A CAPSULE OF MADNESS: THE CONTEXT

There is a growing belief among some people that there is a thin line between genius and madness and perhaps some of us have come to believe that this thin line may not exist at all. This is because when we don’t understand something or someone we tend to immediately put them in one of three categories which can be neatly slotted into the words; special, crazy and mental. These words can be used in a derogatory way denoting madness (which is socially unacceptable) or in a complementary way denoting genius (a highly sought after state of mind) and because we use these words interchangeably in reference to all forms and or levels of intelligence – the lines become indistinguishable. Someone who is considered a genius by society can be forgiven for their mental behaviour, someone whose considered mentally ill, unstable or crazy; their intelligence will be overlooked. Someone who’s special can be crazy and someone who’s crazy can be in fact special or even mental.

The first time I encountered someone who was deeply misunderstood in this way was when I was around five years old and this person was my uncle, Thente. I knew he was different because he didn’t behave like the rest of us. He never said a word. I’m sure he spoke to someone, I know he must have said something but I don’t remember words coming out of his mouth. He was loud in his presence. He was not clean. His hands were layered with shades of black soot. His clothes were dirty and his jersey had holes in it, his eyes were often blood shot or just rusty brown, his hair which was short had turned grey from dirt. His dark lips were blotched with red stains. He often arrived at home early in the morning from somewhere and the first thing he would do was go straight for the pot, which was soaked overnight to soften is’khokho (burnt porridge) at the bottom of the pot. He would pour out the water and scrape is’khoho off the pot and eat that. I asked him why he preferred to eat is’khokho, something which was dumped in the trash or fed to the dogs if there were any, when there was bread which he could have with tea. His response was to hand me a piece of is’khokho to taste in explanation. That’s what he wanted to eat and it was nice. He was tall, dark and very handsome. He had a bright sparkling smile which was made more beautiful by its rare and unexpected appearance. I made it my mission then to make him say something to me or to make him smile, I didn’t always succeed but I imagined he was smiling, inside. I imagined that maybe he was too shy to let it all out. To me he was the gentlest person I knew. Because he was the only one who never shouted at me for asking him a million questions or for pretending to be my grandmother and repeating everything I heard her say to him. To me we were friends. I could have whole conversations with him, he would just listen and after he was done eating or listening he would leave as quietly as he had arrived.

He was a teenager.

About him I asked my grandmother questions she could not answer, and she often had answers for most of my questions. She used to shout at him, ask him to take a bath, ask him where he’s going and when he’ll be back. When he’ll go home to see his mother. He always seemed hesitant. Sometimes he would come and completely ignore everyone. Mostly I think we were all grateful to see him when he came to visit. Seeing him was always a treat. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stay, longer, and go to school with me? I later found out that he was a highly gifted child, special and now maybe a little crazy. He used to be superfast and kept his parents on their toes. The story goes that when he was a still a toddler he could be found in his mother kitchen having emptied it’s cupboards of all its contents, in less than a minute. He couldn’t be left alone anywhere. He was legendary in his speed and yes, intelligence. But unlike his younger brother who was sent to an elite boarding school to be given the best education black money could buy during Apartheid South Africa, he was now living in the streets. Conversations over my grandmother’s kitchen table intimated that he was once given medication when he was young to calm him down, to help him assimilate maybe, to help everyone cope. But somehow the medication was not effective. Perhaps he refused to be tamed and instead chose a life in which he wondered the streets of Soweto between his mother’s house and his father’s house searching for something no one seemed able to give him. I asked him why he didn’t go to school like me. Or take a bath and he never answered.

He died at 17

He was the first person I knew in my life to fit that description. My cousin came crying, screaming at me among crowds of school children yelling “uThente u shonile”. I wondered at first why she thought I should know, why she was crying, she hardly knew him. She was causing a scene and I was annoyed. He was found in the middle of the street in meadowlands, bleeding to death from stab wounds inflicted by tsotsies (thieves), street gangs or members of the Mandela football club. We no longer tell his story. I never cried, because to me he was never gone. I don’t think one understands what love is at a young age, but now that I have I have 2020 vision and after experiencing all kinds of love, I find his to have been the most authentic. Because with him I felt good about myself, who I was, a fast talking child who was curious about everything, asking millions of questions with him, was ok. I felt accepted, fully. Love was never something I or he talked about. It was never something he said. But he gave me so much in the short little moments we shared together. He truly made me feel whole, complete and free enough express myself. With me he was free too, he didn’t have to take a bath or eat bread and tea, because I already thought he was amazing. I had grown to love his silence, it was comforting. I felt heard. I felt remarkably safe because I never felt judged by him. To me he was not crazy I knew that he understood me, he understood every word I said. I understood his silence.

My uncle may have fitted all medical descriptions of a highly gifted child or someone who needed that medication, he could have fallen into wrong hands, and he may have been all kinds of undesirable things. I have no way of knowing. Knowing him showed me that sometimes we can make things worse in our attempt to solve problems we don’t yet understand. He taught me that sometimes

A Capsule is not the Cure

I am not one to say the sky is red when it is blue or that the grass is green when it is brown. But I know that a lot of things we consider normal today, things we find acceptable, behaviours we find desirable were once considered so crazy people were institutionalized and drugged for the rest of their lives for doing those things or exhibitng those behaviours.

Normal is dead.

Before we parted, Thente taught me something I cherished for many years and doing it made me feel closer and closer to him. He told me I was an artist. He came home once with a gift for me. He showed me his sketches and drawings which he did in the book with tracing paper. I wanted to draw like him and he showed me how to do it. I didn’t have art class until much later in life, but I carried him with me in my drawings in the little doddles and little flower paintings– even as his memory faded over time he lived on in my art. Even though my art has changed form many times. You see, the beautiful ones have always been born, the beautiful ones are not dead.

We just refuse to accept them when they show up. So we kill them with our love.

#culture #drugs #theafrican