Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  It was not too long after this incident that I first tried smoking cigarettes. Some of the seniors at school would go behind the ablution blocks and I would join them there. We smoked Lucky Strike. I would drag hard, remembering how Janos had pulled on his cigarette. I couldn’t understand why I always coughed and he never did. I kind of enjoyed the dizzy spell when inhaling a lot of smoke.

  There was another incident that I could never erase from my mind. Janos liked to play a game in which I had to close my eyes, stretch out one arm and open my hand. Then he would place something in it – anything from an insect to a lizard or a stone – and I would have to guess what it was, identifying whatever it was by touch only. Sometimes it was money, and I would have to guess the amount in order to keep it. On this occasion, he put something soft in my hand; it felt unusually fleshy, almost human. I squeezed it; it was weird and warm. I rolled it around a little but it barely fitted in my palm. Startled, I opened my eyes and there in the palm of my hand was Janos’s cock. I got the fright of my life and snatched my hand away. To my stepfather, this was very amusing and he couldn’t stop laughing. I can’t explain the emotion I felt, whether I was upset about him laughing at me and having made a fool of me, or whether it was something else, but all I know is that it was traumatic and I felt violated.

  Hungarians are generally hot-blooded people and quick to lose their tempers, especially after a few drinks. Janos’s best friend was a guy named Bandi, also Hungarian, and he had an Afrikaans wife. On the occasion of Bandi’s birthday one year, they threw a party and we were invited. Something happened at the party, I don’t know what. Perhaps Janos, who was a compulsive womaniser, came on to his friend’s wife, because the next thing she was freaking out and asking him to leave.

  Janos, being the obstinate person he was, appealed to his friend. ‘Bandi, a feleseged kidobot engem bazd meg a kurva anyad nem megvek sehova.’ (Bandi, your wife has thrown me out. Fuck your bitch-mother. I’m not going anywhere.)

  ‘Ha a felesegem azt akarta hogy menyel akkor job ha el mesz,’ Bandi answered, looking over towards his wife. (If that is what my wife wants, then you should leave. Then it’s best that you go.)

  Janos was always prepared for anything and he was very strong. Before the poor guy could move, Janos punched him with a pair of Perspex knuckle-dusters, producing a couple of really deep holes on Bandi’s bald head. Blood squirted all over the place. Then Janos left the party, dragging my mother by the arm. He drove home and ordered her to wait in the car. He went inside and came out with his double-barrelled shotgun. When they got back to the party, my mom almost got shot in the process of trying to calm Janos down. Fortunately, she managed to convince him that whatever he was planning to do was a bad idea, and they drove back home again.

  Janos’s sexual appetite stretched as far as my sister Joan, or Babi, as we still called her then, who was around 12 years old at the time I became aware of this.

  The two of us shared a room. Our small single beds were about a metre apart, and Babi’s was closest to the window, which ran from the floor to the ceiling. The white curtains allowed the moonlight to filter through and bathe the room in its soft light. One night, very late, I happened to be still awake when my stepfather came into the room. I was facing the window when his silhouette suddenly appeared next to my sister’s bed. I pretended to be sleeping but I could still see through my half-squinting eyes. Janos waited a while and then he placed his hand over my sister’s mouth, waking her up. He moved close to her and I could hear his barely audible whisper although I couldn’t make out what he was saying. At the same time his free hand started moving around under the blanket. Joan’s body wriggled around as she tried to free herself but she was no match for his strength. From what little I could tell, it was obvious that Janos was hurting her. Terrified I would be next, I shut my eyes tightly. After that, I tried to block what I had seen from my memory.

  At first I didn’t really understand what had happened, but then my sister started to complain to my mother, who didn’t believe her. Then Joan started becoming openly defiant of Janos, who shied away from her. Then it happened again, and when my sister told my mom this time, she confronted Janos about his nocturnal activities. Janos flatly denied it. I was there when this confrontation took place.

  ‘Hazudsz en lattalak hogy mit csinaltal ez igaz!’ I shouted at him. (You’re lying, I saw what you did. It’s true!)

  Janos was very angry. I could tell by the small vein throbbing in his temple. He wasn’t impressed with me.

  ‘Fogd be a pofad kisz vizilo.’ (Shut your mouth, you little hippopotamus.)

  My stepfather was a nasty specimen, and in a way it felt good to know that somehow I had managed to muster up the courage to stand up to him. All the years of physical and mental abuse had taken their toll. Even as a child, there is just so much a person can endure and Janos had now exposed himself completely. I knew that if my mother failed to take action this time, then it would be up to Joan and me to make sure he never violated us again.

  My mother now accepted that something was very wrong. She was friendly with an Italian-German couple, Rosemary and Alfio, who lived up the road from us. She didn’t go into too much detail but she asked if my sister could stay with them for a while. They already had two kids, a son and a daughter, Felicia and Flavio. I remember the kids very well because of the mucus they always seemed to have hanging between nose and upper lip and how it gathered dust.

  From the very first night she took refuge there, Alfio visited my sister’s bedroom and subjected her to the same sexual molestation as Janos had. This went on for a whole month until Joan couldn’t take it any more. Although she was afraid my mother wouldn’t believe her, she came home and moved back into the bedroom she shared with me. From then on, every night before we went to sleep we would lock the bedroom door firmly from the inside.

  It wasn’t long after Joan came home that Janos physically abused my mother again. This time there was a huge commotion, screaming and crying and the usual back and forth of Hungarian swearing that is too shocking to repeat even now. It ended with Janos slamming the door and going off to some pub to drink. My mom quickly packed a few bags and called a cab. She took us to Marika, our half-sister, who lived just on the other side of town. She left me and Joan there and she herself went off to Cape Town, where she stayed with one of her friends. Staying at my sister’s wasn’t too bad. Her husband Bela was a very nice guy and he treated us well. We stayed there for about a week before my mother returned. In the meantime, she had told Janos that she would come back only on condition that he moved out.

  So finally it was just the three of us: my mom, Joan and me.

  I remember it was kite season. The highveld enjoys really warm summers, with late afternoon thunderstorms. August was the windy month. Just before the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the winds would approach. Ever since I can remember, I loved flying kites. I probably built my first kite when I was about five years old. We would use reeds for the frame, which, although not as strong as bamboo, served well enough. In those days, once the light frame was assembled we would cover it in newspaper, mixing flour with water to make glue. Watching your kite take flight as you run holding onto the string, then releasing more string as it gains height and rises higher and higher into the sky, was a quite unbelievable joy for a small boy. I felt a sense of control over nature, and for those moments I would become so enraptured by my kite soaring through the sky; sometimes I would imagine I was a pilot flying an aeroplane, and at others I would be a bird. My passion for kite-making remains with me to this day.

  During the 1980s, Mandrax, which is the trade name for methaqualone, was fast becoming the drug of choice in Johannesburg. In the 1960s and early 1970s it was generally prescribed for insomnia, but in 1977 it was taken off the market and classified as a banned substance. The drug is highly addictive, and it has various side effects, especially when mixed or used with alcohol or marijuana. It is physically and psychologically addictiv
e and it causes much physical damage, including deterioration of the bone marrow.

  Mandrax also gives you this indescribably intense rush. Smoking it, I would often black out and fall over, but it was the most incredible sensation. Spit would dribble from my mouth, my eyeballs would roll back in their sockets, and my entire body and all my senses would become numb.

  When it was taken off the shelves, crime syndicates continued to manufacture it in garage laboratories, and this became a very profitable enterprise. On almost every second corner in Newclare there were drug pedlars, and territories were tightly defended by the merchants. Gang wars over territory were not uncommon. I became a regular customer in Newclare, and I got to know all the merchants. I’d pull up to one of the corners in my car and a kid would come up to me and ask how many I wanted. It was that easy. They would serve you right there on the spot.

  I moved continually between Durban and the highveld, maintaining my Mandrax and weed supply and looking after my customers in the Joburg clubs and suburbs. I was smoking Mandrax more or less on a daily basis, and I joined and then left (or got fired from) various rag trade jobs. The only things that were consistent in my life were dealing and drugging.

  There were times, though, when I was clean. During one of these times a guy I had worked with at Jabula Clothing broke away from the company and we got the idea of starting our own company, to be called Indango Clothing. We took on a partner, Antonio, who was the youngest of the three of us. Antonio had no experience in the clothing business, but he somehow persuaded his Italian father to invest in the company. We agreed on R60 000 to get us up and running, although nothing was put in writing. Initially, we were given R20 000, with the balance to follow.

  In this line of business, when you are given credit, you need a cash flow to buy stock. Despite things starting off well for us, we soon needed the balance of our start-up capital. Antonio’s father was involved in some shady deals. He was buying stolen cars from Europe, which were coming in to South Africa via Swaziland. Apparently, the law was onto him, so when I reminded him about the R40 000 he’d promised us, he told me to make do with what we had. This had not been our deal. Unless he came up with the money, I told him I would walk. Unfortunately, a couple of days after our conversation, Antonio senior left the country. Antonio junior was a party animal and he often came to the office stoned out of his head.

  Before long Indango Clothing folded.

  One time, when I was living in Yeoville, a good friend of mine, Barney, who lived in Houghton, had ordered a couple of LSD caps for himself and his university friends to celebrate the end of term. On this particular day, close to dusk, Dennis met me at the commune to go along with me on the delivery.

  I already had Barney’s LSD but we were both craving to smoke Mandrax, so before we went to Houghton we drove to Bertrams, near the Ellis Park rugby stadium, to score. This was an area where whites, coloureds and blacks coexisted peacefully. The part we were heading for was fairly deserted. There were only a few abandoned houses there and an open field with a few old trees. You would always find groups of coloured guys there, gathered around a fire, on the pavement, or just hanging about together, either smoking it up or selling drugs. I was a regular customer and knew most of the merchants. It was usually a quick in-and-out operation.

  As we turned the corner, I immediately noticed that the street was deserted. At the end of the street, and stretching right across it, were some fairly big rocks that had obviously recently been placed there, presumably to prevent a car from driving through. Something was amiss.

  Anyway, I pulled up next to the house where I usually scored. There was nobody in sight. Dennis gave a whistle and we heard someone shout ‘Die boere!’ At exactly that moment, a car turned the corner at high speed. Instinctively, I knew it was the cops. At this time I drove a Cressida station wagon, which was as sluggish as a turtle with three legs, but tonight it had to prove its worth. I accelerated towards the rocks in the road, ramped the pavement, and cut across an open field. The car behind us followed suit – it was a Datsun 1200. The drug police were known for driving those fast little fucking Datsuns. I could make out about five occupants.

  My Cressida was an 1800, but, because of its size, I knew there was no way we could outrun them. They would eventually catch up with us, no matter how much of a head start we might have had. In an effort to get away, I jumped red robots, went up one-ways, cut across a double dual road, but still I could not lose them. At one stage the Datsun stopped altogether and three of its occupants got out to make their car lighter and even faster.

  Dennis suggested we eat a few of the LSD caps and throw the rest away.

  ‘No way, man,’ I said. I still planned on delivering those caps to Barney.

  Keeping one hand on the wheel and without slowing down, with the other hand I hid the LSD under my seat, tucked into the leather upholstery out of sight. It wasn’t long after that that the cops cut in front of me at a stop street, forcing me to come to a halt. Two of them jumped out of their car, while Dennis quickly rolled up his window, advising me to do the same. It was too late. As I turned to face the cop on my side, he took a punch at me and hit me square in the mouth. At the same time, he gave a shriek and pulled his hand back. Gratifyingly, one of my teeth must have pierced his knuckle; I could see the blood dripping from his wound.

  ‘You bliksem se moer, ek gaan jou op fok, klim uit die kar’ (You fuck, I’m gonna fuck you up, get out of the car), he cursed, instinctively putting his knuckle to his mouth, blood still dripping. ‘Waar is die Mandrax?’ Waving their guns, the cops ordered us out of the car.

  I pretended I didn’t know what they were talking about. With my hands in the air, my face got slammed onto the bonnet of the car and I was subjected to a thorough frisking. They found nothing on my person, but then they went about searching my car systematically. The rear of this particular model station wagon was like an open boot and you could see into it from outside. That day, the boot was packed full of football uniforms, which must have been a disappointment to them. Meanwhile, the other cop was frisking Dennis. The one nursing his hand was growing impatient. He kept telling his partner we had nothing and they should let us go – and eventually that’s what they did. They didn’t find the LSD under the driver’s seat.

  When we arrived at Barney’s place, who had been expecting us much earlier, we told him our story. Jokingly, I added that his LSD caps were now going to cost him double.

  Every weekend I played football, and before a match we’d always smoke. One Sunday I was running late. I found the time to smoke but not to warm up before the match began. Early into the game, I collided with a defender, Martin, from the opposing side. He was younger than me but a lot heavier. My body went in one direction and all of Martin’s weight came down on my leg. There was a loud snapping sound, as if a plank had broken in two. It was so loud that the few spectators sitting in the stands said afterwards they heard my leg break. The tibula and fibula, my right leg this time, had broken clean through. Fuck, I couldn’t believe it! A broken leg again.

  This was before the days of cellphones, so I lay on the field for at least an hour before the ambulance arrived. I was taken to the new General Hospital, where they wasted no time in getting me all plastered up. I was discharged straight afterwards. An ex-girlfriend, Barbara, from my school days had come with me to the hospital and she insisted that I stay at her parents’ home with her in Victory Park. That night was a nightmare: I kept her awake the whole night with my moaning and groaning. It was too much of an imposition on her family, I realised, so I arranged to be moved to the Arcadia cottage in Greenside, where I shared a room with one of the guys staying there. It was far more convenient, and having people there made it much easier for me to move around.

  While I was in the Arcadia cottage, I met a woman named Michelle who was a lot older than me. She was also a bit of a nymphomaniac. One night she suggested we go to Sun City with a friend of mine. She borrowed a car and off we went. It wasn’t
all that much fun for me, hopping around on my crutches, but the night seemed to pass pretty fast. On our way home, late at night, I was in the passenger seat, my friend was driving, and we smoked a Mandrax pipe. After that, Michelle got all horny and wanted to fuck. (This woman wasn’t shy. On a previous occasion while I was in bed, and had friends visit me, she gave my mate a blow job in the toilet.)

  I slipped my pants down over my full plaster cast and she sat on me and proceeded to fuck me. The driver, who was supposed to be keeping his eyes on the road, obviously had a break in concentration because the next thing we heard was a loud bang and there was flying glass everywhere. Then a fucking head came slamming through the windscreen! We had hit a donkey, can you believe! The driver slammed on the brakes and the donkey went flying over the car into the middle of the road. I was covered in glass and Michelle was screaming her lungs out.

  We pulled over about 20m down the road and my friend helped me out of the car. I had just managed to dust the glass off my clothes and was pulling up my pants when a Putco bus came down the road towards us at a helluva speed. By the time the driver saw the donkey lying in the middle of the road, despite desperately slamming on his brakes, it was too late and he drove over the poor animal. The bus then veered off the road, hit the gravel and began to slide straight towards us. I was frozen where I stood, and with my crutches and broken leg I couldn’t have moved anyway. I watched helplessly as the headlights, in a cloud of dust, come closer and closer. I began to pray. And then, as if by a miracle, the bus came to a halt literally a couple of metres from us. Another of my lucky escapes, but the most bizarre yet by far!