Book Excerpt: Ways of Staying by Kevin Bloom
“We prefer former military,” says the man, Selezi, who is on private-security detail in Glenhazel, Johannesburg – a largely Jewish suburb that funds a private army to keep itself safe.
Kevin Bloom is visiting; he wants to know more about Selezi’s situation. Within a few moments he has adopted the guard’s point of view and surveys his surroundings like an outsider – a true outsider, not merely a white person from another suburb.
Funding a private army is, of course, one “way of staying” in South Africa – one solution for a community seeking to hold its place, one experience that South Africans of a certain group share. We first saw Glenhazel’s militarized GAP unit in Jonny Steinberg’s Thin Blue – but only its schemata, its technical outline. Here, in this excerpt from Bloom’s book, Ways of Staying, is a live-action close-up:
* * * * * * * *
There are four of them. I park the Alfa on Long Avenue, forty metres off the intersection with Ridge Road. From this distance I can tell that the information I’ve been given is wrong: they are armed with shotguns, not semi-automatics. The barrel of each weapon is as thick as a hosepipe; there is a pump-action handle, a ribbed plastic grip, where the multiple cartridge magazine should be.
The air, as I step out, throbs and burns. Insects drone in walled gardens; it smells of pine needles and begonia. The heat comes close to defusing my anxiety. Still, one last time, I remind myself why it will be fine.
This is Glenhazel. Those four armed black men are paid to protect people like me – they will hear my accent, assume I belong, gladly answer my questions.
They are gathered in the shade of an acacia tree, dressed in identical black fatigues. Black Kevlar vests shield their torsos and black sunglasses cover their eyes.
It is midday on shabbos and nobody else is on the street; they swivel on their big black boots to watch me.
I smile. From five paces away, I extend my hand to the least intimidating – the shortest, the one with the paunch – and introduce myself.
‘Pietersen,’ he says.
I deliver my next sentence like the opening line of a joke. ‘How come you men get to carry those guns when the guys from the normal security companies are lucky to get batons?’
Pietersen is deadpan. ‘We got a competency licence from Sandton.’
Maybe the informal approach isn’t going to work. Maybe they don’t get my accent. I hesitate – I had planned on waiting until we were further along – and then I tell them I am a journalist.
Their shoulders flare, their backs tighten – suddenly they are on parade. In minutes I know they all have special military training. One mentions 44 Parabats, one Section 20. They all fought in the Angolan civil war, as part of an elite underground unit that I’m asked not to name. Two of the men – the darker skinned, with the Portuguese accents – are in fact from Angola.
‘Selezi,’ the bigger Angolan says, shaking my hand. He’s a giant, a head taller than me, with a neck like a buffalo. ‘Military people,’ he adds, ‘they always give surnames.’
I ask Selezi about the three letters that appear in large white print on his vest, the ‘G’ and ‘A’ and ‘P’ that declare the purpose and status of his mission. He looks down. His buffalo neck folds into his chin and he underlines the letters with a fat index finger. ‘Short for Glenhazel Active Patrol.’
GAP. The full version is as tame as the acronym. But what I’m thinking is that these former soldiers, these elite fighting men, are the fierce response of a fed-up community. Pietersen confirms it. ‘Most people here, they’re gatvol of the police services.’
In Glenhazel, ‘most people’ could be anyone in my family. Just past 1pm, a middle-aged white woman with shiny black hair and big sunglasses eases up to the corner in a BMW X5. She smiles, hoots and waves. The men all smile and wave back. They watch the BMW until it disappears around a bend.
‘We know her,’ says Pietersen. ‘She is a Jew.’
Here’s where I could tell the men that I am a Jew. But, whatever the advantage to be gained, I don’t. Instead, I introduce myself to the two soldiers who haven’t yet spoken.
The other Angolan is Maria. He patrols in a team with Selezi. ‘It’s like buddy buddy, attack attack,’ he says, referencing a military technique that’s clearly second nature.
Maria tells me a story. ‘We stopped a bakkie in November, in Lyndhurst Street. There was a robbery, they stole a computer. We gave the registration number to the police.’
I don’t say anything. Maybe Maria thinks that I think it’s a lame story, because he tells me another one. ‘Some days back they locked an old man in his house. He had nothing to eat. They stole money and jewellery. He was in there for three days. We banged down the doors and rescued him.’
The worst of the stories I’ve personally heard about this suburb is the story of the Solomon family, which, I know, is part of the reason the new security company was formed – but if these guys know the story too, they choose not to tell it.
The last of the four to speak is Godfrey (he has a surname with four difficult syllables, so he uses his Christian name). Thinner than the others, handsome, with a shaved head, Godfrey points to a shop up the road. ‘This bakery, nearly every Tuesday or Thursday, there’s been a robbery. But since we’ve taken over, there’s been nothing. When they come, they terrorise the people with AK47s.’
I squint into the sun and look at the bakery and picture what Long Avenue would be like during a gunfight. Then I turn back and ask the men about GAP’s resources.
There are twenty-eight members, says Selezi. They have four doublecab XLT Rangers, four regular undercover cars, and one unmarked Ninja. The headquarters are close by, at number 2 Elray Street, where they have a large control room equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
Godfrey extends his arm and shows me the surveillance cameras on the roof of a building across the road. They can record a registration plate from twenty metres, he says.
I ask about the shotguns. ‘If you have them,’ I suggest, ‘surely you must use them?’
Godfrey says they shoot to stop crime. He repeats it. ‘We shoot to stop crime.’
Pietersen is more direct. ‘If we kill, we kill.’
No, Selezi says, they haven’t killed yet. Godfrey takes a shell from his pocket and shows it to me. ‘This one’s got pinballs inside, but we can use real shot as well.’ Pietersen explains why killing may sometimes be necessary. ‘We are judged on our failures.’
At 1.15pm a red Ford Bantam bakkie, bonnet and doors emblazoned with the logo of a rival security company, tears past at high speed. The driver is speaking into the mouthpiece of a two-way radio, his forehead knotted in a frown, his left hand straining at the wheel.
‘Would GAP ever hire someone like him?’ I ask, as the Ford’s tyres squeal around a corner.
‘For them to come and join us they need to be retrained,’ says Selezi. ‘We prefer former military.’
Godfrey nods and indicates a shady spot down the hill. ‘Like what we found the other day. A guard from that company was sleeping down there, and somebody came and stole a vehicle.’
Later, a pattern emerges. Every twenty minutes, a white man, as big as Selezi, with a crew cut and large 1980s-style Ray-Bans, drives past the patrol post in a double-cab XLT Ranger. He slows down and glares at the men and then guns the big engine up Ridge Road.
‘Who’s he?’ I ask.
‘We call him the Boertjie,’ says Pietersen. ‘He gets three times our salary. They’ve got the old apartheid system here.’
The Boertjie, I learn, is also ex-special forces – his primary job is to check on the men; check that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.
At 1.30pm synagogue is out. Men in black hats and women in sheitls fill the street, heading home for a cold lunch or a nap. I focus on a young family walking east on Ridge Road. The bearded father is pushing a pram, the mother is one step behind in billowing skirts. Two small boys with peiyot scamper up ahead.
‘The way you see them walk now,’ says Godfrey, ‘they are free.’
Pietersen elaborates. ‘Like the other day when that Jew lady comes, and takes a photo of us. They just come to talk to us, to see if this thing is really happening. Because they can’t believe it.’
And now, I am told, the GAP model will be copied in the crime-ridden Jewish suburbs of Savoy and Waverley. Using the same inoffensive naming rule, the new force will be called SWAP.
Says Pietersen, ‘These Jew okes want blood by blood. You can call it blood sport.’
‘An eye for an eye,’ I say. ‘From the Bible.’
He turns away and laughs. ‘Ay, you must not talk about an eye for an eye to the government.’
An old Toyota Corolla filled with five black men idles past, windows down and radio blaring. The conversation stops. Pietersen, Selezi, Maria and Godfrey look up. They squeeze their handgrips. Godfrey steps toward the car and peers at the driver, his head inches from the window.
He watches the banged-up Toyota rumble slowly down Long Avenue.
‘Ya, there’s trouble there.’
* * * * * * * *
- Ways of Staying is published by Picador Africa, an imprint of Pan Macmillan
- Pan Macmillan home
- Pan Macmillan @ BOOK SA
Book Details
- Ways of Staying by Kevin Bloom
EAN: 9781770101609
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Apr
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