One evening, shortly after I met Khaba and Raymond and got intrigued
\nby what was happening on the strip on Ontdekkers Road,
\nmy girlfriend and I were driving home from a movie. My girlfriend is a
\nhealth journalist. She has long dark hair, an impossibly cute face and a
\nsolid idea of social justice. We are driving through Melville\u2019s dark streets
\nwhen, on a residential road a few kilometres from her house, we get
\npulled over. It\u2019s startling and sudden. One minute we are cruising along,
\nchatting about the movie, and the next there\u2019s a flashing blue light, a loud
\nwhoop whoop of a siren, and voice saying, \u2018Get out of the car, sir!\u2019
\nMy body serves me a strong shot of adrenalin. I am driving the same
\ndinky, black Ford Ka I use to visit Raymond. I don\u2019t get out but push the
\nbutton in the car door allowing the window to slide a few inches down.
\nI hand over my licence. Two officers examine the plastic card together.
\nThe first tells me he is going to put me in the van. \u2018You\u2019ll go to a cell.
\nYou\u2019ll go to court. You\u2019ll go to jail,\u2019 he says.
\n\u2018What? Why?\u2019 I ask.
\n\u2018You\u2019re drunk. You\u2019ve been driiiinnnking. I can see in your eyes that
\nyou have been drinking glasses of beer,\u2019 the first cop says.<\/p>\n
They ask me again to get out of the car and I do. The three of us
\nare lit by my own car\u2019s headlights. The way one of the officers stumbles
\nand almost stands on my foot and the other squints at the (long-expired)
\nlicence disc on my windscreen, trying to focus, reveals to me that these
\nmen are crazy drunk. It\u2019s not me who\u2019s been driiiinnnnking glasses of
\nbeer. Let\u2019s get smashed and drive around Melville drunk \u2013 is that how it
\ngoes? And more lightning is dumped into my bloodstream, because the
\nidea, which I admit was hovering at the back of my mind, of offering a
\nbribe starts to drift away as a possibility. These guys are here to fight, not
\nto earn. I edge a few inches to the left to try to get back into my car.<\/p>\n
For clarity\u2019s sake, I hadn\u2019t been drinking, but for irony\u2019s sake, I had
\nbeen watching a rather patchily written film called Four Corners at The
\nBioscope in Maboneng. The film, which was South Africa\u2019s submission
\nto the Oscars for Foreign Language Film in 2014, follows the convoluted
\nadventures of gang members of the 26s and 28s on the Cape Flats. In
\na rather feverish conversation with my girlfriend about what we saw as
\nthe film\u2019s many faults, on the drive home we had just got to the CSI-like
\nactions of the police in the movie when I was pulled over by the two
\ndrunken cops. We were complaining how the cops in the film didn\u2019t feel
\nlike they were in South Africa: they were spectacled, clean-cut, lecturer
\ntypes. They certainly weren\u2019t like the guys we are contending with here.
\nI manage to get back into the car and lock the doors, but the window
\nis still open a crack and the second cop\u2019s fingers keep edging through
\nat the top. I realise he is trying to open the door from the inside. The
\nfirst cop still has my licence between his fingers and he starts to talk
\nabout blood tests in Hillbrow. I definitely do not want to go to Hillbrow.
\nThis is the suburb where Chuba recruits most of his dealers. The first
\ncop beckons me, wanting me out of the car, to come and sit in their car
\nso we can talk \u2018like men\u2019 (they weren\u2019t happy with my girlfriend, who
\nhad been interjecting about our rights). I stay where I am, and jabber,
\nas unthreateningly as I can manage, all the while considering popping
\nthe car into gear and bolting. I tell them they can give me a fine for the
\nexpired licence disc and I will pay it right here, no problem. This is my
\nattempt at offering a bribe but they are having none of it. They tell me
\nthat they are not JMPD and they don\u2019t give fines: they want me in jail.
\nThen, when I have run out of options and with patience seeming to be
\nat a premium on their side, a plot contrivance happens that would have
\nbeen at home in the third act of Four Corners. (A boy is shot in this movie
\nin a fight with his estranged father and is saved because the neighbour is
\ncarefully telegraphed as a doctor, which serves no purpose that I could see
\nbut to complement this plot twist.)<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s my own true-life plot twist. Just as the angriest cop is
\ninsisting that I come to the station, it begins to rain. Drops of water
\nbounce comically off their flak jackets and splash onto my windscreen.
\nThe second cop begins to complain that he is getting wet. I sit tight and
\nwait. And after two minutes of fussing they retreat to their car and I hear
\nthe engine start up. Once they are in the dry they sidle up to me, our cars
\nten centimetres from touching, the rain now beating down hard. They
\nask where I live. I say, \u2018Over the road, a couple of blocks.\u2019 They tell me to
\ndrive; they will follow. And so they follow us as I drive as slowly and as
\ncarefully as I can. I discover that my left leg is shaking and this makes it
\nchallenging to keep the car in gear. And then I realise that by escorting
\nus home they will see where we live. This is the oldest intimidation tactic
\nin the book and I get the message. Don\u2019t try anything with paperwork or
\nphone calls when Joburg gets a blue sky tomorrow morning because we
\nwill remember this street, this house and especially this car.
\nI park in the driveway, retrieve my licence from the cops, mumble
\nplatitudes to them about how they are only doing their job, I understand,
\nthey don\u2019t have to worry. To my huge relief I watch them drive off. Both
\nmy legs are shaking by now. They proceed to do a lap of the block, passing
\nthe house again, letting me know what could happen.<\/p>\n
Safely inside the house my girlfriend and I have a cup of tea. I eat
\na pear. We talk vaguely about where else \u2013 which countries and which
\ncities \u2013 we might move to. And then we go to bed.
\nThere is another version of this story and it\u2019s one that plays across
\nmy mind sometimes before I go to sleep. I have to be thankful that the
\nsecond version didn\u2019t become our story. We made it home and our state
\nprotectors didn\u2019t act fully on their whims.<\/p>\n
The police have become a set of values and a population that we are
\nforced to live with. We are required to move around them as quietly as
\npossible. We are expected to believe that for them to abuse their powers
\nis perfectly within their mandate. That evening left me with a hard, black
\nstone in my body, a toxic gall-bladder that pumps inertia into my blood.
\nEver since then there is a helplessness that creeps around inside me and
\nwhispers that we are trapped and have no way to fight our way out.<\/p>\n