Lost at Sea

I woke up hung over and nauseous, before the early birds, and tasted the after effects of the cheap red wine on my breath from the night before. The acidity rose from my stomach and burned in my chest, but I gritted my teeth and rejoiced in my anguish. It was horrible but I was too lazy and frightened to get up and out of bed to take an antacid and brush my teeth. There was something wrong with me. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was my head or maybe it was a combination of both. I no longer attempted to justify my actions. I just did whatever the hell I felt like with little regard of anybody else’s feelings that might get hurt in my attempts to satisfy myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to make myself feel better but I had discovered that alcohol made life a bit more bearable and, at times, even entertaining, if only for a little while. I was afraid to open my eyes so I felt along the bed beside me. My hand discovered a body and the warmth that emanated from it enveloped me. Oh Sara, my sweet, darling angel, you are the only person I ever loved, besides myself. I am sorry for all the heartache and trouble I dragged you through and caused. I attempted to piece the night together but I had no recollection of what had happened.

The wind whistled through the trees and for a moment I thought that it was making this beautiful music just for me, but then the weight of what I had done began to choke me and I realized that I was not even deserving of death. Forever I must live with the torment of my sins. Time moves too slowly. Days drag on. I needed a season to sleep and clean out all the scattered mess in my head. I had not eaten since Friday and it was now Monday. When I was drinking I seldom thought of food. All I cared about was having enough to drink and there was never enough to erase who I had become. I was underweight and malnourished. I was a weakling, physically and emotionally. Lack of nutrition on top of my three-day hangover made me feel edgy and nervous. I eventually climbed out of bed and made myself cup of coffee which was awful and did little to put me at ease. I thought about having a cigarette but my stomach was feeling weak and I soon gave up the idea. I brushed my teeth and had a gagging fit. I tried real hard not to vomit and I managed successfully to keep it down. I peed in the basin to do my part to save water, went back to bed, and napped for an hour or so. It was the best nap I had ever had, drifting soft and slow, in and out of consciousness. I felt strangely content. I never wanted to leave the warmth and security I felt lying in that bed with her, but I knew, that like everything else in life, it just could not last.

I sat up and on the edge of the bed and pulled my shoes onto my feet. I had passed out in all my clothes so I did not have to bother getting dressed. I looked around the room and looked at all of Sara’s possessions that I considered my own. Neatly placed in her bookshelf and alphabetised were all the books that we had salvaged from the second-hand bookshops. All of our favourites: Fante, Bukowski, Hamnsun. All the books I had found pieces of myself and my life in. Sara had a similar taste to me but there were some books that she loved that I had no place for in my life. This worried me but I forgave her for it. I stared down at the palms of my hands. I did not have any profound thoughts. I barely thought at all. Everything was natural as if I have done it a thousand times before and I no longer had to give anything any thought at all. I looked over at Sara and she was still asleep. Red wine was stained on her smiling lips. I thought that she reminded me of a cat, lying wrapped up in the blankets. She was beautiful and confused me. What was she doing with a wreck like me? I drank too much and lied too often. I hated myself for the drinking and the lying and being with her. The world bewildered me and drinking was the only thing that I could think to do. I never knew what was going on. I do not understand what she managed to see in me but I hope that she found something, somewhere amongst all my bullshit. I did not deserve her and I would tell her every time we were together in the hopes of getting her to believe me and leave me.

I grabbed my backpack and quietly snuck out of her apartment. As I made my way down the stairs I began to feel guilty about leaving and trying to escape the inevitable confrontation that would arise from my childish behaviour. I stepped out of the entrance, and everything seemed new to me, like it was the first time I was seeing anything, and for once the world looked like it could be a beautiful place. I shivered. Not because it was cold, but because something had died inside of me. My heart had become cold which caused me to shake uncontrollably. There was an emptiness that I carried around in my chest. Sweating, hot and cold. Nervous and reckless abandon. I wanted to live again and stop feeling like a ghost walking among the sadness and meaninglessness that I had found in the world. Just something to swallow to make everything feel right again as it had once been. I went and sat in the sun at the bus stop and lit a cigarette. I still wasn’t feeling any better. Then, at that moment I just didn’t care. I wanted to be honest and tell the truth but who could I talk to and who could I trust? What would I say? I couldn’t find any answers so I gave up thinking and forgot about it.

The stench of exhaust fumes nauseated me and further increased my uneasiness. The never-ending flow of taxis, like screaming logs down a thick black river, with their incessant hooting burrowed into the deepest parts of my brain and picked away at the final threads of my sanity. I watched a plastic bag, discarded by an inconsiderate passenger, swept up by a gust of wind and carried upward towards the heavens. When I died, supposing there is a heaven and I somehow get there, would the streets of gold’s gutters be lined with rubbish? The building directly opposite me is coated in a substantial layer of oily grime and I shuddered at the thought of the years of filth trapped in the walls. The dustbin on my left was surrounded with bits of paper, sweet wrappers, cigarette butts and plastic. Nonsensically the dustbin was empty. I had a packet of dried fruit in my bag, and decided that it would be best if I tried to eat something. It was too sweet and made me feel nauseous all over again. I threw the packet into the nearby dustbin and continued to wait for the bus in the sun

I sat on the right-hand side of the bus, stared out of the window and allowed my mind to wander aimlessly. I had been staring out the window for thirty minutes, watching nothing in particular go by. The bus had just entered the edge of town, and as it entered I began to focus on the people milling about the on the pavements. I felt nothing for them. No love, no hate, no empathy, no anything. I saw a familiar bus stop on the corner. I remembered waiting for hours with the one I loved for a bus to somewhere, anywhere. I remembered the days we would spend our time catching buses around the city, for lack of something better to do, and sitting alone on the top deck and kissing, feeling like teenagers, hormones amok. I am fond of these memories. I remembered the last time I kissed her. And even now as I try write about it, tears well up in the corners of my eyes. I remembered more than I wanted to. The city holds too many memories, and even though they are mostly good, now, as I am somewhere in-between where the only purpose they serve is to remind me that I am incapable of a full life without her, all I want to do is forget until they day we are reunited, whenever that may be. The bus ride was mostly uneventful for the rest of the ride to town.

Waiting at the central bus station in town, Gandhi Square, at the No.13 bus stop for the 12 o’clock bus, I grew increasingly paranoid and thought that everybody wanted to mug me. I looked down at my watch. It was now 12:17. Perhaps my watch was broken. A man, in his 40s, paced up and down in front of the bus shelter where I was standing with his greying, greasy mullet, cursing under his breath. He must have been waiting for longer than I had. He wore a dark green fleece sweatshirt and navy-blue tracksuit pants. He looked like a veteran of the South African public transport system. At all the other bus stops there were groups of teenagers standing around in their various school uniforms trying to look cool. I tried to stand there unnoticed. An unsavoury looking coloured guy hurriedly walked by and as he walked he scanned all the surrounding soon-to-be passengers belongings. I supposed he was looking for some unsuspecting person to rob. I watched him as he passed me. He turned to me and said, “Don’t look so stressed, my bru.” I watched him continue through the square surveying his field of vision and tried to force my face into a look of neutrality. Apparently, nobody wanted anything from me.

An ancient black man seated himself beside me. He appeared to be attempting to keep a dignity about himself in his life of poverty and hardship. The knees in his suit pants were faded paper thin and the hem stitching had come undone. I wanted to take off my pants and give them to him. His face looked like a brown bag that had been crumpled up into a ball and straightened out again. It would never regain the smoothness it once had in its youth. The life flame in his pale blue eyes had almost burnt out. His face carried sadness unknown to me. It was in every line and every wrinkle. He looked at me and smiled. His face somehow wrinkled up even more. He bared a few rotting teeth resembling yellow, polka-dotted stalagmites and stalactites. I did not find him repulsive at all. Quite contrary, beauty poured out of his every pore and embraced me.

The bus finally arrived and as it pulled up to the stop, hordes of people appeared out of nowhere and began pushing their way in. It was a single-decker. I stood back and watched everybody squeezing, not giving an inch, trying to get on and get a seat. I hated standing on the bus but I couldn’t bring myself to join them in their stupidity and inconsideration for everyone else. I resigned to the fact that I was not going to get a seat and took a step back to allow everyone else to get on. As I was about to take my first step on I saw someone rushing for the bus out of the corner of my eye. I looked and it was a young white girl wearing an old, probably 2ndhand, hound's-tooth check coat. I let her step in front of me and I followed her onto the bus, paid my fare and saw that she had gotten the last available seat. I walked down the aisle past her, and stood a few metres behind her so I could avoid any awkward accidental eye contact that may occur. She took a tattered, yellowing book out of her purse, opened somewhere in the middle, and began reading. I didn’t manage to catch the title. I wondered if she were hiding in the book from the noise of all the school kids. Everyone was excited as the following day, Thursday, was a public holiday and all the schools were closed until Monday. I didn’t care. I was lost and lonely in this country so school or no school, work or no work, it made little difference to me. It would still be a day I had to struggle through, regardless. I noticed her coat again and laughed to myself. It reminded me of Sara. She loved hound's-tooth and dressing all in black or grey or white or a combination of both and ice-cream for breakfast and dancing to 80’s pop music and sleeping and receiving affection and horses and cats and pandas and me.

The bus came and it slowly made its way out of town, towards my suburb. It was torturous. All the filth and decay of the dying city reminded me of what I felt like inside. I just wanted to get out. I tried reading Ask the Dust, which I had read twice before and enjoyed, which I called my favourite book, which I had taken from Sara’s bookshelf, to try to take my mind off the journey and my squalid surroundings, but I could not concentrate on the words that were laid out in front of me. I gave up and stared hopelessly out the window. We drove through a protest march of some sort. It looked like it was compromised only of black men dressed in red t-shirts. I assumed that they were part of the communist workers party or something equally useless. They were running down the road in a herd like stampeding buffalo or something, carrying sticks and singing their battle cries. It seemed pretty pointless to me. For a bit I got really worried that they might storm the bus and I would have to escape and I would be the only white face in a sea of angry black men. But they left us alone and we drove on through town. Eventually my stop came and I got off the bus.

Walking up the road to my room was painful and never ending, even though I only had four blocks to go. I felt like I was on a giant treadmill, walking in one place, not getting anywhere. I lived in an outside room on a large property in a decent suburb. It was small but comfortable and the rent was cheap (which really didn’t matter because my parents paid for it, not me). An old man and his wife lived in the main house. I think I (my parents) got it for so cheap because when I first enquired about it I was bright-eyed and eager to make something out of my life. They could see the excitement in my face. I was like the son they had never had. But now I no longer knew what I wanted and all the hopes and dreams I once held so close to my heart had dissipated. I avoided them as much as was possible. I felt terrible about it but what could I do?

Finally, I got home, but I struggled and fought with my key in the front-door lock until it broke. Great. I weighed up my options and the best one I could come up with was breaking my bed room window. I walked around the side of my room and broke the window with my hand. I cut myself trying to clear the frame but it didn’t hurt. My alcohol-thinned blood just poured out though. I climbed in, dripping blood all over the carpet. Besides the blood my room was relatively clean and it made me feel a little better. I went to the bathroom, wrapped my hand in toilet paper and stared at myself in the mirror. I was horrible to look at. I felt like a miserable little wretch. The life in my eyes had faded and my skin looked grey and I was only 20. Was I too a ghost, trapped in this dead space that the earth had become? I was hoping for the ground to open up, swallow me, burying me and hiding me from the guilt and self-pity I wasted my time feeling. It didn’t so I made myself a peanut-butter sandwich. Swallowing was almost impossible and I had to choke it down, bite-by-bite. I read through the Sunday paper that my landlords slid under my door when they were done with it and didn’t come across anything interesting at all. Felt really tired but I did not sleep as I was scared that if I did I wouldn’t be able to later and would spend the night rolling around, shivering and sweating. I never wanted to be alone again but I didn’t have any options open right now so I sat around wishing for the warm touch of another human being. I decided to go play with the old man and his wife’s two dogs. They loved me and were better than any human that I had ever known. Firstly, they didn’t talk and ramble on about mindless drivel for hours on end and they were always excited to see me, like I meant something to them, regardless of who I was. They could sense my sadness and did their best to comfort me. It half worked. People needed to be more like dogs. The world would be a better place. I went and lay on the grass with them in the sun and closed my eyes.

I woke up and the sun was setting and there was a chill in the air. I wrapped my arms around myself and went back to my room. I pulled a jersey over my head and grabbed my bank card. I was working as a photographer’s assistant and it paid well but the work was too sporadic for me to call it a career and make a decent living. What was the point of having money if you didn’t spend it? I went to the ATM and drew the last R100 out of my account. When I grew desperate I would call my parents and lie about money that I needed for a new pair of shoes or pants or toaster or anything I could think of. They usually sent it. I walked to the bottle store up the road and bought a bottle of vodka and some orange juice. I figured that I hadn’t been eating well lately and the orange juice would miraculously cure me. I am not sure if it worked or if it was the vodka. I drank some plain orange juice and mixed half the vodka in. It was strong, but good and it seemed to be a cure, no matter how temporary. I was feeling on top of the world and was brimming with confidence. I decided that my wonderful mood shouldn’t be wasted so I walked to the pay phone, occasionally taking a sip of my elixir, feeling better and better with each step and sip. I put some coins in the phone and I dialed Sara’s number.

“Hello?” she answered in that peculiar way that she always did like she didn’t know who I was.

“Hi dear! What are you up to this evening? It’s a public holiday tomorrow. I wanna come over and talk to you or something.”

“No, I don’t think so George. You were quite an asshole last night and I think you should just…”

“Wait, love! What are you talking about?”

“You completely lost it and I have never been spoken to like that before and no person should be spoken to like that, ever, not even a dog.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, come on, I just been having a tough time lately and I’m sorry I took it out on you. Let me just come round and we’ll sort it out. I promise.”

She sighed labouriously.

“OK, but you’d better control that temper of yours. Another outburst like last night and we are done. It’s not going to work if you carry on like a child.”

“Sorry dear. It won’t happen again. Cross my heart and hope to die. I’ll see you soon, a couple of hours.”

“OK, see you soon”

Sara hung up the phone before I could ask her to get a couple bottles of wine. We’d just have to walk to the corner café and pick some up. I walked slowly and smoked a cigarette. I could not recall what words were said. I made a promise to myself that I would not lose my temper with her tonight at all costs. I thought about her wide-eyed excitement when she spoke about silly things she had seen in magazines, on TV or read in the newspaper. I loved her for it even though it annoyed me.

I don’t know what it was, but I think I was trying to balance something out in my head but it didn’t seem to be working. It still isn’t. I can’t really explain it. I constantly felt confused and I just didn’t get anything. Books, people, TV, life, love, work. The only thing that I seemed to understand was that if I drank alcohol in vast amounts my head slowed down and I could fall asleep easily, most times. It didn’t always help and I would be drunk as hell, sitting around at 4 in the morning, tired and brain-dead, unable to fall asleep, feeling sick and crazy and depressed, wanting to slit my throat. I couldn’t handle the hangovers. I was inclined to drink for three or four days in a row and spend the next couple of days recovering. The days of recovery were filled with depression and grey areas. Occasionally I would be lucky and my recovery days were insanely optimistic and I would smile manically at whomever I could and try to talk to them. Mostly poorer black guys. The car guards, the taxi drivers, the beggars, the drunks, the newspapermen, the security guards. Anyone who I knew was down on their luck, as if it would somehow make me feel better about myself.

I rang her bell and she buzzed me in without checking who it was over the intercom. This bothered me. I don’t know how she could trust the world so much, with all the murder and rape and violence going around. I didn’t get mad though. Just took another sip and walked up the stairs to her flat. She kept her flat immaculately clean. Except when I came over. I would stay three or four days drinking on her couch and chain smoking one cigarette after another, filling the dustbin with bottles and the ashtray with cigarette butts. Sara didn’t drink much and I still don’t get why she put up with me. We would just sit on the couch while I drank, expressionless, staring at nothing at all. Sometimes we would talk and our conversations were good. The words flowed effortlessly between us and she was the only person that I could talk to without the constant fear of saying something stupid. She didn’t make me feel awkward and embarrassed about who I was. I made myself feel it. Funny and smart and sad. She made me laugh and I hope I did her. When I greeted her at the door something looked strange in her eyes. Or maybe I was imagining things. I leant forward to kiss her and while we kissed I couldn’t help but feel that it was the saddest kiss I had ever been given. Tears began welling up in my eyes and one ran down my face onto our lips. She pulled away and stared blankly at me.

“What’s the matter?” she quietly asked.

“Nothing, I’m just so sorry that I’ve hurt you. It's not my fault. I’ve never been loved properly and I just don’t know anything. About life, about love.” I sobbed.

“Its fine don’t let it bother you too much, I forgive you. Come sit on the couch and let’s just be together.”

She was up to something. I was convinced of it. I sat sipping on the vodka until it was gone and smoking cigarettes in silence. I could think of nothing to say. Sara cuddled up to me and I was filled with a comforting joy. Her touch felt pure.

“What happened to your hand?” she asked gently.

I looked at her, smiled and shrugged my shoulders. Sara stared back at me with neutrality in her eyes.

“Would you like a glass of wine? Last night you hid a couple bottles in the washing basket.”

I nodded and she got up to get one. She opened it and poured out two glasses. Sometimes I was a genius, not often, but I had my moments. I was proud of myself and I smiled at no one in particular. We clinked our glasses and I downed mine in two gulps, and filled up my glass again. As I drank my second glass of wine I began to grow thoroughly irritated and began to worry that I would lose control and say words that I would wake up regretting. I decided that the only thing that I could do was drink as fast as I could and get blind drunk so I would just pass out without letting any hurtful words escape my mouth. It seemed like the only thing I could do to save myself. I proceeded to down glass after glass until there was nothing left. I remember stumbling to the toilet, holding myself up against the walls, and vomiting all over the floor, instead of in the toilet and crawling to bed, passing out next to it, instead of inside. Where Sara was when this was all going on I do not know.

I woke up feeling smothered in guilt and dizzy as hell. I knew that something had to change but I was not sure what. Most probably me. I lay beside Sara breathing her scent in and figuring out what I had to do. Her scent was subtle yet it always managed to make me feel at peace. I came to the conclusion that I had to find somewhere to sort myself out. That was my plan. Get out of this city. It was killing me. Start eating properly, try slowdown the drinking and find someone to hold me for a couple of weeks and cure me somehow. I knew that Sara couldn’t fix me. I had destroyed something in her and she also needed somebody or something else.

I stole R400 from Sara’s secret hiding place in the kitchen, behind the geyser. She was saving up for Lord only knows what. I quietly let myself out and went and sat the bus stop. I did not know why I tried to come across as uncaring with my false drunken bravado. I was still a scared little boy. I cared and I did not want to trample over people with no regard for their feelings but I did anyway. I did not want to hurt and be hurt. I wanted somewhere and someone who would try to understand me and help me get through the absurdity that had become my life. Somewhere soft, warm, and quiet. I was drowning in myself. I caught the bus to town and walked to Johannesburg Park Station a couple of blocks away. I bought a one-way, 2nd class train ticket to Cape Town. 27 hours. It would give me enough time to come up with an idea of what I was doing. With the change I bought a litre bottle of cheap gin and a box of Camel Filter cigarettes. The journey was long enough for me to slowly sip the gin straight so I didn’t buy any mix- and it would help me sleep on the train.

The beauty of the inexpensive trains in South Africa was that you could pretty much do as you pleased. I boarded at about 11 am. The train ride started out reasonably well. I had managed to get myself my own compartment and I started the journey out sipping my drink and smoking uninterrupted, watching the veld and the world fly by. I was having difficulty formulating a plan but I still had 24 hours, ¾ of a bottle and 17 cigarettes left.

As the night began to roll in it brought with it a hollow cold. Being unprepared I only had the jersey on I had slept in the night before. I pulled my knees up to my chest and pulled my jersey over them. My hands were freezing but I had to keep on drinking and smoking to try and take my mind off the cold.

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night. I had passed out. The severity of the cold had sobered me up and I felt it buried deep within my bones. I stood up and began jumping around to try and get my blood flowing again. It was not working. I looked around the cabin for the bottle of gin. The bottle lay on its side and there was only a little sip left that had not poured out. I picked the bottle up and drank. It tasted quite good being so cold. I felt my breast pocket for my cigarettes and found them. I only had two left. I took one out and returned the pack to my pocket. I struck a match and it broke. I got on my hands and knees and searched the floor for the match head. Eventually I found it and struck it again. I had to light my cigarette quickly to avoid burning my fingers. I sucked hard on the filter and managed to get it burning, I also managed to burn the tips of my fingers. The burn stung but my fingers were thrilled with the heat. I sat down and smoked, shivering while I looked out of the window into the night. We tore through the deserted countryside which was palely illuminated by the full moon. The stars were burning brighter than I had ever seen. And there were triple the amount of stars that I was used to in the city. I finished my cigarette and decided to walk up and down the carriages. Perhaps someone would let me drink or eat with them. Or even better provide me with a jersey or blanket or anything to keep warm.

As I made my way down the carriages a draft of wind blew against me. I felt naked. All the compartment doors were shut and I imagined all my fellow passengers wrapped up tight in blankets and sleeping a deep, dreamless sleep. In that moment I hated them for it.

I got to the engine room and when I entered I was covered in the warmth that rose from that mechanical beast. I wanted to sit down and sleep but something drove me out of there and I began to make my way down to the back end of the train. If I remembered correctly, in one of the last compartments their was a group of coloured men who sold beer, half jacks of hard liquor, cigarettes and a bunch of other odds and ends unavailable on the train. I had a crumpled R20 note in my pocket and a couple of coins. I would be able to at least get a beer and a couple of loose cigarettes.

The closer I got to the back of the train I began to hear voices and the voices began to grow louder the more I walked on. I was filled with relief. I reached the last carriage of the train and the 2nd or 3rd compartment door was open. There were three men sitting around the fold-down table cradling a beer each. On the table there was a half-empty bottle of brandy. In the corner of their compartment there was a barrel filled with ice water and beers.

“Hey, how are you guys doing? It’s fucking cold tonight. How much for a beer?”

They looked at me with disinterest. The one closest to me had shitty prison tattoos on his hands. I saw a badly-drawn heart with a dagger through it on the top of his right hand. It looked like my heart felt.

“R10” he answered.

I dug all the money out of my pockets. I handed him the R20 note, asked for two and counted the change. R4.50.

“And can I have four loose”

I handed him the coins and he counted them out.

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid? You’re 30 cents short” he shouted angrily at me.

“Oh shit, sorry man. I’ll just take three then. Sorry.”

He looked at me like with pure hatred.

“WAT? Se ek’s kak?”

My Afrikaans was terrible but I managed to understand it as he had misunderstood me and he thought that I had called him shit.

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean …”

Before I could finish my sentence and explanation he stood up and punched me in the mouth. I fell backwards, out of the doorway and hit the carriage wall behind me. This prevented me from falling down and I think he thought I was challenging him. He came at me and I ran at him and tackled him to the ground. I think I must have winded him because he lay there stunned. I sat on his chest and began beating his face with my fists. I had never really fought before in my life and my knuckles were soft and weak. Every blow hurt as it tore the flesh from my knuckles and the blood flowed. All I could concentrate on was smashing his face in and I didn’t see his friends coming to me. They each grabbed me under an armpit, lifted me from his chest and threw me to the ground. One of them had a wooden club in his hand and he struck me in the temple. I collapsed but managed to stay conscious.

They kicked and punched and swore at me. I didn’t feel anything and all I cared about was staying conscious. After a while the beating stopped and I lay there and my muscles were scared and paralyzed. My face was throbbing and I couldn’t tell where all the pieces were. It felt like one bloody, swollen mess. I felt one of them grab my ankles and the other my wrists. They lifted me up and began to carry my limp body down the carriage. I couldn’t make out the words they were saying and it sounded like one continuous hum.

Cold air from an open door blew against me and froze the blood on my face. I felt them swinging me back and forth through the air. I felt like a child playing games with my parents again. I smiled a smile of complete pleasure. I felt innocent and carefree. They let go and I floated through the air, weightless. I tumbled and rolled and bounced off the air currents, like a bottle lost at sea.