You know what they did,
you know what we saw,
when we were two stupid stags,
white boys making our way home.
We were laughing, a raucous friendship,
when an airgun rang shots at our heads.
A white man’s arm hung out a flat window,
declaring we should be close to dead.
A group of black children,
in their school uniforms were walking close by.
They began screaming,
while we poorly hid, avoiding the shots at our eyes.
A cop van came by and stopped,
the shots stopped too,
the children pointed in our direction,
where the shots seemed to be coming through.
The policemen, all black, barely explained,
demanding we get in the back of their van,
disobeying, a forbidden option,
when they’re unwilling to understand.
They drove around the block,
speeding and twisting around bends,
throwing us this way and that,
we were alone without family or friends.
They took us to the police station,
interviewing us on the case,
we told them about the white man, the airgun,
we told them about the flat, where we knew he lived.
They listened and ignored,
we were disbelieved without inquiry,
dumped in a brick shell, a holding cell, full of black men,
a cement floor, the stench of sweat, our prison diary.
We were forced to stay in the cell for two days,
our moms rushing to gather money for lawyer fees,
while charges of attempted murder were made,
there was no point to begging on our knees.
A cellmate, his skin dark, eyes darker still,
asked what size my shoes were.
My heart suspended in my throat,
I barked size ten, not knowing for sure.
Hours of sun beat our faces and arms,
drinking water was brown and cloudy,
the broken toilet full of shit and piss,
we had no will to be rowdy.
At night, we slept close,
as the temperature dropped,
the cellmates surrounded us.
I felt like calling TV cops.
The cellmate asked what we were in for,
I could have killed myself.
Murder, I said boldly,
wondering about details I’d need to concoct, shaping my own delf.
The cellmate stared,
examining my face,
as if calculating the size and length of my fib,
of course, he is black, in South Africa he couldn’t possibly trust my race.
To avoid further lies,
I asked him what landed him here.
He said he was walking,
when the police stopped, pushed him into a van, a criminal cure.
He was given no call,
while we were afforded ours.
They shouted at him, beat him in the interview room,
for refusing to agree, he was made to see stars.
His jeans were cheap,
his shoes needing repair,
a sheen of sweat on his brow,
matting his exhausted, winding hair.
Suddenly, the world felt black, black like him,
truth and justice were empty words,
in a world of an invisible caste,
bad things happened to innocence, poverty was a curse.
These cops wore uniforms, state given,
badges of honour we were told,
but they were setting up the cellmate,
for a crime he knew nothing of, a criminal mould.
And how many of us would see cellmate’s dark skin,
his class, in his clothes and face,
and presume his guilt,
supporting the pain inflicted by the state-functioning mace.
Then it hit me. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,
we, black and white, were in the same cell,
they’re doing to us, what they do to black you.
I am in white, what’s usually black hell.
Every vessel contracted,
I began to feel faint,
my mother worked two jobs,
how would she rescue me from this place?
When a Sandton lawyer arrived,
quoting sections off cash our mothers gave him.
I knew relief was knowing I was still not black,
and poor, the double kick in the shin.
But even now,
when I see a police car or officers,
dressed in blue,
I resist the urge to bolt, to run, thinking it can only get worse.
I am not a kid anymore,
I am a man, far from home,
trial biking on an empty parking lot,
before I head back to our apartment door.
A cop car drives slow up the road,
and I immediately flush pale,
I get off my bike,
wishing I could turn and bail.
The cops drive up,
as close as can be,
looking me in the eyes,
I could have almost peed.
My first thought was,
what will I do if they get off their car,
instruct me to enter theirs,
suggesting I broke the law.
Will they beat me once inside,
bake or exaggerate evidence,
can we afford an attorney,
we are not Nordic, oh Heavens.
With my heart pounding in my chest,
they made a U-turn and left,
I could have cried,
a grown man thankful that we never met.
People think they know the harm of police gone wrong,
back home and all over the world.
They think they know corrupt defence,
because of a man choked to death, so-called justice served.
They know nothing,
they have not lived.
When you’re innocent and lower class,
no fancy lawyer on call, safety guaranteed, a fun twist.
No, to my cellmate I would say,
you think we are so different, you think we all don’t see,
when you’re born lower class like me, my broer,
we are more like you, black with lighter skin, human but barely.
They will dump you in a cell,
pile crimes you’ve never heard of,
they have the power, you’re expendable,
you must do as you’re told.
Cellmate, this won’t stop until you gather,
fight back against the lie,
we know better, cellmate,
we share the same brutalised hands held high.
The SARS protests are a good start,
our African giants know what’s up.
They have seen the back of vans or cars,
the sharp tongue of the state whip.
I know there’s many that look like me,
who have done you wrong so mercilessly,
but trust, power is what they actually crave,
race is a knee-jerk excuse, seek full truth, full pertinency.
I avoid words like trauma,
I hate being a victim at all,
But when my heart races at the sound of a siren.
A memory unfair echoes through my mental halls.
To the invisible, the poor,
I see you, cellmate,
I think of you, I remember,
whenever I hear of brutal handcuffs choking a young man’s fate.
Most often, I try not to think,
of what they did to me, to you.
I push out the memory of those nights,
and I hope you do too.
If you made it out, I hope,
I don’t know, I pretend, I have to pretend in my head,
that all went well for you,
as I settled home, grateful and sick, in my childhood bed.
In honour of the lived experience of my Mr to my Mrs.