24. Hard Times: Hi Jack!

Eric’s death was pretty hard for me because he was the first kid that I was close to that I had lost. I would soon see that Eric’s death was only the beginning of a series of trials for me.
One on-going trial for me throughout the whole first year I had been here, from the very first month I bought it, was my car.
At that point, I had had the car for almost a year and it had basically broken down every month, at least once, in that whole year! I learned why it broke down constantly. The mechanic asked me if I had recently gotten into a really bad accident.
I told him I hadn’t but I had recently bought the car and didn’t know about the history.
He informed me that it had indeed been in a very bad accident where the whole front end had been demolished. He said that the previous owners actually had to weld the whole front end of the car on again and that all the parts they had put back in were pirate parts.
I, of course, looked under the hood before I bought it, like any good man would. That does not mean that I knew what the heck I was looking at. To me it looked fine. It also sounded great and the outside looked almost perfectly new. In my very ignorant opinion, it was a great car.
For that full year I saw that not only was it NOT a good car, but it was just a bad egg.
Anyway, when I was in the States in September I had made the decision to do one of two things. I could A) count my loss and sell it for half, or less than half, of what I bought it for. That would mean that not only would I lose out because I paid WAY too much for it in the first place, but because I had paid more than its worth in repairs, I would also lose that additional money.
Or I could B) spend one last heap of money and just get EVERYTHING on it fixed, which basically meant buying a totally new engine.
I went back and forth between the two and was having trouble deciding which one was the best option.
In October 2001, I finally decided it was time to make a decision and I gave myself the deadline of the next day to decide.
That morning, before I left the house, I prayed that the Lord would make it clear to me what I should do. I didn’t realize how loud of an answer I would get to that prayer request.
I had promised to take two kids home that afternoon so I went into town to find them. One was a girl who lived on the streets, but decided that she wanted to go home. The other was Sipho, one of the boys from under the bridge. He just wanted to go for a visit.
I found them both and we were off.
They live in communities that are about a twenty-minute drive from downtown. I first dropped the girl off at her house and then Sipho.
He lived in an area that was about a ten to fifteen minute drive, through an area that is known to be “dangerous”. Crime is common there and especially hijacking because one of the biggest ‘chopshops’ in the Cape Town area is there. But I often went to that area and had never experienced anything bad.
I had also become extremely comfortable in the areas that others considered dangerous. Maybe I had become a little too comfortable.
While sitting at a red light, with my window open on a hot day, my cell phone rang.
Now, I normally would not answer it driving around in those areas but it was the number of the Beautiful Gate AIDS facility. They are located right down the road from where I was sitting at the red light and I thought that they might be asking me to pick something up, so I decided to answer it.
Well, it wasn’t as quick a conversation as I thought it might be and the red light just didn’t seem to be changing.
All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw someone approaching my car, but I didn’t pay any attention. There are always people coming up to your car in Cape Town, begging for money, wanting to wash your window, trying to sell you something and lots of other reasons.
I then felt someone pull on my cell phone that I was busy talking on. Now, I am so used to talking on the phone in town with all the kids around that I had gotten used to talking and not being distracted, even when the kids are talking loudly or pulling on me or my cell phone.
So, I merely tightened my grip and pulled it back away, without looking over, and I kept talking.
I felt someone pull on it again, harder this time.
Again, without looking up, I pulled the phone back, laughed this time, thinking someone was just joking around with me, and kept talking. I then felt a sharp blow to my head.
It felt like some sort of hard metal object.
I was confused and I looked up at the person standing at my window, who had a gun pointed in my face.
Now, I am no expert on guns but I know what Smith and Wesson means!
Looking back, I am amazed at how my mind went into autopilot. There were a million things running through my brain but I couldn’t manage to grab on to one concrete thought-
“Is that a real gun? It felt real to me! Is it loaded? There’s only a few ways to find out! You think you can take him? He has a gun sticking in your ear!! What in the world does he want? YOUR PHONE STUPID!!”
Attention the captain has switched to auto pilot mode.
Amazingly, I remained extremely calm. I said, “Oh, do you want this? Here.” I handed the cell phone to him. I thought that was all he wanted. I looked over at Sipho and I noticed that there was another guy on that side of the car, holding a gun to his head.
I realized that they wanted more than my cell phone. They both started yelling, “Get out of the car!!! Get out of the car!!!!”
I calmly held up my hands in the most passive way I could and said, “Ok, I will get out. Don’t worry.”
I started getting out and then the friendly hijacker kindly helped open my door and pulled me out by my shirt. After we had gotten out of the car, four more guys, all with guns, came out from behind some shacks and started running for the car. Now I had no clue what to do.
I mean, I had never been hijacked before.
Was I supposed to just stand there until they drove off into the distance? Were they going to shoot me? Was I supposed to run away? I really had no clue.
I decided for a combination and decided to calmly back away, while keeping my eyes on them, and make it to the grassy median that was in the middle of the road.
I looked over and saw Sipho standing there in shock. I noticed that his shirt, that used to be white, was turning red and then I realized that his head was bleeding.
I didn’t know that one of the hijackers had hit him on the head with a gun because he was arguing with them and asking them why they were robbing a guy that is trying to help people.
I thought to myself, “Did he get shot? No, you would have definitely heard it. Maybe they stabbed him.”
I called Sipho over to the median and we watched as the six amateur hijackers tried to make their quick getaway.
All six of the guys had jumped into the car at that point and the driver tried to squeal away. Unfortunately for him, the car jumped a bit and then died.
I couldn’t help but laugh. So I did.
He frantically tried to start it up again. The car hesitantly started up and when he tried to pull away, the car again hopped a bit and then died.
I laughed harder and thought how important it is to learn how to drive a car BEFORE you try and hijack someone. Panic-stricken, he gave it a last try, but this time the car refused to start.
He started shouting hysterically to the other guys in the car and two of them jumped out of the back, with their guns waving in the air. I thought that they were going to either make me get in and be the getaway driver or shoot me for giving them the piece of junk.
Or, even worse, hold me at gunpoint and make me take the car back!
They did none of the above. They went to the back of the car and started pushing. Both hijackers kept one hand on the car as they pushed. They held their other hands that were holding their guns in the air so everyone could see them.
I watched them roll away into the distance.
As the hijackers were making their slow getaway, a lady slowed down her car on the other side of the road and yelled for me to get in.
I was glad because I was just standing there wondering what in the world I was going to do next. She didn’t stop completely and kept the car moving at idle speed.
I jogged beside the car, opened the door and jumped in. I must say, my getaway was much more sleek than the hijackers’.
Sipho also started running for the car and the lady slammed on the gas, almost giving me whiplash, thinking he was one of the hijackers.
I told her he was with me and she slammed on the brakes, once again almost giving me whiplash.
Then she kept the car moving at idle speed and Sipho jumped in.
She gave us a ride to the police station and lectured me the whole way telling me that I am white and I should not be coming into the black areas because they are too dangerous for white people.
I told her that I was actually amazed because I had been coming into these areas for almost a year and that was the first negative thing that had happened. Those statistics seemed pretty good to me considering people get killed and robbed in these areas on a daily basis.
The police station was packed full, as usual on a Friday afternoon. I was the afternoon entertainment being the only white face in the crowd.
Everyone in the station listened curiously as the inspector went through the questions. By the end of the charge sheet, he was talking loud enough for everyone to hear and would even stop at times to allow the people to laugh.
One pause in particular was when he had to fill in the “race” question.
He said, “Excuse me, are you black?”
Everyone found that extremely funny!!
The only person that was not finding that afternoon very funny was Sipho. He was terribly upset. He could not believe that someone would rob me.
When the officer was done, Sipho and I sat down and waited for a lift from a friend I had called. Sipho was totally traumatized! The part that upset him the most was that they had robbed ME.
The part that I found funny was that Sipho, this fourteen year old kid, had robbed people and had allegedly even hijacked cars back in his own community and had never felt remorse for it. But now he had the opportunity to see how it felt to be on the other side.
I talked to him about Eric dying the week before and I told him that I was just happy that we were both alive and that I needed to get rid of that car anyway.
I looked at the gash on his head and it wasn’t too bad but his whole shirt was covered with blood because head wounds bleed a lot. I took off one of my shirts (I always wear two and have done so for most of my life for some strange reason) and gave it to him to put on.
Our lift came and we dropped Sipho back off in town.
Eric’s death, the week before, truly put things into perspective for me. I kept thinking that I was still in shock or something and that all of a sudden it would hit me and I would freak out about the hijacking experience.
But I never did.
One of my friends was more upset about the whole thing than I was and I had to try and comfort HIM.
After everything was said and done, it was only a car and a cheap cell phone that was taken. No one died in the process. I had to go a few months without a car while waiting for the insurance papers to go through, but after about a two month wait, I was able to collect the insurance money and get a car that was way better than the other one.
Someone told me, “Man, that was a blessing in disguise!!” and I replied, “You know, when I saw them PUSHING the car away, I realized that there was no disguise to it. It was just a BLESSING!!”
The Lord answered my prayer. October ended and November rolled in with its own set of trials.