Mens sana in corpore sano. (Cafe Delirium 2021, non-writer.) CD2021

I was eighteen and possibly one of the last intakes of white male army recruits for the apartheid state.
Mandela had already been released, and the path of reconciliation was open.
Yet murky things, assassinations, hit-squads a "third force" were rumored to be going on everywhere.

But I was happy, because after six-weeks of basic-training hell in some ungodly desert base, I finally had a week's leave.
My very first.

So my mates and I decided to hit the alternative/metal clubs at the time.
Dressed all in black with our band-shirts and Doc Martens.
One uniform for another, just they had their long hair still, whereas I was sheared from the military.
But I put in my earrings, and it didn't look too "square".

Somewhere after midnight I told my friends (who were broke and quite boring) I'm going on my own mission.
Going to catch the first morning train home at 4 am.
Trains were reliable back then and my parent's house wasn't far from the station.

Actually I wanted to elope to the gay cruise bar between the alternative clubs, without my friends finding out I was "a friend of Dorothy's".
And I did, I found a bunch of flowers on the pavement, and although I was the only "goth" in the yuppie queer bar, I handed them to this beautiful dude, and we started snogging for what seemed like eternity, and they closed.
He loved my hard military physique, and we exchanged numbers (only land-lines back then), because we should go wine-tasting together.

Then I walked into the next "goth" bar which was still open.
This was Delirium and the music was pumping.
The venue was so grimy my Doc Martens stuck to the floor, and the strobe light flashed the cacophony of long, wind-milling hair.
How sad I thought, that the army had cut all mine off.

Then these three dudes came around me and said, "here, have a tequila".
A bit bombastic maybe, but I was game.
Then they said, "let's go for a smoke", and halfheartedly I was dragged along.

Around some block they shoved me into an open door along some alley.
On damn, I thought, I'm going to get robbed, although all you carried back then was a wallet with pocket money, front-door keys and a jacket.

Into a lift they shoved me.
They began to shout orders at me in Afrikaans.
Oh flip, It vaguely dawned on me with increasing panic, this is the military police!
Sodomy laws at the time had not been repealed, and the social stigma was devastating.
Furthermore, at the time you had to sign forms in the army not to visit this street and clubs in Cape Town, and even an earring for a male was considered "vandalism against state property".
I began to weep - my father and my friends will never speak to me again.
I'm going to the detention barracks in Pretoria for years and years.
My corporal will literally kill me, if he found out.

Then the elevator went up, we got out, and into another elevator going up, so many times I was sure I was delirious.
Finally I was taken into a room, and there was some military older guy facing me, a chair and a table with a notepad and a glass of orange juice.

And he told me that I had been caught doing this and this and that against the military code.
But if I passed a drug-test it would all be forgotten.
The test was, I had to sit down, drink the glass of orange juice, and then I had to write down a new motto for our unit.
So I drank the sickly sweet juice and began to write: Mens sana in corpore sano (A healthy mind in a healthy body).
Then everything went black.

I awoke on the lawn in front of my parents' house.
My key and wallet were still there, and apart from a splitting headache, I could let myself in.
Mom loudly complained that I could at least have phoned, but dad added that "the boy was on leave" and it's OK.
I just needed a bath and a good sleep because tomorrow it's back to the army base and the desert, and the do-or-die zombie-existence.
The mirror implied I was OK, just my hands smelled very chemical for some reason.

Maybe I just had a major bender, and it was all just delirium.
Yip, probably just a bender and delirium, and a bit of a dream.
Not too much time to dwell on it anyway.
Shake it off, because cowboys don't cry.

Only five years later did the nightmares start.
"Skiet, skiet"! Shoot, shoot! Someone yelling into my ear.
An entirely different space and province.

The image before me swirling with gothic/metal-head hair, and then the elevator going down.
Sounds of a chop-chop helicopter pounding in my chest.
And before me, my target, the blurred figure of a human being I cannot clearly define.

But everybody has bad dreams you know, in the Cafe Delirium of the mind ... or so I keep hoping, and telling myself every night.

- The End -

(P.S. Although written in the first person, this story is fiction. It has elements of lived autobiography and elements of some other narratives, both verbal and literary. Did that stuff go on in the 1990's in South Africa? Well, you can't testify about something that happened in a delirium. But yes, I'm convinced it did happen. I think combining elements of other men's tales into my own is not stealing. It is a creative way of keeping "truths" and experiences alive. In memory of those who lost their personal struggles, and cannot tell their stories anymore.)

a reply to: halfoldman

Nice!

a reply to: halfoldman

That was actually heart wrenching, as I gather my tears once again.
Nicely written




Eta- I love how you used Latin for the title. I wrote the title down in my journal. That’s interesting … a healthy mind in a healthy body ..

I really enjoyed your prose.

Shake it off, because cowboys don't cry.

WOW! Your story really touched me. It was very well written.