Labradoodles
It’s summer in Durban. The air hangs in front of me, a tacky haze dripping humidity and the perspiration rolls down my forehead. The t-shirt is soaked and clings to my back. My breathing is steady and rising in tandem with the road. A giant Natal fig looms ahead and I enjoy the several seconds of cooling shade it offers as I keep as far left on the hard shoulder of the narrow, snaking village road as I dare. There’s a serious drop through coastal bush on my left and sure enough a car soon comes racing up the hill, inches from the edge of the right hand side handlebar and I involuntarily veer left with the knobbly tyres on the very edge of the tarmac. The racing driver and his entire family line gets a silent blessing from me and then the wake of diesel hits me and s/he gets another blessing; this time loud enough for the pedestrian on the other side of the road to hear. S/he raises her eyes to me and giggles. We exchange greetings and continue on our respective journeys.
In the holy land, a car is not just a car. It’s your all and everything and for some in the population, just one of many. It’s the most obvious symbol of success (not to mention access in some cases) and anyone not in one is immediately a much lesser version of the species. Unless they’re the obviously sporting types, dressed in lurid lycra and other assorted forms of hideousness and generally travelling in small to large packs. In such formations the non-car people on the roads are mostly tolerated because they’re obviously mostly middle class or rich and the poor amongst the driving population know that their class disadvantage will be their downfall if they attack or harm the non-car people cycling in their loud packs.
Regular poor people and the working poor on the other hand are fair game for everyone because the poor section of the driving population enjoy their superiority over the even poorer suckers who can’t even stump up the mini-bus taxi fare. The working poor on bicycles are particularly hated because they’re obviously trying so hard to be better than the general poor population that relies on the mini-bus taxi system, buses, trains and potentially ride-shares to get them as close as they can to their middle and upper class working zones. Where their middle and upper class baas types (of all races — because representation matters mos) all drive cars they can barely afford or can effortlessly call up a ride-share type car to get them where they need to get to.
So the working poor too have come to see cars as the thing to aim for in life. And themselves as those not in cars as the lesser ones, because they don’t have those cars — and given their income — they’re unlikely to ever be able to afford to buy and operate one. One that’s not held together with duct tape, only keeps going because prayers from the elders in the back seat and the hope in the hearts of the little children usually bouncing about somewhere inside them. And anyway, the baas types will still look down their noses at their car because it’s a piece of shit to them anyway — as much as the person driving it is to them. Now imagine how much lower the mere walker is ranked.
But back to the cyclists who are in packs on bicycles that cost as much as small cars, wearing hideous costumes and busy talking loudly to each other as they cycle. Recently I’ve observed that these packs of class-smugness have taken to shouting loudly LEFT! to any walker that dares to walk on the same path or part of the road they’re using. I sometimes wonder if all middle class cyclists let their domestic workers, gardeners and other associated household staff take time off to watch Tea Leoni shout LEFT! as she runs past — so they know what it means when the group of clowns-in-lycra come barrelling down on them while they’re busy just trying to get to work before the madam can take twenty rands off for being late.
But back to the cycling poor that are hated by the working poor stuffed into mini-bus taxis and the bunched up weekend pleasure cyclists too, who look down on their old, outdated, heavy, usually in need of repair bicycles and their choice to cycle in regular shoes and work clothes. And they’re so poor and such outcasts that they can’t even get a friend to cycle with them.
Now all you need to go with the cycling life is a labradoodle and we’ll be a perfect pair mos.
Labradoodles is inspired by cycling up a narrow, winding road and the attempts on my life by human shaped turds driving cars.
© Jesh Baker, 2022
