Stepping out

It's not often that I call an area "dodgy". In fact, I almost never do. But yesterday, hey, yesterday, I found myself thinking: "But for reals Jen, you have good ideas and then you have this." I was buying wooden planks see, from a place in Lower Woodstock. But I didn't have the strength to drive in the afternoon traffic, so I figured I'd just take a taxi down Main Road, hop off somewhere close to where I needed to be and walk through a side-street down to Lower Main where the wood shop has been for the last 82 years--as the man who walked me round their expansive yard told me.

I explained to a friend last night (over several glasses of piwi*) that what made me nervous was that there were too many people loitering. Loiterers always give me the twitchies, I kind of what to say, "but hi, what are you waiting for friends?!" Anyway, there was a group sitting in a small circle on the pavement, another group bundled on the stumpy wall in front of one of those Victorian terrace houses. There were two guys walking behind me, the one called out:
"Hey sister, you've got a good step!"
His buddy laughed. So did I to be fair.
A workman who heard the exchange lumbered over from his parked bakkie to join me in the middle of the road (I figure if I walk in the middle there's a greater chance of someone seeing me and intervening if paw-paws start flying). He nodded his head in agreement and added:
"Yes, it's a good compliment."
I look at him and smile, "yeah, yeah."
"Yes," he continues, "not everyone can walk so, with such attitude."
Oh the irony; here I march with confidence with my 'fro and skinny jeans, all the while embracing my inner meerkat and surreptitiously mapping in my mind all the people, the streets, the subtle and not so subtle movements around me, tensed and ready to run the hell out of there if needs be. But my step, oh my step gives none of that away.

I choose a different side-street to walk back up, and it's marginally better but it's only when I'm sitting squished in the front row of the taxi that I take a deep breath and shake my head at me. The gaaitjie is singing along to the radio, between sucking on a purple bompie* that he holds between his teeth when he manages the door. The woman sitting next to me has a little boy sitting on her lap, he's got that vacant look that kids sometimes get, when the world just gets too much for them and they're tired and their eyes just glaze over in happy oblivion. The taxi stops to let her off and the gaatijie stretches out his arms to hold the little boy as she squeezes herself through the seats. With her feet firmly on the ground and her handbag safely on her shoulder, the gaaitjie swings around and deposits her son in her arms.

The whole exchange was oddly beautiful. The mother in her bright blue ensemble, the little boy with fuzzy hair and soft eyes, the almost awkwardly skinny gaaitjie with the bompie swnging from his teeth and his arms held out; patient despite the busyness of the afternoon commute. I dunno, maybe you had to be there.

* pipe and wine
* plastic sachet of frozen flavoured ice