Down a Dark Alley

So would I learn anything from my adventure in Cartegena, as told in a previous entry in my portfolio? Hah!.

Now I was in Durban, South Africa, at a time when segregation was at its worst. There was a notorious dive that I’d heard of and wanted to visit - the Smugglers Den. Why? Because it was there and I’d heard wondrous bad stories about it.

The taxi driver refused to take me further than the outskirts of the ‘bad’ district. You go at your own risk, he said. And I always did.

A sign to the Den pointed to an alleyway, long enough that in the darkness of night I could see no end to it. But I could hear music, a dark rhythmic beat that excited me. Hurrying along the narrow alley - to move slowly in that dark, forbidding place would have tested even my witless nerve - I came to neon lights and an entrance. There is a foolhardy bravado about me that when in doubt rushes me in with false confidence and I do the role of a guy who has been there, seen it all. You know the type. So, the music stopped. I walked up to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Not a soul moved. I looked around at the shadowy people and all were staring at me. It was not a bar for white folk, and these were not congenial times. Unlike earlier in Cartagena, I ran. I ran until there was no more laughter chasing me and I knew I was alone in the alley and then I saw the lights of the Smugglers Den and with relief I strode in and leapt on to a bar stool and re-ordered a gin and tonic.

Talk about seeing me coming. In less than a minute I had two ‘very good friends’, one on each side of me at the bar. We bought each other drinks until my cash was spent and then, filled with gin and a little tonic I was helped over to a table in a dark corner of the dark room. All about me was dim red-light darkness. There were movements in corners, men and women pressed together, coiled like mating snakes. A muffled scream from somewhere, a crash like a table falling, laughter like a Disney pirate overacting. A corpse-like man played burial tunes on a savagely beaten piano. And we three friends talked, me in English they in Afrikaans. Finally, they brought a heavy woman, equally gin-filled, over to me and left me with her. I might have panicked if only I could have focused, but I think I just smiled. Her garbled talk was no doubt a deal she was striking but soon my friends came back and dragged me from her black widow grip. We walked, the three of us, out in to the dark alley, one on each side helping me away from the dangers of the infamous Den. So what now? As if I had a plan, gin-riddled as I was. But I do remember their whispering Afrikaans talk and then a look of surprise on one of their faces. I don’t think I ever got their names but the tallest one fell back against the alley wall, his face a mess of blood. I saw him slide to the ground and the other friend cried out and he too fell. For a moment I staggered alone, until someone huge slung me over his shoulder and carried me away from my adventure.

Some few hundred miles north of Durban, in Mozambique, there was talk at that time of a white slave trade. My savior, a silver-haired giant, gentle, tough, with a smile that was like a series of wrinkles asked me to call him Dan. That was not his name, he said, and he was not supposed to be at the Den and that was all I could know. Born in Durban and now a seaman on leave from his ship he explained how he’d overheard my two friends discussing the possibilities of getting me to Mozambique. Dear God, if it wasn’t for the great and gentle Dan I might not have be able to tell this tale, dwelling instead for some long time on the folly of carefree youth.