“Come let me help you, Ma!” Zamani keeps calling out, as people come out of the Boxer Supermarket with trolleys full of groceries.

There are several other young men with modified trailers who are shouting the same thing. Today is month-end Saturday and they are all not short of customers. Pinetown is packed. Zamani spots a woman struggling at the tills. She is carrying a baby and pushing a shopping trolley.

“Let me help you,” Zamani pleads with the woman as she approaches the exit.

“How much?” asks the woman.

Zamani is quiet for a few seconds. He doesn’t know how much to charge. He was so excited he forgot to ask Zenzele.

He can see the young woman getting impatient.

“I said ‘how much’?”

“Ten rand,” Zamani says.

He puts all her groceries in his trailer. He catches a glimpse of the baby cradled inside the blanket the woman is carrying and realises that the child is only a few days old. The young woman is still feeling the effects of giving birth; she walks slowly. Zamani is patient, waiting for her to catch her breath several times, on the way to the Chatsworth taxi rank.

“Here’s your money. Thank you very much for your help,” the young woman says, and gives him twenty rand.

“Eish, I don’t have change, my sister,” says Zamani nervously.

“It’s fine. Keep the change.”

“Thank you, my sister!”

Zamani takes off running. He is overjoyed. He crosses the road at traffic lights and is nearly run over by a taxi.

“Watch out!” screams the taxi driver.

Zamani brings his trailer to a quick stop and pulls it out of harm’s way. “I’m sorry, bhuti!” Zamani apologises.

The traffic light turns red. He crosses the road and gets to a place that sells vetkoek.

“How much?” he enquires from the lady at the till.

“R3 for a plain one. R5 with cheese.”

“Give me one with cheese.”

He wolfs down the vetkoek and heads back to the Boxer Supermarket. By the end of the day he has made R150. He buys a few groceries and heads to the taxi rank.

The city has emptied drastically, but four young men appear out of the darkness.

“Hey you! You come here from rural areas and steal our customers? We are the only ones working at Boxer,” says one of the men.

Zamani is thinking of a response when a fist meets his eyes. He falls down. The men continue beating him while he is crunched into a ball on the paving.

“I didn’t know, please forgive me!” Zamani pleads.

“Give us your money right now!” says another man.

“Please guys … don’t do this. I’m also trying to hustle a living, just like all of you!”

***

Tell us: Are you surprised at this turn of events, or is this ‘just the way things work’?