Mayhem in the Middle of the Desert

It was stifling hot in the car, the scorching sun turning the Cortina into a metal furnace. Ben Vorster held the steering wheel with two fingers; its leather grip blistering his fingers. He groped around for the hand towel he had flung down on the passenger seat earlier that morning, pushing his stack of missing persons posters so that they fluttered into the footwell, and draped the dry cloth over the poker-hot steering column. Better, but not by much.

Cranking the rattling fan up to its maximin setting, he relented and rolled down his window, but the blast of hot air coupled with the noxious fumes from the cars idling in front of him made him feel like he was inhaling from an exhaust pipe. Vorster quickly rolled up his window, wishing for the millionth time he’d had the air conditioner installed on the vintage ‘67 model back in Joburg, but his vanity baulked at modifying his prize possession in any way.

A bead of sweat rolled through his hairline making him itch. Vorster swiped a hand through his damp hair, making a mental note to get his hair cut as soon as he got into the nearest dorp. If the damn snarl of cars backed up on the freeway could get rolling. Clearly an accident near the rest station up ahead, as he inched forward another excruciating foot.

He fiddled with the radio, looking for any station that wasn’t filled with static but gave up after a few futile minutes. That’s what you got when travelling through the Karoo desert: static or oppressive silence. No happy in-between. He was about to plug in his I-pod when he heard the nerve-jangling screech of metal-on-metal, coming up fast behind him. Frowning, he looked up into his rear-view mirror, paling when he saw the semi barreling towards him.  

“Use your brakes, fool!” Vorster whipped his head around, eyes widening in terror at the speeding semi-truck growing alarmingly in size in his back windshield. Vorster heard the protesting whine as the truck driver tried to gear down, smelt the acrid burning of a clutch failing to engage, mixing with the diesel fumes from the line of cars crawling in front, producing a toxic cocktail that made him want to heave.

Oh shit ! – Vorster gunned the Cortina’s engine, popped the brake and spun the scorching steering wheel to the right, propelling the Cortina like a rocker-launcher into the oncoming lane, squeezing his eyes tight for a nano-second, waiting for the crunch from oncoming traffic that would ricochet him into premature eternity. The crunch never arrived.

Instead he fishtailed out into the road, hearing the cachophony of blaring hooters behind him accompanied by the falsetto whine of failing disc pads and screaming tires, spinning in frenzied hysteria to escape the imminent impact of a metal behemoth bearing down on the trapped line of cars. Vorster spun the wheel left and then right and the Cortina bucked and slalomed before sliding down the opposite embankment, a cloud of dirt mushrooming over him, pelting the car so hard it sounded like he was in the eye of a meteor hailstorm.

Vorster slammed against the dashboard, arms crossed defensively over his head, bracing for the explosion that would crisp him like a strip of bacon and send a fireball pluming up into the bright midday sun.

And was met with an eerie silence.

Lifting his head, Vorster peered through the sandblasted passenger window taking in the apocalyptic vision of cars spewed across two lanes of highway, the semi-trailor truck embedded like a felled Tyrannosaurus rex into the sand embankment on the other side of the highway, its driver taking the same crude, evasive action as he had.

Trembling violently, Vorster scrubbed his face hard. Thank God the driver had the good sense not to plough his semi in his direction. When he stopped shaking, he tried his door. It was jammed shut against the sand dune he had created. Wincing, he leaned across and cranked the passenger window open, then disentangling himself from the footwell of the Cortina, scrambled across the seats as helping hands leaned in and pulled him out the passenger window.

Motorists wandered around, dazed. Some in shock, some grouping together in frightened huddles while others climbed onto the half-buried cab of the truck in an effort to extract the hapless truck driver. Vorster joined them and together they hauled the bear of a man out by his arms, hefting him down to the ground where a fellow motorist attempted to stem the flow of blood from a nasty laceration on his head where he had smashed into the front windshield. The blood ran red rivulets into his beard, dyeing it crimson. The trucker struggled to sit up, pushing helpful arms away. Someone offered him water to drink, and more people clustered around him. He became a magnet for the morbidly curious and genuinely helpful.

A woman hurried over with her emergency first aid kit, professing to be a nursing sister and took over the medical ministrations. Vorster shuffled back on his haunches, giving her space to work, while studying the driver through narrowed eyes.

With a calm demeanor, the nurse began dressing the stranger’s wound until the man sported a bandaged turban on his head. The murmuring voices changed in pitch and tone from concerned to irate, a growing hostility rippling through the crowd gathered around the trio.

“What happened man?” Someone prodded, when it was clear the driver hadn’t suffered any life-threatening injuries.

“Brakes went to shit,” the driver’s voice was low, shaky.

Vorster noticed his hand, holding the bottle of water, trembling. The man finally looked up and met the eyes of the crowd looming over him: some, still with concern etched on their faces, others beginning to look outraged.

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry.” With that, he dropped his head down between his knees and refused to say another word as a barrage of questions erupted over his bowed head as people, now realizing no one was going to die, their compassion all but evaporated.

“We could’ve been killed, man”

    “ - were you drinking!”

“ - are you drunk?”

“- truck isn’t roadworthy.”

“- where’d you buy your license?”

Vorster caught the panicked look in the nurse’s eyes and nodded to her, before getting up and pushing the crowd back.

“Give them room, folks. Everyone stay calm.” He tried pacifying them but, as he knew all too well in his line of work, there was always bound to be that one belligerent asshole. True to form, a youngster with barely a pubescent shadow on his top lip, shoved him back.

“Hey, who you man, this dude nearly got us all killed.”

Someone else, an older lady, tried to intervene and for her troubles got called a ‘bitch.’

Her husband stepped in and backhanded the youngster, sending him sprawling in the dirt. A punch was thrown, followed by the friend of the felled youngster stepping in to defend his honour and like a ticking bomb going off, in a blink, a brawl erupted.

People kicking, punching: legs, arms, fists flying, heads bouncing, cracking open like split eggs as vitriol spewed out, men and women, their adrenaline already spiked, leapt into the fray.

Between Vorster and the nurse, they dragged the dazed trucker out from under the thrash of fists and hateful words and staggered over to Vorster’s Cortina, now pushed back onto the road by a small group of young locals, boys no older than fifteen, eyes bigger than saucers, watching the fight being slugged out on the other side of the road.

“Jislaaik, check that Tannie,” said one, admiring the handiwork of a large woman using her hefty handbag as a battering ram on another, slightly smaller woman who clawed, and scratched like a tomcat.

The youngsters edged closer and closer to the ruckus, unable to walk away, excited by the thrill of the fight, until they too were swallowed up in the circle of violence, fighting tooth and nail for a cause they had no side in.

Vorster wasted no time in bundling the trucker into the car before racing round to the driver’s side and dived in, stabbing his key into the ignition, before they too, were lynched.

“Here,” shouted the nurse, thrusting her card through the passenger window, into the surprised trucker’s hand, “call me,” but her eyes were locked onto Vorster’s and like a budding flower, her earlier pinched expression was replaced by a shy smile. Surprised, Vorster smiled back.

The trucker looked over at him and Vorster’s smile vanished. He turned the ignition. Like a beauty, his Cortina started on the first try and he revved her engine into life.

Vorster peeled down the highway, his eyes on the rearview mirror watching the nurse recede until she was no more than a blimp on the horizon and all he saw was the grey ribbon of a road undulating over the desert terrain.

He settled back into his seat, casting a sidelong look at his new passenger. “That was a close shave.” He looked front, then snapped his eyes back to the trucker, who was staring wordlessly at the floor, his face whiter than the papers scattered across the passenger footwell.

“What is it?”

The trucker leaned forward, painfully, until he snagged one of the missing posters and lifted it, carefully, to his face, as if handling something fragile, explosive, and read the small print. His eyes screwed into mere slits. Then he turned like a puppet being jerked clumsily by its strings, to face Vorster.

“Why’re you looking for her?”

“Cos she’s missing.” Vorster had thought that was obvious.

“But why?” This time the trucker's voice was stronger, more strident.

Vorster looked in alarm at his passenger, “Why, do you know her?”

And nearly slammed on the brakes causing another near-accident when the trucker bobbed his head once, eyes narrowing in suspicion at Vorster. “She's my wife.”