1

The Pretorian
Underground

Elvis of Athos,
The Big Bust
& Blouwildebeest

By Pieter Uys & Sheree Rayfield

1
 Dedicated to Aron, Beechies, Blouwildebeest, Bro,
Celia Parra, Chappies, Elvis, Jakes, Jungle, Fifi, Hantie, Klein,
Lolla, Lynn, Muis, Ossewana, Pampoenstreep, Pieta, Prowler,
Sam, Shane and all the other adorable dykes
who made my life worth living.
Praise God who made you,
and if you’re still alive,
may life be kind to you.

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Fat Lynn & Lynn Blouwildebeest

D
isco had the whole world dancing in the seventies, from New York to LA, Munich to
Montevideo, Yokohama to Johannesburg and Paris to Pretoria. Club Athos in Schoeman
Street, Pretoria provided the disco pulse in the capital city with tracks like I Need A Man by
Grace Jones, Miss You by the Stones and Brown Girl in the Ring by Boney M. Andy Gibb and the Bee
Gees had the patrons dancing in formation while Donna Summer’s version of Je T'aime (Moi Non Plus)
and porn star Andrea True’s What’s Your Name, What’s Your Number? competed with local hits like
Oom Jan by die Disco, the story of a country naïf who one night strayed from his hotel room into the
surreal world of a gay disco.

Club Athos was frequented by legendary lessbears like Elvis, Jakes, Jungle, Prowler, Shane and my
friend Bro who was an early sufferer from road rage. Driving with Bro through the streets of Pretoria
exposed one to aggressive gestures and curses like “poes!” Most of them used Brylcream, and lots of
them smoked Lexington and marijuana. Many had motorbikes, some wore safari suits and others
preferred the uniform of blue denim trousers and white tops.

Besides the butchery of dykes, many beverleys of lipstick lesbians and a bitchery of queens
transformed the club into a fairytale high on a Friday and Saturday night. Tall blonde Penny was the
most imposing drag queen while the name of Ms Athos 1978 was Mary. She shared a flat across the
street from ‘bunny park’ in Arcadia with her lesbian friend Poppie who worked for the far right
political party, the HNP (Herstigte Nasionale Party). Athos was also quite popular among the art and
drama students of Pretoria University, and plenty of national servicemen got their muscles admired
there.

The whole municipal area of Pretoria was represented at Club Athos, from the blue collar suburbs of
Hercules and Hekpoort through the middle class ‘Moot’ to upper class areas like Lynnwood,
Queenswood and Faerie Glenn. Joburgers loved Athos too; loyal patrons included Sheree, Tracy and
Vesta who were students at the University of Johannesburg. Their greatest thrill was hitch-hiking to
Athos on a Saturday night.

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Their red Beach Buggy made Fat Lynn and Lynn Blouwildebeest stand out among the machos. They
were also somewhat confusingly called Fat (Blouwildebeest) and Fatterer because Fat Lynn was taller
and fatter than the stocky, swarthy Blouwildebeest. Fat Lynn with her fair skin resembled the Oros
Man. They had a similar ‘shaggy dog’ hairstyle and both wore sorely challenged hipster trousers that
failed to contain the belly or the bum.

Socializing at the club brought the three students a stream of new acquaintances, like the Lynns.
Extreme macho types tend to like their opposite, so the students appealed to the Lynns who went out
of their way to woo them. One night the Lynns came over from Pretoria to pick them up at
Johannesburg’s Melville Hotel – a safe distance from the UJ campus – for a ride in the Buggy to a fun-
filled night at Club Athos.

Enthralled by the students, the Lynns phoned them often in the hope of further dates. Students often
lack money but Sheree was lucky enough to have a source of income: selling the cattle her
godparents had given her. Whenever there was a need, one of the beasts that lived on her
grandparents’ farm near Klerksdorp was sold to balance the budget.

Sheree’s most reliable customer was the minister of her grandparents. So for R70 she sold him a cow
which was simply transferred from her grandparents’ farm to the nearby land of the minister. It was
only a matter of fetching the money. When Fat & Fatterer heard this, they eagerly offered transport to
Klerksdorp. Since being seen in such company would have been unwise for the students, they met
the Lynns on a remote part of campus, and they were off.

It was a windy ride and the Beach Buggie deposited them under the grapevine at the Reverend’s.
They were treated to tea and scones by the hospitable Reverend and his wife who seemed unmoved
by the sight of the Lynns. The delegation returned to Joburg with a view to go to Club Athos that
night. At least the Lynns thought so. The three students did not.

Back at the dorm, Fat Lynn parked the Beach Buggie without attracting too much attention. Sheree
gave them money for petrol and told them that she and her friends might not get permission to out
after eight o’clock, and that in such a case, the Lynns had to go and make the most of Athos. A little
while later, Tracy, Vesta and Sheree looked down with relief at the red Beach Buggie in the parking
sixteen floors below.

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Ominously, just then reception announced the arrival of vistors for them. Fat and Fatterer had had the
nerve to wade into the dormitory, ask questions and name names, unwittingly tempting the rule that
men were not allowed entry after 8pm. They spooked the first-year student at reception who
abandoned her post to call a senior. The Lynns grabbed the gap, jumped in the elevator and pushed
‘16’ because when they entered reception, they noticed that the previous ride had stopped there.

On the 16th floor, Sheree wisely locked the door to her room. The dormitory floor had eight rooms
with a lounge around the elevator in the middle. There was a small curtainless window above every
door. Standing on a chair would allow someone of average height to look into the room. When they
heard the elevator opening, Sheree crawled under the one bed and Vesta and Tracy under the other.

Then Fat Lynn and Blouwildebeest started probing every room on the floor... Blouwildebeest got onto
Fat Lynn’s shoulders who lifted her up to the tiny window to peer into the room. The dorm was nearly
empty on a Saturday night but a gasp and a shriek from the room next door confirmed Sheree’s fear,
especially when she heard shuffling sounds outside.

The shriek was heard by a senior on the floor, who flung open her door to the sight of Blouwildebeest
hoisted on Fat Lynn’s shoulders. She raised the alarm and after a while the head of the dormitory
arrived, followed by security, while Sheree’s terrified neighbor was still letting out little staccato
shrieks.

It’s not clear what happened next. The shouting and the rush of footsteps ceased in about ten
minutes. Most likely Fat Lynn and Blouwildebeest fled down the fire escape with security in pursuit.
They must have escaped in the famous Beach Buggy, for no more was heard of the incident.

Thus the Lynns passed into legend.

5
Ailsa and Bro and the Big Bust

N
obody knows how Bro’s doing these days. Her real name was Dawn and her house in Skinner
Street, Pretoria used to attract an eclectic mix of species, including the crème de la crème of
the city’s young artistic and literary crowds, members of the city’s equestrian class, eminent
connoiseurs of weed and some seedy characters. Bro made life worth living in the early 1980s.

Those were the years of P.W. Botha, the hardline predecessor of F.W. de Klerk who was the man who
finally put an end to Apartheid. Botha favoured the generals and society became increasingly
militarised. For white males, compulsory service in the defense force was extended from one to two
years. South Africa became involved in the Angolan War. Unlike cosmopolitan Johannesburg, Pretoria
was a suffocating citadel of bureaucracy surrounded by military camps filled with young conscripts.

In those years Bro was involved with Sharon C, a member of Pretoria’s tiny yet distinguished English
aristocracy. The poised and self-confident Ms C dressed like a businesswoman and spoke upper class
English spiced with the appropriate business buzzwords of the time. An equestrian, she owned several
horses. Nobody but me found her relationship with Bro in any way unusual.

Aristocracy, you see, was utterly alien to Bro’s background or character. For someone of Greek
descent, her Afrikaans was pure and her English idiomatic. Bro however, had attended reformatory
school and earned her living as a manual labourer. Her intelligence was obvious, though, and her
sense of humour charmed even those scandalised by her lifestyle.

Thin and wiry, Bro resembled K. D. Laing. ‘Beatnik’ comes to mind, although Bro had probably never
heard of the Beats. Her sexuality evoked images of Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff except that she
could be wonderfully warm and amicable. Young artists and writers of both sexes and a clique of
ambitious young businesswomen who shared her taste for marijuana made up Bro’s circle of friends.

She shared the house with Ailsa, a tall, slender blonde of Scottish descent that exuded the most
supercool hipness. Despite her frequent exasperated exclamation, “these fucking lesbians!”,
compassion and empathy suffused her inner being. Ailsa served in the airforce, in the advantageous
position of leave clerk in the personnel division. That meant she enjoyed about two months’ leave per
year as her leave forms waited in a drawer to be destroyed upon her return.

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The house in Skinner Street was a den of weed. Bro availed herself of various suppliers which included
a certain Spikkels (Spots), a tall thin dude that also resembled a beatnik. Reliable suppliers were
important due to the household’s high consumption level. Initially the supply was for personal use but
Bro soon became a retailer herself. A grave error, in view of the growing customer base and the
complex network of interpersonal relations, both within and external to the household.

Ms Sharon C visited every weekend, as did a bevy of girls like the hairdresser Charmaine, little blonde
Leigh and her lover Berenice, sundry daughters of members of the Afrikaans aristocracy from the tony
suburb Waterkloof, artists like the tiny Patrys, the large bear André and his succession of disturbed
lovers and even a national serviceman who stole the painkiller Welconal from the pilots’ emergency
medicine kits in the Mirages of the South African airforce.

And of course Ingrid who babbled obsessively, using hooks like “Knorimean?”, “Now bear with me
carefully” and “geddit?” to hold the attention of the weary listener. Some of Ingrid’s tales were
captivating, like the story of Maxie as documented in the graphic short story Maxie's Revenge: An
Illustrated Short Story. In June 2004 this graphic story formed part of an exhibition by the National
Library of South Africa titled: Sequential Art – comics and picture stories.
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Activities encompassed the game “Yahtzee” and watching video’s. On Sundays Bro loved to play
pinball in cafes, a hobby for which she was once arrested. At one stage she attended the female mud
wrestling championships, another forbidden activity. Saturday nights most of us partied at Pretoria’s
gay club although Ms C never showed her face there so Bro seldom went with us.

Amongst the more refined patrons of Skinner Street were members of Pretoria’s literary circles. One
night Ailsa, James, Pierre and I attended a poetry reading in a quaint little artists’ colony called
Rondegeluk (Circle of Happiness). Ailsa’s impressions are preserved in her poem Insight and Execution
which first appeared in the literary magazine Die Tagtiger, waarby ingelyf is Graffiti en Ouma, Last
Quarter 1982.

Insight and Execution

For Pieter

Let’s get together,

you know
I enjoy it so.

To rip them apart,

not really the art,
but the
people that are new
at any old do.

It’s hysterically funny,

isn’t he a bunny?
And that one there,
has no hair!

We should spend
more time
together,
not in the heather.

We drink
from the same cup,
so we can send
them all up.

8
The Skinner Street house was kept neat and tidy by Onica who lived in a cottage at the back. Thanks
to Onica’s labours one would never have expected the place to be a depot of illicit substances. I loved
chatting to Onica in the kitchen. Tswana was her mother tongue and her use of Afrikaans intrigued
me.

Sunday nights Ms Sharon C and Bro spent the evening watching blue movies with her dad and his
girlfriend. Bro’s dad was always involved in semi-clandestine activities. When I accompanied Bro to
his warehouse one night, he farted constantly whilst blaming an unknown person for his flatulence.
Even Bro was embarrassed.

Bro had a motorbike and a powerful car with mag wheels. Long before it became a familiar
phenomenon, she suffered from road rage. A ride with her was an ordeal, as the journey was spiked
with exclamations like “you fucking cunt” and “fuckyou’” gestures. Bro wielded her car like a weapon.

Not even the police fazed her. Pierre once went with Bro and Ailsa to buy pizzas. On the way back to
Pierre and Richard’s apartment in Polwin Flats near Pretoria Police HQ they made a “hot box” in the
car – smoked dope with closed windows. In front of them a police vehicle was moving too slowly to
Bro’s taste.

She passed the police vehicle, cut in front of it and slowed down to a snail’s pace. When the siren
came alive and the blue light started flashing, Bro accelerated with the police van in hot pursuit. At
Polwin Flats, Bro deftly parked the car as the police van came to a screeching halt.

With calm authority Bro told Pierre to take the pizzas up to the apartment while she sorted out the
problem with the fuzz. Ailsa stood by her side. Fifteen minutes later the two of them entered the flat
on the 17th floor in a jovial mood. As mentioned before, Bro could be delightfully amicable.

Much later, Ailsa, Bro and Pierre worked at a perspex factory which made neon signs. Pierre created
the designs, Ailsa was responsible for the settings on the advanced machinery and Bro did most of
the cutting of the perspex. Lunchtime was spent smoking dope on the roof of a warehouse in the
back yard.

By now, Bro was living with a married couple in the suburbs. Her friend, the wife, was called Auntie.
That’s where Bro acquired her taste for Lexotan, from Auntie. She took six a day, smoked dope in the
morning, smoked again at lunchtime, and of course smoked more and took more Lexotan after work.

9
The roof offered a wide view of Pretoria West’s industrial area. Sometimes, when an attractive woman
passed in die street below, Bro clenched her fists, jerked her hips to and fro and expressed her
admiration with: “Check out that pretty chick.”

The owner, Mr T, got along well with Ailsa but barely concealed his distrust of Bro. Referring to his
baldness, Bro named him “Chrome Dome” and “Meat Quiff”, nicknames that the other factory workers
enthusiastically took up as Mr T was not popular.

The aristocratic Ms C had by then faded into history so Bro was a regular at the gay club in Potgieter
Street along with the other friends. Adjacent to the club, a wide parking area gave way to open veldt.
On one occasion Pierre had to pee but the toilets were all occupied so he decided to use the far end
of the parking area. Bro accompanied him.

For some reason, probably alcohol, Pierre squatted down in order to pee. Not Bro. Having drawn her
denim and pantie down to the ankles, she acrobatically extended her middle far to the front and peed
like a man.

However, let’s return to the early 1980s and the roaring marijuana trade. It was unwise to turn the
house into a shop as the trade attracted more and more customers. I was in the habit of speaking to
Ailsa on the phone every night. One night there was no answer, odd for a house with six occupants.
The next day I phoned from work and Onica confirmed my apprehension in her broken Afrikaans: “He
was all catched by police.”

Owing to the jealousy of a young woman named Camel, the police had raided the house in Skinner
Street the night before. Camel had been in love with an artist who had in the mean time entered into
a relationship with Ailsa, a love affair that lasted for years. So Camel ratted on them.

As Fortuna would have it, everyone except Ms C was there… including the kids of Waterkloof
aristocrats. That was a good thing as the parents, when they heard, immediately bailed out their
children on whose slipstream the others got out. Bro remained the longest – two days. Besides the
shock, the repercussions weren’t serious. Everybody was let off with a warning except Bro who
received a suspended sentence and a parole officer.

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In those days, under the Calvinist Apartheid regime, such lenience was unusual. Clearly the elites
played a pivotal role in the quick release and the lenient sentencing. Two redoubtable gay women –
prominent in Afrikaans media and literary circles – must have pulled the strings.

Bro’s retail career was over but the smoking didn’t cease; it only became more discreet. Bro’s wrath
now derived from the parole woman who conducted an initial interview with her. This might have
been a type of comprehension test, as one of the questions was the date when Jan van Riebeeck
arrived at the Cape. At first Bro was indignant. Indignation soon gave way to seething rage:

“I know the fucking Hollander came here in the 17th century but what the fuck has that got to do with
my life?”

Shortly thereafter Ailsa immortalised the events in a poem which appeared in the same issue of the
aforementioned literary magazine.

The Big Bust

Them came,
what a
beautiful frame,
them stripped us of our
dignity.

On the wall we read

graffiti.Food for thought,
don’t you
think we ought
to find
something like legal
advice.

What’s the use,

what a deuce
of a thing to happen
to someone who
doesn’t believe in
the system
anyway.

11
12
Bibliography

Rossouw, Ingrid. Maxie's Revenge: An Illustrated Short Story. Original story by Ingrid Rossouw; cast in glyphs
by Ottoline; remembered and executed by Pieter Uys. Issue 2 of Criadéra Comiks. Senderwoord,
Intervidual, 1994. ISBN: 0958382344 / 9780958382342

Stuart, Ailsa. The Big Bust & Other Poems plus The Queen of Scots as observed by Ottoline. Glyphs by Ottoline;
edited by Pieter Uys. Senderwoord & Yeoville, Intervidual (Pty) Unlimited in association with Ye Olde
Hot Shoppe & Obscure Artifax Inc., 1994.
ISBN: 0620180862 / 9780620180863

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Elvis of Athos

I
n 1978, Disco really dominated South Africa and nowhere more so than at Club Athos in
Schoeman Street. Situated to the west of Pretoria’s central business district, near the corner of
Schoeman and Potgieter Street, the area was deserted at night. A long passage led to a flight of
stairs beyond which a gate opened to a magical underworld. First, one saw the black and white
squares of the dancefloor and as one’s eyes got used to the disco lights, the tables and chairs took
form. At the back, a low stage came into view with more seating and a wide view of the dancefloor.

Then you noticed the patrons. Species you never could’ve imagined inhabiting Pretoria at the time
when the Vorsters ruled South Africa. Prime Minister B. J. Vorster and his brother Dr J. D. (Koot)
Vorster, the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, the largest of the three Calvinist churches. This
church dominated the power structures of culture, politics and religion to such an extend that it was
labelled “The National Party at prayer.” In 1980 Dr Koot Vorster declared: “Nobody can be a good
South African if he is not first an Afrikaner.”1

It’s nearly impossible to describe the social separation between people in South Africa under
Apartheid. Individuals were classified into 4 races: Black, Coloured, Indian and White. Things were
slightly more relaxed in the ex-colonies of Natal with its majority English speakers amongst the
“white” population and in the Cape Province where “coloured” people formed the majority. The inland
provinces of Orange Free State and Transvaal were the most conservative and the capital city Pretoria
was stiflingly Calvinistic.

Amongst nationalistic Afrikaners, even white English speakers were regarded with distrust although
they did not suffer the indignities of Apartheid. Most of them supported the moderate United Party
whilst the brave Mrs Helen Suzman, for many years the single member of parliament for the
Progressive Party, was the lone parliamentary voice of the disenfranchised. The voters in her
Houghton, Johannesburg constituency were overwhelmingly wealthy English speakers.

1
Britten, Sarah. The Art of the South African Insult. 30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd, Newlands, Johannesburg, 2006. ISBN: 192014305X /
97819201432053
14
The Afrikaans version of Calvinism was a fusion of religious dogma and Afrikaner Nationalism. Dr J. D.
Vorster had a strong hand in censorship. Television was banned until 1975 and a censorship board
either made deep cuts to or banned many popular films. No fewer than 20 000 books were banned at
one stage.2

The most popular youth radio station, LM Radio broadcasting from Mozambique, scrupulously
followed the dictates of the South African censorship board by not giving airtime to banned songs
but oddly enough, the 7” singles were available in the record stores. Hits like Lola by The Kinks, Indian
Reservation by The Raiders, Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones, Maggie May by Rod Stewart, School’s
Out by Alice Kooper, Rubber Bullets by 10cc and many more never made the playlists. All tracks from
the albums Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pink Floyd’s The Wall were
broadcast-banned.

Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the aforementioned racial divide was so firmly embedded that white
gays based their terminology on these categories. A coloured gay was called a “Clora”, an Indian gay
a “Minah” (from the Indian Minah bird) and a Black gay a “Natalie” (derived from an Afrikaans word
“naturel” which means “indigenous” or “aborigine”).

It was only from the middle of the 1980s and especially the latter part of that decade that racial
barriers started dissolving. Before then, some “coloured” gays did “pass for white” and access to the
clubs and bars of Johannesburg. My friend James, mentioned below, had an Indian gay friend who
accompanied us to the bars and clubs of Joburg from about 1985. Not the ones in Pretoria, though.
By 1994 when the first elections for all South Africans took place, most gay venues had already
integrated although of course bigotry still existed then and even now is not entirely absent in the gay
community.

As the visitor to Athos became familiar with the scene, they soon got to know flamboyant drag
queens like tall blonde Penny and demure Mary who carried the title Miss Athos 1978. Outrageously
clad queens co-existed with attractive, masculine and muscular young Afrikaners in denim trousers
and T-shirts.

Straights there were aplenty, especially art and drama students from the University of Pretoria. Even
really aged people, someone’s grandparents, regularly frequented the club. And then there were the
gay girls… beautiful lipstick lesbians, and many from the army, airforce and navy with a plethora of
appearances – from lipstick to bulldyke.

2
Van Rooyen, Kobus. A South African Censor’s Tale. Protea Book House, Pretoria, 2011. ISBN: 1869194152 / 978-1869194154.

15
Athos served as a reserve for the protection of rare species. Female crane drivers rubbed shoulders
with fine arts lecturers, rent boys, students and medical doctors. The club attracted rich and poor
alike; patrons came from upper class eastern suburbs like Faerie Glenn and Queenswood as well as
the western blue collar areas like Daspoort, Danville and Proclamation Hill. Some species were so
exotic that it was impossible to determine their gender: slim and lean androgynous types that
resembled a young Patti Smith.

Amongst those of determinable gender, I was most fascinated by the abundance of lesbians, the
butch ones in particular. I had never encountered anything like that and I fell in love with them, to the
disapproval of my male gay friends who sternly admonished and cautioned me. It wasn’t good for the
image. So I became more discreet but more curious too, the more weird and wonderful things I
discovered about them. I soon learned that the worst insult amongst dykes was the term “Kieriejoller.”
Loosely translated, the word means “staff / stick player; any gay girl that slept with a man was thus
stigmatized as a Kieriejoller.

And the disco hits kept the dancefloor filled. Amongst the evergreens were Giorgio Moroder’s
hypnotic From Here To Eternity, Laurie Marshall’s erotic We Will Make Love, The Michael Zager Band’s
entrancing Let’s All Chant and the wildly popular I Feel Love by Donna Summer. By the early morning
hours, the beats-per-minute slowed down and non-disco ballads like Cool Wind from the North by
Stephanie de Sykes entered the mix.

However, the highlight of the witching hour was a ballad by a disco singer, when the club became
bathed in blue for Grace Jones’s sensual La Vie en Rose. That was the sign for lovers to dance really
close; the song had become the anthem of a romantic ritual. Amusement enriched the romance when
big-bossomed females had to bent far forwards to embrace the other’s shoulders as in the case of the
rotund Celia Pumpkins and her mountainous lover.

At least Pumpkins was friendly and benevolent. Tosca Ossewana (Oxwagonia) who was employed at
the state printer under the protected labour scheme may have been loud and rowdy but she was
harmless. And the slim lipstick lesbian Lynne Polse (Lynne Wrists) who often cried her heart out in the
passage to the toilets would never hurt anyone. The marks on her wrists were the result of the
indifference of other lesbians to her affections.

16
Of all of the Athos women, only Fifi gained some notoriety when one Christmas Day, she drove to
Vanderbijlpark in a Pretoria municipal passenger bus. Fifi, who was a bona fide employee of the
municipality, got drunk and having no other transport, simply used the bus. The scandal made the
front page of the Sunday paper Rapport. But Fifi too, was harmless.

Violence lurked under the veneer in characters like Shane and Elvis. Shane’s real name remains a
mystery. Some claim it was Shana, others say Shano. Quite possibly the original Shana was adapted to
Shano for the club and evolved into Shane under the influence of the then popular TV series. Wiry and
sinewy with a dark complexion, Shane had short black hair and a sort of inexplicably sleazy image.
One instinctively avoided her on account of her perceived predatory mindset.

Her friend Elvis, on the other hand, was huge. A square block of a woman with a round moon face
who wore khaki-coloured safari suits, big brown boots and a comb stuck into a sock. Her wide circle
of friends all came from Pretoria’s western working class suburbs and included gay men. Both Shane
and Elvis operated cranes for the Iron and Steel Corporation of South Africa. Elvis had other duties too
– at Athos the cleaning of the Ladies’ and assuring the availability of toilet paper. She and Shane
carried their cigarettes in the fold of their rolled up sleeves.

Only the most informed knew that Shane and Elvis walked Bok and Fox Streets to the east of Church
Square to supplement their income. It’s easy to picture Shane in that situation but one’s mind still
reels at the thought of Elvis in same. The butch Elvis famous for witticisms such as “You haven’t tasted
sweets till you’ve tasted chocolates”. Elvis who inspired fear or at least respect in most of the club’s
patrons. The formidable Elvis who would physically assault anyone who insulted any of her friends.
Well, maybe their clientele comprised straight guys looking for punishment. One may add here that
both Elvis and Shane had false teeth… in order to suck harder, my child.

Amongst the créme de la créme of the gay guys, no one was more sought after than my friend James.
He was the most outspoken in discouraging my admiration for and interest in the dykes. The
decorous Mary, Miss Athos 1978, and Poppy, a lesbian who worked for the ultraconservative Herstigte
Nasionale Party (HNP: Refounded National Party), shared an apartment in a building where he lived
across the street from Art Gallery Park.

Handsome and popular, James never lacked suitors. Anton and Rudi and Johanna Butch-Fem and Zac
were four, and a fifth was Morné, a friend of Elvis. Someone had told James that Morné was a Clora
whereupon James discreetly enquired but cliques have many ears and rumours of enquiries tend to
spread, especially about such a sensitive issue for that time.

17
Yet there are many types of cliques. Take for example the one to which Pierre belonged. That was a
strictly discriminatory group. Lesbians were out of bounds. Straights of both genders were accepted
as long as they were refined and well-behaved. The mere existence of butch lesbians offended this
clique who perceived them as the Antichrist and ignored them.

Except that fateful evening when Pierre couldn’t help himself. His party occupied a table on the stage
with the wide view of the club… and Elvis sat right below them next to the dancefloor. Being artistic
and sensitive, Pierre considered Elvis an aesthetic eyesore, or even worse, an existential affront. It was
the same with Chappies later, when she spoke about going to Taiwan with her Brigadier for some
martial arts tour. Her mere existence disturbed Pierre.

Elvis, as an alpha dyke, took her responsibilities seriously. No one dared criticize any member of her
gang. During the course of the evening, Morné pointed the slanderer out to Elvis. It was James who
was having a great time with his lover, Dewald Policeman. James, who merely enquired about Morné’s
racial composition. Thus hostility already filled the air although Morné wouldn’t have dared to
confront James directly due to Dewald Policeman’s bulging muscles. A masculine guy with a friendly
disposition, Dewald was clearly not someone to rub up the wrong way.

The next moment a little paper missile hit the back of Elvis’ head. Pierre, annoyed by her presence,
had been aiming at her and he finally hit the target. Fortunately for Pierre, his angelic face rendered
him an unlikely suspect and his acting ability confirmed his innocence. When Elvis arose with bulging
biceps and pulsating jugular, Pierre was as safe as a baby cherub. It was poor Albert next to him who
fell prey to the wrath of Elvis. Brutally hoisting him by the collar, she thundered in his face, “Do it
again and I’ll fucking kill you!!!”

Elvis’ seemingly unprovoked attack left everyone stunned. Although the missile came from that
general direction, Elvis had no way of ascertaining beyond any reasonable doubt that Albert were the
guilty party. So she let go of his collar, dropping him down on the seat before swaggering back to her
table. Soon afterwards, it was time to go and check whether everything was in order in the Ladies’.
Already enraged, she recognized James in the passage – the same one where Lynn Polse stood
weeping inconsolably – as the slanderer of her friend Morné.

Grabbing James by the armpits, she lifted him against the wall while squeezing the air from his lungs.
“Did you call Morné a Clora!!?” she bellowed. Struggling to breathe, he couldn’t utter a word. Again
she roared: “Is it you!!? I’ll bash your fucking face in!!!” at the exact moment when Dewald Policeman
rounded the corner to view this violent act.

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As muscular as he was, Dewald was also the pleasant arbiter type. Instead of launching into her, he
soothed her rage with words. Despite her brutality and lack of brain cells, Elvis must have realized that
an escalation would have been to her detriment. Dewald’s membership of the police force was well
known.

She quickly let go of James, and he stood there swaying. After further gentle words from Dewald and
grumbles from Elvis, she swaggered off to the Ladies’. How wonderful that Providence intervened at
just the right moment to save my friend! It’s true that James’ pallor lasted for a while but when two o’
clock came round and the lights bathed the club in blue and pink, the rosy hue had returned to his
cheeks.

As the romantic rhythms of La Vie en Rose undulated through the air, both couples, James and
Dewald and Elvis and her partner, danced oh so close with limbs entwined. Thus romance triumphed
over rancour that night at Club Athos, a victory celebrated by Grace Jones:

“Quand il me prend dans ses bras

Il me parle tout bas
je vois la vie en rose

La vie en rose, la vie en rose

la vie aaaah
La vie en rose…”

(L yrics by Édith Piaf).

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