On this particular Monday, Pritchard Street moved at a crawl. Mashudu Radamba knew the road well�it was his usual route, running four streets parallel to Lillian Ngoyi and eventually linking up with Claim Street. He chose it precisely for this reason: to avoid the pandemonium of Lillian Ngoyi Street. Like Claim, Pritchard had curiously escaped the sweeping wave of post-apartheid renaming, as if history had decided to leave these two arteries untouched.
His eyes flicked repeatedly to the wristwatch fastened to his left arm, which rested on the steering wheel with the comfort of habit. He was late. The kind of late that made your heart race and your patience thin. Something was happening up ahead�of that he was sure. Probably one of those inevitable standoffs: two drivers unfamiliar with the Darwinian laws of Johannesburg traffic locked in a game of stubborn brinkmanship.
It happened often.
His suspicion was soon confirmed by a shouting match between two minibus taxi drivers. One had his head stuck out the window, yelling across the congestion to his colleague, whose own head mirrored his, like dueling figureheads on battered ships, �Yah! There�s a smash up ahead!� one shouted, gesturing wildly.
Only two streets remained between him and Claim Street, but the distance might as well have been measured in centuries. The gridlock had settled like concrete.
Then, as if on cue, the taxis began to shift. No signal, no warning�just sudden, assertive movement. They swerved into the narrow shoulder, angled toward side alleys, sniffing out an alternate escape. Mashudu followed. He knew better than to hesitate. Taxi drivers operated on a different plane�one where road rules were mere suggestions, easily discarded and rarely punished. They moved with impunity, and the city let them.
So Mashudu jerked his Mercedes-Benz C180 in behind one of them, closing the gap tight enough to discourage anyone else with similar instincts. In this city, hesitation was a luxury�and one he could no longer afford.
The defiant convoy eventually spilled into Lillian Ngoyi Street�a stretch Mashudu normally loathed, but today, it was a reluctant savior. It was still congested, still chaotic, still pulsing with its usual rhythm of madness�but at least here, there was movement.