Observation Post

 

A sixth floor balcony offers a vantage point giving a fascinating perspective of frenetic city life. Antlike humans can be observed going about their daily lives oblivious to the eyes peering from above. Is this how God scrutinizes the activities of man from on high? 

Johannesburg in the ‘60s and ‘70s was a vibrant metropolis pre-dating the era of Orwellian security cameras which record activity - nefarious or otherwise, innocent or malevolent – constantly, incessantly storing digital snap-shots of the passing of city-time. In the Johannesburg of the day, traffic merrily belched out fumes, cut the atmosphere with a razor-like note of sirens only somewhat masked by the internal combustion engines and the grunt of diesel trucks transporting men, women and goods in a never-ending mission to feed an urban industrial complex. Piercing this ambient noise,  the defiant motorcycle of a Hells Angel to whom that unsettling din is elevated to a religious experience. All the while, the sidewalks serve as conduits for the ant-like scurrying mass of humanity plying their trade as businessmen, shoppers, hustlers, pickpockets, pimps and an assortment of hobos in various degrees of inebriation.

In his white coat emerges from the Blood Transfusion Centre in Klein Street a Professor making his way back to the lecture halls of Wits University via a short-cut through the Johannesburg General Hospital from which Hospital Hill in Hillbrow got its name. The Professor’s daily pilgrimage to the life affirming blood bank of the city was at the slow, staccato pace of a stroke-victim who had managed to claw his way back to health and revive his career in the hallowed halls of academia. In contrast with this cerebral giant, the streets of Johannesburg were home to the homeless who had lost their battle against the relentless drive of an industrial society and had dropped out and self-medicated their psyche with copious amounts of liquor and methylated spirits, the blue dye filtered through white bread before the pungent liquid could be poured down yet another throat. The slow gait of the brooding academic was as determined as was the quest of the amputee hobo for oblivion as he contemplated having one foot in the grave. Two sides of the same city. Two aspects of the human condition.

From the elevated observation post suited businessmen, elegant ladies in natty high heels accentuating beautifully formed calf muscles that prompt a second appreciative glance from passing male eyes, young lads and lasses enjoying a school holiday and an assortment of reprobates gleefully selecting pockets to pick and handbags to snatch from the shadows of Hillbrow’s alleyways, which are home to the seedy underbelly of the city. Juxtaposed on the streets are the successful, the significant and the poor sods whose lot in life is to eek out an existence as a guttersnipe.

Opposite the Johannesburg General Hospital, too, can be observed from the lofty position of a sixth floor balcony, various small shops and a few dingy apartment complexes all making up the woof and warp of a post-industrial revolution metropolis. Cheek by jowl the wealthy, the poor, the entrepreneur, the drudgery of menial work, a criminal element and the sad lot of the mendicant beggar … A corner café run by Greek immigrants, a fruit and vegetable outlet owned by a local Portuguese family, a dingy pinball dive and a doss-house next to an alley with pools of stagnant water and filthy garbage spilled out onto the potholed asphalt by over-eager rats that had raided bins put out behind blocks of flats and small shops in anticipation of the weekly arrival of the cleansing department. The arrival of the dump trucks steered through the alleys by a (white) supervisor/driver provided the skulking balcony observer with momentary digression. The truck was always accompanied by (black) runners, an advance party readied the bins for tipping the remainder of the trash, as yet untouched by rodents, into the belly of the dump truck, and  a squad of tippers emptied contents with a rearguard returning bins to the blocks from which they emanated. Disturbing to the observer was the ostensible satisfaction derived by the lofty supervisor lording it over the teeming cohort of bellowing labourers scurrying after the truck inexorably advancing through the streets of an unrelenting and deeply riven city – a portend of unrest, discontent and revolution to come.

In clear view apartment windows revealing the nature of those who occupy them. Some open wide the windows to allow the stale air of the flat to be replaced by the smog of Johannesburg, a product of factories, car exhausts and anthracite boilers that provide apartment blocks with hot water round the clock. Others retreat into a secret world behind curtains and blinds. Some heads and torsos emerge from windows, with dangling cigarettes - or none. These bodies are sometimes covered with cheap vests, at times bare chests and bulging beer bellies reveal a taste for the beverages of excess and a revulsion at the concept of exercise. The observation post panorama was one of an eclectic humanity – a product of mid-twentieth century urban dwelling.

From the observation post a cinematic frame in the celluloid roll, a single moment in the passage of time.

© Paul M Haupt