One Saturday afternoon, as Jim left the shebeen, he was set upon by a gang of eight young louts who were widely suspected of being complicit in a spate of recent muggings and housebreakings in the area. He was relieved of his week’s supplies of maize meal, stewing meat and assorted tinned foods. Then they chased him up the road, taunting and teasing the old man as he stumbled along. Laughing loudly, they finally turned around and went back to the shebeen.
In my memory of that day, I vaguely recall Jim shuffling his way towards and into his room at Laureston Farm. He emerged just seconds later armed with his traditional fighting sticks and knobkierie and made a beeline back to the shebeen. I wish that I had been a fly on the wall to witness the events that unfolded in the ensuing five minutes.
When Jim was later escorted home by the police, they were still laughing at what they’d seen at the shebeen. They’d been summoned there after receiving a number of complaints from members of the public, who’d reported hearing blood-curdling screams and loud shouting emanating from the bush behind the Wierda Bridge Shopping Centre.
Eyewitnesses interviewed by the policemen testified that the tsotsis (louts), who’d just minutes earlier robbed Jim of his groceries, had returned to the shebeen and were sharing out their loot when an irate Jim sauntered in and ordered those not involved in the theft to move outside.
Remember that Jim was 72 years old.
The tsotsis, understandably, just ignored Jim’s polite request to return his property before the shit really hit the fan, and simply continued dividing up the goods while the rest of the onlookers said a quiet prayer for the old man who was surely about to meet his maker.
It is quite possible that never before in human history were the odds against victory so heavily stacked against one man.
Undaunted, Jim waded in, fighting sticks and knobkierie flying.
For thirty seconds or so, he singlehandedly delivered a relentless barrage of chops, swipes and thrusts connecting with pinpoint accuracy to the heads, limbs and chests of his human targets. So fierce and unexpected was the assault that Jim barely had to parry a counter-blow.
Despite the ferocity of the attack, a number of the thugs managed to draw their razor-sharp knives. This only seemed to spur Jim into a greater fury, and those who wielded the blades were singled out for even more brutal punishment. Femurs, crania, radii and ribs snapped under the sustained assault and blood spattered even those spectators who had moved away from the scene of the slaughter.
In less than a minute the one-sided battle was over and on the ground lay eight tsotsis, all of them knocked senseless (or pretending to be) by this frail and seemingly harmless old man.
I am told that there was utter silence for at least a few seconds before the assembled crowd, as one, roared their approval for Jim’s actions and hoisted him high upon their shoulders. Gradually Jim’s eyes had begun to lose the bright red bloodlust and he’d asked to be put down. Then he calmly set about gathering up his possessions.
At this point, the police must have arrived and called for ambulances to evacuate the casualties. None of the tsotsis could walk or crawl, and so they all had to be stretchered to the waiting vehicles.
I don’t know whether any of the gang ever returned to the area but I do know that Jim became a folk hero, not only with the shebeen patrons who’d witnessed his exploits but also with the police and among most, if not all, of the residents of southern Valhalla. In light of his sudden celebrity, the tragic events that unfolded just a few months later seem almost inconceivable.
Jim would always spend the December holiday with his family at his kraal in Mozambique, where he would drink copious amounts of sorghum beer with other elders from the district and eat mounds of traditional food served by the womenfolk. Typically, well into the night hours and whenever the desire took him, Jim would rise from his seat at the fireside and loudly announce his wish that one of his wives guide him to his sleeping hut, where his intention was to fulfil his husbandly mandate. In Jim’s considered opinion, this would result in the chosen partner giving birth to a child just before his arrival the following Christmas, nine-month gestation period notwithstanding.
By the end of 1973 Jim was down to a solitary wife. She was a lot younger than him and, it appears, had a libido that needed more regular fulfilment than Jim could produce on the annual festive-season visit. Sometime after nightfall on New Year’s Day 1974, Jim excused himself from the gathering at the fireside and went looking for his wife. Unable to find her in his sleeping hut, he went on searching and discovered her engaged in an intimate act with a far younger man from a neighbouring kraal.
Enraged, Jim immediately challenged the upstart to a duel and, no doubt buoyed by his fighting prowess just months earlier, set off to his own hut to retrieve his weapons of choice. Perhaps his new opponent had heard of the tsotsi incident and feared for his life, or perhaps Jim’s reputation as a warrior provoked the less traditional reaction, but the younger man chose to wait for Jim concealed behind a bush beside the path along which Jim was returning.
As Jim passed him, the usurper leapt out of the darkness with a long-handled axe and struck three blows. The first was aimed at Jim’s head and struck the old warrior on top of the forehead, slicing down and severing his optic nerves, causing immediate blindness in both eyes. The second struck him on his left forearm and simultaneously shattered the radius and humerus bones. The last blow hit him high on the back as he fell and opened a deep wound that exposed his right lung and shattered the ribs protecting it.
Jim was close to death when members of his family found him a short while later and carried him back to his kraal, expecting him to succumb at any moment.
But, ever the Shangaan warrior, Jim refused to die.
It was in this state that my frantic dad found him a few days later. Jim had failed to return to work on the appointed day, and my folks, knowing this to be unprecedented, had become concerned for his safety, prompting Dad to drive the 450 kilometres or so to Ressano Garcia in search of Jim.
Jim was carried the few kilometres to Dad’s car and rushed to Kalafong Hospital in Pretoria, where the doctors performed miracles, clearing up the multiple infections and sewing up the gaping wounds. Blind and with his useless left arm in a sling, Jim was discharged three weeks later. He still walked, like a king, from the hospital entrance to a waiting minibus that took him home.
Realising that Jim’s working days were over, his Shangaan and Pretoria families agreed on arrangements to ensure his comfortable retirement. Just a few short weeks later, one Saturday morning, Jim’s son drove his dad to our home at 58 Viking Road.
There he sat, on the second row of the VW Kombi minibus that had brought him to us, his back ramrod-straight as ever, staring sightlessly into the distance through milky eyes as he said his goodbyes to each of us in turn.
Distraught and crying like a little child, I asked him, ‘But why are you saying goodbye, Tata (grandfather)? Your wounds have healed and you look so well. Where are you going?’ I wailed.
‘Maloui, don’t be sad. I am going to where I will be young again.’
Two days later, early on the Monday morning, the phone rang and Jim’s eldest son quietly told us that Jim had not woken up that morning.
I have said before that the Six Mile Spruit played a major role in the lives of me and my friends. When it burst its banks after a rainstorm, the real fun would begin. We would play in the abundant mud, stage canoe races in handcrafted sheet-metal boats to sort out the latest neighbourhood pecking order, and wage gang warfare with air rifles and rubber pellets. From time to time waterfowl would miraculously appear and hunting expeditions with catapults, bows and pellet guns were planned and executed in intricate detail.