Scottsborough

I’m on the South Coast of Natal at a 10 day facilitation training course. Facilitation is the practice of conducting processes with groups, aiding them with their collective communication and, in the process, raising their self-awareness. It’s about luring unconscious motivations to penetrate the meniscus of social interactions’ murky waters and become conscious, such that decision-making can become more informed.

After a week of this stuff I needed a drink. It was Saturday afternoon and a mild ideological tension was in the air: the two curry cup rugby semi-finals clashed with both English Premiership and local soccer matches. In my hotel room I received the ‘bouquet’ of DSTV channels, which include Supersport 1 and 3, with my team, Liverpool, and their game against Sunderland being screened on Supersport 5. So with a fair degree of trepidation I moseyed towards the town of Scottsburgh, knowing full well that if any sport was being watched in a bar it would be the Sharks-Cheetahs game and if football managed to sneak the stage it would either be Man U (puke) or African locals watching the Sundowns-Chiefs game. To get to the town from the Cutty Sark hotel, one can take a shortcut over a river which flows into the sea. I removed my shoes and socks, took my Liverpool wallet out of my pocket, took off my shirt and tracksuit top and got wet up to my belly button. No problem. I got dressed on the other side of the river and walked to the nearest bottle store, bought a six pack of Windhoek draughts, the cans in the black tin and two extras just in case. At the till I bought a little bottle double shot of bells for desert.

I was about to descend towards the river for the reverse crossing, when the words “Daniel Agger comes away with it” drifted slowly towards my thirsty ears. Daniel Agger is a young Danish central defender who is back in the Liverpool starting line up after a long injury. I looked up and saw a half-open metal security gate, a tipsy man slowly emerging from its jaws. I saw a television on a wall, beaming Liverpool’s new black and gold away strip. I saw a sign that said ‘Scottsburgh lifesaving club, members only’. I asked if it was a bar and, if so, where the entrance was located. A short argument ensued, as the drunkard instructed the bartender to admit me to the premises.

I entered the joint and saw that I was the only patron. I knew I had to play my cards right: the bartender wouldn’t stay open long for only me, even with the stern words of the drunken man. I therefore needed to burn some cash. I ordered a Windhoek draught which he had trouble identifying, going for the Amstel quart and the smaller Windhoek lager, slightly perplexed by my choice of drink. I sat at one of the tables. Fucking Liverpool were 1 nil down to Sunderland. To make matters worse the Sunderland goal was a strange beast, deflected in off an errand beach ball that a Liverpool fan had thrown onto the pitch. The rulebook said that the goal counted. Unbelievable. Anyway, we had another 70 minutes to put things right. I felt relieved to have found the game.

The barman settled in on my left and I realised that in addition to filling his coffers I would have to make small talk to keep this going. It was clear to me that he was either mildly intellectually challenged or very drunk. This was discernible from his very nasal tone and slurred speech. Commenting on the football he said that he’d been in London and Southampton, working as a male nurse and that ‘you got into it’. I told him that I’d ‘been into it since the age of 6’. ‘Really!’ he exclaimed, looking me up and down. Mildly discombobulated he said: ‘but you guys have rugby down there in Cape Town’. To him I was like a child who had been brought up in a solid Christian household but had become an atheist. I decided to sit this one out, to remain quiet. He could make of it what he wished. He settled on the conclusion of, “but you’re a bit small I suppose”. I agreed because it seemed like the simplest way to avoid the topic and it wasn’t completely untrue. In retrospect it would have been a good topic on which to settle.

He was still looking at me. I was looking at the screen. “You guys have lank chicks in Cape Town hey?” Hmmm. This ball was a bit more curved. I quietly coaxed myself: ‘don’t offend or he’ll close up shop’ and answered, “well it’s a big city, you know three million people so I suppose there are quite a few woman”.
“Ja ja, but there lank chicks in Cape Town aren’t there?” I decided to take the cop out stereotype instead of engaging in a but of fake male banter: “ja but you know Cape Town girls are quite stuck up and unapproachable”.

I thought he may sense my disinterest by this stage, but being one of those strange animals that I call the ‘Natal buggar’ (a particular strain of buggar that is socialised in small town boys-only private schools like Michaelhouse, Kersney and Hilton to believe that talking vaginas are what other people call ‘women’, that the percentage of one’s body liquid comprised of beer is a genuinely objective indicator of masculine status and that the game with the oval ball is more sacred than the fossilised masturbatory semen of Jesus Christ found on the remains of his adolescent bed), he wanted more: “there lank gay okes in Cape Town hey.” In my head I thought: Hmmm yes well it’s a very liberal open minded kinda place, the sea, the mountain and all that. He continued with his monologue, “When I worked in Brighton me and my mate got fucked up by some gay okes. Drunk as a skunk and couldn’t control ourselves, causing so much kak. No offence hey?”

I looked at him not quite sure what he meant. Did he think because I liked soccer I might be gay? Was he realising that I may have gay friends? Always the dilemma in being soccer mad; sport seems to have this uncanny knack of attracting such Philistines. By this stage I was far more demoralised by this cretin’s effect on my psyche than on Liverpool’s performance. While he continued to stock his bar, simultaneously excavating the reserves of his predictable repertoire- which included that he doesn’t leave Scottburgh much except to go to the local township to buy booze, where it is cheaper but a bit dodgy and that his sister worked for Price Waterhouse in Sydney- I slipped out and descended the stairs. I headed for the river, where this time I wouldn’t bother with removing my clothes. I wanted, more than anything, to get wet.