The story starts here:The Story of this Motley Crew – part II – TheGreatReset(of2020) (thegreatreset-thorn.com)
Now here is a naughty fellow. Although that would be unfair to taint him forever by the brush of his youthful folly.
And to be fair, he did not have the most stable role models as a child. So it is no wonder that he had no specific qualms about what one to do to survive. Not only survival, also how to make money.
Even as a child, he was always hustling. Collecting empty beer bottles from the shebeens near and far from his family’s abode, to sell back to the brewer. Perhaps bottles just lying about, perhaps taking a couple from the neat stacks the proprietor set aside to take later.
Or, as a sinewy teenager, he earned protection money by taking pensioners to the mobile pay point on pension pay day. Sometimes for money, sometimes for a slice of Auntie Babs’ Mahangu cake.
It is sad commentary on the state of society today, that shebeens are the most sure-fire way to make money. And it is sad because it takes from those with little, and ultimately gives to those who have a lot. It takes money, it takes dignity, it takes hope. This is possibly why he only dabbled with the devil’s juice for a short bit.
But it is all the more disheartening, that he fell afoul of the law on one of his “procurement expeditions”, and it was in the detention centre, that he was introduced to drugs. Nothing hard at that stage, just the furtive scurries of monkey tobacco. Aka Cannabis.
It made him king of the world, and nothing could take him down. Being a talented maker of plans, he started growing the stuff, vertically integrating his distribution channels, and general man about town. It was not enough. He wanted more. A SWOT analysis (although he may not have known the formal term for identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), pointed him in the direction of expanding into towns, and eventually the city. Afterall, one needs volumes to make money.
Besides, the local “fuzz” was starting to impede his delivery schedules.
On his second promo trip, he had his best quality produce with him. Enough to make the big boys sit up and take notice. And they sat up and noticed.
They eagerly awaited his arrival at the product launch, at a seedy bar in town. In a blur of violence, guns, and blue lights, they fleeced him of everything he had on him, even the pocket watch which was his last remembrance of his late father. Ironic that it is fortunate that they left him for dead because that meant that the cops mistook him for collateral damage.
It was his cousin, who knew what he was up to, that found him in the alley and hid him in the home of the brother on the mother’s side of Aunt Babs for two months, while he healed. Maybe he would not have had the limp he still has today, had his cousin taken him to hospital, but where they came from, you looked after your own.
Now Aunt Babs may have the best Mahangu cake in the world. But Aunt Babs has a sharp tongue, and a mean spanking action. BaasLang’s healing was perhaps longer than necessary, after Aunt Babs was done with him.
But I will grant Aunt Babs this credit. She knows young wayward men. And she does not indulge their ways. It was under her eagle-eyed watch, that BaasLang recovered his senses, and his sense. The cousin who picked him up in the alley managed to get him a job as a general worker at a construction company, where soon the bosses saw this guy was sharp. He quickly picked up skills like welding; and coupled with his ingenious ways of making things work, he soon became a firm favourite for contract work.
He still has that cheeky swagger. The one that says, look out, look up, I’m going places. But he has dropped the social malaise that is the drug culture. He is an ardent soccer supporter and plays a fair game himself. He now looks after his lady like a man should. He now is a supervisor that cares for his fellow workmen. You watch him now; he is going places.
How does he fit in at the end? –> The Story of this Motley Crew – part II – TheGreatReset(of2020) (thegreatreset-thorn.com)