by Maggie Yellen:
Here in Cape Town, stories seem to tell themselves. Everyone here has something to say, something to explain—and, most often, they’re willing to share it. Somehow, it feels disrespectful to ask questions, to talk about politics or economics or even the weather. No: whenever anyone talks to me, here, it feels like they’re giving me a gift, a precious glimpse into their lives. I’ve heard about stabbings and parties, about extreme poverty and extreme triumph, about deep sorrow and soaring euphoria—often all from the same person.
I can’t fully share the stories; no matter how hard I try, I know that something will be drowned in the ink. Even if I included a full transcript—even if I included a full recording—I would lose that strange, elusive something that lives only in the space of a human interaction. Born at the beginning of a conversation—dead, vanished at the end. I can only put down some thoughts, here, as pathetically insufficient as they may be.
Through my posts, I want to share my experience in Cape Town with you. These posts won’t be about politics—although it might come up. In fact, they might not even be about Cape Town, although I’ll only be talking to individuals I meet here. Really, they’ll just be about people. During my time here, the people of Cape Town have taught me about courage, about tenacity, about love—they’ve shown me their worlds and have challenged me to re-examine my own. I’ve stopped wanting to analyze every phrase, to extract forced meaning—now, I’m content just to listen. Sometimes, the story is enough.
***
This post should begin with a face. That’s the way I intended it—a blog filled with pairings of pictures and stories, with a mosaic of diverse yet compelling expressions. That’s the way I intended it. I didn’t realize what it meant to be in Cape Town—I didn’t realize that the stories, here, are too urgent, too explosive, to be bound by the borders of a picture. They burn through the canvas, leaving only smoldering ashes. Leaving only ghosts.
His name is Marijuana. Smiling, bouncing slightly, he begins to laugh. No—he assured me—it’s not to commemorate any habit of his own. His mother chose the name; smoking one day, perhaps, she inhaled deeply and found a convenient name swirling through her lungs. Pretty leaf, after all—a pretty name, too. Why not?
That pot habit gave a son a name—and took away his home. When he was young, social services came to remove him from a dangerous household. Soon after, his mother was murdered—stabbed three times in the back by her boyfriend. His father was already dead—also murdered. Slowing the monologue, slightly, Marijuana stares down the street. He still loves his mother, despite everything. “She’s still my mother, man.”
Shoulder Tattoo: If she don’t want me, the prison can have me.
His mother’s death filled him with rage, leading him towards the “wrong group of people.” Eventually, he ended up in prison (“I’ve done time”—conversational, nonchalant). First, the judge gave him 10 years. Marijuana responded that he could take those ten years… up his. 15 years. Same response. In the end, a 25 year sentence—not for anything he had actually done, he explained. He just couldn’t abandon his friends.
For his friends, Marijuana ultimately served 10 years in prison. That’s where he got the tattoos—the black, faded letters seeping into his skin. They were written with a needle—a piercing typewriter, threading words into flesh. Two pains: one fleeting, one indelible.
Marijuana respects women—that’s the way he was brought up. Indeed, most of his friends are female. Frequently, he gives them advice: “Whatever the problem is, you will have to face the problem.” He had a girlfriend, but sickness killed her. Now, he’s waiting for the right person.
He’s also waiting for a job. He’s a self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, but he can’t find stable employment. Mainly, it’s the tattoos; no one wants an employee who’s done time. Without any stable income, he lives on the streets, sleeping wherever he can find a place to stay.
And, he tells me confidently, he’s going places.
The monologue lasted fourteen minutes, unpunctuated by questions. It wasn’t an interview, really—it was more like a song. He bounced slightly as he spoke, swaying from side to side with the passionate, charismatic energy of an actor.
I’ve decided that interviews are impossible in Cape Town—questions are pre-empted by music, by the breathtaking unveiling of some knobbly, hypnotic tapestry of sound and emotion. A stranger will tell his story without prompting, will give you his last secret on some back road. And then, without ceremony, he’ll walk away. “It was nice talking to you”—and it’s over. Conversations end neatly, here— they finish with thudding finality. Like at the close of a symphony: a deep silence settles under the endless African sky.
Knuckle tattoos: Love on one fist, Hate on the other.
After we spoke, I tried to go back and take his picture. When I walked past the same spot, though, he had vanished; the only proof I have of his existence is a raspy voice on a tape-recorder. I wonder, now, whether he existed after all—or, if he did, whether his story was true. It doesn’t matter. This place disintegrates all usual associations—faces break from voices, expectations from reality, truth from fiction. And then, when all the lines we’ve drawn have faded, everything suddenly connects. No webs—no arrows. And, I suppose, no ghosts—not really. Just a cacophony. A cacophony of lives.