A Gathering of Bald Men

Modern life is full of worries - money problems, your daughter’s unsuitable boyfriend, your wife who doesn’t understand you, your boss at work who doesn’t listen to your good ideas…

Caleb Zungu is not a happy man. He sells insurance to people who don’t want to pay for it, he worries about the money that he owes the bank - and he discovers he is going bald. A man can only take so much…

Caleb Zungu was forty-three years old, married to Nothando for thirteen years, with two girl children - Busi, who was eight, and Khwezi, who was fourteen. He owned a house in Johannesburg, a car, and two dogs. He was a salesman for a large insurance company, Allied Life, where he had worked for five years. He owed money to the bank, and hoped that God would help him, perhaps with the death of a long-lost uncle, who would leave him some money. Nothando had a full-time job at Transtar, a bus company. The girls were on school holidays, as it was April, and the dogs, which no one called by their real names, were happy with life.

On this Monday, Caleb woke up, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and put his clothes on. He looked handsome, and frighteningly well dressed, in his dark blue suit, white shirt, and black shoes. He drank his coffee quickly and went back to the bathroom. Nothando almost dropped her coffee cup when she heard a scream coming from there. ‘Perhaps he’s ill!’ she thought, and ran to see what the matter was.

She found Caleb in front of the mirror, feeling the top of his head with his hand. He had discovered a bald patch, the size of a coin, and he was very miserable about it.

‘What babies men are!’ thought Nothando. To her husband she said kindly, ‘But Caleb, baldness just shows how strong and sexy you are, every woman knows that! You’re looking very good today!’ He did not reply.

Later she waved to him as usual as he drove away in his bright pink car, an old Renault which he had never found the time to repaint. But she knew that he was still deeply worried, because he hadn’t even taken his mobile phone.

While she was getting ready for work, she thought about her daughters. Khwezi spent too much time talking to her friends on the phone and listening to her favourite music. Now she’d even written ‘I Love JM’ on her trainers. ‘Who the hell is JM?’ thought Nothando. ‘Probably one of those awful boys who wait around on street corners, watching the girls. My daughter is not going to have a boyfriend like that!’

Her helper arrived to take care of the girls, and Nothando left for work in her friend Marcia’s car. Now she was thinking about her husband’s problem. ‘Some men have killed themselves when they’ve lost their hair,’ she thought. ‘What a terrible thing to do! You’ve no chance of going to heaven if you kill yourself. Surely Caleb isn’t thinking about suicide, is he? I’ll be as angry as hell if he tries something like that!’

At that moment, Caleb was in the Allied Life office, where the manager, Arnold Spicer, was accusing all the salesmen of laziness. ‘More and more people are growing older,’ he told them, waving his arms angrily. ‘They worry about death, so they need insurance. And you all sit here doing nothing about it, when you should be out there in the streets, selling!’

Caleb wished he had a full head of hair, like Spicer. ‘Easy for him to say that,’ he thought. ‘He doesn’t have to go out looking for customers. It’s more difficult for me than the others. I’m the only one who has to sell insurance to black people. Most of them just don’t want to pay for it! And the ones who do, well, they make sure they’re never at home when I arrive to collect the money every month. It’s not surprising I’m losing my hair.’ And for the first time in many months, he decided he’d like a drink.

As he drove along Empire Road, he tried to think of famous men who were bald. There was Winston Churchill - some women found him sexy. What about Gandhi? Well, Gandhi was famous for other things. Bruce Willis? Was he really hairless? He was an actor, so perhaps his head was also acting bald. A bald President Mandela would help - then people would realize it wasn’t so bad to be bald, and lots of men like Caleb would walk around with their heads held high.

He parked his car on Pretoria Street and went into the bar at the corner. It was early for a drink - only 11.30 in the morning - but Caleb told himself it was an unusual day. Inside the bar there was loud African music, and the low lighting made the place seem mysterious and a little frightening. Dark men in the shadows spoke quietly to each other over their drinks, and women in bright dresses danced with each other. Caleb knew it was a favourite place for criminals. ‘Does it have fire insurance?’ he wondered.

He chose a table, sat down, and ordered a beer from the waiter. The music filled the room, and beat inside his head. He was on his third beer, when the dancing women were beginning to look sexy, and he started thinking about suicide. He cried into his glass as he thought of Nothando and his daughters. ‘What will happen to them? There’s the money that I owe, and of course the funeral will cost a lot. Nothando will have nothing, and the children will hate me forever.’

But it was just as bad to go on living. He knew that losing his hair was the beginning of the end for him. ‘If I can’t find any more customers, I’ll lose my job,’ he thought. ‘In a few months from now, I could be a beggar on a street corner, holding a notice that says “Wife and children hungry. Please help”. My daughters would be so ashamed of me! Yes, death must be better than that.’

Already feeling less miserable, he put some money on the table, and stood up to leave. It was then that a man entered, and came straight over to Caleb’s table. He was a very thin white man, completely bald, wearing dirty clothes and an old pair of trainers. He sat down and said calmly to Caleb, ‘Take a seat, my friend. You’re going nowhere.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Caleb. He had no idea why he was doing it, but he obeyed the man and sat down.

‘You were thinking of suicide, weren’t you?’ the man said. ‘I followed you here. I told myself, “He’s going to do it.”’ He laughed; it was not a pleasant sound. Then he turned and shouted at the waiter, ‘Bring me a beer, double-quick!’ ‘Forget it, Ranger,’ the waiter shouted back. ‘I’m not even giving you a glass of water until I see some money first!’ ‘Who says I need to pay?’ the man called Ranger replied. ‘My friend here’ - and he put a thin hand on Caleb’s shoulder - ‘is about to kill himself-’

‘Now, wait a minute-’ Caleb began.

‘And it’s very stupid to die with money in your pocket, don’t you think?’ Ranger was enjoying himself. People were laughing; even the dancers stopped for a moment, to look at this fool who wanted to take his money with him when he died. ‘What’s your name, friend?’ Ranger said.

Caleb knew it was time to tell Ranger to get lost. He stood up, then saw the notice that the white man was carrying.

TOM RANGER BLIND SOLDIER

DON’T NEED YOUR PITY BUT MONEY WILL DO

I DRINK AND SMOKE JUST LIKE YOU

‘My God!’ said Caleb. ‘Blind - oh, I’m sorry.’

‘Well,’ said Ranger carelessly, ‘I’m sorry too. Now am I getting my drink, or what?’

Caleb called to the waiter. ‘Give the man what he wants, and I’ll have another beer.’ Turning back to Ranger, he said, ‘My name is Caleb Zungu.’

‘And what do you do, Caleb Zungu?’ asked Ranger. ‘You’re some kind of salesman, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I sell insurance. Does it show?’

‘Man,’ Ranger said, ‘when I came in through that door, I got this strong feeling of sadness, and I knew there was someone here thinking of suicide. When you’re blind, you feel these things, man.’

Ranger would try to get money out of him, Caleb knew that, but in an honest way. The streets of Johannesburg were full of beggars, and people with quick and easy ways to make quick and easy money. Caleb never gave them anything, but there was something about Ranger that interested him.

As Caleb and Ranger talked about life and death over their drinks, the bar became more and more crowded. Several men recognized Ranger, and smiled or waved at him. Ranger became louder, until Caleb told him to be quiet.

‘A blind man who can see what I’m feeling!’ thought Caleb. Something made him think about Allied Life. ‘They’re blind too. Spicer refuses to accept any of my great ideas for selling more insurance. He just makes my working life impossible. Still, if I kill myself, Spicer and Allied Life won’t matter to me anymore. I won’t miss them, where I’m going!’ He was sure there was life after death.

‘I don’t understand,’ Ranger was saying. ‘You want to kill yourself just because you’re losing your hair?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’ asked Caleb. He didn’t want to talk about his problems at work or about the money that he owed.

‘I’ve helped many people kill themselves, and they’ve usually had stronger reasons than that. There was a man who was jealous of his wife…’

Caleb had once suspected Nothando of seeing another man. Luckily, two of his best friends told him not to be a fool - Nothando was a good woman. He had started following her, hoping to catch her in flagrante delicto - caught in the act of having sex with a lover. He knew he was quite drunk by now because he was thinking in Latin, but he drank some more beer anyway. Next time he had an idea to suggest to Spicer, he’d do it in Latin, and see how Spicer liked that!

‘So do you want me to help you?’ Ranger asked.

‘Yes,’ Caleb said. ‘But don’t give me any lessons about the importance of life, or how my wife and kids will go hungry. Don’t give me that.’ But he needed a plan that would make his death seem like an accident. The eyes of his children stared at him from the bottom of his beer glass.

‘How do you wish to die? There are plenty of ways,’ Ranger said cheerfully. ‘You know, my dad was a hangman. He’s unemployed now, which is a pity, but when he was working, he hanged a lot of people. You die of a broken neck when you’re hanged - did you know that?’

Feeling a little sick, Caleb shook his head. He stared at his strange friend with renewed respect. Ranger was clearly a bit crazy, but he was also intelligent and had a clever way with words. ‘I’d like to talk like him at dinner parties,’ thought Caleb. ‘If I hadn’t killed myself, I mean.’

It was a bright, sunny day when they left the bar. The streets were crowded. Young men stood around in doorways; on every corner women sold fruit, vegetables, watches, cassettes. Children ran about, loud music was playing in shops, the noise of traffic was continuous. The short walk to the car gave Caleb a strange feeling. All these things happening around him, this was life! He looked at every single part of it, and tried to remember it forever.

As they got near the car, Caleb asked, ‘What do you do when you’re not…?’ He didn’t want to say ‘begging’.

‘Getting money out of you people with eyes?’ Ranger finished for him. ‘Playing word games. My plan was to make a word game in many languages. I’m still working on one for African languages.’

Caleb knew how difficult that would be, so he said nothing.

‘This your car?’ Ranger asked, feeling the shape of the Renault with his hands. ‘Give me the keys, Zungu.’

‘What?’ Caleb didn’t think he had heard right.

‘I said, give me the keys, I’ll drive.’ Ranger’s voice sounded stronger now, almost violent. Caleb didn’t like to refuse, and gave him the keys. Ranger got into the driver’s seat, and unlocked the passenger door. Caleb got in, and started pulling at his seat belt.

‘No seat belts,’ Ranger said. ‘You want to die, don’t you?’ He started the car, and drove away. In a few seconds the pink Renault was going at top speed through the busy streets, and the rest of the traffic had to get out of its way.

‘Used to drive in New York,’ Ranger said, driving straight through a red traffic light. ‘Great city to drive in.’ He put his head out of the car window to shout at a taxi driver. ‘What’s the matter with you, man? You blind or something?’

While all this was happening, it was lunch time at Nothando’s office. Nothando was reading Cosmopolitan magazine while waiting for her friend Marcia. Most of the young women who worked for Transtar had already left the office. They looked forward all morning to their hour of shopping for clothes; if a manager made them stay at work, they were cross and unhelpful all afternoon.

Marcia suggested going to a restaurant in Raleigh Street, so they got into her car. Nothando was feeling very tired. It was hard having to look after two daughters and go to work. She was also wondering about Caleb. ‘Is he going to be a problem?’ she thought. ‘It’s funny, you marry someone who seems to be your dream man, then bang! something suddenly changes him into a fat old man who just makes you cross!’ As Marcia was driving down Raleigh Street, Nothando saw the pink Renault, speeding out of Abel into Harrow Street. She recognized it at once. Marcia said, ‘Isn’t that…’

‘Yes! It’s Caleb!’ Nothando screamed. She heard the loud shouts of other drivers, who had to stop or turn off the road, as the pink Renault drove straight on.

Marcia followed the crazy pink car down Harrow Road, driving at top speed herself. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I used to be a taxi-driver. I think we can catch him.’

Nothando said nothing, but held on to her seat. ‘Caleb, you fool, why are you doing this?’ she thought angrily. And the answer came to her: he’s trying to kill himself. She suddenly remembered an old friend, Chris, who had tried to kill himself. First he’d attempted to hang himself from the branch of a tree, but it was too close to the ground. Then he decided to lie down on the railway line. He lay there for some time, but that day there were no trains on that part of the line. In the end he went home, hot and tired, but still alive.

There was a loud crash as the pink Renault turned into Rissik Street. Nothando couldn’t remember when or how she got out of Marcia’s car, but she found herself running towards Caleb’s car. It had hit a wall, and was badly damaged. Police cars were arriving and drivers were shouting. Suddenly, Nothando screamed: ‘Caaaaaaaaleb!’

This cry rang above the noise of the traffic. Frightened birds left the rooftops and flew into the sky. Policemen put their hands over their ears in pain, car salesmen stopped their sales talk to customers, and the cook in the Chicken Licken restaurant ran out of his kitchen, because he thought the end of the world had come.

A policeman, Warrant Officer van Vuuren, pushed through the crowd to get to the crashed car. He opened the doors, pulled the two men out, and laid them on the road. Nothando ran to Caleb, and cleaned the blood off his face. Calling his name again and again, she looked lovingly at him. She knew then that, although he was a fool and smelt of old beer and dirty socks, she loved him.

When he opened his eyes and smiled, Nothando almost cried with happiness. Seconds later she was filled with anger. She pulled Caleb to his feet, and pushing him against the car, she began to beat him with her hands, screaming wildly, ‘Youstupidfoolyoustupidfoolyoustupidfool.’ At last, tired of this, she threw her arms around him.

Van Vuuren, who clearly had not read the Police Handbook on Good Policing, was busy hitting Ranger round the face, saying to him, ‘How many times have I told you to keep out of trouble? You’re giving us white men a bad name!’

‘Officer,’ Caleb said, escaping from Nothando’s arms, ‘you can’t do that to Ranger. He was only trying to help me.’

Van Vuuren turned and looked at Caleb. ‘You stupid fool,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. This man has been a problem for us for months!’

‘Well, we have to remember, he is blind,’ replied Caleb.

‘Blind?’ Van Vuuren laughed, and turned to Ranger. ‘Is that your latest idea? If you try to tell me you’re blind, I’ll put your eyes out myself.’

‘Ah, come on, officer,’ Ranger said calmly. ‘Don’t be unkind. A man has got to live, hasn’t he?’

The fun was over, and the watching crowd began to move away. An ambulance came to take the two men to hospital, and Nothando went with them. Caleb still couldn’t believe that Ranger was not blind. He wanted to jump up and beat him round the head, but he didn’t feel strong enough. It was tiring just thinking about the crazy, crazy things that he and Ranger had done.

A month later, Caleb left his job at Allied Life, and started what he called the Progressive Hairlessness Educational Workshop. His plan was to get people talking about baldness, and to help people accept their hairlessness, not worry about it. PHEW, as it was known, started badly, because reporters found baldness very funny; they said PHEW wasn’t a serious business and it wouldn’t last a month. But Caleb put a lot of hard work into it. He rang up all his old customers and asked for their help. He found several famous people who were ready to speak about their baldness on the radio.

Ranger soon joined him, and together they appeared on television programmes and travelled all over the country. Everywhere they went, they took the PHEW logo - a picture of a large egg with a confident smile and ‘Proud to be hairless’ written in red below it.

Letters from interested people arrived by every post. There was a heated discussion in the newspapers and on television (by then Caleb had shaved all his hair off and looked completely bald) - could people with thinning hair join PHEW? By now, baldness was discussed openly, and many people sent money to PHEW, to keep the work going. PHEW became a very successful company.

Caleb Zungu was forty-five years old, married to Nothando for fifteen years, with two girl children - Busi, who was ten, and Khwezi, who was sixteen. He owned a house in Johannesburg, two cars, and two dogs. He was the manager of the PHEW Company. Nothando and Ranger also worked for the company. JM was accepted as a future husband for Khwezi, and as a worker in the company, because he had started to lose his hair early.

And the two dogs were called by their real names, Baldy and Beauty.