Burning Roses

Chapter One-2

ONCE THE ROOM HAD STOPPED spinning, I pushed myself to a sitting position and looked around. The couch against the door had left behind a trail of beer cans and pizza boxes, and what looked to be a pair of socks dipped in blue paint. The only other furniture in the room was a compact hi-fi, which sat next to a pile of records which had seen better days. A couple of blankets wrestled in a corner, and the remains of a beer bottle lay shattered against the wall not two feet from where I had been laying. A collection of barbells intimidated me from next to the double doors.

“What did I miss?”

A new figure had appeared in another doorway, clutching precariously at the doorframe. It seemed I was not alone in my confusion.

“f****d if I know. Looks like Mick’s left us in charge.”

Ian staggered back out of the doorway, returning in a minute or so with a Black Label grasped lovingly in each hand. He tossed one in my direction as he opened the other, and I caught it gratefully, holding the soothing metal against my pounding temples for a moment before pulling the tab.

“There’s a couple of ambulances outside”, came Ian’s voice from the balcony on the other side of the double doors. “Who did he kill?”

Using the wall as leverage, I joined him on the balcony, gulping down a good mouthful of medicine on the way. There was an ugly black smudge on my left wrist, and what looked like some kind of purple mutant spider squashed on my right.

“Last thing I remember is meeting you two at the Toxic Soxx gig in Image last night. After that, anything’s possible.”

Image was one of the sleazier clubs in town, nestling in the heart of the downtown industrial area. It wasn’t the kind of place your mother warned you about, but only because she had no idea that such places actually existed outside of Dante’s third circle. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, shortly after dawn, the underground club would belch forth a stream of punks, skins and headbangers, who would blink wonderingly at the sunrise, shake their heads to clear the last of the alcohol from their brains, then stagger off to lay low until it was time to start all over again.

I had been there last night, but honestly couldn’t remember a thing after bumping into the two big lads on the roof. This might have been somehow related to the bottle of tequila they’d been passing around, although even that was hazy. Could have been vodka. Or petrol.

I grabbed my colours and searched through the pockets for a pair of shades. Mick’s flat was on the first floor, giving him an alternative exit whenever the authorities decided to raid the place. Unfortunately for society in general, most of these “raids” were false alarms. Like this one. But the elected leader of the Aryan Knights couldn’t be too careful.

“Does that fuckwit really think they’ve got nothing better to do than to spy on him and his boyscouts?” Ian asked.

“Ssh!” I looked around, draining the last of the beer. “When they take over, you could be shot for saying things like that.”

Ian grunted, tossed his can into the garden of the flat below, and unzipped his fly.

“See that cat on the stairs down there? Five bucks.”

“f**k off.”

*

* * * *

WE LOCKED THE DOORS behind us and pocketed the key. Mick had ways of finding his way back inside. And if he couldn’t, well... we probably wouldn’t be there when he tried. On the way out, I picked up some mail from the other tenants’ boxes. Nothing interesting, though. Mostly bills, with a couple of family letters mixed in for good measure. And there was a free sample of some new aftershave, but that ended up in the nearest bin along with the rest of the junk.

This part of Hillbrow had seen better days. Once it had been a trendy part of Johannesburg, with the arty crowd flocking to the high-rise buildings to create their own insulated communities. Now it was the centre of the city’s night life, with club-goers, students and wannabe rock-stars fighting for the pick of the area’s flatlands. In the mid-eighties, Hillbrow was the place to be. Kids from the suburbs would borrow a car, pile into the back seat and drive into the Brow for a Saturday night that would make their friends jealous for weeks. The place had nightclubs, stripclubs, hookers, poolhalls, bars, gyms, amusement arcades...and the most colourful collection of streetlife in the city. Both by night and by day.

I’d met a guy begging for money at Highpoint one morning, and we’d started talking. Seems this guy had a house in Observatory, with a pool, and a new car. All of which he was funding through standing at the top of these stairs and harassing pedestrians going about their daily business. Who needed a steady job?

Certainly not me.

*