Durban Poison

by Ben Trovato

  Speaking of which, a couple of days after the wedding I was scootering around the outskirts of Ubud when I passed a man down on his knees washing his cock right there on the pavement. This is true. I have witnesses. A big red rooster was standing in a green plastic bowl being lathered. The man was either rinsing the blood off his prizefighter after the previous night’s brawl or sprucing him up for a big bout later that day.

  It seemed a strange “sport” to practise on an island inhabited by such gentle people. There clearly isn’t a cock god. There are, however, many phallic carvings available for purchase. One evening at the wedding villa, my ex-wife said she wanted to show me something in her room. Terrified, I followed her. She led me to her bathroom and pointed at the shower head. It was a massive stone penis jutting from the wall. The water even spurted from where you’d expect it to. I patted it, made an inappropriate remark and left quickly.

  I shan’t go on and on about the wedding. We’ve all either had one or been to one, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. I should point out, though, that I did make an attempt to extort lobola from the father of the groom. Tacking it on to the end of my speech at the reception might have been a mistake, but I thought it important for people to know that I come from the Zulu Kingdom where men don’t just give their daughters away. I said the body corporate would probably frown on a herd of cows, but a small goat might be nice. I would take him everywhere. I’d show him the world. Teach him to speak English without a goat accent. I’d love my goat. In a non-sexual way, obviously. I’m not a member of Afriforum. Right. That’s enough about goats.

  Sitting here in this rustic beach bar, I’ve noticed that a lot of girl-type tourists have the complementary Bali tattoo, a burn mark just above the ankle caused by drunken proximity to a scooter’s exhaust. I find it quite erotic. What I don’t understand, though, is why grown men are ordering coconuts at 2pm. It’s the kind of watery filth you might expect to get fed through a nasal drip in a state hospital. And why the obsession with gym and yoga? You go on holiday to get away from pain. The whole point of a holiday is to utterly and completely let your mind and body go. You know you’ve done it properly when paramedics are waiting for you when you land.

  After the wedding everyone split up – some to return home, some to get as far away from me as possible. The in-laws went back to Namibia, hopefully to pick out a suitable goat, while I and a motley crew of rogues and reprobates headed to Nusa Lembongan, an island 40 kilometres off Bali.

  After flinging ourselves from the ferry and wading ashore, I turned and said, “Hey guys, why don’t we all …” Too late. They’d taken the gap and disappeared. Sure, they were mostly couples but I knew I could enhance their tropical island experience if they just gave me half a chance.

  I was the only one who hadn’t arranged accommodation before leaving Bali. That’s how I travel. When we bought our ferry tickets in Sanur, everyone was given a sticker to put on their chest that said where they were staying. Mine had a question mark. On Lembongan, half a dozen taxis – the only cars allowed on the island – were waiting to take everyone to their resorts. I use the word resorts loosely. Drivers peered at my chest, shrugged and walked away.

  Festooned in plastic bags and a surfboard, I staggered about in the rain spitting and cursing and had no option but to check in to the nearest hovel. They gave me bungalow #1. Perfect, I said. Bungalow #1 turned out to be next to the toilets and the kitchen. I had a clear view of the laundry women stripping down and trying on the guests’ clothes while laughing uproariously, so that cheered me up a bit. That afternoon, my surfboard sustained a brutal flesh wound on a ridiculously shallow coral reef.

  Two days later, filled with existential dread, crippled with raging monophobia and fighting a rearguard action against a midlife crisis that had been stalking me for 15 years, I caught the first ferry back to Bali. I have taken up a defensive position at a bar called Betelnut Cafe that, disturbingly, offers poisonous turmeric-infused shots and dragonfruit kombucha. Health drinks won’t save me. Or you. Besides, I’m on deadline and a beautiful Balinese woman is plying me with the island’s legendary formaldehyde-based beer.

  Across the road is Deus ex Machina. I always thought this was a literary device. Turns out it’s a bar full of sexy motorbikes and drunk Australians stuffing giant burgers into their incoherent faces. I might wander over there. This place is filling up with glowing people cursed with perfect teeth. They’re making me anxious.

  Not half as anxious, though, as I would be at home. Here, there are no police waiting to spoil anyone’s fun. You want to drink and drive without a helmet? Ride four-up with your drunk mates and a dog draped over the handlebars? Fine. But don’t complain if karma kicks your arse. Weirdly, it works.

  Looking down from where I’m sitting, a white dog sleeps in the middle of the road. Cars and bikes slow down and drive around him. Nobody even hoots. A black dog sprawls on the staircase. Everyone steps over her. But don’t bother trying to strike up a conversation with a Bali dog. You’ll get ignored. They seem to think they’re better than everyone else. I find the local people far less arrogant than the dogs.

  When they’re not sitting on low bamboo platforms and chatting – the people, not the dogs – they are fixing bikes, flying kites or paying homage to one of their many gods. A lot of the time they can also be found sweeping. After the screams of girls dabbing hydrogen peroxide onto their burnt ankles, it’s the first thing you’ll hear in the morning. Bloody sweeping. I can’t wait to get home and be woken by the sounds of gunshots, police sirens and leaf blowers.

  FUCK THE GOVERNMENT – LET’S DO IT OURSELVES

  Friends, Romans, countrymen. Lend me your beers.

  In the coming year, ask not what your government can do for you, because you tried that last year and it worked about as well as DStv in the rain. You begged, cajoled and threatened. Silence. It was as if nobody was even listening. Could that be possible?

  “Shh,” hushed the ministry of science. “We’re listening for life on other planets.” Since nobody in power seems to care much about life on this planet, we’re going to have to become more assertive. The only service delivery we’re likely to see will be when Wimbledon starts. Novak Djokovic for president. Those Serbs know how to get things done. Genocide, mainly. But still, it’s a start.

  So in the new year, instead of polishing off whatever’s on it and then stealing it, we are going to step up to the plate. And when I say we, I mean you. I am a ringleader and expect others to grasp nettles and take bulls by the horns.

  You need to see it as the year in which you embark upon major home improvement projects. But instead of improving your home, you’ll be improving your country. Think outside the box. Literally. Some of us have bigger and better boxes than others, sure. But they are boxes, nevertheless. Our proper home – which can’t be sold to anyone other than the Chinese – is this country. We are all welcome here, except for Angolans, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, the Congolese and white people. For the rest, this is our home and it’s starting to look a little frayed at the edges. A bit tatty. Worn in patches.

  So roll up your sleeves, grab some money and get down to the pub as quickly as possible. This is not a job you can do without being slightly off your face. It makes it easier to work in the field and harder to work out if you qualify for residency in Australia.

  For a start, you need to stop saying it’s the government’s job. You need to pretend that if you don’t pay your taxes, men in cheap suits and matching moustaches will come around to your house at 6am every Sunday morning and talk to you about the Kardashians or Jesus. Since we are a democracy, you get to choose.

  Sounds horrible, right? So get off your arse and start fixing this country. You don’t know where to start? Are you blind drunk or just plain blind? From where I’m lying, I can see at least four things that need urgent attention. One of which, admittedly, is my neglected member. However, you need not concern yourself with that. Some matters should remain in one’s
own hands.

  Potholes

  Let’s start small. Every day you hit the same pothole because it’s either full of water and you don’t see it or you’re drunk and have forgotten it’s there. And every time it happens, you fly into a rage and shout, “Why doesn’t someone fix that goddamn pothole!” Why? That’s like asking why doesn’t the moon fall out of the sky even though it weighs, like, a billion tons. Nobody knows the answers to these questions. Forget the why and start asking how. How can you fix it? Well, you could start by knocking on all the doors in your street and telling people that the Virgin Mary appeared to you in a vision and said that whoever fixed the pothole would be richly rewarded in the afterlife. There will be one – there is always one – who believes it. Or collect money from the neighbourhood for the pothole repair project. Take the money to the bottle store and buy a few crates of beer. Drink the beer and fill the pothole with the empties. Nobody wants to drive over glass. Alternatively, find a very small person who failed matric and has no future. Get him to curl up in the pothole. Pay him in beer. He’ll be glad for the work. Later, he can legitimately say he studied at the School of Hard Knocks.

  Crime

  The police are like faulty condoms. You can buy one but don’t expect it to protect you. The best way to fight crime is to be proactive. This means neutralising people who look like criminals or look like they might have committed a crime or be thinking about committing a crime at some time in the future. This is a full-time job and doesn’t pay very well. Forget I mentioned it. You don’t need to be Rambo to take care of your own security. You need to be a car guard. Nobody ever robs or attacks these guys. Get divorced, sell your possessions, drink heavily, never bath and sleep on the street. You’ll be fine.

  Education

  It is not the government’s responsibility to educate you. Well, it is, but when half the civil service is made up of people with degrees printed on serviettes and decorated with clip art from the internet, it’s hard to inculcate the importance of education in the minds of the young. Some people aren’t bright enough to know they’re stupid. If you are one of them, good luck. For the rest of you, read books. I was surfing at Seal Point recently when a teenager recognised me and paddled over. A pupil at the elite Kearsney College, he told me that his English teacher would start a new lesson each week by reading my latest column to the class. That’s my contribution to the downfall of the aristocracy. What’s yours?

  Water

  If your municipality is unable to provide water because they sold the pipes to buy holiday homes in the Seychelles, use something else. I have always found beer to be the perfect substitute. You can recycle your bath water by drinking it, thereby saving the planet and dying relatively young at the same time. The important thing is to take yourself out of the gene pool before becoming a drain on the state health system.

  Power

  “The power grid is under significant pressure.” I’m sorry, but fuck you, Eskom. We’re all under significant pressure but you don’t see us having spontaneous blackouts. Well, some of us might, but at least we don’t affect entire suburbs. The DIY solution is to go off the grid. Don’t even bother with generators, gas or solar systems. They will either kill you or other people will kill you for them. By “go off the grid”, I mean move to New Zealand.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There are countries where I wouldn’t be able to get away with some of the things I say as a columnist. South Africa certainly isn’t perfect, but we do at least have a free press. For now.

  To the newspaper and magazine editors who have, over the years, got my back and taken the flack.

  To Melinda Ferguson for offering to publish this collection. You are a human fragmentation grenade and I mean that in the best possible way.

  To my delightfully dissident daughter, Liberty, for taking time off from her film production work in Namibia to come up with a brilliant cover design. Without you I wouldn’t be, well, a father.

  And to everyone who has bought my books and read my columns over the years. You have been a loyal but undisciplined army. Thank you.

  Melinda Ferguson Books,

  an imprint of NB Publishers, a division of Media24 Boeke (Pty) Ltd

  40 Heerengracht, Cape Town 8001

  www.nb.co.za

  Copyright © Tracy Going, 2018

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording, or by any other information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Cover design by publicide

  First published by Melinda Ferguson Books 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-928420-66-8

  Epub edition:

  First edition in 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-928420-83-5 (epub)

  Mobi edition:

  First edition in 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-928421-21-4 (mobi)