him stand handcuffed against the concrete wall of the station. Ten minutes later his well-rounded sister alighted from the train to find her younger brother among the prisoners. As she was inquiring from him why he had been arrested, and reprimanding him for carrying a knife, one of the younger reservists came to stand next to her and started pawing her. She let him carry on, and three minutes later her brother was free. The reservist was beaming all over his face, glad to have won himself a beautiful woman in the course of his duties and little knowing that he had been given the wrong address. Some of our black sisters are at times compelled to go all the way to save their menfolk, and as always, nothing can be done about it.

There was a man coming down Mohale Street, conspicuous amidst the crowd because of the bag and baggage that was loaded on his overall-clad frame. On his right shoulder was a large suitcase with a grey blanket strapped to it with flaxen strings. From his left hand hung a bulging cardboard box, only a few inches from the ground, and tilting him to that side. He walked with the bounce of someone used to walking in gumboots or on uneven ground. There was the urgency of someone who had a long way to travel in his gait. It was doubtless a goduka on his way home to his family after many months of work in the city. It might even have been years since he had visited the countryside.

He did not sec the hidden kwela-kwela, which might have forewarned him of the danger that was lurking at the station. Only when he had stumbled into two reservists, who stepped into his way and ordered him to put down his baggage, did he perhaps remember that it was Friday and raid-day. A baffled expression sprang into his face as he realised what he had walked into. He frantically went through the pockets of his overalls. The worried countenance deepened on his dark face. He tried again to make sure, but he did not find what he was looking for. The men who had stopped him pulled him to one side, each holding him tightly by the sleeve of his overall. He obeyed meekly like a tame animal. They let him lift his arms while they searched him all over the body. Finding nothing hidden on him, they demanded the inevitable book, although they had seen that he did not have it. He gesticulated with his hands as he explained what had caused him not to be carrying his pass with him. A few feet above them, I could hear what was said.

`Strue, madoda,’ he said imploringly, ‘I made a mistake. I luggaged the pass with my trunk. It was in a jacket that I forgot to search before I packed it into the trunk.’

‘How do we know that you’re not lying?’ asked one of the reservists in a querulous voice.

‘I’m not lying, mfowethu. I swear by my mother, that’s what happened,’ explained the frightened man.

The second reservist had a more evil and uncompromising attitude. ‘That was your own stupidity, mister. Because of it you’re going to jail now; no more to your wife.’

‘Oh, my brother. Put yourself in my shoes. I’ve not been home to my people for two years now. It’s the first chance I have to go and see my twin daughters who were born while I’ve been here. Feel for another poor black man, please, my good brother. Forgive me only for this once.’

‘What? Forgive you? And don’t give us that slush about your children. We’ve also got our own families, for whom we are at work right now, at this very moment,’ the obstinate one replied roughly.

‘But, mfo. Wouldn’t you make a mistake too?’

That was a question the cornered man should not have asked. The reply this time was a resounding slap on the face. ‘You think I’m stupid like you, huh? Bind this man, Mazibuko, put the bloody irons on the dog.’

‘No, man. Let me talk to the poor bloke. Perhaps he can do something for us in exchange for the favour of letting him proceed on his way home,’ the less volatile man suggested, and pulled the hostel man away from the rest of the arrested people.

‘Ja. Speak to him yourself, Mazibuko. I can’t bear talking to rural fools like him. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if he thinks that I’ve come to play here in Johannesburg!’ The anger in the man’s voice was faked, the fury of a coward trying to instil fear in a person who happened to be at his mercy. I doubted if he could face up to a mouse. He accosted two boys and ran his hands over their sides, but he did not ask for their passes.

‘You see, my friend, you’re really in trouble. I’m the only one who can help you. This man who arrested you is not in his best mood today. How much have you got on you? Maybe if you give something he’ll let you go. You know what wonders money can do for you. I’ll plead for you, but only if I show him something can he understand.’ The reservist explained the only way out of the predicament for the trapped man, in a smooth voice that sounded rotten through and through with corruption, the sole purpose for which he had joined the ‘force’.

‘I haven’t got a cent in my pocket. I bought provisions, presents for the people at home and the ticket with all the money they gave me at work. Look, nkosi, I have only the ticket and the papers with which I’m going to draw my money when I arrive at home.’ He took out his papers, pulled the overall off his shoulders and lowered it to his thighs so that the brown trousers he wore underneath were out in the open. He turned the dirty pockets inside out. ‘There’s nothing else in my pockets except these, mister, honestly.’

‘Man!’

`Yessir?’

‘You want to go home to your wife and children?’

‘Yes, please, good man of my people. Give me a break.’

‘Then why do you show me these damn papers? They will feed your own children, but not mine. When you get to your home you’re going to draw money and your kids will be scratching their tummies and dozing after a hectic meal, while I lose my job for letting you go and my own children join the dogs to scavenge the trashbins. You’re mad, mos.’ He turned to his mate. ‘Hey, Baloyi. Your man says he hasn’t got anything, but he’s going to his family which he hasn’t seen for two years.’

‘I told you to put the irons on him. He’s probably carrying a little fortune in his underpants. Maybe he’s shy to take it out in front of the people. It’ll come out at the police station, either at the charge office or in the cells when the small boys shake him down.’

‘Comc on, you. Your hands, maan!’

The other man pulled his arms away from the manacles. His voice rose desperately, ‘Awu my people. You mean you’re really arresting me? Forgive me! I pray do.’

A struggle ensued between the two men.

‘You’re resisting arrest? You — ‘ and a stream of foul vitriolic words concerning the anatomy of the hostel man’s mother gushed out of the reservist’s mouth.

I’m not, I’m not! But please listen!’ The hostel man heaved and broke loose from the reservist’s grip. The latter was only a lump of fat with nothing underneath. He staggered three steps back and flopped on his rump. When he bounced back to his feet, unexpectedly fast for his bulk, his eyes were blazing murder. His companions came running from their own posts and swarmed upon the defenceless man like a pack of hyenas upon a carcass. The other people who had been marooned on the bridge saw a chance to go past while the wolves were still preoccupied. They ran down the stairs and up Mohale like racehorses. Two other young men who were handcuffed together took advantage of the diversion and bolted down the first street in tandem, taking their bracelets with them. They ran awkwardly with their arms bound together, but both were young and fit and they did their best in the circumstances.

We could not stand the sickening beating that the other man was receiving anymore.

`Hey! Hey. Sies, maan. Stop beating the man like that. Arrest him if you want to arrest him. You’re killing him, dogs!’ we protested loudly from the station. An angry crowd was gathering.

‘Stop it or we’ll stop you from doing anything else forever!’ someone shouted.

The psychopaths broke their rugger scrum and allowed us to sec their gruesome handiwork. The man was groaning at the base of the fence, across the street where the dirt had gathered. He twisted painfully to a sitting position. His face was covered with dirt and blood from where the manacles that were slipped over the knuckles had found their marks, and his features were grotesquely distorted. In spite of that, the fat man was not satisfied. He bent and gathered the whimpering man’s wrists with the intention of fastening them to the fence with the handcuffs.

‘Hey, hey, hey, Satan! Let him go. Can’t you see that you’ve hurt that man enough?’

The tension was building up to explosion point and the uniformed policeman sensed it.

‘Let him go, boys. Forgive him. Let him go,’ he said, shooting nervous glances in all directions.

Then the beaten-up man did the most unexpected and heartrending thing. He knelt before the one ordering his release and held his dust-covered hands with the palms together in the prayer position, and still kneeling he said,’Thank you very much, my lord. God bless you. Now I can go and see my twins and my people at home.’

He would have done it. Only it never occurred in his mind at that moment of thanksgiving to kiss the red gleaming boots of the policeman.

The miserable man beat the dust off his clothes as best he could, gathered his two parcels and clambered up the stairs, trying to grin his thanks to the crowd that had raised its voice of protest on his behalf. The policemen decided to call it a day. The other unfortunates were shepherded to the waiting kwela-kwela. I tried to imagine how the man would explain his lumps to his wife. In the eye of my mind I saw him throwing his twins into the air and gathering them again and again as he played with them.

`There’s still a long way to cover, my friend,’ I heard Mandla saying into my ear.

‘Before?’ I asked. ‘Before we reach hell. Ha, ha, ha! Maybe there we’ll be men.’

‘Ha, we’ve long been there. We’ve long been in hell.’

‘Before we get out, then.’

This short story is re-published in herri with kind permission of the author.