John Matshikiza
With the Lid Off
It was seven in the evening. Dumisani Dlamini, a budding film-maker, was trying to deliver a film proposal to an address in Midrand.
He never got there. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a movie he never intended to make.
He was in a rush to get his proposal on to someone’s desk that night – it was a final deadline.
So he was running from the Internet caf, on the second floor of the Time Square complex in Yeoville, Johannesburg, to his car, parked outside the Time Square Caf on the ground floor. Like every cool person, he’s a frequent visitor to the Time Square Caf, but on this occasion he didn’t even look in the door. He was late. He jumped into his BMW and headed for the highway.
Just before the Olifantsfontein off-ramp into Midrand, he became aware of a car flashing its lights at him from behind. He ignored it and turned off into Lever Street.
The car, an unmarked white Corolla, followed, flashing more insistently. He assumed it was just the usual obnoxious Jo’burg road user.
They came to a stop street, and he decided to let it pass. Instead of passing, the three occupants of the other car, one in police uniform, jumped out, waving guns, and came towards his car, yelling at him to get out.
They yanked him out of the driver’s door, yelling abuse the whole time. They searched him and the car, keeping him covered, slapping him around, and threatening to shoot him. All three guys were black, and spoke to Dumisani in Zulu.
Dumisani was ordered back into his car. He thought he was being hijacked. But the gunmen, without showing any identification, told him they were police officers, and that he was being arrested for withholding information about a man called “Shepherd”. They told him that they had been observing him in conversation with this “Shepherd” character at a table at the Times Square Caf, and that they had been following him since he ran out of the caf, obviously in a guilty frame of mind. (Dumisani has dreadlocks, although he is no Rasta.)
In spite of his protestations that he knew nothing about anyone called “Shepherd”, they forced him to drive. They said they were taking him to Hillbrow police station. If he didn’t reveal the whereabouts of “Shepherd”, he would be in big trouble.
Certain he was going to be killed, Dumisani started driving. He decided to swerve into a petrol station on the side of the road, hoping that the presence of people and bright lights would be some kind of protection.
The “cops”, if they were cops, were enraged. They followed as he jumped out of the car and started assaulting him in front of the petrol attendants and tow-truck drivers who were hanging around. The “cops” told the onlookers that Dumisani was being arrested for fraud. One of the tow-truck drivers asked why they didn’t just shoot him on the spot.
An acquaintance of Dumisani’s happened to drive into the petrol station, but turned away when Dumisani asked him to phone home and tell people what was happening to him. So much for friends.
The “cops”, meanwhile, had radioed for back- up, and another car, with two more gorillas in it, rocked up within minutes.
So the convoy, consisting of Dumisani with his gorilla escorts, one car in front and one behind, set off on a crazy journey back into Johannesburg, the gorillas, whoever they were, still slapping Dumisani around and threatening to kill him. And still demanding why he wouldn’t spill the beans about “Shepherd”. They said they were going to Hillbrow police station to lock him up, but they never got there.
Instead they drove around aimlessly, and called up another car, which joined them outside some Hillbrow dive.
The new car was occupied by a uniformed white cop and a plainclothes black man.
They drove around Hillbrow and Yeoville for a long time, and finally stopped in a dark street a few blocks from Time Square.
At this point the white cop got out and asked what was going on. When Dumisani tried to tell his side of the story to the white cop, the black cops got annoyed and hit him some more, telling the white cop it was none of his business. The white cop got back in his car and drove off.
After some more slaps, the original gorillas told Dumisani to leave his car and run. Which he did: all the way back to Time Square, where he found some familiar faces, and started to breathe again. Three hours of life had gone by.
He found his courage after an hour or so and went to retrieve his car, which was intact. The gorillas were gone.
The Hillbrow and Yeoville police have no record of this incident, even though Dumisani has given a full report and spent the last few days going around with a senior policeman, trying to identify the men who did this to him. It’ll probably never be solved.
Life goes on, but only just.
It’s happened to me. It could happen to you.
It’s like a movie, but actually, it’s just another of those Jo’burg stories.
But why?