I turn away from Jos. I never want to see him again. I run down that College passage. I have to get away from him. How could he deceive me like this? Betray me like this?

He is shouting after me, “Dennis? I thought you wanted to fight bigotry? Have you changed your mind then?”

But I don’t want to hear anything he has to say. Not ever again.

I run through the busy city streets, past vendors and shoppers, weaving between trucks and delivery vans. I run until I am exhausted. And then I sit down on a park bench, in the darkest corner of a park.

My mind is a jungle now. A jumble of thoughts going round and round like clothes in a crazed washing machine. Until it feels like my head will explode. I just want to stop thinking. But I can’t.

When it gets dark, I head for Samson’s flat.

“Eish, monna! You look in a bad way.”

Samson feeds me frosties. Four, five, six. Even though he knows I can only manage three before I am legless. And then he half-carries me back to my flat and puts me to bed.

“Sleep it off, honkie-boy. Things will look better in the morning.”

But, even drunk as I am, Jos’s voice is echoing all around my bedroom: I thought you wanted to fight bigotry, Dennis.

And things do not look better in the morning. The jumble of thoughts is still spinning round and round my brain – and now I have a headache as well. I phone the office and tell Mr Naidoo that I am sick, that I probably won’t be back to work this week.

I don’t tell him that I am sick in the head. That my brain might never come right again. It is just too confused. It feels like each brain-cell is fighting against his brother cell.

And the washing machine thoughts are going round and round. I mean, it’s wrong for two guys to be together like that, right? It’s unnatural. How can anyone want to do stuff like that? How can Jos want to do stuff like that?

But then the washing machine starts spinning the other way round. I think about Jos, what a courteous, gentle person he is. How talented he is, how when I am with him I always feel calm and good about myself. How he’s never, never made me feel stupid and dumb.

Yet now, just because of this one thing, I am turning my back on him and being prejudiced against him. Just because of this one difference. And how can that be right? Or fair?

Then the spinning goes the other way and I remember everything I said to Attie about his racism.

By Friday the twentieth, things feel better. Much, much better – after four days of thinking and thinking and trying to understand. Trying to work out what is going on.

My brain works slowly, but I think I have got to the end of the confusion now. It’s a good feeling. I put up some new bullet-points on my PC. Just to make things really clear for myself.

  • I was a hypocrite. Worse than the Americans. I wanted Attie to stop being a racist. But there I was, judging and stereotyping gay guys. That means I was a bigot too.
  • Bigotry is always wrong and I don’t want to be a bigot. Not to anyone. I can’t fight bigotry if I am a bigot, can I?
  • The Bible says you must first take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. My Gran was always saying that. And I didn’t even realise I had this log in my own eye. But now I do.
  • What a sick cosmic joke! Friday the thirteenth, my plan was supposed to teach Attie a lesson. But I am the one who ended up learning this lesson. How is that for … for irony.
  • Irony! Yes, that’s Mrs Hewlett’s figure of speech I’ve been trying and trying to remember. I knew it was there in my brain somewhere.

    • 🙂 🙂 🙂

  • First thing tomorrow: 1. Apologise to Attie for being a hypocrite. 2. Apologise to Jos for being a bigot. First thing tomorrow!

    • My mind feels so good now: like all those clothes spinning round the crazy washing machine are clean now. And dry. And folded neatly. And packed away just where they belong.

    Samson is banging at my door. My friend-in-need big brother from another mother. It will be nice to talk to him. I need some joking and teasing after all the serious stuff.

    But I’ll get us some Cokes from the fridge, I think. I don’t want to look at another beer. Not for a long time.

    ***

    Tell us: Has this story made you think about ways in which you may be a hypocrite or a bigot?