HOLA PEEPS!!
Well, as South Africa enters a second wave of the Coronavirus, we are all waiting to hear what our President will say tonight in regards to that.
I immediately grabbed my laptop and started writing. That's the only way I can deal with stress.
Hope y'all enjoy xx
Stay safe, Ryan
SLENDER BEGGAR
"Come on you fucking bunch of wankers! Get a move on! Urgh, I'm gonna be late! Fuck!"
I slammed my phone back onto the passenger seat after checking the time for what seemed like dejavu, before taking a few moments of thinking very clearly, calmly and taking a few deep breaths.
Okay...there was literally nothing now, that I could do about missing the most important damn meeting of the year at my advertising agency. Unless I could magically transport myself all the way to damn Cape Town suburbia I was never gonna make it.
Numerous reports came through on my phone about an accident on the N1, which was the very same road which I needed to get on as quick ad possible, and of course traffic was going ten times as slow as usual, it felt. I gripped the steering wheel of my car in sheer frustration. Sighing, I dialled a number on my phone not even caring that making calls whilst driving was still considered illegal. Neither me, nor my car was clearly going anywhere anytime soon anyway as things stood.
"Phil, it's Max..."
"...dude, where the fuck are you? I'm not sure how long I can stall the meeting anymore!"
Part of me wanted to literally scream and lose my cool but Lord knows what the hell was that gonna achieve?
"Phil, go ahead and take the meeting yourself. There was an accident on the N1 and I don't think there is any way I'm gonna be able to make it in time. You know the campaign from head to toe and perhaps even better than me. I'm trusting you, buddy. And make my excuses with the clients from Ribbed. There's nothing I can do from here."
I could hear Phil sighing and it took a fair few seconds before he replied.
"Max, are you sure? What about the male models?"
"Tell them that the shoot is still on for tomorrow and I'll be attending it myself. Thanks Phil, I really owe you."
"I'm holding you to that!" came the final reply before my colleague ended the call.
Damn...there was more than one reason why I really wanted to attend that meeting myself...if only to see and meet the several gorgeous men who we had lined up to feature in Ribbed's brand new swimsuit range. The initial thought was to take semi naked pictures of all the potential models and then show it in a massive pitch to the company...and I desperately wanted to attend that particular event with everything that I had in me.
Best of all was...I had been married for over eight years. I had a five year-old daughter called Molly, the cutest little thing you ever did see. There wasn't a single brain cell at work that would ever suspect me of being in the closet and unable to ever come out.
Like so many scared gay men in the world, society had forced me to have my wife and my 2.5 average kids out of this old jolly life. As a co-owner of a new, potentially huge advertising agency, that all achieved in the relatively young age of twenty-nine, and there was no way that I was going to be gambling with all of that.
Let's face it, South Africa wasn't the most gay friendly country in the world. I KNEW these kind of bigoted corporate people. I worked with them on a daily basis. If I came out as gay, I'd lose half of my existing clientele. Not to mention I had Phil to think of. We both put everything we owned into this business. We couldn't afford to do anything to screw this up. So, I guess as painful as this surely was, I'd just have to grin and bare it.
Not that a little semi naked male to male action could do me any harm...no one would question my involvement in being there. Perks of being the boss, I guess.
I digress.
Finally, after a solid hour and a half of waiting and wasting valuable petrol, there was finally a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. I managed to drive as fast as I could the remaining miles to work, thinking, perhaps more hoping, that I could at least make some part of that meeting, only to he stopped by a green light turning red at the nearest robot just as I was about to cross the intersection.
"Fuck sake!" I screamed as loud as I could, before grinding my BMW to a sudden stop. Not again. Come on. Why today...why today of all times?
Tiredly and hopelessness engulfing me, I glanced to my right and I saw a beggar crossing the street from the pavement. He was signaling for a woman he was with to venture towards the other side of the road, the part which I had just came from. You don't always see beggars of Caucasian heritage in South Africa and I honestly hated the negative stigma that followed white beggars. Poverty didn't see and will never see colour or race. If only some people would get that into their thick heads, the country and the world would already be a better place.
"Spare change, asseblief Meneer?" (Spare change, please Sir) he said, holding out both of his callused, rugged and down right dirty and smelly hands towards me.
The smell...my god. I tried my utmost best...I mean I hoped and prayed that I was perceived as a genuine good person in my life...and I did my level best not to let him see that his stench was really working on my acid reflux.
He spoke to me decently and respectfully, calling me "Sir" in the classic Afrikaans lingo. The least I could so was to pay that forward the same way towards him...like I said before...it wasn't like me or my car was going anywhere any time soon.
I reached for my wallet in my jacket pocket and looked inside. I didn't usually carry cash with me, because of the severely high crime rate in the country and especially in the Cape, and I really was more comfortable paying with my credit cards. The only money I had in my wallet was a R200 note. I hesitated and he saw me do it. R200 was a heck of a lot of money to give a beggar, and the mere thought that he would use it to buy drugs or even booze with it, didn't sit well with me.
It was then that I saw the three little kids, across the street, so innocently playing at the same exact spot from where the beggar and his wife, perhaps...had come from in the first place. Caucasian, all three of them. Dressed fully in what looked like hand me downs. The pleasure on their faces as they chased each other around the playground was something special to behold. No doubt they were very happy...even though their current circumstances clearly weren't.
I took a deep breath, and looked the beggar straight in the eye. Only then I saw that it was a relatively young guy, he couldn't have been older than me. He certainly didn't seem older than thirty...mid twenties perhaps?
Jesus...why was I getting hard...?
"Here you go, my friend. This is all that I have on me!" I said and I solemnly handed him the R200 note.
As his tired and surprisingly bright blue eyes fell on the money I had just handed to him, it seemed like he had been given the gift of life. He teared away his eyes from the money and stared at me as if I was crazy mad as a hatter.
"Sir...its way too much...are you sure?"
It was then that I immediately heard the stacks and stacks of cars that was parked and cramped in behind me hoot at the same time, like they had just gotten Wi-Fi for the first time, and when I glanced at the robot before me, and shockingly realized that the light had turned green.
I was busy holding everyone up!
"I'm sure, don't buy booze!" I shouted out of my car window as I sped off, giving the motorists behind me some much needed relief.
I was nearly at our offices and hopelessly too late for the meeting that probably ended a good 30 minutes ago...and still I couldn't get that beggar's face out of my head. His dirty blond hair was way too overgrown, his clothes looked like he hadn't changed them in quite a while and that smell...jesus...but his face, his eyes, those beautiful, yes, beautiful blue eyes he had possessed...it was literally insane.
I could think of at least three, no four, men who I wanted to fuck silly inside our offices. Men who were so beautiful, they actually made my teeth hurt. Men that did adverts for us, and having seem them in nothing but underwear with their bulges as proclaimed as much as humanly possible, so badly, that I had to have a quick jack off in the toilets and spilled my sperm right across those walls.
If I was out, which I wasn't, I could have any man I wanted.
So what was it about this beggar dude...that fascinated me so?
**
Thank God for Phil.
His pitch saved the day and we had gotten the contract to exclusively advertise Ribbed in all it's totality. They made us wait and sweat for over a week long before they gave their answer but it surely was worth it.
We decided to celebrate the victory at our local bar and pub grill, where Phil could have access to all the female ass and boobs he could think of. Single, and not planning to ever get married in his own words, Phil was a stunningly handsome man, and we had been friends for over twenty years, having met in Kindergarten many summers before.
The bond and friendship between us was strong, and there was many times where I really wanted to take him in my trust, and actually tell him that I was living a lie...but then I always chickened out. I simply couldn't bring myself to tell him.
This was the guy that I had afternoon naps with, that I had spent countless hours in the swimming pool with, learned how to jack off and learned all about sex with. I had lied to him as well. I wasn't sure how he was gonna take the truth. Perhaps it was just better to stay quiet.
A commotion at the front door had people easily quiet within seconds as we saw and heard the manager of the pub chase out someone, but I personally couldn't see who it was.
"Fuck off! Before I call the police and beat you up until they get here! Get lost! Go beg for money somewhere else! Or go get a damn job! All of you!"
Around me several patrons actually stood up and applauded the manager for doing what he just did...and thank god Phil wasn't one of them. I caught his eye and he shrugged his shoulders, before taking another sip of his beer, before getting up for another.
We weren't exactly on a level where we had to beg for money but Phil and me didn't exactly grow up in riches. Sure, we had money now, earned with a lot of sweat and a heavy bank loan that we were still paying for, but we could never do to those beggars what that idiot manager just did. I get that he was only trying to protect his clientele, but still, there was loads of better ways to deal with those kinds of stuff.
Having a shred of decency for starters.
**
We had an early morning meeting with Ribbed the following day so after three beers each and having had the most DELICIOUS well done steak imaginable, Phil and I decided that tomorrow was another say and that we were going home. We had a huge client now and we really couldn't afford to fuck up now.
The wife had already phoned me several times to say that Molly was missing her daddy and had refused to go to sleep before she had said good night to me. God knows, I loved that little girl more than life itself. I felt guilty as hell for neglecting her but we really, really needed the Ribbed account. Now that we had it, Phil and I would be able to delegate some of our duties and that way we'd have more time for our private lives.
The sheer moment, I swear, the exact moment we left the pub, we saw them. A bunch of dirty, smelly, probably stone high on crack and booze, men of all ages and even the odd female came literally charging towards us. They had bricks and huge rocks in their hands and they unceremoniously started to throw them at the pub and at its windows.
Glass were smashed everywhere and the patrons still inside were screaming as if their lives depended on it. Customers left their belongings where it was, some of their food and drinks still untouched and half finished, and fled the pub area as quick as they could. More and more beggars arrived on the scene and they proceeded to further trash the place.
Whatever that manager had said tk them earlier must have gotten them angry as hell...I pulled Phil's arm towards me as I desperately searched for some sort of cover as we were on the outside and getting pelted with bricks and rocks.
I finally managed to drag Phil behind one of the dumpsters behind the pub without being seen by some sheer miracle. I carefully placed my lifelong buddy on the ground in a comfortable position before I heard police sirens getting ever closer. Someone mist have called the cops, thank god.
Turning my attention back to Phil, he wasn't moving. He was barely breathing, it seemed.
"Phil?"
He tried to open his eyes but it was like he was in sheer agony every time he did. He slumped onto the ground as if hypnotized and started viciously rocking back and forth out of no where.
Shit! Was he having a seizure?
I had never felt so fucking worthless than right there and then. Seeing the man that I had known for over twenty years needing my help and I had no idea what the fuck to do!
"Leave him. You have to let it happen so it can be over."
Scared as shit, after what had happened tonight, I turned around with my fists stretched out in front of me, ready to attack...my god...it was HIM.
He seemed to remember me as well, as he came ever closer and knelt down so that he could see Phil close up. Eventually the rocking and the shakes as well as the terrible, terrible way his eyes were rolling back inside his head stopped, and it was then that the beggar I had given a whopping R200 note two a week ago, carefully picked Phil up in his strong arms as if he weighed nothing at all.
"Follow me," he said before he walked off, not waiting for an answer.
**
The beggar carried Phil, who was still seemingly unconscious, into a small room where there was only a table, two chairs, as well as a queen size bed and a small TV inside. It was murky and dark, but everything was clean as a whistle.
"Maria! We need you!" the beggar yelled out and carefully, as if he would break him, placed Phil onto the bed and made him as comfortable as possible. It was then that I saw why the beggar had probably called for help...one of them fucking bricks must have caught Phil on his temple. It was bleeding quite profusely and that was probably why he was still out like a light.
What kind of friend was I...I didn't even notice it as I was dragging him to what I thought was safety. I turned around as I saw the same woman I had seen the beggar with the other day.
"Goeie naand, Meneer," (good evening, sir) she greeted me and immediately rushed to the bed as she saw why the beggar had actually called out for her.
They spoke in Afrikaans rapidly, and with me being English and having limited knowledge of the language, I quickly lost the flow of the conversation.
The beggar eventually stood up and faced me...once more, and this was totally not the time not the place...but his eyes...blue...blue as the day was long...his arms muscled and toned from being out in the sun dag after day...his voice hoarse and rough, his hands seemed like it could break anything if needed be. His lanky torso stood upright before me, without that smell this time...I must be mad or had I also been hit by a rock on my head...was I really getting turned on by a homeless man?
**
"Sorry, my sister can't speak English too well. Your friend has a small haematoma on the side of his head. That means bleeding on his brain, most probably as a result of that brick hitting him. We need to take him to hospital immediately. It's just...we don't have a landline phone here, or a mobile phone. Could you...?"
I was stunned at the manner in which he spoke.
Here in Cape Town we have homeless people galore and I had never heard one that seemed to gallant and composed such as him. Even in the manner which he spoke seemed out of character for someone in his predicament.
I pulled out my phone and quickly dialled for an ambulance, whilst Maria kept cooling him Phil down. Eventually, mere minutes before the ambulance turned up, Phil had actually managed to open his eyes and I rapidly told him what had happened.
Whether he understood me was a whole other ball game, as his eyes seemed to not concentrate on anything in particular. As the ambulance swiftly drove off into the direction of the nearest hospital, I immediately phoned my wife and told her what had happened at restaurant and assures her that I was absolutely fine, but that I had to make sure that Phil was okay, and to give Molly a big kiss from her daddy.
I was already halfway back to my car when I heard footsteps behind me.
"Please sir, allow me to go with you!"
Attractive beggar or not, he didn't know Phil from a bar of soap! WHAT the hell? He was totally wasting my time!
"Look, I'm thankful you saved us. I really am. But no. Thanks again."
I was in my car and about to slam the door shit when I heard those words...
"It's my fault! Its my fault they attacked the pub!"
Slowly, very slowly, I switched off my car's engine and just looked at him.
"Say what, now?" eventually came spilling from my dried and tired lips.
**
The beggar took a few steps back, he must have seen the sheer murder in my eyes. Physically I was no match for him and his muscles. Weird.
"I...me and Maria got employed her at the pub as security. They can't afford proper security companies so they hired us. We both know that. I mean...look at me. I'm like a bouncer in shreds. But then those idiots...those beggars you saw tonight, they all came here tonight and started demanding jobs here as well. If you were inside you probably saw the manager chuck them out earlier. That attack was their revenge. Its all because of me. I... I just want to see of your friend is okay, is all. After that, I'll go. You'll never see me again."
Maybe it was the genuine tone of his voice, I dunno. It wasn't technically his fault as he was so badly claiming. I sighed, more with utter relief than anything else...exactly why I was so happy to hear that he was not really guilty to what had happened to Phil, I didn't quite understand...and I signalled to him yo get in at the passenger side.
"Thanks, Sir. I appreciate it. Damn...look ag this car...man, oh man..."
I wanted to smile about him gushing about my modest BMW but again, now wasn't the time.
"Thanks, I guess. You probably don't even remember me but..."
"Are you kidding? You don't forget someone who gave you a R200! That's also why I felt so guilty. You were so nice to me. You do realise that money you have me, paid for my niece and nephews to have something to eat that night? It was so hot that day, you have no idea. And because of the traffic jam, people weren't giving as freely as they usually do. They were angry and frustrated and then you tend to chase away beggars rather than helping them. I don't ever forget things like that."
I wanted to stop this car on the side of the road and literally hug him to me but I knew Phil needed me and that we had to get to the hospital. He had this weird sincerity to his voice that I had never ever heard before. My money...that R200 note I had given him quite simply because that was all I had in my wallet...it actually fed his whole family...
Clearing my throat, I held tightly onto the steering wheel.
"Its weird...all this and I don't even know your name. I'm Max Brady, by the way."
The beggar smiled shyly and stared out of the car window as we drove on...
"I don't know. I really don't. All my life I've been on the streets. Dunno who my parents are, or if I have any family. Parents abandoned me and Maria soon as we were both born. We were both found in a garage toilet, a few days old. Yeah, we're actually twins. We're all that we have."
He turned towards me once more, and he smiled.
He actually smiled.
His teeth was so white it nearly blinded me. And oh my gosh...this homeless bum...with his dirty clothes and his terrible stench he had that first day I had met him ...he was quite frankly the most beautiful man I have ever seen...
He stuck his fist, not his hand.
"It's Slender. That's my name. That's me."
**
THANKS FOR READING!!
Please lemme know if you enjoyed "Slender Beggar" and whether y'all wanna read more.
Peace and love!
liciousryan@gmail.com