I Ran Chaos Between Rival Taxi Operators — Losing My Kids Forced Me to Leave the Streets

The day everything collapsed, I was crouched behind a closed spaza near Germiston Station, phone on silent, heart beating like a trapped bird. Smoke hung over the tracks. People were shouting names that weren’t mine, but felt like they were. I kept thinking I had calculated it right. Stay off the rank. Let tempers cool. Let the boys handle it.

Then my phone vibrated once. Not a call. A message from an unknown number. “Your family.”

I ran without knowing where. Past taxis idling like animals waiting to be fed. Past faces that knew me yesterday and would deny me tomorrow.

At the hospital, the lights were too white. A nurse said my name like she was checking a list. A police officer asked if I worked “around taxis.”

I nodded. I always nodded. That’s how you survive.

But nothing prepared me for the silence that followed. The kind that fills your ears and doesn’t leave.

Read also

An Illness Left Me Paralysed and My Town Shunned Me — I Turned My Diagnosis Into Public Advocacy

My children were gone.

Not because they chose this life. Because I did.

And in that moment, I understood the streets don’t miss. They only collect.

I grew up in Katlehong, bouncing between my mother’s RDP house and friends’ couches when things got tight. My mother worked night shifts as a cleaner in Alberton, coming home with swollen feet and silence where dreams used to be. My father disappeared early, leaving behind a surname and nothing else. In our street, men didn’t talk about futures. They talked about survival.

Every morning, taxis ruled the rhythm of the place. Engines coughing awake before the sun. Marshals shouting destinations like promises. I watched them from the pavement, noticing how they moved through crowds without asking. Leather jackets even in summer. Cash folded thick, never counted in public. Teachers queued for bread. Taxi men skipped lines.

At school, nobody explained why learning mattered when rent was due. I rewrote matric once, failed again, and stopped pretending I was still going somewhere. Friends drifted into jobs that paid slowly or crimes that paid fast. I chose what looked like work.

Read also

A Stranger Told Me to Stop Waiting For Life to Happen — So I Resigned and Changed My Life

The Katlehong rank became my classroom. At first, I just watched. Then I ran errands. Fetch cigarettes. Carry messages. Hold a place in a queue that didn’t officially exist. Men like Sbu noticed who listened and who talked too much. I listened.

They called it “keeping order.” Making sure drivers respected turns. Breaking up arguments before they became embarrassing. I told myself it was civic duty. Everybody eats from taxis in this country. Who was I to question the system feeding thousands?

Money came in pieces at first. R50 here. R100 there. Enough to buy groceries without borrowing. Enough to feel like a man in my own house. When I met Thandi, she liked that I was “hustling,” that I didn’t sit around. I didn’t tell her what hustling really meant. I didn’t know yet either.

Soon, I wasn’t just watching disputes. I was part of them. Standing close when voices rose. Blocking doors when drivers got brave. Learning which words calm and which ones scare. I learned that fear travels faster than respect, and costs less to maintain.

Read also

My Husband Left Me for a Colleague Who Was "Better Than Me" — I Let Him Go and Stopped Comparing

By the time our first child was born, people knew my face. Not my name. Faces matter more. Faces send messages without saying anything. When money came, it came in thick rolls that never saw a bank. Banks ask questions. Questions get you killed.

I told myself I wasn’t hurting anyone. That routes belonged to history, not to men. That disputes were business, not personal. I believed the lie that violence is neutral if you don’t swing the first punch.

Thandi worried. She noticed the late nights, the new phone numbers, the way I slept light, like someone waiting to be called. She asked what would happen if police started looking at faces instead of cars. I laughed it off. In the taxi world, protection is assumed, not promised.

By the time our second child arrived, I was deep. Too deep to pretend I was just helping out. I knew meeting points before dawn. I knew who to call when a driver refused instructions. I knew which ranks were friendly and which ones required muscle.

Read also

I Accidentally Exposed My Friend's Secret Child to His Fiancée and Got Blamed For Ending His Union

Still, I told myself I was in control. That I could leave anytime. That this wasn’t crime; it was order. That respect was the same thing as safety.

I didn’t understand then that order built on fear eventually turns inward. That the streets don’t recognize family. That when you borrow power, you also borrow its enemies.

And I didn’t yet know how expensive the interest would be.

The trouble with the Katlehong–Vosloorus route didn’t start loud. It started with whispers. A driver loading two extra passengers. A marshal pretending not to see it. Small things that grow teeth when money is involved.

One week, Sbu pulled me aside near the toilets at the rank. “Things are shifting,” he said. “We need eyes everywhere.”

Eyes meant presence. Presence meant pressure.

My phone never stopped buzzing after that. Be at the rank at 4 a.m. Follow that Quantum. Don’t let them load.

I stopped planning my days. The phone planned them for me.

The first escalation came on a cold morning when Vosloorus taxis tried to load early, claiming breakdowns on their side. We formed a human wall without touching anyone. Just stood there. Faces hard. Arms folded. Drivers argued. Passengers complained. Eventually, the taxis left empty.

Read also

I Returned a Stranger's Lost Phone and Built an Unexpected Friendship With a Grieving Student

I told myself that was success.

The second beat came with retaliation. One of our drivers got cornered near Palm Ridge, windows smashed, passengers scattered. Nobody was hurt badly, but the message landed. Fear travels faster than apologies.

At a meeting that night, voices were sharper. “We can’t look weak,” someone said. “We need to respond,” another added.

Nobody said how. They looked at me instead.

I started carrying more cash. If you’re stopped, you don’t explain. You pay. If you’re followed, you don’t run. You disappear into crowds. I stopped sleeping at home some nights, telling Thandi it was for work. She stopped believing me.

“You’re being watched,” she said one evening, holding our youngest. “This thing is bigger than you.”

I snapped back that fear feeds rumours. That men who hesitate starve. I could hear myself sounding like the people who trained me.

The third escalation was ugly, even without blood. We blocked a Vosloorus taxi near the rank, surrounded it, forced passengers out. Someone shouted. Someone filmed. I knocked the phone away, more instinct than plan.

Read also

A Flood Destroyed My House and Neighbourhood — The Community Helped Me Rebuild My Life

For the first time, I saw real fear in passengers’ eyes. Not business fear. Survival fear.

That night, I couldn’t wash the smell of diesel off my hands.

Police started appearing more often. Not arresting. Watching. Writing. The kind of attention that makes you feel naked. Sbu said it was normal. That operations always attracted heat before things settled.

But things didn’t settle.

Rumours spread that names were being shared. That faces were being memorised. I changed routes home. I stopped wearing the jacket everyone knew. Still, people greeted me like everything was fine.

That’s the lie of the rank. Smiles mean nothing. Loyalty is rented by the hour.

The final beat before everything broke came with a message sent too late. Lie low today. Retaliation expected.

I was already out, hiding near Germiston Station, watching taxis from a distance, feeling clever for once. I thought I had outsmarted the chaos I helped create.

Read also

My Ex-Husband Used Financial Help To Control Me — I Said No, Took Extra Work, and Became Independent

I didn’t know that chaos doesn’t always follow the target. Sometimes it follows the address.

By the time my phone buzzed again, the rules had changed. The streets had stopped negotiating.

And the war I thought I was managing had found my family instead.

I thought being absent would protect the people I loved. That if I stayed off the rank, stayed unseen, danger would circle me and move on. That’s what we always told ourselves—that violence had direction, that it respected boundaries.

It doesn’t.

While I was hiding near Germiston Station, watching trains pass like they still believed in schedules, a confrontation broke out closer to home. Not planned. Not authorised. Just anger looking for a body.

A Vosloorus taxi was stopped near our area, mistaken for someone else’s instruction. Words turned sharp. Stones flew. Guns came out the way they always do—too fast, too final. People ran. Cars reversed blindly. Chaos found whatever it could reach.

My children were walking with my cousin to the shops. Bread. Milk. Ordinary things.

Read also

I Let Down a Friend When She Needed a Referral — She Impersonated Me and Tried to Steal My Life

They didn’t survive the confusion.

At the hospital, nobody shouted at me. That hurt more than blame would have. Nurses spoke softly, like volume could change facts. A police officer asked questions he already knew answers to.

“Do you work around taxis?” “Do you know about the route dispute?”

I nodded until my neck felt loose.

When I tried calling people, my calls went unanswered. The same men who called me mfethu, who trusted me with instructions and envelopes, suddenly had poor network. Messages stayed unread. Silence became policy.

At the station, I realised something worse than betrayal. I was known—but not protected. My name sat on statements, not lists of people to be defended. I wasn’t leadership. I was labour.

Disposable.

I saw how the system really worked then. The men at the top never carry phones that buzz at 4 a.m. They never block taxis themselves. They never attend funerals unless cameras are present. They rent bodies like mine and return them damaged when the job is done.

Read also

My Dad Supported Relatives Instead of Saving — They Abandoned and Mocked Him When He Retired Broke

I had believed power lived on the rank. I was wrong. Power lives at a distance.

In the days that followed, no one threatened me. No one needed to. I had already lost what mattered. Fear no longer motivated me. It just sat there, useless.

When police asked again if I was willing to talk, I didn’t ask what I’d get in return. There was nothing left to bargain with.

I gave names. Routes. Instructions. Times. Not out of revenge, but out of exhaustion. I was tired of carrying secrets heavier than coffins.

People think becoming a state witness is dramatic. It isn’t. It’s paperwork and waiting and knowing you won’t be welcome anywhere you once belonged. There’s no applause. No forgiveness tour.

Just the truth, finally spoken.

That’s when it hit me fully: in this world, you are always a wanted man. Wanted by rivals. Wanted by police. Wanted by the very people who send you out first.

And when you are no longer useful, you are simply wanted gone.

Read also

My Boyfriend Used Me And Other Women As His Financial Plan — So I Kicked Him Out and Blocked Him

Turning state witness didn’t clean anything. It didn’t bring relief or peace or sleep. It just closed one door and locked it from the outside.

There was no press conference. No newspaper headline with my face blurred. The case moved quietly, like most things do when powerful interests are involved. Statements were taken. Files were opened. Some men panicked. Others adjusted. The taxi industry doesn’t collapse because one enforcer talks. It sheds skin and keeps moving.

I served time. Not the kind people imagine from movies. No dramatic confrontations. Just days stacked on days, learning how loud silence can be. Inside, nobody cared what I used to be. Rank politics mean nothing behind bars. You’re just another man counting meals.

I replayed everything there. Every instruction I followed. Every moment I told myself it was “just business.” Grief doesn’t arrive all at once. It leaks. Some days I couldn’t remember my children’s voices. Other days, that’s all I heard.

When I got out, Gauteng felt too small. Every rank looked like a memory. Every Quantum sounded like a warning. I took the relocation offered and didn’t ask where I was going. Distance was the point.

Read also

I Was 40, Broke, and Betrayed by My Business Partner — Then A Kind Stranger Got Me Hired

I found work washing taxis in a small town far from Katlehong. Same vehicles. Same dust. Different side of the power line. Drivers barely looked at me. I liked that. Anonymity is a kind of mercy.

At first, the work felt like punishment. Kneeling beside wheels I once fought over. Scrubbing seats where money changed hands. But slowly, it became grounding. Honest labour has a rhythm violence never gives you.

I send money to my wife. We don’t talk much. There are wounds words can’t reach. I accept that. Consequences aren’t always loud. Sometimes they’re just permanent.

Occasionally, I visit ranks—not as an authority, not as a fixer. Just as a man who has been on the wrong end of every promise the streets make. Young guys still hover at the edges, watching marshals like I once did.

I don’t preach. They don’t listen to sermons. I just tell them what things cost.

I tell them power in the taxi industry is rented, not owned. That respect built on fear expires quickly. That when trouble comes, it doesn’t check if you’re home or hiding. It goes where you’re weakest.

Read also

I Saw a Drunk Man Start the Engine — Then I Did the Riskiest Thing

Some laugh. Some nod. A few go quiet.

I don’t expect gratitude. I’m not owed redemption. All I can do is interrupt the lie before it settles in another boy’s chest.

At night, I still wake up early, body trained to respond to phones that no longer ring. I make coffee. I wash taxis. I stay visible in small, safe ways.

I live with loss. That’s my sentence. But I refuse to let that loss recruit anyone else.

The streets gave me money fast. Then they took everything slowly.

And that is the balance sheet nobody shows you at the rank.

I used to believe the streets rewarded courage. That if you stood firm, showed no fear, and followed instructions, you earned protection. That’s the biggest lie I ever lived under.

The lesson is simple, even if it’s hard to accept: any power that depends on fear will eventually demand a sacrifice you didn’t agree to give. Not money. Not time. Something irreplaceable. The streets don’t warn you when the bill is due. They just collect.

Read also

Strangers Judged Me for Dating a Deaf Woman — We Created a Beautiful Family With Allies and Support

I learned too late that survival isn’t about being feared—it’s about being able to go home safely and stay there. About choosing work that doesn’t follow your children into the street. About understanding that fast money is usually borrowed time.

I can’t undo what I caused. I carry that every day. But I speak now because silence is how this cycle keeps finding new recruits.

If you’re standing at a rank right now, watching men who seem powerful, ask yourself one question before you step closer:

When the chaos you help create comes back for you, will it stop at your name—or will it keep going until it reaches everyone you love?

This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone’s privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you’d like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

Source: Briefly News