When the lemonade…

Friday morning I’m rushing to get a few things done, sent and signed before the weekend and before an 11 o’clock meeting at the BAT centre. I even manage to drop off a bag of clothes at Checkers for flood victims and get to the BAT centre 10 minutes before the meeting.

Since the moment the meeting was scheduled I’ve wished it wasn’t. I just don’t feel inspired enough at this point to start a major new project with people I’ve never worked with before and who’ll probably be even less inspired than me.

I’m about to get out of my car, perhaps look at the art in the centre, when my phone rings. It’s the guy I’m supposed to be meeting.
He’s being overly charming and over-playing the gruffness of his voice,
“Bonjour mademoiselle”.
“Hi, who’s that?” I ask knowingly
“It’s Mr Gumede”
“What’s up?” I ask knowingly, again
“Unfortunately I didn’t sleep last night… I have a cough… my voice is going… I’m on lozenges all day…”
“Well, I’m already at the BAT centre, are you telling me you won’t be meeting me?”
Sorry blah blah fish paste here’s a lemon, in your eye.

I decide to go look at some art anyway and see what’s happening at this sad little art centre at the bottom of the harbour where artists work, displaying their colourful efforts for the throngs of invisible tourists. One such artist smiles and, speaking over the music (in his head, from earphones plugged into his cellphone) asks me to look at some of his work.
His name is Sizwe Cele and I like the woodcarvings he’s done. The comedy/drama masks appeal to me mildly and, because of the whole situation, I engage in a price discussion, find one that suits us both, and buy the piece.

That’s the turning lemons into lemonade part of my story.

When I leave the centre, I remember that at low tide, which it currently is, there are millions of tiny crabs on the sand by the harbour. Driving along the barrier, I look for a place to stop.

At a parking lot I’ve had no reason to notice before, I pass a sleeping guard and park my car. In order to get onto the sand I have to navigate past Muslim school children, over small rocks and empty bottles of booze, packets of chips and the odd condom (not really, though there probably were some in amongst all the crap exposed by low tide).

The holes in the sand are like a mirror of the night sky. The inhabitants of these minute holes are crabs. I lift my gaze from the sand under my feet to the wetter sand stretching before me and I see them; millions of tiny crabs forming clusters which spread as far as I can see. The crabs are brilliantly camouflaged and I have to rest my eyes on one place until their scuttling movement reveals them. I imagine them coming out of the holes I’m standing on and crawling over my feet. I step back but only to cover more gurgling holes. In my imagination the crabs are running wild. They scurry up my legs, under my dress over my face into my mouth tickling my throat and suffocating me, then they carry me along the sand and under the harbour sludge. Quickly I step onto a rock. Then another and back to my car. Enough crabs for today.

Enough disgusting rubbish on this beautiful piece of Earth. Enough of the harsh reminders that the city doesn’t look after its public spaces.

Back in my car I head to the exit. The sleeping guard, who is no longer sleeping, does a Jacob Zuma-esque saunter from his booth into the path.

Unaware was I of the fight was about to ensue, and this is when the lemonade turned to piss… (Excuse the crude language, it feels justified)

He accused me of sneaking past him without paying and I asked why the boom was open and he didn’t alert me to the fact that I couldn’t enter without paying. He said he doesn’t just sit there for free and didn’t I see him there and didn’t I see the sign which says R10 per car. I said I’m not trying to cheat anyone and asked to see the sign. Reluctantly, probably thinking I’d to a runner, which maybe I should have, he walked to where the so-called sign was. It was there, but so small and mostly obscured by the useless broken boom. But R10 is too much, it’s too much! I was in there for no more than 5 minutes! If I had known I wouldn’t have parked there. But for him it’s personal and I represent the rich white bitch that he despises and he lets me have it. I want to shout back but I can feel a lump in my throat and tears welling up in my eyes. As I remove the money from my purse, wanting to remove myself from the situation as quickly as I can, all I can say is “shame”. Shame for him that he holds so much resentment, that he gets so worked up over something that needn’t have occurred at all, shame that he has made a nice person feel really, really shit. “You shame” he spits as he snatches the note from my hand. And that was that.

I was left feeling so discombobulated that I had to write this, just to put my morning in order, to remind myself that other stuff happened.
Somehow that helps.
Maybe I need to eat something... If I smoked I would.