CHAPTER SEVEN - Nairobi Cocktail, The Sleaze

The Making of a gangster, and helpful strangers

If Boss was a normal type of man, if he had a friend like other men, a friend to confide in, if the one true friend he had ever made had not all died, he would confide to that friend, as they shared an expensive bottle of whisky, that he had fallen in love with Kiki the first day he saw her, way before he spoke to her. He would even admit to that friend that he had fallen in love for the first time in his life, because he had. The reaction he had had when he first looked at her had felt like a whack across his face. He would tell that friend that the first time he had set eyes on Kiki, he had honestly mourned the fact he was not man enough, because that was the only reason he had not walked up to her and proposed to her even before asking what her name was.

When he could, for a minute, forget that he was doomed to never experience the full pleasures of a woman, pleasures he only read about or watched in movies, he imagined himself making love to her, taking her and himself to heights that required deep groaning and high pitched screams. When his senses returned and he remembered that having a woman was a pipe-dream for him, he would start wondering if it was possible to have a woman and not have to have sex with her. That thought would emit a bitter chuckle from him.

A sexless relationship? There were sexless marriages, he had read about them. The only problem was he had read about the sexless marriages in break-up articles. The relationships were sexless because they were on the brink of collapse. He still wondered, but he was the first to admit how deluded his line of thought was. Falling in love had turned him into a fool. Falling in love had corroded his pragmatism. But he loved the feeling of being in love and it did not even matter that the object of his heart’s desire had no clue, had no idea that he existed, for months.

He loved it when he woke up with a smile right after dreaming about her. He loved it that he day-dreamed about her, and he would smile, so much so that his body-guards had asked him a couple of times if he was okay.  Because he smiled. He loved it because several times, his penis had attempted to rise when he had thought of her.

That first time he had seen her, he had been sitting alone, as usual, his bodyguards a few decent metres away from him. She had been wearing a black spaghetti top and had immediately noticed that she had no bra. There were no straps over her shoulders, and her nipples were calling for attention. Her light brown skin had looked even lighter against the blond hair she had on. He remembered frowning at her makeup because it looked too much. The lips were too red. The eyebrows were too dark. Her eyelashes were too long and obviously fake. Her eyeliner was too dark. She had made him think of a clown, an irony of sorts because he detested clowns, could not even bring himself to look at a picture of a clown. He had studied her as she had walked to the toilet. She was tall, very slender and her slender and shapely legs were exposed by the above the knees skirt she had on. Her midriff was teasing him with the hint of exposure she had allowed.

He had known immediately that she was a prostitute. That realisation had disappointed him at first, then he had decided it did not matter to him because, what use would she be to him anyway, prostitute or otherwise? But still… It had been six PM when he had first seen her seated adjacent to him, but he had watched her until the natural light had disappeared, then he had continued watching her through the dimmed lights of the club. He had observed her, careful not to meet her gaze, careful not to show his face, as she had looked for potential prey, he had felt his heart sink when she had sat up straight and he had known she had identified her prey.

His eyes, he remembered, had followed hers and he had felt such deep hate for the lucky man, the one who was smiling back at her like an idiot, and winking.

He had watched her position herself strategically, crossing one leg over the other and running her long fingers on her bony knee, ever so lightly. He had followed the movement of her fingers and noticed the red and long finger nails.  Her body language well-orchestrated to give a come-on to the identified prey. She reminded him of those beautiful male birds he often watched on National Geographic, those birds that made fools of themselves, dancing ridiculously in front of usually difficult to impress female birds, hoping to be selected to pair for life. Only she was the female in this case, not that male, and only looking to pair for a few hours, or a night at longest.

Boss had gulped down his beer, some of it had made its way down his chin onto his blue tee shirt. He had wiped off the one on the chin with the back of the hand, all along his eyes glued on Kiki. He had nearly chocked on bile. The veins on his temple had bulged with pressure and rage as he watched her walking out with that man, and the subsequent ones.

After that first day, watching her had become a sport but unlike other sports, this one had left him feeling morose rather than relaxed. It left him plotting murders of those men she walked out with, murders he only carried out in his imagination. Murders he would have wanted to actually carry out, personally, but he had promised himself that he would work on his murderous gene, that he would reduce the number of people he wanted to murder. Or murdered.

He had watched her for weeks, possibly months, until the urge to get to know her, had eventually made him stop plotting murders against strangers, to plotting ways to get to talk to her. He would approach her with the only thing he had, his charm to lure both men and women into his network. Would she choose robbery over prostitution?

With a measure of shamelessness, he realised that during the early days of knowing her, he had judged her. Judged her for selling her body to total strangers. When he was being totally honest during conversations in his head, he knew what really bothered him about her lifestyle was jealousy; that he could never be one of those men who walked out with her. He knew he was hardly in a position to judge her; he was a highway robber after all, hardly possessed any moral authority to judge anyone.

And the fact that his impotence put a distance between him and the girl. Boss had long ago made peace with his impotence, not that he had a choice. Several times over, especially during those rare times when his penis was twenty percent alive, he had considered trying to have sex, but if he was not afraid of anything including death and life in incarceration, two possibilities that were very likely in his line of work, he was afraid of the men working under him losing respect for him. Respect was power. So was fear of a person. He was both respected and feared. He could not risk being the centre of ridicule just because some women let it slip that he had failed to rise to an important occasion.

He was Boss, a ruthless man running a ring of car robbers in the city and each and every one of those robbers were petrified of him. He had personally killed men, had had several others killed. He could not risk losing the element of fear just because of women. He ruled by fear, the only way to rule over hard-core criminals. He was pragmatic about the fact that there was no loyalty in his line of work, that the only thing that kept people loyal to him was fear, that about half of the people working for him would do anything to take over from him, if only they could find a weak point. His weak point was his inability to have sex, he could not risk them getting hold of that secret. 

He lived in a society where patriarchy ruled. He had no illusions that patriarchy could BE without many women. He lived in a society that thought being the man had everything to do with having many women. He had no idea if his gang of robbers were concerned about not seeing women around him, he preferred not to worry about that. Let them speculate if they so wished.

The criminals he employed spent most of their technically hard earned cash on women. He envied them. But then again, some of those same men had got into trouble because of the same women, Kamau for instance. Perhaps it was not so bad to be impotent.

***

In all his life, Boss had never tried to have sex, not willingly anyway. Not with a woman. He had discovered his weakness in secondary boarding school. Boys inside his dormitory and in the bathroom, especially in the mornings, would compete with birds in the morning, chirping and chattering with excitement about their private members rising without any probing. He remembered watching in fascination as they walked the corridors like Lords, naked, hands in the air triumphantly, their penises hard as wood and dangling in front of them, triumphant grins on their faces. He always hid his own shrivelled one under a towel.

He listened to his schoolmates talk about masturbation. When he was on his own, he tried to masturbate, really hard. He would squeeze his penis, hit it, pull it, but the moment he released it, it would fall on his thighs in protest like it was made of elastic. So he had stopped trying. He had also stopped having unnecessary relationship with his penis, only looked at it by accident, only touching it while peeing or taking a shower.

He had learned to take the teasing, and it had been unrelenting at some point. They had called him a woman. They had called him gay. He had walked away with feigned dignity, but it had killed him inside. It had made him want to murder them, but the memory of a man he had murdered not so long ago still lingered in his head. He did not want to kill anyone again. He learned to bottle up his anger until he was safely under the cover of night and blankets, then he would cry.  

That his impotence, or, depending on who was talking about him, his apparent lack of interest in matters sex was known to every boy in school should have saved him from women troubles. That he had been extremely socially awkward with no guts to talk to a girl should also have kept him safe, but his good looks had conspired to land him into the deep of women trouble when all he had been was an innocent bystander.

Kanja, as he was known then, had been academically brilliant especially in science subjects. He had made student patron of the science club in form three, just about the only extra curricula activity he had thrived in school. So good he was in science subjects, he was convinced as much as his teachers that he would either be a doctor or an engineer, especially a doctor. His goal was to find a cure for his impotence. He had no doubt he would have been, if only the cosmic joke that was life had not so conspired against him.

It was during a science competition when his school had visited a girls’ school that his troubles had started. Alex, the school’s head-boy, the undisputed alpha male in more ways than being the student leader, was a member of the club. And he had a girlfriend from the host school. A beautiful girl, one whose anatomy and features Kanja remembered in great detail so many years later. She was petite with an athletic body. She had a big beautiful smile and a bigger laugh. Kanja still remembers how her loud laugh had caught him off-guard because she was such a tiny girl.  She had the most perfect teeth, like they had been externally made with precision then inserted into her mouth. Her lips were big, so were her almond shaped eyes, but it was the kind of big that enticed rather than turned off. And she was dark skinned. Smoothest dark skin that only looked less dark because her hair was jet black. Kanja had taken in all the details when she had run to hug Alex as they disembarked the bus.

He had been standing behind Alex, waiting for the couple to finish their love-dance. Then she had looked at him while she was still engulfed in Alex’s arms. She had winked at him, and he had winced and quickly looked away. During such outings, way after competitions were over and done with and the students were allowed to mingle for a while, boys would sneak behind the school bus to drink, smoke or kiss girls. Kanja never did any of that, but he had always acted as the lookout for teachers and other adults.

He had been leaning on the school bus, looking this way and that way. He had seen her approach him and had expected her to ask about the captain but instead, she had pinned him on the bus and tried to kiss him, her hand on his groin. He had groaned in shock and tried to push her away, but not before Alex’s popped his head and caught the act. Kanja witnessed the head boy’s jaw dropping, then he had felt the hate even from twenty metres away. 

Kanja had immediately accepted he had made a formidable enemy even though no words were exchanged. When the girl had slapped him, he had hardly felt the pain. But that slap had acted as the conveyor to shift blame to him. That slap, and the fact that she was loudly telling Kanja off for the benefit of Alex and a few other boys, had rendered her innocent. He was the bad guy. 

The two students had kept out of each other’s way the whole week, but Kanja was tense. For a good reason too. The unprecedented punishment had been meted a week after the incident. That morning, Kanja had woken up with a feeling of doom. It may have been his sixth sense. It may have been from the absence of a bird that had made it a habit to peck on his window every morning. It could have been that the weather was dreary instead of sunny like the week had been. It may have been from the absence of excited boys showing off their erect penises. It may also have been from the fact that nobody seemed to look at him straight in the eye. Or all of the above. Whatever it was, the feeling had bothered him so much, he had hardly touched his breakfast.

“Kanja!” He had been walking past the staffroom with other students, heading to their first class of the day, when the headmaster angrily called out his name. “I need to see you in my office. Now…” Kanja looked at his fellow students. Those who dared to meet his gaze mouthed apologies. Only his dignity had stopped him from losing his knee strength. He had dragged his feet to the headmaster’s office.

“You? Of all people, you?” He had not even shut the door behind him before the lecture started. He had looked at the headmaster in confusion.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, sir…”

“You know,” the headmaster had started walking up and down his office, making a second long stop opposite Kanja. “It’s always the promising ones that disappoint you. Always…”

“Sir?”

“You dare stand there looking all innocent? If my sources were not so reliable, I would already have believed you…” He had almost spat his last sentence.

“I don’t know what you are talking about…”

“To think that such a brilliant student would be the one selling cigarettes and alcohol to other students…why would you be so stupid? Kanja, you are a sponsored student. A good Samaritan saw your potential and the poverty you come from and gave you a chance. Why would you be so stupid?”

Kanja’s knees had lost the dignity that had held them up. He had sunk to the floor, body so hot, for a second he had feared he was on fire. The strangest thing about that moment, he remembered, was his penis had poked him. It was upright. It should have been a moment to celebrate, but what his teacher was telling him was way beyond any good news. Him? Selling cigarettes and alcohol?

“It’s not true…” At first, he had said it in his head, then he had repeated it, over and over, until the headmaster told him to shut up.

“There is only one way to find out. We are going to search your suitcase…do you have a problem with that?”

He had shaken his head with confidence. He knew what was in his suitcase, and cigarettes and alcohol was not among the stuff. “We shall get the head boy and a teacher as witnesses…”

At the mention of the head boy, Kanja had felt weak again. And dejected. At that moment, he had known there was no winning. He had been set up. Other students, whether they had been part of the set up or not, had known about it. None of them had been courageous enough to tell him.

 With shaky hands in front of the head teacher, Mr Choka the chemistry teacher and the head boy, he had opened his suitcase. The illegal products were on top of his stuff.

“I don’t know whose they are…” He had weakly protested.

“Stop that. It is too late. I hope you know this calls for an expulsion…”

“Sir! It’s my last year in school. I have already paid for my final exams…sir, I swear I have been set up. Please, they are not mine…” his protests went on for long. The headmaster had stopped listening and walked out, visibly angry. Mr Choka, standing beside him, took his hand and squeezed it as he whispered a sorry. Alex stood against a wall, looking smug.

Kanja turned to him in disbelieve and asked, “Why? You know very well it was your girl who came after me…”

Alex shrugged and started walking out. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I did not ask you to sell illegal products…” Kanja watched Alex until he disappeared, aware of the taste in his mouth. He turned to Mr Choka, still standing beside him, one hand across his chest and the other supporting his chin.

“They are not mine, I swear…” He knew his goose was cooked. He was just looking for someone to believe him.

“I believe you.” Mr Choka answered quietly. “Why would anyone set you up?”

Kanja shook his head as he pointed to the direction of the door at the disappearing Alex. “It’s him. I know it’s him. His girlfriend tried to kiss me and he saw us…I didn’t want to, she caught me off-guard…”

“Incredulous! All this for a girl? You are all just kids. No wonder I am single…” On any other occasion, Mr Choka’s statement would have been funny. Not this time. “Wow, just wow…look, I will try and speak to the headmaster, perhaps I can convince him to give you a second chance…in the meantime, you need to leave the compound.”

Kanja sighed and looked at his beat-up suitcase. As he bent down to zip it up, together with the illegal products, tears were welling up and he had to stand up and look to the ceiling to force them down. The taste in his mouth was getting stronger by the second.

The expulsion had too been sudden. Surreal. One minute he was walking to class to work towards being a doctor, the next he was expelled. For somebody who had never been in trouble in school, it was the worst place to start. Had the headmaster suspended him, even for a whole term, the pain might have been less. He knew of students who hired ‘parents’ when they got into trouble. He may have done something like that with a suspension. But expulsions were so final, like death. There were no second chances.

Expulsions required the guilty students to take everything that belonged to them. The suitcase was balanced on his head as he walked to pick his expulsion letter from a seething headmaster, as he did his walk of shame towards the school gate. He had looked ahead, determined not to face all the students who had refused to warn him about the evil plan, the same students who were loudly protesting about his expulsion. A tad too late.

He hated them all. Most of all, he hated Alex and only the thought of Mr Choka believing in him stopped him from matching to class and punching the lights out of him. He knew he could beat him up. Alex was taller than Kanja, possibly more good looking, but Kanja was stronger. 

Kanja never made it home. By the time he walked to the nearest shopping centre two kilometres away, his anger and confusion had led him to a nearby makeshift hotel for tea and mandazi. His brain had settled enough to assess his dire situation. He thought about what he would tell his parents and he decided he would rather die than tell his dirt poor parents that their only hope out of poverty, him, had been expelled from school. Such news was as bad as driving a dagger through his mother’s heart. He would rather throw himself in front of a speeding bus.

He had thought about his impending exams, only a few months away. They were already halfway through second term. How could he miss his exams? He had thought about Mr Choka, that he had believed in his innocence. Thanking Mr Choka was the least he could do, and so he decided to stay on, to find a place to sleep, if only for the night. Tomorrow may bring with it clearer thoughts. 

Thinking about Alex not only triggered the metallic taste in his mouth, but it made him want to choke as well. The metallic taste, one he had earlier resisted to name because it brought bad memories, was the taste of hate. He had tasted it before. He hated the taste, but how would he live with himself if he let someone as malicious and heartless as Alex get away with it?

He removed his tattered wallet and peeped at the money inside. It was not much, but during holidays, he often worked as a casual labourer alongside his parents to earn pocket money. He still had most of the money. A surprise in itself because the wallet had been inside the same suitcase that somebody had obviously broken into.

After he was done with his mandazi and tea, he looked for the cheapest lodging. There were two available. One was made of iron sheets, the other one was made of stone, and it was dirty. He picked the latter. It was above a bar, and as he followed the girl taking him to the room along the hallway, he tried to clear his throat off the pungent smell of urine, both old and new. Inside the room was worse, like somebody had made a habit of using the room as the toilet. It had a low bed, so low that Kanja had to peep at it to make sure the mattress was not resting on the concrete floor. The walls were dirty with running marks. He did not want to imagine what the marks were made of.

“Iko sawa?” the girl asked impatiently as she loudly chewed gum and blew bubbles.

“Iko sawa.” He answered. He didn’t have a choice. He was not really bothered by the condition, at least it had electricity, something he could not boast about where he grew up.

He shut the door, locked it and left the suitcase resting on it. Within minutes of laying on the thin mattress, he was asleep. A dreamless sleep that lasted for hours. When he opened his eyes and sorted his disorientation, he looked at his cheap digital watch. It was four PM. He had slept for over six hours in the same position.

He needed to get ready. Mr Choka would be walking out of the school gate soon. 

***

Five forty-five PM and Kanja had almost given up on waiting for the teacher. He had walked as close as possible towards the school, his suitcase in tow. He had been unable to risk losing the few items he had, and the lodging had not looked very safe.

He was sitting on the suitcase when Mr Choka appeared. He seemed in a hurry and almost missed the dejected looking Kanja.

 “Sir…” Kanja called, standing up and struggling to straighten his legs.

“Kanja!” Mr Choka called, taking a step back. “Kanja, what are you still doing here? Surely you do not intend to go back to the school…” He was pointing at the school accusingly.

“No sir. I was waiting for you…”

“Me? Why?”

“I…I don’t know…I…I cannot go home…”

Mr Choka had a hairstyle that was often the butt of many jokes among the students. He let his hair grow to an inch, but the middle of his head was bald. When he was angry, or deep in thought, he would run his hand over the bald part. He was doing that right now, and Kanja watched him nervously, wondering if he was angry or deep in thought.

“Where do you intend to sleep?” He finally asked, looking up and Kanja.

“I already paid for a room…” Kanja said, then noticed Mr Choka looking at the suitcase in confusion. “I don’t think the lodging is very safe, so I brought the suitcase with me…”

“Oh, okay. Have you eaten?”

“Not right now…I will eat at the hotel when I return…”

“Right…right…” He answered as he rubbed his bald bit. This time, Kanja knew it was in thought. “Okay, I was rushing to meet someone…” Kanja at first thought he had imagined the shy look, then he saw it again. A woman. He almost laughed at the thought of his stern teacher with a woman. “But I cannot let you sleep in that lodging. There are only two of them here, and neither of them is safe.  You can spend the night in my house as we try and sort this mess…”

It was that simple. That dusk, student and teacher, walked side by side to the teacher’s house. A two bedroom house with a flashing toilet. There was a television. It only had one seat and the curtains were made out of leso. There were dirty dishes in the sink, they looked like they had been there for a while.

“You can warm the food on that Meko cooker. Eat it all, where I am going I will be having some food…” He was pointing at the sufurias on a table surface.

“How do you light the cooker?”

Mr Choka gasped, but he showed him how to light the cooker. “Please, do not blow up the house.”

“I will not, sir. Thank you.” He hesitated only for a second. “Sir, did you speak to the headmaster?”

Kanja noticed his teacher’s shoulders drop. “I did. I am sorry I could not get through to him. He is very angry…actually, I think he is more disappointed than angry…”

“I didn’t do it…” Kanja protested weakly, wondering what Mr Choka would say if he knew the items were still in his suitcase.

“Well, the evidence is against you, unfortunately…”

“So that’s it?” Kanja’s voice had risen more than he had intended. “Sorry, I am just so frustrated…”

“Understandably so, but you are crying over spilled milk. The only thing to do right now is to accept that it is done, then look for a solution. There is always a solution…if you look hard enough. By the way, did you leave the items in school? The headmaster was looking for them after you left?”

Kanja’s heart skipped a beat. “I took them with me, but I threw them when I left the school…”

Mr Choka nodded. “Ah, okay. Anyway, get comfortable. If I come back early enough, we shall talk about all this. If not, you go ahead and sleep, you can spend another night tomorrow. You can sleep in the other bedroom. There is no bed, but there is a mattress on the floor. There is a blanket…sorry, I do not have bed-sheets.” He said with an apologetic shrug.

“That is enough.” Kanja wanted, just to make Mr Choka feel better, tell him about where he grew up. That all his life he had slept on a barely there mattress on the floor. That he had mostly used other clothes, usually dirty clothes, to cover himself. That this, to him, was paradise. He did not, because the teacher was in a hurry.

But he did tell him the following evening as they ate, Mr Choka occupying the seat and Kanja the floor. He told him about his life, even about the rape. Mr Choka had shed tears at this piece of information. He had then told him about the murder. Mr Choka had stood up and walked to the door in shock, mouthing a what without a sound. Then he had eventually told Kanja he understood. Mr Choka was the first person Kanja ever told about the skeletons hidden in his young head.

“Young man, you have had quite a life…how can life be so unfair? How can humans be so horrible to one another?”

“I am just unlucky. I am always the odd…” Kanja said quietly.

“Rubbish. There are people worse off than you.” Mr Choka had said unconvincingly. “Anyway, there is no way I am letting you throw away your promising life. I would never be able to live with myself. You may not be able to attend school, but you can home-school yourself, I know you can. You already paid for your exams and you are entitled to sit for them. I will be bringing you the curriculum. I expect you to keep up

And so it was. Kanja became Mr Choka’s housemate. Every evening Mr Choka came with homework. When he could convince the other teachers, they turned up to coach Kanja. In turn, Kanja worked as hard as he could with his studies, he kept the house clean, the clothes clean and did all the cooking.

One evening, as they ate ugali and meat, Mr Choka gave a chuckle. “What?” Kanja asked. With time, the two behaved more life friends than student and teacher. “Do you have another date?”

Mr Choka laughed as he shook his head. “Better. The headmaster now knows that you were set up.”

Kanja almost dropped his food. “What? How?”

“It would seem one of the students ratted on Alex. I guess some people still have conscience in them, as delayed as it may be…the headmaster called me in the office. I found him in shock and he repeated over and over how terrible he felt for ruining your life…”

“So I can go back to school?” He was allowing himself to feel hopeful.

“Not so fast…not so fast. Unfortunately, it is easier to expel than to recall a student. Yours is a matter of the school board. They would have to be called. There would be a meeting between you and them, likely your parents…” Kanja gasped. He had learned to ignore thinking about his parents. “With Alex and his parents…”

“My parents do not know…”

“I know. So the question is, do you want to continue with what we started, or do you want the trouble of telling your parents that you have been off school for two months and they did not know about it – oh, and that would put me in a lot of trouble…”

Kanja gasped again. He could not imagine Mr Choka in trouble because of him, while all the teacher had done was care and worry about him. He shook his head. “You can think about this…” Mr Chaka proposed, his eyes drilling into Kanja’s. Kanja returned the gaze and shook his head vigorously. “No. I am fine doing this. My only request is to be allowed to use the laboratories for the experiments I haven’t been able to do….”

Mr Choka smiled and sighed.

 “What about Alex?”

“Oh, him? He was suspended today…”

“Suspended? Why wasn’t he expelled?”

“What can I say?” Mr Choka asked, understanding Kanja’s frustration because he had felt it himself earlier. “Life can be unfair. Anyway, there is no evidence that he was the one who set you up. It is the ratting student’s word against Alex. What is important is that the truth is out.”

“I guess…” Kanja went back to his meat and ugali but the food had lost its taste. The metallic taste was back. He was bitter and angry and full of hate. He put his plate on the floor and stared blankly at the television.

“At least he is no longer the head boy.” Mr Choka said in a poor attempt to look at the bright side.  

***

On weekends, Kanja would take a break from his studies and look for casual jobs. He would work in construction sites. He would work in the shambas. He would carry vegetables for market people. After work, he would stop by the shops to buy provisions with half the money and save the other half. At first, Mr Choka had protested, but Kanja had ignored and kept contributing to the kitchen budget.

When schools closed, Kanja put on his uniform and went home. When schools opened, he put on his uniform and reported to Mr Choka’s house.

Then it was exams time. Three weeks, he sat in the same exam room with Alex and all the other students he considered betrayers. He spoke to none of them, ignoring anyone who attempted to speak to him. Not once, even when he could feel his gaze on him, did he look at Alex, until the last day of exams.

            He sat for his last paper with a mixture of relief and apprehension. Too often during the last paper, he had found himself turning his head to stare at the Alex. Every glance in that direction left the now familiar metallic taste. That Alex was looking relaxed and nonchalant only added fuel to Kanja’s hate and anger, both serving to convince him that what he had planned for later on was the right thing to do. If he let Alex walk scot-free, he would have to get used to the awful taste.

The only way Kanja would feel vindicated was by punishing Alex. If the universe was not ready to look after him, he would do it himself.  

            It was a plan he had been hatching for months in the middle of his studies, while he cooked, while he worked in the quarries or worked on people’s shambas. Every time his back ached from all the back-breaking work, he would think of Alex, and his mouth would immediately be full of ion taste. Enough was enough.

Today would be the day his plan came to fruition and he hoped for once the universe would favour him. During his stints as a casual labourer, he had met all sorts of characters. The thugs were what he had been interested in. Small time thugs. Young and idle village men who would cut off someone’s head for a few pennies. He had saved enough money, much more than those young men had demanded for what he had asked them to do.

***

Four young men whose rough living made them look anything but young stood by the roadside, a couple of hundred metres from the school gate. Kanja, now out of school uniform, stood a decent distance from them. He would have preferred not to be anywhere within the vicinity, but he needed to identify Alex. When students started trickling out of the school gate, Kanja pulled sat on the grass and covered his head with his hood. Whenever they passed him, he would pretend to be a snoozing drunk. A drunk by the roadside was a common sight. In fact, if he had not insisted on soberness, the four young men would have been sleeping in a ditch by now.

Alex, looking tall and handsome as usual, appeared at a distance. He was in company of two other students.

“The tall one.” Kanja told the boys. “Don’t kill him, please.” He said before quickly disappearing straight into Mr Choka’s house. For two nervous hours, he walked up and down his teacher’s house, several times fighting the temptation to go out there and find out how it had gone down. 

He heard Mr Choka insert his keys to open the door and quickly lay on the sofa, pretending to be asleep.

“There you are.” Mr Choka said, sounding relieved. “How long have you been here?”

Kanja, putting on his best act of somebody just coming out of sleep mode, sat up slowly, rubbed his eyes vigorously until he was sure they were red and stretched his body before letting his eyes meet Mr Choka’s.

“I came in immediately after the exams. Why are you looking worried?” He asked with a yawn. “Are you okay?”

Mr Choka stared at Kanja for enough seconds, hands in his pockets. Then he removed one and rubbed his bald spot. “Some boys beat up and robbed Alex?”

Kanja shot up in genuine shock. He was shocked because he had specifically asked the boys not to steal from him. He should have known better. “What? Alex, the head boy?”

“Former…you didn’t know about it…” It was a statement, delivered in a relieved tone.

“Sir, no I did not. I was the first to leave school and I have been here since then. You can ask the neighbour next door. I was with him…” In truth, he had only spoken to the neighbour for a total of three minutes, but who needed such details?

Mr Choka sat down slowly, like someone afraid of hurting the seat. “I am so relieved. I thought you had decided to take revenge…you know, on what he did to you. I know I wouldn’t blame you but still…”

“I didn’t do it. How is he?” Kanja needed to shift the conversation from himself. He did not know how long he could keep the innocent act.

Mr Choka shrugged. “They worked on him with sticks. Beat him up real bad…”

“Was he alone?”

Mr Choka shook his head. “No. No, he was with two other boys but it would seem Alex tried to fight back. The other boys got slaps, but Alex got a right beating. Luckily they did not break any bones, but they drew blood on his head. He has a big bump here…” He pointed at the back of his head. “Concussion is what he got. He also got five stitches. He will recover, but all the three boys lost their money and suitcases…”

Kanja sighed in relief. They had not done too much damage. It was likely the attack would be treated as a random robbery. He hoped the boys he had paid would not have lose tongues in their drunken states. He shuddered at the last thought, making a decision to leave the area first thing in the morning.

“I was thinking, I need to go home tomorrow…”

Mr Choka’s head snapped up. The sudden change of topic had caught him off-guard. “Oh yeah…I guess that makes sense…” He would miss the boy. He had got used to company. To somebody cleaning up after him. Doing his laundry and ironing. Cooking for him. It was like being happily married to somebody who did not expect anything but a little food and a roof over their head.

“I would like to thank you for everything. For believing me, believing in me and everything else you have done for me. I don’t know where I would be if you had not rescued me…”

Mr Choka gave a dismissive sweep with his hand, but his eyes betrayed his emotions. “No worries. Let’s just hope you pass your exams. That would make me happy…”

“I shall never forget you. One day, I shall repay you for this…”

“Oh, come on. That is not necessary. I did what anyone would have done…” Not true, even he knew that. He had been called crazy by his fellow teachers for accommodating Kanja even though they all agreed that the young man had been set up.

“Perhaps, but it was you who did it. Thank you…”

Later that evening, Kanja went to the shopping centre and met the young men behind a building like they had planned. No words were required during the money exchange. He handed the brown envelope with the money to one of them. He watched his shaky hands with a measure of amusement, wondering if the hands were shaking from alcohol withdrawal or excitement. He waited for it to be counted, he nodded, the young men nodded back and they disappeared into the dark without a word. Kanja took the opposite direction and let the darkness swallow him. He had a smile on his face. He run his tongue inside his mouth, looking for traces of the metallic taste. There was none. Alex may suspect that the beating had been orchestrated by Kanja. Or he may never know it was Kanja. That did not matter to Kanja. What was important was that Alex would stop looking so smug and his mouth had regained his taste buds. 

At dawn the following day, Kanja left the area for the second last time.

***

It was a hot day when the exam results were announced. The announcement was made as Kanja was working alongside other young men in a farm, something he had been doing six days a week since leaving school. He had been unaware of the results until later that evening when he was having supper with his parents while listening to the news on the radio.

They had all paused their eating, bodies tense with eyes turned to the radio. His parents, two of the few people who still had faith in him, were excited. In silence, Kanja listened to them speculating on his pass-mark and the university he was likely to attend. Kanja wanted to laugh, wondering how his illiterate parents knew so much about exams and universities.

Like someone who could see the future that was far from what was expected, he stopped himself from joining in the excitement, in the speculations. It was possible he had done well in his exams, but he knew it would be nowhere near what he could have achieved had he not been expelled.

“When will you go for the results?” His father was asking, catching Kanja in his daydream mode.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But there is no rush. Universities will not be admitting until late in the year. I have a lot of time…”

“Oh…” His father sounded disappointed.

“Don’t worry father. I am sure I have done well, and I promise to go as soon as possible but for now, I am saving money to start a business for you two so that you can stop working so hard for so little…”

That had brought the smiles back to their faces. “That would be so good. You are a good son…” His father choked.

Kanja finished his supper, downed it with cold water from a tin cup and excused himself to go to sleep. He had rented a separate room only a few metres away from his parents. He had even bough a mattress and a blanket, something he was mighty proud of as they were his first items to own exclusively.

***

Deep down, Kanja had every intention to go for his results, but life had happened.

Over time, his mundane life in the village had started eating on him, irritating him, and he was unsettled. He did hard, manual labour for eight hours a day, six days a week. He had developed muscles, just about the only good thing that came out of that experience – and the money. Between his sun-charred skin and his mental state, he could not decide which one had made him want to leave the village most.

The decision had been made as he and other workers were having lunch, shielding themselves from the hot sun under a tree, hunched against the tree trunk. One of them had recounted his meeting with one man who used to work with them. ‘He left this dead end job and went to Nairobi to look for work in Industrial Area.’

‘Where is Industrial Area?’ Kanja had asked.

‘In Nairobi.’ His colleague had answered with a shrug. He had never been there. None of them had ever been there. In fact, the only times Kanja had been to the city was during his journeys to and from boarding school. He had never been curious enough to walk the city, always finding the traffic and crowds daunting. He would get off one matatu and enter the next like someone escaping danger.

‘Is he making money?’ Another one had asked.

‘He looks like. He looks cleaner than us…’ the four young men instinctively looked down at their dirty clothes and bodies and smiled. ‘I think I will try Industrial Area too. There is nothing for us here except get married to a village girl and have village children who will have the same miserable lives.’ It was a bitter statement, one that seemed to resonate with all of them because they all went silent, chewing on the words. ‘Talking about getting married, Kanja we have been wondering, how come we have never seen you with a girl?’

Kanja’s heart skipped as he stood up. ‘None of your business…’ he countered with yawn and a stretch. ‘But if you must know, I do not want to make a village girl pregnant and have to get married to someone I do not like, like Njogu here…’ he pointed at one of the young men who had recently found himself married to a girl he had only had sex with once, against a tree under the cover of darkness, village dogs circling from a distance with excitement. The girl had fallen pregnant. A couple of months later, the mother of the girl had dragged the girl to Njogu’s shack one morning, carrying a plastic paper bag on the other hand, one she continued to dump on Njogu’s feet.

For weeks, Njogu had been the easy source of jokes. He, Njogu, threw a stone at Kanja as he walked away. The stone missed him.

***

Two weeks later, Kanja left for the city. He had bought himself a new pair of trousers, a tee shirt, a jacket and a new pair of canvas shoes. As he walked to the village bus stop to take a matatu to the city, all his monetary wealth hidden in different parts of his clothes including socks, he felt conspicuous. Near shy. He smiled at fellow villagers who made fun of how smart he looked.

It was on a Monday on a March day, a day that could not seem to decide if it was going to be hot or cold. He looked up at the partially cloudy skies, squinting at the sun that was peeping through one of the holes. He shrugged and pressed on. He felt a little guilty for lying to his parents. As far as they were concerned, he was off to get his exam results. His father had even pressed a few notes in his palm for lunch.

But he intended to make up for it by eventually going for the results, just not today. He would make money, help his mother start a business that would keep her away from working like a slave. Perhaps his father too. He would install some dignity in them. But first, he had to find Industrial Area.

When he got to the city in mid-morning, the clouds had become darker. He looked up at them and shivered.

He walked aimlessly for half an hour, marvelling at the tall buildings, the traffic, the harassed looking people shoving this way and that way. He sat on a bench and bought soda and cake from hawker, then he started watching the world go by.

Months later, he would think how stupid he had been for not being suspicious of the stranger who came and sat next to him. For starters, there were other empty benches, he could have picked any of them. That he had also sat too close to Kanja instead of the other end of the bench and he had not picked up on that either, made his angry with himself.

But he was a villager. A city rookie. He came from a place where everyone knew everyone else. People trusted each other, at least at day time and in crowded places.

“It’s very cold today…” the stranger had remarked. They had both looked up at the skies. Kanja nodded.

“It looks like it will rain…”

They spoke about the weather for a minute before the man offered him a piece of chewing gum. The last thing he remembered of that encounter was when he put the gum in his mouth and thought it tasted very bitter. He had thought perhaps Nairobi gums were bitter.

As the man, along with another one who appeared when Kanja got delirious, started helping him to his feet, strangers gave them curious glances. None of them strangers guessed that Kanja had been drugged. They looked like two people helping a drunk or sick friend.

Kanja was hauled on a mkokoteni to a place he would never be able to identify. When he came to, he was in a dark alley, it was dark and freezing. He did not have his jacket or shoes. All his money was gone. He started weeping, at first silently, then he howled.

Big and unfamiliar city. Cold. Angry. Scared. He forced himself to stand up, his head felt woozy, and he was thirsty, thirsty like he had never thought possible. The buzz of the city’s night life found him wandering aimlessly. There were happy people, drunk people and people were still in a hurry. Darkness did not seem to slow them down.

Thirsty and with a pounding head and weak, he finally lost his strength next to a disabled man who was still hawking, using his wheel chair as the shop.

“Wewe, ni nini mbaya?” The disabled man asked in alarm, poking him with a stick. “What’s your problem? Are you sick?”

Kanja, in foetal position, nodded and whispered for water. The man gave him water, Kanja downing it in minutes, losing his breath in the process.

It took ten minutes to recover enough to recount his experience.

“I am so sorry. They drugged you. This city is becoming too much…have you eaten?” Kanja shook his head. The disabled man gave him a soda and a cake. “Sorry, I do not have anything else.”

It was the tastiest meal Kanja had ever tasted.

“Do you live far?”

Kanja had recovered enough to work out how much the man had done for him. He had looked at his limited stock that he had helped him with water, with a soda and cake, and he had not asked for money. He felt guilty. “No. I can walk…” He lied, unwilling to burden him more. “Thank you so much. When I get the money, I will come and pay you…”

“You will find me here…if I do not die first.” He said with a big laugh. Kanja smiled for the first time in hours.

He had walked away, aimlessly, for two hours. It was past midnight when he finally identified an alley he thought was safe because it was dark. If he hunched himself against one wall, he thought, nobody would notice him. He would think of something in the morning, if he does not freeze to death. He sat down, against the wall, brought his knees up and tried to ignore the cold, but his body was shivering every five seconds.

When he saw the silhouettes of five male figures walking towards him, every nerve and sense in him told him to run, very fast. He did not. The cold and dejection he was experiencing had taken away all his energy and resolve. He sat frozen.  Plus, could it get worse? By the time they surrounded him, he had more or less accepted his fate and the fact that it could get worse. Like a dead mass, his body remained still as they quietly turned his empty pockets upside down. He felt their quiet fury when they found nothing. He offered no resistance when they all took turns in sodomising him. Cold tears cutting through his hot face as he relieved the same experience many years ago.

When his aggressors walked away as quietly as they had walked towards him, his eyes had followed their evil figures disappearing. His body had not moved. He had stared at the horizon they had disappeared into, only blinking when his eyes became too dry. The tears had long stopped flowing.

Morning had found him on the same alley, same foetal position. The city was once again abuzz, but he might have as well been an invisible man, or a piece of discarded paper, or the alley shit that people stepped over. He did not know his Bible well, but he emphasized with some sick man in the Bible, the one Pharisees had stepped over.

A miracle had happened at lunch time. He had been woken up from a slumber he had not even been aware he had taken, but someone was softly nudging at his ribs. Still in pain and hunger and anger, he had opened his eyes and came face to face with a pair of bloodshot eyes. The stench on him, on a different occasion, would have choked Kanja. His hair was several inches too long, too shaggy and dirty. The rest of him was as dirty as his hair. He was carrying a dirty sack, plastic bottles peeped through the holes in the sack.

‘Wewe unaitwa nani?’ What’s your name? The red eyed man asked. His voice sounded like he had a bad cold.

For an answer, Kanja blinked and shifted his body for the first time in hours.

The man put down his sack and sat on his legs, peering into Kanja. His eyes studied Kanja’s vertical body, understanding flooding into the red eyes.

‘Boss, walikutia?’  It was a statement, not a question. ‘They did this last night and you are still here? Who are you? If they find you again, they will rape you again. Have you eaten?” Kanja was a little confused with the stranger’s concern, found it weird that the kindness he was experiencing was coming from a person he would have run away from on a different occasion,  but at that point, he was just glad somebody was worried about him.

He shook his head. The stranger walked away, leaving the sack beside Kanja. He was back in minutes carrying a bag of hot chips and bottled water. He sat down next to Kanja, lifting Kanja’s limp body and using his own body to support Kanja. With dirty hands, he fed Kanja. City dwellers passed and stared at them curiously, but none of them stopped.

The dirty and stinky angel had left Kanja for half an hour and when he returned, he had two younger boys in tow. “Look after him. I am going to Inda to take the bottles. Do not leave his side until I return, mnaskia?” Kanja would later learn Inda was the same Industrial Area that had brought him to the city. The boys, high on glue, sat quietly on each side of him. Once in a while they incoherently spoke to each other, they even offered Kanja their water and glue. He declined the latter. At dusk, his angel had returned with an empty sack, and with the help of the boys, they had helped a limping Kanja to what they said was a safer place. At that point, Kanja had not cared to believe them, or question them. He was just happy to have been fed and guarded.

            ***     

That March evening, Kanja became the newest member of one of the Nairobi street families headed by Mato, his rescuer.

Mato was the clear leader and everybody’s big brother but only because he was not old enough to be a father. It was hard to determine his age, he didn’t know it either and explained it with “I was a baby when Kenyatta died.”

The family’s ‘home’ was on Kirinyaga Road. Ten teenage boys and three teenage girls. Sometimes they were less when some of them disappeared to somewhere else, other times they were more when they had visitors from other families. Kanja, for the longest time, did not consider himself part of the family. He was only with them because he was not well enough to either go to Industrial Area or back home. But he found himself getting into the routine, and loving it in a weird way.

Their home was in an alley, a shed made of tattered plastic bags that protected them from night chills and rain. That was where Kanja spent most of the next three weeks, lying on a bed made of dirty clothes. At day time as most of the family scattered to do whatever they did at day time, Mato would choose two boys as Kanja’s caretakers. They were in charge of feeding him and protecting him from other street boys. They were in charge of reminding him to apply antiseptic on his rectum.

His rectum healed well. There was less stinging pain with every application of the antiseptic. He no longer needed to take the paracetamol for the pain. Somehow, the wound had not become septic, but Kanja constantly worried that he had been infected with the HIV virus. That thought would make his swallow hard, that he would possibly be infected with the virus while had never had sex, not willingly, not with a woman.

But he did not get infected. Once in a while, a group of young doctors led by a beautiful young doctor made rounds around the city, hunting for street families and giving them free medical tests and treatment. Kanja had been tested and given an all clear.

Kanja had become part of the family as he healed. He worried about how at home he felt out here with a bunch of dirty strangers, but he also admitted, only to himself, that he loved the unconditional love he was receiving. They all reminded him of Mr Choka. As he approached the peak of his healing, he got comfortable in the routine. He would take random walks with some of them. Some of them did what Mato did, collect plastic bags and sell them to an Indian in Industrial Area. The money would be used to buy food, or drugs for the sick. Sometimes, they walked to Gikomba and bought second hand clothes for everybody.

Pretty soon however, Kanja realised they did not all do honest jobs. There were thieves among them. They plucked side mirrors from parked cars or in traffic. They grabbed mobile phones from careless people. The heist would quickly be sold to ready buyers along Kirinyaga Road for very little money. The younger ones begged from money and food. The girls sold their bodies, a realisation that shocked Kanja - what type of man had sex with such smelly and dirty girls?

“When you need to have sex, all your other senses take leave…” Mato chuckled as he answered Kanja.

Kanja did not understand. He had never had sex, but he was getting used to the stale, dirty body smells. Sometimes, they all went to the Globe Roundabout and bathed in the dirty river. The baths left them as smelly as before, if not worse.

“You cannot be clean from this water…” Kanja had protested on day one. He had stripped to his underwear, hesitating at the bank while the other boys and girls dived in, splashing water on each other.

“Come on, it’s not about being clean, it’s about cooling off…come on, you will enjoy.”

He had stepped in, face folded in disgust, until one of the younger boys had splashed water on him, some of it had ended up in his mouth. It was a foul taste. He stepped fully in, intending to discipline the boy, but the others followed suit and in seconds, he was wet, and enjoying the wetness. It had been weeks since he had had a bath.

On his second month on the street, Kanja looked like a street veteran. He was dirty, his clothes were torn, he carried with him a bottle of glue, but it was more for show because he hated the smell and the effect it had on his street family. When he plucked his first side mirror from a packed vehicle, he had been nervous, but there were five boys standing guard and encouraging him. He had taken it to an Indian on the same street. He had found his calling as a thief.

***

On the harsh streets of Nairobi, his impotence had been a faithful shadow. Evenings were initially strange moments for Kanja. It would start with sitting round a fire powered by a tyre, they would all talk about their days. The stories were often of lucky escapes from victims, or a rant against the Indian who had underpaid them for an item. Sometimes, they would cook a meal in an old sufuria that was never washed properly. Strangely for Kanja, he ate more meat than he had ever done in his life. Butcheries were often happy to give away their rotting meat to the street boys. None of them ever got food poisoning.

After meals, clusters would be formed around the shack. Sex clusters. Some masturbated, often in front of each other, as if it was the most normal thing to do. Others would be heard groaning behind the shack. Some had sex with the girls, some boys had sex with each other.

While his counterparts did all that, he would remain by the fire, stare at it angrily, like it was the cause of his woes. His penis remained faithfully limp. When the lump of jealousy constantly blocking his throat during those moments got too much, he would sit a distance away and watch their figures in the dark move against each other rhythmically with envy as they performed mass masturbations or orgies. He would once in a while risk touching his groin, nothing happened.

Sometimes, the street girls offered him sex. He hated that they offered it to him out of pity, he could hear it in their voices. He would walk away, unwilling to display his sadness to them. Like the boys in his secondary school, some high-on- anything street boys and girls would accuse him of being gay, prompting some of the boys who preferred to have sex with each other to offer him the same. Then he got tired of walking away and learned how to wear a blank face, a blank face that seemed to wade off ridicule.

One cold July, he got his respect. And the nickname Boss. He and his adopted street family were keeping warm around the usual smelly tyre-fuelled fire. He had an old and smelly blanket around himself because unlike the others, he was not having sex with anyone. He was watching them, blank look on his face, stubbornly refusing to walk away from the warm fire. One of the bigger boys, one known for preferring other boys than girls, had roughly pushed him to the ground.

Kanja was strong, way stronger than any of his street siblings, but he had been caught off-guard. The boy was on him, grappling with Kanja’s blanket that landed on the fire, then his trouser. In that one moment, Kanja relieved both his rapes. The rage he felt was so strong, it blinded him.

What he did next was discussed among his street family for a long time, but nobody, not even himself, had known how it had happened. But he blamed it on the metallic taste that had flooded his mouth. One minute he had been on the ground, the next he was strangling the big boy and the other boys were struggling to get him off.

He had no memory of freeing himself. He had no memory of reaching for the boy’s throat and squeezing it with both hands. He had no memory of throwing off everyone else who tried to get him off. He did not even hear them scream that the boy’s foot was on fire. Those were things he was told later when he was calmer.

“Kanja! Boss!” It was Mato’s voice. He heard it, clearly. “Boss, wacha hizo. Don’t kill him. He is stupid and high…leave it…” Mato’s voice was calm.

Slowly, Kanja got off the boy; he was not moving.

“Is …is he dead?” He hardly recognized his voice. It was shaking.

“He will be fine…somebody pour water on his face now!”

It took five minutes to revive the boy. He opened his eyes, disoriented, then scared.

“Listen here all of you…” Mato finally said when there was order. Everyone but Kanja and Mato was huddled together in one corner, shaky from what they had just witnessed. The boy Kanja nearly killed was lying on the ground, quivering. “You all need to leave him alone. He does not want to have sex, okay? When he does, he will let you know. You have seen what he can do to you. He is boss, and you better remember that before you attempt foolishness on him.”

After that, they had left him alone. They hardly looked at him straight in the face. When they did, Kanja saw fear, or perhaps it was respect. Whatever it was, Kanja loved it, and he loved the fact that they all started addressing him as Boss.

***

Over the years, Boss had only a few incidents of his penis attempting to rise, and even those incidents were nothing to write home about. Once in a long while, he would wake up in the morning and feel his own hardness but as soon as his hand touched it, it would ping down slowly and surely. Other incidents were short, almost imaginary. His penis was like a near flat car battery; several false starts, giving him false hope before the deliberate spitting half-hearted sounds. He did not need to be a doctor to know his trauma after the first rape had everything to do with his inability to get arouse.

At least he was Boss.

***