RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

70 | denis beckett
person most of us would ever meet had accidentally left his
wallet at the office. Somebody always paid up, unresentfully.
That was Jim. That was also the rand Bar & restaurant. cash
on the nail or your kneecaps were in danger. There were
twelve items on the menu but in truth your choices were two:
Portuguese steak and beer or plain steak and beer. either way
you got a sauce that made your palate explode. The difference
was that with plain steak the sauce came in a side bowl. If
the bowl got pushed under your nostrils it took two minutes
before you could finish your sentence. The main clientele were
mechanics in grease-streaked overalls who passed up the steak
and compensated in beer and looked skeef at anyone talking
larney. Once we arrived as a taxi was disgorging an immaculate
american who’d asked for the rand club. He goggled like he’d
been smacked with a wet fish. We put him right. The taxi driver
was a Mozambique immigrant for whom the rand Bar was
bigger than the stately rand club a mile downtown, whose
members would no more catch a common taxi than dance a
tango on the pavement.
Jim was in his element at the rand Bar – next best thing to
a shebeen. I went back some ten years later for old time’s sake,
but the place was all smoothed up.
I hung out at Drum until the time came for the american trip.
Jim kept telling me I was a “Drum Man”, which was odd because
he simultaneously vetoed all my projects except one, ironically,
Ted’s idea of Drum Wheels. Jim wanted me to drop my idea of a
non-racial magazine – “silly, Denis, silly” was his catchphrase –
and I still wanted him to put up the cash. We both failed.
Jim finally registered that I wouldn’t return to Drum after six
weeks in the States, and got mad, which was his worst habit.
He was an engagingly eccentric employer and a fascinating
character. He and Harry Oppenheimer had started life with
silver spoons of comparable caratage, and had chosen different
directions. unto Harry were talents given and he multiplied
them, creating industry and employment mightily. Jim got his