Stories of the Everyday

05:31 the neon digits of my alarm clock say. It is still dark outside. I have been woken up by a subtle noise outside my window. A strange rustling. There it is again. I sit up in bed and listen. Someone is outside on my stoep. I try to peer through the slits of my wooden shutters. At first, I can’t make out much, but a few seconds later, I start to see the bottom half of a man, waist down. He is getting dressed, pulling clothes out of a plastic bag. He puts on a pair of pants, then another pair on top. Next, he pulls socks out of the bag, also two pairs, and finally he puts on his shoes. Seconds later, the latch on my front gate clicks and he is gone.

I couldn’t see his face but I know exactly who he is. He often hangs out on the streets around my neighbourhood. Almost every day, he comes to sit on the stairs opposite my house. That’s his favourite spot. Right across from my bedroom window. There he sits for hours, doing nothing in the particular. Every now and then he goes for a brief walk and comes back to sit again. Sometimes he pisses against the side of the staircase. Sometimes he shouts after women. But mostly, he speaks to himself. I have seen him change his clothes there, too. That’s how I knew it was him, this morning on my stoep, in the dark.

Two pairs of pants is all he owns. One day, he wears the dark grey ones on top and the other pair, in a lighter shade of grey, underneath. The next day, he swops them around. He does the same with his socks. Only that he also turns the socks inside out to keep them from starting to smell for longer. Quite clever, actually.

It’s winter in Cape Town and from what I observed this morning, I know he has taken to sleeping on my stoep. I can understand that he wants to protect himself from the icy wind and the rain and I’m pretty sure he’s harmless. We have never had much interaction because he seems to speak Afrikaans only, a language I’m not familiar with. He also often speaks Gobbledygook. Loudly. To himself. But when we see each other on the street, we greet, and a couple of times I have given him food. Still, I am not particularly happy about him sleeping on my stoep. My bed stands right next to the window, so when he’s there, I am literally lying half a meter away from him, separated only by a thin wall and a window. He has also taken to hanging around my house at night, waiting for me to come home, so that he can safely take occupation of the stoep.  He is smart enough to arrive late and leave early so that he won’t get caught.

I am not sure how to best handle the situation. This is South Africa after all, and I feel a little unsafe having a homeless, psychologically unstable man waiting by my house each night, following my movements. I decide to consult my neighbour Janie, a feisty, elderly woman who has been living in this neighbourhood all her life and who is something of a matriarch of the community. She knows everyone, and everyone shows her respect. One time, she even commanded two thieves who had stolen my hubcaps to return them and put them back onto my tyres. But that’s a story for another day.

Yes, she knows exactly who I’m talking about, says Janie. That man used to own a big, triple storey house just down the road from us. He got himself into financial trouble and eventually lost everything. Since then, he’s been roaming the streets. Hearing this, I feel terrible. How can I bar someone who has such a tragic personal history from seeking shelter on my stoep? “No dear, don’t take too much pity,” Janie warns me. Initially, he had the support of the entire community, she says. Everyone helped out, tried to get him a job, a place to stay. But he is up to no good. Over the years, he has ruined his relationship with all and sundry, and when he drinks too much he gets aggressive. If you catch him on your stoep again, call the police, she advises.

But I feel reluctant to take what I feel is the last step. He has never done anything to me, so I don’t want to get him into trouble based on hearsay. I decide to take the bull by the horns. The next time I see him sitting on the steps, I walk straight up to him. “I’m sorry but you can’t sleep on my stoep any longer,” I tell him. Instead of getting a reply, the man gets up, walks a few steps away from me and starts talking loudly to the empty space in front of him. “Listen,” I try again, “I’m really sorry, but it’s not ok for you to sleep on my stoep.” But the Gobbledygook gets only louder.

That same evening, I decide to a heed a friend’s advice. Before I go to bed, I empty a bucket of water on the stoep to spoil his sleeping place. Barley two minutes later, I am brushing my teeth in the bathroom, the doorbell rings. It’s late, so I answer through the Interkom. “Lady, there is lots of water running off your stoep,” an alarmed male voice tells me. “Yes, not to worry,” I answer. “I was cleaning it.” But the person at my door doesn’t let up. “There is lots of water on the stoep, lady. Lots of water,” he repeats with a strange urgency.

And then the penny drops. Hang on a moment, I know this voice. It belongs to the homeless guy. Only that he suddenly speaks perfect English. I hang up and make my way to the door. There he stands, by my gate, all flustered, pointing to the wet stoep, still repeating the same sentence. “Lots of water here, lots of water.” “I know. I just cleaned it,” I tell him my half-truth again, adding “you can’t sleep here any longer.” The moment I mention the word ‘sleep’, his demeanour changes. The well-spoken English is gone and replaced by the familiar Gobbledygook, louder and louder to drown out my voice. Then he walks off.

Over the next few days, I repeat the water bucket ritual in the evenings before I go to bed. When I see the old man in the street, we do our best to ignore each other. He either looks to the floor in front of his feet, or he storms off in the opposite direction, noisily speaking to himself in a language only he can understand. His favourite spot on the staircase opposite my house remains mainly empty.

The following Saturday, I buy a huge pot plant at a nearby nursery. It now stands on my stoep, taking up most of its width. A tacit notice that sleepovers are no longer welcome.