The Windy City
Well, Port Elizabeth is certainly more accommodating than it
was in 2010. For one, we’re not here in
the dead of winter, merely autumn. Thus
it is that I can type in the A.M. without being uncontrollably wracked with
shivering fits, swaddled in blankets, and crouched near a 60-watt desklamp bulb
for warmth.
We’re also being housed and fed by my uncle Joey Gin, a man
with either the sagacity or the foolhardiness to have married my grandmother’s
niece. We’ll soon find out how his
domestic Wi-Fi works, so that my uncle Melvin can use his magic Apple iPod to
initiate videoconferences with the family back in Ontario. We all get our own bedrooms, and aunt Florrie
cooks food on an industrial scale, so a greater amount of exercise is going to
be necessary if we are to avoid bloating into distended caricatures of
ourselves. My weight loss program begins
today… with a trip to the barber. I
reckon that I’m lugging around a bonus kilo of wiry and unruly follicular
growth that would be better used with some resin to reinforce a canoe.
The big family dinner last night upon arrival at the airport
involved about a dozen people that I recognizes, and a couple dozen others that
I don’t. Since no-one else seems willing
or able to do it, it looks as though I’ll have to draw the diagram of the
inordinately complex and convoluted family tree that interconnects these
disparate individuals. Through
conversations over the past couple of weeks, I’ve discovered the sources of
much tension, conflict, anguish, suffering, and angst. One of the big ones, and perhaps the nexus of
most of the genealogical madness, is my great-uncle Hugh, who died just over a
year ago. The last time I met him, he
was a charming, battle-scarred, ex-swashbuckling pirate with tales of high
adventure, inordinate risks, and heroic derring-do.
At some point, I’ll have to distill Hugh’s story into a
country and western song, since, as Harry Chapin would have noted, there are
important themes of motherhood and trucks woven through it. First, I’ll just jot down the details as I’ve
assembled them thus far, and we’ll fret about a C7-Gmin
lyrical structure later.
The Ballad of Uncle Hugh
At first glance, uncle Hugh looked a mess. A large portion of the left side of his face
was missing, and the outlines were scarred and jagged. He was missing a thumb and two fingers,
shuffled about with a painful and pronounced limp, and hoarsely rasped out
breath after breath. Strangely enough,
his eyes still twinkled, and his mouth continually twisted into a mischievous
grin.
He had been collecting accounts from business clients back
in the day. There were several things
wrong with this entire activity. First,
walking around with a brown paper bag and collecting accounts receivables in
cash is just poor accounting practice. Second,
to do so on a regular basis whilst open to observation and scrutiny from all
and sundry seems a bit unwise. Finally,
to wander around alone and on foot on a regular route through neighbourhoods of
questionable safety and security seems downright suicidal.
And so it was.
Faced with five assailants, one armed with a shotgun, one
with an AK-47, and one with a pistol, Hugh responded to demands to hand over
the cash with a combination of braggadocio and machismo. No one knows what his exact words were, but
they were something to the effect of “Go fuck yourselves.”
Luckily, the brigands were a little on the incompetent
side. Not really expecting any
resistance, and thrown off guard by Hugh’s cavalier sneer, the one with the
shotgun swung the barrel up and let go with both barrels. Since he wasn’t holding it properly, the gun
bucked and twisted in his hands. One
barrel of shot flew harmlessly over Hugh’s left shoulder. The other cloud of pellets struck him between
that shoulder and his clavicle.
The pistol went off ineffectively and missed with the first
shot. The second shot caught Hugh in the
left calf muscle. Meanwhile, the AK-47 belched
out a stream of 7.62mm bullets that blasted through Hugh’s outstretched hand (which
was quite possibly flashing the middle finger at the time), and into his
cranium, blowing through his left cheek, shattering bones and blinding him in one eye. He wore his eyepatch for a reason other than pirate caché.
Hugh survived by leaping off to one side and rolling under a
truck. Somehow (and this bit I don’t
get) the thieves made off with some R12,000 out of the R50,000 that Hugh was
carrying before police and other authorities came swarming onto the scene. Whether Hugh fought for each bill
individually from his prone position, or the paper bag burst in some strange
manner, we don’t know. And likely never will,
since Hugh’s demise.
In any event, Hugh was (according to most stories) forced
into an arranged marriage in his youth with a girl named Daisy. Hugh was never happy with the marriage and
was often away from his family as a travelling salesman. He and Daisy had a difficult and strained
relationship, and yet they managed to have five children together. Or as together as they wanted to be. Unsubstantiated tales are told of Daisy’s
possible post-partum depression, and a total deterioration of her union with
Hugh.
In his travels, Hugh found companionship apart from his
wife, and managed to start a second family.
The fruits of that liaison were two boys, who have apparently gone on to
become successful professionals.
Meanwhile, Daisy pushed for and eventually received a divorce. As soon as the marriage was dissolved, Daisy
remarried and bore another daughter.
Meanwhile, Hugh had built a fuel supply company, based on
petrol and paraffin distribution throughout South Africa. When he brought his son Neville into the
business in the 2000s, profits soared and growth was never better. Roughly seven different factors were
responsible for the downfall of this enterprise, but as always, Hugh seemed to
emerge from all of the shananigans with something to show for them, even if
everyone else involved was impoverished and diminished.
When Hugh died recently, his children and grandchildren
gathered to pay their respects and thought long and hard about what the man had
meant to them. Then came the reading of
the will, and none of the previously mentioned children or descendants were
named as beneficiaries. Of any sort.
The old pirate had found a selfish way of using his assets
in such a way that he alone of his family would reap the benefits. But that is a story for another day.
In other parts of the news…
Meanwhile, I’ve just gotten a haircut from down the street
from the sleepy suburb of Port Elizabeth in which I’m staying. And with apologies to any gay or queer
readers, it really doesn’t matter how much a gay man pretties himself up,
prances about, or does things with a mincing feminine affectation… as soon as
he starts speaking Afrikaans, the fairy tale is over. You just can’t have a Y chromosome and speak
floral, delicate Afrikaans. It doesn’t
work. It’s a rough, snarling, guttural
language best spoken when gutting warthogs or torturing prisoners. Thank heavens my hairstylist was
multilingual, or I would have been fearful for my well-being.
I’ve got to run and do other things before Bayern München
emulate their countrymen and boot another storied Spanish team from the
Champions’ League, setting up an all-Deutsch final for the first time.
So until then, it’s cheers from me.
Good night England and the colonies,
—mARKUS
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