Idiots and War

                 I hate war that I have not been prepared for. Not that I am a war monger or love the drums and beats of war like Okwonko-the protagonist in Chinua Achebe’s magnum opus “Things Fall Apart.” But self defense is sacred in the event of senseless attack. Malcolm X approved it for blacks back then in the agitation for civil rights and at least the oppressive whites got the message. War is kind. War has a brutal fragrance if well fought. Stephen Crane wrote extensive fiction about it. Take a peek of an excerpt of his poem “War is Kind.”

                       Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
                       On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
                       Do not weep.
                       War is kind.

               I do not hope to glorify war here in the context of being the only solution to problems. There are other civilized ways of the 21^st century worth taking instead of pulping and twisting the necks of one another. It is absolutely absurd and heartless especially when the cause is pointless as brawling with a brother in a club because he has danced with your girlfriend. And that is what I witnessed.

               We got at the night club at around 12.00 a.m. After work, dance. It is Friday and Pint Makuti, a popular night club in Kahawa Estate is teeming with mostly students. Schools are open. It is a new semester. Wads of Helb loan cash are still visible in most wallets and the club is cashing on the windfall. At the entrance they insist we produce our IDs. We are four. All my friends have theirs except me. A drunken scumbag is the one stressing emphasis on the IDs and he is an imitation of the top management. Maybe a brother of the owner of the bustling entity. I discuss with the high sot but he does not bulge. We leave infuriated to go to Comfy Inn. But Comfy Inn is ‘No County for Young Men.’ Full of men approaching the septugerian phase and they like listening to tribal songs as they indulge in their Tuskers while discussing ‘kale ka ploti kiko Ngong.’

               After a little deliberation we return to Pint Makuti. We are going to convince the guys to let us in with the three IDs. When we arrive, the scumbag is gone. We are in pronto. That is where the war I introduced in the first paragraph comes in. The club is brimming to the rooftops. We head to the counter to buy our drinks. At the dance floor we see pushing and cursing. It is normal. But the shirt pulling and hard pushing is assuming a violent dimension. Before I can give the man at the counter our money for drinks, it is now full scale violence. Some guys are beating a man. A young man that is. It is four against one. The bullies are four fat scoundrels that have the darkest of hearts I am yet to see in my anti-fresh liver campaigns. The young man is pleading for forgiveness but the maggots won’t listen. The young man is spewing a thousand apologies but the crooks have waxed their ears. The young man is showing remorse for whatever offense he had committed against these burly drunks but the words are being drowned by the shouts and taunts of his tormentors. I am getting extremely anxious. I am expecting the bouncers immediately. Nothing. The assault is getting crude. They have floored the young man to the ground. Other revelers can no longer dance because these mongrels are displaying the best of their idiotic brutality. Almost expecting the bouncers to intervene now that they have wrestled their victim to the ground but nothing. It is like waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett’s play.

               An equally tall guy like the tormentors attempts to rescue the young man but he is also attacked and told to keep off. My Napoleon height does not allow me to extricate this man from the thugs almost breaking his skull. We have to do something. I inform my friends. Urgently. I turn to the crowded place at the counter and shout at the guy in charge of drinks. I report to him that a group of guys are mercilessly beating a young man. I calibrate my voice with both alarm and urgency. I want to make it as dire as possible. He serves revelers and listens. He is struck and asks me where. I point. He is agitated and may leave the counter and go report to the manager. I turn back and still see the violence. All my clubbing years I have never seen brutality between patrons that lasted for more than twenty minutes without the prompt intervention of the management through the bouncers. Maybe bouncers beating a reveler that long is possible and that’s how they end up killing us but not this one.

               Finally assistance arrives in the form of one of the club’s bouncers and the young man is rescued from the near possibility of permanent head damage. They are both thrown out of the club as per the procedure. We buy our drinks and try to locate a suitable place to sit while scorching our young livers. In their wake are shards of broken Smirnoff Vodka and Guinness bottles. There are also debris of cracked drinking glasses. The floor is wet with spilled drinks. It is real messy and I wonder whether I will glide here when the devils of Kenya Cane start playing hard rock in my head.

               The club is still charged. It smells of war. Freshers are having a good time from what I see around. Experimentation with drugs is at the zenith. Young girls are coughing repeatedly as they blow their first smokes to the empty air. It feels good exhaling the smoke. I watch the girls lustfully. I am waiting to launch the war of convincing one for a dance. Isn’t war kind? Let me leave you with another enlightening excerpt from War is Kind from the author of the Red Badge of Courage who passed on at the tender age of 29. Stephen Crane observes:

       “Hoarse, booming drums of the
           regiment,
       Little souls who thirst for fight,
       These men were born to drill and die.
       The unexplained glory files above
          them…”