A Misadventure At A Tavern That Loves People

A disquieting sunset before another night of a full moon, the sun a red ball sinking into a westerly pitch of pink foamy scatterings of clouds; it is weekend in sleepy Kokosi.

From the east, a full moon rises, bright and glowing, obstructed only by slim clouds serenely drifting in the high winds.

There is a chill in the autumn air, and the smell of rain lingers with every whiff of the draft sweeping through the dusty streets.

Above the Apollo lights, a storm brews, plumes of dust rising crimson like a wave in the moonlight, a colossal blanket riding high above heads bobbing towards places of leisure.

Another raucous evening starts at Thandabantu, music thumbing skins of tired mineworkers with swollen pockets, while young breasts erect their nipples to the chill of colorful beverages.

Everyman seems horny here, the full moon gone menstrual in all thighs seated on crates and young boys burying cases of Lion lager and pangas to impress schoolmates.

The DJ booth is a precarious cage, smaller than a cell of a birdcage in a zoo, and once in a while bottles are flung against the metal bars having missed a head of a would-be victim by an inch.

Looking about, familiar bruised faces of jobless vagabonds that can be missed in any crowd sip on Milk Stout in gangs, each greedy gulp causing rage to the one who bought the beer.

Blood is always about to curdle here, and as anticipated a rumble begins rhythms of House Music wizardry, dust rattles tin roofs and shacks shake on their poles.

A nose is bleeding among some gang of frantic big-spenders, plonk in floral boxes waved over braided heads of fat women fighting with slender girls, hurling bottles and plastic cups at their unkempt weaves.

A drizzle begins in time to save the music from drowning under thunder and womanly spite, but haunted streaks continue to crawl ragingly across a biliously clouded sky.

Smudgy puddles form under dancing feet, stomped black and sprinkled in bottle caps, blood and piss washing off the walls.

All die-hard drunks are mesmerized for those few minuties, a brawl and a rising moon floating in a bulge, red on the far end of the storm to whence winds seem intent on chasing for a ball hastening its ascent up the black expanse.

Screeching screams of girls pretending superstitions cause the mayhem to gain a pitch, men howling like wounded dogs in mimicry of werewolves, all this with piercing wails of the one who lost a nose and the bass rattling torn speakers with serenaded thuds.

The joke was horrendous, considering shacks were being uprooted in nearby Ninety-Nine, yet the DJ kept on point, providing soundtracks to the dismal anecdotes of a fun night in Kokosi.

Gathering chains of uncertain morality about my feet, I choose to leave with others who bet their last on a night well spent, but friends start streaming in rushing from the rain I was intent on battling.

And it is then that the rain begins to pelt harder, the whizzing bellows of an angry breath of demons raging on the night of a full moon and fanning homicidal tendencies haunting inebriated teens.

Accents begin to change with curses hurled at thunder spilled by drenched rap fanatics, mouths damning acts of nature in rhyme improvised over anthems on caged decks and ghetto rants of fame.

Night of blood commences, this place will see many crucified for its future wealth, body parts lost in debris of broken bottles and crumpled potato chip packets.

Ambulance lights will soon illuminate this concrete stage of our stupefied euphoria, stretchers wheeled in over toes of revelers in a daze of song.

The sales booth’s ever tiny at this ‘tavern that loves people’, more now with rain frothing on vomit of quick drinkers, and you know logic has gone out of circulation when three people queue to buy a single bottle.

But my friend and I wade through that mess of arms tossed for attention, among names hailed like deceased generals of unknown personal wars.

We get our set of Black Label quarts and tiptoe back to our corner perfumed by piss and shit under a noisy tin roof, our view from behind women’s dancing backs a carnival of lopsided asses stuffed in faded g-strings, chocked by glittering plastic belts.

Talk about global warming, mineworkers with constant nosebleeds and weekly wages, women working at an explosives company and the moral merits of Fanakalo as a language of indenture.

We’re incensed by this lack of tangible options in township life, where we could not even score a lay for a night this cold, purged from the mainstream mentality of motivational speeches and emotional gambles.

But eventually the mess catches on and we are huddled on crates among juveniles flaunting their hard earned wages from stints of crime or exploited labor.

We thus proceed killing hours with jailbirds and fugitives from unschooled laws of Bogroep - that infamous jail that forges unpaid laborers for farmers from prison populations.

A rope that will drag us into the mires of depravity laying woven by desensitized youths telling us about rapes, about plots to slit a warden’s throat, and their garrulous talk about girls they gang fucked behind beer crates one night of binges at this tavern.

Last night one of them nearly died, they say.

He lies in hospital while they blaze last roaches of long dead joints crammed into bottle caps, rolled into leftover shred of telephone directory books.

Never call a man a cripple in front of his crew, that’s the rule.

And as the story goes, there were bottles flung against a scar ridden head in retaliation to such slander.

Lost they might seem, but they ride a crest of a high wave propelled by instant cash from loan sharks and victims of muggings turned to unmarked graves in municipal cemeteries.

There is even gossip among young men here about lost dockets, police officers who have AIDS, about who are addicts and pimps; and who is smuggling marijuana from Swaziland or the newest dealer with first-grade Tleketleke.

Talk of brawls with mates who couldn’t stomach their liquor, bouts of bloodthirsty fits of rage when a friend was stabbed for having suspicious money to afford a bottle of Three Ships.

These are the common harangues of bored boys in filthy backyard shebeen rooms, sock stench suffocation beyond relief of cheap air-freshening tags and tobacco smoke.

And once the rain had subsided, we decide to leave the raucous company of sterile chatter and Tlokwe carton beer bingers, with their supine women trembling in the sobering chill.

Skidding on mud and puddles hiding in passageways to anywhere, we camouflage with colors of night under blinking street lamps and a startling moon after a hail storm.

Others are nursing wounds as blood mingles with flowing streams of sewage, nauseating melodies of mediocre leisure keeping nightmares alive for many left gathering remains of shattered shacks.

The night sky breathes crystal air and a gentle draft wafts between soaked dog pens, forgotten napkins on wires and puppies shaking stubborn droplets from rabid fur coats.

A gang sings prison anthems and slogans in the distance, a couple staggers from around a corner, feet sliding on sodden grass patches, dizzy from a steamy quickie behind a pile of crushed bricks.

We have a night to remember we remind ourselves and laugh; the morrow yet another beast to feed with our perpetual defeat and failing tricks.

But we love the people here, downtrodden ghosts and their lucid squalor; tracing our steps through morbid streets towards other distractions like homes and mattresses to unfold.