Brett Morris
It was purely by accident that I found Peace in Jo’burg the other day. I was driving along Louis Botha Avenue, on my way to do all sorts of pre-planned Saturday afternoon things, when my clutch cable snapped.
I managed to push my car on to a side street amid a barrage of expletives from people who were travelling too fast to sympathise. They preferred to let me know, with prolonged, angry hoots, that I was creating a road hazard. No shit. What did they think? I was pushing my car across a four-lane road for kicks? (I wished I could have five minutes alone in a room with one of those hooter-sluts. I would explain to them that it’s rude, not to mention inconsiderate – nah, stuff it. I’d punch ’em right in the nose.)
I was about to start the search for a public phone when something amazing happened. People started offering me help.
First an elderly man sitting on a beer crate gets up, shuffles over and asks if there is anything he can do. Being an elderly man sitting on a beer crate, there wasn’t much he could do, but the point is that he was genuinely concerned.
Genuinely concerned about the welfare of a stranger? This seemed a bit out of character for Jo’burg. What happened to the everyone-for-themselves rule? Did I cross a border without realising it? And it gets better still.
Another man dressed in an Automobile Association (AA) uniform (I’m not making this up I swear) arrives on the scene and asks me what’s wrong. I tell him I think my clutch cable has snapped and he asks me to pop the hood so he can have a look.
He dashes off and returns wielding a wire hanger. He tries to do a makeshift repair on my clutch cable so I’ll be able to drive home. After grappling with it for about 20 minutes he admits defeat and says we should probably get it towed.
I lock the car and we head for a spaza. He calls the AA and pulls some strings but the tow truck can only make it in two hours. I’m visibly disappointed about the two-hour wait so he asks me where I need to be. Nowhere, I admit. Then why don’t I come and watch the soccer over a couple of beers with him at his local shebeen, he asks.
“Hmm,” I think. A couple of beers over soccer at the local shebeen? Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon. We were on our way to the shebeen when I realised that this man has just given me half an hour of his time and I didn’t even know his name.
“By the way,” I say stupidly (as if it just occurred to me), “my name is Brett.”
“I’m Peace,” he says.
“Peace?” Is this guy for real or have I landed myself in the South African version of The Truman Show? I check the sky for cameras, just to make sure, then press on.
The shebeen is in the ground-floor flat of a dilapidated former middle-class building somewhere in Orange Grove. They obviously don’t get whiteys visiting very often, because the kids playing in the corridors pause mid-syllable, mouths still half-open, to check me out.
We walk into the shebeen and Peace introduces me, more to the room than anyone in particular. I think I was the first whitey ever to be brought into this particular shebeen, because Peace seemed quite proud. Like he was holding up a Marlin in front of his fishing buddies. Peace goes to get some beers and leaves me with his bemused friends.
We sit there in awkward silence, until I notice this one guy staring at me. He looks like a real cheese-ball. His monogrammed shirt half open, revealing a thick gold chain, which dangles on to his boep. Another thick gold chain on one wrist, and a flashy gold watch on the other. Topping off this dazzling ensemble, a gold-buckled belt just managing to hold up his excessively pleated pants. Anyway, cheese- ball demeanour and the fact that I’m an unusual guest aside, he’s exceeded the “what-the-hell-you-looking-at?” time limit ages ago. But since I am a guest I’m not going to get all “Jo’burg” on him. So I decide to break the ice.
“My name is Brett,” I say to him, extending my hand.
“Are you Jewish?” he asks, leaving my hand hanging there, unshaken.
Not quite the response I was expecting. I take my hand back. “Yes,” I answer. “Are you black?”
He doesn”t quite know how to take my sarcasm and decides to make friends. He fetches my unshaken hand from my lap and compensates by shaking it over-zealously, explaining that we are all friends. By the “we” I expect he meant everybody living in South Africa. How nice of him.
Peace arrives just in time with two quarts of Black Label and a bit of spliff that he procured on the way. He hands me the unmulled spliff and a page from a 1997 Yellow Pages to roll a joint. We while away the hours like minutes, talking about how jobs can be such jobs sometimes and how women can be so hard to understand.
When the tow truck arrived, as far- fetched as it may seem, I felt sad. And now as I write this, with the benefit of retrospect, I realise how amazing it was. A perfect stranger devoted his entire afternoon to helping me. He invited me to drink with him and his friends without giving it a second thought. And he made what could have been a torturous ordeal a pleasurable afternoon.
I wonder what Peace’s experience would have been if the roles had been reversed. If his car had broken down in my neighbourhood. Would I have been so helpful and hospitable? Probably not. But ever since I found Peace (sorry, couldn’t help myself) my attitude has changed. And I was hoping it would rub off.