Last Friday get this. We get into the taxi, catching it at Main Road, and an argument over change is in full swing. Let me explain quickly how the money thing works, and you'll find the rest easier to follow.
When you get into a car, you pass your fare to the person next to you. If the taxis is at the rank, you do this after the driver has started the car (just in case something happens and you need to find another car...). Once every row has collected their fares these are paid forward to the driver, or the person next to the driver who hands change backwards and the rest, the sum, to the driver.
Last Friday get this. There's a huge row. Not sure what's going on but I hear "R20 for 3" this and "R20 for 2" that. The driver is turning back to conduct his bit so often that he's hardly facing forward anymore. I think nothing of it - both his riding position and the row - and pass my R50 for 2 forward. I don't pass it sideways to the person next to me because not only is this my girl, but it is fairly obvious that the majority of people have paid, given the argument.
While waiting for my change I try follow what's up. The guys in the back are snickering about this driver. The implication seems to be he has no clue what he's on about. A lady behind me says, and not too kindly... "this guy just wants to drive his car, he doesn't want to know about no money..." which would amount to a serious problem. As a taxi driver you need have some small understanding in this direction. How to make change for one, if not how to make money.
I look around for interesting bumpa stickas. I see one, behind the driver's head. It says: THE DRIVER DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE LOSS OR THEFT WHATSOEVER. I begin to think... oh-ho....
Everyone is still arguing. I slot in my two cents. R50 for 2, I shout, adding to the increasing din of R20 for 2's and R20 for 3's. Fuck. This does not look good. Er, R50 for 2. At R7.50 a pop that means I am expecting R35.00 change from this phat ass zulu looking dude, and he's not showing any signs as yet of having heard me. He's got a handful of notes in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, the passenger beside him who should have by rights sorted this out long ago looks about as fucking clueless as he is. Great. FUCK. R50 for 2, I shout. I am silenced by the din of people wanting their bucks, and I don't mean the soccer team neither.
My girl gets out in Braamfontein, she says, you gonna be alright? you gonna get your change? Jeez, of course, who ever heard of not getting their change back from a driver, right, with or without the ol' doesn't accept responsibility for wharawharawhara...?
The taxi is getting lighter. I don't mean more white guys are getting in, I mean more and more people are getting out as it nears Bree Rank. As we enter into the rank I am lone guy sitting and I don't have my change. The taxi draws to a halt and I say, hey, baba, R50 for 2, where's my R35 change? He looks at me and points as to behind me and he says, you saw those guys, they robbed me. They robbed me! I'm like, fuck. He gets out. Here I am. The taxi is now standing last in a long queue of waiting cars and I am R35 lighter. And I don't mean I am whiter, there are for real spots of colour building high on my cheeks I'm sure, I mean I have just been lifted by this phat ass zulu looking dude either because a) he's a real shrewd piece of work or b) he's just a dumb fuck. I sit there. He has left his keys in the car. I sit some more. The keys.
Understand this. If I had taken this guys keys and bailed I would never have been able to come back to the rank. I would had to have taken the bus to work. The bus. Think about it for a minute, OK? The fucking bus. So of course I don't take his keys. I just sit there. Like this car right now I am going nowhere, brother.
He comes back. Leans in the window. I explain the story to him again he says to me, so who do you think robbed you? This, no doubt, is a loaded question. A knife point. Your friendly village assagai passed between friends like musical battle hymns on the eve of the revolution. So I say, it doesn't matter who robbed me, what matters is that this is your taxi... your responsibility. You need to ensure that things stay sorted, no matter who did what to you, at the end of the line, I need my change, to catch another cab, to get to work. He looks at me....
Let's take a step back here. Let's analyse this situation as part of the broader picture, OK? This ain't no pot or kettle name-calling session. A spade is a spade is a spade. The simple fact now remains, bullshit aside, that there ain't no fucking way I'm getting this cash. The guy has a clear way out. He is a black guy and I am a white guy. I am sitting in his taxi surrounded by hundreds of other taxis and their drivers and thousands of other black guys. I'm not getting this money. I can make an issue but that will be a poor judgement call on my part. So I do what any other self respecting white guy would do in this situation. I back the fuck up. I get out the car, but not without a parting shot, I say guy, I say dude, I say motherfucker, no I don't say that I say, mate, I'm the wrong white guy to mess with. And I mean it. I look back. CRB 482 GP. You'll never ride again. And if you do. God fucking help you, man. And I don't mean with the problems of counting out change neither.
I walk out to the ABSA ATM, eyes in the back of head, and withdraw another R50.00 then head back into the rank. Feeling like a loose white cannon I could shoot this entire shit-holed scenario straight to hell. It's stinking litterstrewn ganjapiss smelling beauty. I could rock the whole fucking thing down the block and off the edge. I don't. I find the car to Eastgate and wait to get taken to work. I'm gonna be late. Great. FUCK.
That was in the morning. The afternoon, well the evening, I had something else to do. I had been asked to attend the Jozi Spoken Word Fest as a speaker, a poet. I do that kind of shit often. I write stuff. And once I've written stuff, I sprout it. I'm some kind of spoken word artist. Or so they tell me. That's when I'm not a Tshirt Terrorist, which, let me tell you, amounts to pretty much the same thing. Sort of.
I catch a cab home from Eastgate, then catch another one into town. I jump off at my girl's work and we make our way to Wits. The fest is being held at the Wits Amphitheatre and I'm on at 9. It starts at 7 but before that we grab a bite to eat and embark on a Terrorist Branding campaign which does nothing if not lift the spirits slightly. (Pictures to follow.)
Anyway, to cut a long story off at the tail... I get up on stage... I do my thang... I'm up for about 4 minutes, having left my ego at home, and afterwards Rasta Zweli comes up to me (they're all Rastas, these poet guys I know, who have organised this thing and whose monthly event I support)... afterwards Rasta Zweli comes up to me, while the last performer is on, and the lights are still down, and he thrusts a clipboard into my hand and I'm thinking *groan* another sponsorship... I support these guys to the tune of R300 each month for their gig and they flaunt my logo on their posters and whatnot, so I write R300 down and he says to me, this Rasta, he says, no you must write R500, like everyone else, and trues bob all these other performers have written R500 down so I do the same. He then puts R500 in my paw and moves on. I think, wait a minute, whatthefuck?! This guy has just paid me R500 for 4 minutes on stage. That's comparatively the most I have ever earned.
This morning some black guy swindles me out of R35 and the very same evening another black guy gives me R500. I must be living in the africa of the south.
WHITE TAXI, by White Man Jumping
is brought to you by
TSHIRT TERRORIST
http://www.tshirtterrorist.co.za/
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