Page 16 - IFV Issue 8_2023

Humour

HENRY

BY JAMES CLARKE

t had been some time since I’d he’d been hit by a Jag for at least a year. His I asked him how he stood the pain.
heard of Henry. But the other best hit this year was when he ended up He explained he had almost perfected
Iday I saw that he was back in the against the windscreen of a Ferrari. being hit on his left side because he had
headlines. The headline was over a an artificial left leg (a taxi on the Pretoria
story about road accidents. It read: He dismissed his new injury with contempt Road in 1981); an artificial left arm (Volvo
MAN KNOCKED DOWN EVERY 34 and was more interested in telling me how in 1999); a silver plate in his skull (Combi
MINUTES. the hospital’s boiled fish had improved taxi on Jan Smuts Avenue 2001). “Most of
That had to be Henry. He was back in town. over the years. They fixed him up – he the time I just need a panel beater.”
was on first name terms with everybody –
I had in fact written him off, assuming and off he limped, anxious to keep up his Apart from his artificial eye, he had false
some vehicle had at last managed to nail average. teeth and a wig – the wig being necessary
him – a tarmac ripper for instance or a 20- after he was scalped by an emergency
ton road roller. He was back in 17 minutes having been helicopter that had been sent to rescue
But no, he’s still around and still being hit by a municipal bus. After treatment, he him following an incident involving a
knocked down. walked out of the hospital only to be hit by cement lorry in Midrand.
an ambulance right outside the door.
Being a good newspaperman, I leapt Thus, throughout the day, we were able I asked him if he was married.
aboard my bicycle and pedalled furiously to keep up a long though interrupted “Used to be,” he said. “But our marriage was
to the General Hospital where I knew he conversation. doomed to failure. On the few occasions I
would eventually have to appear. slept at home instead of in hospital I used
Henry’s ambition is to get into the to put my leg and arm in a drawer. I’d put
I had settled down to read The Examination Guinness Book of Records as the most my eye and teeth in there too after putting
into the Effectiveness of the Constructive knocked-down man in the world but he them into a receptacle.
Programme of Abating, Controlling and has a long way to go because in Ghana a
Preventing Water Pollution and had just man is knocked down every 15 minutes. Then I’d chuck my wig in. My wife never
got to the exciting bit when they wheeled knew whether to get into bed or climb
him in – Henry Bender, now aged 57. He spoke highly of South Africa’s in the drawer. One day I came home
paramedics. He knew them all. and found a note saying she had run off
He told me with some satisfaction how “Not that I go for treatment each time I’m with my best friend, Fred, an ambulance
he had just been hit by the latest Jaguar knocked down,” he said. “If I did I would driver.”
while running across Main Road to retrieve spend too much time in hospital and not
his glass eye that had popped out when enough time on the road, so to speak. “You could have knocked me down with a
he sneezed. It was, he said, the first time Sometimes I set the bones myself.” feather!” he exclaimed.

14 • Issue 8 2023 • The Villager