Flossie stands out here in the back like a beetle without its shell. At least her wheels are on again. Now Lambert’s talking about using not one, but two cars when the shit starts flying. He reckons that he and his girl are going to ride in front, in Flossie, with no roof and no doors, hair blowing in the wind. He, Treppie, and Mol and Pop must follow, in Molletjie. Lambert says they’ve got more chance of getting to the border with two cars than with one. The one must be a travelling spare part for the other, in case of a breakdown. That’s what he says.
Which one for which one, he can’t say.
Sounds more like a travelling disaster, if you ask him. He’s already told Lambert, travelling under any circumstances is really looking for shit, let alone in times like these with loose bullets and things flying all over the place. All you do is expose yourself. As if you’re not exposed enough as it is, with your soft human skin and its holes for seeing and smelling and tasting and farting — that’s if you’re lucky enough still to do all those things. And with your two little legs and their forward-facing feet, and your hands each with their five little twigs. Always trying to grab on to things in the void here in front of you, never knowing what’s coming next. Or what’s likely to trip you up.
All the more reason for sitting quietly and waiting for the perfect shit. Reading helps. Not the world’s headlines, and not the main cats’ moves, either. That’s fucken boring. What he looks for are all those odd little fuck-ups in the lives of the underdogs. If it proves one thing, it’s that the Benades aren’t alone in the world. They’re not the only ones who’ve turned out funny.
Like the story about the spinster and her goldfish. It was winter in England and it was so cold those fish were about to freeze. So she put the goldfish bowl on top of the heater to warm them up, but then she went out and clean forgot about the fish. When she came back they were all over the floor. The bowl had burst. The biggest one, whose name was Jonah, was still moving around on the carpet. She gave him the kiss of life, blowing into his mouth and gills, but nothing could bring him back to life again. So she swallowed him whole, so she could share in her little fish for life ever after.
The only conclusion he can draw from this story is that small fry always land up in the bellies of bigger things. Makes no difference if it’s people or fish.
Now that kind of story really gets his guts moving. Maybe something will still happen here today.
And what else? The story about two newly-weds who wanted to show some guests their engagement video. Made by the groom and his friend, the best man. That was in America. They were still standing there with their mouths full of wedding cake when the best man started screwing a pit bull terrier on the video. And the groom was holding the dog down by its head, ’cause a dog won’t just stand still for something like that. Oops! Wrong video. The bride flipped so bad she’s still in the loony-bin today. That accomplice and his best man are now smitten with remorse. They go to the loony-bin every day with a bunch of white roses for the flipped-out bride.
He doesn’t even want to start drawing conclusions about that Dog-Day Wedding. Too many of them.
In Harare, he reads, the main telephone exchange is so full of cockroaches no one can get through any more. In India, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s going bankrupt ’cause the coolies’ chickens are so thin the Colonel’s secret chicken batter won’t take on those oriental budgies. Never mind the mudslide in the mining town of Harmony. This time he just hopes they’ll give that place its rightful name — No-Leg-to-Stand-On or Slip-’n-’Slide or something like that.
So, all in all, the Benades haven’t got too much to complain about. That’s just the way things go in this world. In-out, on-off, here-there, dirty-clean, dog-dog. Two of each kind in the ark. One continuous two-stroke activity. And so everyone buggers along, living it up, killing time. From the days of the Israelites already.
Take the piece the Jehovah woman was reading just now about the tabernacle’s candlestick. God knows, those desert wankers had lots of free time on their hands! That candlestick thing was so full of bowls and knobs and flowers, totally excessive if you remember a candlestick is actually meant for putting candles in, for light. Six arms, three on each side, and three bowls made like unto almonds on the one arm, plus a bud and a flower. And on the other arm three bowls, plus a bud and a flower. Etfuckencetera. And under each arm as well, and on the candlestick, four bowls made like unto almonds, with their knobs and their flowers. All of it one ‘beaten work’ of ‘pure gold’. And then there were still all those curtains and things, too. Just loops and tassels wherever you look. It’s as if the poor fuckers thought decorations and embroidery could save your soul.
He’ll put his head on a block that redemption is granted to the idle. To those who do completely fuck-all, with an open mind about the comings and the goings. But that’s high-powered stuff. You have to have your wits about you for that. Who’s he anyway to try going big on bugger-all? So he chooses the lesser of the two evils, and that boils down to shit-stirring. Not that his little bit of shit amounts to ‘beaten work’ of ‘pure gold’, but it’s better than nothing. Now and again it’s Quality Street shit and that’s the best he can hope for. For an oke like him, sitting in a place like Triomf, it’s quite good enough. ’Cause to tell the honest truth, Triomf doesn’t even have the redeeming features of a desert. It’s just a dump. Like the rest of Jo’burg, mind you.
But it feels to him like he’s the only one of them who actually clicks this little fact. One by one they trot like sheep after the fire in the cloud. And this fucken sheep-attitude comes a long way in his family.
Like that time all the wagons came through Fordsburg. That was in ’38. His mother still made little bonnets for herself and Molletjie just for the occasion. Genuine Voortrekker bonnets with big flaps in front. Tight around the neck.
That Solly-Jew who did the organising for them at the clothing factories also told them they were mothers of the nation. He told them they were made of the same steel as their descendants who’d trekked over the Drakensberg on bare feet. Clever fucken Jew, that. But of course he had his own Communist plans for them. He just used the regular story that they all knew. Everyone always has plans for them, some or other story. They’ve always been in some fucken person’s plan or story or horizon or background or adventure. Without ever wanting to be in it, or at least without him ever wanting to be in it.
Pop, for example, was completely into that ’38 story. But he was soft in the head even then. They recruited him in the yard at their house in Vrededorp. Made him buy a little waistcoat with a silly white scarf to put around his neck for when the wagons came by. And a hat with the brim turned up on one side. Old Mol still had to go and buy it from the coolies. Pop really fancied himself in those clothes. He spent hours posing in front of the mirror. After a while he even had chicken feathers in the hatband. But he, Treppie, wanted nothing to do with it, even though he was only ten. That was after Old Pop had beaten him to a pulp in the train that time and he didn’t speak to anyone for years on end. Soon afterwards, Old Pop hanged himself. Then he started talking again, but he still didn’t want to sing along when they sang ‘God of Jacob’ and ‘Afrikaners, children of the soil’, which they had to sing all the time in school in those days. Not his scene, that. If ever there was wallpaper, if ever you wanted interior decoration, that was it.
And there they walked down Fordsburg’s Main Street, cracking their whips! Whips with leather knots on the ends that echoed ‘ka-thack!’ among the houses. For crying in a bucket! And the Afrikaner bulls were shitting non-stop — Fordsburg’s Main Street was strewn with shit and the dogs were going berserk from all the strange smells and the commotion. One of those dogs got between the legs of the oxen. He was kicked to death on the spot. Not a good day for a dog. And no one even bothered to pick up the poor thing. He just lay there in the road. Everyone hypnotised by the wagons. High on the Great Trek.