Although the heat bothered him, the hobo was too lazy to get up. He scratched himself furiously, yawned, then scratched himself some more. From where he lay he could see his buddies some distance away, already having a drink and making merry. But he did not have any inclination to join them as yet. He was tired and was resting peacefully, having slept late the night before.
He laughed at their antics, grimaced when one of his friends was hard done by and yawned even more when the action bored him. The only other voices coming to him were from over the mound running parallel to the main road as people went about their business. Vehicle sounds too grew louder as the traffic got busier up and down the main road, as the usual taxi commotion picked up. But the hobo area was peaceful and less busy, as it was shielded from the main road, the border shielding the hobos away from the main commercial area. The only shrieking voices were those of his fellow hobos as they horsed around. From time to time they called out to him, but he ignored their pleading calls to wake up.
Then out of the blue a man appeared into the hobo’s focus. Smartly dressed, big and obviously important, the man appeared to be looking for something. He was looking carefully around him, trying to locate something. The hobo looked intently at him. For a moment there was only a blur as he tried hard to place the man wandering over to him. Then, as the man came nearer to where he lay, he recognized him. It was the local politician. The hobo became alert. Anxiously, as the politician wandered through to where he was lying, side- stepping puddles of stagnant, stinking water, the hobo waited.
The politician was not familiar with the terrain, and the heat bothered him too. He stepped carefully, and, eventually going through a dry clearing, he saw in the distant a massive thicket under an oak tree. That was where they said the hobo would be. He hurried across the clearing and, pausing under the oak tree, he wiped his brow. Then, suddenly, he found the hobo.
The politician looked at the sleeping man and reared back at the smell coming over to him. The hobo, pretending to be sleeping heavily, woke up suddenly, peering at the politician in disgust.
“Why do you disturb me like this,” he protested, rubbing his misty eyes feverishly and getting into a sitting position under the bush. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
The politician looked around for a place to sit. He was in no hurry. There was some five twenty litter tins arranged in a half circle nearby. He ignored them and finally sat on a big, flat boulder with a newspaper on top, and sat looking directly under the bush where the hobo sat, rubbing his stomach.
“I haven’t seen you for a while at the traffic lights,” the politician told him.” And I wondered what happened to you.”
The hobo emerged from under the thicket, dressed only in his dirty underpants. He stretched his body and sighed repeatedly. He then yawned heartily, scratched his chest, stomach, bums and all over his body.“What time is it mister?”He asked the the politician..
“It is past eleven,” the politician responded.
“Oh,” the hobo returned. “That is alright.”
“What is alright?”
The hobo ignored the question and ambled to one of the twenty litter tins, away from the politician, and sat down.
“What do you want from me?” He asked, ignoring the politician’s question. “I don’t sell drugs, dagga and all those things.” He looked the politician up and down. “Go to the crossing at eleventh for that.”
“What about that crossing?”
The hobo looked searchingly at him again through his misty eyes. “I asked you, what do you want?”
The politician felt uneasy under the stare of the misty, questioning eyes. “I told you,” he said, shifting his body on the boulder. “I missed you.”
“You missed me?” The hobo quipped, startled. “How odd… I do not know you… I am not our friend.” He scratched himself again and got up and, to the astonishment of the politician, he began a series of the stretching exercises athletes do just before a race.
“Look,” the politician said as he looked up at the tall, scrawny man performing his stretching routine. “I know you. You may have forgotten, but I have given you money from time to time at the traffic lights at tenth. I have also given you the newspaper in the afternoons.” He pointed to the thicket where the hobo slept. “I see you keep all of them to read and sleep on, all those papers and magazines.”
“Still,” the hobo pointed out, “I do not see why you should come to my place for a visit.” He was still rigorously going on with his stretching routine. “What I do with the money you give me is none of your business.” Finishing his stretching routine, he asked, “Or are you busy with a survey?”
The politician chuckled. “What? A survey? I am not here for a survey. I know all about you. In fact, I have known you for almost a year now and have given you money, food, clothes and other things.”
‘You are lying,” the hobo said simply. “You are not the one who gave me the radio.”
He immediately went into the thicket, scrambled into it and, after rummaging through several plastic bags, he took out a radio from one of them. He stepped out of the thicket and switched the radio on.
“Do you know this radio?” He asked.
“Yes,” the politician nodded. “I bought it for you.”
“No, you are lying,” the hobo said furiously. “This radio was given to me by a security guy who passes here from time to time driving in those dark state vehicles.”
“That security guy,” the politician returned, “is one of my security personnel.”
“Don’t lie,” the hobo shouted. “You are not important. Where are they now? Why are they not with you now?”
The politician shrugged his shoulders. “I guess this is a different meeting,” he said. “I wanted this to be a private meeting.”
The hobo looked intently at him. “But I could kill you now if I wanted to. I could harm you.”
“Look,” the politician said and got up. “They are here, they are looking. But I warned them to stay away from us. This is between you and me.”
The hobo examined the politician for a moment. “I am not gay…”
The politician laughed again. He looked humorously at the haggard, tall and scruffy man in front of him and said, “You think I am…?”
“Yes,” the hobo interjected. “Why do you want to see me without your body guards? Heh? Why all the attention? Why all the money? The gifts? I am not…”
The hobo was pacing up and down. He paused, composed himself before going on. “I may be down and out,” he spoke slowly, but with such venom that the radio nearly fell out his hands. “But I have my dignity. I may be a no body, but I still have choices to make. And, let me tell you, I may not be used as a scumbag.”
He extended the hand with the radio to the politician. “Take your radio and leave in peace.” Stepping forward, he came within touching the politician’s nose with his. “And, don’t ever give me anything again.”
“I don’t want the radio,” the politician said coolly, retreating. “And I don’t want to leave either!”
“Leave!” the hobo barked.
“Do you realize that you are speaking to an important man in the government?”
But the hobo was infuriated. “You think I am a tart? A prostitute?” He ranted. “I don’t give a damn about your radio or your stinking government. Leave me alone! I want my peace and you are disturbing it. Go!” He pointed into the distance. “Go!”
But the politician did not move. “It will not help to shout and jump around,” he said quietly.
“So what do you want?”
“I told you…”
“What?”
“That I was wondering what happened to you.”
“Why are you interested in me?”
“I am a politician. I was elected by the people of this country to serve them.”
“I know,” the hobo said. ‘I know. I know you.” He turned towards the thicket and put the radio away. “I know you… your name is…” He went on to tell the politician his name.
“You know me?” The politician was shocked. “You actually know my name?”
The hobo nodded and sat down. “What do you think I do with all these newspapers? I am not an idiot, you know?”
The politician sat down as well. “You disappeared for a while…”
“Four weeks…”
“Yes. I was worried. You know, in a big city like this many people are from all walks of life. Most of them are from rural areas and when those we know disappear, we always do not know what has happened to them. It is always a problem when people like you die or get sick. They always do not have their beloved ones with them. And we do not know who to contact when such things happen…So when I did not see you for some time and instead saw a stranger take your place at the traffic lights I became worried.” He rubbed his hands together and looked at them. “So I made time to stop by… to know the truth.”
“Will you please buy me a beer?” the hobo asked, smiling suddenly. Many of his teeth were missing. “Buy me food…no,” he shook his head. “Buy me nothing!”
“No problem,” the politician said. “I did not know that you drink.”
“You do not know because it is not your business to know us people who vote for you,” the hobo spoke slowly. “I am not important to you until just before the elections.”
The politician raised his hand, indicating to the hobo to stop talking. “That is not for us to talk about. I am not here to talk to you as a politician and you as a citizen, a voter. No, I am here to know you… to be a friend…”
“A friend?” The hobo edged forward on his seat, his misty eyes shocked. “A friend?” He repeated.
“What is so shocking about it?” the politician asked. “I see no problem with that.”
“I for one,” the hobo responded, “do see a problem. To begin with, you are a politician. Politicians are famous for lying, or let me say infamous for not speaking the truth. They also make false promises. They are notorious for corrup…”
“I told you not to go into that…” the politician insisted.
“For dodging thorny issues…”
“I said let’s talk about good things…like…friendship…”
“For treachery” the hobo said. “Or is it trickery?”
“Look,” the politician pleaded, “I sit here speaking to you as a friend, and not as a politician.”
“So you are indeed a man of many hats?” the hobo said as he got up and disappeared into the thicket. He came out with bathing things and then proceeded to pour water from a basin and went on to bathe while the politician watched.
When he was finished and dressed up the politician suddenly got up and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“I am going to address a seminar in an hour and a half,” the politician told him.
“Who said I will go with you?” The hobo was gathering his things, putting them in a plastic.
“We are wasting time,” the politician put an edge to his voice. “You know, you will be grateful for this moment. It will be meaningful to you to come with me, you know. Do something different for a change…”
The hobo laughed. “The way you speak, you remind me of election time,” he said.
“I am here to talk to you man to man. It is something that you feel inside of you. It is something that you feel right inside your gut. You feel it inside of you that the man standing there with nothing on his back is a friend, a brother. Your soul howls like a raging furnace as it seeks to connect to the fellow man’s soul.” The politician cleared his throat and looked straight into washed-out eyes of the hobo. “I don’t intend to encourage you to forsake the friendship of your own, but sometimes you have to go up the hill for a clearer view.”
The hobo smiled. “Sometimes when you throw away your politician’s hat you become a complete stranger. We then we see and hear a man of complete honesty, a man who spreads his truth from the depths of his heart, a man I can go along with.”
He made sure his things were securely stacked away then stepped away from the thicket. “Let’s go,” he said.
The auditorium was vast and big, and refreshingly cool. There were people every where. They were engaged in small talk as they waited for the seminar to begin. The hobo recognized some of the faces, those of the politicians and the business fraternity. They were as smartly dressed and as beautiful as they appeared on TV, and the air was rich with scented perfume. He noted that those close to him were looking curiously at him, their expressions asking questions. Some edged away from him and some smiled haltingly. He knew some were asking themselves who he was and what he wanted at such a high profile gathering. He was also dismayed to notice that some of the women shifted their handbags away from him. But he did not mind them; he knew he looked out of place. So he sauntered around without any guilt, sipping juice which was served on the tables.
“I have a seat for you,” the politician said suddenly in his ear. “You are going to sit with us on the stage!”
The hobo froze. He looked up on the stage and a cold sweat ran down his back. “There?” He asked, pointing.
The politician smiled. “Yes.”
The hobo was still gazing at the people seated on the stage in awe. He recognized an elderly, tall man walking with an aid of a stick and he smiled. The man had an air of aura around him and a lot of people were clamouring to shake his hand. He knew instantly who he was. He was the man who was incarcerated on an island for a long time for his beliefs and for the struggle of freedom for his people. He then became the first president of the free nation. His presidential successor, a shorter man with a white beard, was also popular on stage.
“Let’s go,” the politician said as he took the hobo by the hand and led him up the stairs to the stage. After everybody was seated, the master of ceremonies opened the proceedings and then went on to introduce the important dignitaries. The hobo clapped loudly as his favourite personalities’ names were mentioned and even louder when the politician was introduced. He hardly paid attention when the politician started to address the crowd. It was all the things he had heard before, all those good intentions the government wanted to achieve and all the other programmes in the pipeline. He was content to look around at the crowd seated in front of them. The hunger also troubled him. There was a faint aroma of food drifting from somewhere outside the auditorium, and he wished that lunch was immediately served.
The hobo was brought back to reality by a sudden, complete silence. He looked up to the politician and saw the man holding his throat in agony. The politician tried to resume reading his speech but he coughed so badly that his eyes watered. Aids rushed in to help, some offering him a glass of water. He drank some and tried to read again, but his voice again failed him. In the end it became clear that he had to excuse himself for a while.
“I am not sure what is happening to me,” the politician said as he sat down next to the hobo.
“You have stage fright,” the hobo mocked him. “Relax for a while.”
“This was my best moment,” the politician said ruefully, shaking his head. “This was my best moment to impress the top brass. Chances like these don’t come twice in a century.”
‘It is because you inhaled foul air before you came here,” the hobo quipped again.
“What foul air?”
“Remember where you were this morning? You were at the hobo land and that affected you badly.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” the politician chided him. “This is a serious matter.”
“Why then don’t you give your speech to one of the aids to read it for you?” The hobo asked him.
Once more the politician shook his head. “This is an important speech.”
He cleared his throat. It croaked. “It must be done by me. I worked so hard, toiled nights and days for this moment. What will I do now?”
The hobo touched his hand. “Your aids will do a fine job. We all know that it was written by you.”
“You are stupid,” the politician hushed. “The speech was written by one of my trusted speech writers.”
To this the hobo smiled wickedly. “There it is,” he said. “Then give the speech to the writer to read. It is as easy as that.”
The politician eyes suddenly flickered with excitement. “Look, do me a favour.”
“What?”
“Read my speech for me!”
The hobo nearly fell from his seat. “What? That will be an insubordination to the important people here.”
“No, please help me.”
But the hobo protested. “What will the important people think of you? They will fire you.”
“Ag man they will not be offended. Please help.” He peered at the hobo. “They will think that you are a newly recruited aid.”
“Are you sure?”
The politician nodded. “I am sure.”
The hobo straightened his clothes and looked at his dilapidated shoes. He shook his jacket into position and adjusted his pants. Then, confidently, he looked around at the people seated in the auditorium and nodded silently. The master of ceremonies was busy addressing the crowd.
“Will you do it then?”
At once the hobo nodded. “Yes, I will do it!”
The decision was relayed to the MC who accepted it with a blank stare. But after glancing at the politician he turned back to the audience and announced the hobo.
The audience did not show any emotion, nor did they show any appreciation.
However, the hobo was not deterred. He took the politician’s notes and proceeded to the podium. He put the notes in front of him, looked sideways and then nodded. He did not greet, offer apologies or give explanations. Immediately, he went on to read the speech.
After six or seven minutes of reading he paused and smiled. The politician also paused, but when he saw the hobo smile, he became alarmed. The hobo put the notes aside, dislodged the microphone from the stand and stepped around the podium. He looked like a disheveled singer who was ill-prepared for a show but was ready to render a ballad.
The crowd now gaped and edged forward in their seats but the great men sitting behind him on the stage remained passive, waiting. The politician, who held a copy of his speech in his hands, let it slip through his fingers. He sat upright and looked with shock at the hobo.
Licking his lips and totally at ease, the hobo began to talk.
“This moment,” he began, “is a great moment to explore what is happening here. I fully understand what is happening here. This gathering is meant to diagnose why state programmes do not yield what is expected of them. Further more, it is the right time to examine what is needed to combat the spate of failed initiatives. Look,” he invited the audience, “when you examine the causes of failure, you must be robust. You must also have the ability to recover.”
He paused and looked around the great auditorium. The audience looked blankly at him... “The ability to recover,” he repeated. “In life, there are ups and downs, just like in all plans that you make as you go along in your life. Some fail, some succeed. When you fail, you must be able to recover and do an analysis. This is very important. If you do not have the ability to recover, then it won’t matter how many times you try again and again to succeed. You will always fail. You will have your tactics in place, and your strategies lined up. You will go on and take risks. In the scheme of things you will appear to be winning, on top of things, riding the crest of the wave, high above on a pedestal. The governments, the business fraternity, the sports teams, everyone dreams of failure-free programmes. So do soldiers out in a battle. They want to win the battle and return home as heroes, in honour. But, such is life, something goes wrong and the best intentions plunge down, falling out of the skies and to the depths of the oceans. When that happens, that is not the time to wallow in sorrow. That is not the time to give up. That is the time to take a step backwards and to take stock of the situation. Firstly, you must not be in denial. You must admit that something did go wrong. We must be able to take criticism on the chin, go through what we did wrong, inspect the obstacles, and then be brave enough to acknowledge any shortcomings. The ability to recover calls upon ourselves to deal with our prejudices and to get rid of misguided intentions. We all do this. We always want to spite our detractors by refusing to admit to failures... and then go on and blame somebody else.”
No one moved. They sat quiet in their seats, intent on him.
“Prejudice is evil,” he continued. “Let us discard it as we move on and become a better society. It retards progress. Let us remember one thing. Honour is not in the secret applause of your detractors when you have defeated them, but it is in the smiles of your deserving beneficiaries. So it is to our advantage to rid ourselves of spite and prejudice. Please, don’t do anything to prove a point to your enemies. As a servant of the people, do it for the benefit your people. Do not do it to fulfill a personal mandate.”
The politician nodded, and so did other people in the audience. There was a muted attempt to clap hands, to applaud. There was also a shuffling of shoes on the floor, a sigh here and there but, eventually, a full-blown applause followed. The hobo, however, remained stern faced, his eyes fixed to the back of the auditorium. When the audience became settled again he turned and once regained his place behind the podium. He resumed reading the politician’s speech, but it proved to be a damp squib. There was a sense of detachment from the audience, which he felt, and he lacked the enthusiasm to go on and read. The notes lacked the power and the mesmerizing verve of the hobo’s speech. Finally he read the last word and the audience once more got on its feet to applaud.
The politician was the first to shake his hand. He said, “How did you manage to marry my speech with yours without so much preparation?”
“Knowledge, and education,” the hobo said. “Did you like it?”
The politician gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder. “It was sheer magic. Pure class. What education do you have?”
At this moment the elderly statesman, walking with the aid of the stick, joined them.
“Young man,” the elderly statesman addressed the hobo. The hobo hesitated but quickly composed himself. He was not young anymore; he wanted to tell the elderly man. “You did well.”
“Thank you so much sir.”
“It is good for our country to have leaders like you,” the old man was clearly impressed with the hobo. “Well done.”
There was a lot of confusion as almost everyone wanted to shake the hobo’s hand. Journalists also caused a commotion as they vied for the hobo’s attention, wanting to know who he was and asking many other questions. But the hobo was not surprised by all this commotion. He was all smiles, glancing and prancing around like a seasoned celebrity.
“Time to go back to your lair,” the politician whispered in his ear.
But the hobo was already being led into the main VIP dining lounge.
“What?” He asked.
The politician tried to say something but he gave up, helpless. The hobo smiled wickedly as he allowed himself to be ushered into the dining hall with all the other important people.
“See you,” he said with a big, toothless grin on his face.
He laughed at their antics, grimaced when one of his friends was hard done by and yawned even more when the action bored him. The only other voices coming to him were from over the mound running parallel to the main road as people went about their business. Vehicle sounds too grew louder as the traffic got busier up and down the main road, as the usual taxi commotion picked up. But the hobo area was peaceful and less busy, as it was shielded from the main road, the border shielding the hobos away from the main commercial area. The only shrieking voices were those of his fellow hobos as they horsed around. From time to time they called out to him, but he ignored their pleading calls to wake up.
Then out of the blue a man appeared into the hobo’s focus. Smartly dressed, big and obviously important, the man appeared to be looking for something. He was looking carefully around him, trying to locate something. The hobo looked intently at him. For a moment there was only a blur as he tried hard to place the man wandering over to him. Then, as the man came nearer to where he lay, he recognized him. It was the local politician. The hobo became alert. Anxiously, as the politician wandered through to where he was lying, side- stepping puddles of stagnant, stinking water, the hobo waited.
The politician was not familiar with the terrain, and the heat bothered him too. He stepped carefully, and, eventually going through a dry clearing, he saw in the distant a massive thicket under an oak tree. That was where they said the hobo would be. He hurried across the clearing and, pausing under the oak tree, he wiped his brow. Then, suddenly, he found the hobo.
The politician looked at the sleeping man and reared back at the smell coming over to him. The hobo, pretending to be sleeping heavily, woke up suddenly, peering at the politician in disgust.
“Why do you disturb me like this,” he protested, rubbing his misty eyes feverishly and getting into a sitting position under the bush. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
The politician looked around for a place to sit. He was in no hurry. There was some five twenty litter tins arranged in a half circle nearby. He ignored them and finally sat on a big, flat boulder with a newspaper on top, and sat looking directly under the bush where the hobo sat, rubbing his stomach.
“I haven’t seen you for a while at the traffic lights,” the politician told him.” And I wondered what happened to you.”
The hobo emerged from under the thicket, dressed only in his dirty underpants. He stretched his body and sighed repeatedly. He then yawned heartily, scratched his chest, stomach, bums and all over his body.“What time is it mister?”He asked the the politician..
“It is past eleven,” the politician responded.
“Oh,” the hobo returned. “That is alright.”
“What is alright?”
The hobo ignored the question and ambled to one of the twenty litter tins, away from the politician, and sat down.
“What do you want from me?” He asked, ignoring the politician’s question. “I don’t sell drugs, dagga and all those things.” He looked the politician up and down. “Go to the crossing at eleventh for that.”
“What about that crossing?”
The hobo looked searchingly at him again through his misty eyes. “I asked you, what do you want?”
The politician felt uneasy under the stare of the misty, questioning eyes. “I told you,” he said, shifting his body on the boulder. “I missed you.”
“You missed me?” The hobo quipped, startled. “How odd… I do not know you… I am not our friend.” He scratched himself again and got up and, to the astonishment of the politician, he began a series of the stretching exercises athletes do just before a race.
“Look,” the politician said as he looked up at the tall, scrawny man performing his stretching routine. “I know you. You may have forgotten, but I have given you money from time to time at the traffic lights at tenth. I have also given you the newspaper in the afternoons.” He pointed to the thicket where the hobo slept. “I see you keep all of them to read and sleep on, all those papers and magazines.”
“Still,” the hobo pointed out, “I do not see why you should come to my place for a visit.” He was still rigorously going on with his stretching routine. “What I do with the money you give me is none of your business.” Finishing his stretching routine, he asked, “Or are you busy with a survey?”
The politician chuckled. “What? A survey? I am not here for a survey. I know all about you. In fact, I have known you for almost a year now and have given you money, food, clothes and other things.”
‘You are lying,” the hobo said simply. “You are not the one who gave me the radio.”
He immediately went into the thicket, scrambled into it and, after rummaging through several plastic bags, he took out a radio from one of them. He stepped out of the thicket and switched the radio on.
“Do you know this radio?” He asked.
“Yes,” the politician nodded. “I bought it for you.”
“No, you are lying,” the hobo said furiously. “This radio was given to me by a security guy who passes here from time to time driving in those dark state vehicles.”
“That security guy,” the politician returned, “is one of my security personnel.”
“Don’t lie,” the hobo shouted. “You are not important. Where are they now? Why are they not with you now?”
The politician shrugged his shoulders. “I guess this is a different meeting,” he said. “I wanted this to be a private meeting.”
The hobo looked intently at him. “But I could kill you now if I wanted to. I could harm you.”
“Look,” the politician said and got up. “They are here, they are looking. But I warned them to stay away from us. This is between you and me.”
The hobo examined the politician for a moment. “I am not gay…”
The politician laughed again. He looked humorously at the haggard, tall and scruffy man in front of him and said, “You think I am…?”
“Yes,” the hobo interjected. “Why do you want to see me without your body guards? Heh? Why all the attention? Why all the money? The gifts? I am not…”
The hobo was pacing up and down. He paused, composed himself before going on. “I may be down and out,” he spoke slowly, but with such venom that the radio nearly fell out his hands. “But I have my dignity. I may be a no body, but I still have choices to make. And, let me tell you, I may not be used as a scumbag.”
He extended the hand with the radio to the politician. “Take your radio and leave in peace.” Stepping forward, he came within touching the politician’s nose with his. “And, don’t ever give me anything again.”
“I don’t want the radio,” the politician said coolly, retreating. “And I don’t want to leave either!”
“Leave!” the hobo barked.
“Do you realize that you are speaking to an important man in the government?”
But the hobo was infuriated. “You think I am a tart? A prostitute?” He ranted. “I don’t give a damn about your radio or your stinking government. Leave me alone! I want my peace and you are disturbing it. Go!” He pointed into the distance. “Go!”
But the politician did not move. “It will not help to shout and jump around,” he said quietly.
“So what do you want?”
“I told you…”
“What?”
“That I was wondering what happened to you.”
“Why are you interested in me?”
“I am a politician. I was elected by the people of this country to serve them.”
“I know,” the hobo said. ‘I know. I know you.” He turned towards the thicket and put the radio away. “I know you… your name is…” He went on to tell the politician his name.
“You know me?” The politician was shocked. “You actually know my name?”
The hobo nodded and sat down. “What do you think I do with all these newspapers? I am not an idiot, you know?”
The politician sat down as well. “You disappeared for a while…”
“Four weeks…”
“Yes. I was worried. You know, in a big city like this many people are from all walks of life. Most of them are from rural areas and when those we know disappear, we always do not know what has happened to them. It is always a problem when people like you die or get sick. They always do not have their beloved ones with them. And we do not know who to contact when such things happen…So when I did not see you for some time and instead saw a stranger take your place at the traffic lights I became worried.” He rubbed his hands together and looked at them. “So I made time to stop by… to know the truth.”
“Will you please buy me a beer?” the hobo asked, smiling suddenly. Many of his teeth were missing. “Buy me food…no,” he shook his head. “Buy me nothing!”
“No problem,” the politician said. “I did not know that you drink.”
“You do not know because it is not your business to know us people who vote for you,” the hobo spoke slowly. “I am not important to you until just before the elections.”
The politician raised his hand, indicating to the hobo to stop talking. “That is not for us to talk about. I am not here to talk to you as a politician and you as a citizen, a voter. No, I am here to know you… to be a friend…”
“A friend?” The hobo edged forward on his seat, his misty eyes shocked. “A friend?” He repeated.
“What is so shocking about it?” the politician asked. “I see no problem with that.”
“I for one,” the hobo responded, “do see a problem. To begin with, you are a politician. Politicians are famous for lying, or let me say infamous for not speaking the truth. They also make false promises. They are notorious for corrup…”
“I told you not to go into that…” the politician insisted.
“For dodging thorny issues…”
“I said let’s talk about good things…like…friendship…”
“For treachery” the hobo said. “Or is it trickery?”
“Look,” the politician pleaded, “I sit here speaking to you as a friend, and not as a politician.”
“So you are indeed a man of many hats?” the hobo said as he got up and disappeared into the thicket. He came out with bathing things and then proceeded to pour water from a basin and went on to bathe while the politician watched.
When he was finished and dressed up the politician suddenly got up and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“I am going to address a seminar in an hour and a half,” the politician told him.
“Who said I will go with you?” The hobo was gathering his things, putting them in a plastic.
“We are wasting time,” the politician put an edge to his voice. “You know, you will be grateful for this moment. It will be meaningful to you to come with me, you know. Do something different for a change…”
The hobo laughed. “The way you speak, you remind me of election time,” he said.
“I am here to talk to you man to man. It is something that you feel inside of you. It is something that you feel right inside your gut. You feel it inside of you that the man standing there with nothing on his back is a friend, a brother. Your soul howls like a raging furnace as it seeks to connect to the fellow man’s soul.” The politician cleared his throat and looked straight into washed-out eyes of the hobo. “I don’t intend to encourage you to forsake the friendship of your own, but sometimes you have to go up the hill for a clearer view.”
The hobo smiled. “Sometimes when you throw away your politician’s hat you become a complete stranger. We then we see and hear a man of complete honesty, a man who spreads his truth from the depths of his heart, a man I can go along with.”
He made sure his things were securely stacked away then stepped away from the thicket. “Let’s go,” he said.
The auditorium was vast and big, and refreshingly cool. There were people every where. They were engaged in small talk as they waited for the seminar to begin. The hobo recognized some of the faces, those of the politicians and the business fraternity. They were as smartly dressed and as beautiful as they appeared on TV, and the air was rich with scented perfume. He noted that those close to him were looking curiously at him, their expressions asking questions. Some edged away from him and some smiled haltingly. He knew some were asking themselves who he was and what he wanted at such a high profile gathering. He was also dismayed to notice that some of the women shifted their handbags away from him. But he did not mind them; he knew he looked out of place. So he sauntered around without any guilt, sipping juice which was served on the tables.
“I have a seat for you,” the politician said suddenly in his ear. “You are going to sit with us on the stage!”
The hobo froze. He looked up on the stage and a cold sweat ran down his back. “There?” He asked, pointing.
The politician smiled. “Yes.”
The hobo was still gazing at the people seated on the stage in awe. He recognized an elderly, tall man walking with an aid of a stick and he smiled. The man had an air of aura around him and a lot of people were clamouring to shake his hand. He knew instantly who he was. He was the man who was incarcerated on an island for a long time for his beliefs and for the struggle of freedom for his people. He then became the first president of the free nation. His presidential successor, a shorter man with a white beard, was also popular on stage.
“Let’s go,” the politician said as he took the hobo by the hand and led him up the stairs to the stage. After everybody was seated, the master of ceremonies opened the proceedings and then went on to introduce the important dignitaries. The hobo clapped loudly as his favourite personalities’ names were mentioned and even louder when the politician was introduced. He hardly paid attention when the politician started to address the crowd. It was all the things he had heard before, all those good intentions the government wanted to achieve and all the other programmes in the pipeline. He was content to look around at the crowd seated in front of them. The hunger also troubled him. There was a faint aroma of food drifting from somewhere outside the auditorium, and he wished that lunch was immediately served.
The hobo was brought back to reality by a sudden, complete silence. He looked up to the politician and saw the man holding his throat in agony. The politician tried to resume reading his speech but he coughed so badly that his eyes watered. Aids rushed in to help, some offering him a glass of water. He drank some and tried to read again, but his voice again failed him. In the end it became clear that he had to excuse himself for a while.
“I am not sure what is happening to me,” the politician said as he sat down next to the hobo.
“You have stage fright,” the hobo mocked him. “Relax for a while.”
“This was my best moment,” the politician said ruefully, shaking his head. “This was my best moment to impress the top brass. Chances like these don’t come twice in a century.”
‘It is because you inhaled foul air before you came here,” the hobo quipped again.
“What foul air?”
“Remember where you were this morning? You were at the hobo land and that affected you badly.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” the politician chided him. “This is a serious matter.”
“Why then don’t you give your speech to one of the aids to read it for you?” The hobo asked him.
Once more the politician shook his head. “This is an important speech.”
He cleared his throat. It croaked. “It must be done by me. I worked so hard, toiled nights and days for this moment. What will I do now?”
The hobo touched his hand. “Your aids will do a fine job. We all know that it was written by you.”
“You are stupid,” the politician hushed. “The speech was written by one of my trusted speech writers.”
To this the hobo smiled wickedly. “There it is,” he said. “Then give the speech to the writer to read. It is as easy as that.”
The politician eyes suddenly flickered with excitement. “Look, do me a favour.”
“What?”
“Read my speech for me!”
The hobo nearly fell from his seat. “What? That will be an insubordination to the important people here.”
“No, please help me.”
But the hobo protested. “What will the important people think of you? They will fire you.”
“Ag man they will not be offended. Please help.” He peered at the hobo. “They will think that you are a newly recruited aid.”
“Are you sure?”
The politician nodded. “I am sure.”
The hobo straightened his clothes and looked at his dilapidated shoes. He shook his jacket into position and adjusted his pants. Then, confidently, he looked around at the people seated in the auditorium and nodded silently. The master of ceremonies was busy addressing the crowd.
“Will you do it then?”
At once the hobo nodded. “Yes, I will do it!”
The decision was relayed to the MC who accepted it with a blank stare. But after glancing at the politician he turned back to the audience and announced the hobo.
The audience did not show any emotion, nor did they show any appreciation.
However, the hobo was not deterred. He took the politician’s notes and proceeded to the podium. He put the notes in front of him, looked sideways and then nodded. He did not greet, offer apologies or give explanations. Immediately, he went on to read the speech.
After six or seven minutes of reading he paused and smiled. The politician also paused, but when he saw the hobo smile, he became alarmed. The hobo put the notes aside, dislodged the microphone from the stand and stepped around the podium. He looked like a disheveled singer who was ill-prepared for a show but was ready to render a ballad.
The crowd now gaped and edged forward in their seats but the great men sitting behind him on the stage remained passive, waiting. The politician, who held a copy of his speech in his hands, let it slip through his fingers. He sat upright and looked with shock at the hobo.
Licking his lips and totally at ease, the hobo began to talk.
“This moment,” he began, “is a great moment to explore what is happening here. I fully understand what is happening here. This gathering is meant to diagnose why state programmes do not yield what is expected of them. Further more, it is the right time to examine what is needed to combat the spate of failed initiatives. Look,” he invited the audience, “when you examine the causes of failure, you must be robust. You must also have the ability to recover.”
He paused and looked around the great auditorium. The audience looked blankly at him... “The ability to recover,” he repeated. “In life, there are ups and downs, just like in all plans that you make as you go along in your life. Some fail, some succeed. When you fail, you must be able to recover and do an analysis. This is very important. If you do not have the ability to recover, then it won’t matter how many times you try again and again to succeed. You will always fail. You will have your tactics in place, and your strategies lined up. You will go on and take risks. In the scheme of things you will appear to be winning, on top of things, riding the crest of the wave, high above on a pedestal. The governments, the business fraternity, the sports teams, everyone dreams of failure-free programmes. So do soldiers out in a battle. They want to win the battle and return home as heroes, in honour. But, such is life, something goes wrong and the best intentions plunge down, falling out of the skies and to the depths of the oceans. When that happens, that is not the time to wallow in sorrow. That is not the time to give up. That is the time to take a step backwards and to take stock of the situation. Firstly, you must not be in denial. You must admit that something did go wrong. We must be able to take criticism on the chin, go through what we did wrong, inspect the obstacles, and then be brave enough to acknowledge any shortcomings. The ability to recover calls upon ourselves to deal with our prejudices and to get rid of misguided intentions. We all do this. We always want to spite our detractors by refusing to admit to failures... and then go on and blame somebody else.”
No one moved. They sat quiet in their seats, intent on him.
“Prejudice is evil,” he continued. “Let us discard it as we move on and become a better society. It retards progress. Let us remember one thing. Honour is not in the secret applause of your detractors when you have defeated them, but it is in the smiles of your deserving beneficiaries. So it is to our advantage to rid ourselves of spite and prejudice. Please, don’t do anything to prove a point to your enemies. As a servant of the people, do it for the benefit your people. Do not do it to fulfill a personal mandate.”
The politician nodded, and so did other people in the audience. There was a muted attempt to clap hands, to applaud. There was also a shuffling of shoes on the floor, a sigh here and there but, eventually, a full-blown applause followed. The hobo, however, remained stern faced, his eyes fixed to the back of the auditorium. When the audience became settled again he turned and once regained his place behind the podium. He resumed reading the politician’s speech, but it proved to be a damp squib. There was a sense of detachment from the audience, which he felt, and he lacked the enthusiasm to go on and read. The notes lacked the power and the mesmerizing verve of the hobo’s speech. Finally he read the last word and the audience once more got on its feet to applaud.
The politician was the first to shake his hand. He said, “How did you manage to marry my speech with yours without so much preparation?”
“Knowledge, and education,” the hobo said. “Did you like it?”
The politician gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder. “It was sheer magic. Pure class. What education do you have?”
At this moment the elderly statesman, walking with the aid of the stick, joined them.
“Young man,” the elderly statesman addressed the hobo. The hobo hesitated but quickly composed himself. He was not young anymore; he wanted to tell the elderly man. “You did well.”
“Thank you so much sir.”
“It is good for our country to have leaders like you,” the old man was clearly impressed with the hobo. “Well done.”
There was a lot of confusion as almost everyone wanted to shake the hobo’s hand. Journalists also caused a commotion as they vied for the hobo’s attention, wanting to know who he was and asking many other questions. But the hobo was not surprised by all this commotion. He was all smiles, glancing and prancing around like a seasoned celebrity.
“Time to go back to your lair,” the politician whispered in his ear.
But the hobo was already being led into the main VIP dining lounge.
“What?” He asked.
The politician tried to say something but he gave up, helpless. The hobo smiled wickedly as he allowed himself to be ushered into the dining hall with all the other important people.
“See you,” he said with a big, toothless grin on his face.
