THE ART OF GOING APE

LA VIDA LOCA
THE ART OF THE PARTY ANIMAL

Going ape , a guide

Before we start on this journey i feel obliged to warn you that what follows is a hard core journey deep into the heart of the wildest of all animals: Animalus Particus Extremis known by its acronym APE and that therefore may clear up any confusion when i explain that we went APE shit etcetera. These stories are all true and in some instances may still be considered illegal. I will change the names of some of those that partook in these wild rambunctious shenanigans to “protect the identities of the guilty”. Others i will name as i don’t really care what they think or they`re dead. This story is a compendium of various parties and generalised wild life instances throughout the years spanning 1982 up until 2002 when i abruptly stalled into mediocrity and middle age.

Part 1. The adventures of CAPTAIN CUPBOARD..

So, to start the ordeal off that you are now part and parcel of, lets take a journey in Marty Mc Fly`s 1.21 jiggawatt flux capacitor powered De Lorean and go back to the future. Date time group, 1982 when at the tender age of 12 i discovered the wonderful world of the emerging male patterned libido. I was pals with “an older woman” who lived down the street and she was 15 and in high school, i was a tender foot and in my last year of primary school. She was blessed with gargantuan boobs and legs that spanned endlessly up in to the stratosphere, it didn’t hurt either that she had a soft spot for me and i, a well hard spot for her and we would spend many hours exploring all the fun aspects of playing house ,house. I lost my cherry to a girl named Karin and man she was adept at the art of fornication! One afternoon my German buddy and i cooked up what we though was a sure fire plan for us to both “stoink” Karin by utilising a cunning plan which entailed super stealth perfect timing for it to be a success, the basic idea was for me to get “jiggy” with Karin as per usual in the lounge and my pal would hang back in my room and then all of a sudden like stroll into the situation where in i would suggest a ménage a trios and knowing Karin, i suspected she would be more than agreeable to this turn of events. I got very busy and was diligent to a T with much huffing and puffing going on. I awaited my pals entrance as all this was getting tiring and i could use a beer break but the German was nowhere to be found so i assumed he must have gotten cold feet and made a bee line for home. Once we were done we took a bath and much soap lathering was done by myself, i was seriously enjoying myself and was pooped by the time she went home. I went to my room to put my clothes and while i was putting my shoes on and was startled by a rustling sound in my cupboard! I was flabbergasted to witness the German getting out my cupboard! What the hell had he been doing in there and why did he climb into the cupboard in the first place? The idiot was supposed to help tie this one down and he left me dangling out there to fend for myself against this freaky nymphomaniac. The German would hence forth be known as (cue the dramatic super hero music) CAPTAIN CUPBOARD!!!! I went into high school very wise to the ways of the fornication and captain cupboard i suspect was very wise to the way of the hand! I still wonder what the hell he was doing in the cupboard for more than an hour and a half? I suspect he may have been canoodling with himself and choking his chicken!

Part 2 THE FORMATIVE YEARS.

Standard 6 was typical run of the mill affair with every male trying to snag a piece of the competition who were of the female variety and the sneaky beer drinking was practised at every opportunity. By all accounts i was a nerdish dude in the first two years of high school and spent most my spare time at my friends house where we drank copious amounts of booze and getting the “stink finger” action on with my pals sisters. It was all within the accepted parameters that we lived by. Standard eight was an awakening moment when i made acquaintance with what would be my closest friends for the next three years. We were a tight group and partied hearty at every opportunity. We were a co-ed group and stood by one another like comrades in arms and sometimes we were in each others arms quite literally.. we were divided into two groups within the main group as some of the group did art and the others like myself , Clyde, Deon and other wild men did Biblical Studies. None of us had any ideas of becoming ordained men and simply chose Bib Studs because we sucked at art and the teacher was a drop dead bomb shell named Mrs Ferguson who had the longest legs i had ever seen, coupled to that the tight pants and i was sold on this whole Biblical studies story. We threw the wildest house parties at my folks house while they were out and it always degenerated into a drunken melee and someone puking in the garden. My pal Clyde had a horrid budgie yellow Audi 100 from standard 9 onwards and this car although ugly as sin was the epitome of rebel cool. every beer we drank we would chuck the empty can in the back on the floor so it was a case of empty beer cans avalanching out the door every time we opened the doors, how we did not get arrested still eludes me ! this car signified our individuality and reckless couldn’t care a shit attitudes , we were the coolest dudes we knew and didn’t care what others thought! The metal music rocked and our school bags stood testament to such greats as Dio, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, KISS, Motley Crue, Poison , Metallica, Man O War and King Diamond which were all festooned on our bags. It is only with the advantage of hind sight that i now see that poor Mrs Ferguson must have thought she was being punished by having all these metal heads in her Biblical Studies class. We were not the sneaky types and would sit on the field at break time and enjoy a beer with our sandwiches at lunch time, there was not a malicious bone in our bodies but we just ran with our own set of rules within our very close knit group. We would gather at my parents house and on one occasion once the booze was all but drunk we even got into smoking the Rooibos tea bags and our Matric year end blow out at one of the girl`s house was legendary. We drank till the cows came home and even a condom covered carrot was brought into play and was used as a phallic substitute with fellatio being mimicked on its “person” so to speak. It was hilarious and the photographs speak volumes. The constant partying and bunking school left little time for learning and studying and really was a bothersome annoyance that i suppose we had to endure, to be perfectly honest i cannot believe we passed matric at all! Shortly before the end of the year we threw a monster party at my friend who was in tech`s uncles flat and it proved to be one of those memorable evenings that were remembered for years to come. It was akin to a sixties love fest and the women weren’t to shy and coy at all, these were a different group than our close one at school. They were all a tad younger and were keen to hang with the matrics as we had street “cred” so to speak as being wild and untamed things. I was quite taken by one particular chick named Jackie and she seemed game so it all began. My pal Larry was entertaining a girl called Charlene and dazzling her with his wit and command of the beer can and i was going cave man and dragging a very willing , giggling Jackie off to the open plan bedroom area, i was soon joined by Larry who had by now secured Charlene. We got busy right there in front of people standing around not seeming to care none too much. We had a speed race to see who could screw fastest and someone had a camera popping off pictures. I truly hope they never surface. Once it was all done and dusted Jackie and Charlene upped and left with other people, my friend Lionel ended up with Jackie and shame he was left to deal with my sloppy seconds. It was all sport though and no one was hurt or did anything they didn’t want to do. Lionel was being a naughty boy as he had a steady girl friend called Claudine and here he was shagging some other skanky ho. I must just explain that Claudine and i had some shenanigans of our own so she wasn’t all innocent either. Her sister Charlene ( not the one from the wild Party) was juggled between Larry and i when we couldn’t find alternatives for the evening.

PART 3 THE ANIMAL EMERGES.

High school was a mish mash of various parties copious imbibation of alcohol and a lot of sexercise. All in all it was all very educational. The year after i left school i spent 6 months prior to my military call up partying like a true professional bedding anything with a heartbeat. Here enter Daleen and her very own special personality. She was what is known as a “clingon “, you know the type that constantly hangs around and gets all crazy when you make advances on any other woman even though you are not a “parcel” per se. This clinginess however does not apply to her though and she is a very free agent who does the rounds among the circle of friends very willingly. Safe to say that she is all kinds of complicated. One moment she is ready to scratch the eyeballs out of some other females skull because i may be checking her out and then the next moment she is taking care of my friend Mark or Deon or the afore mentioned “Captain Cupboard”. This crazy shit persisted all the time i knew her. One evening in particular we were all hanging out at a mates place where we were gathered in the pool room enjoying the musical mellow styling`s of Metallica and AC/DC. I had been partaking in much imbibing of the nectar of the gods and my bladder was near rupturing point so i made my way to the toilet to unleash the rivers of Babylon, as i left the pool room i slid the sliding door closed behind me and turned to head off to the toilet when all of a sudden i was startled by a huge thud behind me. I turned to see Daleen sitting flat on her arse with a dazed and confused expression on her face and a large red impression on her forehead, the dazed and confused look was different to her standard one that she sported everyday. She had jumped up to follow me to ensure that i was not leaving to whore about with some other chick and had not noticed that the door was shut and had run full tilt into the luckily reinforced laminated shatter proof glass. She quite literally sat there with her eyes spinning around in her head, it was hilarious and she was embarrassed as all hell, she did not take much to the fact that i was hosing myself at her and she duly stormed off with one of the other guys to “play finger hockey with”, i believe it was Deon. Later that night we had another catastrophe brewing when another pal Lionel climbed to the top of the spot light tower at the perimeter of the show jumping arena. I suppose it is worthwhile explaining that the house we were at was on the same property as a stables and show jumping training facility owned by a friend called Dean`s parents. Around the show jumping training arena there were high towers with spot light for illumination, obviously. Anyways , back to the Lionel debacle that was unfolding. Lionel had been trying very hard to snag Daleen all day but she was just not into Lionel all that much and kept brushing him off and hanging onto either myself or Mark and when he was busy elsewhere she would be attached to Deon. Lionel was besides himself that she didn’t want to know his story so he clambered to the top of the flood lights with his beer and lamented loudly as if in a Shakespearean play at how unfair life was that this chick wouldn’t shag him. We were more entertained by his production than concerned that he would fall and bust his neck. Daleen stood there at the bottom pleading seriously with him to climb down and not jump. We were by now besides ourselves with laughter. She even agreed to providing him with a “mercy fuck” if he complied and got down from the perch. This mercy shag never materialised because i was later rolling around with her on some fibre glass which made us itch like a bitch, to cure ourselves we took a swim in the pool and made like “fishes”. There was much moving and wave making in the pool. Lionel eventually climbed down and staggered off home to lick his proverbial wounds and besides he had Claudine waiting at home. These parties persisted unabated and X rated for the entire 6 months, i am truly surprised that i did not drink myself into a coma quite literally . in all it was one hell of a time.

PART 4 THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

After my time spent in the military i was unleashed on the general populace once again and i embarked on an assault of biblical proportions. Mark and i were flat mates and the flat was turned into party central. Old faces were still cruising through the doors with Charlene, Daleen et al still in the loop but we had expanded our repertoire to include many new female faces. Mark had his girlfriend from Cape Town with him but their relationship was not doing so well as she was a very reserved church going over the top Afrikaans goody two shoes type and she could not stand me and blamed me for being a bad influence on Mark. One evening after going ape shit at Bella Napoli and partying like wild and untamed things we decided it was time to go home and get at least 2 hours sleep before getting up for work on Saturday. At the corner of Claim street and Pretoria street the paw paw hit the fan in spectacular fashion when we were cut off by two black dudes in an Opel Monza 2 litre GSi and i was very vocal in my unhappiness with these two “bananas in pyjamas” and swore them and their heritage. Uncouth louts could have caused an accident! The one black guy produced his police ID card and gestured to it, i immediately flipped him the bird and told him to observe my ID and then i hung a right turn with my Mazda 626 2 litre SL and floored that sucker, the chase was on! In the car i had in the back seat Mark and his then girlfriend Minki and my co pilot for the trip was Deon who was a cop attached to the security branch at John Vorster square where he worked “undercover” at the post office going through post destined for the ANC, he would intercept all manner of post cards and letters containing names of those that were to be i suppose kept tabs on by the security forces as undesirables. Undercover at the post office! Break my balls! Its an oxymoron if there ever was one. Anyways after negotiating the right turn and stabbing the pedal to the floor i took us on a high speed car chase down Claim street with the Opel Monza hot on our tails, i shot red lights and at one time had the car up to 160 km/h. All the while i had Minki sitting in the back between the front seats screaming non stop in total terror! Mark was giving me a constant update of the cops behind us with Deon looking out for obstacles ahead. We were a slick team except for the ear shattering screaming emanating from Minki. At the bottom of the hill just before the cinema complex called Ster City i negotiated a hard right turn and sped away, the cops overshot and had to do a Uturn in traffic to follow us. We stopped on the corner of Delvers street and Market street to let Minki out the car who was by this time frantic and we had to take a leak. Suddenly the Opel pulled up and the one cop jumped out brandishing his police ID like a shield to which Deon produced his police ID and informed these two black cops who were in civilian clothes and in an unmarked car of his mustering in security branch. The tone immediately changed and the cops became very meek and then we noted that the one in the passenger seat had a beer in his hand and so naturally we took the moral high ground and frowned upon these two members of the police partaking in such irresponsible actions like drinking and driving and we demanded their names, rank and commanding officer! To this the cop hopped back in his vehicle switched the headlights off and turned right into Market street and sped away up a one way against the traffic flow. We had gotten away with it, phew! I still however had to endure the squealing of Mark`s girlfriend all the way home and listen to Mark`s half hearted attempts at consoling her. We had a blast and it was yet another crazy arse story for the vault. Mark and i did venture back to Hillbrow the following week along with Deon as usual however this evening , Mark had made an alternative arrangement to get home which left Deon and i to terrorise the bar at Bella Napoli until 02h00 when we decided it was time to go home. On arriving at my car i noted that my crappy parking earlier had punctured the rear right tyre and as Murphy and his laws would have it, my spare tyre was also bereft of air and inflation. We decided to drive on the flat anyway as it was only 20 clicks or so to get home. Deon dropped off into unconsciousness due to the inordinate quantities of alcoholic beverages he had consumed during the evening, i was driving at approximately 20 kilometres an hour and was freaked out by a guy riding a bicycle with clothes pegs clipped on his pants to prevent oil from the chain dirtying his smart pant. He pedalled past us and the mere thought of this clown on his bicycle at 03h00 in the morning beating us drove me quite literally insane! I pulled up next to the “mini land” park and climbed out the car, drew my handgun and started to shoot the offending flat tyre. Deon woke with a start and dove out the passenger window and crawled for cover, he was under the impression we were under attack from ANC gunmen or something. When we eventually arrived at the flat i parked the car and went up to get much needed sleep. In the morning when i went outside to check on the car i noticed that i had parked half on the pavement with the driver door still ajar. Only then did i see the three bullet holes in the wheel arch, i retorted to Deon and Mark who had dragged himself downstairs that i had killed my car dude. It was one hell of an evening and the miracle Mazda as i fondly called it had gotten us home in one piece.

A few weeks later Mark and i decided to frequent a house of ill repute and make as much shit as we could. We had watched some or other movie and wanted to replicate the whole rock star room trashing thing, i believe we had recently watched Pink Floyd`s The Wall at the Mini Kine in Hillbrow and were quite taken by the lead actor`s character when he trashes his hotel and chucks the tv out the window. With this embedded in our subconscious along with a bottle or two of bourbon we head off the Royal Park Hotel in town to chase up some shit. It was not long before we were led up to the rooms, i was one floor above Mark`s floor and i immediately started with the rock star trashing routine. Once i had chucked stuff around to my hearts content i then decided to throw the vanity stool through the window onto the road below. There wasn’t a television in the room so the stool had to suffice and it flew fantastically. The large Nigerian types downstairs at the door immediately made their way towards the lifts and immediately made my way down the staircase to call mark. He was already pulling up his pants and i shouted at him that we were there to trash the rooms and not shag the whores! I was truly bothered by this! Did he have no self discipline? We leaped and bounded down the staircase and exploded out the door of the hotel with what sounded like a tribe of Philistines chasing us! We got in the car and i negotiated a “Steve McQueen- esque” getaway with the Nigerians shooting at my by now out of range weaving miracle Mazda. These Nigerians couldn’t hit a barn let alone us driving like stuntmen. Once again the miracle Mazda saved our bacon.

PART 5 RAISING HELL

Friday the thirteenth was a strange day in our calendars as we would frequent various cemetery`s for some undefined reason or rationale entirely. It just seemed like a good idea and whenever Friday the thirteenth came around it was guaranteed that we would wind up in a cemetery somewhere talking shit and drinking beer, oh and on one occasion we decided that the two crosses adorning some ancient grave site would make groovy ornaments at home and thus we departed the cemetery that night with two crosses in hand. One was placed on the floor of the car and the other on the back seat and covered with my army poncho. That night Deon and his brother Johnny were with me and on the way home we noticed two chicks hitchhiking on the road in Glenesk Southern Joburg which is a shitty area even back then. I did a near perfect hand brake turn and sped back a few hundred metres and did another stopping right next to these two females. I retorted that it is dangerous to walk at night and that there are weirdo`s out there that could do them harm, i still had the gumption to ask them if they are mad! In retrospect i suppose i was warning them about us. They accepted our courteous invitation to be dropped at their home and sat in the back with Johnny. The one chick in horror reported to her pal that there was a tombstone on the floor of the car( lying on its side semi covered by the poncho covering the one the other chick was sitting on). The other chick then with a warble in her voice asked what she was sitting on and i just could not resist and with my best Jack Nicholson accent i told her “its my grandmother” the chick screamed in terror and we hooted with laughter. She was all over the inside of the car trying not to sit on this tombstone. Shame, she must have been terrified but i am very sure they never ever hitchhiked again. We left them very shaken and very stirred at their parents house and set off to deliver Deon, Johnny and the two tombstones at their house at 100 Tramway street Turfontein which was directly across from a church. The next day Deon called me at work and told me we had to get rid of the tombstones with immediate effect as his step father had during a marathon drinking session crawled to the cupboard where the crosses were hidden and when he opened the door was quite freaked out. I arrived at the house and duly carried the offending tombstones to my car and dumped them in the boot ion full view of the congregation across the street milling around after the church service, i can only imagine what they must have been thinking. I drove down Tramway street and leaned one cross up against a tree in the middle island between the two sides of the road and the other i left lying on the bowls club lawn as an ominous reminder to the old dodgers that their time was nearing.
One evening Mark, Deon and i were bored and decided to set a traffic cops car alight and it was magnificent. He parked his car on the pavement outside his house in daisy street Rosettenville and was one of those true punk cops that loved writing tickets and busting peoples chops so we have no guilt for this act of necessity. I had a two litre coke bottle brim full of petrol and casually poured it over the car and struck a match and watched that sucker light up. The car was not totally burned but the siren light had totally melted to the roof and the outside of the car was burned black but was still driveable as he did drive it like that to work. I wish i were a fly on the wall to hear the excuse he gave at work, that would be priceless. We were also the instigators of a little fire at our old school and the shooting of 15 holes in a blackboard. We also did try and steal a putco bus as we wanted to ramp it into the Wemmer Pan lake but some do gooder on the ball security guard put paid to that plan. I can neither confirm nor deny the events of one evening that saw a vehicle ending up in the Wemmer Pan lake. I will leave it at that.
Mark was a hooligan but a totally solid guy and would stand by your side no matter what and i am saddened by the events that led to his untimely death. He had wanted to go out and party hearty as his then wife was 8 months pregnant and he wanted one last hurrah so to speak and had asked me to join him but i was not in the mood that night and stayed home with my now ex wife and step son. Mark disembarked on an assault of the bars and ended up at a real dive called The Captains Cabin 100 metres or so from the flat and he must have been chatting up the wrong chick because when he walked home he was shot twice in a drive by shooting. He died there on the pavement less than 40 metres from home. His killer was never found. After this event i decided to hang up my crazy hat and quieten down a tad. At Mark`s funeral Deon was apall bearer and had to fuck up on the day. When he rested the coffin on the straps he stepped back three steps not noticing the green carpeting covering the half filled grave alongside from the service earlier and in all his brilliance fell into the grave next door to Mark`s grave. It was like something out of a movie. We hooted with laughter and even Mark`s folks laughed and said that we couldn’t even get the funeral right without fucking it up. Deon was always the casualty and i am seriously surprised he is still alive today as he is his own worst enemy.

PART 6 THE WIND DOWN

We partied hard and some paid the ultimate price. These are a few of the wild parties we had but one that really was funny involved Fernando, our stuttering session drummer who could sing excellently with out stuttering but could not string two words together in conversation. He was drinking at the flat one evening and got himself totally pissed and managed to bump the braai skottel over the balcony along with all the meat and then decided he had to puke and ran for the toilet. Little did he know there was some chick taking a pee at the time and had her skirt hiked up and panties around her ankles when Fernando burst into the toilet and unceremoniously yanked her from the throne and vomited into the toilet. She was standing there in shock and peed all over her legs, she pulled the skirt down and had kicked the panties off and ran out the flat and we never saw her again! Thanks Fernando, that was one that got away!

I have lived a wild life and now have become somewhat reserved and dull ass boring and i hate it! I need one last hurrah!

Michael B Da Silva. (old man)