The Pavement Bookworm

by Philani Dladla

  The more I drank, the more meaningless my life seemed to be. I decided that I would kill myself that afternoon. I was drunk but I was still afraid. I was not crying because I was drunk or crazy, I was crying because I was afraid to die. There were many voices in my head. One voice was telling me, ‘No Philani, you’re still too young to die. God created you for a reason’, and another voice was telling me ‘Yes Philani, God created you for a reason, and that reason is to suffer. Maybe if you die, you’ll be at peace … no more slaving around for Nigerian drug dealers.’

  When you reach the end, you start thinking about the beginning. I thought back to all the dreams that I had and everything I wanted to be when I was a kid. When I looked at myself then I was none of these things and I wanted to die. I thought of throwing myself into the path of a speeding vehicle but that was just too scary. I still had some money so I bought some pain killers and laxatives to overdose on. I went upstairs to the tavern’s toilets and opened a bottle of tablets and I poured them into my palm and swallowed them all. I opened another box of pain killers and swallowed those too. I looked myself in the mirror and tears were running down my face. I washed my face in the running tap water, cupped my hands under the tap and kept drinking water and swallowing the tablets until I had taken them all. After some time, somebody walked into the toilet and saw what was happening but it was already too late – I had swallowed all the pills and was already feeling dizzy and my stomach had started cramping. I don’t remember what happened after that. I must have fallen and knocked my head on the wall and lost consciousness. I remember the pain I felt in my sternum. When I opened my eyes paramedics were all over the place. But I was confused, their lips were moving but I couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. I could see, though, that they took my vital signs – pulse, respiration and blood pressure. I was then rushed to Johannesburg General Hospital.

  When I arrived at the hospital I was still drunk and confused but I could answer their questions much better than when they took me from the pub. I can’t remember the name of the nurse who interviewed me and filled out some documents, but she was sweet and beautiful. She asked me questions like my name, how old I am, where I’m from and if I knew where I was and where I lived. I didn’t tell her that I was homeless because I was embarrassed. She asked me more and more questions and it felt like I was being interrogated by an attractive police officer. Later I was seen by the doctors. I was lucky because they didn’t steal my bag of books at the pub and the porter helped wheel my bag and me to a ward on the fifth floor. Being hospitalised was no fun business, especially being woken very early in the morning, although it was a luxury for me to sleep indoors with warm blankets instead of under the bridge with only one blanket on cold concrete.

  I complained but the nurses told me that I was in hospital not in a hotel. The nurses were rude and rough. In the morning I was sick with drug cravings, the stomach cramps were killing me and I was weak from vomiting after every meal. I needed drugs and thought that I would die. I ended up telling the doctor the truth, thinking that he would give me something to calm my cravings, but all he did was put me on a drip which he said would clean all the drugs from my system and ordered some medication that the nurses would give me after lunch.

  The first few days in hospital were very hard, as I felt like everybody was against me. No, I felt like they hated me. It felt like I was in prison where the doctors were prison wardens and the nurses were prison guards. I tried escaping but I was too weak and the hospital security was able to stop me before I could make it to the main reception. I told the doctors that I needed drugs but they didn’t care about that. They told me that I was in hospital and that their job was to save lives, not to destroy them. They told me that drugs are killers, as if I didn’t know. When I started fighting and shouting and calling the nurses and doctors all sorts of names they put me in restraints and I was treated like a real prisoner in hospital. For two days I was cuffed until I calmed down.

  As the drug cravings wore off I began to cooperate and things became easier. I realised that the nurses and doctors were not as bad and evil as I had thought and I started appreciating them. It was clear they were just trying to help me not harm me. I was moved to the psychiatry ward. I tried refusing, telling the doctor that I wasn’t crazy. She said that she knew I wasn’t crazy but because I’d been doing drugs for a long period of time, and because I have a mental condition called bipolar mood disorder, that I would feel better after treatment. She explained that bipolar disorder is a mental illness that affects how you feel, not how you think. That explanation didn’t make any difference to me. All I could think about was that I had a mental illness that I knew nothing about. I know how people are when it comes to illnesses, especially mental illnesses. If you tell someone that you have a mental illness, they will think you’re crazy, or stupid or call you all sorts of names, almost like the stigma attached to HIV/Aids. What was on my mind was the stigma. The same stigma applies to mental illnesses – people don’t want to be seen around you because they don’t want to be judged the same as you.

  The psych ward looked more like a prison cell than a hospital ward, but luckily without the gangs in there and the nurses there friendlier. The ward was clean and smelt better than the one I had been transferred from. That ward had smelled like death. In the three days I was there I saw more dead people than most people see in a lifetime.

  There was a lot of funny stuff happening in the psych ward. It was like we were locked into a room with clowns who didn’t need to be paid to perform because in there guys were really crazy. Each day was different and some days the ward turned into a madhouse; patients ran around naked, some broke things, some fought, while others tried to have sex with the nurses running after them, trying to stop them. I learned and saw a lot from my days in that ward.

  The problem with mental illness is that only your actions and behaviour can show the psychologists and nurses the degree of your illness, which is why doctors keep patients in psych wards and in mental institutions for such a long time. Doctors in the psych field have to guess most of the time; they work on what the patient tells them and often don’t follow up to see if the statements made by the patient are true. The most important thing for them is to ensure their patients take their medication.

  My hospital stay took a lot off my mind. I didn’t have to worry about what to eat, I didn’t have to worry if it was raining or snowing because I had a reliable and warm shelter over my head. I had enough time to read my books, and I went for weeks without street drugs. My problem was my roommate Lucky, who was schizophrenic and sometimes he acted really strange and that scared me.

  I learnt that schizophrenia is a disorder that affects the way you think and the types of thoughts you have. The word schizophrenia literally means ‘split mind’, because there is a split between the person’s mind and reality. Lucky would do all sorts of crazy things and interrupt me while I was trying to read. He had this crazy idea that he was God and would go around the ward praying for the patients and nurses and telling us that he was a black God.

  He told me he could read minds and that he could fly, so you can imagine how hard it was sharing a room with him. I tried to treat him with respect because I had learned that most mental problems are caused by family history (genetics), life’s problems like child abuse, brain chemicals, drug and alcohol abuse, and if a person is schizophrenic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad or dangerous people. It is treatable and a person suffering from it can lead a successful, happy and productive life if their mental health is well looked after. But I’m sorry to say I lost my cool when I woke up one morning to find Lucky tearing up the book I was reading then. I was so angry I couldn’t control myself and I started beating him up. He tried fighting back but I couldn’t stop. The nurses tried to break up the fight but neither of us would give up so they had to call Security.

  Lucky was badly injured and thus ended my comfortable stay in the psych ward at Joburg Gen. I had bee
n there for less than a month. I was sorry for what I had done to Lucky over a book but you can’t undo your actions. I felt bad as I’m not a violent guy. I think I lost my temper as I felt like I was part of the story and when Lucky destroyed the book I was prevented from knowing how it all ended.

  I had made things worse for myself once again.

  I was transferred from Johannesburg General Hospital to Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital. I was scared when we arrived because it looked like a prison and I thought I was being imprisoned for assaulting Lucky and for damaging the hospital’s property. I was relieved when a doctor took my vital signs, opened a file for me and told the nurse to take me to Ward Number 8. From the outside, Ward 8 looked like an old abandoned building. We met a young-looking white man called Staff Nurse Mike, who took it from there. Staff Nurse Mike showed me around the ward and told me what to do and what not to do. He gave me a list of the ground rules. We were only allowed to smoke after meals. In Sterkfontein, you eat five times a day, so you can only smoke five times a day, one cigarette after every meal. He showed me where the public phone was. We were only allowed to make three phone calls a week and patients were not allowed to keep money. If I had visitors who gave me money, I had to register the money at the office and the nurses would give it to me when it was time to buy things at the shop. He also told me that if you tried fighting with the staff or other patients they locked you in isolation where you didn’t get out to smoke or interact with the other patients. He told me the biggest mistake one can make in Sterkfontein is to refuse medication. He then introduced me to all the other patients. All the patients in Sterkfontein liked and respected Mike. Some even called him Baba.

  Everybody wanted to go home; even I missed my family. I wished I could go back home to KwaZulu-Natal. I didn’t care about my life under the bridge anymore, about the drugs and the ‘thing’ I couldn’t speak about to anyone. I wanted to go home to my real family. Life at Sterkfontein was hard. We had to wake up at 7:00 and make our beds, bath and have breakfast at 8:30 or 9:00. We could smoke in the hall because we were not allowed to go outdoors. We were locked in the hall or the TV room during the day and were not allowed to go to bed during the day so our rooms were kept locked. After breakfast we would sit on the chairs and chat. Some folks killed time while waiting for lunch by bullying others. Some patients were really crazy, some were better than others and some were okay.

  Nurse Mike cared for us more than any other nurse in Sterkfontein. He had a class where he taught us about mental illnesses and the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. He helped patients to learn how to use computers and sometimes played us movies and music on his laptop. Staff Nurse Mike made Sterkfontein a lot less depressing. It was always chaos when Nurse Mike was off-duty. Patients used to fight a lot and make noise, or pee on the floor just to give the nurses a headache. No other nurse did what Nurse Mike did for his patients and no one respected them like he did. Most of the other nurses in Sterkfontein treated patients like they were crazy, useless people or only respected patients from rich families who had regular visitors. Some patients had been there for more than nine months and had never been visited. Some didn’t have relatives, and nobody visited the others that did because of what they’d done back home.

  Dr Skhosana was another angel trying her best to make Sterkfontein a better place. She was sweet and friendly and cared about her patients just like Nurse Mike did. I stayed in Sterkfontein for two months and 2 weeks because she wanted to get to know me better and didn’t discharge me. She wanted to know if I was telling her the truth and was the first person to discover that I was homeless. I liked and trusted her, not only because she was attractive but also because she was friendly. She made me feel like I was the only patient in her files and that my secrets were safe with her.

  She asked me if I had any friends or family members who knew where I was. I remembered that I had a few friends’ contact numbers in my small dirty notebook in which I used to write about my experiences out there on the streets. It was in my bag in the storage room, so she sent a nurse to fetch it. She wanted to call my friends to see if anyone cared enough to come and visit me. Most of them were homeless so they didn’t have cell phones or care whether I was dead or alive, so I could only rely on those friends who helped me with book donations. I didn’t give her my mother’s number either because I didn’t want my family to know about the life that I was living. I didn’t want my dear mother and my brothers to know that I had turned into a struggling, suicidal, homeless man in Johannesburg.

  Dr Skhosana began calling all the contacts I gave her. Fortunately one Good Samaritan did care about me, my good friend Ken Nortje. Ken was, and still is, a managing director of a company called Malnor Publications. He and his business partner helped me a lot while I was in Sterkfontein and after I got discharged. He asked Dr Skhosana how she thought they could help me, so she told him that I needed support because I didn’t have proper accommodation outside. She arranged for him to come and visit me. He brought me a lot of snacks to eat, some toiletries and new clothes to wear when I got discharged. Dr Skhosana met Ken and told him that I was homeless; he offered to pay my rent for a few months until I was able to stand on my own two feet again. That was the best news ever; I was now looking forward to being discharged and starting over again. A few weeks later Dr Skhosana said she thought I was ready to face the world outside again.

  In Sterkfontein patients don’t just get discharged every day, so Nurse Mike and most patients were very happy for me. He decided to throw a little snack party for me and we had a good time. Not everybody took the news so well though and Mbongeni, who had been in Sterkfontein for more than ten months, really didn’t take the news well at all. He started fighting and breaking windows and wanted to know why a guy who had only been there for two months and 2 weeks was already going home when he had been locked up for more than ten months. He accused the doctors of being corrupt, saying he was not crazy and that they were. I was told not to feel bad because apparently he didn’t like it when anybody was discharged. He was given an injection to calm him down and then he was taken to the isolation ward.

  I wanted to continue being clean of drugs and I was proud that I was able to go without for that long. It was a great achievement. It made me felt good. I wanted to do more with my life. And I did do my bit to make the world a better place as this was the time my reading club was born.

  I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about how I was going to change my life in the outside world. I was proud that I could go without drugs for so long – I had been in Sterkfontein for two months and two weeks – and that achievement made me feel good. I wanted to do more with my life. In the morning, when the nurse knocked, I was already up and my bed was made. Excitement was written on my face because being discharged from Sterkfontein felt like walking out of prison.

  Qala kabusha: Trying to make a new start

  BEFORE BREAKFAST WAS SERVED, a driver was already outside waiting to take me to Mr Kenneth Nortje’s office in Auckland Park. The driver didn’t talk much, except to ask if I had everything that I needed. I didn’t have a lot to take with me, just my book bag and my shirt and jeans, since his boss, had bought me new clothes to wear. It was a long drive from Sterkfontein to Auckland Park. Mr Nortje had already told them about me and when we arrived at the Malnor Publications building people were happy to see me. As we walked up to his office where his partner was waiting he told me never again to do such a stupid thing like trying to take my own life just because I have problems.

  Mr Nortje and his partner both promised they’d help me as much as they could and asked how much I thought I would need for rent. I said maybe a thousand rand or a little bit more than that. I was not looking for anything fancy. I just needed a roof over my head. They gave me R1800 and told me to call if I needed anything more. They knew that for a street-wise guy like me it wouldn’t be a problem to find a room or a space to rent, and Mr Nortje said I should come back to the office if I didn’t fin
d a place. They asked a driver to drop me off at Jozi central where I could look for a room to rent.

  I knew my way around town and I knew where to find a place to rent. I went to a building called Central Park in Joubert Park and asked the security guard at the reception if there was a room or a space available to rent. The good news was that they had plenty and he told me to knock at room number 1102 because the tenant was looking for people to share a space there. The room was on the 11th floor, and the elevator was broken but none of that mattered to me. I needed a roof over my head, not an elevator. I knocked on the door. An old lady opened the door and greeted me with a smile on her face. I introduced myself and I told her that I was looking for a space to rent. The space that was available was in the lounge, which she had divided with curtains into three spaces big enough to fit a bed. Since I didn’t even have a bed, I told her I would take the space. My monthly rental would be R550, excluding electricity.

  I didn’t mind because I would still be left with enough change to take care of my other needs. I paid her the rent, then went to the Indian-owned shop to buy a sponge, a blanket, a pillow, and some food to eat. I asked two kids to help me take my belongings up to the 11th floor and for that they charged me a fee of R20. They knew that I couldn’t carry my sponge, pillow, blanket and my plastic grocery bag up to the 11th floor on my own, so they told me to forget about negotiating their charge. When they saw the bag of books on the floor in my space they wanted to know what the books were about. Since I like books so much I was very interested in their hunger for knowledge. I like people who are interested in books, especially if they are young and can drop everything to read a new book. I paid them their fee and gave them each a book as bonus gifts. They liked them so much that they came back for more books to read the following day. Even if I didn’t know it at the time my readers’ club was born right there with only two wise kids as the first members. I didn’t know anyone else in the building so those kids became my friends from day one.