|
Date: August 27, 2004
Bike-jacked I thought I had seen my fair share of
suffering (maybe it doesn’t count because it is self-inflicted).
I was writing this I was invited to dine with Conrad. He said, “Sometimes
I think ordinary people – people like you – should go
through what I went through just for a month. Then you’ll
appreciate even a hot bath.”
I laughed because I know exactly what he means. I
just celebrated my third birthday on the road with my first hot
bath in three years while eating chocolate, drinking beer and reading
a book. I had the whole caravan park to myself and took perverse
pleasure going into the woman’s bath and strutting around
naked admiring myself in the mirrors. My trip has improved my health
and youthfulness, though I am losing my hair. It clashes dreadfully
with my babyface. There is no history of baldness in my family,
so I wonder if it is stress or a weird tropical disease. I need
to trick a beautiful, rich woman into marrying me before I lose
it all. Besides, I laughed because it is along time since someone
called me ordinary.
Conrad was hijacked, a common occurrence in South
Africa. He had just finished his contract as a machinist, packed
all his belongings into his car, handed his keys to his landlord,
and was about to visit his dying mother. Just as he put the key
into the door, a man staved in his cheekbone with an iron bar, then
reversed the car over his unconscious body, spinning the wheels
on his ankles as if stuck in the snow. The robber took everything
he had but the clothes he was wearing. Conrad was hospitalized for
nine months. He had no family left. His wife and children died on
a mountain pass in 1984, a pass I will descend tomorrow. “We
had a perfect life – perfect. For years I was in a sorry state.
I don’t know how I found the strength to live.” I had
a lump in my throat. My years on the road have increased my compassion.
I met another man in Barcelona whose wife and children died when
their car stalled on the train tracks. He said, “I vowed to
never spend a sober moment in my life again. I can’t it is
too painful.”
No family. No job. No disability pay, the government
lost his papers. Conrad was homeless the day he left the hospital
and for six more months. I couldn’t even look for a job because
I was too busy trying to survive. Some days it was horrible –
horrible. You wouldn’t believe it. When you don’t have
a house, it’s raining, but you have to eat.”
Ironically, some black folks gave him a bed, “They
were good to me. If it weren’t for them I would still be on
the street. When you are down and out, the rich, white people like
to kick you.”
Only a week ago, after six months on the streets,
did he find a job. “He asked me when I could start. I said,
‘Today!’” I asked, “Is there a bright side?”
He paused buttering his bread for a few seconds, I
feared I insulted him. “I’m alive,” he laughed.
I am alive, too, and very, very lucky. South Africa
has the highest crime rate in the world, and it is also the most
violent country not at war. People often say I am brave. I say,
“It is a fine balance between being brave, foolish and ignorant.”
I think I have pushed my luck far enough. I plan to escape South
Africa into the mountains of Lesotho, then I will cruise to Cape
Town as fast as possible. For the first time, I am considering quitting
the trip because I feel in danger. I shouldn’t say quit, I
should say I have reorganized my priorities. In the meantime, as
some pessimistic folks said, I trust that it is mostly rumors destroying
the country. As in America, people feel they deserve something for
nothing and are making excuses, like apartheid, rather than take
responsibility. I also trust I won’t be bike-jacked because
they wouldn’t know what to do with the beastly thing.
|
|
