| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |
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1 | CONFIDENCE SCORE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
2 | ID | TEXT | LABEL | Boetie | Other | Simon | ||||||||||||||||||||
3 | 0 | 0 | ‘Say “mother”! Go on, say “mother,” you son of a bitch!’ Wham! Wham! went the leather strap. ‘Say “mother,” damn you! Louder, you little bastard, louder!’ she shrieked. The strap went wild all over my face, head and neck. It was as if she was suffering more than me. My mouth opened, and instead of the word ‘mother’ a clot of blood rolled out. It was followed by a distinct ‘Voetsek!’ She shrieked and swung | 0 | 0.97 | 0.02 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
4 | 1 | 1 | test_id, test_text = test["ID"], test["TEXT"] | 2 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.50 | Boetie "0" | Simon "2" | Other "1" | ||||||||||||||||
5 | 2 | 2 | morning. It’s the cut above his eye that seems to worry him. He’ll soon be out of here.’ ‘You’re a social worker, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes, Nurse.’ ‘I wonder how old he is?’ ‘Between seven and eight, I’d say.’ ‘God,’ said the nurse. ‘What’s going to happen to him when he gets out of here?’ They were many now, all ringed around my bed discussing me as if I had fallen from heaven and had broken | 2 | 0.20 | 0.23 | 0.57 | Count | 724 | 119 | 21 | |||||||||||||||
6 | 3 | 3 | wing. The one not in uniform shrugged her shoulders and said: ‘These cases are many; they might be different, but the pattern is the same. Take this one – he’s too young to be sent to a reformatory and too old to be placed in a creche. Children of the gods above and the gutters below. One day, with God’s help, the Government will build a home for them.’ My ribs were not fully healed | 0 | 0.92 | 0.08 | 0.00 | Percentage | 83.8 | 13.77 | 2.43 | |||||||||||||||
7 | 4 | 4 | I ran away from hospital. I walked back to Sophiatown where I got myself a job at the Good Street bus depot. It was more voluntary than fixed. I worked without asking permission from anybody. I busied myself sweeping stationary buses with an improvised rag broom. At night I would wait for the last bus to come in. It had to be the last bus because you never knew which one might pull out first. | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
8 | 5 | 5 | last bus would come in between eleven thirty and twelve midnight and then I’d coil myself on the back seat and sleep. When the first bus pulled out at four a.m. I would get up and stand at the corner of Good Street and Main Road to wait for the baker’s horse-cart. Right on time I would hear the clop-clop echoes of the horses’ hoofs on the tar road as they galloped towards Newlands. This | 0 | 0.92 | 0.00 | 0.08 | |||||||||||||||||||
9 | 6 | 6 | a daily routine. They were delivering fresh-baked bread to the white inhabitants of Newlands. I would stand hidden behind one of the shop pillars and watch the driver till I was sure that all his attention was centred on the road before him, then I would dart swiftly out of my hiding place and without hesitation jump lightly on the back step of the van. Sometimes I would just sit there with my bare feet | 0 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.49 | |||||||||||||||||||
10 | 7 | 7 | while I enjoyed the ride. One morning I was too hungry to brag. I pulled at the thick wire loop to swing the door open, but nothing happened. Then I noticed that the van was freshly painted. The paint made it difficult for me to lift the loop; it needed stronger hands. Hands that materialised right out of the tar road. Or so it seemed. One minute I was struggling with the wire loop and | 0 | 0.96 | 0.00 | 0.03 | |||||||||||||||||||
11 | 8 | 8 | next I knew, a different pair of hands appeared mysteriously and lifted the loop without effort. ‘Jump!’ was all he said. I did. We retreated up Main Road with four loaves of fresh- baked bread under our armpits. When we came to the spot where he had so mysteriously appeared, he stopped and eyed me speculatively. ‘Where’s your home, boy?’ I shook my head. ‘No home.’ ‘Where d’you sleep?’ ‘At the bus depot in Good | 0 | 0.91 | 0.08 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
12 | 9 | 9 | on the back seat of the last bus.’ He had a big dent in his forehead and it was throbbing violently as if it was inhaling and exhaling. He was very much undecided about something. What made him come to a quick decision was the shouting we heard from the still receding baker’s cart. We had forgotten to close the back door of the van. The door was flapping wildly in the wind and someone | 2 | 0.47 | 0.01 | 0.51 | |||||||||||||||||||
13 | 10 | 10 | hailing the driver, hoping to draw his attention. ‘In here,’ said my new-found father. He threw himself on to his stomach and, sliding crabwise, vanished into the gutter. I was still undecided when I felt his fingers closing around my ankle in a powerful grip. That decided me. I went flat on my stomach and slid in after him. I felt him crawl, and I followed. We had crawled for only a few yards when | 0 | 0.96 | 0.04 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
14 | 11 | 11 | he wasn’t in front of me anymore. If he hadn’t grabbed me, I would have blundered head first into a larger tunnel. Here it was blacker than the inside of a devil’s horn. You couldn’t see your own hand in front of you, but at least you could stand upright. ‘Follow me, and trail with your hand against the wall,’ he said. I did. We travelled this way for about a mile, and then we | 0 | 0.72 | 0.00 | 0.28 | |||||||||||||||||||
15 | 12 | 12 | He groped for my hand and led me up four steps. Up here, he was forced to stoop, while I still remained upright. That was how I first met the man who was responsible for my future life. It was a dog’s life, but nevertheless a life. I heard him going through his pockets, then I heard the rattle of matches. He struck one. The flame nearly blinded me. He got a lamp from somewhere, | 0 | 0.92 | 0.00 | 0.08 | |||||||||||||||||||
16 | 13 | 13 | lit the wick. I gasped. I was looking at the cavern of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Only that was fiction and this was real. The walls were plastered with pictures of Tom Mix the cowboy. Strewn on the floor was what must have come fresh from a washing line. There were bed-sheets, pillowcases, ladies’ bloomers, men’s underwear – all were still damp. There was a wheelbarrow, a gramophone and records, a stale wedding | 2 | 0.29 | 0.00 | 0.71 | |||||||||||||||||||
17 | 14 | 14 | a police helmet, a pressure stove, pots, a red battered money box, a guitar with three strings and a horseshoe nailed to the entrance to keep away evil spirits. But above all the prizes, my eyes kept straying towards the gramophone. He must have noticed this, because he went straight to it and started playing some records. I looked around and saw that this part of the tunnel was V-shaped. Water couldn’t come through here | 0 | 0.98 | 0.02 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
18 | 15 | 15 | he had placed a thick slab of cement to block the outlet that runs through to the main tunnel. One tunnel was then forced to share the water of the other. What really helped a great deal was that we were about three feet above the major tunnel. After enjoying some of the records, we had our breakfast. Then my father started schooling me on the numerous small tunnels that start in and around Sophiatown | 0 | 0.56 | 0.44 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
19 | 16 | 16 | end up here in the big one. I was taught when and how to take advantage of them, which one to use, and which one to avoid, where they led to and what to do in case of rain. It was like a game of snakes and ladders with the ladders crossed out. We didn’t need the ladders because they led up. All we needed was the snakes. The snakes swallowed us, and when we | 2 | 0.10 | 0.24 | 0.67 | |||||||||||||||||||
20 | 17 | 17 | out of their bowels we found ourselves back in our underground home with arms heavily laden with stolen goods. And no tail behind. I looked with awe at my father when he was through explaining. He was an unusually short man. Because of this, it was difficult to determine his age. He could have been anything between twenty and forty. He told me that his real name was Ga-ga, but because of his bandy legs | 0 | 0.65 | 0.07 | 0.29 | |||||||||||||||||||
21 | 18 | 18 | referred to him as Krommie, ‘Crooked’ in Afrikaans. When I begged him for permission to refer to him as Ga-ga, which was his real name, meaning not to remind him of his bandy legs, he refused. He told me that in the American comic strips ga-ga means mad; he wasn’t mad. The dent in his forehead was frightening to look at. It was so big that you could fit a tennis ball into it. He | 0 | 0.80 | 0.02 | 0.17 | |||||||||||||||||||
22 | 19 | 19 | me that it was caused by the hoof of a farmer’s horse. I started hating horses until this very day. Krommie was bad through and through. He was more mischievous than troublesome. He could without effort cause a highly religious person to use vile words. Wherever he went he left grief and chaos behind. I honestly don’t think that he could walk past a dry field of grass without setting fire to it. His pocket | 0 | 0.58 | 0.03 | 0.39 | |||||||||||||||||||
23 | 20 | 20 | came from children sent to the shops by their parents. My teaming up with him did not improve my relationship with the young population of Sophiatown, nor the Main Road shop owners. There was a verbal prize hanging on our heads. Take Honest Charley, for instance, from the Chinaman shop next to the bioscope. He was named Honest Charley instead of Black Market Charley. This Chinaman kept a big pocket watch in one of his | 0 | 0.86 | 0.13 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
24 | 21 | 21 | pockets. The watch was attached to a chain. I must have made a note of it unconsciously. One morning, after oversleeping and missing my usual bread supply on the road, I went into the shop to buy myself a tickey’s worth of bread. I was suddenly struck by a mischievous brainwave. ‘Charley,’ I said, leaving out the Honest part of his name, and holding out the bread in my hand, ‘will you please push this | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
25 | 22 | 22 | down the back of my neck? I’m afraid the other boys will snatch it and run into the bioscope with it.’ Charley grinned, showing a row of golden teeth. While Charley was busy pushing the bread down the back of my neck, I lifted the watch. It was more through fate than anything else that I bumped into Ga-ga, my gutter father, as I was leaving the shop. Outside, I showed my father the watch. | 0 | 0.93 | 0.02 | 0.05 | |||||||||||||||||||
26 | 23 | 23 | whispered fiercely into my ear, then he dragged me back to the shop’s entrance. He called to Charley who was busy scaling sugar into sixpenny bags. When Honest Charley looked up, Ga-ga said, ‘Look, he’s got your watch.’ Honest Charley dropped what he was doing and grabbed a meat cleaver. If I had known that the watch meant so much to him, I wouldn’t have pinched it. Maybe he had come all the way from | 0 | 0.98 | 0.00 | 0.02 | |||||||||||||||||||
27 | 24 | 24 | with it. I wanted to run for my life, but Ga-ga held me fast. The cleaver was being brandished with murderous intent. I tried to pull free from Ga-ga, but he held on. It was only when the cleaver was lifted for the fatal blow that Ga-ga let go. I ran down Main Road as if the Devil was after me. Maybe he was, at that. Then Ga-ga went into action. He darted into the | 0 | 0.96 | 0.04 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
28 | 25 | 25 | shop, jumped over the counter and emptied the till… I was lying flat on my stomach, another morning, with my cheeks resting on the palms of my dirty little hands. A gramophone record was playing. The voice in the record belonged to Jimmy Rodgers. He was singing a song called ‘Waiting for the Train’ with guitar accompaniment. The first time I heard that record, I took to it like a drunkard takes to drink. I | 0 | 0.72 | 0.00 | 0.28 | |||||||||||||||||||
29 | 26 | 26 | have been really dreaming. Of what? Only my ancestors know. But what I do know is that I was dreaming, because Krommie had looked up from his comic strip and said: ‘I’m talking to you!’ ‘What?’ I asked. He pointed a fat jam-stained finger at the comic strip. ‘Do you think the Red Indians will catch him?’ To shut him up I said, ‘Yes, he doesn’t stand a chance.’ My Daddy chuckled gleefully at the | 0 | 0.91 | 0.00 | 0.09 | |||||||||||||||||||
30 | 27 | 27 | of the pony express rider. As long as you agreed with him, nothing went wrong. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. Not while I was listening to that record. But something did. Good things don’t last. My father trampled on my favourite record by accident. A nightmare search for the record started. Every time I stole a record, it would turn out to be the wrong one. You see, I couldn’t read. If I | 2 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.50 | |||||||||||||||||||
31 | 28 | 28 | I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and the Jew a lot of grief. It went on so long that I was beginning to think that the old Jew at the bicycle shop didn’t have that record. But my will was as obstinate as the cracks on my mud- caked feet. I was in and out of that Jew’s shop as if I owned it. At last I got the right record and | 0 | 0.90 | 0.00 | 0.10 | |||||||||||||||||||
32 | 29 | 29 | months in the reformatory. The youngest convict there. When I came out, I was bitterly reprimanded by my father for stealing records instead of food. One morning I went out as usual for our daily bread. When I came back, the gramophone was missing. My father had sold it during my absence. He claimed that it was spoiling me. I felt as though my back was broken. My bowels wanted to work. I packed my | 0 | 0.52 | 0.48 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
33 | 30 | 30 | and left the tunnel for good to wander again in a world of uncertainty. I didn’t wander long. I soon found myself working for a circus, washing elephants’ feet. Sometimes I wondered which feet needed to be washed most, mine or the elephants’. But seeing that I wasn’t getting paid to wash mine, I didn’t bother with them. I travelled with the circus to Cape Town where for the first time I saw the sea. | 2 | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.92 | |||||||||||||||||||
34 | 31 | 31 | Cape Town I was mostly with a Coon Carnival group known as The Jesters. There was a guitar player that I greatly admired. He played almost like my Jimmy Rodgers. We were inseparable; I trailed behind him like a devoted young pup. He sent me everywhere. I went daily to town for him to pick up cigarette stubs and empty wine bottles. Eighty empty wine bottles landed him a full one at the liquor store. | 0 | 0.81 | 0.01 | 0.18 | |||||||||||||||||||
35 | 32 | 32 | turn he taught me a few chords on the guitar. I was so busy running errands for my friend that the circus left without me. I didn’t care much. I was fed up with the elephants’ feet and getting tips instead of wages. I felt that if I kept on washing elephants’ feet I’d never get around to washing my own. I liked Cape Town because sleeping accommodation was no problem. I just slept where | 0 | 0.99 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
36 | 33 | 33 | felt sleepy. In corridors. On stairs. Balconies. Anywhere. I just lived, and lived, and lived. My life was so free that I was just beginning to be convinced that this nice town had no reformatory. Then they arrested me for trying to steal a bus conductor’s money bag. My knife was too blunt, otherwise I would have gotten away with it. I had his money bag, which was hanging from a leather strap, with my | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
37 | 34 | 34 | hand, while my right was slashing at the leather strap which was buckled to the bag. The damn fool knife wouldn’t cut the strap in one stroke. The white conductor tried to grab my knife hand. That made me forget the leather strap. Instead, I sank my knife through his hand. It’s funny, the knife wouldn’t cut the strap but it sank through his hand as if it was made of reformatory soap. That got | 0 | 0.84 | 0.16 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
38 | 35 | 35 | two years in Tokai, the Cape Town reformatory. The kind of work they gave me in the reformatory got me out of the reformatory. We were weaving fishing nets. My nimble fingers were so good at it that in a year they gave me a ‘hat’ as promotion. I was now a monitor. It was while I was a monitor that I learned about the fish train. The fastest train on the track. It travels | 0 | 0.97 | 0.01 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
39 | 36 | 36 | from Cape Town docks to Johannesburg, with one water break at Bloemfontein so that the fish it carries shouldn’t get rotten. The non-stop journey plus the chunks of ice with which they line the coaches keep the fish still fresh all the way to Johannesburg. Maybe the fishing net business was beginning to bore me. Or perhaps it was the fish train knowledge. I don’t know. All I know is that I found my hands | 0 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.50 | |||||||||||||||||||
40 | 37 | 37 | a rope ladder instead of a fishing net, while the corner of my right eye kept straying towards the prison walls. It’s a long time ago, but I can still hear the echoes of police whistles in my ears whenever I recall what I now refer to as the Tokai Break. They behaved as if I was forty instead of eleven. Seven days after my escape from Tokai, a policeman was saying, ‘Jump over his | 0 | 0.65 | 0.35 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
41 | 38 | 38 | and get to the other side, then work on the fingers of his left hand while I work on the right.’ A crowd of onlookers had gathered on both sides of the fish train. I was perched between two coaches. The white policeman on my right was grumbling and swearing as he struggled to release my frozen fingers from the wire cage of the coach. He was hurting me. The other policeman on my left | 0 | 0.96 | 0.04 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
42 | 39 | 39 | more gentle. ‘Can’t we light a fire and melt the ice around the little devil’s fingers?’ ‘No, he’ll get frostbite.’ ‘I wonder how the devil the little bastard got himself into such a mess.’ He gave one quick unexpected pull and my right hand was jerked free. Blood dripped from my fingers and tears spurted from my eyes as I examined my bleeding hand. The nail on my little finger was missing. ‘Better do the | 0 | 0.92 | 0.01 | 0.06 | |||||||||||||||||||
43 | 40 | 40 | with that left hand, we can’t afford to waste any more time with this little brat.’ ‘Hold on, I’m only left with the thumb.’ Pulling the baton from his belt, he knocked it several times against the wire cage. The ice cracked and fell away, and my thumb was free. They hauled me off the train. At first my knees wouldn’t let me stand upright, but after the police gave them a good rub I | 0 | 0.88 | 0.00 | 0.12 | |||||||||||||||||||
44 | 41 | 41 | able to stand unaided. ‘Piccanin!’ ‘Yes, baas.’ I looked up at the policeman with a dirty, tear-stained face. ‘What on earth were you doing on that train?’ ‘I was trying to get loose, baas.’ ‘Yes, yes, I know. What I don’t know is how the hell you found yourself hemmed in between two coaches and half-frozen to death?’ ‘I was coming home, baas.’ ‘Coming home from where?’ ‘From Cape Town, baas.’ ‘You mean,’ spluttered the | 0 | 0.62 | 0.08 | 0.30 | |||||||||||||||||||
45 | 42 | 42 | policeman, ‘you travelled a thousand miles from Cape Town like that?’ ‘I come from Cape Town with this train, baas.’ ‘Where do you stay, boy?’ ‘Sophiatown, baas.’ ‘What street, boy?’ ‘Good Street, baas.’ ‘What number?’ ‘No number, baas.’ ‘You mean there is no number at your house?’ ‘No number, baas.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Is not a house, is a bus garage, baas.’ ‘You mean you sleep in a bus depot?’ ‘Yes, baas. On the back seat of | 1 | 0.15 | 0.85 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
46 | 43 | 43 | last bus.’ ‘The back seat of the last bus, hey?’ ‘Yes, baas.’ ‘This is a case for the social workers…’ ‘Not social workers, please baas.’ ‘Why not social workers?’ ‘Long time ago, they say I’m a head sore.’ ‘A what?’ ‘A head sore, baas.’ ‘You mean a headache?’ ‘Yes, baas.’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Leben.’ ‘Eleven!’ they echoed in unison. As I was led through the gaping crowd, I fished out a half loaf of | 0 | 0.53 | 0.47 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
47 | 44 | 44 | bread from inside my shirt and started biting into it. I didn’t care what they were going to do with me as long as I was back home. Familiarity is the kingdom of the lost. They locked me up and only released me when they felt that I was old enough to look after myself. I could, too, if the police would only stop interfering. After four years I was out. A rasping kind of | 0 | 0.99 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
48 | 45 | 45 | came from my new khaki prison suit as I walked away from the Auckland Park Reformatory towards Westdene. I drowned the monotonous sound by jingling the money that was in my pocket. Reformatory wages – two shillings a month for four years. Four pounds sixteen shillings. My mind was dwelling on the parting words of our convict preacher: ‘Son, once you come to the outside world, teach yourself to look upon problems as the wheels | 0 | 0.62 | 0.38 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
49 | 46 | 46 | progress. Go forward with them and you won’t go wrong. Reverse, and you end up here.’ The people who preach most about reform are found in prison. When you’re free, you wonder where the hell they are. When you go back, you find them there. You don’t dare ask them why they didn’t follow their own advice. They go on like a whore that tells every man in bed with her, in all seriousness, that | 2 | 0.26 | 0.00 | 0.74 | |||||||||||||||||||
50 | 47 | 47 | has never had it so good before. Lying to yourself is the biggest sin of all because you end up the sufferer. Why fry your own carcass? Why stand in judgement on yourself? Clear your conscience by elbowing the blame. You have as much right on this earth as the next man. My advice is: keep the blood-pumper out of it and give the reins to the brains. But in this country a hungry stomach | 0 | 0.52 | 0.48 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
51 | 48 | 48 | the place of brains. Use it. Take or be taken. The home of the timid is the grave. If you want to get rich quick, take the road that leads to prison. There’s a steel door at the end. As you go to it, don’t go in, turn sharp right. Then you’re on your way. I came to the first gate that led into Newclare Township. The gate I call ‘Weaklings turn back’. Instead of | 0 | 0.88 | 0.12 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
52 | 49 | 49 | the sign of the cross because I was just about to enter into hell, I took out a bag of strong prison tobacco. It’s a Xhosa tobacco commonly known as Ndanya Ndanya – ‘I shit, I shit’. Newclare Township lies five miles west of Johannesburg City. In those days it was an African township, encamped right round with an iron spiked fence. Whoever thought of that giant-size cage must have thought it proper to place | 0 | 0.73 | 0.27 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
53 | 50 | 50 | inhabitants of this township on the same level as wild animals; because in all my born days I’ve never seen a township frequented so much by police vans, except, perhaps, its opposite neighbour, Sophiatown. There were four legal entrances to Newclare, each closely guarded by hefty Zulu policemen armed with heavy knobkerries. The knobs of their kerries were covered with spiked buttons of steel. In spite of these security precautions, the rough elements of the | 1 | 0.44 | 0.56 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
54 | 51 | 51 | tampered with the iron fence that so jealously guarded them and you could always find man-size holes at convenient points. The first entrance led directly into Ballendine Avenue. This was the only tarred street in the whole township because it led to the superintendent’s home and office. Turn right or left at any street you came to. If you were black, you’d see life. If you were white, life would see you. The streets were | 0 | 0.55 | 0.00 | 0.45 | |||||||||||||||||||
55 | 52 | 52 | by ox-cart-wide alleys. If you stopped at the mouth of any alley and shot a glance either way, you were sure to see the bent form of a woman hauling skokiaan from a drum that lay mouldering in the ground. Right where you were, if you knew what to look for, you’d see someone, male or female, resembling part of the surrounding scenery. Immediately after the skokiaan queen rose from her undignified position and disappeared | 0 | 0.73 | 0.00 | 0.27 | |||||||||||||||||||
56 | 53 | 53 | one of the backyards, the inconspicuous figure would also disappear. There was nothing mysterious about this. The party just happened to be scouting for police while the skokiaan queen hauled her brew. If you kept on along the avenue, you came to the tramlines and the football grounds. Then you turned right. You were at another gate, the second entrance to Newclare. The biggest and busiest of the township. First thing that I looked for | 0 | 0.97 | 0.02 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
57 | 54 | 54 | was the gutter that led to the tunnel where I lived as a boy. Next, the ‘Prisoners Corner’ near the public lavatories. Here you’d see Africans – as many as fifty to a hundred – sitting miserably in a long queue. Closer inspection revealed that they were handcuffed in pairs. Pass-law victims. The familiarity of such a scene hardly warranted a second glance, unless you wanted to invite enquiries about your own pass. You turned | 0 | 0.53 | 0.46 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
58 | 55 | 55 | eyes away from those bundles of misery to the elderly women sitting in half-circles selling fried corn cobs. They worked over fire-galleys made out of four-gallon paraffin tins with holes punched into them. Some sold pork trotters and sheep trotters in pots blackened by wood and coal smoke. There were coffee carts where you could get a quick cup of coffee in the open or a shilling’s worth of skokiaan on the sly. Some women | 0 | 0.70 | 0.28 | 0.02 | |||||||||||||||||||
59 | 56 | 56 | hard-boiled eggs, and right next to them a Coloured woman also sold eggs. Hers went much faster because the insides contained brandy mixed with tobacco juice. There was a little waiting room built by the Johannesburg Municipality Transport Company to shelter tram passengers from the rain. The only patrons of this little waiting room were a gang of unruly teenagers waiting to pick the pockets of passengers as loaded trams rumbled in from the city. | 0 | 0.99 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
60 | 57 | 57 | inside the waiting room in bold red letters were the words: BENZINE GANG. Next to the waiting room stood the skeleton of the township’s only telephone booth, long since out of use. I crossed Main Road and left Newclare to mingle with the pawns on the Devil’s board – Sophiatown. My beloved Sophiatown. The skeleton with the permanent grin. A live carcass bloated with grief and happiness. Where decency was found in filth and beauty | 0 | 0.53 | 0.47 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
61 | 58 | 58 | behind ugliness. Where vice was a virtue and virtue a vice. A black heaven glowing with sparks of hell. From its feverish womb crawled many of the country’s finest black doctors, teachers, sportsmen, businessmen, musicians and intellectuals. Also its best-dressed criminals. Sophiatown mothered all races. That’s why her apron was always dirty. Without blushing she could produce a Timbuctoo Swahili with the same ease as she would a Zulu flat-boy. She looked upon them all | 0 | 0.84 | 0.15 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
62 | 59 | 59 | the equal affection of a long- suffering parent. Here, four hundred miles inland from the nearest coastal town, American influence ran thick. Because Sophiatown was the first black town in the whole of Africa that could boast a cinema as far back as the early twenties. As civilisation advanced, so did the evil life of Sophiatown. I saw the turnover from the traditional stick fights to fist fights, and then to the buckles of heavy | 0 | 0.57 | 0.43 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
63 | 60 | 60 | belts. From there, it was knives, and then guns. Sophiatown became a slum jungle of here-today-and-dead-tomorrow. Just across the main road from Newclare was Good Street and the notorious and one and only bus-rank. Whoever named this street must still be wriggling in his grave. This street was no damn good. It was hell’s own highway. Bad through and through. It was nearly impossible to go from one side to the other without paying a | 2 | 0.49 | 0.00 | 0.51 | |||||||||||||||||||
64 | 61 | 61 | in broken ribs or a busted head. Saturdays and Sunday afternoons were sheer hell. The Pedi gang used to have fist fights in shebeen backyards just to see which one of them was strong enough to lead the pack. Then they’d storm down Good Street towards the bus-rank, leaving pedestrians screaming and cursing as they painfully picked themselves up from the ground. A cyclone gone mad. Then there were the Zulu gangs. Their undying belief | 0 | 0.88 | 0.00 | 0.12 | |||||||||||||||||||
65 | 62 | 62 | that they represent the bravest and strongest black race in the whole of Africa. Me, I think they are just plain stubborn. They would come in groups from the beer halls, waving and hitting the air with their heavy sticks, fighting an imaginary foe. Often the foe was not imaginary, especially when they reached the bus-rank at Good Street where they were sure to come face to face with the Basutos. The result was always | 0 | 0.86 | 0.00 | 0.13 | |||||||||||||||||||
66 | 63 | 63 | free-for-all, with a few scattered dead and badly maimed bodies. Mostly Sothos. The Sothos also moved about in groups. They wore cone-shaped straw hats and bright blankets covered the top half of their bodies. Underneath those colourful blankets they carried dangerous sticks. If you saw Sothos coming towards you in a group, you got the hell out of their way. Their way of fighting was first to cover the victim with their blankets and then | 2 | 0.48 | 0.03 | 0.49 | |||||||||||||||||||
67 | 64 | 64 | beat him to death. If they detected movement under the blanket, they justified their bloodthirsty act by suggesting that the victim was fighting back. If they hit you and you fell, they said you were picking up stones. If you screamed, you were calling your brothers to come and kill them. Those were a few of the playmates you could find at the corner of Good Street and Main Road. At night time it was | 2 | 0.43 | 0.04 | 0.53 | |||||||||||||||||||
68 | 65 | 65 | more jazzy. Then you could always meet up with true, cultured gentlemen like the Black Caps. They were a gang of more than fifty. Here’s a typical operation: a man takes a stroll with his wife. He’s smartly dressed in his own way – brown and white shoes, grey flannel trousers, black blazer, cream straw hat. The fool is swinging his wife’s handbag like it’s a briefcase. His bragging ways make the Black Caps jealous. | 1 | 0.25 | 0.74 | 0.02 | |||||||||||||||||||
69 | 66 | 66 | one of them says, ‘Look at that romantic bastard. He must be a real black Clark Gable to be able to own such a beautiful brown doll.’ Then another one of them says, ‘I’m going to show that bum that the fact that I don’t own a cow doesn’t mean that I don’t like meat. He thinks it’s only people with baskets that can go to market.’ So they strip him of his clothes and | 2 | 0.35 | 0.01 | 0.64 | |||||||||||||||||||
70 | 67 | 67 | wife. His wife he gets back the next day. A little further up Good Street was the untidy bus depot where I made my first job and slept as a child. You were always sure to find a circle of men gathered on the pavement nearby, shooting dice. These gamblers were the real hard cases of Sophiatown. My reformatory wages needed increasing. I decided to go and try my luck. When my turn came to | 0 | 0.68 | 0.32 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
71 | 68 | 68 | up the dice, I dropped a ten-shilling note and made my challenge. I bent half forward and shook the dice, waiting for my challenge to be answered. I didn’t wait long before four half-crowns came spinning down from above. On my first throw, up came the winning number. It was number eleven. I reached out with my left hand to pick up the money, when I heard a voice growl. It was just that, nothing | 0 | 0.98 | 0.00 | 0.02 | |||||||||||||||||||
72 | 69 | 69 | just a growl like an animal imitating speech. I looked up. What I saw made me take a step back. The money was completely forgotten. In all my life I’d never seen such a frightening brute! His head was clean-shaven, showing many brutal scars that brought to mind bicycle chains, heavy belt buckles, knives, axes – you name it. What was fascinating was that there were no stitch marks on any of those swollen scars. | 0 | 0.74 | 0.26 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
73 | 70 | 70 | must have healed with no outside help. They looked like criss-cross pieces of rope. He grinned at my blatant stare. That made him even uglier. He had a huge scar that started just above his left eye and ended below his chin. His lips were badly scarred too. Everything expanded when he smiled. ‘Throw again,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see the dice is not sitting straight?’ He sounded like a leaking organ in B flat. | 0 | 0.65 | 0.00 | 0.35 | |||||||||||||||||||
74 | 71 | 71 | gulped and picked up the dice again. It wasn’t necessary to shake them because I was shaking already. I threw, and another winning number came up. This time it was number seven. As I reached for the money, the gorilla growled again. I threw so many damned times that I felt my back ache. At last I threw a double six, a crap. The losing number. ‘Aaah,’ beamed the son of a bitch. ‘Now you | 0 | 0.71 | 0.00 | 0.29 | |||||||||||||||||||
75 | 72 | 72 | With bile and disgust in my mouth, I threw the dice in the middle of the school and walked away. I sat in the backyard of a Chinese grocer’s shop drinking bathtub brandy and related my grim crap game experience to some fellow drinkers. One of them looked at his friend and grinned as if enjoying a secret joke. ‘This, my friend, is Sophiatown. Here you must look before you leap. Last night I was | 0 | 0.74 | 0.26 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
76 | 73 | 73 | myself at a friend’s party way up Gold Street. At eleven o’clock I took off my clothes until just my underwear was left. My friend asked why I was going to sleep so early when the party was just getting hot. ‘“Sleep?” I said. “I’m not going to sleep – I’m going home!” ‘“How the hell can you go home in your underpants?” ‘“You wait and see,” I said. They all thought I was drunk | 0 | 0.55 | 0.00 | 0.45 | |||||||||||||||||||
77 | 74 | 74 | mad. ‘I opened the door and began to jog home at a nice dignified pace. Just when I came to the Newclare fence, I heard a voice coming from a dark shop doorway: “Leave that one alone. Can’t you see they’ve already stripped him?” ‘Hell, I smiled to myself. You see, I wouldn’t have stood a dog’s chance and I knew it. When I leave here, I’m going straight to my friend’s place to collect | 2 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.50 | |||||||||||||||||||
78 | 75 | 75 | clothes. ‘Yes, my friend, Sophiatown is becoming a real hell town. The police are not improving it either with their pass laws and their liquor laws. Now they have passed a new law known as “Lekker Loop”. It’s really “Drunken Noise”. The fine was ten shillings or ten days. Now it’s fifteen pounds or three months. ‘Man, now they are arresting us left and right. Even if you’re not drunk, they’ll claim you are drunk! | 1 | 0.33 | 0.58 | 0.09 | |||||||||||||||||||
79 | 76 | 76 | before yesterday, no! It was Monday morning at the corner of Victoria and Bertha Street, I found a white policeman arguing with an elderly man. The policeman said the man was drunk. The man said he was only on his way to work. “Then,” said the policeman, “if you’re not drunk, why the hell do you eat fish and chips in the street?” ‘“I’m hungry, baas, that’s why.” ‘The policeman clipped handcuffs on his wrists | 1 | 0.42 | 0.52 | 0.05 | |||||||||||||||||||
80 | 77 | 77 | said, “Come on, only drunkards eat in the street. Besides, you’re shivering.” ‘As he was being led away, I heard the man say: “I’m shivering because I’m angry, not drunk.”’ The speaker sighed, then took another deep breath as though he was going to launch into a new yarn. ‘Do you know this ugly ape who did me down there?’ I interrupted quickly. ‘That, my friend, is Number Nine. He is called that because of | 0 | 0.91 | 0.00 | 0.09 | |||||||||||||||||||
81 | 78 | 78 | ugly scar like a nine on his face. Keep well away from Nine, he’s dangerous. He fights like hell, but what’s so bloody unfair is that he doesn’t seem to get hurt. Fighting him is like fighting grinning rubber!’ Everyone nodded in agreement. There and then I decided to spend all my reformatory wages on Nine. I’m going to make the son of a bitch drunk, I said to myself, and when he’s nice and | 0 | 0.98 | 0.00 | 0.01 | |||||||||||||||||||
82 | 79 | 79 | I’m going to beat him half to death. Either I get Nine, or he gets me. It was either the bitter taste of bile in my mouth, or the stench seeping through the broken window of the latrine, that woke me. Maybe it was both. The taste of bile was so thick that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a purple face in the mirror. And Christ, did that lavatory smell! Imagine one bucket-latrine | 0 | 0.90 | 0.05 | 0.05 | |||||||||||||||||||
83 | 80 | 80 | for a whole yard of people. It was being used inside and out. I needed to vomit. I got out of the bed without studying my surroundings. I went straight to the water bucket without bothering to look for a mug. I picked up the four-gallon bucket and drank a quarter of its contents. I looked about for a basin and saw one. I didn’t care what kind of basin it was – a dish-washing | 0 | 0.98 | 0.00 | 0.02 | |||||||||||||||||||
84 | 81 | 81 | or a face-washing basin. I went down on my knees in front of it and pushed three of my fingers down my throat in the hope of drawing the bile out. It worked. When I was through, the basin was filled with green stuff. It was as if some evil had just snaked out of me. I took the basin out and emptied it in a blocked drain. I went back to the little room | 0 | 0.88 | 0.00 | 0.12 | |||||||||||||||||||
85 | 82 | 82 | sat on the only bed, my head resting between my hands. I was trying to review the events of the night before. Much as I tried, I couldn’t recall a thing. Thinking only increased the pain in my head, so I gave it up and studied my immediate surroundings. There was nothing to study. The room was bare, except for two benches and the bed I was sitting on. Suddenly I jerked upright as I | 0 | 0.67 | 0.00 | 0.33 | |||||||||||||||||||
86 | 83 | 83 | of my reformatory wages. Hastily I ran through my pockets and uncovered four shillings. I went through them more carefully, emptying everything on the bed. Everything meant prison tobacco, matches, pieces of brown paper that I used for rolling the tobacco and finally, my prison discharge papers. I looked at the brown pieces of paper, half willing them to turn into pounds, then the room turned dark. I looked up, and there was the large | 0 | 0.97 | 0.00 | 0.03 | |||||||||||||||||||
87 | 84 | 84 | of Nine blocking the door. He was grinning from ear to ear. Hell’s chief stoker. Whatever decided me to try and fight that brute I’ll never know. I had as much chance of winning as David would have had if he had fought Goliath fair. ‘How you feel?’ ‘Never mind my feelings, where’s my money?’ ‘You dranked it, Little Brother.’ ‘All?’ ‘You told the shebeen queen to decorate the table and count the empties.’ ‘Then | 0 | 0.75 | 0.24 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
88 | 85 | 85 | happened?’ ‘Drinks make you brave, Little Brother. When you were drunk you took a swing at me. I caught your fist over my shoulder and hanged your body there instead, then I carried you home.’ ‘Just like that, heh?’ ‘Just like that.’ He grinned. I groaned and fell across the bed. When I again looked up, Nine was busy cooking thick porridge on the pressure stove. When the porridge was cooked, he produced a thick | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
89 | 86 | 86 | of beef steak. The steak was still dripping blood when it joined the porridge. I thought that surely somewhere the cow was still alive. After feeding he said, ‘How much money you got?’ Instead of telling him to go and shovel the bones in hell, I heard myself saying, ‘Four shillings.’ ‘Gimme,’ he said, just as rudely. ‘On the bed,’ I said listlessly. He took the money and left. I lay back and stretched myself. | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
90 | 87 | 87 | was unused to strong liquor, it was playing hell with my nerves. As for my four shillings, I didn’t give a damn what was going to happen to them. I had just made the painful discovery that I was incompetent to look after myself. I was here to serve humanity. My gutter father. Then the circus population. Then the Coon Carnival guitarist. Then the reformatory authorities. Now Number Nine. The worst feeling was inside me. | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
91 | 88 | 88 | depressed feeling of human oppression that caused my insides to shake like raw eggs, leaving me mentally, physically and spiritually in a funk. A frightening feeling of self-pity, the foundation of disaster. I must have slept, because when I came back to the world without pity, the sun was just going down in the west. I got up and lit the piece of candle that was perched on the bottom of an empty jam tin. | 0 | 0.96 | 0.00 | 0.04 | |||||||||||||||||||
92 | 89 | 89 | feeble light revealed bloody stripes of long-dead bed bugs on all four walls. I closed my eyes again. ‘Wake up, Little Brother,’ came the hateful voice. ‘It’s Christmas for you and me. Your four shillings got me eight pounds – three for you, and five for me.’ He threw the money on the bed and grinned. I wished that he wouldn’t grin so much. Somehow that grin made me feel lost, like I was intruding | 0 | 0.68 | 0.00 | 0.32 | |||||||||||||||||||
93 | 90 | 90 | a man’s world. It made the reformatory look like a much safer place. ‘Put on your jacket, Little Brother, we’re going out tonight. First, we’re going to Sisinyana’s shebeen where we’ll drink a few mugs of skokiaan until the clock strikes twelve. That’s when our lives will begin, Little Brother, at midnight.’ As we crossed the deserted main road of Sophiatown, I saw someone lying in the middle of it. I told Nine. I wish | 1 | 0.00 | 0.88 | 0.11 | |||||||||||||||||||
94 | 91 | 91 | hadn’t. ‘Let’s go and see, Little Brother. This is going to be a lucky night.’ I followed reluctantly. Nine turned the still form over. The man was covered with blood. You couldn’t even see the face. ‘Dead?’ I asked. ‘Yes, Little Brother, hit and run.’ There was a smell of skokiaan oozing from the dead man. I felt like becoming sick. ‘Let’s go, before they blame this on us,’ I urged. ‘Not before you search | 2 | 0.49 | 0.00 | 0.51 | |||||||||||||||||||
95 | 92 | 92 | Little Brother.’ ‘No! No!’ I protested. ‘It’s bad luck. Besides, I’ll only get my hands full of blood. It’s bad luck to steal from the dead. I’ve never done it before.’ ‘You’re not stealing, you’re taking, Little Brother.’ Every time he referred to me as ‘Little Brother’, I got the impression that he was mocking me. ‘Look,’ I argued, ‘this dead man might be our blood brother, for all we know. Why molest him?’ ‘Money, | 0 | 0.63 | 0.11 | 0.26 | |||||||||||||||||||
96 | 93 | 93 | Brother, is never enough. And if the dead man is our blood brother, remember, blood is only thicker than water when it runs in our veins. Once it spills, no brother wants it. So make use of the dead while you’re alive. The dead die so that we may live. They have no need for money where they are going.’ Nine’s philosophy. I suppose he had a point. If you read the Bible right, you’ll | 2 | 0.00 | 0.48 | 0.51 | |||||||||||||||||||
97 | 94 | 94 | that Cain only started living after he had spilled Abel’s blood. The only thing he hated about Abel after killing him was his blood. ‘To hell with you, you heartless bastard,’ I said, as I went on all fours. I searched and vomited at the same time. Then I dragged the body to the gutter, so that cars could pass. When I stood up from my revolting task, I was shivering. There was a tobacco | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
98 | 95 | 95 | dangling from my fingers. As usual, Nine was right about it being our lucky night. The tobacco bag contained seven single pound notes and some loose change. When we came to our room at Bertha Street, Nine counted the money on the bed. Then he went on all fours and dragged a plank suitcase from under the bed. From it he took a black money box. The insides of the box were empty except for | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
99 | 96 | 96 | tiny nickel-plated revolver. My eyes must have bugged because he smiled crookedly. ‘Like it?’ he asked. I picked up the firearm, handling it like you would a poisonous snake. As I examined it, Nine said, ‘I prefer a knife to that. I once shot a man in the head with it at Prospect Township, and he ran all the way down the street shouting my name at the top of his voice before he dropped | 0 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||
100 | 97 | 97 | Lucky for me nobody heard him.’ He said this and dismissed it as if he’d just told me that the skokiaan we had drunk last night was too weak. Sisinyana, biggest and most respected shebeen queen of the early Twenties, catered for all the subversive elements of Sophiatown. At her headquarters you found all forms of gambling, from dice to the Chinese numbers game known as fah-fee. The first time that Nine took me to | 0 | 0.95 | 0.05 | 0.00 | |||||||||||||||||||