Toilets of Rhodesia and other Number Twos of Notice. Part One
Our obsession with bowel movements could best be summarised by a scene in the Bevis and Butthead - Do America film – where the two examples of American brainless regeneration of human defecation, instead of observing the grandeurs of the Grand Canyon, they are exhilarated with the scene of a donkey dumping. It should also be pointed out that Bevis is constantly obsessed with getting some TP for his Bung-hole.
See the very short film clip below…
With this in mind, I offer a weird trip down sewerage lane…
Strange topic, but with my head spinning from academic readings, what better than to write about something so visceral as the toilet - I mean, this is something most, if not all of us have in common. The alternative is to defecate in your pants, but for this little bog standard story, we will stick to the little room where bad smells are made.
Now, as usual, what was intended to be a quick read of verbal diarrhoea for the lowbrow intellectuals who flock to my site for insights of a shit-filled brain, has turned into yet another massive task. It appears that spending a Number Two ‘responsibly’ is a very complex, and imperative to the betterment of mankind.
Along the way I will demonstrate (not quite), how we perceive our digested food, what should be done with it, and why we are obsessed with it to the point of throwing- up at the mere thought of it. Clicking on the links along the way will open up all three eyes, whether they are blue, brown or the hidden one - celebrity style bleached.
Few of us remember when we use to shit in our pants. Two reasons: One, we were infants, and secondly, we were drunk and drugged at the time (as young teenagers of course - think Trainspotting). As adults, some may recall having a slight problem whilst travelling in India or visiting the Headmaster for ‘six of the best’. As future geriatric degeneratives, we can expect with age to eventually be forced to wear adult sized nappies so as not to soil the bed sheets.
My first recollection of what could happen if things went wrong with internal plumbing, was the threat of severe external plumbing being inserted rear end up, to clear the blockage. I was only five at the time but it was so traumatic, I still recall the black tubes, with its bulbous handpump, my mother presented to me as she warmed a pot of water. I recall screaming in pain, as from morbid fear of the contraption, I ran off to the little room and split a gut passing a Lego sized EmpireStateBuilding, bricks and all.
Oddly enough, it took a few years (ten actually), before I finally worked out what this weird rubber contraption was really for – and it had nothing to do with poor diet.
The explanation came about after I, with nothing else to do, studied the back of a large bottle of Dettol Antiseptic Liquid Disinfectant, that was pretty much standard in every middle-class white homes’ bathrooms. The idea being, that after the rough and tumble of play, all grazes, cuts and wounds would be disinfected away, with a good dollop of the stuff in the bath, turning it milky white, and you came out smelling like a hospital.
The poor just stayed infected, I guess.
Anyway…
One of the things it advocated it being very good for, was a douche. Not knowing what this was, a close friend advised me. Luckily, a few years later I would come across an article that would explain that the douche was just a fad of the time, and not to worry if any prospective members of the opposite sex didn’t have knickers smelling like a freshly disinfected morgue, and so, not to worry.
Still, before I end Part One, I must tell you what else it said on the back of that bottle, circa early ‘70s, – it removes Dandruff. Now this form of head scurvy was vey apparent on the dark brown blazers of Mount PleasantHigh School. I don’t recall owning a blazer, nor suffering from flaked scalp syndrome, but just in case, I decided to detox my head.
Now those fans who have followed my antics, especially the Three Silly Junk Bikes saga, should now be grinning in anticipation – shame on you!
Look, you have to understand that I was, and still am, a bit hampered with the English language, and as a result, I ignored (skipped over) the bit in Italics in brackets, about (one cap full diluted in one gallon of water). I understood the bit about leaving the stuff on for five minutes before rinsing.
So I just liberally poured the stuff, in its pure state, over my head, and waited.
Five minutes can be a long time – especially when your head is chemically on fire - but it was for a good cause.
I am not made of sterner stuff. I gave up after 45 seconds and hosed down enough chemicals off my head to murder every bacterium in the septic tank, whilst believing only an Indian (Native American) scalping would relieve the inferno encompassing and baking the last of my brains.
What is really queer - is that I have never suffered from dandruff since then!
Stay tuned…in following sequel(s) you will read how I tried to send the first toilet into outer orbit, and why I undressed completely naked to do a Two in France.
I awoke this morning with a plan – join the dots on my essay and be well on the way to complete my assignment. This is all about Peter Pan. What happened today made me wish that I had never grown up (er..that, is debatable), and in Neverland, instead of pirates to kill, they are all Chinese scam artists.
All day, so far, I have spent cleaning yellow infested scum from my PC. Why? Well, they (as in Made in China), have little else to do but wiggle their way into my computer and steal all my Hotmail contact address (it is now empty) and use them to tell everyone I have an iPhone. I do not own such a machine and if I did, I wouldn’t send dumb-ass Emails to everyone to tell them. Now if I found more brain cells - that would be something else.
I have now spent considerable time trying to find out what the problem is. No one is really sure, but as a result I have changed passwords, ran anti-virus scan (found one) and ran Malware killer and found 17 thingy-my-bobs etc. I am not amused.
So apologies to those who received the strange message, and hopefully this is sorted out. Gave me quite a scare, I tell you! Web forums are abuzz about this Chinese PC swine flu, even hinting that it seeks out your saved passwords in the browser.
I would like to win the lottery, save that naughty man the British Government wants to send to America to stand trial for breaking into their military computers whilst looking for aliens, and employ him to seek out the bastards responsible for this and send them back a virus so strong - it will blow up their entire office complex.
Me in my pad, Gwelo Police singles men’s mess, 1978. The hat isn’t issue, nor the leather jacket. The strange silver squares on the cupboard door are office numbers from the Monomatapa Hotel in Salisbury. A bad man had taken them.
At last, here is part three. I have had to compromise the indents as paragraphs. A real pain, but at the moment it is the best I can do.
---
I had a plan, for I hoped to pick Quasimodo’s successor. I had scouted Manica Cycles and told father, ‘I have chosen four different bikes. Anyone of them will make me very happy.’ Father was amused at my cheek. Now that I was attending High School, he had conceded that even I needed an adult sized bicycle.
In the shop, I presented the Troll with my first option, an imported aluminium racing bike called the ‘Rex Special’. Since the machine was a sanctions buster, most customers would need a second mortgage to pay for one. This was a clever manoeuvre. Start at the impossible prices and work downwards till I wearied him out and matched the limit of his wallet. Second option was a Rhodie version of the Rex Special. Nice paint job, sexy, short metallic mudguards and a four speed derailleur.
The Troll growled at the price tag. ‘Where is number three?’
Option three was as option two, but poor man’s style. A neat set of drop handlebar style horns that even a fully-grown Billy goat would be proud of, complete with racing style aluminium brake handles. Downsides were the clumsy rubber hand grips instead of cloth tape wrapping, and the saddle was designed for black people with generous behinds. At least it was blue and had a sticker declaring the name, ‘Swift’.
Still, at $100, the Troll grunted, ‘A possible option, which is the forth?’
I had to think fast. Outwitting the Troll was as dangerous as a Mongoose v Cobra battle. I didn’t want it to be distracted by being shown a $40 cheaper black-man’s bike (again painted red). So I simply pointed to another more expensive model. The ploy worked and Big Silly Junk Bike became mine. It would be named, Die-Swiftly, on its maiden voyage going to school.
Now equipped with the gutted Quasimodo’s gears, I plummeted down the renamed Brokeballs Mountain, exhilarated as the 26-inch wheels hummed in ever increasing pitch, till I realised there was no way in hell I was going to navigate the corner at the bottom, and the braking began. Smoke enveloped the back tyre as the the rubber was stripped of. The smell was nauseating, but I had no time to be sick. In desperation I hit the front brake. Too late, as Big Silly Junk Bike promptly came to a deadly halt by crushing its front wheel into the kerb, throwing me over the handle bars. As the tyre hissed out its life, my school suitcase landed on my head and burst its contents.
My next attempt at dying swiftly was a just a tad my own fault. There had been a short fad of attaching playing cards to bike frames, with spring-loaded wooden clothes’ pegs. With the cards sticking into the spinning spokes, it resulted in the streets resembling noisy swarms of locusts, with clackity-clacking kids, filling most of the road. The parents rebelled, with Dads annoyed with missing poker packs, and Mums constantly replacing pegs. But my interest in the ability to make music out of a bicycle piqued my curiosity. I started an intense self-instigated course of philharmonic wheels. I worked out that by placing a brown school shoe, with my foot inside it, against the revolving front spokes, there emitted pings and plonks of various decibels.
This was exciting; I could see myself as the world’s first creator of symphonies for cycles. Varying the foot pressure, I could change the tempo and the rhythm. It was in one particular redemption of Shoebiter’s Unfinished Symphony, when, requiring a deeper tone, similar to a bass drum, I concluded that to compensate the heavy force needed against the spinning swirl of spokes, I needed to pedal-up to the speed of a charging lion. Where else to get that tempo? Of course - non other than Brokeballs Mountain.
It worked. A wonderful renascence went from deep pulsating throbbing, to reach a crescendo as high pitched as a girl’s scream of terror, as Big Silly Junk Bike took its opportunity and swiftly swallowed my foot. Three spokes sheered as they tried to dismember my lower right limb against the front forks. Then in a shuddering spasm, the entire orchestra leapt high in the air, complete with conductor, somersaulted, and finished with a mighty bone-crushing crescendo. My pocket money was used to repair Die-Swiftly, and nature repaired my leg for free; a lot quicker than the reinstating of my $1 a month allowance.
It was during yet another teen craze I would teach Die-Swiftly, that led to another session of painting the streets red with blood – mine. In 1974, ‘The Chopper’, the ultimate in imported bikes hit the shops. It was a weird contraption, with hanging monkey-style handlebars, and a front wheel half the size of the extra wide one at the rear. It had a Sturmy Archer three-speed with an ultra cool gear-shift shaped like the one on the centre column of an automatic car. Its unique design made the ability to ‘pull wheelies’ easily.
The Rhodesians countered by creating, ‘The Rebel’, a rather sad looking copy, presumably designed by the same weirdo that thought up Quasimodo. Not to be outdone by my fellow wheelie pullers, I spent many hours heaving the front of Die-Swifly up a few feet and pedalled away on the back wheel for a few seconds, thinking I was very clever. The front wheel then came down with a rather violent force. How violent soon became apparent when the stressed front forks finally sheered off, and the whole front, after snapping its constraining brake cable, wheeled off into the sunset, leaving me ploughing up several yards of tarmac with my face. With scrapped skin and specs of tar wrecking havoc with my eyesight, I thought I saw two months’ pocket money vaporising.
‘He lacks concentration,’ was a common and repetitive comment in the majority of my school reports. This was not all true, for I did concentrate hard on the subjects that interested me; for example - turning Big Silly Junk Bike into the world’s first pedal-powered submarine.
After several dry runs I was ready. Planning had to be perfect. Exactly as planned at 1.17 pm my assistants were correctly in place as I hurtled down Sims Road and assistant No1, Julia, the maid, opened the front gate well in time for me to take the sharp right bend and enter the hundred feet of driveway at gravity defying speed. Shoes were easily kicked off. School case released from the pannier rack. Hat and tie dumped. Holler out to assistant No 2, David, the gardener, who is to clear the entrance to the family pool behind the house. I had to carefully manoeuvre the tight gap between the house and garage (dangerous this, if I clipped either at the speed I was going, I would leave a painfully bad impression), and then launch myself into the sparkling clear waters of the murky deep…
With a mighty splash, Rhodesian Navy U Boat, Die-Swiftly 001 (Zambezi Class), under the command of Captain Anarchy, B.O.T.C. of MP (Bottom of the Class of Mount Pleasant High School), entered the quite aquatic world and dived eighty inches under the sea. Changing down to first, Capt’n Anarchy ordered, ‘Blub, blub, blub’, (translation - ‘Up periscope’), and turning the submersible around, pedalled it gracefully up the incline to the shallow end. The Capt’n’s head popped out to take a look for the enemy and draw breath. Strategy meant both parents were still at work and wouldn’t be back for a few hours; otherwise serious depth charges would be the consequences. All that could be seen was the Alsatian dragging its worm irritated bum and David rolling a homemade smoke from the tobacco stalks that covered the grass to make it greener…
With plenty of time on hand, some manoeuvres were in order. Back in the deep-end I could get my sub to climb halfway up the curving pool sides before somersaulting backwards to land painlessly on my head. Even ‘wheelies’ were easy, although I did notice acceleration made the rear propulsion unit (back tyre), skid a bit on the slippery surface of the light blue painted concrete surface. Great plans formed. I could get my chinas to do this too, and we could have races and mock battles. All I needed were some oysters and the subterranean world was mine.
Well pleased with myself, my navel vessel was put out into the dry dock and my soaking clothes rapidly dried. Job done - great success - none the wiser. David and Julia were sworn to the well known code of silence between kids and their parents’ domestic staff.
‘David, where in hell have all these black marks in the pool come from?’ roared the Troll, loud enough to penetrate my bedroom window. I had a really bad feeling that I knew where they came from and my life now hung on a tiny thread of African omertà.
‘Aah, Baas, I do not know.’
‘Well I want them gone by tomorrow.’
Back from school the next day, David presented me the long handled pool brush. I didn’t argue. Problem was, the brush couldn’t get the tyre marks off. I started to panic. If they didn’t shift, David would finally spill the beans and the Troll would spill my guts. I changed into a cossie, grabbed a kitchen rag, poured washing up liquid onto it and dived in and got rubbing as if my life depended on it, literally.
Plenty of suds later, I waited till the waters calmed so I could get a good look. The marks were all gone, except where they had been, there was now giant streaks of very clean blue. By the time I finished rubbing the entire pool down, praying that the giant foam bath I had created would have dispersed by the time the Troll once again turned up for inspection, I had a full understanding of the process of osmosis. My skin was more wrinkled than an elephant’s hide.
***
With dawn rapidly creeping through the bush to touch the sleeping forms, I prodded the others awake and set up my little stove. As the water slowly boiled, the sounds of the bush came alive as the rest of the unit went off to empty their bowls behind the nearest shrub. Another day; another few bucks towards my car. As I had done from day one, I mentally tallied the amount still to go to reach the deposit -, plus $50.
That came from selling Die-Swiftly. Mother had asked me what to do with it since it had laid in the garage a complete rusting wreck for yonks.
***
Big Silly Junk Bike, aka Die Swiftly, had looked a real mess. Its tyres flat and bald, with broken brake cables tangled amongst its paint scraped frame. The hack sawed mudguards were just mangled stubs from the time I had decided to pimp my ride. No one could even pull a whore with this well shagged out goat. Ag shame!
Having inherited my father’s short arms and deep pockets when it came to splashing out the readies, I realised that to turn a profit on this goat’s carcase I needed to raise the dead myself because Jesus Matamba, the mechanic down at the local African, ‘Fixy-all-Things’ workshop, would demand more than two pairs of old khaki school shorts and three galleons of Chibuku ‘Shake-Shake’ millet beer.
Financial success comes from effort and investment. It would need the world famous Whiteman’s magic of Rhodesian entrepreneurship. I rubbed the frame down and sprayed it silver. That being the cheapest paint in the hardware shop. New bright white mudguards, black handlebar tape and matching brake cables were added. I turned Big Silly Junk bike into a very smart machine for ‘just’ one day’s pay (plus bonus), of $10. Even I was impressed. It was to go to a large, we-sell-everything store, and I took it for our last ride to deliver it in person.
Everything was perfect. Rays beat down through a light blue sky. Calls of ‘Go-away’ came from tall gum trees where grey lourie birds bid Die-Swiftly adieu. The occasional dog, trapped by the confines of a front garden fence, ran parallel to me, whilst barking its stupid head off, and as I turned a sharp left into Norfolk Road, I promptly became airborne.
‘Why me?’ I moaned to a solitary grasshopper sitting nonchalantly on the grassy verge I now shared with it. Confused, but not too badly injured, I picked myself and the bike up, and resisted the impulse to butcher this goat off-spring of the Devil. I gripped its horns and twisted its neck back and forth, as if trying to break it. In doing so I spotted why I had been dumped. The right brake cable was too short. On a sharp left, it locked the front wheel.
With this knowledge I finally reached my destination without any further mishaps, collected my fifty bucks and neglected to inform the store’s owner of Die-Swiftly’s latest little fault. Let someone else get killed for a change. I shed a small tear of happiness and I gave Big Silly Junk bike a discreet kick goodbye.
****
With the morning sun gathering strength, my back was soon sweating lightly under my rucksack as our patrol swept out of the surrounding bush and we stood on the rutted, dirt track of a road between Charama base camp and Gokwe town. According to the map, we were a short hike from Solomon’s store; where we were headed. The digital watch now needed two hands to operate, one to shield the readout from the sun, and with several pushes it announced it was Saturday, the fourth of December – weekend! Beers for lunch had been an unanimous decision. Besides, it was our pick-up point for us to be returned to base for a couple of nights ‘off’ and the much desired luxury of the triple ‘S’ (Shit, Shower and Shave),before going out again.
Rather casually and in single file, at exactly 8.15am, we trudged around a bend in the road. A few yards away sprawled a dead black male adult - on top of a bicycle. A flush of guilt shuddered through me and I approached in apprehensive horror.
‘I wonder what killed him.’ Tony says. I almost imagined the next matter of fact statement. ‘Looks like a case of severe front brake cable failure resulting in violent death.’
I was a policeman. I was going to prosecute myself for manslaughter. I might even go to jail. All my hard saved cash would go out in compensation. I stared down, past the poor man’s form, at what he lay upon, and almost started to cry. Giggling stupidly, I pulled out my official note book and clumsily drew the crime scene – except it was no crime, for it wasn’t Die-Swiftly lying in a crashed heap. It was a bog standard, tired old peasant bike that had tried to carry its old, sick owner to the clinic just two miles away and never made it.
I remember this family. I have part of the footage on a News at 10 video from last year. This is the trailer for the film which has just been released.
The various comments on YouTube sadly seem to peddle the same old blame game.
There is a good article about the award winning film and some photos here –
I notice that according to my Goolgle analytics, traffic is coming along nicely. More comments would be nice.
Now 2010 hasn’t started at all well with me. My complaints would make Ryan Air customer ranting on Facebook appear negligible. I am not really sure where to start.
Well, for starters, some of you might be wondering why part three of The Legend of the Three Silly Junk Bikes hasn’t been put up yet. I have tried several times and I suppose this is where all my troubles began. I have always struggled with the formatting on my blog. It now seems that Google and Microsoft have taken their childish war to new absurd heights.
Every time I cut and paste from Word into the blog, the formatting gets completely screwed. Even the painful manual restructuring no longer works. I checked this out on the web and it appears this problem is not only well known, but no one seems to have a solution. I tried saving in different formats – to no avail. Basically what appears to be the case is that Word’s html fights with Google’s html and try as you might, they flatly refuse to co-operate.
One very bright spark explained how you insert between this tab and that tab within the html and I gave up after smoking my fifth tab to calm my nerves. The best advice was to give up and start a new blog on another provider. I think I will have to do this.
I thought I could be really clever and cut and paste Word into Openoffice, and maybe trick Google but, guess what? Every time I try to download Openoffice, the PC crashes. To make my life more miserable, the laptop crashes every time I open Adobe photoshop. All I want to do is make a picture smaller. Tried using windows paint, and all it does is make it smaller. Okay, I realise this is what I want, but it is not very clever landing up with the top right hand corner of the original.
I give up!
I hope to have a solution soon. In the meantime I am taking to my bed.
A brief history of the ‘Made in Rhodesia’ bicycle as recalled during a Police Anti Terrorist Unit patrol, Gokwe Tribal Trustland, Rhodesia, 1977.
Here is Part Two of the incredible story of how I got done-over by my bicycles. Please scroll down a bit if you are a late entry for Part One of this excruciating tale.
Me and Alan G. - Sengwa Base Camp, Gokwe TTL, New Years Eve 1976/7
I had been a ‘real policeman’ for almost two weeks! Please note ultra-cool digital watch.
‘Hello, I am Middle Silly Junk Bike, and your father bought me as a surprise present for your eleventh birthday.’
Surprised? I stared in horror at the thing.
‘And - I am Made in Rhodesia!’ it added proudly.
Well that was understandable. I really couldn’t imagine countries like Germany and Italy manufacturing such a contraption. Perhaps it was a French design based on the hunch-back of Notre Dame de Paris. Something was seriously wrong with it. Granted, the handle bars were quite cool, almost perfectly straight, and it had cable brakes, but I just couldn’t get my head around it. It was like looking at a cheated cheetah; the one that lost out at the back of queue when the creator ran out of legs, and stuck on some spares left over from the elephants. The bike was a freak! The owner of Manica Cycles must have laughed his head off -
‘Quick, here comes that Troll who bought Lockwheelfor his son! He never misses a bent bargain. Bring out the Quasimodo, I have a hunch my till will start ringing again.’
A quick ride around the block established the problem. With an amazing ingenuity the manufacturers had, just for a laugh, attached 24-inch wheels to a 22-inch frame. This meant that within a year, my knees would start to hit the handle bars and the saddle would have to be raised so high, it would resemble the French bell ringer with a padded cripple’s crook sticking out of his back. I would soon be forced to ride with my knees sticking out like a butterfly’s spread wings.
The little silver bell on its horns had been moved on the first day, after its fixings managed to slice through my kneecap, whilst turning right. Besides the ridicule from my ‘friends’, at least it didn’t suffer from lock-wheel. But when Middle Silly Junk Bike decided to have a go, it waited until my thirteenth birthday, when for once, my pitiful bleating took fruit and Quasimodogot geared up - in the shape of a Sturmey Archer internal hub, three-speed gearbox.
***
I stood up, uncoiling my frame as lazily as a puff-adder reluctantly reacting to the warming sun. I needed a wazz. At this darkest of hours, the land was at its coolest. The dew made damp patches on my trousers as I cautiously moved towards a nearby tree. As I struggled to pee silently, I recalled looking at a blow-up schematic of that gear box’s innards and concluding the inventor should have stuck to Cuckoo clocks.There was a wire leading from a gearshift on the handlebars to the guts of the contraption, which made strange ticking sounds as you peddled. That was the flaw in the scrambled egghead’s machine. As the gear-wire stretched over time, it needed to be periodically checked for the right tension. Failure to do so could wipe out a dynasty.
***
Twelve year old Me and my Monkey. And my late brother Michael. Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1970.
It was on the way back from school when Quasimododecided to try and castrate me.
At a furious pace, I left the flat stretch ofSecond Street Extension, and hit the steep cycle path on Upper East Road (later to be renamed) that goes up to my suburb of Mount Pleasant. Standing up on the pedals, with the momentum well timed; I flicked gears, each time doing the little reverse pedal that engages them. Three - Two -One. Down came my legs with awesome thrust - into nothing. Nothing at all - the gear had not engaged, a phenomena known as freewheeling, or to be more accurate; ‘neutered on neutral’.
My feet slipped off the pedals and I came down crashing onto the cross bar, my full weight cushioned by my little pack of tenderly maturing genitals. The forward momentum continued. My head just missed having its teeth removed on the ‘L’ shaped bracket for a torch (we had advanced further than the candle holder), the front tyre did manage to shave my chin. Up went the legs in an automatic counter-balance.
Contrary to the rumours, my life didn’t flash before my eyes; instead I saw torturous images of euphemisms:
Crushed nuts
Pressed olives
Sad Sack
Unicorns (I couldn’t remember the word for eunuch at that time.)
The pain was so intense, I couldn’t even scream. My hands, now crushed against my chest, had Quasimodo’s horns in a grip of death. My elbows jerked spasmodically, and the crazed machine now wandered off the cycle track, and onto the main road. Gravity took over, and I collapsed under the bike. Cars desperately swerved around me. Kids peered out the windows as I vomited out my crushed family jewels. Preservation made me crawl to the small grassy strip between cycle path and the main road and curled up foetidly. I retched for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, still bent double, and with tears streaming down in sympathy, I lost the plot.
‘You piece of shit,’ I screamed, and in an adrenalin rush of pain and pure hatred, I threw the hunchback onto the cycle track, and jumped all over it, kicking it whilst it was down, smashing-in spokes, buckling its wheels and snapping the gear’s wires.
I really taught it a lesson. I cleverly told father that a bad boy (unknown) must have done the terrible damage to Quasimodo whilst it was parked in the school’s bicycle shed.
***
I punched the button again. Another forty minutes before I could officially awake the others and make a well deserved cup of chicory, with just a hint of InyangaMountain’s coffee. I just couldn’t wait to spend the first half hour of sunrise crunching floating islands of milk powder against the aluminium cup.
Bored to distraction, I decided to tie my shoelaces. I slept with my boots on. They weren’t really boots, just canvas tackies, designed as basketball shoes, with no treads. Great for fooling gooks, according to ‘Be Smarter, Wear Bata.’ Their ability at subterfuge was equalled only by an elephant with red painted toenails hiding in a strawberry patch. They were also about as clandestine as a corpse wandering around asking for directions to the cemetery. They were comfortable enough and dried out rather quickly. A mangy odour permeated the air as I strapped my soggy meat in. I wriggled the right foot. It still worked, but it had been a close shave. There was still visible scar tissue shining dully under the half moon, where just above the ankle, Die-Swiftly, the third and largest of the Silly Junk Bikes, had attempted a narcosis free amputation.
Greetings all. As promised, I will post a piece of my memoir. Sadly, you have to read the blah-blah below before it kicks off. Also, due to the length of it, I will post in three parts.
Is ‘Youth is wasted on the young’? (George Bernard Shaw.) From an adult’s perspective it most certainly is. I am sure that we all have nostalgic memories, some good, some are bad. I believe I tend to think that I had happy times when I wasn’t at home, because as long as my father was alive, I tend to have miserable memories.
Time passes differently for children. Each year (which just lasts for ever, except during school holidays), was a triumph when it ended, because for a brief moment there’re nearer to their peers - those older than us - who did clever things we wanted to emulate. Of course, it turned out they were also older and doing even more grown up type of things. In fact, children spent most of the time growing up wishing it would hurry up. Worse of all - they were not paid to attend school. The teachers were!
Still, we always had plans what we were going to do as soon as we grew up. So we couldn’t wait. Only Christopher Robin, Peter Pan and the late Michael Jackson, didn’t want to grow up. The last one died trying.
Kids do stupid things; it is part of growing up. Well it was, nowadays it is banned, controlled or given an ASBO. (Just like my dear Daddy was to me.) What is weird is how I now look at Three Silly Junk Bikes, now that I am fully engrossed with the OU course Children’s Literature.
Me, aged 11 with my best friend. The dysfunctional family has moved to 10 Sims Road, Mount PleasantSalisbury. The house was brand new and the garden is not finished. Oh, we were very poor. The new pool isn’t that large.
I was a white, middle class Rhodesian kid. I was entitled to a bicycle. I wasn’t entitled to very nice one. Each model that would grow with me emulated my personality. Would I have treated my bicycles better if they had cost a fortune, or if I had had to pay for them myself (which of course, was impossible), who knows? I certainly looked after my first car.
Is TheThree Silly Junk Bikes a finished chapter from Last of the Rhodesians? I actually thought so. I now sincerely do not know and I am no longer sure. The prose is simple, but in a way it is a children’s story. I have added some photographs applicable to the time. I don’t have any of the bicycles for the simple reason they weren’t worth the cost of a Kodak Instamatic shot. Why spend 15 cents from your pocket money getting a picture developed of something you loathed?
The Three Silly Junk Bikes is about growing up - albeit through the saddle of a bicycle.
It is told in time shift as I reminisce a decade of misery owning Rhodesian bicycles.
A second Raleigh Bicycle advert, Date unknown, depicting a classical ‘Kaffir Bike’. The term is highly derogative but used by us whitey kids more in this context as a social class difference, rather than a racial slur. It is imperative for the first part of the story to look in close detail at the bicycle.
Me aged 18 +. My first Police Anti Terrorist Patrol (PATU) early 1977, GokweTribalTrustLand. I had an accumulated counter insurgency knowledge of 25 days training. My arsenal at the time consisted of three, 20 round magazines, one WW2 grenade, (in my hand), and another 60 rounds packed in their cardboard boxes and easily accessible from my rucksack - should a ruckus commence.
I just presumed that there would be some kind of cease fire that allowed for me to reload my F.N. magazines.
I had refused to wear the issue webbing of hanging, canvas chaffing lumps, and opted for my super-dooper, shiny aluminium framed, bright red, perfect target, nylon imported rucksack. I did reluctantly cover it with my dull green nylon poncho after the rest of my ‘stick’ threatened to mutiny or mutilate me.
The Legend of the Three Silly Junk Bikes
Part One
A brief history of the ‘Made in Rhodesia’ bicycle as recalled during a Police Anti Terrorist Unit patrol, Gokwe Tribal Trustland, Rhodesia, 1977.
Once upon a time, deep in darkest Africa, there lived Three Silly Junk Bikes named Lockwheel, Quasimodo and Die-Swiftly. They had all been Made in Rhodesia and, before they were nearly kicked to death, they had lived in a cave called Manica Cycles on Second Street in Salisbury.
Every now and then, a Troll, called Simon the Terrible, who was stocky, balding and had a pencil moustache, would enter the cave and roar out -
‘Who goes squeak, squeak, squeak, over my wallet?’
And the Three Silly Junk Bikes would, one after another, be purchased by the Troll for his son, because they were on a special offer. Unfortunately they were each in their own ways demented, for they had been designed to try and exterminate any one who attempted to ride them.
***
‘No no, go away!’ I screamed out, ‘I don’t want any of you! You’re all just cheap bicycle junk, and you all want to kill me!’
A hand covered my mouth and another shook my shoulder. A hissing from unseen lips brought me awake.
‘Shut-up, will you! Your screams can be heard by every gook within five clicks.’
I came awake instantly.In the half-moon light I took the proffered timepiece and pushed the tiny button on its side. Red L.E.D.s glowed briefly 3.01. I gave Tony the thumbs up, and wriggled out of my sleeping bag. Squatting uncomfortably on the hard ground, I cradled the loaded F.N. assault rifle and stared out into the all encircling bush. Two hours till sunrise. This was the graveyard watch, and judging by the speed it was dragging, time seemed to have stopped.
I was damp. That horribly sticky, clinging, mildew damp, permeating my filthy combat uniform; a mixture of constant rains and sweat. A sweat that came from exertion of daily fifteen mile foot patrols, and fear. Perhaps it was the massive doses of quinine I was taking that brought on the nightmares of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, all of them turned into bicycles that were allied to the Troll just to try and eliminate me.
I suppose these horrors would not go away until I had my own car, for that was the only reason I now stared past the shapeless, dark humps of the rest of the patrol unit around me. Adrenalin fine-tuned my ears. I could almost hear the mosquitoes as they valiantly drilled their way through the streaked thick layers of war paint on my face.
I had actually volunteered for this particular three-month stint of dressing up like a rancid tree and looking under rocks for Mugabe’s freedom fighters. It wasn’t out of nationalistic idolism; I was doing it for money. Each day on patrol added a tax free $3.75 towards my dream - my own set of wheels. You could only pull birds if you had a motor. Rocking up at the night club on a bicycle wasn’t just uncool; it was image suicide. When I was seventeen, I would walk or hitch to a party, rather than ride the bike; never mind eighteen months later.
Still, there was a remote possibility that raising the deposit could get me killed. I would die trying to replace the very machines that over a decade attempted to have me terminated.
***
‘Today we will go and look for a bicycle for you.’
These magical words would excite any eight year old boy. I was quivering like my dog being shown a leg of lamb, as I gabbled nonsense all the way to Manica Cycles in Salisbury’s city centre.
I rushed around, intoxicated on the smells of fresh rubber, paint and dollops of grease. There were so many shiny machines, all lined up in various sizes. I pointed out a couple of suitable models, but father wasn’t having any of it.
‘What are these strange wires for the brakes?’ he asked a helpful salesman.
‘This is the latest technology; most of the bikes use cable.’
‘Well, I need something for my small boy, and I want it to have the rod braking system. I don’t trust these wires. They could easily snap and my son could be…’
Me thinks, ‘Killed?’Great idea. Actually, I would not mind that. Better to die in style, than be seen riding a peasant’s two wheeler.
The salesman looked down at me. I could see the pity in his eyes and I immediately started to sulk.
‘I don’t wanna bicycle with old brakes. I would rather have no bicycle at all.’
The Troll’s response to my enthusiasm was a thick ear. As I picked myself up off the floor, my head still making odd buzzing sounds, I heard a small voice from a dark corner of the shop.
‘Here I am, Little Silly Junk Bike!’
The museum relic was finally exposed from its blankets of cardboard packing.
My father looked at it. ‘Perfect. How much?’
‘I am sure we can give you a good discount.’
I didn’t hear the rest. I just stood dumfounded looking at it. It was the end of my little world; my father had bought me a miniature Kaffir bike, except it was red. Maybe it had been re-sprayed, because only black people rode black bicycles. Everyone knew this. White people rode on red or blue bicycles, or occasionally a green or yellow one. If a black person rode any other colour of bike, it would be presumed they were overpaid or it was stolen. Perhaps the shop had hoped a colour-blind pygmy would buy it.
It had everything I did not want. Its entire frame was covered in shiny rods, criss-crossed and complicatedly connected to huge steel brake handles that were attached to ancient Dutch-style handlebars. And the ultimate embarrassment - a hideous metal chain cover. The revolting object was popped in the boot and my conversation consisted of a forced ‘thank-you’. Why should I be thank-full? For the next three years I would be constantly ridiculed by my school peers, all of whom had proper white peoples’ bicycles.
Unloved and unwanted, Silly Little Junk Bike pined for attention. It would get plenty. Inexplicably, and usually at the best turn of speed I could push through the pedals, the rear wheel suddenly locked against the frame. If it was raining, the bike would simply slip underneath me, leaving my small form spread-eagled all over the road for someone to run over. If the road was dry, it would screech to a shuddering halt of burnt rubber.
Whatever. I had to schlep the thing home, kicking and cursing it, dragging its sorry arse, leaving a long flattened patch on the tyre. Before it finally burst, the canvas exposed spot would make the wheel do a little skip on every revolution, causing my teeth to click.
‘What have you done now?’ Father would accuse me time and time again.
***
I pushed again and looked at the readout. Hi-Tech flashed mockingly - 3.27 and 14 and 15 and 16 seconds. I let the button go. I hated night watch. Sometimes it was real scary. You look at something too long, you start to think it is moving. But not as scary as my bicycles; they had more stealth. I knew now why that damn tyre got lockwheel. Its Rhodie steel tubes were too soft. The right, rear wheel nut on the axle could be turned till the forearm bulged on a grease monkey, but a few trips, especially ‘off-road’, and the vibrations worked it free. Three years I put up with this nonsense before I grew up enough to make even my father conclude I didn’t quite fit on it. Not unless I did get a job so often promoted in my school reports - circus clown. Maybe that’s why I joined the police force.
I took my hands off the F.N. assault rifle and wiped them on what I thought might be a clean part of my camouflage shirt, and rubbed my eyes. Not too hard. There are enough stars in the southern heavens, I didn’t need to create a few billion more between the scrub and bush grass hiding the foe. Almost out of habit I touched my forehead, as if that massive lump from eight years previously was still there.
***
‘Bridget, you know that big ditch near Groombridge shops? Well, I am going to jump it with my bike. Do want to come and watch?’
‘Only if you don’t try and make me do it first; just to make sure it’s safe.’ Sister, now at the age of nine, was becoming a seasoned and very protesting guinea pig.
I couldn’t believe the moaning. I reminded her, ‘When I made you jump off the highest platform into the diving pool, you didn’t die did you? You had to go first because you are lighter and smaller.’
‘Yeah, and when you made me jump of the garden wall with your home made parachute that didn’t open, and I fell into the rose bushes, I was hurt.’
I sighed. ‘I explained to you, it was not my fault. The strings were too long for your short body.’
The four foot wide, and same depth, drainage ditch sliced through the middle of a vacant corner plot. There was the usual ‘short cut’ beaten smooth through the waste high vlei grass. Pedestrians could leap it, except the black women balancing forty pounds of meilie meal on their heads. Cyclists cleverly dismounted and, with the bike hooked on the shoulder, jump across.
‘It looks very deep and very muddy,’ Bridget chirped up, as she peered in. With her small size in relation, she would see this as a chasm. There was no way I could get her to do a test run.
It did seem rather wide, but pride took precedence over stupidity. As father always told me, ‘You act first and think later.’
It took years before I understood he meant this as a serious critical observation - not advice. He would also tell everyone that I walked around, ‘With thumb up bum and mind in neutral,’ which was now rather difficult to do whilst sitting on a bicycle and attempting to enter the history books.
Sister stood back a respectable distance and I peddled off a stretch to get a good run at it. The path was a bit bumpy and a little slippery in places due to recent rains. As I approached, at a break - my - neck speed, frantically pumping legs, I started to furiously ring my little silver bell. The last thing I needed when I leapt to glory was to meet someone coming from the opposite direction. Just feet away from the rapidly approaching giant slash in the earth, a niggling doubt about reading somewhere about ramps entered my head.
I had reached the point of no return, when Lockwheel must have realised it was in for the chop, because at that moment it did a Bob Marley -
Everything happened very quickly. There was a weird sensation of weightlessness… as the plunge into the abyss began. I heard a huge explosion, deep inside my head, as my forehead contacted the rim on the far side of the ditch. Day turned briefly into night and I had a little sleep. When I woke up, I wasn’t curled up in bed cuddling a blanket; I was lying in six inches of cold, red mud, wrestling the devil, shaped like a bicycle, with a spectator cheering me on.
‘Are you alright? You’re bleeding from your head - quite a lot!’
***
Picking up a handful of scraped earth from a small pile I created for my hip a few hours earlier, I let it trickle through my fingers. I thought about the saying that Africa’s soil is red from the blood people have spilled on it – all murdered by their bicycles. That was the end of Little Silly Junk Bike. It was sold for $5 at the local African hardware store. Hopefully it was painted black and used in the bundu by a picanin goat-herder. It would serve the sodding thing right.
I shifted restlessly on the hard ground. There was still an hour to go and I put a hand in my underpants to rearrange some rather sticky and smelly tackle. I haven’t had a bath or changed my underpants for three days. All seemed okay, or at least I hoped so, because Lockwheel’s replacement had tried to neuter me.
