He did not look away from it

The patient man appeared at the Goodwood stoep without being called and he did not say a single word. He walked between me and Wikus, opened the door of the Hilux, took the key out of the ignition, and gave it back to Wikus, and Wikus left. Just like that. I had a boomslang on my shoulder and my hands were doing the thing they do and he looked at me the way you look at something that is not going anywhere. The cousin was filming. I know Pieter Viviers's name is on something I have not seen and I know his cousin knows who I am and I said yes to Goodwood because I wanted to be in a room where I had to perform being okay. That is a confession I do not know what to do with.

I lay in bed and I could not stop thinking about the key. The way he took it out of the ignition without asking, without explaining, without any of the theatre Wikus would have needed. He just knew the thing to do and he did it and then he was gone. I have never seen someone resolve a situation like that. Like he was the authority in his own body in a way that did not need witnesses. I do not know what to do with that. I have been collecting things that bite and sting for three years because it is the only place I know how to be certain and now a man takes a car key out of someone else's ignition and it stays with me more than the boomslang did.