Gunship Over Angola

When Jim was later escorted home by the police, they were still laughing at what they’d seen at the shebeen. They’d been summoned there after receiving a number of complaints from members of the public, who’d reported hearing blood-curdling screams and loud shouting emanating from the bush behind the Wierda Bridge Shopping Centre.

Eyewitnesses interviewed by the policemen testified that the tsotsis (louts), who’d just minutes earlier robbed Jim of his groceries, had returned to the shebeen and were sharing out their loot when an irate Jim sauntered in and ordered those not involved in the theft to move outside.

Remember that Jim was 72 years old.

The tsotsis, understandably, just ignored Jim’s polite request to return his property before the shit really hit the fan, and simply continued dividing up the goods while the rest of the onlookers said a quiet prayer for the old man who was surely about to meet his maker.

It is quite possible that never before in human history were the odds against victory so heavily stacked against one man.

Undaunted, Jim waded in, fighting sticks and knobkierie flying.

For thirty seconds or so, he singlehandedly delivered a relentless barrage of chops, swipes and thrusts connecting with pinpoint accuracy to the heads, limbs and chests of his human targets. So fierce and unexpected was the assault that Jim barely had to parry a counter-blow.

Despite the ferocity of the attack, a number of the thugs managed to draw their razor-sharp knives. This only seemed to spur Jim into a greater fury, and those who wielded the blades were singled out for even more brutal punishment. Femurs, crania, radii and ribs snapped under the sustained assault and blood spattered even those spectators who had moved away from the scene of the slaughter.

In less than a minute the one-sided battle was over and on the ground lay eight tsotsis, all of them knocked senseless (or pretending to be) by this frail and seemingly harmless old man.

I am told that there was utter silence for at least a few seconds before the assembled crowd, as one, roared their approval for Jim’s actions and hoisted him high upon their shoulders. Gradually Jim’s eyes had begun to lose the bright red bloodlust and he’d asked to be put down. Then he calmly set about gathering up his possessions.

At this point, the police must have arrived and called for ambulances to evacuate the casualties. None of the tsotsis could walk or crawl, and so they all had to be stretchered to the waiting vehicles.

I don’t know whether any of the gang ever returned to the area but I do know that Jim became a folk hero, not only with the shebeen patrons who’d witnessed his exploits but also with the police and among most, if not all, of the residents of southern Valhalla. In light of his sudden celebrity, the tragic events that unfolded just a few months later seem almost inconceivable.

Jim would always spend the December holiday with his family at his kraal in Mozambique, where he would drink copious amounts of sorghum beer with other elders from the district and eat mounds of traditional food served by the womenfolk. Typically, well into the night hours and whenever the desire took him, Jim would rise from his seat at the fireside and loudly announce his wish that one of his wives guide him to his sleeping hut, where his intention was to fulfil his husbandly mandate. In Jim’s considered opinion, this would result in the chosen partner giving birth to a child just before his arrival the following Christmas, nine-month gestation period notwithstanding.

By the end of 1973 Jim was down to a solitary wife. She was a lot younger than him and, it appears, had a libido that needed more regular fulfilment than Jim could produce on the annual festive-season visit. Sometime after nightfall on New Year’s Day 1974, Jim excused himself from the gathering at the fireside and went looking for his wife. Unable to find her in his sleeping hut, he went on searching and discovered her engaged in an intimate act with a far younger man from a neighbouring kraal.

Enraged, Jim immediately challenged the upstart to a duel and, no doubt buoyed by his fighting prowess just months earlier, set off to his own hut to retrieve his weapons of choice. Perhaps his new opponent had heard of the tsotsi incident and feared for his life, or perhaps Jim’s reputation as a warrior provoked the less traditional reaction, but the younger man chose to wait for Jim concealed behind a bush beside the path along which Jim was returning.