BABY GIGOLO.

Tommy Teardrop.

Standing on the top of Table Mountain and facing East, one would notice a flat landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. When the earth was still young and fresh, that stretch of land was a boggy, marshland that was not fit for human habitation. People lived closer to Cape Town city center which was located on higher ground above sea level. As the population grew, the Government of the day, in its wisdom, decided to fill in the wetlands, build infrastructure and substandard houses, and moved the homeless and everyone else en-masse into the housing projects.

The structures were small, but it fulfilled a basic need, and the rent was affordable. To the North of the projects, the rich built an industrial area, called Epping Industria, which was also known as the garment district, and employed the recently relocated people. Everyone, from the least, to the highest educated got a job, as long as they were willing to work for minimum wage. The people did not expect to grow rich, but they were working, happy and safe. With one stroke of a pen, the newly elected Government, signed a contract with China, and the clothing manufacturing industry was moved, lock, stock and barrel to the Chinese continent. Epping Industria became a ghost town, and an entire population who depended on it became unemployed and on the brink of starvation.

The Government officials pocketed the money and left the people poor and destitute. The Drug Lords saw an opportunity, and moved in. They gave people jobs as merchants, drug mules, runners, and because they made the illegal narcotics affordable, everyone including the unemployed youth started taking it. They were broke and needed to feed their habit; and that's when the house break-ins, robberies and assaults of the innocent started to escalate.

No one was safe, not even in their own homes, and the police force was powerless against this vicious tide. In fact, some of the police officers acted as guards to those drug Lords, took bribes and kick-backs to look the other way.

The Cape Flats, as it is commonly known are demarcated into smaller neighborhoods which goes by various names, but it is the neighborhood of Musgrave North where Bossy has his seat of power. Bossy tried to widen his territory, and it was on one such occasion that he was gunned down in a hail of bullets. Musgrave North became a warzone. The innocents ran for cover and hid under their beds, and Tommy Teardrop, Bossy's twenty years old son led the attack against the enemy. By daybreak the shooting subsided, the area was littered with corpses, the inhabitants putting their heads out of their doors, sniffed the air to determine whether the coast was clear, and stepped over the corpses on their way to school and work. The absence of the police was notable, but then again, that was the norm.

Tommy Teardrop buried his father under heavy protection from his henchmen, swore to take revenge, and took over the business. Tommy, having had little education, and raised on the streets amongst his father's cronies of shiftless scavengers was as tough as wrought iron, as ferocious as a bull terrier, and as emotional as a rock. In short, he was a degenerate and a product of his time and circumstances.

Needless to say that he spent most of his time in and out of jail for various offenses. One day, while in jail, a fight broke out, and although he was badly beaten, and made the sounds of someone who was crying, no tears were visible. They grabbed him, tattooed a single under his right eye; hence the nickname Tommy Teardrop.

When Bossy was still alive and in charge, Tommy had discussed the possibility of extending their business into gambling and prostitution, but Bossy wouldn't hear of it. Now that he was Boss, he bought a property which was a smallholding in a town called Philippi. Those smallholdings were arable land, and were sold or rented to small-scale farmers who lived off the produce generated from their efforts. It was away from prying eyes and ears, and suited Tommy's new venture to perfection. He bought it at double the market value and the owner was too happy to voice any objections.