Happy Sindane has sneaked out of Sizanani Village, where he is living in Bronkhorstspruit, Johannesburg, to go drinking.
Asked about the scratches on his face and neck, Happy, whose real name is Abbey Mzayiya, confided that he had been involved in a brawl at a shebeen.
"I'd had a few beers before walking home that night," he said. "When I am stressed, I drink to run away from my problems.
"When I am alone I can't stop thinking about the problems I had to go through because I was abandoned."
Happy recently had a brush with the law when he was arrested for drinking in public.
The 19-year-old caused an international stir and was thrust into the limelight after he walked into the Bronkhorstspruit police station in May last year and claimed that, as a young boy, he had been abducted from his white family in Johannesburg by a black domestic worker.
Happy said that he had lived with a black family, the Sindanes, for 12 years.
He made an impassioned plea for his parents to step forward and claim him.
The questions about his background were answered in September when, after an investigation by the court, Bronkhorstspruit magistrate Marthinus Kruger found that Happy was not white and that his mother was Rina Mzayiya, the woman he had claimed was the domestic worker who had abducted him and left him in another woman's care.
Happy has launched a car wash service outside Sizanani Village and hopes to build it into a business.
His sign catches the eye: "Happy Sindane's car wash - R15 per car" is scribbled on a piece of cardboard.
On a good day Happy gets more than 10 customers.
"Money is hard to come by, so I decided to start a car wash to make extra cash.
"It gets very busy in the afternoons - especially weekends - but turns out be slower during the week.
"I am saving money so that I can buy all the equipment required for a car wash."
Happy met several of his relatives, including his half-brother, Nkosinathi Mzayiya, and his mother's cousin when he spent Christmas with them last year.
But he has one remaining wish - to find his mother's grave.
"All I want is to see my mother's grave, then I can move on with my life," he said.