01tab a rookie on the lurch

7/28/2019 01TAB a Rookie on the Lurch

1/6

I hadn't turned sixteen when I met the Dutchman forwhom I was supposed to work. instead of allowing me to work,he raise in me a deep disappointment, as he said to me; "Youare too young, I can't allow you to work."

my brothers and sisters started a new school year, and I stayed for a long six monthsattending the roadside stall, selling fresh farm produce. The day came that the Dutchman in aconstruction pickup drove me out to site. Afterward he was a mere ghosting figure, exceptFridays, when he handed me a brown paper pay envelops that detailed the hours I worked.In the routine comfort, I was shaken up two years later, laying as many bricks in a day thanthe artisans from whom I learned, without realizing I stood on the horizon, the far distantthree years destined to complete my apprenticeship that came to me.

Father drove me to Pretoria that evening, and so familiar with the Arcadia district fromwhere the capital's evening light sprawled. Pulled up at the looming double story villa, thestreet corner hedge breaking its low brick wall at the driveway. Mr. Haas opened the door. themen greeted each other knowingly. This, since he was father's customer for the delivery offresh farm eggs and poultry, and where my career was decided. Mr. Haas lead the way toheavy padded curtains and lounging seats. In an extraordinary pasha sense, I sunk in a thewide padded and rolling armrests chair. Mr. Haas offered me a cigar, while questioning myreasons to skip work. my puffs of smoke left me to grow dizzy, while his smoky figure ghostedin the background of a corner desk recessed into a furnished wall and burning midnight oil.over the shadow of his shoulders, I pilfered with a sense of short-fall on the know-how attaking off quantities and pricing blueprints wining building contracts. in vain I held good, while

taken-in by cold and hot spasms, heard in his timber of voice sorrow bearing a thought, 'oneneed a diploma,' and said; "you'll never become a master builder."

'Wh ' I th ht i ddi i d t di th i i

drivingdriving

forceforce

at makingat making

projectsprojectsThe Illustration is a reconstruc

inset of the battered pickup; first coand mixing of concrete by hand; in

the bricklaying.


2/6

sweat of extraordinary effort that my forehead absorbed as a terra cotta bricks seeping upwater during the sun's course across the sky, that didn't dissolve the one day a week benefitat attending the Pretoria technical college.

a few of us in the group broke class, and at lost by the social influence, I headed offfor the rotating film cinema leaving behind the city hearth throb. There, father ended hisrounds in the apple green Oldsmobile, picking up the girls and my brother at a round up of

schools. I had been apart of that earlier period, pulling up at the fresh fruits and vegetablesmarket, to buy and load the trunk with supplements for the farm stall.Across the market place, a single showroom window in a brick building that walled

the sky and left me ecstatic. The inspiring time accelerating sports machine of a dreamcome true. A reality that molded into my daily activity of body bend downs and raising athousand trowels of mortar and the fetch of bricks to chain embeddings.

By evening, after a struggled to jump onto my racing machine and ride off from thescattered construction sites across time. There was a constant riding with the city's thinningtraffic, to a viaduct across the rolling hill crumbling my imagination to rubble. I refuting themind flashes of riding by car with the family, listened to the music of sticky rubber tiresacross the tarmac glistening exposure to a sweltering day.

By sight down and short over the handlebars, in the tracks of road machines thatsprayed a gluing tar and, with the spread of crusher stones, which traffic over the yearssunk into the tarmac. The stones a hard surface to an endless struggle while riding withgrowing familiarity the apparent glistening of moisten pebbles. a seemingly tread for everypassage of dripping sweat in an efforts at reaching every crests. There once again at thetop, the cleaving strip in a show of progress, and a brief reward to a view that left me feel onthe lurch in the midst of an billowing ocean, and evening's golden Highveld waves.

On the last leg home straggling farm houses closed in small agricultural holdings. Icame over the hill and with a dashing slide effect, pedaling in to a soaring Y-intersection, infrom the north and by the roadside pointer towards Pretoria. the bend brought me around,leaving behind across the green island. at opposite points of triangle the southward pointer

of the road toward Johannesburg. I swept by sight the one property set into the corner, andoff the Kyalami regional pivot point, clearing the bend on the eastward straight, known asthe "Bryanston Road." there, a hundred yards up, the stall lurked in the wide savanna roadshoulder and by the blue-wire fence. I approached the highlighting wide sandy apron,beaten by traffic, splitting our ghosting attendance by the stall, while seeming as far homethan the journey up, at reaching the looming orange tiled house behind sprightly firs to endmy ride by the sweeping alleyway.

My mind ceased by an exhausted body, which in vain left me swearing at the lunacyand trend of my life. Angered by the initiating chores at washing dishes for my workingsisters that moneyed in my piggy bank. I stepped into the house meeting by sight thefamily's casual and cool squints away from their evening meal. soon I went off to bed,Morpheus couldn't gets my amnesiac gripes to be broken the next instance daybreakshaking me from my deep sleep to jumped back on my bike and ride off to work.

Six months into my second anniversary that earned me a driving license. working ona construction site in the city center, and growing anxious with the approach of thecompulsory builder's vacation. In mind churned the thought that I had launched myself onan adventure of no return. Then, on the last day to the festive season, in the distanceghosted the figure of my employer. Then he approached from amidst the site underconstruction. As he stretched an arm handing over my pay packet, bearing the selfassurance that men are equal. I broke up the Dutchman's great words, in order to jump,before the tomato face escaped me, and said; "Mr. Haas, I have a private contract for the

holiday. may I borrow pipe scaffolding from you?"Mr. Haas gave it as much of a thought than, while I didn't consider the degree ofphysical hardship at pouring concrete slabs, or the laying of bricks. My employer conceded
http://www.scribd.com/Kahztiy


3/6

erecting trusses, the tilers, and doing an illegitimate round of trades apprenticeship.At the starting line far behind me, of an apprenticeship I wasn't meant to see the

end. Nothing stood in my way to progress, when uncle Xueb offered me his 1960 Bedfordpanel van for fifty Rands. Filled with pride, I drove away from his Halfway House agriculturalholding, to follow the dirt road lined up with home at Kyalami. The next few days, I grewfrustrated after uncle Xueb tuned up the engine and let me drive off once again. until, the

van stalled again. In this instance, I stepped away from stalled van in the traffic lane,crossed the traffic lights hitch-hiking my way home.At lost for finding means of transport. From the entrance hall phone, I dialed from

our shared party line the exchange. Got hold of my uncle Xueb, and told him where to findhis van and hung up.

The Duploy family domineered the region for generations, and spoke to the nextgeneration, my brother-in-law, Johnny to whom friends were all of the people. I only said; "Ineed a pickup," that the young man had sized up my needs. In a few word, leaving meskeptic, he said; "Go to Khali, he can get you what you want."

I jumped on my bike and rode off through the firs to emerge from the sweepingalleyway and crossed the cattle gate. Gave the thoroughfare a quick glance. Seeing the

Bryanston road deserted, my legs gave the pedals a few strong cranks heading for thegreens of the traffic island. I eased right to feel in my legs the soft rise and engaging thestraight in the direction to Johannesburg. Gradually the brow of a hill approached, andcame up to the crest rollover to overlook the steep landscape fall toward the valley streamacross my path. the blacktop crossed the elevated bridge, severed from the trough the longwave length of savanna vanishing into the distant blurry horizon.

where the land lies cuneiform to an out of sight far distant splitting of thoroughfares.The point of the Mia district opened their possessions. a land that the apartheid lawscouldn't lie its paw on, being a gift dating back to the Paul Kruger Presidential era, The longarm of the law prevented developments. I left the main road, and followed dusty tracks to anative store in the forefront that regrouped the derelict warehouse buildings. I stepped into

the dark store, and asked the woman who appeared from the rear; "Where can I findKhali?" I will grow to know the family set up, his mother and cousins of The Mia. I emergedinto bright daylight and turned left prolonging the store, and onto a sickly hedge. There,catching by sight toys' sad regard, squared and pent up in two rows. the orphans car thataccumulated a veil of dust by the wait for adoption. Around the rear cleared of the hedge,the paved concrete short of the way to side entrance door that I approached. I knocked. ayoung man opened the door, by his hand held behind his back, made suspicious the wholeof the interior, on which the door glued to his back closed. away from pilfering eyes, he saidafter I mentioned Johnny, and as brief with words in an Indian tong twist, "try out aChevrolet pickup."

I returned to the king of second hand vehicles, knocking at the door to no avail, afterI sadly returned the Chevrolet and asked for a more practical vehicle. I was about toabandon, meeting his mother, his sister, his wife instead. when to my surprise the secreteman opened the door. Khali showed me an old overworked horse on its last breath. I wasn'timpressed about the blue rusted and battered Volkswagen pickup, contrary, equipped with arack for scaffold planks and overbearing pipes the vehicle gathered another meaning. Idrove off that day, listening to the long grass brushing the undercarriage, waiting to bedriving along the blacktop where his promise revealed as harmonious than the four pistonspurring through the revs, which later loaded, the reconditioned engine prompt me to think,weren't it that the engine is in the rear and the drive wheels a bloc to the can style chassis,at propelling its load and the driver's cabin through the air, the vehicle wouldn't make it.

On the run up to my three-week builder vacation, I found myself in the thick foreignundergrowth to no return, the Wild Boar in me awakes to a jungle roaming the beasts ofcognition that are after the delicatessen of its meat. anxious moments were of the past as


4/6

merchants. For reinforcing I negotiated the supply of a two story high water tank stand. Isought a calculator with the mathematical functions to estimate the brick. Came to grips inthe offices of the Olifantsfontein brickworks, of their services taking off the quantities for adouble garage, and servant quarters that wrapped up the outbuilding in my contract, and notwithout difficulties obtained the delivery of their clinker bricks. At Gomes I was offered adelivery within a few days of placing the order, for river, pit sands and crusher stones. the

building merchant seven days in advance for bags of cement, the roofing timber and broadribbed long span roofing metal sheets.By mid-December's hot weeks, on the Monday into the builder vacation, I drove off

from home and headed in the direction of Johannesburg. Moved through city gridssouthward. I pulled up on the street corner off Polly Street Passa Office, to be ravaged byspider limbs climb over the side panel of the loading bed. When the agitation fell, and themen were seated, I stepped out of the cabin to faced wide white eyeballs, pleading; 'I cando the work,' and I said to the men in a contractual tone; "Have you work on constructionsites before I'm paying six Rands a day?" A few youngsters jumped of as fast they hadclimbed up. When assured each gaze knew what they let themselves in for, I slipped behindthe drivers wheel and we pulled off.

I drove tracking back the city streets, emerging from the northern suburbs. comingout of a bend to the outskirts with unsuspiciously doubled up lanes, a sing warned driverabout crisscrossing natives for th enext two miles and no sooner launched the thoroughfarestraight through the Kew traffic light. in pairs the lanes torn apart by a waxing median bridgepylon. In either direction, the shadow of a night curtain drop fell from the gleaming grayconcrete span. across, and bumper-to-bumper, PUTCO buses trundled their vivid greenreflecting morning sun shining body, in a to-and-fro loop left of the wayside terminal of theAlexandra township.

Out of the shadows leaving behind groups of contract labors or, similarly day labors,which at sight were the seed growing, for me to ask around all confused, as theimpression of a misconceived highway. The lanes narrowed down short of the pointer that

turned away from the curving way Old Pretoria Road with a name other than Kyalami. Asigns that the Peri-urban area remained unclaimed by either politics of the big cities. Yet thepoint of the Mia land, which I prolonged along a prior Voortrekkers tracks rutted in the veldbreaking up to the stream. Roughly the wide side of the triangle that reaches out to theHalfway House bridge on the Old Pretoria Road.

Across the little stream's elevated bridge, the little engine struggles, shifting downgears and merely rolling over the crest. relieved by a world view, the stretch that draggedthe engine by gravity short lived. After slipping left by the traffic island and the waysidefamiliar farm stall. within the distance of a hill crest and clearing in the shallow valley a leftbend. no sooner in the straight towards Bryanston, did I turned off right and onto a widedusty road. Heading inland we bypassed a few virgin plots before turning right and off sidearrived on site.

The black men in loose waving clothes dug the foundations over several days, tillready for a Peri-Urban trench inspection. That day the laborers were hand mixing concrete.after a while of pouring by wheelbarrow concrete int eh trenches. by deduction we wererunning out on cement. I instruct the crew to change the batching, in view to finish andallowing the concrete to set for the next day. a while later the savings seemed insufficient,and reduced the cement in a batch once again. The following day the laborers mixed mortar,a load of cement was delivered. The laborers brought bricks, by which I proceeded in raisingfoundation walls. These foundation walls at ground level, we poured the surface bed, and inthe same operation buried the last of the interior foundations deep under ground. As the

superstructure walls gained scope, it wasn't enough befriending the English settlers. myconscious haunting me, and wasn't to let up for many years to come. I learned to calculateand convinced myself that the hardness of the ground sufficed with the right bonding mortar


5/6

While erecting the roof beams and purlins, I had in view my contract, and in neededof time at laying the sheet metal covering. My conscious niggled of returning in time theborrowed equipment. by the second week after the pour of the water stand concrete, Istripped the formwork and loading the pickup. unbeknown to me then, that a truck load ofborrowed equipment was my last in a routine of trips to the Boers city.

I grew indifferent toward my employer, haunted by the thought of retuning to fulfill a

three and outstanding years of apprenticeship. I became unconceivable when father put thepressure on me. unconscious of the mistake the Dutchman underwent in hiring me out tothe Boer with deep religious convictions and revenge at heart. A man adamant that he becalled; 'Oom Jan.' though, cultural this meant, 'uncle,' and with whom I didn't share suchproximity.

He was Mr. Haas' faithful chargehand, and though he entrusted me in the early daysof my apprenticeship at an entire task, which consisted of setting out a wall from a blueprint,and the rigmarole of erecting corner profiles, marking the gauges, spanning the fish-linebehind which I laid a run up of bricks. A wall rose behind the line and the courses of brickssuperseded its inception 'Oom Jan,' which self image he came to hurt himself against,that fatherly recognition, which by my dexterity had left him feel without due respect.

In the aftermath of that day, the man's scent will grip me by a livid wrath, bringing tolife that moment when against a background of a mammoth yellow face brick gable wallwith a punched out dark niche from which rolled in and out earthmoving plant in theearthworks of the new market. The chargehand in a fluttering overall of brisk stridesapproached along the elevated terrace growling in his gait. When I glanced over my wallagain, to assure myself of his mood. I saw an elongated shadow rising from the blendingearthworks, pedestal for a tapering out giant in a pairs of khaki pipes overall and long flanksleeve. brief in silence, but his demon spurred him on, and lifted the elephant sole of aconstruction boot. with a slow pressure in the middle and the top corner of the last course,he pushed slow and meanful.

I watched in silent awe the rubbery wall that had reach my shoulder heights,

resisting to a buckling and wobbling motion, until the wall fell to rubble at my feet. I lifted myeyes and stared at the man in disbelieve, watching his enchanting dance, turning slow andaway, exulting joy with a rising sarcastic smirk, leaving his words echoing for ever in mymind; 'Now you can start all over again.'

unable to face the bullying chargehand again, I conceded to father at joining him tomeet my employer the evening after a succession of refusals. But my mind was set, andonly maturity in the years to come was to throw light at understand the character of my WildBoar that in the calender of the Chinese year, and is said; 'Don't wrong a boar, you mightlearn to regret it for the rest of your life.'


6/6

... a /... In other words; Passport

01tab a rookie on the lurch

Documents