FROM MEMORY IS THE WEAPON, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHYBY DON MATTERA

Author and journalist Sam Mathe

No story about gangsterism or violence in the townships of Johannesburg can be complete without that of Kort-boy – real name George Mpalweni – the five-foot-nothing knifeman from Benoni, a former mining town on the East Rand, near Johannesburg. The Afrikaans word ‘Kort’ means ‘short’ and ‘boy’ was characteristic of the many ‘boys’ that made up the cream of his gang – the Americans.

There was Fat Boy, who was exactly what his name implied; Boy Selenkie, Boy Lelinka and Boy Boy. All this in turn stemmed from American movie slang and crime novels, which referred to the street-wise city slickers as ‘bright boys’. And the USAs, as the gang was also called, had many such bright boys – daring thieves and ruthlessly violent men.

Bra Boy, as Kortboy was fraternally known to the young prospective street fighters, was a different man to different people, kind to his friends and admirers and cruel to his enemies – and since he had more of the latter, Bra Boy’s reputation was that of a savagely cruel man. Newspapers and magazines such as Drum and High Note carried sensational monthly articles about his exploits.

Crime stories became so popular that the magazines often published follow-up articles giving the historical backgrounds and origins of such gangs as the Americans, the Berliners, the Gestapo and the Co-operatives. Kortboy was a legend in his days – much hated, much loved – it all depended on which end of his knife you were at.

Fashionable favorites with the ladies and young boys, the Americans wore only the best in American clothes. They staged daylight robberies and often exchanged gunfire with the railway police who suffered considerable losses in theft. Ferreira, a cunning Boer railway police officer, formed a special squad to fight the organized thefts by the Americans. He shot and killed Boy Boy, and in retaliation members of the police were knifed and shot. The police intensified their fight against the Americans.

Many gang members were arrested and convicted for long terms. The Gestapo were a gang of boxers who had a training centre in Sophiatown’s notorious Victoria Street. They were tough, hard-knuckled men who used to challenge people indiscriminately in the streets to fist fights, and always ended up winning. The Gestapo inevitably came into conflict with the Berliners and the Americans, and later turned to robbery and protection fee racketeering against Indian shopkeepers.

The Americans had a gunman called Chanam, alias the Durango Kid, a successful womanizer who always carried two guns and had the reputation of being the fastest gun alive. Through his efforts, the Gestapo dissolved overnight. They scattered into Western and Newclare and deeper into Pimville and Moroka Jabavu – to give birth to other outfits such as the Torch Gang and the dreaded Peter Nchechane Gang of White City Jabavu whose two top men, Boy Sevenpence and MaBoy, had shared a prison cell with me in 1955 when we all faced different murder charges. As they said in the business, the death of one gang was the birth of others.

Kortboy murdered a rival gang member and was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to eighteen years’ hard labour. He also served a short jail term for the killing of a school principal. He served fifteen years and returned to find his Kofifi razed to the ground. Most of his gang members were jailed for long terms; others had died or were on their way to the grave. Time had caught up with him as it had for many of Sophiatown’s bright boys – including me and members of our gang.

The Durango Kid submitted to the whims and demands of changing times. He died a sick and lonely man. There are only a handful of American gang members left. Kortboy is one of them. The year is 1985 and Kortboy can usually be seen walking up and down the streets of Johannesburg city that he and his thieving Americans used to raid with impunity. He works as a messenger for a commercial company.

His once proud and stubborn shoulders are now bent and subdued, and although his eyes have dimmed with the passage of the years, I always see a hidden fire and history in them of which I was both hunter and prey. Whenever we meet the glow of a fraternal and remembered familiarity warms us to the point of evoking deep nostalgia for what was yesterday; what was Sophiatown; what was his teeming, colourful and violent past and my own youthful and adventurous delinquency.

From Memory Is The Weapon, an autobiography by Don Mattera, South African poet, journalist and writer who turns 85.

Author: Sam Mathe