Unexpected detours on the winding trail of dreams

All Dennis wanted was to follow his dreams. But they wouldn’t let him follow his dreams.
He was an employees of Star Security and they simply wouldn’t let him go. And the problem was that he was too good at his job.
The South African security guards at the guard hut of the Via Arrezzio townhouse complex tended to fall asleep after 1am, waking only when impatient residents hooted at the gate. They were also lazy – they seldom left the hut when they were on shift, whereas Dennis was always willing to help old Mrs Friedman with her rubbish bags, or to rake the leaves in the parking lot.
They seemed to take their jobs for granted, where Dennis worked that security guard’s job like it was all that stood between him and oblivion, which is exactly what it was.
Perhaps they knew he didn’t have papers. Maybe the foreman had told them, but whenever it became time to roll the rubbish bins out onto the street for Wednesday morning’s garbage trucks, the other guard would become absorbed in his newspaper and leave Dennis to do it all himself.
And Dennis would bite his tongue and roll out the bins, all 20 of them. Because as long as he rolled out the bins and raked the leaves and stayed awake at his post, he would have a job. And as long as he was earning, he would be able to make the deposits into his mother’s account and the family would survive another month.
The residents of Via Arrezzio saw that the difference in workplace performance between Dennis and the other guards was chalk and cheese. So, pretty soon, the body corporate made him a proposal: why didn’t he resign from Star Security and come and work for the complex as their private security guard?
He and Miriam would get a living quarters behind the swimming pool area, he’d get paid extra for all his maintenance work and, best of all, the money the body corporate paid him would all go into his pocket and not to Star Security.
There was another thing. Dennis and Miriam would be getting married in December. And that would mean going home.
So, in late October, Dennis tendered his resignation in a handwritten note to Mr Reynecke of Star Security. Then they packed their belongings, locked their room in Alexandra and headed north.
Of course, the departure was not the problem. The question was whether they’d be able to come back.
Husband and wife returned to the Beitbridge border post on December 24. After four failed attempts to enter the country by road, they eventually managed to do so by foot.
They abandoned their bags in town and then paid R200 for a guide. They then hiked a few kilometres east down the Limpopo riverbank. Near an overhanging tree, they boarded a boat, in which they were ferried across. The guide then accompanied them to a hole in the fence and gave them directions to Nyundo.
The four-hour hike through the bush to Nyundo was awkward. Dennis and Miriam were city people, with no bush knowledge, and dressed more for a day at the shops than a trek through the dusty thornveld.
They arrived at the Nyundo taxi rank drenched in sweat, their clothes torn in places and famished beyond belief. A bowl of porridge was all they could afford before they handed over the last of their precious savings as taxi fare back to their old life – and the beginnings of Dennis’s new one.
But upon their return to Jo’burg, Dennis learnt that his dream was a while further off than he’d thought.
It had come to light that Via Arrezzio’s original contract with Star Security included an undertaking that they would not poach any of their employees. So if they hired Dennis after inducing him to leave Star, they could be sued.
So Mr Friedman of the body corporate informed Dennis, with regret, that there was no longer a security job for him at Via Arrezzio. They would be sticking with Star for now.
But Mr Reynecke of Star had told him that he would be able to employ him as a gardener without breaking their contract. He’d noticed that Dennis enjoyed raking the leaves and that…
The job didn’t pay much, Friedman conceded, and there’d be no living quarters by the pool, but it was better than being unemployed.
And so Dennis kicked off married life as a gardener.
Elusive things, dreams. Dennis had followed his for 1 000km. Twice. And still they eluded him.