went out to stay with my grandmother in Soweto for a while. A few weeks later, Abel drove over and apologized. Abel was always sincere and heartfelt with his apologies: He didn’t mean it. He knows he was wrong. He’ll never do it again. My grandmother convinced my mom that she should give Abel a second chance. Her argument was basically, “All men do it.” My grandfather, Temperance, had hit her. Leaving Abel was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again, and at least Abel was willing to apologize. So my mom decided to give him another chance. We drove back to Eden Park together, and for years, nothing—for years Abel didn’t lay a finger on her. Or me. Everything went back to the way it was.
—
Abel was an amazing mechanic, probably one of the best around at the time. He’d been to technical college, graduated first in his class. He’d had job offers from BMW and Mercedes. His business thrived on referrals. People would bring their cars from all over the city for him to fix because he could work miracles on them. My mom truly believed in him. She thought she could raise him up, help him make good on his potential, not merely as a mechanic but as the owner of his own workshop.
As headstrong and independent as my mom is, she remains the woman who gives back. She gives and gives and gives; that is her nature. She refused to be subservient to Abel at home, but she did want him to succeed as a man. If she could make their marriage a true marriage of equals, she was willing to pour herself into it completely, the same way she poured herself into her children. At some point, Abel’s boss decided to sell Mighty Mechanics and retire. My mom had some money saved, and she helped Abel buy it. They moved the workshop from Yeoville to the industrial area of Wynberg, just west of Alex, and Mighty Mechanics became the new family business.
When you first go into business there are so many things nobody tells you. That’s especially true when you’re two young black people, a secretary and a mechanic, coming out of a time when blacks had never been allowed to own businesses at all. One of the things nobody tells you is that when you buy a business you buy its debt. After my mom and Abel opened up the books on Mighty Mechanics and came to a full realization of what they’d bought, they saw how much trouble the company was already in.
The garage gradually took over our lives. I’d get out of school and walk the five kilometers from Maryvale to the workshop. I’d sit for hours and try to do my homework with the machines and repairs going on around me. Inevitably Abel would get behind schedule on a car, and since he was our ride, we’d have to wait for him to finish before we could go home. It started out as “We’re running late. Go nap in a car, and we’ll tell you when we’re leaving.” I’d crawl in the backseat of some sedan, they’d wake me up at midnight, and we’d drive all the way back out to Eden Park and crash. Then pretty soon it was “We’re running late. Go sleep in a car, and we’ll wake you for school in the morning.” We started sleeping at the garage. At first it was one or two nights a week, then three or four. Then my mom sold the house and put that money into the business as well. She went all in. She gave up everything for him.
From that point on we lived in the garage. It was a warehouse, basically, and not the fancy, romantic sort of warehouse hipsters might one day turn into lofts. No, no. It was a cold, empty space. Gray concrete floors stained with oil and grease, old junk cars and car parts everywhere. Near the front, next to the roller door that opened onto the street, there was a tiny office built out of drywall for doing paperwork and such. In the back was a kitchenette, just a sink, a portable hot plate, and some cabinets. To bathe, there was only an open wash basin, like a janitor’s sink, with a showerhead rigged up above.
Abel and my mom slept with Andrew in the office on a thin mattress they’d roll out on the floor. I slept in the cars. I got really