After Tears

Twenty-Two: Monday, January 31

157 tweNtY-two Monday, January 31 A week had passed since I had opened my office in chi, but my headache was still how to find clients. the internet café was making money as the unemployed youth from chi and neighbouring Mapetla and protea used it to apply for jobs and type their cVs, but the internet café wasn’t part of my business, it was Yomi’s. It was month-end and I had to pay my share of the rent: r1 500, plus water and electricity. Besides the rent, my other concern was my image and I had decided to use part of the r14 000 that was left in my bank account to buy proper clothes. Mama had raised a further r2 000 for me, which she wanted me to spend on some formal clothes for myself, including a gown which I could wear to court. At nine that morning I was already in zero’s taxi on my way to the city to buy a gown and a suit at Markhams. In my pocket I had r4 000: r2 000 from Mama and r2 000 that I had withdrawn from Absa. the taxi was already full and zero took a different route from his usual one as he tried to avoid the old potchefstroom road that, he complained, was full of robots and traffic officers. In Dlamini, the taxi turned to the right between Ibhongo high School and the only mosque in Soweto. “how is the business going, Advo? I see lots of people coming in and out of your pozi,” zero began. “Not so bad, but at the moment I spend a lot of time at the protea Magistrate’s court,” I lied. 158 “I’ll bring you more clients,” he said with great authority in his voice. “the first one will be my Bunju. I’ve told you, she needs you to help her apply for a child grant for her son. She also wants advice on how she can make the father of her child pay maintenance.” “But she can go to the welfare Department instead of coming to me,” I said. “oh, I see,” zero said. “I’ll tell her later.” there was silence between us as I helped him count the money that I had just collected from the passengers. As the taxi passed reed Lake, which separates Dlamini and kliptown, I gave zero the r65 that I had collected. “this place,” said zero as we passed the golf course in pimville, “at this place I used to forage for paper, plastic and aluminium at goudkoppies and sell it to waste recycling companies here in kliptown . that’s when I was staying in pimville zone 4. You know goudkoppies , don’t you, Advo?” he asked. “No, I don’t know it,” I said, shaking my head. zero pointed at a heap of waste at the side of the road that separated eldorado park from pimville. I saw two green-and-white pikitup trucks dumping waste while people stood by and watched. “every day, I used to compete with about a thousand other people scavenging for paper and plastic, Advo. Just like those people you can see over there. I worked at goudkoppies seven days a week for almost eight years, but I only ever made about r100 or r200 a week. I used to have sugared water and bread every day.” I was shocked into silence by the revelation. “I think I know what poverty is, Advo. I used to dodge medical waste – used syringes, drips, bloody sheets and bandages – at the 159 dump. I used to inhale toxic fumes from the degrading chemicals. we competed with well-fed scavenging rats this big.” he demonstrated the size of the rat on the dashboard. “those rats roamed the place so fearlessly. they would just stand there and continue eating as if we weren’t there.” we passed Freedom park squatter camp where the smell of sewage was very bad; it was as if someone with rotten bowels had farted inside the taxi. Most of the passengers closed their windows. As soon as we had come to a stop by the robots at the N1 off-ramp in Devland, zero lifted his fingers up for me to see. there was a big scar across three of his fingers. “this happened one day when I was digging through the garbage at goudkoppies...