BALLIE
By Pinelands Writers’ Circle
They first met after dark at the exclusive Glenwood Tennis Club where Chef Marco presided with his superlative menu, to appeal to the well-heeled members and their guests. More accurately, they met at the refuse pit, where not every dish suited some tastes.
Attie was sampling a jettisoned masterpiece, when he became aware of another presence, furtive and conscious of its precarious existence. It was undeniably a dog, with a long, matted coat of indeterminate colour, silent and just a distant shadow in the gloom. Attie had come upon a tennis ball, seemingly perfect, but, when he threw it on the brick-pave, it responded with a dull thump instead of the advertised resilient rebound. Clearly it was defective and the subject of a letter from the Secretary to the manufacturers. The dog left his meal in a trice and pounced on the ball, tail wagging, the ball between its teeth. It carried it back to within a meter of Attie and dropped it, eyes on the man and ragged tail waving.
Attie paused in his foraging and regarded the animal. “En nou? Is jy so verskrik op daai verlepte bal???” then bent down to throw it again. The dog dashed after it and returned it to within a foot of Attie’s position. And so it went on, until Attie had had his fill, and made his way from the refuse pit, a few chosen edibles in his pockets and blanket roll. He was careful not to cause any litter or nuisance, obeying the instructions of Mr van Tonder, the local Law Enforcement officer, a firm but sympathetic feature of his life. ”Don’t annoy the people and shopkeepers, don’t litter and if you must sleep in a shop doorway, don’t pee there or leave something for them to clean up. Then I won’t have to chase you. OK?”
Attie took all this advice and followed it to the letter. He looked on Leo van Tonder as an ally who understood the people in his area, and ruled them with benevolent consideration. Attie considered himself lucky to live in his area and did his best to toe the line.
The dog watched him leave, then picked up the ball and trotted after him. Attie turned and stopped to address the animal. “You coming with? OK, no favours, nah? I look after me ‘n you looks after you. Ek noem jou Ballie, ne?” Ballie’s eyes never left Attie’s lips as though it understood the street patois. Its tail waved as though it was in agreement, and when Attie resumed his progress, it was on his heels. Looking down, Attie’s face creased up, hinting at his far distant Khoisan roots. That, and his endless movement from place to place and now, his affinity towards an animal. It would be less of a lone existence, he thought.
That night, when Attie made his bed in the shelter of a building, Ballie crawled in close to him. Still separate, but very close, and Attie stretched out and drew him in against him. If Ballie was at first startled, he relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of another body. It was still Autumn, but the nights were chill enough to make this a luxury he had long forgotten.
And so they went on, from nights at one sleeping place to another, closer now than ever before, Attie enjoying a feeling of possession, of ownership of a sort, Ballie secure again in the close companionship of a human. It was as though they had always been thus, and winter passed more easily as a result. Passers - by stopped to pet Ballie, a liberty he endured, without taking his eyes off Attie. This could have been because Attie had taken to stowing the tennis ball in his bundle and in the hope that it would be taken out for a game of fetch in some open space. Ballie had no regard for traffic, so it was Attie’s human intelligence that took precautions.
There were, of course, moments of discord. For example, in the central park, where citizens frequently took their own dogs. One such instance involved a woman reading, on a bench, her well-groomed collie bitch, sprawled behind her, secured by its lead to the bench, also enjoying a patch of sunshine. From fifty meters away, Ballie’s nose had told him she was entering the first stages of oestrus, and he trotted eagerly ahead. The first sign of anything amiss was a plaintive whine from the collie as Ballie made his move. Immersed in her novel, the owner was slow to turn her head at the sounds of two very different dogs behind her, but took in the situation, immediately. She sprang to her feet shouting, “Get away you filthy brute, Roxy! NO! NO! Help, someone, shoo, shoo, get away !!!”
Attie had also been enjoying the first sun after a week of cold Cape Town weather, and also took a moment to take in the scenario, but his feral instincts fell into place, and he dashed forward to grab Ballie by the tail and drag him away from his conquest. “Aga nee, Ballie, nee! ...Sorry Merrem – he’s a good dog, very good, sorry, sorry...merrem, I give him a good hiding....” but the incensed dog owner, continued to berate both man and dog, untied her pet and stormed off, still shouting over her shoulder.
Attie departed hurriedly in the other direction, a puzzled Ballie at his heels, until they reached the other end of the park, where it seemed safe to stop. There, Attie’s panic subsided and he regarded Ballie with a nervous eye. “Sorry, boy. You got to pasop for the white people’s dogs. We kanne mix, jy weet?” and with the strange instinct of dogs, Ballie sensed that the moment was past, and investigated his coat for an elusive itch as if had never happened.
One day, a small blue van drew up alongside Attie and Ballie. The logo on the front door read S.P.C.A. and the uniformed driver got out and looked at Ballie. “This your dog, meneer?”
Attie’s instinct was to lie and claim that the dog had followed him. “Err, ja, Meneer. I finds him and I looks after him.” The man bent over Ballie and reached out an exploratory hand. Ballie sniffed at the hand and recognising the scent of other dogs, wagged his tail ingratiatingly.
“Well, he looks fine to me. What do you feed him?”
“Ag, anyfing I eats, he eats too”
“Not always good for dogs. They got different needs from us. But he’s better off with you. Look after him!” And without another word, he climbed back in his vehicle and started off. Then stopped, and held out a small, sealed bag. It had pictures of happy, bounding dogs on it. Attie took it from him and the van drove off.
Attie was not much of a singer, but sometimes he murmured a nonsensical little refrain as the pair wandered: “Allie Ballie, Ballie, Ballie be, I can catch you, but you can’t catch me! “
At the familiar sound of his name, the dog, would brighten and press against Attie’s knee, and passers by would smile at their obvious bond.
Nobody could have predicted when all this would change but it did. On a pleasant summer’s day, as the pair were making their way, to nowhere in particular, along a busy avenue past one of the City’s great parks. Ballie had been allowed to carry his ball by now, but he stopped to investigate an interesting lamppost and dropped the ball. Coming in the opposite direction, a smartly dressed man with a briefcase changed his stride as the ball rolled into his path. With the quickness of a soccer player, he switched his stride and kicked the ball – into the oncoming traffic. Ballie reacted instinctively and followed it.
The thud of impact was almost immediate. A muted squeal of worn brakes and the taxi driver climbed out and came to examine his fender. Satisfied that it was undamaged, he returned to his cab and carried on. Time was money, and the inert and crumpled form in the gutter was of no interest.
Attie stood for but a moment, before he turned away and resumed his journey alone, lined face set like stone. His life was a succession of losses. Ballie would have to find his own place among them.