Chess - The Game for Gangsters

The parents are out – the Paj keys are left behind. The night is cold and the air is thick with anticipation. Its 2002 Witbank High Matric Farewell and its about to get heavy.

We came flying over President Street bridge, up over the freeway, creaming the peddle hard all the up to the Witbank Dam recreational gates. As we hit the top of the hill, about 500m from the gates I started to slack down from 200 and decided to get the Sean Paul on the speakers so we can roll up in style. “Shake dat ting Mrs Alabama” no no – not that one, back…back  “Juss gimme dhe light” that’s it, we rolling now. In that moment I realised Sheephead was also looking down at the radio and that means nobody is watching the road.

Ted (my Guardian Angel if you recall) flipped out and shouted at me to smash on the breaks. Now, The Paj is the older 3,5 V6 5 door Pajero and its doesn’t stop all that well. Tyres screeching we both popped our heads up and went pale – there was a massive queue of cars and we were belting with all four tyres locked shifting off 2 tonnes at 180km/h. I took aim at the smallest car there and braced for impact…

Millimetres…The back end of the hatch was underneath the bull bar and we had no more than 2 millimetres gap. A decent fart would have been too much. Phew – Crisis over. Sheephead and I both got our breath back and showed a few hand singles of apologies to the crowd in the immediate area. Everyone had stopped in the hope of a big smash up. We looked at each other and got our colour back and then BANG! 

Sounded like gun shot? Who got shot? What is going on? Startled we both looked forward and took the attention of the business end of a 9mm pointing directly at us. The driver of the hatch in a rush to get out of his car, stumbled over and squeezed a round skywards.  Drunkardly shuffling off the ground and out the door pointing his gat at us. Bang! The Second shot wizzed past my head just outside of the window – holy kak – its time to go. I jammed the Paj into reversed and spun her out left lock in the hopes to throw the front end out J-Turn style but she was too podgy. The seriously pissed off hatch driver was back on his feet and pacing it towards us, shouting in a manic tone and frantically cocking the slide on his 9 – it seemed to have jammed. Sheep is now half hanging out the window shouting “Harde’ harde’ mageeta!” trying to calm his ass down while I was throwing the most disastrous 500 point u-turn in history. Narrowly missing a number of Taxi’s and crunching gears I managed to spin her out and we bolted off back down the road.

So that failed. Not a chance we are going back to that party...but the night is still young? So instead we decided to skip the after party at the Dam and just make our way to the main House party. Juiced up with forced induction Black Label beer and adrenaline we pulled into this house – parked the Paj in the tightest little parking spot in the back yard and made our way into the house. We walked through the kitchen, down the passage and into the main lounge area that was pluming with sweet smoke and House music. Oskido’s Church Groves if I recall correctly. As we came around the corner and into the room we noticed our space was getting a bit small. See – we weren’t invited. And these are not the kind of guys whom take lightly to the uninvited. To my defence I never knew we weren’t uninvited…sort of.

Four guys behind us, a crowd in front of us and nobody is taking this invasion lightly. And then, like a shining light of why Cultural Sports are imported in young man’s life – I spotted Neil. Indian Neil – whom I played Chess with in primary school. He walked up, cleared a space, fronted me and said… “Doug, Is that you?”

We partied massively hard that night. Threw some doughnuts in the Paj as thanks for the hospitality and made our way to Mc Donalds for breakfast.