the hustle

Cape Town has a special vibe to it-- alive, like New York, which is what I think most connects the two places for me. Nothing about the real vibe of Cape Town is phony. Phonies don't last here. They find the reality, the duality of it, too in-your-face and leave to JoBurg, Australia or Europe.

I miss New York- the strength of the hustle. The rawness of the noises. The assault on the senses. But Cape Town has that too, the southern-hemisphere version. The colors brighter, streets dirtier, smells more volatile.

Long Street is full of hustle come midnight on a weekend. The toursits come in hordes, and the smell of exploitation is thick and uncomfortable. We pay 15 rand each and walk through the big, black-metal doors of Mama Africa towards the bar. Abakhaya, a boisterous marimba band from Khayelitsha, is mid-set and we take our seats along the red candle-lit bar. Coke bottles hang from the ceiling, casting reflective light-shadows across the walls. Andrew lights a cigarette and the strong smell of rich tobacco rises around us.

Suddenly the band is gone. The space between us and them has been filled with foreigners – German, Dutch, Korean – all come to Cape Town to dance away their white guilt, to revel in the magic of this exotic city. But not too much. Not really. (Not at all.)

We realize that the only black people in the place are serving food, music and sex. A young woman, quietly beautiful, sits just seats away from me at the far end of the bar. Her skin is soft and tight across her cheeks. Her lips are red with dark lipstick and her eyes smokey and warm. She is absent, mostly, except when the money makes her laugh, forces her to lift her drink to her lips and turn her face upwards towards his, lusty and flush with alcohol. I can't help but stare. His eyes are drooping, lids closing and I pray he will be too drunk by the end of the night to follow through. That hopefully she can just take the money and go back to her home in Crossroads or Langa or Gugulethu. That tonight she can hold her children to her breasts without the dirty reminder of white skin on hers, stealing life, conquering soul.