in 2010. I didn’t ask which sport.
I’d only had a couple of drinks before my stomach started roiling, and the joint made me introspective and so back at the table I was just having glass after glass of water and I was feeling quite good about myself. Charlotte had bleary eyes and a bit of a vague, sexy stare fixed in them—she was cocktail drunk, but she was handling it okay. Not like Dewald, who’d ploughed through like twelve beers and about as many shots—he was hanging on by a thread. They disappeared together a few times to go bump something, just going behind the gambling machines at the back of the place. They told me it was cat and it must’ve been strong, they’d come back to the table and they’d be twitching and quiet, then loud and erratic when they started to talk.
I wasn’t even tempted. It hardly ever happens, but I was feeling fine just the way I was. I was staring at Dewald mostly, and I was stuck into thinking about that Festival when it all went wrong.
I remember I was trying to run into some drugs at the time, but the problem was my friend for this kind of stuff, Phil, he’d already fucked off to Cape Town, and I didn’t know who else to speak to. How I solved it, finally, was I found some schoolkids smoking dope in a side street near the Village Green, and I threatened to call their headmaster if they didn’t tell me where they’d bought it. They told me a crazy story about this guy who wore a bright-blue pirate’s jacket around on the Green, calling himself Captain TJ, and his partner, this hot redhead who used to be a contortionist or something, but she did fire poi now. They told me that when they’d bought from them, they’d been in a big, lumo tent down at the campsite on the Albany fields.
It sounded like bullshit, but then I saw her in African Street, the redhead the kids were talking about, it couldn’t’ve been anyone else but her
And I followed her all the way to the Albany fields, too shy to catch up and say anything.
We walked through the family area—mostly Afrikaners, with jacked tents and skottelbraais—and then when we were getting near the edge of the site I heard this deep throbbing electronic music playing out of a bakkie, and I knew that’s where she was headed. I saw the lumo tent the kids’d told me about.
I hung back and I watched her soak her poi in little buckets of paraffin and then light them and start dancing over by the bakkie—this strange style, elegant but sort of grungy and primitive at the same time. At some point she saw me, so then I had to say something because otherwise it’d be weird
But I’d hardly started talking to her before, from the tent, I heard this thin voice shouting, “Fuck, shut up!”
And then TJ stuck his head out the flap and said, “Shut
up
, man. Jissus.”
I was a bit stunned that he could even hear me over the music, but I asked him, “Listen, TJ, could you maybe help me out with something?”
And he shook his head at me and rubbed his hands over his face. “So I must just forget sleep? Hey? Fok. Come in the tent here.”
I ducked inside and it was terrible in there—the air was thick and it smelled like sweat and hangover. “Thanks so much, man,” I said. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
“You have to
go to sleep
before you can
wake up
, bru. Jissus.” He rubbed his face again. His eyes were like tiny slits and his jaw just kept moving and moving. “So what do you want?”
“I don’t know, something fun, up stuff. Coke, maybe?”
He shook his head and said, “No, pal”—but then I could see him remember something, this quiver went through his face, and he sat up straight and said, “Shit.” He started digging around in his sleeping bag and he pulled out a pair of jeans. He put his hands in all the pockets, saying, “Come on, come on, come on,” and then he smiled and said, “Daarsy.” He dropped the jeans and he was holding a tiny plastic bag and a scrap of paper. He found a bank card in
I’d only had a couple of drinks before my stomach started roiling, and the joint made me introspective and so back at the table I was just having glass after glass of water and I was feeling quite good about myself. Charlotte had bleary eyes and a bit of a vague, sexy stare fixed in them—she was cocktail drunk, but she was handling it okay. Not like Dewald, who’d ploughed through like twelve beers and about as many shots—he was hanging on by a thread. They disappeared together a few times to go bump something, just going behind the gambling machines at the back of the place. They told me it was cat and it must’ve been strong, they’d come back to the table and they’d be twitching and quiet, then loud and erratic when they started to talk.
I wasn’t even tempted. It hardly ever happens, but I was feeling fine just the way I was. I was staring at Dewald mostly, and I was stuck into thinking about that Festival when it all went wrong.
I remember I was trying to run into some drugs at the time, but the problem was my friend for this kind of stuff, Phil, he’d already fucked off to Cape Town, and I didn’t know who else to speak to. How I solved it, finally, was I found some schoolkids smoking dope in a side street near the Village Green, and I threatened to call their headmaster if they didn’t tell me where they’d bought it. They told me a crazy story about this guy who wore a bright-blue pirate’s jacket around on the Green, calling himself Captain TJ, and his partner, this hot redhead who used to be a contortionist or something, but she did fire poi now. They told me that when they’d bought from them, they’d been in a big, lumo tent down at the campsite on the Albany fields.
It sounded like bullshit, but then I saw her in African Street, the redhead the kids were talking about, it couldn’t’ve been anyone else but her
And I followed her all the way to the Albany fields, too shy to catch up and say anything.
We walked through the family area—mostly Afrikaners, with jacked tents and skottelbraais—and then when we were getting near the edge of the site I heard this deep throbbing electronic music playing out of a bakkie, and I knew that’s where she was headed. I saw the lumo tent the kids’d told me about.
I hung back and I watched her soak her poi in little buckets of paraffin and then light them and start dancing over by the bakkie—this strange style, elegant but sort of grungy and primitive at the same time. At some point she saw me, so then I had to say something because otherwise it’d be weird
But I’d hardly started talking to her before, from the tent, I heard this thin voice shouting, “Fuck, shut up!”
And then TJ stuck his head out the flap and said, “Shut
up
, man. Jissus.”
I was a bit stunned that he could even hear me over the music, but I asked him, “Listen, TJ, could you maybe help me out with something?”
And he shook his head at me and rubbed his hands over his face. “So I must just forget sleep? Hey? Fok. Come in the tent here.”
I ducked inside and it was terrible in there—the air was thick and it smelled like sweat and hangover. “Thanks so much, man,” I said. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
“You have to
go to sleep
before you can
wake up
, bru. Jissus.” He rubbed his face again. His eyes were like tiny slits and his jaw just kept moving and moving. “So what do you want?”
“I don’t know, something fun, up stuff. Coke, maybe?”
He shook his head and said, “No, pal”—but then I could see him remember something, this quiver went through his face, and he sat up straight and said, “Shit.” He started digging around in his sleeping bag and he pulled out a pair of jeans. He put his hands in all the pockets, saying, “Come on, come on, come on,” and then he smiled and said, “Daarsy.” He dropped the jeans and he was holding a tiny plastic bag and a scrap of paper. He found a bank card in
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