Ballito Boxing

Shame. I didn’t mean for that to go that well. All I wanted was for that young knob shiner to learn an important lesson. A lesson in accounting. Cause and effect.  A lesson that will serve him well as a business man later on in his life: “Don’t let your mouth write cheques that your body can’t cash”

It’s the summer of 2011 and we are on a pretty epic road trip. Ryan, Fallon, The Wife, a Portuguese import named Juan and me. It starts off in Pretoria, up to Pilanesburg, across to Hazyview, down to St Lucia, Ballito, around to the Drakensberg and back up to Pretoria again. It captures about 1 percentage of the natural beauty this country has and you can do it in a week. You get the astonishing caves, cliffs and escarpments to the most remarkable curtain waterfalls, dolphin coastline and Game Lodges all squeezed into a journey less than 2000km. It really is something special. The journey takes you through the most tranquil and soul-finding locations like Bell Park Dam in the Drakensberg to the heaving, bustling party zone that is Ballito on fire with students fresh from passing their Matric exams.

Enough about the swelling patriotic stuff though. So – we are in a night club in Ballito. Not a bad spot actually with some decent sound and lighting. Clubs in SA are mostly Pubs that have received a makeover from some guy on LSD. So the bar counter is blue, the dance floor is where the pool tables go during the day and the pleather seats leave a certain unmistakable pheromone on your clothes. 

None the less it is party time. So I hit the bar, order up a round of drinks and a few shots. While I am standing there the bar man announces that they will be giving away 500 free shooters in 30 minutes time. The flock of matriculates all turn around like a pack of meercats and rush to set a place at the bar. I got tangled up a bit in the crowd but I was making my way slowly out and back to the table.

This one little guy. Little 18yr old wanker with his well-conditioned hair and paint-on-jean-pant chirps me “Hey! Don’t look at my chick hey!” and then giggles away hanging onto his congregation. Now – I’m not shy for a scuffle but what is the use of pummeling that guy, spilling my beers, pissing off the Wife and having to be in bed before twelve? So I quietly and patiently said “No hassles Dude, have a good evening” which was followed by a few jeers of laughter from the putz. I walked away.

A few hours later and I am giving it stick on the dance floor (Dub stepping to that intro song on the Party Rocker album). I thought I looked amazeballs. I’m sure I didn’t. Anyway, that same little knobber wobbles over to me and chirps me again. Something about “swizzle shazzle doobie eff you”. I must say, the Eff You bit got to me a bit but I let it go. I carried on jamming away. Next thing I hear this sound: An unmistakable sound of a beer bottle being smashed over someone’s head. Someone nearby. I spun around and a little scuffled had started out between Random Guy number 1 and this little knob shiner that had been hassling me all night. At that age guys fight that they shag. Quick, sudden and full of tantrum.

Luck so had it that Random Guy number 2, standing next to me, was Random Guy 1’s friend. So I fed him. I fed his uncontrollable teenage anger. He would say “Ja fok die ou” and I would say “You’re right, he is an idiot. And I saw him hit that girl’s ass earlier”. Anger Level 2 achieved. 

“Serious ou? Nooit!” … “Yes seriously. And he has been looking for a hiding all night…I wonder who should give it to him?” Anger Level 3 achieved. 

“Ja fok, maybe I should bliksem him”…”Yes my padowan…Yes you should…” Anger Level 4 achieved. 

“Nee but the bouncers will throw me out” …. “No they won’t. They all know that guy deserves a smack”.

Anger level 5 achieved. Red lights flashing, Mayday Mayday!

Random Guy 2 walks over to the scuffle crowd and while Knob Shiner is in mid-sentence he throws him a mean liberty right hook straight to his neck. I’m sure he did not aim for that but wow it worked well. Knob Shiner coughed, gasped and fell to the floor. Then followed up by a few kicks on the ground, one or two more smacks and bouncers broke it up.

I made my way back to the bar, Ryan had already loaded everybody up back into the car ready to go home. He wasn’t so pleased with the brawl and I can understand why. I finished my beer and headed for the door. This short but seriously stocky guy pulls me to the side and asks what happened. He explains he is the bar owner and he wants to know what happened. I smelt an opportunity here. I sat down with him and fed him a long story about Knob Shiner and how he has been chasing patrons out the entire night with his aggressive attitude. I explained to the owner that he lost a massive crowd of people all because that weed couldn’t control himself. The owner buys me a drink and we sat there talking about it. “Don’t leave, stay. Please call your friends back and the drinks are on me.” He explains but I said I simply had to go. Why would we want to party at an establishment that allows this sort of archaic behaviour?

The Owner was upset. Really upset. In the most perfect timing, just as I finish my drink and finished my story, the bouncers have Knob Shiner up off his feet and are shipping him out the door. They walk past us, on the way to the door, when I said to the Owner: “Him. That’s the guy that has lost you thousands of rands tonight and he started the fight”

The Owner walked up to his bouncers; they placed the guy back on his feet, had a few words among themselves and then the biggest bouncer grew an evil little smirk across his face. This bouncer, all 140kg of Nigerian rage man, slots Knob Shiner with a fist of fury. I mean seriously hard. Bouncer man punched him in the gut so hard that his feet curled up off the floor as went into suspended fetal position still being held up by the scruff of his neck.

They dragged him out. We went home. I made the world a better place.