When Treppie’s finished with the shit-story, he sings: ‘Tides of benediction!’
He can’t understand how shit coming from two sides like lava can be tides of benediction, but that’s Treppie for you.
And that’s how he knows Treppie. He wishes Treppie could’ve been with him today. He would have fixed those two fucken ‘task forces’, that’s for sure. Treppie doesn’t have to lay a finger on a person to fix him. He just does it through the air. He can make people feel so small it’s like they aren’t wearing pants any more, otherwise they lose their cool so badly they walk around for days in a sweat.
He turns right at the T-junction, to the dumps. It’s a Wednesday morning, so there won’t be so many people dumping today. But there’re a lot of kaffirs sitting and waiting for work. Loose kaffirs. You always find bunches of them sitting there. They sit in the shade across the road, against the rocks, and when a car comes, they all stick their fingers into the air. It means: ‘Take me, I’m a loose kaffir and I want piece-work’. The kaffirs inside the dump are fixed kaffirs — they work for the municipality. They wear overalls and they’ve got big, thick gloves. When people bring their rubbish, they throw it into big containers. They’ve got containers for bricks and containers for stones and others for grass and leaves and so on. They’ve also got containers for household rubbish. That’s now the rubbish that’s too much or too late for Tuesday. And that’s exactly where he wants to be. The kaffirs who work with those containers always open up the bags to see what’s inside. Sometimes they find old food. Then they eat that rotten food right there without even taking off their gloves. But it’s not just rotten food you find there, it’s all kinds of stuff. Radios, shoes, hairdryers, old clothes. He’s even seen whole fridges there. He once told Treppie he must come see the fridges, but Treppie says he doesn’t want to see another fucked-out fridge for the rest of his living days, let alone touch one. He says he’s done his bit for fridges. From now on he only wants to read about them in the classifieds. He doesn’t want to own them. He says it gives him great pleasure to see how far they travel, second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand. But once they’re beyond redemption he doesn’t want to see them any more. He’s had his fair share of lost fridges. That day in the yard when everything burnt down. He says there was so much fireworks going off into the sky he felt like he was in The Towering Inferno. It was bad, but it was also high drama. And a rubbish dump, he says, is not the final movie he wants in his head one day when he pops off, with fridges in the main roles, thank you very much. Treppie can talk a lot of shit. But at least he always has something to say.
He wants to go in at the gate, but first he has to wait for two container lorries to pass. One’s coming in and the other’s going out. They’re making a hell of a racket. It looks like they’re too high on their wheels. Pitch-black smoke pours out from the exhausts under their bellies. The smoke blows full into his face. He turns away his face and puts his hand in front of his mouth. The lorries are loaded to the brim with red-brick rubble and bits of plaster. The containers bump and grate against their frames. The lorries roar and blow. They brake and scrape their gears — the one to make its turn down the hill, and the other to get up the hill so it can turn into the road. The municipal kaffirs on top of the lorries shout and whistle and scream here above his head. The drivers sweat and swear. Their muscles flex as they turn the big steering wheels. Yellow-red sand sifts through the rims as the lorries turn, and the big wheels spin on all the loose gravel. Stones shoot from under the tyres.
Christ almighty! Suddenly it looks like the lorries want to open up their jaws here in front, at the grids. Like they want to bite him with teeth of yellow, dusty iron. He feels pain shoot into his tail-end. No, not that! God in heaven, please, help! Not here. Just keep a hold, now. Fucken lorries. They’re all over him in his fucken head. He can feel himself going white in the face. Foamy spit bubbles up inside his cheeks. And now his mother’s not here with her washing pegs, either. He wipes sweat off his upper lip. Down, down, he wants to fall down, to the ground.
‘Hold on, Benade! Hold on!’ he says to himself.
Then everything feels like it’s on top of him. He goes down on one knee. The lorries roar, now this way, now that way, like demons straight from hell. They look like they’re floating on air, with flames under their wheels. Then he feels someone grab him by his arm. He looks up but he can’t see properly. Sparks blow up in front of his eyes. The man pulls him up and away, across the road. Away.
‘Sit, sit down, man!’ says the man. He sits. He can’t see where he’s sitting.
‘Here, my man, drink some Coke, man!’
He gropes for the bottle in front of him. He swallows, but his throat feels tight. He takes another sip. Open up, throat, open, please! His eyes feel stiff. He rolls them around. His tongue is lame. He licks his lips. Jesus, fuck, that was close. That was close, fucken close! Thank you, God, Jesus thanks!
He opens his eyes. In front of him, sitting on his heels, he sees a kaffir. The kaffir’s got a faded, sloppy hat on his head. And he’s wearing reflector shades. There’s a cut on his cheek. His face is sharp and yellow. He looks rough, like he’s a rough, loose kaffir or something. But Lambert’s not sure. The kaffir’s wearing a faded denim shirt with holes where the sleeves used to be. Dirty threads of denim hang down on to his arms. There’s a green band around his wrist and a copper bangle around the other arm, high up, just above the elbow. Long, thin arms hang like sticks from his shirt. His pants are too short and the skin sticking out underneath is rough. As far as Lambert can make out, the man’s legs are like broomsticks, with a string of beads round one ankle. Red and green and yellow. Almost ANC, he thinks. Almost Inkatha. But not quite. He wonders what this yellow kaffir’s case is. He’s a different kind, this one. He looks clever, and it looks like something’s tickling him. God knows what’s tickling him so much. He looks at the kaffir’s takkies. No socks, no laces. This is not even a loose kaffir.
This, he thinks, is a tsotsi-kaffir. As thin as a wild dog. What does he want with me?
Lambert wants to get up, but his back feels lame. He can’t get up nicely. The kaffir presses him softly against his chest, back down again.
‘It’s okay, my bra. I’m just checking for you here. Wait, sit, it’s okay. Are you feeling better now? You faint or what? Those lorries nearly got you, man. You were nearly squeezed flat, my man, flat like a pancake. But I watch out for you, my man. I pick you up, I bring you here. I give you Coke. I’m your friend, man. Don’t panic.’
‘I’m not your friend,’ he says. ‘I want to go home now.’ But he can’t get up.
The kaffir stands up. He takes a big step backwards. He motions with his hands. This kaffir’s full of sights.
‘Okay! Okay! Okay! You’re not my friend, hey, you are my boss, right? Big boss, ja baas. I’m just a kaffir at the dumps, boss, okay? I catch whiteys who faint here. That’s my job, yes? Here a whitey, there a whitey, faint. Faint left, faint right, faint centre, all day long. I’m the fainting boy, right?’
The kaffir turns his back to him. From behind it looks like he’s laughing. Then he turns around again.
‘Okay? Relax, my bra, just relax. Boss, king, president, chief, caesar. Whatever. God in heaven, anything you want, I say. Any way you want it. At you service. Excuse me boss, please boss, thank you boss, ja baas, no baas, sorry boss that I live boss!’ The kaffir turns away again. His hands are at his sides. He drops his head and makes little shaking movements.
‘I did not mean that so, man. Thanks for your help, man, many thanks. I just must go home now, that’s all. I’m not feeling right, you see.’