It was April 1995. I think. Memories merge and sometimes fade, but there are parts of this one that remain strong.
The then Transvaal against Queensland at Ellis Park, a vaguely summer afternoon on an even vaguer Saturday with a group of friends in a vague if vigorous mood, with a vagrancy of care and the freedom of making plans on the fly that being in your mid-20s allows.
It was the Super 10 final, an era before expansion and expulsion, before SA teams lost their heft and their belief. There were four of us that day with no tickets to the match, but knowing there would be space. As the shortest I was sent to queue for tickets. I had four days of beard growth. I was charged with the confidence that half-price Ohlsson’s Lager fills you with.
“Four scholar tickets, please,” I asked.
The ticket man laughed. Scholars got in half price behind the posts for R10. We had all of R100 between us. He gave me the tickets and R10 more change than the R2 coins and R5 notes I dropped crumpled up in front of him should have earned me.
Transvaal lost to Queensland that day. John Eales kicked. A lock kicking. How we marvelled. A few months later that was forgotten in the headiness of the Rugby World Cup and all that. But it was a majestic day in the sun. R10 tickets. Toasting our lives and the new SA that never became truly new but, well, a vague and vigorous interpretation of what it was wished to be.
I was with my friend Garrath Rosslee that day. I know Rodney de Beer was also there because it was his car we arrived in. Rodney always had the fastest car. It was a Twin Cam Corolla. Later he would buy a Golf 16V. Did Doctor Khumalo ever have a 16 valve? I do not know who the fourth wheel was. It may come to me, but it matters not.
Rodney died in 1999. Garrath died a week ago today. The silliness we got up to. The crooked paths we wove. The chaos we sowed. The chances we took. There is still a woman from Late Night Al’s in Bruma who thinks she worked James Small into bed. Rodney was that quick with the tongue. I told James one day and he laughed.
But. This is a farewell.
And, so, goodbye. I don’t know how to say farewell to my best friend.
Cheers, G-man.
We were a pair you and I. The nonsense, the laughs, the fun and the fights. From Brakpan to Makhanda, from Boksburg to Paris, from Joburg to Chennai. We lived a life, we rocked and rolled.
The Thunderdome, Hillbrow, the Vic, Grand Slam...watching the Bulls with Henry and Mark, watching Bev drink her body weight in beer, being afraid of the killer dog in the back garden, three years at Rhodes, 8 Market St with George and Sam and Claudette, that handwritten and very illegal call-up that got me into a cushy year of national “service” in the medics, your incredible ability to eat and eat and eat and not put on weight, your temper as a lock on the rugby field, punching Craig Hale, your own hooker when you were aiming to hit the opposition hooker, your utter lack of co-ords playing football, your generosity in providing the McCallum Suite at your house, then bringing in your entire family to sit on my bed and talk shit at 8am.
To a man who was both a joy and hardship, whom I felt melded to and yet felt apart from, whom I loved and was bewildered by. I grieve your loss. I hope it was silent and gentle. I know you would not have gone quietly: that was not you. Jesus. You would have kicked the angels stupid. Full Brakpan style.
I do not know how and why we were so close you and I. We had little in common. You were a Lothario, full on Brakpan, a walking hard on ready for a scrap. I was the short arse in the shadows.
And. Yet. In Di, your wife and the mother of your children you found the best of the best — and had the best of the best. Your boys. Your girls. You and Di made me feel like I was OK, and I never felt like I belonged anywhere. It took for me to meet Keri-Ann before I felt real, but you, Di and the children made me feel like I was OK.
I’m angry and sad and guilty with you, G-man. You were not what I wanted you to be. But, then, none of us are. None of my memories of you are vague.
Farewell. Peace.
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