Allan almost got rabies when he was eleven, from a cow bite in the cane fields above Tongaat. They were actualy hunting rats. when it happened, with pellet guns, him and his boet.
In those days the preventive treatment for rabies was a hectic course of injections. You had to have thirteen thick injections in your abdomen over three weeks.
Allan reacted strangely, in that he developed epilepsy almost immediately after the treatment. And it was a kind of epilepsy combined with hydrophobia. Really weird.
But Nico knew none of this. He only knew Allan through work at the jewelers.
So the opportunity comes to take a trip up to Joburg. Allan is driving up to visit friends, and Nico has an aunt up there. And The Mission are playing that weekend, so why not.
They drive out of Durban early-ish. They aiming for six, but it is almost seven before they pass Tollgate Bridge.
Allan's got this weird hydro-epilepsy, and he's not on medication, so he shouldn't really be driving. And Nico's blissfully unaware.
Until just after Mooi River. They've just had Nando's. Half chicken & chips meal, hot, to eat here with a Coke, and a cheese 'n' pine burger, mild, with wedges and a Coke.
They're on the first hill out of town, when Allan starts groaning in this creepy way and going, "No! Not now! Please not now! Nnnnnng!"
He starts having a half-fit and swerving all over the road. He's barely able to pull over into a culvert. By this stage he's screaming! He jumps out the car and starts running around, tearing his clothes off, shrieking like a stuck pig at a Beatles concert!
Nico gets out the car with big eyes. "The water!" wails Allan, stark naked by this stage. "Pour the water on me! Aaaaargnnnnnn!"
But there is no water! All they bought at the Quikshop is biltong and chips. They mos had those Cokes at Nando's. By now Allan is rolling around kaalgat in the road, just inside the yellow line. So Nico has to think fast.
He pops the bonnet and pulls out the water reservoir for the windscreen wiper. He charges up to the frothing Allan and splashes some on his back.
"Aargh! Aargh!" he screams with every splash, as if it's red-hot lava being poured on him, or as if someone's whipping him with a sjambok.
So there they are. Allan stark naked, frothing and rolling around in the emergency lane. And poor Nico, straddling his naked form, dribbling windscreen-wiper water over him to gasps and screams, as the pantechnicon trucks on their way to Joburg come flying past, hooting.
Ous must have had no idea what was going on!
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