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At Sandringham I got to know this one kid, Teddy. Funny guy, charming as hell. My mom
used to call him Bugs Bunny; he had a cheeky smile with two big teeth that stuck out the
front of his mouth. Teddy and I got along like a house on fire, one of those friends where you
start hanging out and from that day forward you’re never apart. We were both naughty as
shit, too. With Teddy, I’d finally met someone who made me feel normal. I was the terror in
my family. He was the terror in his family. When you put us together it was mayhem.
Walking home from school we’d throw rocks through windows, just to see them shatter, and
then we’d run away. We got detention together all the time. The teachers, the pupils, the
principal, everyone at school knew: Teddy and Trevor, thick as thieves.
Teddy’s mom worked as a domestic for a family in Linksfield, a wealthy suburb near
school. Linksfield was a long walk from my house, nearly forty minutes, but still doable.
Walking around was pretty much all I did back then, anyway. I couldn’t afford to do anything
else, and I couldn’t afford to get around any other way. If you liked walking, you were my
friend. Teddy and I walked all over Johannesburg together. I’d walk to Teddy’s house and
we’d hang out there. Then we’d walk back to my house and hang out there. We’d walk from
my house down to the city center, which was like a three-hour hike, just to hang out, and
then we’d walk all the way back.
Friday and Saturday nights we’d walk to the mall and hang out. The Balfour Park
Shopping Mall was a few blocks from my house. It’s not a big mall, but it has everything—an
arcade, a cinema, restaurants, South Africa’s version of Target, South Africa’s version of the
Gap. Then, once we were at the mall, since we never had any money to shop or watch movies
or buy food, we’d just wander around inside.
One night we were at the mall and most of the shops were closed, but the cinema was
still showing movies so the building was still open. There was this stationery shop that sold
greeting cards and magazines, and it didn’t have a door, so when it closed at night there was
only a metal gate, like a trellis, that was pulled across the entrance and padlocked. Walking
past this shop, Teddy and I realized that if we put our arms through the trellis we could reach
this rack of chocolates just inside. And these weren’t just any chocolates—they were alcoholfilled
chocolates. I loved alcohol. Loved loved loved it. My whole life I’d steal sips of grownups’
drinks whenever I could.
We reached in, grabbed a few, drank the liquor inside, and then gobbled down the