Part the First

12yrs to 14yrs > 1984 to 1986

2.3

you take your wisdom I'll take mine, I can impart only this. There are no lessons here. Anything worth knowing is not communicable in words, only in the unfolding of events within time.

I will list them, those who in a Nabakovian sense were my precursors.

Carol Anne 
Elizabeth
Cindy
K.
and mostly Vern (still now I feel those tiny stabs of pain and satisfaction)
Fiona.
Phillipa.

these girls set up a pattern that would follow me through all my loves'. Hunt, Catch, Release. Even in the telling I do not entirely know how.

Carol Anne, Kevin's younger sister was five years younger than me when I was twelve, as she grew, her beauty grew, I quietly watched her, reveled in her sweet company, somewhere in my head I thought when I am twenty six and you are twenty one I shall sweep you off your feet. When I left for film school age 17, she had faded into the distance as had my friendship with Kevin, as his band toured the country, I was still in school, after all the years of carrying drum kits, I was not even mentioned on the album sleeve notes.

But the shock that accompanied news of his death in my late twenties was that Carol-Anne had been in the car with him, that she was gone too, that I would never sweep her off her feet. Then, at 27, my hunting became more urgent.

Elizabeth lived up the road and around the corner, if you took a short cut through Kevin's back garden and then crossed the Dobe's property; you were five houses from hers. She taught me chess, she was never desirable. Our friendship trailed off. As I grew toward the pack of boy thugs, I was desperate to impress, she somehow slipped away. Later I caught a glimpse of her; she had become beautiful, in a totally strange Italian Vogue sense. Whatever happened to her?

Cindy was my best friend early, my next door neighbor, and only ever a buddy, she moved away, still in Westville my home town, but off the walk from school route and I would only visit when I had reason to. One reason was that her parents had an Apple Lisa, that I loved dearly, When my own parents bought me a ZX Spectrum 48K, with full color (the Lisa was only green), I had less reason to visit. For some reason I sense there was a mistake here.

Strange though that when they moved away, the people who moved in brought with them a boy, younger than me, but one who was too become my comfort in Kevin's later withdrawal into Pop Posing. He was younger than me, chubby, I thought I could push him around, that I was superior, but I was young I was foolish.

There was a Gang in my street that played together, the make up of this gang and the idea of a street to play in has followed me through my life, Rockey Street, Long Street, Seventh Avenue, O'Reilly St. The Gang was Kevin, Brandon, Me, William, to some extent Warren and partially P.J. Though they moved in and out of our street in moments. We played in rivers, through the nature reserve; we had wild treks, leaving early morning, coming home while the birds were quieting down, up the hill to Johnny's tea room and when they built it, around the walls of the prison. But the girls, I had secret friendships with the girls, as I did with P.J's sister K.

The room is golden afternoon light, the dapples from the plain trees bask it in innocence. This is not the first time we play out our game, not doctor doctor, but of marriage. The house is empty, Esme, the maid (in the parlance of the day) is in her khaya, in the back. We stand outside the door to my bedroom, with the door open the curtains drawn, the dapples yellow and shadowy against the powder blue curtains. The two single beds also blue. I have taken pillows and placed them under the one on the left, the one that receives the most light underneath. Turning on the bedroom light would spoil the magic, opening the curtains would expose us to any gang members popping over the garden fence to look in, see if they could listen to my records. But there is no music now, as we slowly peel off our school clothes, still patina'd with sweat from the walk from the bus stop home, we are careful to throw them in to my room, for soon we will close the door and a pile of clothes outside would surely arouse suspicion should my mother come home early. And then we are naked. I lift her into my arms and carry her over the threshold, to the bed, as she crawls under the bed; I go to close the door.

In the shadows and glinting light we examine each others bodies with only our eyes, there is a long period where I want desperately to hold her but we merely look, then on some signal from her, we embrace and fall into an ecstasy like daze, somewhere between sleep and floating. Normally we are shocked out of it by the sound of the Valiant returning. On this last day, I am woken by the sound of P.J'S voice. I have left the window open, his hand is inside and he about to climb through, "What are you doing under the bed?" as he heaves himself up, he sees his sister. He drops back runs off. "Did he see me?", "No." but we both know that I am lying.

It is from there that, somehow abstractly I know, my parents decide I must join the church youth group. Not Jesus, I thought, but I didn't get Jesus, My cousins Terry and Trevor also went, Terry played the gospel guitar. Trevor thought the world was going to end in a "The Day After" Kind of way and wanted to get his kicks in. It was there that I met Vern.

I was told years later that the reason K's family moved away was because her parents had split up, but when I met up with her and went roller skating at the Springs rink in JHB in 1991, her father was still around. I have always feared that I was somehow to blame, a terrible thing to be responsible, sending a family to Springs.

She's married now, someone else carried her over the threshold, we tried writing, but I had just discovered The Smiths and was quite enjoying my pain. Vern served only to intensify it.

Back back slipping back, I forget Francesca, I was much younger, young, ten, nine, she was Esme's child, about 2 or three, I was playing near the khaya (later to become my grandparents flat, so much fun fur), I heard her, I went in, I remember being dazed by this small child playing on the floor. (Note: I felt like it was my right just to walk into someone else's living space. I stood over her and remember having this distinct thought, "Little Girl, one day when you are old you will remember this moment, that some kind of prince stood over you, and should have rescued you". I don't know why, maybe it had something to do with the politics my father was teaching me but, there it is, I had that thought.

I used to believe that there was ONE for every one. As I grew I believed that there might be more than one One, perhaps three? Was my opinion by my twenties. After all love can't be true if you can feel it for too many people, right.

Then I started to fall in love with anyone, just in case, also not good.

Now I can be totally in love with anyone. I just have to still my mind and observe them, doing something or nothing, totally still my mind and allow myself to be totally aware of them, how they are, their movements or non and before long I can fall in love with them, for just who they are at that moment. Not in some kind of I wanna fuck way but totally in love with this amazing manifestation of God. But if I do it in a nightclub it usually leads to, I wanna fuck.