Las Vegas Club, Mboya Street, Kisumu. 22:03hrs, 11th August, 2017
Boom! Boom! Boom! If you hear the shot, don't panic, it wasn't meant for you. A wise man once said that. I don't wish to sound like a sadist, but with the piles of bodies lying around this place, I think I love that ninja who said that thing about hearing the shot. I'm still breathing for some reason best known by the man in the skies. Maybe he wants me to narrate this story to my little grandchildren somewhere in the future. He wants me to tell them about how that bullet hole on my thigh came into being. About how fast liquor leaves your system especially when men of the uniform enter a club full of drunkards and decide that they don't like the way y'all are drinking. And behold they unleash terror upon you like they are lucifer on doom's day. Or maybe my kids will decide to be assholes and never bring the babies they make out there to listen to the "old-man's" stories. Whichever way that goes down, the bullet lodged in my left leg doesn't feel so good. Or maybe I'm gonna die, and this right here is it. My last few moments to take a breathe of sweet mother earth's oxygen(or whatever it is we breath, just breath anything). Could it be the end of the world, like my Prophet, Pastor, Dr. Mwaura of Holy Evangelistic Love Presbyterian, or HELP, Kirinyaga(my hometown). Could it be what he was talking about? But not really, he talked of trumpets blowing and white. Very white light appearing from heavens. It's dead dark and those sounds outside don't sound anything close to what trumpets sound like, though I've never heard one real close other than in movies. So I guess I'm stuck right here with reality. This is happening. I'm about to crawl when I hear a gun cock right above my brains. "AK47". Definitely that. And how the hell would I know that it is an AK47 when I've never heard one cock before? I freeze and fall down on the ground and confess all my sins to the good Lord. I also ask Him to prepare a place up there real quick since I'm coming home like the prodigal son. I hope He orders for the fattest calf to be slaughtered since... Damn! I don't know why I just told Him that, but somehow that's how my story as a prodigal son is supposed to go. Right? I need to know how the church runs these days when I get there since I have not frequented the one here in the land of men. I also remember to ask Him to put a straining order on Thomas since he will be pissed for me ignoring God's word yet he himself verified Jesus' authenticity by putting his fingers in the Son of God's hands that were perforated with nails. He will be really pissed that I became an asshole like him. He might want to verify if I'm dead by putting his old fingers(I figure he is old) in my left leg too. I don't want to end up with a finger inside my leg. That nigga must have been bad shit crazy(don't argue, I know he is).
Voice: Nani wewe jinga(Who are you fool)?
Me: Boniface Murithi
Voice: Ati nini? Wapi Kitambulisho?(What? Where is your identification?)
Me: Murithi, iko pocket ya nyuma(I am Murithi, it's in my back pocket)
Karumandi, Kirinyaga, 19:02hrs, 30th December, 2007
"Habari kamili," says the radio-man. And he goes on and on with his usual job that he seems to love. What does one love in reading stuff through the radio that no one even listens to?
"Babu, siku moja utanitolea huyo mtu wa redio akuje tucheze?" my smallest brother asks. He is 4 years old, and attends Greenpastures Daycare, Nairobi. He seems to be loving the stay here in upcountry while me and my smaller seem to hate everything about this "ocha" place. For me it's understandable since I get to till the land with the big men for the simple reason that I am joining class 8 next year. I hate growing up for this sole reason. People begin treating you like a grown up and give you responsibilities of grown ups in the name of 'making you a man'. I wish we could just go back to Nairobi, but you know the thing with wishes and horses. So I gotta grow whatever growing I am being made to grow here. Well, my second bro, I don't know why he hates this place, but whatever that reason is, it seems to make him a piece of work.
"The radio-man will come to beat small babies," the other bro answers the smallest. And just like that, he begins crying and runs to the kitchen where Grandma and mother are preparing supper. My 'work' brother laughs at the smallest in ridicule and follows him out of the house. I sometimes think he is an idiot. But that I leave to the time to prove me wrong. My father and grandpa seem so keen listening to the news. I got to be attentive too and listen like 'men' do. The radio-man isn't one of the sweetest things to appease the ear to, especially in these times of Nameless, Okwonkwo and Jua Cali. Mr. Nice would do good, but well, his sound seems to be facing extinction especially with the emergence of Ali Kiba and Marlaw. But I gotta do this listening, otherwise I won't seem serious to sit on the table of grown men. He says something like the president was declared to be Mwai(that seemed obvious from this side of the country), and kind of that didn't go well with the Kisumu people. Then they chose to reject the president elect and say the votes were stolen. Haha. This thought almost makes me laugh(in the midst of 'grown men'), but I hold it for a moment to think about it. How can you steal a vote? Literally, how? And where do you intend to use, sell, drive or whatever thing people do with stolen votes, where will you put it into use? The radio-man goes on and on. Talks about some people found dead. Some in Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret and some in Nairobi. Well, I hope we leave this place real fast so I can go see the dead folks that have been left lying on the roads of Nairobi. I don't know why this thought comes to me. Not that I fancy or have ever seen a dead body before, but it sounds like it could be fun.
Las Vegas Club, 22:30hrs, 11th August, 2017.
Talk of bad and good fate, and I think they mean the same thing in real life. Only that one is the opposite side of the mirror. Well, welcome to the other side of the mirror. I'm here washing myself in beer that I don't have to pay for. Because, well, when you are friends with the man with the gun in the house, you tend to have some power. And the only other soul alive in the house for that matter. I call him my friend because, the good Lord apparently send him over here, to drink with me. And he has taken the bullet that was on my leg off. But I've got to admit that nothing is more painful than having that small piece of metal taken off your body. I don't know how many minutes I was out, but who cares for timessake? I am here drinking from the toughest of the spirits on the counter. He is seated on the cashier's chair serving me drinks. We begin from Kane(750ml), cool it off with Tusker Cider, and now we are uphill Guiness. He seems to be in a pretty lazy but happy mood today. Hell! I've never met this barnacle before, I hope this is how he is always like. We drink few beers as Officer Opondo explains to me the million and one ways he can just blow my skinny-self, but well, karma has it that we should be drinking from the same table. Literally. And to drink we do.
Officer Opondo: Bonny, you know you can just stand up and run yourself out of here. But look, here you are, drinking like an idiot with a man who will kill you at the end of all this. I must say you are the most stupid person I've ever come across.
Me: Some people say I am. Others say I just am an idiot Officer Opondo... (interrupts)
Officer Opondo:... Come on, I'm your friend, you can call me O.O. No need for this Officer bullshit. For all I care this much looks like the end of my career. Have this. (Topping up my glass that has not gone below half)
Me: I must admit that you are the first soldier I have met that doesn't want to take charge of the situation by firing a gun.
O.O : What's that supposed to mean?
Me : Either you don't care about your job or you just feel like not doing it today.
O.O : I take the latter.
Me: Meaning?
O.O : I am just a man that doesn't want to be a zombie. You know how those wicked things chew people to the last bone?
Me: I figure we share an interest in our movies.
O.O: You see, for us we eat people with the muzzle of our gun.
Me: And sentence people to eternal damnation I guess?
O.O: Not really. You see His Majesty Lord has this way of sorting people. (Takes a sip and continues). Those who show the middle finger to the two tablets he gave Moses face eternal hell fire.
Me: While the rest of you saints who remove bullets from strangers' legs are saved from all manner of destruction.
O.O: (Chuckles) I wouldn't be too sure.
Me: I would probably petition my case in Paradise. I mean, look around you, did these guns fire themselves into these lifeless beings?
O.O: Kid, what do you know about this Paradise you talk about? And definitely this doesn't look like the best place to talk about that holy stuff. So can we talk about something else like how I will shoot you?
Me: That's a joke right?
O.O: Ooooh! Did I give you the impression that I was to set you free after this?
Me: I think that's what you do when you take off a bullet from one's body.
O.O: Even if I did, I think satan has some place for me in hell, so no petitions in Heaven. I got a seat down there in hell. More so at the VIP section for the things I have done.
Me: Things you have done?
O.O: Kid, how old were you in 2007?
Owiti Street,Kisumu 22.05 hrs, 31st December, 2007
It's new year's eve. Funny. Why do we always hate the year that is nearing its end? Always. We label it a year of disaster. Even when the village dog dies of old age, it's still because of the bad year. Well, I guess that's us just being sadists. And to cast away the demons of this ending year we gather just to wait for 0000hrs. Typical. So this night is no different, people are meeting in churches, mosques, clubs and others just sitting at home, staring at the clock like some kind of idiots. Just anywhere where people can bury the gone year and welcome the new year. Anything goes. However, in this part of the country, things are different. The city. Is silent as a cemetery. Save for the little drizzle hitting the garbage bins on the alley, the rest is gunshots and deafening silence. The gaping open shops speak of a dangerously fun day. People must have had a lot of feasting on the abandoned stocks. A young soldier in his mid 20's strolls slowly and cautiously. His gun projecting forward in a manner to say "I'm here to execute my master's command." He looks left, right, forward, left, right, forward and so on. He looks so ready to do his mission. Doesn't matter what it is, anything that tries to move in front of him has a shoot-to-kill sentence. Anything. See, thing with being a soldier is simple. OBEDIENCE. I mean when the commander tells you to jump, you jump only ask how high to jump midair. From a few meters he can see a ragged fellow trying to drag itself on the muddy road. The rains are now beginning to increase. He walks faster towards the person of interest. It is a severely wounded woman. She looks wounded. She turns around when she sees the light from Opondo's helmet approaching. She can see the muzzle of the gun but begs mercy. It's at this point Opondo realizes that she is also pregnant. Very pregnant. Let's say one week or two tops, and beyond one more mouth to feed on mother earth will pop up.
"Tafadhali nisaidie!" she pleads with Opondo. No. She prays to Opondo.
"Nisaidie wamenikatakata na panga," goes on her prayer.
Then Opondo stops. He is new to this shoot-to-kill thing. Matter of fact, he just left Kiganjo this September and this is his first mission ever. The rest have been little picnics to arrest busaa addicts and brewers in the villages. Which haven't been much than drinking parties to him since his superiors join in the party of drinking and after they take lots of busaa, they are handed their chai, and leave talking in languages he has never heard of. Then right here is a peculiar situation. A soon-to-be mother is begging for the last bit of mercy left in this world. And only him holds that mercy. He can hear footsteps coming from behind him coming. His squad is on its way here. He better say something about his situation. He stares at the eyes of that woman. He can see the despair. The kind of despair that says, if you don't save me I will haunt you for the rest of your life. The kind that says I don't know you, but I depend on you this one time. Your choice will be the end or the only second chance I have to life. The kind that says, this despair is the only thing I have left in this world.
"Tango 6! Come in! Over!" buzzes a deep voice from his walkie-talkie. They are fast approaching where he is. He can tell that. The footsteps of death sound faster and louder now. He has to decide fast. But what jurisdiction gives him even the power to decide the biscuits to eat even at the barracks? Not so, can he even decide the time to call home? No. Not a chance. He is the bridge between that unborn child's life and death. He can choose to let the kid live, but what if the kid becomes one of these slay queens who will leave you for a ninja who owns an ideos phone? Or let's say the kid decides to be too much of an idiot to pursue music when his mother had saved for his college education to get a "real job"? Or the fucking basturd decides to be bloody terrorist and bomb any country at will? All because you didn't pull the damn trigger. No. No. Not good for Opondo.
"BOOM" The little smoke from the gun testifies of a decision taken. The lifeless body falls on the ground.
"ALL CLEAR! Over!" he yells at the walkie-talkie. The rains increase. Blood flows with it. Lots of blood.
Las Vegas club, Kisumu, 2257hrs
O.O: A wise man once told me that the hardest thing to live with isn't pulling the trigger, but the outcome of pulling the trigger. (sips more of his drink). I wish I never pulled that trigger.
Me: I thought going around shooting people who piss you off at will is fun?
O.O: Kid, you watch lot's of movies. (Stares at the bodies in the bar) Look at them. (pointing at one of the corpse). That there was someone's daughter. Save for her shanty dressing, some day she could make a great mother to some fool. At that other guy at the corner, well, I'm sure he would have become some Lung-cancer survivor. I mean, who takes that lots of shisha all by himself? All? How selfish can one be with smoke?
Me: Lung-cancer is worse than the bullet, you know. That thing I hear eats you alive. You start shedding off parts of your body like it is pruning you. On the brighter side, kind of died a sweeter death than the hungry cancer.
O.O: I wish I could see it that way. Why did I shoot that woman?
Me: You tell me, you fired the gun.
O.O: And then after that I got in a killing spree. Shooting everything I met on my way until the whole nightmare was over. And I don't remember any of the other people I shot, except that pregnant woman.
Me: Could be ghosts?
O.O: (chuckle) I think that's an understatement. That thing been chasing me for ten years, you think that's a ghost? No. It's bigger.
We both go silent. From my community, there is a belief that when people go silent all over sudden, there is a bad spirit passing by.
O.O: All this in the name of keeping our country safe.
Me: I guess to some extent it's true.
O.O: so keep it safe for who if the people we keep it safe for are shot dead like birds and their bodies dumped in lake Victoria for fish to dine on their eyes and every ball-thing on the corpse.
Me: Do fish gorge out the scrotum?
O.O: How do you explain missing balls from the bodies we collected offshore after 2007? That is like getting served with chips and sausage as an added bonus.
Me: Shit! It's a lucky day to die a female I guess.
O.O: (looking at his leather-bound watch) That's my time. So any last words before I send you to join your buddies in heaven or hell?
Me: Do I have to say all my possessions including my socks, to whom these should be inherited to?
O.O: (Cocking his gun) Do I sound to be in the slightest of jokes to you. Kneel down there. (pushing me towards the dead girl) Try to be closest to the ladies otherwise people will think of you as a homo if you die on top of a man's ass. They might curse you even in death.
At this moment I realize that this is it. My final moment. A chance to confess my sins to the Almighty. They are countless, so I don't know whether to put them in a folder then send at once or what. And , I hope He doesn't play them on the slideshow I hear He will be having on judgement day. Otherwise, all the little times I farted at friends' birthday parties, the way I used to stare at "mama-nguo" as she washed my shirts, or is it how I had that quickie with my ex's best friend when she left us to go get waru. Stop staring at me like that. I'm not as fast as a rabbit. Idiot. There is a reason it's called a quickie. And my ex never knew about it. Please, dear Lord, if you have to play the slideshow, can you hit the skip button when you get to this one scene. I figure your remote looks just like the ones we use here. I say my final prayer and hope against hope God does accept it.
Me: I'm ready.
O.O: It was nice meeting you, what was your name again? Whatever the fuck it was, now you just become another statistic. On 3. 1,2,3
"CLICK" Eerie Silence!
Me: What the fuck?
O.O: The fuck is you're still alive. Cheer up son.
Me: Son of...
O.O: Bastard! You should be grateful, not cursing. So, your only mission tonight will be to stay in here till dawn. Don't touch any more liquor or you will rat yourself up to a younger me and he will surely shoot you. Are we clear?
Me: Clear as water, Sir!
O.O: Have a silent night.
And off he walks. I stare in dismay as Officer Opondo's silhouette disappears in the neon lights at the exit. My only job is to stay alive tonight and I will have a second chance. I figure the fellows collecting corpses in the city will be here soon. So I slowly crawly to a place somewhere in the store to survive the night. There are rats, but they are now better than having your little eggs chopped by some hungry fish. I can imagine how the headlines of every newspaper will read tomorrow. This takes me back to my boyhood days. And before I know it, I am fast asleep.
It all feels so familiar.
Déjà vu
