Shamefully homebound, the neighbours are having a field day

What is it about us black people that makes us enjoy each other’s failures so much? Maybe it is the human condition, but in my experience, which is limited to the predominantly black community (except for my Indian neighbour) in which I grew up, it seems that black people enjoy each other’s failures way more than we should if we are ever to free ourselves somehow from the shackles of poverty.

Let me relate to you my experience of how my people reacted when I was faced with what was understood, by them, to be failure in my career.

After I had finished my studies and was working in my first job at a flavour house, I began to yearn for the freedom and independence of having my own space. After all, for the first time, I could afford to have these stirrings deep in my soul (or was it in my loins?). Maybe, or probably, they were in my throat. The golden nectar beckoned to me to consume it freely. It was time to take flight from the proverbial nest.

You see, the thing is, I had already experienced freedom at the tertiary institution where I had spent the two previous years drinking myself into a stupor and fraternising with all manner of willing and oh-so-lovely young things, all the while under the pretence of getting an esteemed education at a respected institution.

I had spent my days with youthful abandon at campus doing exactly as I pleased at any hour of the day — and sometimes for days on end — but at times I did attend classes if I was bored, if there was a girl in class I wanted, or if I had depleted my financial resources and had nothing else to do.

It was a surprise to all my classmates that I was the standard second student in class when we received exams or tests results, and only because the woman who always came first did not have a life and lived at home with her parents. Hers was a sad existence where her parents actually knew what course she was studying and even had a copy of her semester calendar so they could keep tabs on her progress — how ludicrous is that? I would have had to slit my veins lengthwise.

To the contrary — mine was an easy life, as life should be at res, I’m sure you will all agree. I never had a lot of money, but the little I had went to very good causes, such as boosting the brewers’ revenue no end. This makes me happy, as this ensures constant job creation at that noble establishment. The rich are able to send their children to school, clothe and provide shelter for them. I ate when I had food and drank when I had money, studied when I was broke and fraternised with ladies when they were either drunk or suffering from enough low self-esteem to succumb to my drunken advances. It was perfect.

But, alas, life must go on and one has to grow with it. I finished my studies without suffering the evil of a supplementary exam — I never experienced what it was like to fail a course. It must be something to do with the high percentage of alcohol that was constantly in my blood that led to such high intelligence levels. I attended classes drunk, wrote exams hung over and perpetually lived in the grey area between drunk and hung over. I was very consistent.

But the time came to move on and leave the life and the legend I had created in the hallways and the corridors of the institution. It was hard to forge a cool existence when I had only fatness as the niche I could explore, but I did exactly that — and successfully.

This made it hard to abandon my nearly all-conquered world and the little gang of tight-pants-clad first-year chicks who formed part of my fan club — oh, how I miss them still.

I needed to move on to the big, bad world of employment and my first salary of R3 000 — before Trevor’s crew took their share under the pretext of feeding the poor (whom I didn’t know); building roads (for a car I didn’t have); providing running water (for families of people who have never bought me beer); paying out pensions (to old ladies who refused to let their granddaughters hang with the Sumo on Friday nights); and all other manner of activities that the 20-year-old Sumo did not care for or understand. I was left with about R2 500.

After my old lady took — unwittingly agreed to on my part — 30% of my earnings, the Sumo was left with enough money to consume the golden nectar for days on end if he so desired and, on occasion, did just that. However, there were limitations and the biggest one was the ever-existent threat of physical violence from the same said salary-siphoning lady if I were caught drunk in her house.

Something had to be done. The Sumo was tired of sneaking in at 3am with the night’s lucky conquest and sleeping with the windows open to air the room in order not to offend the lady of the house organoleptically with the stench of stale alcohol.

The lucky lady — bagged by the Sumo the previous evening — sneaking out of the house at 6am was also undesirable, especially when you live in Kwa-Mashu, which is “alive with possibility” for muggers to stab you and relieve you of your earthly trappings.

It was time to move out!

I raised the issue of my impending move and was met by silence from my parents in the hope that I would soon forget this silly idea and keep my fat behind at home.

As far as my mother was concerned, there was no need for me to move out of home because I had everything I needed: food, shelter, a cleaning-and-washing service and love. Hello? Someone say party at the Sumo’s place? This could clearly never happen, but at my new address, it would be the norm almost every weekend.

After my parents realised that ignoring me was not going to work, my mother embarked on an intricate campaign of fear to keep me at home. She relayed stories of all manner of untold hardship that single, early home-leavers go through. The story of the empty fridge and nights of hunger-induced insomnia put the fear of God into the Sumo. Hunger was a huge deterrent that my beloved mother used to keep me in the nest, but the promise of beer consumed without guilt or violent consequence and at any available opportunity was a greater force and, finally and against all odds, enabled the Sumo to flee the coup. I was going to be free … and hungry.

I moved in with a friend from tertiary who was renting a place near the institution.

Maybe “friend” is a bit of a strong word. I was, at best, acquaintances with the dreadlocked ex-journalism student, but he needed help with the rent and I needed freedom to fraternise and drink, so we teamed up and had a jolly old time while occupying a two-and-a-half bedroom flat. That is, until he decided to default on the rent payments of which I gave him my share, on time and religiously. He used my funds to pay his car instalment instead, the selfish bastard.

The deferred rentals and his constant weed smoking with a bunch of similarly minded girls who were quite the socialites in Durban led to me rather unceremoniously removing myself from that unhealthy living arrangement. I moved in with a closer couple of friends, one of which was a rudderless Cape coloured and the other a philandering, basketball-playing, dreadlocked pimp from Kwa-Mashu. Good times were enjoyed by all and the blissful lifestyle was a blur of parties and very high alcohol consumption, accompanied by a very high girlfriend turnover rate.

If I ever wanted freedom, this was it. If this was what freedom fighters had fought and died for, then their efforts were not in vain and I salute every single one of them and treasure every drop of blood that was spilled in the cause of gaining said freedom. Alas, women happened in both my friends’ lives, and they both scattered to different provinces and I found myself living alone with a hefty R4 750 rent payment to make every month.

My salvation came in the form of an individual with a rather larger than normal head, which funnily enough resembles a humungous melon — and who may or may not be a TL blogger. His family were moving down to Durban for career reasons. Another excellent couple of months were had until they found a more permanent living arrangement, which left the Sumo once again alone in the mansion. Home was the only option.

In the time I lived away from home in those first few years I rarely ever ventured back. I supported them from a distance and visited only on the very odd occasion. Judge me; I am a bad son. It was a very humbling experience having to call my mother up and ask her if I could move back home until I found myself a suitable and more permanent abode.

My mother was more pleased about these new developments than she should have been.

My father was equally pleased because this meant that he now he had a closer source of beer money. The question “Where is the money you would have paid rent with?” became a favourite of anyone who needed to relieve me of some funds for their own purposes.

The first question that my mother asked was regarding my live-in girlfriend. I was confused, but she went on to explain that as far as they were concerned, the only reason I would want to move out of home is to live with some evil, money-grabbing hussy who was holding me ransom and would not let me go home to visit my family or spend my money on anything but her. I tried to explain the contrary, but their minds were made up and they were glad that I had been able to release myself from her evil clutches.

After it was settled that I would be allowed to go back home and a new monthly rental contract was drawn up, I packed up my stuff and sent it home before I made the shame-faced appearance. This was not reminiscent of the whole prodigal-son set-up, no, not at all — it was more of a baptism of fire that awaited me. I was returning, defeated, as far as everyone was concerned.

When I did finally show my face there, the next few weeks were spent convincing nosy neighbours that no, actually, I still had a job and that I was still doing as well as before.

What followed were enquiries into the reasons I had returned home and the circumstances leading to my taking such a decision. I tried to explain, but all was in vain, as the stories went on in my ‘hood.

One story went that I had lost my job because of alcohol abuse in the workplace. Now anyone who knows the Sumo knows that I do not mess with that which pays for the amber nectar, even if it is with the amber nectar that I would jeopardise it. If anyone were to tell you that I was inebriated at work, I demand that you put them to death at the stake for their blasphemous lies.

Another story went that I had bitten off a bit more than I could chew by thinking that I was better than the rest of the people and moving out when all the other people my age still lived at home. The story went that I was almost starving to death in the “Flats” because I was living in Morningside’s Seventh Avenue, which was way too posh for my salary.

Apparently I always thought I was better than everyone. I was accused of such evils as phantom weight loss due to my inability to feed myself to the end of the month.

Another story went that I was living with a female of questionable moral standing and that she was taking all of my earnings and spending it on herself and her two children from another man. To this, I only had: “Hawu.”

There was no explaining how that story came about, but it was definitely given as just one of the truths of my life, as known by the powers that gossip.

What bothered me most about these theories about my life was the fact that they were all shared and lapped up with much vigour, and they spread like paraffin-stove-induced wildfire through an informal settlement. Everyone seemed to enjoy my perceived failure just a tad too much and all agreed that I should have never have left home, and that what happened to me served me right for thinking I was smarter than everyone else. They all thought I was getting what I deserved for thinking I was too good for the place I grew up in. Sad.

I have seen this same scene play itself out a few times in the ‘hood. Like, when my neighbours’ once-thriving spaza shop fell flat on its back due to mismanagement, almost all the people in my area were rather pleased. They felt that it was due penance for the lavish lifestyle that my neighbours used to live and that it was a good lesson for them and served them right for getting rich.

Or when a business owner in my old neighbourhood tried to hang himself in his lounge but failed. That story became an epic tale that was told and retold and took on a variety of different endings and beginnings and explanations. The whole family was made a laughing stock. Witchcraft — on the part of his wife — was cited as a possible cause, but the main theme of the story was how happy these people were that some misfortune could also befall those whom they perceived to have been born with a silver spoon stuck up where R Kelly would toss a salad.

Our jealousy of one another is probably the one most counter-revolutionary force that will bring about our demise and drive us back to our former almost sub-human status. We need to emancipate ourselves from this emotional slavery and allow for all of us to prosper and fail in the support of loving and supportive communities.

I rest
The Sumo