You never know when you’ve reached the summit

Peanut had earned his nickname the day he stripped for his first communal shower in boarding school.
But those days were behind him. Tonight he was David Hastings Bouwer. That was his given name, which had been entered in the charge book upon his admission to the Brixton police station holding cells.
Like a fool he’d had his wallet in his jeans and his pseudonym of David Gilmore had been found out for what it was.
That’s the thing with streaking. You have to leave your clothes somewhere before embarking on the actual streak. So any authority figure – like the Campus Square Mall security guard – has to simply wait by your clothes in order to apprehend you.
And unfortunately Peanut’s security guard had gone the whole hog and called the bladdy police on him. For streaking! At 1am through a deserted shopping mall! For fuck’s sake.
Such injustice.
So now, here he was. Topless in his jeans in the Brixton holding cells, holding forth.
“Do you know who my father is? Do you have any idea who my father is? Have you heard of Willie Bouwer? He’s the dean of the University of Johannesburg. He knows everybody in the cops. Hey you! Mr policeman. What’s your name? Lemme see your badge. You! Radebe! My dad knows your boss! My dad will have you fired for this. He’s the dean of the varsity. Hey you! Come back here!”
At the time of this outburst, Peanut was 20 years old and poised – topless – at the cusp of his life.
Psychologists have confirmed that the speed at which humans perceive time passing accelerates as we age. These scientists have even been able to identify the exact rate of this acceleration. They have determined that if a person lives to be 80, according to their perception of time, 20 will be the midpoint of their life.
So, at exactly 20 years, four months and three days of age, David Hastings Bouwer, aka Peanut, aka David Gilmore, stands astride the peak of the mountain that comprises his experience on earth.
Without even knowing it, he has summited. Like a runner running a marathon without distance markers, he has passed the 21km mark without noticing.
Peanut’s interminable three years at Happy Campers play school, his endless twelve years at Melville Primary and Roosevelt Park High and this last couple of.. gee, it’s already been a year at varsity. Those years have taken him to the halfway mark of his life. If not beyond.
But of course, Peanut is comfortably oblivious to this.
Still warm from the beer, fearless from the cosy family upbringing and uninhibited from the privilege of being surrounded by friends, he shouts the odds and threatens the charge-office cops with his father’s social connections.
But his father will not get him out of this one. There are limits to even his well-connectedness. So Peanut’s wild, angry night will become a cold uncomfortable weekend. He will notice he is no longer surrounded by friends.
He will appear broken, hungry and pale in court on Monday morning, where he will sit in magistrates court alongside the poor, the unlucky, the devious and the lazy and wait for his case to be remanded.
Friday night will be his last streaking episode. Peanut will meet Megan, his first serious girlfriend, at the post-exam student night at the Roxy. They will be living together in a digs in 7th Avenue by the beginning of next year.
She will be pregnant in a year’s time.
Their daughter will be named Mackenzie.
They will not marry, but Peanut will start calling himself David and take a job as an insurance broker to support his family. Peanut and Megan will part ways in early 2008. He will marry for the first time at the age of 32 and have another two children. A lawyer and a musician.
Megan will stay with her mom and she will later work in sales at a TV station.
David will take up marathon running at the age of 46. To get away from the wife and kids.
He will finish 11 Comrades, eight Two Oceans, three Sunrise Monsters and one Om Die Dam before suffering a heart attack on the road outside Hartbeespoort aged 60.
He will collapse just inside the yellow line, clutching his chest and he will stare up at the blue highveld sky and think to himself, “Time goes by so fast.”