Soulparking

21 May 2005

In some remote city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an old black man died of Malaria early Saturday morning.  You will not read about his life in a newspaper or see endless Special Reports chronicling his life.  Heck, you would have never even known he existed if I didn’t tell you he died.  What’s funny I don’t even know his name.

But I do know his son.  Ironically, his son’s name is Gary – like mine.  Gary went to school to be a lawyer in the DRC but because of the civil war and genocide in his country – Gary fled to South Africa.  He ended up in Cape Town.  South Africa doesn’t take kindly to immigrants although they have porous borders.  No one would hire him as a lawyer or even a lawyer’s assistant.  His English is passable – but he has heavy French accent.  So Gary is a security guard for my apartment complex.

I often bring him dinner when I go out.  Or I run around the corner to buy him a Coke and a bag of crisps (chips) to give him a little energy to get through his shift.  He works twelve hour stretches at a time – 18:00 until 6:00.  Or 6:00 until 18:00.  Sometimes back to back.  I often see the tenants of my apartment ignore him, yell at him, or worse spit on him.  He has been attacked by would-be carjackers and thieves.  But every day and night he and the other security guards risk their lives to protect us…

I was so inspired that I wrote a script for a web series I am starting for called “Table”.  It’s a web series about random people’s lives in and around Cape Town – Table Mountain.  My first episode was called “Watch” – inspired by Gary and the rest of the security guards.   The story is about a security guard that is working overtime for very little money to save up to send medicine to his ailing father.  At the end of the script, the security guards’ father dies.

And today we were set to shoot.  I had the shooting schedule and the equipment prepped and ready.  I was actually outside doing some preliminary shots.  One of the other security guards (not Gary) found me and passed me a note.  The note said that Gary’s father had really died. 

I was so ashamed.  I felt like I had killed Gary’s father.  That I was the bad karma because I wrote about it.  Life had sadly imitated art. 

Gary passed on to the security guard that he still wanted to do the movie in memory of his father.  But he needed a couple of weeks to grieve.  I told the security guard to tell Gary – “I would be honored.”