What is a week in the world if not a time of constant change. My favourite constant change moment came On Thursday morning last week. The world that morning was awakened with a dramatic story about a homeless man who liked to peek into motor cars and watch amorous couples and who claimed about a year after the event to have witnessed the late ‘fat man,’ ‘sing’. For those whose memories are as random as the soon to be late unknown anonymous so-called ‘homeless’ man-A well known mining man and general raconteur, playboy and allegedly corrupt human was found shot to death in his luxury car in an upmarket Jozi suburb last November. The case has been stalled since the beginning.
As I rode across town in my rusty steed I heard the inimitable Gareth Cliffe [sic] confirm that the ‘police were on their way to the SABC premises to interview the alleged so-called ‘homeless man’ [from the Ethel and Frank Grey Park where the murder occurred.]
That was at eight o clock and then I went into a meeting for a couple of hours. Later, at ten thirty I was again driving but north this time and the voice on the radio, Classic that time I think, told me that the police had been and met with the man and then arrested him on charges of alleged housebreaking in the central city of Mangwane (again sic)in the more remote central rural hinterlands of the fair South. He had already set off in transport for that city. The radio then played a recording of the anonymous homeless man advising that he feared for his life now having been arrested.
By evening he was being denounced by a branch of the ruling Party structures implicated by the alleged homeless man [now alleged housebreaker and thief ] in the ‘bumping off of ‘the Fat Man’. The homeless man was now insane as well as a thief and alleged housebreaker and there the matter rested. Maybe I missed the bulletin that said he was alive and well and appeared in court this morning or on Friday morning and was duly arraigned with as much respect to the man’s ‘due process’ rights as befitted the almost blinding speed with which the Police acted in some two and a half hours-a time, it is frequently reported, that it more often takes the police to respond to a call in many parts of the country, never mind investigate, arrest, process, and dispatch a general miscreant of to a holding cell somewhere in the hinterland..
We know that the police are capable of acting with superb speed and were impressed at how much they could achieve in two and a half hours. Will the homeless and ultimately nameless man [does one lose one’s name when one loses one’s home?] ever be heard of again? Will we, one month from now, remember that a surprisingly well spoken, alleged homeless man, claimed for reasons of his own to have witnessed a murder deluxe… and for whatever reasons had decided to come forwards about nine months later -was he committing suicide? Did we imagine it?
Had you not been overly alert to the nuances of our daily spin and drivel outpourings on mundane inconsequential matters dear to the hearts of the chattering classes then you heard no broadcast and saw no articles and therefore as with the koan about the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it does it make a noise-did he ever exist or was it a piece of performance theatre.
If the homeless man has no name and has been removed to a place far away who is say say who he is and will he pop up later? Is he in protective custody or is he to be on trial for housebreaking, something for which he could get bail: and then vanish forever into the mists of history?
We shall see -we hope this is not another circumstance like that strange matter of Mr Rashid. Two is a trend.