The Kimberly Hotel

Luc and I decided to drink at the Kimberley hotel the other night. It is close to his place and we can stumble home without too much hassle. We were also sick of all the sterile bars in Long Street that seem all to be run by some franchise of advertising executives and custom made for latent homosexual yuppie coke heads.
The Kimberley is a proper old school bar, made from heavy dark wood and worn smooth by the elbows of ugly blue collar men drinking hard. There’s a jukebox in the corner with some decent music on it that plays for two bucks a song. If no one chooses music then the bartender’s shitty music comes on and a patron inevitably gets up and heads to the jukebox to keep from puking.
We sat down at the bar and the guy next to us looks up and immediately falls backwards off the bar stool and hits the floor hard with a heavy thump. He turns to me as we pick him up and says cryptically, ‘ I too, am unclean’ Luc and I look at each other for a moment and then piss ourselves laughing and he buys us a round. There’s a filthy black fisherman in the corner so wasted he can’t even open his eyes but he’s got his hands down the front of his jeans and is slowly jerking off, the barman just smiles a crooked smile to himself at this and shakes his head while pulling our draughts.
An skinny albino at the end of the bar starts wailing and crying at the top of his voice, an inhuman sound coming from some unknown pain. Great tears roll in hot lines over his blotchy cheeks and he starts punching the bar again and again until he smashes his pint glass all over the floor. No-one bothers him.
There’s also a drunken Rasta who won’t stop elbowing me in the ribs and screaming about pussy; ‘white pussy, black pussy, yellow pussy….you know what I’m saying!’, the spittle flying from his wet lips.Three crack whores at the slot machines leer at the beast men, their pockmarked faces twisted into hardened masks as they scan the room for johns, jutting out bony hips and wetting purple lips but the men ignore them, two pretty young girls have walked in and the men surround them, a seething mass of bulbous veiny noses and huge hairy ears.
They have no chance, these rough old men but they spit barroom clichés at the girls at full volume anyway. The girls reel back from the fumes and general rancid stench but the men all lean in closer, the girls are surrounded. They look around at the two of us and smile as they fight their way to the bar through the pack of geriatric lust, all rotting teeth and graying stubble. An old dolly parton number comes on the jukebox and it’s all happening at once, guy in the corner wanking, next to us the unclean falls off his chair again and the albino is still punching the bar and crying. “ Pussy! Pussy!” , screams the rasta while the whores look on and sneer. Luc and I can’t believe it, the Kimberely is too good to be true, we are instantly convinced it’s the best bar in Cape Town, no doubt in our minds.
Earlier in the evening we had been sitting across town in a cantina getting some mexican food. At the table opposite us was this beautiful young girl, no more than eighteen years old, long slim limbs and milky white skin, an aura of fragility that reached across the room and wouldn’t let go.
We sat transfixed by her and mystified at the two boring asshole guys who sat there basically ignoring her and her pretty friends, staring off into space while she giggled and chatted sociably. I remember thinking he should be showing a little more interest, he obviously didn't deserve her, i suddenly felt like getting up and kicking the shit out of him.
I turned to Luc, ‘ Jesus that girl is beautiful. Look at the arsehole who's with her..!'
‘ I know’, said Luc still staring, ‘ like a farm girl, milky boobs and everything.’
I laughed, ‘… milky boobs eh, Luc.’
He shook his head, a faraway look in his eyes, ‘ they’re perfect.’
Later in the Kimberly the farm girl walked in with a pretty blonde and the two dumb guys from the cantina. They sat down on the couch against the wall with their drinks, the girls were chatting and giggling, the guys on either side sat in silence not trying to engage them in conversation, just sitting there like idiots.
Eventually the farm girl got up and led one of the idiots to the front desk where he got a key from the clerk and led her up the stairs.
Luc and I just sat there not believing our eyes. She was the picture of young innocence so he had to say it.
‘ Look, he’s taking her upstairs to bum her.’
‘ oh no dude, don’t say that.’
‘he’s going to bum her so hard’
‘ noooo…’ I groaned, the thought was too much.
‘ she’s going to cry for him to stop but he’s just going to say, ‘shut up you little bitch, look at you, you disgust me!’ she’s going to bleed…’
I looked at luc with my serious face, ‘… that’s so ugly, man’
Suddenly we both cracked up, laughing hysterically until we fell off our bar stools at the thought, rolling around in the filth and tears, under the grubby spell that is the Kimberly hotel.