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…”

Night of the Arrest

It was coal dark and the world nearby silent. The men and a woman huddled in the room at the center of darkness spoke in hushed tones of warriors whose time have come and the enemy has outwitted them. Suddenly, as they had expected, the wooden door flew open and a contingent of heavily armed coppers invaded the room and the nightmare begun.

First they ordered the inmates to lie down on the cold floor as a burly and dark officer bellowed orders to others. They ransacked places. They used the available stools to peep into cracked ceiling boards, ventilation holes and came down and searched the bathroom; returned to the living room and now begun confiscating materials. From an old, dusty bookshelf-they plucked texts on Islam, Religion, Philosophy, Middle East Politics and a book entitled Fundamentals of Winning the Holy War by a fierce and distrusted Saudi born cleric who had been forced out of his native country and now living in a secret tiny city in Switzerland or Norway. Even loyal followers of his regular blogs did not know; and the Quran among other dog-eared pamphlets and torn periodicals scrawled in Arabic. And for the first time, Abdul Sheikh managed to speak: “Please officers, we are ready to cooperate.”

“Face down and don’t raise your head up again,” an officer said.

It was one of those moments in life one wished it was a bad dream he would wake up from. The more terrible it gets, the more anxious you get thinking your mother or brother would tell you: Time is up, arise now. And that was what was going through the head of the man we introduced above as Abdul Sheikh. The other men had been rendered docile so that even a trained ear could not hear their breathing. Finally, another spoke in a low pitch tone though without raising his silvery black head to the dozen officers barking in the living room.

“I don’t understand it but something is wrong. What is the point of all this?”

“You will understand later.” The burly and dark officer replied.

“And how do we identify you. Nobody has told us who you are and- ”

“Officers. Anti-terrorism police unit.”

Still head buried to the floor, the man continued: “Then where are your police warrants,” to which an officer felt enraged and thumped the speaker with the butt of his gun. “Mongrel, you think we came from a vacuum to come and pick you up, eh?” The man lying down resumed his silence and the violent search continued. Abdul now worried about his pregnant girlfriend, Halima Salim, also commanded to lie facing the floor. They had just met recently through a friend. Less than five months and they had realized Allah wanted them to be together. She had come to love him naturally especially the way he treated her. He was a caring fiancé who did not come home late and was a teetoller since two years when he lost a close friend to neighborhood drugs. This is a girl, who had liked him for his unwavering role as a partner for marriage-come rain, come shine, maybe. They had not gone into such matters such as making vows but there was a hint she could stand by him in hard times. But this one was not a hard time, Abdul cursed. This was an eternal nightmare. Halima would never forgive him on this one.

Meanwhile, after another harrowing twenty minutes, they were ordered to stand up and face the wall. Eight men and a woman stood up with their hands up in the air as other officers continued to overturn cupboards and utensils searching for what all the men knew.

“I got a computer hardware, sir.”

“Put it in bag B. All computer related materials are to be placed in bag B only. The rest in bag A.

“Search everywhere in this room. Even inside walls and inside their mattress.”

The men followed the instructions. Immediately, another team began drilling the walls sending fine dust wafting in the room as others ripped two mattresses into shreds. From the ripped mattresses, they managed to discover four more Russian hand-made grenades of the explosive type and a rocket-propelled launcher. And from a hole inside the wall, more weapons came to the full light of the fluorescent bulb. Three Ceska pistols, two AK-47 rifles, another hard drive covered with a black polythene bag, rounds of ammunition and a dirty clutter of wrapped, now rotten receipts and electricity bills.

“Where is your laptop, Abdul,” the commanding officer asked Abdul. Long pause. Now at gun point, he asked him again to which a short, stout character said: “We don’t have anything like a laptop here except those hard drives containing our personal documents.”

“I want to see your last communication chats with those Pakistani and Somali guys, bastard.”

“We have not been communicating with anybody in those countries. Even the hard drives will reveal to you.”

“Abdul, now show us around.” The officer uttered those words like a person requesting a curator in some anthropology museum or an exhibition room. The man turned around and for the first time other officers who had never seen him physically saw him before the bright glare of the light. He was a tall man with long arms and long youthful face. His hair was sparsely grey with a bushy goatee of the same color and white-blue eyes that darted about not settling for anything. His complexion was loamy under his white silk Muslim garb accentuated with black leather open sandals that exposed his well trimmed toes. His chest was unusually flat under a broad chest that could wrap a girl in a never-to-forget hug with cupped ears that could eavesdrop on even the most coded information in a loud bar with cartoonish crescent-shaped nose. Anyone meeting him for the first time without relying on the local and international media stories could say he was an amiable figure who could not hurt a fly. And this was apparent on his face that maintained a neutral composure despite the pressure that was threatening to explode in the room. As Inspector Graham was wont to say: Abdul Sheikh- son of the elder Sheik; is one interesting fellow who is cool under pressure even when the odds are stacked against him. 

Abdul led them around in his three rooms as the burly and dark officer who is the Inspector Graham remained standing in the middle of the room guarding the seven men and the single woman, gun corked on the ready.  Outside, the night remained dead and unperturbed by the unfolding night raid. There is a mole within us, thought Abdul. How could they have caught us unawares? Who told them we had weapons in all such places and nobody talks to the police except Abu and me? Somebody has been talking loud.

“Sir, another improvised explosive made using fertilizers,” said a junior officer while lifting a bottle with pellets heading to the Inspector. “They must be assembling bombs also inside this den, sir.” “Search everywhere. There are still more dangerous weapons in this room. Abdul, show the guests around until I say stop.” “Meanwhile, the rest, on the floor.”

The Inspector without any cause for alarm dipped his gloved right fingers into a rain-proof jacket and fished a fresh stick and lit it leisurely. He always enjoyed his stick during such moments when duty called and he was the commanding officer. Tonight he was leading a special team of twelve trained in Israel and the US in combating escalating incidences of terrorism. Inspector Graham called it a calling by God to come and serve humanity in this noble capacity. Like for example, tonight, after receiving reliable and some unreliable leads concerning the whereabouts of Abdul Sheikh and his men, they had eventually found themselves here. In the depth of a night when none expected they would appear. And now here they were, giving the raid their best to emasculate the activities of a man wanted by the FBI with $25M bounty on his head. How does one live such a run-away life, always on the move like a nomad, dreading the day or night when they would come and end it all such as the unwinding fate of Abdul Sheikh tonight, wondered the Inspector? In life people could go wayward, not everyone has lucky stars but still there was a limit to it. Maybe rob banks, con people, defraud organizations and the likes but mass murder, no. How did these mongrels manage to live with the burning guilt of killing innocent lives in road side bombings, suicide bombings and hurling of explosives? They blow up planes with thousands of people including themselves to false martyrdom or bomb state functions they are against, killing innocent blood in the name of Religion. The Inspector sucked more into his stick as these loose thoughts spurned in his mind. Though it did not worry him that much. Whatever it was, his duty first was to arrest the suspects and haul them into the cells to await investigations. And he was determined to attain just that tonight.

Abdul requested an officer to let Halima take a rest because she was expectant. The officer burst into gales of uncontrollable laughter as the rest sought to know what was becoming funny under the tense condition. “Look,” the officer fingered at Abdul, “Hear him: ‘Let my girlfriend Halima take a rest. She is expectant.’” “And I want to ask him, what about the pregnant women and children you bomb every day. Do they also request you to have mercy on their families? Have you ever thought of the fathers and husbands who lose their unborn children and wives in your heartless bombing adventures?” The rest also broke into prolonged laughter until the Inspector bellowed “Enough. Back to search.” The men and a woman on the cold floor breathed steadily as more china plates and cups came crushing to the hard concrete and into deformed triangular and square-shaped pieces that flew in all directions. At one point, a white plate dotted with what looked like daffodil and lily flowers got yanked from an upper shelf in the living room landing on the silent head of Abu with a resounding thud that got everyone staring for awhile. Abu, a man known for his razor-sharp tempers that gets triggered by the least provocations, arose with red rage like a provoked lioness that has just delivered its cubs and made to pounce upon one of the officers but was stopped on time with six muscular trained arms that wrestled him fiercely back to the floor and cuffed him with his hands behind him.

            “Lock him in the bathroom. I think it will keep him safe from their flying plates,” said Inspector Grisham. “Nobody wishes your head to get destroyed this early before we get to the police station. The state needs that head, Abu.” The remaining six men lifted their heads in that stealing technique to peep at what had just assailed their friend in a raid that was now almost two hours old and still none knew when it would end. And none hoped it would end well. The black clouds had been seen. Meanwhile, Halima remained forlorn in her corner less than a meter away from the men stretched on the floor, quietly grumbling and shuffling. What Halima wondered all along is why the neighbors had not woken up to witness and raise alarm to the authorities of this raid that resembled a robbery. But they are in police uniforms. They know Abu, they know Abdul and even his father; they seem to have a familiarization but who could they be? She was steeped in a dark world of uncertainty. The temporary moment in Life when things go awry and your senses and rationality cannot counsel you right on what is happening.

An hour later, a dark blue police jeep put on board eight men and a pregnant lady enroute to an undisclosed police station for severe interrogation.

Chronicles of a Dying Generation: Part 3 (Final Part)

(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

Together with my colleague, we agreed to comply with the charges only if ‘Moses’ that is the GSU officer would allow me to tell my side of the story. He refused. I pleaded with him again but he stood his ground. Then we told him to his face we are not afraid to be booked. Let him book us immediately and haul us to the police cells. It reaches a moment in Life when the hard decisions have to be made.

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.

Chronicles of a Dying Generation Part 2

(“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain)

(“In order to write about life, first you must live it!”-Ernest Hemingway).

       Ours has been known as the City in the Sun but I do not agree. It is the Murder City. Green Day perhaps had a dying generation in perspective trampling on hot coals of the City risks. Hear them: This empty laughter/ Has no reason/ Like a bottle/ Of your favorite poison. They do not stop there. It is like they know us exactly. They rock on: We are the last call/ And we're so pathetic. Why do I have to bother you with lyrics of the rock band Green Day? I will tell you in a while. But I will hasten to add these lines to wrap this crap about lyrics and explain myself: We've come so far/ We've been so wasted/ It's written/ All over our faces.

        Nairobi City and by this I mean the CBD is crueler to ‘those who have come so far’ especially if you are pursuing your higher education. Students have had their skulls cracked with blunt objects by semi-illiterate guards. There are those who have been duped into the plush joints of the elite where drinks flow and fun is there like forever. Pot-bellied M.Ps, CEOs of top companies, drug barons and all those lumped on the side of the crème de la crème strip young varsity students in exclusive lodges and perform carnal knowledge with them. This is in exchange of goodies that many of us envy and I will not moralize anything that what the girls are doing is immoral. Live your life. That is the ‘Hippocratic Law’ my father advised me to abide by in this Murder City. But what cannot escape me even under extreme inebriation is the fear that another university girl will be betrayed by these Murder City honchos before Grim Reaper strikes like fierce lightning. The interesting bit of this game is its addiction. The boys are addicted to substance. Ladies are addicted to fragrance of the Good Life.

Until they stop you from breathing is when you realize our generation is on loose sand. Or you lose a close friend. The night guards you meet along Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street, Kaunda Street or even Luthuli Avenue dozing off intermittently, lighting foul smelling Supermarch and casting bored eyes on the dying generation entering and exiting entertainment spots in the CBD can be demons and sadists if activated. They are ruthless if provoked but if you admonish their ‘Nyayo agents’ style of approaching matters, your colleagues will find you at the City Mortuary. I always dread the day the mortuary attendant at City Mortuary will tell those asking of my whereabouts:
“Yes, a young man was brought here dead by armed police officers. And he had multiple head injuries. Is it him you are looking for?” That day may come. It is a precarious life we are living and the tightrope we are walking on keeps getting lose. But nobody has been able to explain the sadism of these ‘watchiez.’ It is like the man that kills an innocent dog in Ayi Kwe’s philosophical fiction, ‘Fragments’, in order to appease his own ego. May be that is what motivates these guards. For what else can drive a fellow human being to take the life of another? You tell me even if our deaths are as result of our dim-witted arrogance of imagining being the only students ever to acquire higher education. John Ruganda (RIP) asks in his play ‘Shreds of Tenderness’, “What makes a murderer tick?” Grapple with that dear reader. I understand our generation is not a lot to sympathize for because after all we claim to know-it-all. And we know a lot by the way.

        A lot of distractions but let us proceed. At the KBC Mess we went to after getting tipsy, I went more loquacious, egotistical and more intellectual than before. Made friends randomly the way drunks easily do and chatted incessantly with more cheap beers and complimenting fag to fan the fun. Raucous and sensual we got with ladies but nothing more than that. By the way, let me inform you that the guy in a pink tee I mentioned in part 1 was an old youth of 36 years and contented with fate that he had lost some of his youthful verve to bounce like us. The only ‘wizardry’ he could entertain us with was losing a 10 bob coin in his lower elbow while seated then ask for a drink that most of us cheerfully gave. It was completely juvenile but nobody was ready to burst his ‘36’ bubble and foil the well orchestrated ‘wizardry’ of fun. Like Twitter we followed and like Facebook, most of us liked.

Ghafla bin vu, two Tusker beer bottles shook from the table of our entertainment and rolled in sequence before dropping on the cracked dusty cement. They cracked with a real thud. For a few seconds, the merriment fell deaf and drunken and glazed eyes turned and fixed their gaze on our table. A commotion was born and the waiter went into a start. I was standing behind ‘The Magician’ and watched with ‘don’t-care-attitude’ the splinters of the Tusker bottles.
“Nani amevunja hizo chupa,” the waiter managed to inquire. Drunken rumblings.
“Nani amevunja hizo chupa,” and this time his white eyes were trained on me with a fiery blaze.
“Ni huyu kijana,” the magician said but did not look at me.

            “Kijana, lipa hizo chupa saa hii…”. Can’t recall what else he said but I adamantly refused that I had not caused the breaking of those bottles. He got infuriated and stormed out of the counter then slammed it before shoving me hard that I almost lost my balance. One of his colleagues, a smooth-shaven brown man with small squirrel eyes and a dark blue cardigan also emerged from another room behind the counter and watched the unfolding scenario. When I regained my balance, I violently retaliated by also pushing the waiter hard and accompanying it with clubbed fists on his right cheek-I am left handed and yelling of my innocence. That is when the river burst its banks and his colleague arrived in the scene like batman and they both wrestled me on the ground before descending on me with kicks and blows and shrieks like those only heard in churches that speak in tongues. A crowd soon gathered but still they would not stop…. (To be continued… the battle of the beer bottle and the intervention of a bribe-seeking GSU officer).

Chronicles of a Dying Generation Part 1

(What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction.
― Arthur Schopenhauer)
      We are a dying generation. A breed tottering on the brink of losing their heads, hearts, mind and soul. And I am a vexed young man. I know I will die not so early but it will still come swift. A generation that depends on absinthe as their oxygen is a generation that will not make it in the famed vision 2030. And it is there that I belong. Drinking away my future. It can be helped but I prefer the wild risks of early 20s. The gush of the youthful blood keeps propelling me to higher heights whenever I take the risk with the boys. Take for example yester night.  Arrived in town at around 8.46 p.m. Snaked our way to the sides of UoN, rolling from street to street like night pimps. No call girl in sight though we were a tad lusty to ogle at one. Bypassed UoN then walked down past Kenya National Theater and KBC head office before stopping at their gated mess. Bribed them as usual.
You see we are not permitted to wet our gills here but what do I say. Kenya is marwa (Ours) and the new dispensation accords us loads of freedoms among them the freedom of movement. Here beer is economical. Tusker goes at sh.85.Guiness and White Cap at sh.95 respectively. Those are the common brands and the league of my dying generation flock here like vultures. We love cheap things. We are still hustling in this whole business they call Life. After entering, one of my boys goes to the counter and orders the first round. I take credit for the first round. We are still sober as staunch Catholic priests. The sobriety makes us feel powerful in this drinking spree. Smartly dressed young men are shouting and tossing their drinks in the air. They are loud and exuberant. At one time, they are arguing over whose drink is the best and another time I can’t make sense of what they are arguing about. Their words are full of incoherence and so I do not bother. There are lots of characters to observe on the ‘stage.’ Some girl in a green hoodie with a matching three quarter and black old skool sneakers chain smokes with utmost ease. I wonder why she is doing that. But it is a dying generation on their pinnacle so what do I say. The pot calling the kettle black or what?

        Fellows stagger and make slurring noises as they head to the lavatory to relieve themselves. They greet us. They are happy with the Good Life. Together with my two drinking accomplices, we are seated on stones against a white painted wall. In front of us is the round metallic colonial relic that acts as the bar where teeming revelers buy beer by themselves (It is the norm here) and chatter in high notes. On my extreme far right are where the lady chain smokes and a jamaa in a bright pink tee with a shiny cheap necklace. He has wrapped the lady in a lovely grace and is beckoning her the way a ram does an ewe that needs mating. They are seated on one bench and opposite them is another lady in a black blouse sipping her Tusker in the worst boredom I have witnessed in the recent months of exposing my liver to irreparable damage. I don’t know why she is that bored. May be because a guy is chatting up her girlfriend and yet is not according her any little attention. But the guy seated next to her is even worse. He seems to be lost in a maze of his worries and reflections. We concur may be he is thinking about some impending school fees he is expected to pay next term by the government in our public schools. Or he promised his wife some fancy course, let’s say nursing and now the time is nigh but funds are not forthcoming. His boss is not playing ball as he had promised. He has his right leg on the left leg and gulps his beer as if it will help erase what cannot give him the merriment around.
       Two Guinnesses later and I remember I had also climbed the stage to be observed by the new breed of my generation streaming in fresh and composed to entertain their fancies. (To be continued….how we created a ruckus and nearly lost our lives…)

The Man in the Moonlight

     It was one of those village nights magnificently lit by a full moon-grey and radiant-perched in a spotless navy blue sky except for the myriad twinkles of stars-million years away. One walked on the murram road connecting our village to the outside world and black shadows of different trees lined the road-splashed in stillness-ghostly like. Toward the market, a few shops with electricity and a bar taking advantage of the august season-drying the pockets of the young and the middle-aged and further into the small streets of the market-more yellow flickers of oil lamps perilously hung on rusty, sooty wire mesh on poorly stocked shops and the same sad scenario was repeated on even more shops one continued to encounter. No recent death to grieve about or to elicit any outburst of lamentations that such a radiant night would pass us the villagers.

      I dragged on my dusty feet not wanting to reach home early. The brilliant bathe under the illumination of the full moon continued to fascinate me and I felt like freezing the night. Never slipping from reality. For surely the night would die-however radiant and dazzling it was and day would be born to usher the sun with its morning glory of peace and serene temperatures but with its continued fragmentation-a brutal design of terror-scorching and hot as hell would be revealed.

    But before I could surface from my romantic reverie, there I stumbled upon him: a dark figure-a man by a closer scrutiny-roughly in his early 50s with bushy like moustache stuck out like a hand brush, his face was concealed with a tilted brown fedora hat with a gleaming ring round it and his waist coat had peculiar bulge at the front pockets. His charcoal grey trouser clear under the moonlight was dirty at the hems like he had been wading in loamy mud and he was rooted to his spot like a statue with both hands clasped at the back and knees in an obtuse like angle.

      I continued to study him closely and there he intruded into my thoughts: “May you show me where the path leads to…I mean, son, where is the short cut to the market?” His voice was awkward like a dusty flute, and it had a colourless slur like he needed to cough a bit to unclog the dust. And coincidentally he coughed and spat twice but with a lot of determination and the saliva nearly landed on my sandals. I tensed.

      “I-I-I-don’t know…”I fumbled almost in a whisper of terror but he seemed to have misheard me.

      “You said where son?” His voice had metamorphosed to now that of a seasoned street beggar.

      “I don’t know! That’s what-“I halted to recheck my new found guts, still instinctively astonished by this figure under the moonlight and right at our gate. He remained unmoved perhaps also studying me, hands still clasped at the back.

  My brain begun to tick, what next? Scream for assistance or still with hold and observe my specimen? Here I was a mere houseboy in another county far way from home, unfamiliar to the area-barely six months old and now this figure ambushes me with questions of shortcuts and son…son…”

      An over speeding motorcyclist with three customers on tow zoomed past us and the man trembled a little like he did not like such things. He twitched his nose to block the dark blue diesel smoke that the racing man had left in his course and now even shook his head. So he cared, I wondered. No, it was just hypocrisy. Deceit. Perhaps a tactic. Who remained that cared that anyway? I don’t how he would react to discover that the over speeding motorcycle actually belonged to the area chief who was supposed to reign on such wayward drivers. If the government twisted law who was an ordinary citizen not to do the same? Another cyclist sped passed us with the same speed and the stranger now looked agitated and clicked and mumbled some inaudible words of “…ah this world but the speed where to…?”

   I was getting terribly nerved. I wanted to get home and continue with the house chores so that I could sleep early. Ma’am would be really furious. With the news from the city that her husband was polluting the moral purity of the capital-painting it red with all ages, her foul mood wanted her to let it on someone. Something. And it was apparent when she hurled her whisky bottle at Golden-the house cat.

   “What’s your name boy?” he slightly roared, like a command and the rusty tone was gone. I was almost collapsing with fear. My legs had turned jelly and I could feel my whole body withering like a leaf about to snap in a windy weather. What did he want to know my name for? Who was he and what was his mission?  I mean his intention really? At our gate and at this hour of the night. I tried to engage my mind to at least summon reason even if my legs had now been immobilized.

       “You are… you- I mean but I don’t know you well…” I replied curtly to his plain astonishment for I saw I slight contortion on his apple-shaped face-sallow and shabby as now revealed by the slight tilt of his fedora hat. He hastily realized I was again reading him and he adjusted his hat, now blinding all his eyes but the left hand still remained at his back.

        From the fully lit semi permanent house, I noticed Ma’am pacing about the room from this end to that end from the transparent large windows. Earlier on during the day I had done a thorough cleaning of the house including all curtains and they had not been hung back. I had planned to do that this night. By the order of her impatience I could discern a building up of a nasty kind of rage but how could I inform her, them-her two sons, of the stranger at the gate for I did not have a phone.  It had long ago been confiscated by Ma’am because to her I was wasting time contacting my parents how I was doing in my new place of work. I could now contemplate the rubber-whip being lashed on me by Ma’am and her two muscular sons, the lock up at the store for two days-it was always my punishment and the worst I dreaded-starvation! Oh starvation!

        I now begun screaming in a shrill pitch and the man was jolted to his vulnerability. He sprung on me with his two hands to block my mouth and for the first time I noticed the left hand he had kept a best secret was poorly bandaged with a faded white cloth; its like he had used a piece of a rat eaten t-shirt. I wheeled backwards and for a second schemed how to elude my adversary who was steadfast to harm me with a broken bicycle rim glistening in the moonlight. A full torch came sharp-Ma’am and her two sons had heard the ensuing commotion and they now strode to where we were ,armed with shiny pangas I used for cutting napier grass.

      The stranger sensing imminent danger of capture and or being discovered, for the last determined effort waved the rim at my face almost brushing my forehead and bended low then he swooped his hat that had accidentally fell of and hurriedly disappeared into a path of mass vegetation. I heaved a sigh of relief and remembered God instantly at that moment. Ma’am and her two sons had arrived to the scene.

       Her usual sparkling face was now distorted with seething fury and arms were akimbo, extremely shaking. ”So these are the crooks you collude with ah?” she blurted almost breathless as her two lads reached for my earlobes. Before I could explain myself, a blinding smack struck me mute as the dead. A minute elapsed before I could figured out it was Ma’am who had done it.

    “No Ma’am…no…please…”I implored sightless and another thump now banged my head and I knew it was happening again. For about five minutes the rubber whip flogged my bottom, head, back, face everywhere and the supplement was kicks and blows as Ma’am maintained had steady tempo of insults: “Good for nothing…look at you… a thief…a plain fool…no wonder you are poor…” My frantic wails were now subdued by the constant snap of the whip and rains of blows and punches that would not tire.

     Above, the moon was now even brighter-straight-as if trying to illuminate everything below and it dawned on me I could still have played cards with the stranger. Better the devil one did not know than phony angels one was used to.

As Years Go By

As years go by

rivers running their courses

I stand upon the cliff,

and watch by:

the gibbous moon wandering in the starless sky

the grave silence of the seas

my lucid mind:

it unbound to infinite lengths

zigzagging to indefinite breadths

strains of intermittent imagination

flash: no-off-on-off

Life-my Life

like the gibbous moon above, and

the grave silent seas

resonate in queer similarity.

I stand by the cliff. Pick a pebble

To the sea I toss-

When the angel of death flies by

I suppose-

the useless gullibility of living a life

and dying the silence of the seas