Friday night
Alex Sudheim
Its a dry, flinty wind that blows across the plains and greets me like a John Wayne handshake as I step off the stagecoach and pat the prairie dust from my jeans. The bare-boned bite of the air is advance warning that this place takes no prisoners, so I square my shoulders, clench my jaw, suck down a chestful of the cold, hard air and slowly follow the click of my spurs into the smoke and roar of the mean streets.
>From what I’ve heard, this town’s a tough nut to crack. Its Dodge City circa 1873, aka Johannesburg 1999, and I ain’t leavin’ till I strike gold in them thar hills.
I’m greeted in the crowded arrivals hall by my old friend Karen Bliksem, notorious gun- slinger, whisky fiend and mover ‘n shaker in the city’s new-fangled film industry. She promises me some honest-to-god action in Johannesburg’s roughest saloon tonight, an iniquitous joint by the name of The Abelarde Sanction in a bad part of town known as Brixton.
But first I gotta find a quiet tavern to hang my hat and get comfortable with this city. So we slink into a cosy den of disrepute called The Bohemian, where we take up discreet residence at the corner pool table.
After some libation of the fine local kind and a few rounds of snooker, I’m starting to loosen up and acquire a feel for the place. Nevertheless, I’m still a bit jangled and get my hide tanned by Karen, one of Johannesburg’s deadliest wielders of a pool cue. At the bar I have a run-in with my old shootin’ buddy Drew, another infamous bon vivant and prodigal son of the city’s film fraternity.
Soon I’m loose and limber enough to venture into the bareknuckle boulevards and alight at the aforementioned Abelarde Sanction. A raucous, writhing party is in progress, with folk from all walks of life getting down to the dirty grooves in real bad fashion. In a frontier town where the Reaper ceaselessly stalks the streets, it’s only the real tough cowpokes who live like there’s no tomorrow, and I reckon a great deal of them are here tonight.
The incorrigible Karen has already had several slugs of granddaddy’s cough mixture and shown the locals a thing or two at the pool table before I start shakin’ my moneymaker on the dance floor. And tether me to a tumbleweed if this DJ ain’t the hottest property on the market. Ismael Lo, TKZee, Lauryn Hill, phat Madala Kunene remixes and a blistering barnyard full of sweet, heavy beats and libidinous indigenous rhythms.
The guy next to me is smokin’ some mean wack-tobaccy, and I enquire if he might have some to spare for a stranger. “Sure,” he says, producing an enormous reefer and handing it to me. “It’s all yours.”
OK, now I definitely like this place. After some sucks of the local snake-oil tree I’m really into the swing of things, and when I stumble back into the saloon there’s Elvis himself pulling through a ripsnorting set.
Majestic in low-cut lam bodysuit, rhinestone shades and enormous, shiny pompadour, he’s got the ladies eatin’ out of his hands. Now I may be a bit of an old- fashioned kinda guy and frown upon all those pelvic thrusts, but when a roomful of the local lasses is throwing their undergarments at you, ain’t nobody gonna tell ya you done wrong.