Bless me blogger for I have sinned, it has been 5 days since my last post...

I enjoy the way age or sage slowly sets in using the warped coat of time to its advantage. Stealth. Louis Armstrong singing Hello Dolly for me.

You're looking swell Dolly, I can tell Dolly.

Before you turn this one over, on second thought listening to Louis does not in any way consititute wisdom. I really do get a kick out listening to the man squeeze his soul out of his trumpet and his spine through his throat, nicely coated in fresh mellow tones of warm meat. Slowly is nice. There does come a point when we begin notice new qualities, things become qualitative. I should not be speaking for the rest of us, I do know people even I considered fucked up as a youngster who had actually read all the classics. I was 22 when a good friend handed me a copy of Jitterbug Perfume which I miraculously read on the spot, more or less. After turning the last page, the blank page and the back cover I put the book down, looked at my friend and proclaimed 'These book things, they're OK'

The Mack, he's back in town

1992 or there abouts...

I was on the best possible start to a very colorful career as nobody and nothing. I was working in Ba Pita in Rockey Street at the hight of its very own Haight Ashbury period. We were all in the thick of it, swept by the tide of pure uncontrolled debauchery. Life was a full contact sport and the party was for the psychos.

This weird guy walks in to the bar, it's the arse-end of the afternoon and for a drug metropolis like Yeoville and Ba Pita he looks out of place. Then again all types were catered for, in a way. Weird guy looks like a text book picture of an Afrikaans civil servant and repressed homosexual. He's gone for the brown, beige and gray outfit, not dressed by his mother anymore, these are tips he picked up from his grampa who was dressed by his grandma. Anyway weird guy sits himself at the dark end of the bar and orders one of everything. I'm easy, really I don't care but I thought I'd pass this one past the manager. Weird guy gets his drinks, all of them, his children - I don't know, like I said, I don't care.

Stars fading, but I'm longing to linger on till dawn dear

It's probably four in the morning, weird guy is now weird drunk guy and has slumped off his chair. He is now a soused, sorry and spent heap on the grimey floor where mad men and drunks have pissed and plummeted to the darkest depths of sick. We drag weird drunk guy outside and leave him, probably about to choke on his own vomit. It's what he wanted, you should have seen it, one of each, a small crowd of all our beers, shots and drinks spread out in front of him. He didn't finish his lot, but he'd done OK - another kudo to the man who if he was stupid enough to do that, must have been party to a host of other spectacular fuckups.

Weird drunk guy mumbles through the drool and we try to understand, a fleeting moment of human caring, fleeting, before we go through his pockets and empty them of money and car keys. He wants to go home but really he can't even bring himself to his knees. We drag him to his car, which he miraculously manages to identify, like a sack of shit we pile him into the back of the car. So there we are driving a Toyota Cresida, white with government plates through Hillbrow at somewhere round four in the morning with its stinking simple servant homo owner in back about to wretch and drown in a noxious medley of alcohol that must be turning his world inside out. Mother must have loved him too much, maybe dad. We find his block of flats and force him to walk the stairs, we're not prepared to carry him as we've already gone the distance. Weird drunk guy on exiting the stairwell on his floor goes crashing through a glass door and is now weird drunk bloodied guy. He has lost his keys and claims they're at work, please can we take him there, please begs weird drunk and bloodied guy.

Where do you work? Went the question.

Joburg morgue. Came the reply.

Andrew says fuck that, he's knackered and wants to go home. I bully weird drunk and bloodied guy back into the car and burn the tyres and gasoline, we go tearing trough the streets of Johannesburg administering as much abuse to the car as possible knowing there are government plates on the car, I charge through red lights and wreak havoc, give drunken sack of blood and shit in the back the rollercoaster ride I bet he really doesn't want. We get to the Joburg morgue and I park the car. I'm nervous and by this stage weird, drunk and bloodied guy can move, even though it's in a wide arch. He fumbles at the door while I stay well behind, keeping my distance in case alarms go off and I need to speed off and abandon the bleeding idiot.

I follow him inside, surprised that he was actually telling the truth about the morgue and working there. He walks past high shelves stacked with parts in formalin, the fetor makes me wretch. He walks into them, using the shelves to steady himself and the clink of jars makes me think how spectacular it would be if he knocked the ancient shelves down, formalin and 40 year old body parts from past forensic examinations splattered all over the floor. I leave him and take a walk around the place locating the coolers. Walking through passage doors the place is dark and cold and to say it exuded unease would be an understatement. I want to look in the fridges, witness the horror for free. It's human nature, we stare at traffic accidents when what we really want is a private close-up inspection of the damage done to what was once a walking, talking and breathing body. What used to be someone, with stories and a history, with a family and friends, now spent and extinguished. Rubbish for the heap. I get spooked and turn back, I want to leave and I tell weird, drunk and bloodied guy, who has now pissed himself that I am leaving with or without him. He mumbles incomprehensibly. I demand to know where the pharmarceutical cocaine is and he swears there isn't any. I take ownership of a bottle of ether, weird, drunk, bloodied and pissed on guy makes a pass at me and I want to batter him, push him into the shelves and cover him with formalin and spare parts. I run out, get into the car and start it up. Weird, drunk, bloodied and pissed on guy finds his way out and passes out on the back seat.

I dumped the car with shit bag in the back, I left him for what could just as well have been dead, maybe I should have left him in the morgue, died on the job, save on the journey and admin, no need for an ambulance.

The rest is an ether induced haze from which I came to in someone's backgarden a few blocks away from home. Christ, was it true, did it happen, it did and it's nothing spectacular really, there were many mad happenings and it's singling them out that's the difficult part.

I said I didn't care, but I did really, well I do now and I hold on to whatever age brings with it, memories, respect and hopefully some wisdom. The ability to appeciate Louis Armstrong and the naivity with which he tells me about Moon River or the dark side in Mack the Knife, Zippidy-Doo-Dah and Hello Dolly. I can look back on the horror and smile, no experience is bad experience. I have my happy place and it peacefully co-exists with my dark side, neither can be denied, both should be embraced.