Midnight train

I landed up in Claremont yesterday evening and found what I thought was a happy coincidence: a taxi hovering on the curb when I arrived at Main Road on foot. But, nay-nay. It was clearly their last trip for the evening and the driver and gaaitjie wanted that taxi packed so we sat. And we sat. One girl got impatient, demanded her money back from the gaaitjie and got off. The rest of us; too tired, too cold and too squished in between others' arms and legs didn't move, initially. But then, shoh, it was citizen mobilization like I've never seen before.

The driver turned left off the Main Road to double-back around the block in the hope of picking up a few stragglers. "Haaaaah!" exclaimed the woman behind me, "where are you going?" The gaaitjie waved her off and she started cursing him in Xhosa. "Yuiy!" I gave a nudge on his shoulder, "answer the lady because we all want to know!"
"No it's fine we're just going around the corner."
He received a multilingual choral response from frustrated commuters just wanting to go home. 
The uncle behind me stank of alcohol and damp, and threatened to "moer"* both driver and gaaitjie if we didn't get back on track. Then things got tense. The driver demanded that the uncle get off, the uncle refused.

So again we sat hovering on the side of Main Road's curb. The gaaitjie asked for my money, I told him that "I'm only going to pay when we've gone past the Engen." He muttered under his breath and asked a neighbouring passenger who shook her head and said, "not until we move." He received similar responses from the rest of the group. We were resolved. The driver was pissed off, but he drove. As we got to Newlands, the uncle behind me still hadn't paid. The gaaitjie opened the door, the driver hardly slowed down. Pulling on his shopping bag, the gaaitjie guided the vocal stowaway to the moving pavement and slammed the door.

* beat-up