Ready, aim, make fire!

By Hansie Smit

Heritage Day is around the corner and it’s time again to braai like our lives depend on it. That means buying wood, buying dop — some meat if you want — and making a fire convicted arsonists would envy. I bet some pyro-crazy angel in heaven lights a match every time a South African is conceived. Probably lights a bonfire for twins. How else do you explain the open fire raging in our DNA? More than once I’ve made a fire for no reason at all. Nothing to braai, power on, not cold, just needed some flames just because. Put me in a place where I can’t make fire, like a mine shaft say, and I will go certifiably ballistic. This goes for all South Africans — we have to make fire or else. And thank God for that, for a fire brings out the best in us. Fact. It’s like an ancient brainstorm — a pre-historic think-tank. Whenever you see two or more South Africans staring into a fire, strap in, for genius is soon to follow. Subliminally, braais and open fires have been responsible for some of the biggest South African, nay, world inventions of the 21st century. The idea for those cat-eye lights you see in the middle of the road? Born at 7.10pm, March 21 1997 in a back-yard in Boksburg. The Kreepy Krauly? 10.01pm, February 3 1984 in Bellville. Just the other night, Klip and I sat around a fire discussing the horsepower of Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair. We had a rich debate. On another occasion, he sat up and said how great it would be to have plastic shoes with holes in them. I corrected him with a beer can against the head and told him someone already thought of Crocs and plastic or not, it sunk our nation’s sense for fashion.

“You want an idea?” I told him, “put some more wood on the fire”.

This seemed to strike a nerve and he slowly reached over to put another piece of wood on. We sat there staring at the flames in harmonious silence.

The period two men can sit around a fire without realising they are out of wood — known as a Black Dusk — can last for anything from fifteen minutes to an hour. Forty minutes into our dusk we saw our predicament, jumped up and scanned the house for anything combustible — chairs, guitars, books. But since this was not the first time it happened, everything within a 1km radius of the fireplace was made entirely of plastic or metal. We had to go to the shops. I pulled in at the nearest Caltex and told Klip to open the boot. On a wall I saw a menu: Gwarrie — R10.95, Rooikrantz — R15.95, Doring — R25, Kameeldoring — R48, Elijah Wood — R56.

“Goeie fok!” I shouted, “they’re sin taxing wood!”

Klip and I counted our money. Four rand. Klip proposed we open one of the bags, scatter the wood and pick it up like hunter-gatherers. I rubbished the idea by pointing to a CCTV camera above his head and told him the only thing we can do now is pull our socks over our heads and hold up the entire petrol station with toy guns. A brilliant idea except we didn’t have toy guns. With no option left, I decided to enter into negotiations with the capitalists. I approached a petrol attendant and explained to him that we have 10 kilograms of meat back home and not one piece of wood. I told him in no uncertain terms, that if he were to give us two bags of Kameeldoring, he and his friends would be more than welcome to feast with us once the meat is done.

“Gwarrie,” he said.

“Rooikrantz,” I said.

“Deal,” he said.

Klip loaded the bounty into the boot and we headed home to braai for heritage, prosperity and twelve Caltex employees.