‘Voetsek! Voetsek!’ Lambert shouts. He flexes his body and kicks wildly at the dog, making more dents in the stand. Speedo and Blue Jeans are worming their way between the wall and the stands from both sides to get at him. He lunges for the top of the wall. It’s easily two heads higher than on the Benades’ side. He heaves himself up, gets his feet on to the stall, and pushes himself right over the wall. But before he can clear it, someone gets hold of one of his feet. He gives a hard kick backwards and feels his foot sink into someone’s warm, wet mouth.
‘My tooth, my tooth, my fucken tooth!’ one of them shouts, letting go of Lambert’s foot.
He falls head first between the two heaps of crates. The skin on his skull splits open and warm blood runs down his face. His foot throbs from the kick. What the hell’s he going to do now? His head feels dizzy. Speedo and Blue Jeans are screaming at him over the wall. He sees their arms waving in the air. Then he sees Treppie’s light coming on. Within seconds Treppie’s outside.
‘What the hell’s going on now?’ he shouts in a voice that sounds like it’s breaking.
‘I fell!’ says Lambert.
Blue Bikini’s head pops up over the wall. She’s as blonde as a Barbie doll.
‘Fell? The hell with fell! He was peeping at us! The fucken pig was peeping, that’s what he was doing!’
Five heads pop up over the wall — Speedo, Blue Jeans, Pink Bikini, Kiepie and Johnny. There’s blood running from Speedo’s mouth and nose and he’s spitting out red gobs. The Fort Knox people are on top of the food stands, shouting and pointing at Lambert, who’s still on the ground, holding his head with one hand and his foot with the other.
‘He fell straight into his glory!’ says Little Flowers, whose head also pops up now.
‘He fell smack on his backside, that’ll teach him!’ says Big Flowers, joining the Fort Knox party. Little Flowers and Big Flowers are both in their nighties.
Speedo’s been back inside to change his shirt and put on a pair of jeans. He looks a sight. The whole of one side of his face is swollen. He grabs the prefab wall and climbs to the top.
Through the blood running down his face, Lambert sees him grab on to the gutter. Just two big movements and Speedo’s on top of the Benades’ roof.
‘Come,’ he says to Blue Jeans. ‘Come up here with me. Give me your hand, I’ll pull you up. Then we’ll see what happens to people who peep, to fuckers who peep at other people when they’re braaiing.’
‘Ja!’ says Kiepie.
‘Ja!’ says Johnny. ‘Let’s show them what happens.’
‘Just look at our sail!’ says Big Flowers, standing there in her flimsy yellow nightie.
‘Just look at our stand,’ says Little Flowers in her green nightie.
Pink Bikini, who still hasn’t said anything, comes storming out with a glass vase and throws it, ‘bam! ting-a-ling’, right through the den’s side window, glass flying everywhere.
‘Take that, you filthy rubbish!’ she shouts. ‘It’s ’cause you fucked up our whole night!’
Pop comes out the back door. His mouth hangs open. He’s in his shirt and socks.
Then Mol pushes past Pop. She holds the flaps of her housecoat together.
‘Lambert,’ she says. ‘Lambert, get up.’
‘Ja,’ shouts Speedo from the roof. ‘Get up, you fucken freak, so you can see what we do to people who break our things!’
‘And to people who peep at us when we braai!’ screams Pink Bikini.
‘Here we go!’ shouts Speedo.
‘Hoooo-haaa!’ shouts Blue Jeans. They run around on the roof.
‘Crack!’ they break off the TV aerial.
‘Crack!’ they flatten the overflow.
‘Crack! Crack! Crack!’ they rip the gutters out of their brackets and throw them, ‘bam! bam! bam!’, on to the ground.
‘Come!’ says Pop, pulling Mol by the sleeve.
‘Come!’ he says to Treppie, pulling him by the sleeve as well.
‘Come, we’re going inside. Lambert, come now!’ Pop says. But Lambert doesn’t want to go inside. He’s limping along the side of the house to see what they’re doing on the roof, in front. He knows his rights. What they’re doing now is not an accident, it’s malicious damage to property. That’s how Treppie explained it to him last time. This bunch from Fort Knox are breaking their house down, deliberately. With intent.
Lambert runs out the front gate to go phone the police. The women across the road must just let him phone now. But they say no, they’ll phone themselves. It’s ’cause they don’t want him in their house. He knows, he’s seen how they spray stuff to get rid of his smell when he leaves. ‘Jesus, but he honks,’ he even heard one of them say.
‘Ag, thank you very much,’ he says to the short thick-set one who comes to open the door. ‘Thank you, man, but they must come quick. We’re under siege here!’
The tall one dials one-one-one-one-one-one on the phone in the passage. He hears her say something about a ‘domestic disturbance across the street here’.
‘What!’ he shouts. ‘It’s a fucken war, man!’ He shouts at the top of his voice so the police can hear. Domestic disturbance, my fucken foot!
He runs outside again. Speedo and them are back on the ground and they’re busy in front now. They’re actually breaking his postbox. ‘Zack! Zack! Zack!’ go the little iron struts as Speedo breaks them off, one by one. Then he stands back a bit, dances towards the postbox at an angle and gives it a big Kung Fu kick. Lambert watches as the postbox and the platform fall right off the pole and on to the grass. One shot.
He stays where he is in the garden across the road, just behind the gate. But they’ve seen him.
‘Come here, you fucken fat pig, so we can smash you up a bit,’ shouts Blue Jeans.
‘Yes, come here, you waste of a white skin who peeps at us when we braai!’ shouts Speedo.
Waste yourself. He’s not going to move an inch.
Here come the police now. They come from all sides, in yellow vans and yellow-and-blue Flying Squad Golfs. Looks like a bunch of Coloured cops again. No, there’re two whites among them.
‘Evening, evening,’ say the men from the different cars. They know 127 Martha Street very well. But they never do anything. No one ever wants to lay a charge or make a case. It costs too much money. So they come and calm things down a bit, see that no one gets hurt too badly.
The whole lot from Fort Knox are in the street now. They’re waiting for him, Lambert, to come out. He knows the two from across the road are watching him as he stands here behind their front gate. Pop and Mol and Treppie are also outside. They stand on the front stoep, holding on to each other’s sleeves. They’re also waiting to see if he’ll come out.
Well, then, in that case he might as well do it. And let’s see if Johnny has the nerve to grab him by the throat, here in front of the police. The police won’t let them punch him around. They look cool, those police. They stand around with cigarettes, calming people down with their hands.
Toby and Gerty run up and down the lawn, barking.
Little Flowers looks like she’s flipped completely. She walks in circles around the Fort Knox bunch, who are now closing in on him. ‘Slip-slop’ go her slippers on the tar. They grab him and start pushing him around.
‘Knock him for a six, Johnny, knock him! Knock his fucken block off!’ Pink Bikini’s hair looks wild. She’s explaining to the constables. What does she know, anyway?
‘And it was my anniversary, my party for my first anniversary. And then he started peeping at us.’