Bongani has a sign saying "Ugly with no money"
i give him two rand
"that's a good sign. it's true."
"no. i'm not ugly. i just wrote that to make money."
he stands on the corner of empire and melville every day.
"why don't you get a job?"
"i've got a job. i earn R200 a day here."
i'm flabbergasted, that's more than i earn writing these stupid stories.
ugly with no money
indeed
i woke up with samuel and ezra on either side of me
yeah samuel and ezra were both at my sides
we decided to turn left into twist street
cos bree street was not going anywhere
o lord, bree street was not going anywhere
six shots were fired
six shots that resonated
across the drill hall tower
just at that moment i was ordering whiskies for my brothers samuel and ezra
i turned to the barman and asked him to make them doubles
the three of us went into the night
we went into the midst of the crowd
one of the bodies was still breathing
the other one was only bleeding
the policeman told me not to write a poem
i said there was no law against writing poems
and he snapped at me "well i don't care sonny, this is my scene"
then he wrapped the freshly dead body in duct tape
and he wrapped the still breathing body too
samuel ezra and me drove up twist street past the hillbrow tower
turned left into empire
and found our way to a bar that was playing only nine inch nails
nine inch nails the whole night long
we drank so many whiskies
even samuel began to sway
ezra got all maudlin
asked if we remembered that first night that we met
it was a night suffused in pale moonlight
the three of us had come down from silver surfing
we'd all landed on the corner of bree and sauer
where we were waiting for the man
to deliver that old familiar sting
no no no
babe but you see none of us was prepared for your reaction
how you struggled how you wept
it turned out that those seven gunshots
were all incorrectly numbered
the body lying bleeding
should have been the body still breathing
samuel had shot ezra
ezra had turned his gun on me
you drove off in the getaway vehicle
with neither loot nor cadres
you put four to the floor and hot footed it up twist street
past the hillbrow tower
and then on to zeppelins
where got yourself all distracted
again
Kaganof was born again in 2001. He used to drive a Toyota Corolla but that got stolen. He shoots Glock. He has three books available from Pine Slopes Publications. Learn about his film, SMS Sugar Man, or check out Kaganof.com..