“We stopped the car because we saw you drinking, my friend. Do you think we’re stupid?”
Silence fell while I looked at his tall, white, moustached colleague, who was mercilessly chewing some gum. He staggered forward and I could tell from his bulging bloodshot eyes that he was already drunk. His face was also bright red, as if he had lain in the sun for too long, and the golden hair on his skull stood up like a scrubbing-brush.
“Are you denying that we saw you drinking?” asked the red-faced officer.
“It is just a misunderstanding, sir; I wasn’t drinking this beer.”
“Ohh! You think you’re clever, nè?” the red-faced officer asked contemptuously. He leaned forward and shook his large head slowly as if he was feeling sorry for me.
“What is your name?” asked the Indian officer.
“Dingz.”
“Are you a student?”
“Yep.”
“Where?”
“Wits.”
He studied my face for a while. When he started to talk again, his words were accompanied by the heavy smell of liquor and cigarettes.
“Okay. Listen, Dingz, we have been asked to patrol this area because lately there have been complaints about students who abuse alcohol. They drink and throw the empty bottles into the street and that’s not good for the environment. Look there!” he said pointing at some empty Coca-Cola cans on the other side of the road. “Is that not disgusting?”
“So what does that have to do with me?”
“You say you’re a student?”
I nodded.
“And you’re holding a beer?”
“But I’m not one of those students you are looking for. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go.”
I thought I had succeeded in talking myself out of trouble, but before I could even raise myself from the ground the red-faced officer asked me yet another question.
“What are you doing at Wits?” he asked, sprinkling my face with saliva.
“Law,” I lied. “Why?”
I thought that maybe then they would leave me alone, but the white officer continued looking at me; he was sizing me up. Then the Indian officer started to lecture me in a patronising tone of voice.
“I wonder if you’re aware that a student was arrested last week on a charge like this one. Fortunately he was not doing law.” He paused and gave me a sympathetic look. “I understand you guys studying law are not allowed to take a legal job if you have been convicted of a criminal offence. It would be bad for you if we take you in now.”
I was realising the seriousness of my situation. I started to reflect on my future; all my efforts to get a place at varsity would prove futile if I was arrested now. Oh shit! Me and my drinking!
The white officer was nodding along to everything his friend was saying. I remained silent, but they could see that they had managed to scare me. The white officer leaned closer to me. “Listen! Here is a deal, pal.” He lowered his tone to a confidential whisper. “Either you come with us now to spend three months in a prison cell, or face a one thousand rand fine . . .” He paused and looked at my reaction. I kept my cool. “Or we can sort this thing out right now, out of court, by reaching a gentlemen’s agreement.” A pause again. “Which means you can stop our mouths with only seventy rand, my friend.”
The Indian officer was nodding to support what his colleague was saying as I debated with my other self about the best step to take. I had never been in jail before. I had only heard scanty rumours about the Big Fives, the Twenty-Sixes, Apollos and other prison gangs that sodomise and kill other inmates. But at that moment I was more worried about my family at home. What will they say if they learn that I was arrested for public drinking?
There was a moment of silence between the two corrupt officers and myself. Then the red-faced officer bent over and grabbed my beer bottle and two of my grocery bags. He was mumbling something in Afrikaans. The other officer grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and picked up my other plastic bag with the sealed beers inside.
“It seems, my friend, it is that time again, when you have the right to remain stupid and silent because everything that you say can be used against you in court.”
“Whaa! I can’t believe how some people can be stupid. We gave you a chance, my friend, and you blew it. Boom!” said the Indian officer.
They opened the rear door of the police car and pushed me inside with my grocery bags. The walkie-talkie inside the car started belching and cutting. The red-faced officer retrieved it and muttered something in Afrikaans as they got inside and started the engine.
By then I realised that I had messed up my chances of buying myself out. I still had about one hundred and fifty rand that I had taken out at the ATM that afternoon. I knew that the officers would try everything to incriminate me. They are used to the system. They are also the ones who corrupt it. They know how it works and how to exploit it in their favour. Even if it means that I sleep in a cell just for one night for my disrespect, it would please them.
The earphones that were lying on my shoulders were still blasting music. I groped inside my pocket in an attempt to find the stop button on my Walkman. I was familiar with the buttons because I had owned my Walkman for the past four years, but suddenly I changed my mind about switching the music off. I opted just to rewind the tape. I found the button I was looking for and rewound the tape.
The car hadn’t moved even five metres when I began to plead with them to stop. “I’m terribly sorry, officers. I don’t want to go to jail. I think I have eighty rand for you.”
The red-faced officer smiled and stopped the car. “Now you talking sense.”
Pleasant smiles broke quietly on their lips as I searched my pockets for my wallet. I unzipped it and handed them four twenty rand banknotes, money that my mother sacrificed from her pension every month to help me through my cashless varsity life.
The two officers looked at each other and took the cash. I groped inside my pocket again to reach the play and record buttons on my Walkman. Simultaneously, I pressed the two buttons down. Then very politely, in a friendly tone as if I was admitting my guilt, I asked them, “Are you sure that you’ll be fine with only eighty rand? I have a feeling that this is a very serious offence?”
“You’re right. You can add more if you have it. But do not make the same mistake again next time. Okay, my friend?” said the white officer.
“I won’t.”
I looked at the nametags on the pockets of their blue police shirts.
“Sergeant Naicker and Sergeant Viljoen, I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience that I’ve caused you. Because of my behaviour I will add twenty rand just to apologise.”
I offered them another twenty rand note. Sergeant Naicker took it. He smiled at me and said. “Ja. If it wasn’t for Sergeant Viljoen we would have taken you in today.”
“You’re a really lucky bastard, my friend. Do you know that? This is what we call being clever. Ask Sergeant Naicker here. We normally fine people two hundred rand for a case like this. We just thought that you are a poor student and decided to fine you less.”
“Hmm! Are you sure a hundred is fine because I