"Turn your camera off and stop pointing it at my men," the tall, smooth-faced Indian cop with the captain's bars said," or I will arrest you, and you'll learn what justice is in South Africa."
I complied, for the moment, thumbing the red button of my Canon XL1 and pivoting it on my shoulder brace.
"Where you from?" the squat one with the amber walrus moustache said from the squad car window, his left elbow resting on the top edge of the door, hand pressed against the side mirror, fingers spidering the glass.
Squad cars in Durban are blue and white, though the country is starkly black and white, with a couple of races imported over the last couple centuries to keep black and white better apart. Most of the cops in Durban are Indian. Around the back of the car, two more cops were shoving Boo and Kwezi, two short black kids from a Kwaito dance group called Da Boyz, into a squad car. They were being arrested for selling ganja.
"He has the right to shoot anything here!" Siphiwe shouted. Siphiwe's the leader of a band called Thamela. A talented guitarist who, like most of the Zulu artists and musicians squatting in the Stable, couldn't hold his talent together. His hair was spiked in inch-long dreads which he twirled whenever he was nervous. He wasn't nervous then.
"You shut up!" the cop in the car snapped, pulling his arm inside. The door clicked. I spun my body right toward Siphiwe, shot him a look.
"I told you not to film my men!" the captain yelled. I thought I had turned the toggle light off. But there it was, red and blinking. I thumbed the button.
"He has the right!" someone shouted.
"Shut up!" This time it was me.
Too late. The captain took the camera out of my hands, and cuffed me. On the inside all squad cars look the same. I sat there, camera next to me on the seat, thinking, "Please don't confiscate the camera, please God don't confiscate the tape."
The tall one, now in the driver's seat, talked into the radio, reporting my arrest. Then he turned to me and extended his hand. "I'm Sergeant Balla. This is Sergeant Naidoo."
"Welcome to South Africa," Naidoo said.
Durban is South Africa's third biggest city, on the coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal, about five hours southeast of Joburg. I was there to shoot a no-budget video documentary about the Stable Theater, two brick buildings that once housed the city's electric depot. For the last ten years the Stable had been squatted in by forty indigent Zulu artists and musicians. The government was renovating the building to be a real theater, forcing the artists to move out. Nobody was sure when.
I was scared to miss a moment of the vigil, but I had to go to the airport an hour earlier to drop off Suzanne, my soon to be ex-girlfriend, on her way back to Berkeley and her new boyfriend. At the airport I had to pick up Thembe, the ace sound man from Joburg I'd hired for a week to help tape music.
I dropped Thembe off at my apartment and came back to the Stable, where I was greeted by the artists yelling that the police were there and I had to film them.
Balla and Naidoo didn't speak to me as the police car sped down a wide boulevard toward the edge of Durban. They kept talking into the radio, and to each other about me--common cop scare tactics. On the front seat between them sat two plastic bags, one yellow, one clear, both full of tiny bundles of ganja. The bundles were separated into small folded paper bullets called slopes, which sell for one rand, and plastic ziplock bank packets, which sell for ten, the equivalent of a dollar fifty.
Even bad ganja in South Africa is powerful stuff, and I was still a little stoned from the same batch, which I'd smoked on the way back from the airport. As they pushed me toward a back room of the station we passed Boo and Kwezi as they were led into the row of cells. Their eyes showed surprise. I flashed what I hoped was a supportive smirk.
The cops towered over me, un-cuffed but non-voluntarily seated.
"Sir," I lied. "My uncle was a cop. Nobody understands how hard your job is better than me. But I know these people. They're musicians, dancers -"
Balla diced the air with my California driver's license. "People from overseas have a very bad image of the South African police."
"With respect, sir, maybe arresting us isn't the best way to fix that."
"They'll cut your throat like this," Naidoo said, flapping his hand so the first two fingers slapped together, making a noise almost like our snapping, a common South African gesture. He lowered his voice. "This one white girl, she was with six blacks, all her friends she'd known for more than ten years. They got high on dagga, they raped her and sliced her up into pieces."
"The guys at the Stable are dedicated artists," I said. "I feel safer-"
"They're drug dealers," Naidoo said. "You think they wouldn't take that camera? Hurt you for it?"
I'd left it sitting around unguarded plenty of times and was sure they wouldn't. But teaching the cops morality wasn't a good strategy. Better to let them teach me.
"You want a real education?" Balla said. "Come with us on a ride through the townships and bring your camera. Then you'll get some pictures."
Fifteen minutes later he handed me the camera back and officially released me. I held it low and peeked in the window. The tape was still there.
The bags of ganja were on the back seat; Naidoo pulled them up front to make room for me. We sped at 140 kph back toward the Stable. He turned to me holding up the yellow bag. "You smoke dagga?"
"I have smoked it, sir."
Both cops chuckled. Naidoo opened a bag. "You want some?"
"Look at him. He's afraid."
"It's okay. Here. Take the whole bag. We're just gonna split it up anyway."
Returning half the confiscated wares to Boo and Kwezi when they got out of jail would be an irony worth the fright of the experience, and would make me a hero for a few days. But I didn't have the guts.
We stopped behind the building they'd picked me up in front of.
"You can find your way?"
"I'll manage," I said. "Thanks."
"Welcome to South Africa."
"Don't be a stranger."
They sped off. A dozen artists rushed up. They asked about the tape before they asked about Boo and Kwezi. I pushed eject and showed them. Siphiwe slipped it out and held it up. Normally I might have tried to stop him grabbing the tape, but not this time. The artists made noise and jumped up and down. Siphiwe twirled his dreads and gave me back the tape.
I caught a glimpse of his watch: it had been less than three hours since I'd dropped off Suzanne. Suddenly I could think of nothing but her, my great love about to be lost, already being lost, three hours already winging somewhere over the middle of Africa, three miles up, eating with a plastic fork off a plastic tray and watching a Julia Roberts movie. I understood with total clarity that it was the last time I'd ever see her. It's been two years and so far that moment has proven right. I packed up the camera and went back to the beachfront. Thembe was still asleep.
