John van de Ruit’s beloved Spud is back in his sixth and final instalment

It’s 2004 and it’s make or break for Spud Milton and his acting career. Having survived his 10-year school reunion and avoided becoming a shareholder in a dubious wellness start-up company, Spud is all set to take his chances on the road less travelled in Spud: Two for the Road. Here is an excerpt.

***

New Year’s Eve

Considering 2004 is going XXXL, I thought it fitting to kick the year off with a double celebration, which inadvertently turned into a quadruple one. First there were drinks with my theatrical sidekick Glenn Fox at the yacht club. There we resolved (yet again) to smash through the theatrical glass ceiling with Viper, our long-promised satirical comedy sketch show. Next, we joined a rollicking house party at Fox’s chiropractor Jarmon’s stepmom’s house in Morningside and then a street party on Florida Road during the interminable wait for taxis.

Arriving home after the evening’s festivities, I slipped through the gate and staggered up the driveway towards my granny flat. It was three in the morning, the house was in darkness and, like anyone with parents in their sixties, I presumed mine to be asleep. When I heard a sudden splash in the pool, I switched on my phone’s torch. The dim light revealed two naked figures wallowing in the shallow end.

My parents were skinny dipping, or so I initially thought. Further incriminating evidence came to light that suggested they’d been cavorting too. Dad’s Y-front underpants were dangling precariously from the potted fern beside the pool, empty bottles of cheap champagne littered the scene, and a suspicious amount of water had splashed out onto the paving around the steps. My mother protecting her dignity with the head of the Kreepy Krauly as soon as she spotted me was another indicator that my folks had been having it off in the family pool.

This public display of senior citizen sex was a timely reminder of why people in their late twenties shouldn’t still be living at home.

I soon ran into another problem – my father wouldn’t let me go to bed. An impromptu dawn Christmas leftovers Skottel braai proved the straw that broke the camel’s liver. Still, I emerged from this chastening experience with a few important life lessons for Icarus to consider before taking flight:

1. There’s a fine line between living dangerously and living foolishly.

2. My parents have never distilled this fine line.

3. Neither have I.

Thursday, 8th January

The Con of Clowning

Security is the worst kind of addiction, or at least it is for ambitious actors/writers or anybody with a creative job who’s expected to live on the edge. Not long after I returned from the reunion my financially stricken creative partner Fox also succumbed to security addiction. He, too, became embroiled in the clowning gig and before long he was full time, except at The Pavilion. As a result Viper was kicked down the road into 2004.

The clowning was meant to be an interim boost to our ailing finances but as the months rolled by, we realised we were in uncreative quicksand. Fortunately, Fox and I had the presence of mind to acknowledge that by deferring our theatrical dreams we were stifling them. In the dying hours of 2003, we resolved to quit the clowning the very next day.

However, although Fox and I have formally and officially retired from clowning, we’re still at it. Neither of us realised that you’re obliged to give a full month’s notice before quitting your job. This means we’re bailed up until the end of February.

In the meantime our creative juices have been flowing. Our Viper application for the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown has been submitted. We wait to hear if we’ve been included in this year’s festival line-up.

Saturday, 10th January

12:15 Dad and Francois Pienaar looked mortified when they returned home from puppy training in Reservoir Hills. Man and dog leapt out of the car and scampered into the kitchen for a snack. One shouldn’t be surprised by their chastened expressions. Francois Pienaar is almost eight years old, which is extremely mature for puppy training, but a red line was crossed when he urinated in the oven which Mom had left open to dry after a deep clean with Mr Min.

Dad’s shame stemmed from his semi-recent public exposure as an erratic, bad-tempered and potentially abusive dog owner with emotional problems. This explains why Francois Pienaar’s puppy training was abruptly moved from Durban North to Reservoir Hills.

Dark Star Dad

Dad and I spent months last year arguing about Rambo’s Dark Star Wellness company. According to my father, the whole point of reunions at laanie schools is to get pissed and strike up business deals.

“It’s a pyramid scheme,” I protested, not that I knew but rather I didn’t see how it couldn’t be.

One day I foolishly left my email open on the family PC, and my father seized his opportunity. The maniac sent Rambo an email (from me) requesting more information about his company. Enraging his son even further, Dad (me) claimed that he (I) was reconsidering becoming a Dark Star shareholder.

After the ensuing blowout my father reluctantly retreated. I refused to discuss the matter with him until late October, when Rambo made his next move. In a startling group email Rambo announced that there would be a ten-thousand-dollar shareholder bonus each, to be distributed at the end of the year. That certainly caught everybody’s attention, most notably mine. Privately, I was astonished. The payout suggested that Rambo’s enterprise was legitimate, although it was surely the first time in financial history that shareholders have been so richly rewarded for not holding any shares.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” trumpeted Garlic in his reply. He was thrilled about his windfall, despite it being a fraction of the million his dad has already tipped in.

“You’re bloody insane!” Dad blasted in the bathroom of the granny flat where I was scrubbing my clown face off. “You’re turning down ten thousand dollars because of a hunch?” He studied my half-washed face. When I didn’t answer his expression changed to one of suspicion, then fear. “Don’t tell me all this clowning has turned you into a communist,” he uttered in a quivering voice.

“I’m a social democrat,” I said, before blowing my red nose. “And I don’t fancy fifteen years of picking up soap in Westville Prison, thank you very much.” This lightened the mood but didn’t resolve the problem. With the payout deadline approaching we arrived at a surprisingly neat solution to our disagreement. Dad would sign on as the share-less shareholder like Gecko’s dad had done and all Dark Star Wellness payments would go directly into his account for immediate reinvestment.

Not only does my father fancy himself as a canny investor but he isn’t as affronted by the thought of picking up soap in Westville Prison as his son is. In the end we both walked away feeling like winners. Dad scored an unexpected financial boost for the fishing fund, and I’d found a subtle way of repaying him for my private carriage on the family gravy train. DM

Spud: Two for the Road is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa. It is available at a retail price of about R380.