Dog Eat Dog: A Novel

eight

eight A winding fifty-metre queue stretched out from Braamfontein Civic Centre. We had been standing there for about two hours. The opportunity to vote had attracted many people; I saw a crowd of men and women the like of which I had never seen before . It was a queue of limitless hope. Many of us there thought this election would reshape our lives in the southern part of this unruly ‘Dark Continent’. The call to vote had drawn people from all walks of life. There were teachers and pupils, lecturers and students, sex hawkers and street vendors, business people and laymen, employed and unemployed, unemployables and hobos, secretaries and housemaids , taxi drivers and sportspeople. It was the moment that most of us had been waiting for years to experience. I was standing behind a homeless man in the queue. I often saw him sleeping on the floor in the entrance of the Braamfontein branch of the Saambou Bank. I saw him every evening when I came back to the Y from the university library. As I joined the queue, I had been welcomed by the stench coming from his dirty body. I could easily tell that he hadn’t touched water for days or even months. None of us had wanted to stand immediately behind that man and this had become evident as we were walking to join the queue. Theks slowed her gait, bent down, and pretended to be lacing up her running shoes. When Dunga and myself slowed down to allow her to catch up with us,Theks advised us to hurry up and get in the queue. It was then left to Dunga and myself to decide who should stand immediately behind that stinking man. Although we didn’t discuss it, we both hesitated to be the victim 58 of that foul smell – until I was forced to sacrifice myself when Dunga pretended to be talking to his girlfriend. Once in the queue, I took another look at the homeless man. His clothes looked like the best he could come up with from his impoverished wardrobe. On his left foot he was wearing an old worn-out soccer boot with flattened studs. Only the three white diagonal stripes on it told me that it was a soccer boot. It had turned cream in colour and I could only guess that it was once black because of my knowledge of the game. When I looked again at the same foot, I saw his big toe protruding through a hole. Around the toe was wrapped a worn-out greyish sock. On his right foot he was wearing what was once a white running shoe; a dusty grey shoelace that was obviously not manufactured together with the running shoe laced it up. The queue was moving towards the entrance where the awaited activities of the day were taking place. As we approached the steps, the homeless man put his right leg up on the first step. I was still concentrating on his untidy hair when I felt a prod in my back. It was Theks; she was trying to attract my attention. I saw both Dunga andTheks covering their mouths with their hands to avoid what seemed to be unavoidable laughter.To share their joke with me, Theks simply pointed at the leg of the homeless man. Theks continued giggling. When I looked at that leg, I initially thought that it was covered by the grey sock that I had seen wrapped around his big toe. But as I looked again I realized that it was just his dirty leg that had turned pale like a log in the sun; the stripes were where water had run down his leg the last time it was raining. I could not help but join Dunga and Theks in their laughter. I continued examining the homeless man to figure out which part of his body was the main source of that foul smell. I looked at his dusty, greasy blue jeans and then up to the frayed arms of the red jersey that exposed his pale elbows. The man seemed unconcerned about his condition. He continued sharing a joke 59 with his white hobo friend in English; he had a good command of the language, better than I did. I tried to catch a glimpse of the homeless man’s friend – I wanted to see if he was in the...