MY BROTHER WORLD TRAVELLER AND ADVENTURER

This memory is of a time in South Africa, that my older brother arrived to visit us, completely unexpected. What a great surprise. It all started on a Friday evening, pretty late when Deysi and I had just returned from a play at a theatre in Sandton. It was around 10:00pm when we returned home. A rare evening out, for us. The girls were at home with the maid Selena and in bed asleep. We had started to get in a habit of going to the live theatre instead of the movie theatre. This, because the movie selection in South Africa sucked pretty bad. Largely, due to sanctions that basically restricted most European and American companies from showing their product.

We found that the live theatre was good entertainment and it opened a new avenue for us to enjoy. The love of theatre was born there and stayed with us thru all of our subsequent travels. Anyway, we arrive home and our maid is waiting for us, kind of excited and a bit agitated. She said that “a mister Larry” had called from the airport! And that, he had told her, he had arrived in town to visit us. She had no other details, didn’t know the last name. After quizzing, we learned she didn’t know much of anything. Other than, he had told her he was going “downtown” for a look around. And that, he would come to see us later. “Downtown where, it’s 10 at night?!”

We searched our brains but could not come up with any Larry’s that we knew who would want to visit us. Especially unannounced. The only Larry we knew was my older brother. However, he had not called. Nor had he even mentioned in any of our, twice yearly, conversations that he had even considered coming our way. We kicked it around a bit, chewed on it, spit it out and examined it from every angle. Then decided that it was probably a wrong number or messed up message. For sure we didn’t know anyone that was tough enough to land in Johannesburg late at night and go “downtown”.

So, we sat around and waited just in case it was someone, we knew that was coming to see us. Sure enough sometime shortly after midnight, the buzzer on our gate goes off. When I go out, standing there in all his glory was my brother. What a surprise! He had a bag over his shoulder, in his typical travelling style. That being “light”, no excess baggage.

I start by interrogating him and he tells me. “Well when I landed at the airport, I called your home” (he had my number because he was still looking after some legal issues for me) “and someone answered who said you were “out” and would be back later”. “So I thought, with a couple of hours too kill, I might as well go see what downtown Johannesburg was like”. He continued, “so I looked around a bit and then went to the Open Market for something to eat”. “Geezus” I said, “do you know how lucky you were to get out of there alive at that time of night?” “No one goes to Johannesburg centre at night, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t go to the open market”!

He looks a bit quizzical and states “well now that you mention it, I found it a little odd that I was the only white guy down there.” He then adds “they were really nice to me, they gave me food and invited me into a kind of bar for beer.” “Then they showed me around a little.” Once again “Geezus” comes out of my mouth. All I can think is that they probably thought he was some kind of deranged maniac or albino witch doctor, and they were frightened of him, being brave enough to wander around in the “Open Market”, alone, at night! Well you know what they say “the lord looks after fools and drunks.” Hell we never went to the open market even during the daytime, it was a big No No. He might have been the only person I ever heard about, that toured downtown Jo’burg by himself, at night, and ate/drank in the open market, in those days.

When we got over the shock of it, we found out that he was in the process of moving to Australia to start a new life and new adventure. He had decided, that on his way to a new land, he would stop off and visit us. So he did. He assumed we would be home, but if not he would just take a look around South Africa and then carry on. That was exactly my brother! One other parting memory he left me with was, one morning, when we were going out, I asked him if he would go open the gate while I took the car out. He hesitates a bit, looks down his nose at me and says “OK, but I’m not gonna call you master!” Another memory for all time.