(For David Rudisha. Still proudly Kenyan)
“Because we were young, we were stupid,
We were young and we were wrong.”
[(THE SIXTY SIXTH POEM) By Ben Heaven]
-Tony ‘Smitta’ Mochama in What if I am a Literary Gangster?
“Yet
If I did not think these thoughts
I would be a beast
Living an unexamined life…
doing what comes
without battling it out…”
(Poem 190)
-Taban Lo Liyong in Words That Melt a Mountain.
Among other theories of victimization, there is one called lifestyle theory. According to criminologists, it is whereby an individual increases their vulnerability of being victimized. Therefore, the behaviors most cited as likely to result to this form of victimization include going out late at night and living in the cities. On that note, most young men prefer the former-going out late at night. The darker it is, the more tempting it gets. Same to when some of us are in the village. Patrolling the village starting around midnight is what is viewed as the beginning of the real fun. Those who have been bred under the innocence of the village will recall even going at night to pick your girlfriend from their hut must only be conducted in the depths of the black night. This noble errand that always involves ‘deflowering’ your girl is always accomplished with a ‘rungu’, courage and unwavering defiance of the perils of the night. These include motivated night runners, marauding leopards and hyenas depending on the village where your girl comes from and the distance of the place.
Okay, what I am trying to get at is that youth are pushing themselves further to the precarious cliff of having the ‘real fun.’ Our generation is ready to lose everything for the fun. We are not different from crack addicts who will do almost anything to get a fix even if it means sharing unhygienic needles. May be we are a Lost Generation as Gertrude Stein told Ernest Hemingway. We are being ravaged at the peak of our youth with the ‘war’ of substance abuse and unbridled violence. That is not enough. We are taking grave risks to live the moment. I will stop moralizing the story but remember to Google the Lost Generation. An interesting breed of weird artists.
Back to where we left:
I must plead guilty here that the two waiters roughed me up really bad. The one who had pushed me dragged me outside with methodical hooks as his colleague complimented with slaps from his right muscular hand. Before, my accomplice Mesh had offered to pay the broken bottles but the crazy waiters were taking none of it. It is worse to belittle the ego of a man and that is what I had done. I recalled later. I had bruised the pride of these men by questioning their authenticity of being polices officers suddenly from waiters who had been serving at the counter.
“Yeah, I said it. I only know you are waiters and I don’t give a f**k,” I growled amid my stupor while lying face up on the ground. Mesh had also been wrestled to the ground by the waiters-turned-police officers.
“Umesema aje?” the other waiter taunted me.
“Nyi ni waiter!” and more blinding kicks and blows continued successively from the duo and from the teeming crowd, some had begun asking the familiar questions under such circumstances: “Kwani nini ime-happen?” And under such situations of disorder, people will just continue staring at the unfolding event and ignore you. The wise ones did not even bother to come and waste their time but continued imbibing their ‘Hakuna Matata’ and ‘Greatness’ in contented buzz.
I suddenly managed to regain from the assault and rose up to defend myself. And at the speed it takes Usain Bolt to complete 100m, I had grabbed the beer bottle of the ‘Magician’ and aimed it at the temple of the waiter who had pushed me before. By the luck of God, it only grazed the corner of his right eye and before he could marshal his violent retaliation; there emerged an armed GSU officer like some magic of ‘Kiini Macho’ guy back in KBC. All I recall is that I was back to the ground and he whacked me hard that only being mute could confirm my cooperation. He grabbed me by my brown sweater and I heard him say: “You are assaulting a police officer, huh?” “Not that way, officer. I can explain.”
“No explanation young man. Give me your ID.” I handed it him.
“You think we have never been students, huh, tell me…” he said as he dragged me toward a well lit sentry at the corner of the gate. Then I generated another last scuffle that completely enraged the uniformed officer. As we approached the sentry, a night watchman in his night gear of a white heavy jacket with a woolen dark Marvin cap attempted to come near me and a blow received him hard that he withdrew. When he regained, I was again on the ground and this time they almost killed me. I was afraid the GSU officer would train his gun at me and silence me forever.
“Let me explain things out,” I pleaded again. This time the watchman I had previously boxed stared at me like a captured chimpanzee and I thought he was wondering of the young people these days, especially students.
Then the officer blurted out those statements of theirs that I constantly hear in Nigerian movies:
“Your are now under arrest and anything you say will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I will abide by that,” I replied. He then entered inside the sentry desperately searching for something then came back again. It is critical to note here that my boy Mesh had returned to beg for these guys to forgive us. Things were turning ugly anyway. I was increasingly becoming violent under my stupor and the patience of these people was also waning. They compelled Mesh to sit on the ground. For the first time, a sense of consciousness shot through me the way a mild shock courses in the body since the commotion begun. I finally realized I was dragging my friends into a steaming soup that would have devastating repercussions.
To reduce boring you to this length, the GSU officer threatened to book us at the Central Police Station before appearing in court the day after tomorrow in court to face the following charges:
- Assaulting a police officer on duty
- Being at the KBC Mess illegally, and
- Being disorderly under drunkenness
Noticing that we were not going to buy their threats, ‘Moses’ threatened us with a cash bail of 50,000 shillings at the court on Monday which I told him was worth it if I could be allowed to explain myself there. Additionally, I also intimidated them that another of my colleagues had filmed the whole brutal assault orchestrated by the waiter-officers and would use it in the same court of law on Monday to prove my innocence. The guys panicked and’ lowered’ the cash bail miraculously to 10,000 shillings. By experience, there are Kenyan behaviors that will tell you what is expected. And by principle I rarely part with it unless they are ready to leave a corpse of me.
I was instructed to go and see the ‘officer’ I had ‘assaulted’ and to my credit he had a good swelling to remember me for. In a broken voice of a defeated man- a pale shadow from the brute he had been while ago, he honestly implored even if I could give him 200 shillings to go and nurse his injury then they would ‘kill’ the case and things would be well. Okay, take a pause and consider this: From 50,000 to 10,000 to now 200 shillings. Logic had already whispered to us things were not adding up. And nobody was going to kiss ass at this moment.
A fellow tribesman whom I had I met at the Mess who had noticed I was not going to tag along, reached his left shirt pocket and fished a crumpled 100 note bob and handed it to the ‘officer’. Then the ‘case’ died. I opened the gate finally and walked to ‘freedom’ in a spring of confidence and defiance. Only that I could I have died during the melee. If it was some club PSYS.
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