Conflicting love and hostility play out against the backdrop of apartheid and street politics of South Africa's violent townships.

Immigrant Acker loves drinking and flouting South Africa's strict immorality laws. He gets involved with Thoko, who makes a living by entrapping white men. Her controller is D-S Harrid of the SAP.
Acker takes Thoko to Mama Poppie’s Sowetan shebeen to escape Harrid's clutches but lands in a riot and is grabbed by gangsters, along with Poppie’s husband. Both men are beaten; deals are offered for their lives. Thoko must decide which side she is on; will she pay the price demanded for Acker’s life? Acker and Poppie play the ruthless gangster, Fats, against the political activist, Mokae. But the People's Council is adamant: someone must die. Will it be Poppie's husband, or the wild honky? Acker finds himself fighting on two fronts — against a tide of black hatred, and internal conflicts erupting from his emotionally raw past.

What keeps these people afloat in the morass of violence and chaos surrounding them? They'll tell you what they need to do to survive ...

‘And can you handle the SAP? They just love catching immies with black girls. I'm telling you — she's a paid informer. She'll land you right in it.’

‘Your chummy has done a good job. We have suspected this kaffirboetie for some time. I can use the girl on a regular basis. She's young and pretty — ideal bait. But don't get her too involved with the physical side of the business ... she'll live longer.’

He waved a ten rand note at her.
‘You know what I want?’
‘Ja, baas.’
‘Right. Over there, in that copse. Come on.’

‘Go home, Acker, while you still can.’
‘Thanks for the advice, mama. I'll watch my back, for both of us. But I'm not just along for the ride.’

‘In Witbank, I remember how you looked at me. You wanted me then, you can have me now.’
‘I have Thoko.’
‘You have not got Thoko. That one told me everything. She asked me to take good care of you. When she come, I give you back.’

He was right: she'd had no idea what she was missing. Why hadn't her husband done this to her; hadn't he known about it? Or was it something that men did to other women, simply coupling with their wives? Had he thought she didn't deserve this happiness? It had taken an uitlander to open her eyes, to give her such pleasure without demanding anything in return ....

‘It's my job. And young or old, they're all the same — a cancer in the State. They must be removed from decent society. What would happen to our land if we allowed the races to mix freely, Miss Kunene? What sort of future would there be for my children, and yours, if we stripped away their identities and cultural mores ... there, my kinders, see, my pikkeniens — the new South Africa. Forget your European background and Christian upbringing ... ignore your African heritage and tribal history. Go forth and multiply, together! I tell you, I must not live to see that day.’

‘Seems like I've got a full-time job here, pet, keeping the honkies out of your pants.’

‘And there are all these native girls everywhere you look, just oozing sex and ready to share it. Right? Well, things aren't always as they seem. You're not in England now, and there are new rules to learn.’

‘You hairybacks are all bloody hypocrites ... spouting all this ... apartness, then sneaking around in the night, trying to get it all together. Talk about double standards — you make me sick!’

‘Why didn't you tell me you were into this? We could have done it earlier. Man, you were an animal.’

‘Well, you've done it ... can't get it back now ... it's been stirred, scraped, bagged up and thrown out with the trash — how does it feel, meisie?’

‘The Casspirs are coming!’
The crowd broke up, shrieking and pushing each other out of the way and scattering down dark back alleys as the murky shapes of three armoured cars appeared out of the gloom and swung abreast to block the top of the street. Banks of high-wattage sodium globes on lighting columns towering above the squat buildings bathed the area in an orange glow, lending an air of unreality to the confrontation. All about Acker the bright colours worn by the running, panicking blacks were reduced to a spectrum of drab reds through mud browns to clay.

‘We all know you will not lead us against the white men.You are too busy organizing the tsotsis, squeezing your own people.’

‘They are all the law we have here. The SAP have no power in Soweto after dark.’

‘This is Soweto, in the middle of a riot. It happens. Forget your car, my friend. You must worry about other things.’

‘You don' deal with Mokae, woman. You want your man alive, you deal with me.’

‘The natives are restless, mama. They want blood ... they won't settle for anything less. So, who's it to be — the shebeen maniac, or his honky friend?’

‘How is this freeing your people? Is it feeding one orphan of BOSS? Is it opening one cell door in John Vorster Square?’

‘You've been through so much, sweetheart. Just hang on, please ... don't fold on me now.’

‘Acker, you're not a killer.’
‘I can be, for you, sweetheart.’
‘Then, for me ... don't be a killer.’

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