My 6 1/2 Wives and their lawyers

By Dan Seyr

Part One helps to understand the journey Dan took so that he was able to write Part Two, which tells of a 'message' for a soon-to-occur pandemic and why God (who probably exists) allows it or makes it happen. Both are serious despite the cover.
Part One: Why would a man not give up after so many failures? Each divorce was a disaster that stripped him of assets and left him in debt. Dan was rewarded. He learned many hard lessons, but he kept his heart open. The highs were very high, the lows were very low.
His sixth marriage to a deeply spiritual American helped Dan on his spiritual journey. He went from teenage atheism to mid-life agnosticism to deciding to live as if God existed. Many events overwhelmingly suggested that God does exist.
Part Two: Dan gets a 'message' that a pandemic is imminent to resolve the overpopulation problem causing mankind's destruction of the planet. His 2010 'vision' of war in the Middle East, centered around Israel, has already come true. The Ultimate Reality, God, Satan, souls and spirits are explained according to the sequence of events that enlightened Dan.
Mankind needs to cooperate to solve problems. War, money and destruction are not the solution. If God exists, as many believe he does, he is not going to allow mankind to extinct the human race.
.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Seyr
• Release date: Aug 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780620809276

Dan Seyr

Dan Seyr started life in colonial Africa. After University in South Africa, his work took him around the country. Then came a move to New York City where he trained in technical sales, later becoming a Head of Engineering. He visited many parts of the USA and after 15 years relocated to Cape Town. Hiking and gym became his hobbies while working part-time as a consultant. His fourth wife wished to immigrate to New Zealand and they did. Upon his return to South Africa, he met his sixth wife. Dan was legally blind for a short while, until his sight was restored. He is semi-retired and felt compelled by events to write this book.

Book preview

Dedication

To the many good people who have assisted me in bad times, to my late wife who was very special to me, to many others, and to my loving and supportive fiancé.

About the Book

Part One helps to understand the journey Dan took so that he was able to write Part Two, which tells of a 'message' for a soon-to-occur pandemic and why God (who probably exists) allows it or makes it happen. Both are serious despite the cover.

Part One: Why would a man not give up after so many failures? Each divorce was a disaster that stripped him of assets and left him in debt. Dan was rewarded. He learned many hard lessons, but he kept his heart open. The highs were very high, the lows were very low.

His sixth marriage to a deeply spiritual American helped Dan on his spiritual journey. He went from teenage atheism to mid-life agnosticism to deciding to live as if God existed. Many events overwhelmingly suggested that God does exist.

Part Two: Dan gets a 'message' that a pandemic is imminent to resolve the overpopulation problem causing mankind's destruction of the planet. His 2010 'vision' of war in the Middle East, centered around Israel, has already come true. The Ultimate Reality, God, Satan, souls and spirits are explained according to the sequence of events that enlightened Dan.

Mankind needs to cooperate to solve problems. War, money and destruction are not the solution. If God exists, as many believe he does, he is not going to allow mankind to extinct the human race.

About the Author

Dan Seyr started life in colonial Africa. After University in South Africa, his work took him around the country. Then came a move to New York City where he trained in technical sales, later becoming a Head of Engineering.

He visited many parts of the USA and after 15 years relocated to Cape Town. Hiking and gym became his hobbies while working part-time as a consultant. His fourth wife wished to immigrate to New Zealand and they did.

Upon his return to South Africa, he met his sixth wife. Dan was legally blind for a short while, until his sight was restored. He is semi-retired and felt compelled by events to write this book.

Preface

This book began as a work of fiction inspired by the life of one person where names were changed to protect the guilty. The innocent only need protection of their privacy.

The book is now in the non-fiction category with religion as a sub-category but the name changes remain for privacy reasons.

It is said that truth is stranger than fiction. Rather than exaggeration for effect, the telling of the events has been moderated.

Life can be a learning experience and coincidence may be God’s way of remaining anonymous. There is a lot of learning and much coincidence here.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

The Justice System: An Eye-opener

What an introduction Dan had to the dark underbelly of the legal system – seeing the photographs in an evidence book of a crime scene! They were the aftermath of the rape and murder of a young mother, while her two-year-old child slept in an adjacent room. There were two full-sized photographs of graphic clarity that are forever burned into Dan’s memory.

The first photograph was of the dead woman lying face-up on the floor in the kitchen. A dark-haired brunette with a good figure, she was completely naked, and was lying on her back with her arms and legs slightly apart, as if sunbathing. The photographer had stood a short distance from her feet.

There was no mistaking that her throat had been viciously cut. A large pool of blood had formed to the left side of her neck from the huge gash. More shocking was the large pool of blood between her legs that had oozed from her below the thick black triangle of pubic hair. The black-and-white photograph gave a stark contrast to the pale whiteness of the woman and the inky blackness of the pools of blood. There were no signs of violence or struggle - no clothing, no weapon, no blood smears or splattering. The photograph had a surreal quality – a neat, clean kitchen with large black and white linoleum floor tiles laid out like a chessboard - the fashion of that era.

The second photo that was so vivid in Dan’s memory was a close-up of the woman on the autopsy table after she had been cleaned. The color photograph was of her face and shoulders. He vaguely remembered that she was attractive even in death, but could never forget the horror of the gaping wound which was deep, purple and wide where her throat had been cut from one side to the other.

Dan had gone to the secretarial pool in the High Court of Johannesburg South Africa to get a transcription of a judgment that he felt had been tampered with and altered. The ladies in the open crowded office were particularly friendly and chatty and said the transcript could be done while he waited. One young secretary had suggested that he might want to read something while sitting there among the desks and she handed him the evidence book.

It was only afterward that Dan realized that they had all been covertly watching him to see his reactions. What had they seen in his face? He was a young naïve man-boy in his early twenties. No doubt it gave them something to talk about afterward - giggling and laughing about how transfixed Dan had been. Perhaps the humor laced with slightly deviant sexual over-tones trivialized such horrors and made them easier to deal with.

* * *

Dan had been shocked to his core despite being raised in Africa with its culture that seems cruel and harsh to the Western world. This was the height of censorship in South Africa when Playboy magazine and movies such as The Graduate were banned and to see such nakedness would have been erotic had the scene not been so ghastly. Besides, in the Seventies, there was none of the explicit TV shows which make violence, sex, and nudity a common living room experience.

These women were all very pleasant - typical secretaries, mostly young, attractive and fun-loving. They looked like they could be the woman next door, or your mother, or your sister. And yet they had to deal with the evidence of crimes perpetrated by the dregs of society in the criminal system, and litigants in the civil system who are prepared to deceive others and lie under oath for personal gain - a world where many defendants turn to blatant lies and evasion to escape punishment - a world where brutal arrogant killers who, when they turn up in court, look and act like some meek innocent who is mistakenly entangled in the system.

Dan began to wonder about what kind of world is tasked with having to dispense justice and the effect it had on the people who worked in such a system. He was already starting to lose his naivety

As the years went by, Dan continued to interact with the civil justice system in various countries and he learned first-hand how schizophrenic the justice systems are. In theory, they represent the heights of civilization, but in practice, they are a world of sharks, with a few exceptions, who manipulate the system for their own selfish ends and egos.

Dan found a book about legal ethics in a university law library. The reputation of the legal profession is addressed, with some very tame and inoffensive jokes as examples. They don’t get it. There is a reason that jokes about lawyers have the themes they do – mostly exorbitant fees and dishonesty.

* * *

What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? Answer - A good start!

* * *

While they are a necessary part of society, a lot of people have had unpleasant experiences. Will the bad ones change? No. They like been envied and reviled and feared. And the few good lawyers keep quiet, rationalize and get out-maneuvered. Yes, there are a few decent honest lawyers and Dan did meet a couple of them.

Dan had chosen electrical engineering as his profession - a very different world, where logic ruled. Clean and uncomplicated and most of the people that one dealt with were even-tempered with a common goal and purpose.

How different it must be to deal with people that have serious problems. Such as having murdered another human being, or stolen or embezzled large amounts of money, or cheated some old lady out of her life savings. Or people who may have become twisted by a lifetime of abuse or neglect and had to live on their wits in order to get by! And others who had become streetwise, with cunning and experience at manipulating emotions in order to get what they want!

Chapter 2  - Wife Number One

A Dream Girl

Dan was at the apartment of his parents, who said that some old friends that his Dad had met in Johannesburg many years ago were coming to visit. Dan had no expectations since his parents had not talked about these friends. So, when the apartment door opened and in walked a petite redheaded girl in a mini skirt and high heels, Dan stared in awestruck amazement.

She was sexy and sweet. Much like Cher, she had a small slim face with high cheekbones and long straight hair dyed copper-red –a typical look of the go-go girls of the sixties. It was love at first sight, or so he thought. It was the proverbial smite of desire for Dan – but, he thought, he would only ever be able to admire such a beauty from a distance.

The girl, Belinda, entered with her parents who were old friends of Dan’s father, Jock. Her father, Mario, was an Italian and her mother, Marieta, was an Afrikaner. Belinda was a laatlammetjie - a late lamb. Her two brothers were much older.

Dan thought that such a beauty was beyond him and he was not to meet with her again for a couple of years.

Dan took a position as a trainee technician with a power company in Johannesburg. He had to work for six months and then study for six months at college for the next four years. He lived in a single room occupancy hotel in lower Hillbrow. At the time, Hillbrow was reputed to have the highest residential density in the world. It was a metropolitan hub, with tall apartment blocks that buzzed with night-clubs and coffee shops. For a small town kid, the big city was exciting.

A couple of his college mates were into street drag racing and Dan joined in the thrills. They had shoehorned a huge V8 engine into a Ford Zephyr with a three-speed gearbox. The back wheel rims were widened to what looked like twice times the normal width and fitted with under-pressurized re-treaded tires for traction. It could lift the front of car in the air with each gear change, and there were none of the many modified street drag-racing cars that could beat them.

They prowled lower Hillbrow. With its wide one-way streets, where the traffic lights all turned green at the same time, high speeds could be achieved. Pedestrians heard the squealing tires and the roar of the engines and cleared the road. The unwritten rule was that you only got ‘copped’ by the police if they could catch you and their cars did not have the power and speed. Nor did they drive as daringly as the youngsters. Looking back, it is surprising that Dan heard of no serious or tragic accidents.

Dan and his mates went to watch a day’s racing at the Kyalami (Zulu for ‘my home’) track just outside of Johannesburg which hosted greats such as Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Jack Brabham. The night before, Dan drank vodka and brandy straight from the bottles and spent most of the day trying to sleep it off.

At the end of the day and suffering from alcoholic poisoning, Dan drove the car at high speed to Rustenburg, a small mining town 150 kilometers north-east of Johannesburg, in the heart of the Platinum belt. He hoped that his father would lend him the money to buy the car. Astounded at how such a huge engine was crammed into the car, his father stated that there was no way he would let Dan own such a death-trap.

However, it had the unexpected consequence that three hundred rand was advanced to him to buy the red Triumph TR2 sports car that Belinda’s older brother had left behind.

Dan was contacted by James, a school friend from Bulawayo. He and his older brother each rented a room in an up-market house on the side of Linksfield Ridge. The owner was a young divorced woman with a two-year-old son.

When James’ brother left, Dan got the room. Belinda’s parents lived in Cyrildene, which was on the other side of the ridge. It was in the late 1960s that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, spent about six months in a grand house a block or two from Belinda’s home.

It was not long before Dan was visiting Belinda’s parents and having a meal there. Belinda’s father was a not only an outstanding Italian chef but the catering manager for mining giant Anglo-American. Dan was told that Belinda was living with a relative on the East Coast somewhere.

One day, there was Belinda in the garden - home to stay. Dan had a sexy red sports car, was a fast driver and had exciting friends. He felt he had a chance, especially since Belinda’s mom and dad liked him.

Dan summoned the courage to ask her on a date one day. His confidence was up after his outings and friendships with tough guys who like to push the boundaries.

How would you like to go to a movie? Dr. Zhivago is showing in the city.

Sure. That would be nice, smiled Belinda sweetly.

The movie was awesome. Halfway through, Dan took hold of Belinda’s hand. She squeezed back. At nineteen, this was Dan’s first romantic encounter with the opposite sex and what a high it was!

The dinners at Belinda’s house now usually ended with Dan sleeping over. It was not long before he was invited to stay full-time and he gave notice at the Linksfield house. A week or two later, there was a tragedy there when the woman’s two-year-old son drowned in the pool after the toddler managed to open the pool gate. Dan was relieved that he was not staying there at that time.

* * *

Dan does not remember a first kiss or other romantic outings. It seemed that Belinda simply snuck into Dan’s bed late one night, wearing a skimpy white nightie. He was clueless, but Belinda was no novice. He found out later, that the reason she had gone to the East Coast, was for a stay at a home for unmarried mothers. The baby boy was given up for adoption.

Dan made up for lost time. He was an alpha-male with more than a fair share of testosterone, but until this time a magazine and his imagination had to meet his urges. The two of them went at it like bunny rabbits at any chance they got. After one long morning, they had to put the sweat-soaked mattress into the sun to dry out.

Belinda had all the Elvis records, which were the vinyl long-playing albums. Clint Eastwood was another teenage crush for her.

Belinda convinced her Aunt Lydia to loan them her Mini so they could take a trip to the Kruger National Game Park and camp using a borrowed two-person little tent. This allowed them time together alone. The four days included some memorable events – such as a tortoise dropped by an eagle on the road in front of them to crack open the shell of the hapless animal.

It was hot and the car had no air-conditioning so their windows were open when they parked under a shady tree overlooking the river with some hippos in it. They had checked there were no animals around and Dan was looking over Belinda’s shoulder. He became aware of a curious monkey leaning into the car to look over his shoulder to see what they were looking at. They had not noticed that the tree was full of monkeys!

The real excitement had occurred at the beginning of the trip, when they drove into the park at the Orpen Gate in the late afternoon, hoping to reach the Satara Camp which was about thirty kilometers into the park. They had no reservations and drove along the road which consisted of two strips of sand in a wide swathe of grass cut through the bush.

About two-thirds of the way to the camp, they saw a large bull elephant walking along the road toward the camp. They came up a little way behind it and tooted the horn. The elephant ignored them. They had to get to the camp before dusk, so they persisted. The elephant eventually walked off the road into the bush.

The road had been cleared of trees for about twenty meters on either side and a fire had left the tufts of grass as blackened spikes. The elephant was clearly unhappy to walk on them. He was older and his feet appeared soft and rounded.

After passing the elephant, they arrived at the camp, only to find it was closed for the season. Even if there were connecting roads to other camps, they were too far away. Dan and Belinda drove back as fast as they could to get to the gate before it closed for the night.

As they came over a short rise, they saw the same elephant walking towards them on the road. They tried the same tactics of moving toward the elephant and hitting the horn. This only angered the bull who shook his head and trumpeted. Dan retreated and they discussed their option.

Do we drive to the camp and spend the night in the car outside the camp? Dan asked.

We cannot afford the fine, Belinda answered.

And they may not let us in the Park afterward.

They agreed to try to let the animal pass. Dan drove quite a distance from the elephant and then into the bush near the trees where he parked the car facing the on-coming elephant and turned off the engine. The hope was that the elephant would keep on walking past them on the road.

It was with serious worry that they saw the elephant turn off the road and head towards them. Dan had the car in reverse with the clutch in and his hand on the starter switch, but there was no way he could outpace the elephant. And starting the car would only annoy the bull even more.

The two of them sat in silence as they realized how massive this beast was, sporting two huge tusks. The right tusk was broken off about halfway. About three car lengths ahead, it lowered its head and trumpeted. Its ears started flapping and it pawed the ground. It took dirt from the ground with its trunk and flung it forward.

Dan did not know what he could do. The mini was so small he could almost drive it under the great animal. The bull could easily crush it. Do they get out and run? The elephant would catch them. Dan was not a praying man at that time, and they just sat there absolutely frozen.

The bull decided they were no threat and he did not want the nuisance of attacking the car. He snorted in disgust, then appeared to give a resigned sigh and turned to walk onto the other side of the road. Dan could pass. They just made it out of the park in time because they had kept the gate open late.

Dan’s life was always eventful and this was just one more adventure. The rest of the trip was great and they returned safely.

* * *

After about four months of living at the home of Belinda’s parents, the December holidays came and she had a fierce argument with her mother. Her father was at work. Belinda wanted to leave and her mother Marieta wanted her out. Dan stepped in and faced up to the mother and then left with Belinda.

Just before they left, Belinda told him she had just miscarried. Dan drove to the apartment of his parents in Benoni. They were away on holiday, but they had left him a key. The lack of phone communication meant he could not contact them and they were shocked and embarrassed on their return to find that the two of them were ‘living’ together and the neighbors were aware of this. In those days, this was not done, but Dan was naïve about this as well as a number of other rules of society.

The problem was that Belinda needed an operation as soon as possible to clear the uterine lining. Being only nineteen, the hospital insisted on the permission of a parent. In life, people are faced with having to choose to endure a thoroughly unpleasant experience out of necessity. This was not as extreme as being ordered out of the trenches to attack an enemy, but it had the stress of wondering what would happen and if there was another way.

Belinda’s parents were on holiday in Potchefstroom, a small town one hundred and twenty kilometers south-west of Johannesburg. Dan took the train and walked the hot dusty roads in the blazing summer sun to get to the small white brick house with its wire perimeter fence. He walked to the door and knocked. He was not nervous – this had to be done and there was no sense stressing.

Marieta was a large woman who could be quite nasty, and she took the opportunity to vent her anger at Dan. He just had to be matter-of-fact and point out that without the consent her daughter could get very ill and it would be her fault if she withheld approval. He did not let her provoke him into a fight or walking away, and he finally got the permission. All turned out okay and eventually Belinda made up with her mother although the relationship was a bit frosty.

Marieta worked at a fancy hotel and got tickets to see Lainie Kazan sing. Lainie was an understudy to Barbra Streisand in ‘Funny Girl’ and took a lead role in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’. Her voice was incredible but she had no melody and people were leaving in droves.

An Eventful Time

Dan was finishing his second year of a four year technical training scheme with the Johannesburg Electricity Department. Each year was to be spent studying at the Technical College for six months, and the rest of the year doing on-the-job training and work. He got paid a full-time salary.

Dan arranged for him and Belinda to get two single rooms in a small rooming house in lower Hillbrow. This was so she could take a tram into town to work as a secretary and Dan could walk to the Technical College. The rooms were rented out by a solidly built congenial man who had come to South Africa from Holland and had a broad Dutch accent. He cooked and provided eggs, bacon and pancakes for breakfast.

Dan and Belinda kept their things stored in the one room and slept in the other which had a single bed plus table and chairs. The benefit was that this room had a balcony. It was on the first floor.

One early evening while having sex, they heard the old lady call out from next door.

Your motorbike is too loud, you lout, she shouted from her balcony to the road below.

Rubbish, you old duck, was the reply.

Dan recognized the voice of his friend Dimitri Kalakos who had quietly idled his motorbike into the parking on the street. Dan then realized that the old woman was listening to them having sex and was annoyed at the slightest sounds.

He dressed hastily and opened the door to the passage just in time to see Dimitri in his Hell’s Angels outfit looking like he was about to kick in the old lady’s door.

You old duck! You old cow! You old goat! I will break the broomstick you ride on, he was shouting.

Dan greeted him and pulled him into their room. It took a while to calm Dimitri down.

Dimitri was very drunk. His cigar was almost done and he looked for an ashtray. Dan was too slow to find one, so he just ground it out in the palm of his hand. Dimitri was a heavyset man with dark stubble who rode with the biker gang on a Norton 900 modified for more speed. He was the son of two reasonably well-off Greek immigrants who were nice upper-middle-class people. This explained the lack of coarse four-letter words.

Dimitri was in Dan’s class at the Technical College and they became good buddies. Also in the class was Fritz Muller, a big powerful man with blond hair and blue eyes who smiled a lot, but he was not someone to mess with. He carried a knife with a spring-loaded blade that could snap in and out of the handle with a thumb slide. Of all the strong men in the class, only he had the strength to operate it with one hand.

Together with a few other tough guys, they used some afternoons to get drunk and have some fun. People got justifiably annoyed, but the guys were not nasty or destructive.

Dan was never an instigator, but it seemed he was somewhat of a catalyst to rowdy behavior. Or he was in the right place at the right time for interesting events. After some antics with passing pedestrians from the main Johannesburg train station, the Technical College clamped down the year after Dan left.

Dan should have seen that Belinda really did not have friends of her own and that should have been a warning sign as to her suitability as a mate. It took Dan a long time to learn. Dan had many good friends. Eric was one of the Johannesburg Electrical trainees and because of his girlfriend, Colleen, they could go out as two couples. Belinda and Colleen got on well.

Hillbrow had many great coffee bars with musicians and it was a great place to hang out. This was shortly before the authorities clamped down – too many hippies, too many drugs, too many anti-apartheid activists.

* * *

Belinda was visiting her aunt when Dan met a guy at a coffee house in Hillbrow and he came over to visit one evening. Kelly was a short blond Englishman. He was intelligent but quite high-strung with amazingly fast reflexes. He was studying to be a doctor at Cape Town University.

He was a good-natured guy who played by the rules. He proceeded to tell Dan about an incredible drama he got himself involved in.

He was resident in a private home, when a friend of the char-woman came to him late one Sunday night in considerable distress.

I need a good person with some medical training. I heard you are studying medicine, she said.

A friend went to a back street abortionist and the man ran away when there were problems. We cannot use the government services and she will die without proper help. Please help us, she pleaded.

How could he turn her away?

A car was waiting for them. They drove into the notorious District Six, which was a poor hard neighborhood for colored people, mostly of mixed Malay, Bushman and European descent. Whites were allowed there, but not welcome. Kelly described the journey and his fears for his safety and for what he might be getting involved in. The car wound through narrow dirty streets with poor lighting and finally arrived at a run-down apartment block.

They crept up the stairs and entered a small filthy room with a single naked light bulb. Kelly was horrified by what he saw - a young colored woman lying on a table with blood everywhere. She was near the end of her pregnancy and the incompetent abortionist had fled when he realized that he could not cope and had an emergency on his hands.

Kelly knew he could not refuse. The woman would die. Besides, how would he get home if he left? He worked on the woman and removed the bloodied dead fetus. He stopped the bleeding and did what he could for the woman. He put the fetus into a plastic bag and said they should get rid of it. They begged him to dispose of it in the university medical incinerator.

Kelly shuddered, but was too soft-hearted to say No! He was literally ‘left holding the baby.’

The drive home in the dark in the early hours was more frightening than the first journey. What if they had an accident? What if the police stopped them? He was a white man in a battered car with a colored man and a colored woman. It was certain they would search the car – and he was the one with the bag in his hand. Jail time – long jail time!

Thankfully, they dropped him off without incident. He put the bag in the back of the closet but slept very badly. He realized that he dare not let it out of his sight, so he put it into the large brown doctor’s bag he used as a briefcase. He went to lectures in the morning, planning to visit the incinerator in the afternoon.

He sat in the hall in a state of numbness and the lectures droned on in the mist of his unreality. Most people have sandwiches neatly wrapped in plastic in their cases. Who would have imagined that this nice young student sitting next to others had a dead baby in his?

Finally, he walked to the incinerator. It was around this time that Dr. Chris Barnard was doing his heart transplant research and much of his medical waste ended up in this fiery furnace. Kelly’s heart sank when he arrived and was told that the furnace was down on Mondays. He would have to come back tomorrow.

After twenty-four stressful hours, he returned only to find that they had a problem and it would only be in service the next day. Kelly was struggling to cope with the stress. He thought of throwing the bag with the fetus into the sea somewhere or burying it, but if someone saw him he would not be able to explain it. Should he throw himself on the mercy of the police? In the heyday of apartheid, they would come down hard on ‘sympathizers’, who were seen as long-haired hippie communists.

On Wednesday, before classes, he decided to go to the mortuary where he had become friendly with the official in charge and asked him for his advice. The elderly man listened to the story.

Yes, son, he said quietly, you have gotten yourself into quite a pickle of a situation.

He paused and then continued, Let me see it.

Kelly took it out for him.

After inspecting the fetus, he said, I will help you this time. I will put it into a specimen jar and label it as an aborted fetus to be shown to medical students.

And there it sits on the shelf alongside other exhibits.

Dan had listened to this long story in transfixed amazement. It was clear that Kelly knew how to tell a story. It was also clear that this was no made-up event.

Despite the gravity of these events, there were times that Dan and Kelly broke out with laughter at how ridiculous and surreal it all seemed.

* * *

Then the army gave Dan his enlistment papers. He had changed his citizenship to South African upon entering the country to study at Natal University in Durban. He applied for a four-year deferment based on his studies and it was granted.

Dan spent two years at the Technikon before the Department offered him a bursary to go to Wits University. He almost turned it down, but the USA had stopped granting immigration visas to technicians and was only accepting university graduates. It was his goal in life to get to America and he so accepted.

Dan had asked his father for permission to marry Belinda, but he said Dan was too young. Many years later, he learned that his father did not approve of Belinda and Jock was a good judge of character.

When Dan turned twenty-one years old, he and Belinda went to the Magistrates Court to get a marriage license. He had a reception at a restaurant – nothing fancy. His mother came, but not his father. His brother, Roger, was serving his military call-up in South West Africa (now Namibia) and because he could not get leave, he went AWOL (Absent without Leave) in order to be at the reception.

Roger arrived in his military dress uniform. With the uniform, it was easy to get rides from one place to the other. A soldier was not allowed to hitchhike, but if they stood by the side of the road, people stopped to ask where they were going. When he got back to camp he took his punishment, which consisted of running up and down a tall sand-dune in full kit until he dropped. That took some time as he was very fit. He had a lot of stories to entertain us all.

Dan does not remember whether or not they went on a short honeymoon. The marriage was just prior to Christmas and on 1 January, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment they had rented. It was on the main street of Hillbrow, Pretoria Street, in Rosaley Court on the second floor.

The first years of marriage went uneventfully with regard to their relationship. Apart from a good physical relationship, they really did not have much in common. There were some early arguments and disagreements that frustrated Dan because he did not understand why they were happening.

Dan found himself going to Belinda’s Aunt Lydia and Uncle Leroy. They were very sympathetic and listened but never really offered good advice. Lydia was childless and she and Leroy had taken Belinda under their wing and treated her like a daughter.

Some of the disagreements about household chores disappeared when they hired a maid. Even though Dan was a university student and Belinda a secretary, they could still afford one. The maid lived in one of the rooms at the top of the apartment block – part of the ‘townships in the sky’.

Dan went to the University late and did not attend lectures and practical classes. The lectures bored him. However, he was one of five students to get a full five distinctions for his first year. He found all he had to do was learn the textbooks for the final year-end exam and he passed easily. It was no different to school, except he had to attend class at school.

Some students in his class had pretty much given up and so they got together. Much time was spent in the canteen listening to music. The hit song ‘The Age of Aquarius’ was a favorite. Dan played cards and had a sausage roll, chips and gravy for lunch. They were a bit wild and Dan had fun. Of course, he had a new set of friends each year since he was the only one of the group who passed the year-end exams

He joined the University baseball team. He liked to play first base and was an enthusiastic player. Although he pitched for his high school team and had great ball control, he did not have the arm strength for the speed in this league. The team had an American coach and soon the team had New York Yankee pinstriped uniforms.

After his second year, he again got military call-up papers and this time they would not give him a second deferment. Instead, they assigned him to the Commando Unit, which was more like a National Guard. He had to do four weeks basic training in Bloemfontein and three weeks a year for sixteen years. Those times are for another book.

* * *

At the end of each of the three years in the Pretorius Street apartment, there were riots in the streets as the New Year celebrations got unruly and mobs got destructive. Each year was more intense than the last. Dan and Belinda witnessed all of this from a front row seat – their balcony overlooking the main gatherings.

The first year, cars were rocked off the streets and into shop windows - jumped on and bashed. The next year, the drivers of some cars got frightened by the pressing masses and decided to drive through them.

One car sped up and people parted in front of it just in time. There was an area where the crowd had thinned and a man was walking across the street. The car hit him once, twice and a third time. He bounced in the air each time – the last one to the side. With some help, he was able to stumble away.

Another two cars were being rocked in the middle of the intersection. All Dan could see was the roof of each car. The first car was a VW Beetle and the driver decided to put his foot down on the accelerator. He actually drove under the crowd for about fifteen meters before coming to a stop. Dan watched in amazement at the ‘bump’ of people that were lifted up the front of the car, over the top and dropped at the back.

The third year, the police were breaking up the crowds. Dan went down to a shopping center to watch. Tear gas was thrown. The canisters were hot, but people kicked them back at the police. He went back to the apartment.

Someone started throwing furniture and bottles at the people in the street from the eleventh floor of the building to the left. The furniture got bigger – chairs and coffee tables. It went on for an hour, but not one person was struck.

The music of the time was Diana Ross and the Supremes. The music of the era was incredible with new beats and rhythms.

Belinda’s dad, Mario, gave them the best of food - supposedly leftovers from the corporate meals at Anglo-American. Dan loved the prawn cocktail with delicious French pink dressing. He got plenty of it - more than he could eat at one time - and lots of fillet steak.

They went to see the movie ‘The Graduate’ at Wits. It was banned, but the Wits Drama School got special permission. They also went to a few showings of banned movies at private houses. One had to park a few blocks from the house, so as not to arouse police suspicion. Curtains all closed, drinks filled up, bowls of snacks and excited anticipation. It made the movies very enjoyable.

At the beginning of Dan’s last year of Varsity, Belinda became pregnant. She ‘forgot’ to take the pill for a few days. Dan was happy and he went to the bookstore to do some research.

One of the books had color pictures of many ‘babies’ that were born malformed. What shocked him was the section on ‘monsters’. The one picture still in his mind is the giant eye with tentacles. He could only imagine the shock and trauma to whoever delivered such a thing. Until recently, there were many births that were recorded as ‘still-born’ and where the mother did not get to see what she had brought into the world.

Dan was optimistic and calculating. The odds of something going wrong were very low, but he was still going to count the fingers and toes. He wanted a boy, but had to wait for the delivery for the doctor to inform him.

Congratulations, the doctor told him. You have a fine healthy boy.

Dan felt quite disappointed.

Where did that come from? he wondered. It seemed that subconsciously he wanted a girl.

His son, Bruce, was healthy and was born just before his final exams. Belinda was distressed. She was home and saw that Dan was not studying.

You are going to fail, she cried.

Dan could not break himself of his habit of cramming the night before. He passed all his subjects except fourth-year Electronics where the syllabus did not mention that the practical work was to be included. He had not attended those courses and it was not covered in the textbook.

Only with the last exam of his career did he find out that the other students got hold of past exam papers. Then, with each one asking the lecturer to explain a particular question and sharing the responses, they could tell if a particular question was likely to be included.

This question is important.

Or, I would not spend too much on that kind of question.

Dan studied hard and passed the supplementary exam. It was a good lesson and his enhanced basic understanding of practical electronics helped him throughout his career.

Belinda soon returned to her employment and the maid looked after their son.

* * *

Then Belinda did something strange. She said that a friend needed a place to stay and she had agreed to the person staying in the second bedroom for a modest rental. Bruce would be with them in the main bedroom. Dan did not have a say.

The young woman was the same age as Belinda and not only did she stay longer than a month or two, but her twin sister moved in as well. It was awkward having strangers in one’s home and having to share the same bathroom.

It was not long before the two of them started making a habit of walking around in the evening in their nighties. Flimsy pale-blue see-through tops that revealed their small breasts and so short that the tiny thin panties were not fully covered and their wide hips were clear to see.

Dan wanted them out, but Belinda did not want confrontation. It was one of her failings. She would let a bad situation fester until a blowup happened to resolve it.

Luckily, Dan’s friend Eric had found a great place to stay. It was a new development in the northwest of Johannesburg. Two rows of townhouses with a central swimming pool - and a number of other families with young kids. It was ideal and Dan gave notice and moved. The twins had to find another place.

The two-level townhouse was in Duchess Ave, Windsor. At that time there were open undeveloped areas. Today, the suburb is within the city ring-road, is run-down and has a serious crime problem.

Dan, Belinda, and Bruce enjoyed the pool, the braais (barbeques) and socializing with nice neighbors.

They took a holiday in Durban at an up-market beachfront hotel. The highlight of the trip was a fancy dinner that had a cabaret show and the main event was a strip-tease dancer. South Africa had strict no-nudity laws, so the dancer used two large pink ostrich feather fans, but there were titillating glimpses of a beautiful naked body.

The next morning they took Bruce to the children’s dining room and were surprised to be sharing a table with the stripper and her young son. She was most gracious and well educated.

* * *

Problems began to emerge in the relationship and the arguments became heated. Part of the problem was that Dan spoke about his wish to immigrate to the USA, while Belinda did not want to move away from her Aunt and Uncle. It was only after many years that Dan learned how those two had implanted emotional ties into Belinda so that they could manipulate her to their wishes.

Dan began to suspect Belinda of having an affair. She was over-friendly and secretive with a woman who Dan suspected of being a lesbian. One day he tried to follow them and parked in the street near the woman’s home. It looks easy in the movies. Just sit in the car and wait. In real life, it began to dawn on Dan just how suspicious he must have looked to anyone, and he gave up.

Dan started confiding in a few of the neighbors. He was surprised to learn that marriages can be quite different from what they appear.

You guys have such a great relationship, he said to the lady next door.

Not really, she replied. We have come to an understanding.

He used to get drunk and come home and beat me. He suppressed his frustrations and then took it out on me at these times.

She went on, One day I had had enough. I did not want to leave him because of the kids, but I was going to put a stop to the abuse.

The next time he beat me, I waited until he fell asleep. I took the wooden broom and hit him in the face - over and over until he was unconscious.

She paused and continued, He had to go to the hospital for a few days for treatment. When he came home, he apologized tearfully and said he would never hit me again. After a couple of weeks, it happened again. I waited for him to fall asleep and I took the metal clothes iron and gave him a heavy bashing in his face.

That time he needed quite a bit of hospital care.

Dan could hardly believe this petite mild amiable woman could tell him this so matter-of-factly.

Again he apologized and cried. After a few days, he came to me and said that he could not fall asleep. He was so scared of being beaten. He wanted us to make a vow never to harm each other again. And it has worked. He has been a model father and husband.

There was another woman that used to come to the pool with her husband and two children. They had a house not too far away. Dan spoke to her about his troubles and again remarked about the nice relationship they had.

Yes. But relationships are difficult and people have to make compromises, she told Dan.

I do not like sex. It was only after we were married that I found out. I wanted two children and so put up with it until the second one was conceived. I then told him how I felt and said he must find a mistress. He was shocked at first, but found someone.

How can that last? Dan asked. Would he not go off with the other woman? There is no way you can know what the future holds.

Her answer was even more astonishing.

My mother and father had the same relationship. My father has had a long time mistress and everyone was happy with the arrangement.

The Lawyers get Involved

Dan faced the fact that his marriage was over. He spoke to Belinda and she agreed to divorce amicably. Dan wrote up a draft settlement and said they should see an attorney. She said the terms and payments were reasonable.

Again she procrastinated and did not go to a lawyer. Fate stepped in - she was pregnant. Since they had not stopped having sex Dan assumed the child was his.

Belinda had always said she would refuse to have an abortion and had refused to do so with her first child. However, this time she went into the hospital and terminated the pregnancy. When she came out she went to stay with her Aunt and Uncle. Dan was served with a summons for divorce at his workplace. What a shocker it was - nasty allegations and a ridiculously large amount of money.

Dan gave notice at the Windsor townhouse. He arranged a flatbed truck and his brother Roger to help him. Dan had not pre-packed. They just bundled things together - a sheet on the bed and all the clothes on top and then the ends tied. Cutlery and kitchenware went into bins. It took two hours. They took the household goods to Dan’s mom in Benoni and put it all into the maid’s room attached to the garage. Dan was an excellent packer and the room was wall to wall and ceiling to floor. Every little bit of space had something in it.

He does not remember what happened to it. All he needed was some clothes and some tape cassettes. Uncle Leroy probably came to collect the other stuff. Dan moved in with his parents for a while.

Dan was doing a three-year training course and at the time he was with the Substation group. They were an interesting bunch of men. There were a number of people Dan could approach for advice.

Who better to ask, Dan reasoned, than Tonk.

Tonk was different. His physical appearance was unforgettable. He had striking jet-black thick hair worn in a brush-cut, with each hair spiking almost straight out and matching thick, black eyebrows.

His head was big for his body and square. He made no secret of the fact that he regularly gave donations at the sperm bank. The tradesmen and supervisors had a camaraderie in which private matters were not only shared, but were open game for jokes and leg-pulling.

"How could anyone not recognize any of his kids? they laughed. Just imagine a whole lot of little Tonkies running around?"

The morning tea was the place for these humorous exchanges and Tonk’s expression did not change as he simply deflected such good-natured jibes by expressing his unshakeable belief that he was doing a community service. Insecure men would not last long in this fraternity of working-class men who put in an honest day’s work, secure in knowing that they had lifetime tenure for public service.

Tonk was a district supervisor and spent most of his time in his pick-up truck assigning work and checking on progress. This suited him because it kept him busy, he liked the work and Dan suspected he could also take ‘time out’ to attend to other ‘business interests’. He had a good knowledge of who was who and where the bones were buried, but he kept such information to himself.

One journeyman told Dan that Tonk would return favors by specifying the name of the horse, the race, the type of bet and the amount of the bet. They were not small wagers. Trust him or never get another chance.

Tonk was respected by other men as a straight-shooter and Dan summed up his deadpan bland expression and flat unemotional mannerism as someone who lacks guile.

Dan told him of the summons and asked if he could recommend a lawyer.

Tonk thought about the question before he answered. There is a lawyer who wins all his cases, but he cannot be trusted. He will turn on his clients if things go wrong. Who is your wife’s lawyer?

Stan Klug, replied Dan.

Oh heck - he is the lawyer that I was telling you about. The man has dirt on other lawyers and on judges and if he needs to, he uses it. It will be hard to find a lawyer who can fight him.

Tonk ended by saying that he could not recommend anyone against this guy.

* * *

Dan decided to go the high route. He found out who was the attorney who represented the City Council - surely they would be on the side of an employee.

Before Dan went to the offices, he put a tape recorder into a briefcase and had the microphone just at one side. It was not easy, because the recorder was the size of a brick and the microphone was a regular hand-held version. Dan wanted to be sure he understood all that was being said, but did not want to inhibit the lawyer. He felt he had to trust the man who going to fight for him.

Just before the appointment, Dan slid the microphone switch to ‘ON’ and the machine began recording a cassette tape.

Werner was a short plump man with black hair that was slicked back and plastered down with Brylcreem - a popular hair product in the fifties and sixties, made of water, mineral oil and beeswax. He must have been taken by the TV jingle Brylcreem - a little dab'll do ya! Brylcreem - you'll look so debonair! He was a Danny De Vito with slicked black hair.

Dan opened by saying, I know there is no chance of custody. I just want visitation and reasonable child support payments.

The reply was unexpected and took Dan off-guard.

Men have a ten percent chance, and we can fight.

Werner then proceeded to ask a series of questions about her suitability as a mother. If he had not dangled the possibility of custody, Dan would have limited what he said about their relationship. Intimate details were revealed. Divorce in those days was about fault and it was a cat-and-dog fight.

Years later, Dan realized that all of this was typical of a divorce lawyer. Slinging mud gave the client satisfaction. They thought their lawyer was fighting hard for them. The reality is that it provokes the other party into fighting harder and making any settlement before trial almost impossible. The lawyers end up making a lot of money with little work, and it makes their clients emotionally fatigued and ready to settle.

The first legal step was taken by Klug in a motion to pay interim support, and a lot of it. Dan did not have to attend and an order of court was made. Then matters dragged out, supposedly to prepare for trial. Dan went to discuss the tactics to be used to gain custody.

You have no chance of custody, Werner told him.

But you told me I have a ten percent chance in our first meeting, Dan shot back.

I would never have said such a thing, because you would be wasting your time, Werner said defensively.

Dan had this conversation on tape also, but did not say so. He realized he could not trust this lawyer and that he had to get another one. He asked for his file, only to be told he could not have it because he had to make full and final payment first. This too is typical – that files are held hostage and that would take about two weeks because his staff had to do the book-keeping work.

Can I have a copy of the interim order? Dan asked.

Why do you want that? queried Werner.

Because you told me that it was badly worded and could be contested, responded Dan.

Werner looked through the file and said he could not find it, but he would get a copy from the Court if Dan came back in a few days. Dan did not believe him and waited until he went to lunch. He came back to the secretary and told her that Werner said he could have a copy. She cheerfully made one and handed it over.

Now Dan knew he needed an official copy so he went to the Court and to the Registrars desk. He asked a young lady to help him and she brought the file to the desk. She found the order and Dan asked for a copy with the Court stamp. It was the same as his copy. A tall stern-looking man came over rather quickly.

I will take over now, he said curtly.

Who are you in this matter? he asked.

Dan felt he already knew and had been warned he would be there. I am the Defendant.

Are you not represented by a lawyer?

I have terminated his services and am in the process of changing lawyers

In that case, you may not have a copy, he said and put the file away.

Clients are allowed access and may make copies, but it was clear he was the boss around there. Dan decided to come back tomorrow at lunch-time and try again when the man was not there. Another young girl helped him and was eager to do her job well.

That is strange, she murmured. The order is not in the file.

And the transcription record is not here either. Wait here while I look for it.

She went to the filing cabinets in the back room. It was some time before she returned.

Most odd - I found it at the back of the filing cabinets against the wall. I had to move the cabinet to get it.

Dan felt that the Registrar had destroyed the file copy and thrown the transcript behind the cabinets. Tonk was right about the influence that Klug wielded.

When Dan got the transcript from the secretarial pool, where he had been presented a photo book of a murder case to read, he saw that it was different. However, without the official copy of the one he had they would say he had doctored his copy, or that the typing pool had made an error. That was not a typing error.

Dan tried going to the office of legal oversight to complain about the lawyer and the changed order. They were not interested in ‘petty’ complaints.

* * *

Finding a new lawyer proved to be difficult. The facts of the matter were presented and the lawyer was optimistic. Then Dan said that the opposing lawyer was Klug and that he knew how he worked. They then suggested he find someone else. The fifth lawyer recommended someone and when Dan met this sixth lawyer he got the same response, but the guy seemed genuine.

Would you give me advice if I represented myself, Dan asked.

That would work, mused the attorney. But you have to keep my name out of it.

He was great. He did not need the detail. He said that because Belinda had left the house it was desertion, but she was claiming that it was constructive desertion on the grounds that Dan had forced her out with his behavior.

What Dan had to do was take the position that he wanted her back and wanted to work on the relationship. She would refuse, of course, but it would stop her from being granted a divorce. Dan then would have bargaining leverage for a settlement.

Dan went to the offices of Stan Klug and took the proper interim order, the first payment in cash and the change of representation. It turned out that Stan Klug had decided to hand this case over to a young associate since it should be a simple matter to defeat a litigant-in-person, who is someone representing themselves.

The man asked Dan to step into his office. Larry Chou did not look Chinese, but he was young and arrogant – the rear end of a donkey. He put his boots up on the table and fingered a letter opener while he looked down his nose at Dan. He was a show-off and was trying to impress the pretty young women who worked there.

Dan did not let this get to him.

I think we can settle this, Dan said matter-of-factly.

Sure. Meet our terms and pay our fee, smirked the man.

"Actually, I want my