I SOMETIMES WONDER WHY I have so often been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Something else happened during these Joburg years that later really made me question what was going on in my life.
I was still going through what I thought was my spiritual transformation, and meeting lots of people at the Nigerian Christ Embassy Church. I became aware that there were other activities going on at the church – some people who I had seen at church conferences were also involved in less spiritual business. I really wanted to change, so it was a challenge to accept what was going on, but I just washed it off.
When I found myself still struggling with life, I went with the flow. And backslid again.
A girlfriend of mine, Portia, had got to know some top Nigerians in the church. They flew us both to Cape Town for a big celebration – they had booked out an entire hotel in Tableview. I was happy about this opportunity because it gave me a chance to visit my little son and my mom.
Once we were there, I was surprised to discover how deeply Portia was involved. She kept her BMW at her home in Cape Town, and together we drove to Tableview.
On the way, we stopped at a garage to fill up with petrol.
In the car, as we were putting on our make-up, a white guy waved to us.
‘Jeez, Cape Town has got so friendly!’ I exclaimed to Portia.
Then he came over to us from his little red Golf. He seemed middle-aged, almost bald, with his little patch of grass swept to one side. I could hear that he wasn’t South African but British. We chatted bit.
‘Will you go on a date with me?’ he suddenly asked me.
‘That sounds very personal,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he returned, ‘but you look like a very beautiful South African girl.’
I was all excited at having a British guy trying to pick me up! I looked into his green eyes, and politely told him that we had a function to hurry to. He gave me his card and we exchanged numbers before saying goodbye.
Portia and I then drove to the hotel. I had never seen a bunch of black guys take over a hotel before, but these guys had real money. I learnt that the drug lords were celebrating several years of successful moneymaking by having one huge party. What was funny for me was that I knew some of the small guys who were standing around selling their stuff.
I also knew that I was there to work, though. So I asked Portia who my client was in this gathering.
‘It’s the main guy!’ she replied. ‘He’s into girls with big boobs!’ Portia herself had a bum but small boobs. That’s how I discovered that a tall Nigerian guy called King had booked me for the whole week.
When I met him a bit later, I carefully asked for my R12 000 upfront, which he gave me. For that amount of money, I assumed I was booked to entertain not only King but other men as well.
King gave me my own room, but he wasn’t around much and when he did visit my room he would just sleep. King had apparently booked me to be the pretty lady with the tall clicking heels who he could show off at the events. But I wasn’t sleeping with him.
I got bored. I’d been out to have lots of fun that weekend, so I ended up shagging King’s friend Jay instead, just for fun. Jay even gave me his bank card, which provided a good laugh for Portia and myself, although I wasn’t going to play around with it in case he went crazy.
King found out I had sex with his friend, but he didn’t scold me. He just wasn’t happy about it. He ended up sending me to Jay. And then Jay also disappeared.
Now I didn’t have my own client and I became really bored hanging out in this hotel with nothing to do. I was used to the fast pace of Joburg, and this week in Cape Town was moving so slowly. I was also disappointed because I’d been looking forward to having fun, partying and getting drunk. After all, I had been flown down especially for this week’s events, but now nothing was happening.
So, I called the British guy, whose number I still had with me.
‘Hey, how are you? You alright?’ he answered.
We chatted, and then arranged for him to come to the hotel for a drink.
Sitting at the bar, at first this guy seemed quite interesting. I had always enjoyed meeting intelligent men who talked about interesting things before we moved towards the sex. That is how I had learnt a lot about life – from men who took the time to show me that respect. But then it seemed to me that this guy was obsessed with race.
When he drank his first drink, I got the feeling he was forcing himself to get drunk because he knew he was going to shag a black lady.
During his second drink, I heard, ‘African girls are hot, sexy; but South African girls are … like … crooks.’ His voice became hard.
He got to his third drink and, slurring, made more derogatory remarks about ‘South African girls’. By now, I was picking up his anger and hatred. I wondered if he was a freak, like a serial killer. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He saw that I wasn’t pleased with the conversation and he perked up.
‘Oh, I’m sure you’re very different from the other black girls I’ve met.’
By the time we got to his place, a flat in Century City, he was very drunk. We talked and then had sex, but I felt so uncomfortable. He was mumbling about how he wanted to slap and beat a ‘black bitch’ – everything he said was racist and abusive.
I hadn’t thought of him as a client but as a ‘date’ – and this was no fantasy date. Things were going very wrong.
Why am I doing this? I asked myself, and came to my senses.
I got him off me. I went to the toilet, with my phone. Inside, I called my friend Portia, telling her where I was and to come get me, fast.
Then came my Oscar Pistorius moment.
The guy smashed the toilet door with an axe!
I saw the axe coming through the door, and I screamed.
On the phone, Portia could hear what was going on, and I was screaming and shouting, ‘Portia, come get me. This guy has an axe! I’m naked!’
He continued axing the door.
‘Who the fuck are you calling?’ he yelled at me. ‘Open this door!’ He was swearing, ‘you black bitch’ and the ‘k’ word.
He got the door open just as his flat mate walked into the room: ‘What’s going on?’
Then both of them grabbed me by the hair, and start beating me up and kicking me.
Moments later, Security arrived, having heard me screaming. Portia and a Nigerian guy arrived then too, while I was being punched outside the toilet, stark naked. I didn’t know this Nigerian, but seeing a white guy beating up a black girl made him crazy. He grabbed the man and beat him senseless.
‘We don’t do that in Cape Town!’ he yelled.
Then the police arrived, having been called by Security.
I opened a police case against this British guy, who the police locked up.
To the police I stated that I didn’t know these people who had beat him up, that he’d got beaten for his own reasons. His defence was that he was using the axe because he thought I was calling people to rob him.
I returned to Joburg and the court proceedings didn’t happen for several months. At first he begged me not to open a case against him. When I opened a case anyway, he kept calling me, asking me to drop the case.
I returned to Cape Town for the court proceedings. There, a former victim of his, a white girl now in a wheelchair, testified that he had beaten her up so badly that she was now paralysed. She had made a case against him then, but the police hadn’t been able to catch him until my case was opened. What a freak.
He was indicted, locked up for several years, then deported and banned from entering South Africa again.
Later, my friends asked why I had ever phoned this British guy, a total stranger. And I don’t know why I called him, except that I wanted to be with a man, to have sex, to have fun. And once again I was high on drugs.
This is the disaster of addiction.