ALTHOUGH I've not had the pleasure, I gather Chicken is the sort of person you don't want to meet in a dark alley late at night - or even on a wide boulevard on a sunny day.
A member of the Americans gang, Chicken attended a peace meeting in Manenberg on Thursday and, on behalf of his own bunch and their traditional rivals, the Hard Livings, apologised for the killings and trauma they've caused in recent months.
Chicken told the meeting that both gangs had come together to discuss the violence. "I told my brothers there are laaities affected and this thing cannot continue," he was quoted by the Cape Times as saying. "We all need peace. I grew up in Manenberg and people know me. This is not about me, the Americans or the Hard Livings. It is about the people of Manenberg."
Who, it must be said, are quite gatvol with Chicken and his brothers' behaviour. As one resident pointed out, it was going to take more than a promise to stop shooting before the gangsters earned their respect. "We will not let you off so easily," Melanie Manuel reportedly told Chicken. "Children have suffered and are suffering. People have been injured and children have seen these things happen. This community is traumatised. We feel you must hear the heartache of residents. You must remember this is a memory that will not go away. You must know how you hurt us."
As wary as residents may be of men like Chicken, there is a feeling, here at the Mahogany Ridge, that the gangsters have, through their actions this week, shown the people of Manenberg a little more respect and consideration than the politicians.
Last weekend, after gang-related violence prompted the temporary closure of 16 schools in the area, the Western Cape government announced that it would be diverting R6-million from its education department to the City of Cape Town in a bid to curb the fighting. At the same time - and presumably because it was, if I may, the Rondebosch thing to do - the premier, Helen Zille, and her social development minister, Albert Fritz, made use of the opportunity to issue a lengthy, self-congratulatory statement detailing the Western Cape's interventions in drug and alcohol-related abuse.