THE THIRD AND LAST WE HOPE

Howard was the harbinger of the bad news that my man, the lad I had had such high hopes for, had reported that my horse, the love of my life, my bakkie, my beloved and vital pick-up truck had been stolen from the farm!

‘Oh woe is me’, cried I ‘OH NO NO NO”.
I was not happy, this was a lot worse than just a heart attack this was an attack on the very foundation of survival for all on the estate.

Now Wonder boy as readers of these ramblings might recall arrived on the farm a few years ago and deeply impressed me with his clever hands and brain, but mainly that he seemed to want to work and make something of himself, a rare attribute out here. I vested in him trust and responsibility, I set him above other men and gave him all the wisdom and knowledge I could, I had such hopes and he has taught me a profound and expensive lesson.

Like most disasters this started very small, and there in is the rub. A battery charger disappeared, a small and really quite insignificant thing.
I who locks nothing, and who has lived here on my mountain with many people and have lost less could not believe that it had been stolen, and settled on the ‘lost’ theory. This was in retrospect my blunder and I must now beat my chest and once again cry ‘mea culpa’ as I should then and there have made a big fuss.

So began a series of mysteries, a cow, chainsaw, various tools, petrol all sorts of things just started to disappear but no one could be identified as the perpetrator. Actually we all knew, just knew it was him, but I refused to see the evil in him, so I lost my old bakkie, rolled when drunk and now even my fab Toyota Legend 35 pick-up with leather seats, blue teeth and chromed roll and nudge bars was dead because of him the bastard.

I delayed my return to the farm for both medical and practical reasons as well as the fact that I had no desire to interview Mr. Wonder whom I knew was to blame and on whom I had nothing on.

Having rented a vehicle I wondered my disconsolate way back, and as a consolation I stopped at Woolworth at Witbank to get some goodies, while there I just happened to call my good chum Phishy Tim to enquire after a product he had found there and naturally the discussion turned to recent events.

He had a tale to tell that changed the entire complexion of the dreaded interview with the wicked Wonder, suddenly from being a third rate power in my own domain I was elevated by Phishy Tim’s tale to that of all powerful and mighty.

It transpired that at last the bugger had made a blunder and had taken the bakkie to Tim’s place (without permission) to get some money from him and was thus bust to rights and could be immediately arrested and thrown into prison. I was delighted and having arranged this with the authorities was spared any confrontation and he was hauled off never to be seen again.

Once in the tender hands of Inspector Michael Mthunzi he soon spilt the beans and the whole sad and sorry tale came out. Nothing unusual or funny, in brief he took the money from Phishy and spent it on booze, got drunk and crashed the vehicle into some other folk, ran away and concocted a pathetic story about a mysterious theft, so he is gone and I miss him but am glad that that sad saga is over.

Just as an aside, when I went to the cop station to turn him in I found Brendon, Michael and Karel sitting around their prison look strangely smug. Like cats that have got the cream. I enquired at this sudden contentment with their lot and was gleefully informed that indeed my powers of perception were not letting me down and that yes indeed they were reveling in some long absent job satisfaction.

There had been riots in town that had handed them the opportunity to stick it to many members of the chattering classes who had in the past, been less than polite/helpful in their dealings with the officers of the law. They mentioned that over 7000 rounds had been expended in their struggle to maintain law and order. They were well pleased.
As was I, it seemed that the heavy hand of the law so long absent was being felt.

TROUBLES COME IN THREE’S THEY SAY SO………………………… I HAVE SOMETHING TO ADD AT LAST. Good news is so dull.

I have been longing to write for some time but life has been so pleasant and thus uneventful that there has been nothing amusing to relate but this could of course not last I knew and dreaded it.

The farm had grown and prospered with another few hundred hectares being added, the lodge is soooo smart that I now have to beat relatives and friends off with a stick to keep them out, paying guests are still as illusive and unreliable as ever. The hiking camp is a success beyond expectations and has been and remains full.

So that is the good news, and there is more, the deep satisfaction and contentment found in all the new life abounding around the place. I am slim again though beauty eludes me, the farm has managed to go a second year without a single fire, the cows are fecund the game is contented. God has been quiet in his heaven and all seemed well in my little world, but I knew, I just knew it could not last.

Poor poor Gromit was the first victim of our misfortunes, poor poor little Gromit and it was pure ‘mea culpa’ on my side.

I took the dogs with me to the timber yard and left them behind!

Mea Culpa, mea very culpa, I just drove off without them, Chaka went to the nearest friendly face and settled down there and was swiftly found but Gromit just disappeared.

The whole family being here on a holi, all were motivated into the search, posters were printed and distributed, money was offered, many, many fruitless hours were spent whistling and driving around trying to find her.

There was even the inevitable moment of joy swiftly dashed when another similar pooch was found.

It was all just awful and worse still, I had only myself to blame, naturally I lashed out at a few imaginary culprits, the eejits at the yard for not locking them up, but they had called me to tell me about my lapse, so really what could I say, the idiocy of the dogs for not sticking together but the truth is that I was to blame and Chaka still gives me the eye wondering where our chum has gone, and what has happened to her.

The mind does not help, by conjuring bleak scenarios of cold and fear and I still go the long way around the dirt roads with an eye open for her, we mourn and miss dear Gromit.

Big poo number 2 started quietly with a bit of indigestion at 8 am one morning.

Strange thought I, as took a Zantag and forgot about it till the next day when it struck again, same time, same place!

This was dull and a bit more painful so I took a zantag and a neurofen as well as having sawdust and cow goo for breakfast. That seemed to do the trick for a day or two. Then it was back again and again with tingling in the arms so I called the doc. I thought it was the right thing to do, sensible

.

Dr Emily expressed puzzlement and demanded I go to the hopital and get them to do a series of tests that she dictated to me.

The Nelspruit medi-clinic sucked me in, stuck me, drained me and plugged me onto a machine, scooped a couple of grand out of my wallet and declared me fit and well, mentioning in passing something called angina which I concluded was indigestion, gave me some pills and tossed me out.

This was sort of vaguely satisfying; nice to be called fit with a fine ticker but the continuation of the discomfort every morning was worrying even to an old cowboy like me.

Things soon got so bad I had a guest in the lodge to drag me to the scary tender mercies of the local municipal meat house, who sent me off much pleased with their service, which was cheap and included a nice jab in the bum which contained some very pleasant feel better juice.

I was now panicking quite a bit and called Howie, who immediately set the wheels in motion and after consulting various and many hypochondriacs, loaded up our resident hospital victim Bruce who has been in and out of hospitals pretty much on a weekly basis since birth, climbed into his weapon and fetched me to the big smart, shiny hospital in town, with Brucies terrifying hospital tales to entertain us, not!

I was dumped there in the early evening so depressed at this bodily betrayal that they prevented me from stopping on the way for a smoke, I was that disheartened. Excuse the pun.

The weirdest part of all this was that other than the ‘episodes’ I was feeling just fine, strong in fact. I have never been so fit, which is just as well.

The hospital plan went into smooth operation and I was again sucked in, jabbed and drained, x-rayed and generally shoved about the place after which I was left alone perched on the end of the bed feeling like a big bullshitter among the holt and the lame.

I was sure that at any moment some one was going to notice that I was fine and throw me out and I would be in big trouble with my insurers, having had a vast battery of expensive tests performed on me ordered by some absent mega doctor.

An hour or so ticked by and I was just casting about for an escape when this team of nurses charged in, literally flung me onto the bed, confiscated my watch and knife and had my kit off on the run as I was wheeled practically with sirens blowing down into the bowls of the place with just the breathless information that, “A test has come back positive” ringing in my ears.

What test? Why the fuss?

This was very worrying, they were sticking the whole world into me and attaching me to the rest with wires, all very ER and this on an oke that would have cheerfully walked a few miles to see a tree or what ever, but an extremely fine fit fellow!!

When the mega doc appeared at the end of my bed obviously having been roused from his favorite TV program in the middle of the night, eyeing me with an altogether too calculating look, discussing the subject of open heart surgery I finally realized I was in BIG trouble.

I desperately assured him that I was fine and would last the night and managed to avoid any precipitous actions on his part, and he went off having dictated a list of substances to be inserted into me, leaving me with the uncomfortable information that he had dragged me back from the very brink of death, cliff edges were mentioned.

I got the distinct impression however that when assured that I was not going to die on his watch and embarrass him, he had fun scaring the be-Jesus out of me, the bugger.

He toddled off leaving me now time to look around at where I was.

The curtain parted to reveal total bedlam, I had heard the noises but they had not prepared me for the awful hellhole I was in.

I was among the close to dead, the very close too dead! An army of nurses, doctors and burly okes from the ambulance teams were running around in a state of organized panic. There were hideous noises coming from behind curtains.

There seemed to be a lot of paper work involved.

Opposite me was some old skeleton with a mask over his face groaning and gasping. His machines were going hell for leather with anything from one to five blue glad drones laboring over him and squirting who knows what into him with an urgency that was disconcerting but thankfully knocked him out quite fast.

He had hardly settled into his comma and his sirens died down a bit when another army of wekkers heaved some poor old bugger in, who made the gasping skeleton look positively chipper.

This sad piece of meat called Mr. Levine, had been in an ‘exident’ and was in no state to be polite, he was fresh flesh and the hospital was having a feast. Paper was being produced in large sheets, and filled with small type and many signatures. He was heaved onto his pallet begging for help and mercy crying pitifully. He was in agony.

I was sat bolt upright in my corner with a bad case of the ‘I wanna get out of here’ blues, I did not want to be witness to all this let alone be some wall flower plugged into the same machine.

I had had a long day what with the debilitating effects of panic, long drives, much intimate prodding and baaad news, it was past midnight and I was not ready to sleep at all. The noise and constant toing a frowing did not help.

Eventually they knocked out poor old Mr. Levine and then dragged him of to pastures new and replaced him with a very quiet very unhappy African lady whom they seemed to be accusing of faking it before she started having a really bad time behind her curtain.

The next morning started early and I swiftly had to learn the tricks of survival in this new world, like how to pee in a bottle, they refused to disconnect me from their kit, even scrubbing me down in the bed and confiscating my underpants too.

My humiliation was complete; I was reduced from a leader of men to the plaything for the concerned and caring.

I was subjected to vile and strange procedures, listened too, pricked and prodded and left to rot with the promise, nay threat of more to come.

Things were explained to me in a foreign language and things were done to me with no explanation at all, in equal measure.

The wonders of this place did not extend to the meals, which were nasty beyond the realms of understanding.

Eventually I was wheeled of to be done.

The experienced in this sort of thing took it all with great calm, so I sort of settled into a coma myself, Emily my doc was there to hold my hand and all seemed to know what they were up to.

I was wheeled into a set from star wars with whizzing lights and big machines on computers with teckies and nerds banging away at keyboards and staring intently at monitors discussing their love lives and the lunch menu.

Everybody is very keen to keep the victim informed, one senses that this is corporate policy but frankly I was not in the mood, and their fascination with their procedures, even those to be performed on me, missed me entirely.

I was well pleased when they stuck happy juice into me and I ceased to be concerned about the economy of the Ivory Coast or anything at all in fact and quite enjoyed the show. I love drugs.

Look I must tell you that other than the fact that the ‘heart’ was the subject it was all very standard stuff, just another day in the office for all but I and other than an uncomfortable night I was rota-rootered my pipe was unblocked and though the plumber (surgeon) studiously maintained an aura of godhood he was other than a well tailored arse crack a plumber and I was jobby no 10 for the day, but he let me out the very next morning and boy did I bolt out of there.

Well that was disaster number 2 and catastrophe number 3 was in progress as I lay in my bed.

2 b continued