…and cue Die Antwoord’s Enter The Ninja.
Now would be an awfully appropriate time to get back to those eX-files. Especially since life imitates art as the swirling mess that is the male midlife crisis plays itself out yet again. Oh yes, ye gods, I know: it’s hilarious. Hil-f*cking-a-larious.
When we left off last, I was a mighty mess post falling hopelessly for his royal huffiness, the Drama Queen. Giant mistake. Leaving me with 1x ticket to Cape Town and big block of unplanned time to spend crying over my erstwhile broken heart. It took great reserves of self restraint not to tip off the police to the 4 day drug binge wedding he was at (kissing married men amoungst things… yeah and we wonder why I was sorry this lunatic liaison came unstuck). And so it was in this state of idle grief and coronary warfare that I happened to stumble into the sights of…
The Mercenary
MLC Score: 1/14 KO Rating: 6/11

{ aside }
Repetition is a bitch. Oh yes, she is. A pretty evil one… My inner critic was already having a field day as I bounced from frightful ginja to blue-eyed Narci but when a midlife crisis with 4 kids appeared on my doorstep, it whooped for joy – and I experienced SERIOUS reservations (and not the restaurant variety). Hell, I’ve learnt to spot a pattern a mile off by now. But alas, I allowed my better instincts to be overruled by the pushy insistence of another full blown, half grown alpha male. Last time I make that mistake. Ever.
But now, back to the devil in the desert…
{ C1 } The Call > Staying with friends in Hout Bay (yup, my life’s shot full of irony), I licked my wounds and updated the shades of my mournfully melancholic mood on Facebook (remember that app?). A friend from the ‘Kei tried to comfort me with the assurance that there was a Romeo for my Juliette (dude: they both died! it’s a miserable love story: can’t I have another fairytale rather? seriously… ) and inexplicably led me to another old family friend. Who happened to be in Kabul. And was in the need of online company. So began a stream of emails and inordinate amount of instant messaging.
{ P1 } The Pull > Boo was friends with Ma Nguni and some decidedly f*cked up members of my extended family from our ‘expat’ days in the Umtata. Everyone thought he was close to a saint, having married a beautiful but notoriously impossible woman who made up in affairs what she lacked in maternal instinct. He effectively supported the household, nurtured the kids and brought home the bacon. He followed her blindly into the bloody desert where her ‘last’ affair proved to be the final straw (post having hacked her email and tapped the phone – military training comes in handy at home…). The camelman’s back snapped. Which meant he was a right royal emotional mess. So was I. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Add to the misery (loves company) mix: the polar opposite of DQ’s puerile Peter Pan syndrome, here’s a seemingly functional, handsome alpha male who knows how to handle guns – with a shot of new age sensitively. What’s not to love, right? And practically everyone I know (friends, family and foes alike) keeps assuring me he’s a gem. Lulling me into a false sense of sensible security which after the last fiasco was a little like offering a dehydrating man water. Ma Nguni went so far as exclaiming:
“You lucky little bitch! Don’t you dare hurt him!”
…when I told her I was flying to Dubai. Not her finest moment, no. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

deserted in the desert
We talk. A lot. Yeah, that well worn ‘we comforted each other’ chestnut. I type 6 novel worth of IMs. A flurry of transatlantic phone calls follow. Time zone induced sleep deprivation. He DHLs Starbucks coffee and a mug. Says “I love you” (scarily early on) mid flight through 300 000 feet of air. Sends me the plans for the house he’s building and asks me what I want to change. Makes promises of a highly symbolic promise ring. Buys me a plane ticket and the next thing I know, I’m bound for the largest strip of commercial sand known to man.
:: note :: for the record, he tells me they’re already divorced. Ipso facto. I accept his word as truth (something I do often with disastrous consequence – might be a lesson in that). Later on (quite soon after the mid-air declaration of affection in fact) it turns out it’s only in his head, still needs to be officially resolved by the law (which it is by the time I agree to step board a plane. For the sake of the children. And the settlement…)
{ C2} The Catch > Ms Travel-Stresses-Me-Out, I opt to spend a few days in Jozi to visit a friend and see The Lion King the eve of my departure. Only I manage to get food poisoning which does nasty things to my pharmaceutically induced hormones so I board in a pretty precarious state. Which doesn’t stop some cute (much closer to my age) airhost slipping me his number – clearly I’m attractive half dead. Probably because I’m too darn tired to talk…
After HOURS of horribly hot, horrifically slow, hopelessly foreign customs, I’m met by Boo, nervously grasping a wilting bunch of red tulips (hmmmm… flash forward to last year’s clichéd red roses *sigh*). It’s 2am. Welcome to the desert. Home I go with a man I haven’t seen in 20 years. Things your mother warns you to avoid. Wham. bam. thank you, m’mam.
We slip into a weird kind of domestic bliss for 2 weeks. He goes to work, makes coffee, leaves sweet notes. I stay within the claustrophobic comfort of air-conditioning and write til he comes home. Portentously enough, the day after landed, we stop at a car dealership en route to dinner and drive out in a sleek little Crossfire. I tease him for he’s showing tell-tale signs of a midlife crisis: divorced, younger (much!) girlfriend, sports car and not one but two (!!) Harleys. Oh. and he’s about to become a grandfather. High five Scar*let – see ‘em signs?

caught in the Crossfire
But, I fall in love with him. Sure as nuts. Or bullets. If these eX-files prove nothing else, I clearly possess one weird super power: the ability to love absolutely anyone. So I ride on the back of a Harley, chill at the yatch club, meet his friends & office colleagues, suffer the Sevens (ruby not sins), get henna done (me not him), dine at the mediocre by exorbitantly romantic At.mosphere (he falls asleep on me during the taxi ride home - occupational hazard of dating the elderly, folks!) and plays me The Grace of a Dancer in a 40 degree mall parking lot. Old school courtship, kinda. Wouldn’t you be charmed?
I fell for it: I was ready to move lock, stock & two smoking bazookas to the rootless hellhole to be with him while he went about his business, sold to me as something along the lines of peace keeping, braving gunfire to rescue hostages and helping restructure poor war torn countries. What a hero, habibi…