Leila had just closed school. After a few exchange of
pleasantries through text she asked when I’d be around so that I could buy her
a drink. She said her favourite was Chrome. I wondered. Chrome! Odd name for alcohol. I mean there’s Kenya
Cane, Kenya King, Konyagi, Meakins [I can name almost all the brands of cheap
liguor-I belong to this class]. Names weren’t yet exhausted to warrant someone
naming a vodka Chrome. Like someone woke up one day with a stiff hung over from
the other liquors and said, ‘I’m gonna make me a liquor and name it Chrome. I’m
gonna make Chrome more than just a browser.’ Five years from now a deep voice
will emanate from our speakers….when
chrome was just a browser….
My interest was irked. Trouble is I hadn’t enough problems
in my Problem Bank to make me visit the liquor store. Every time I felt the
urge of communing with eagles I was always repulsed by the Problem Bank
customer care. Sweetly she’d say, ‘You have insufficient problems, please find a
woman and call back.’ That’s when I realized how it sucked to live without
problems. The world would suck even more without problems. There’d be no
politics and worst of all journalists would be jobless. Imagine a world like
that! A world where people wake up, make love with only their wives, eat, pray
and make love again [with their wives only-this is important]. The world would
be so freaking boring.
Back to chrome.
So am heading home with my paps. The sound track to our
silent conversations has always been Franco’s music. He has an album that he
plays every single time I’ve been on that car with him. We drive reveling in
our awkward silence. Franco belts his tunes. I used to hate such kind of music.
Now I don’t, how else would I survive a six hour journey? We stop at Nakuru. He
had some business to attend. He disappears and I spot a huge Chrome advert on a
billboard. There was a dude dressed stylishly, with shoes that glowed around
the edge of the sole. There were curvy colorful lines imposed on him but not
enough to make him indistinguishable. The photo was taken while he was dancing
to some hip hop music, I guess, because his hands were in the air and he stood
on his toes. Below him was a fancy slogan I forgot to remember. The clear
target of this drink was the young broke ass people. Just like me. RRP 180.
‘I’ll buy it one day’ I promised my liver.
We get home in the wee hours, the kind my high school principal
used to call satanic hours. That was just one of the few punchlines he managed
to pull. One day he claimed our parents were the poorest South of Sahara and
north of Limpopo. If weren’t peaceful enough we’d have lynched his car [one of
his]. Looking back our parents sure had to be. I mean if you can build a
multi-million house immediately after purchasing a Toyota Rav 4, everybody had
to be poor surely. I retrieve my bag from the car boot and prance about
indulgently. There is something about the village; fresh air, no noise except
dogs barking occasionally and cocks crowing-the air is generally serene.
Something about home. No matter how long you’ve been away
everything will always seem normal. No matter how changes have taken place it
will still be the same place you left a few years or months back. It will still
be home.
I should meet Leila, I thought basking on a rock by the
stream. I always check on this rock occasionally, but almost always, when I
want to clear my mind. The gurgling stream offers the best beats as the birds
sing recklessly up the trees. A few texts later we strike a deal. We’d meet the
next day, a Sunday. As usual she says she doesn’t have fare. You get a cookie
for guessing what I did. Bingo! You got it right.
Is it impatience or is it that girls drag themselves
deliberately when they agree to meet you? Or it could be my own problem? She
had promised to leave her place at 3.30, add another hour and she’d be there. At
four I was there, spruced up. I called. She doesn’t pick. I call again. No
answer. An hour later she calls. I rushed out from this dinghy movie place,
where retards catch Dj Afro movies. I forced myself in, for time to move. I’d
missed Dj Afro anyway, and that was enough an excuse. This is also the place we
catch football. Here the roof is dust infested. Woe unto you if a belated
Arsenal fan jumps in jubilation, worse still for a replay of goal. It’s not
rare to find people celebrating a replay, especially when their team’s behind.
I think they should ban replaying from different angles because many people
here confuse for another goal.
Leila says she’d be leaving her place in an hour. That’s makes
it two. Thinking of two grueling hours in a dinghy place, coupled with sweaty
human beings, crammed in one place and the hotness of the place prompts me to
ask what’s keeping her that long. I call her back immediately she hangs up. She
picks up and barks.
‘I just told you I’ll be there in an hour….is it this money
that you are desperate about. I can send them back…’ and she hangs up just like
that. Without according me an opportunity of reply. Meager money. I couldn’t count
the amount of money Sportpesa and African Spirits Limited have gobbled
up-probably a thousand over.
Why would she be irked by a hundred shillings? Why would she
even think I would be at a loss with a mere hundred shillings? Just because she
wouldn’t be around wouldn’t mean I wouldn’t get where I was to go [apply your
poetic knowledge or lack of it]
Just stay wherever you
are, do whatever you are doing with whomever you are with, however you lie it. Got
nothing to lose. I text her and head to this pub. It doesn’t have
a name now but three years ago it use to be called Metro Pub. It’s deserted. I count
only two tables, with a huge space between them. Three high stools are around
the counter, unoccupied. Kalenjin music pierces the air. I look around and
notice a drunk light skinned girl cuddling or seemed an old rugged looking man.
I don’t want guess his age, cheap liquor has a way of aging someone embarrassingly.
May he’d just cleared his fourth form. The girl rises once the song changes. I didn’t
even notice the change, but I know it was Chelele before as it is now. She dances
around trying to move her rigid backside to this Chelele song. Well, all Chelele songs are the same. And she
has the guts to call herself Binti Osama! How would you allow to be killed by a
non-entity? Oh, I guess your dad wasn’t there to protect you, blame it on
Obama.
I
order Chrome. This is where we make acquaintances with Chrome.
I hope you aren’t slow like the browser,
thinks I.
‘We only have this,’ a motherly waiter says plainly. Trouble
with all the pubs around here is there aren’t any beautiful waiters. No even
one. And the serve you in those coloured plastic cups. I see a green liquid
inside.
‘Aren’t all supposed to be like this?’ I regretted saying this;
probably I’d be thought as an amateur drunkard. Knowing I don’t know she’d be
at liberty to charge me any amount. And that’s robbery considering the fact
that I’ve emerged from Muthurwa’s unnamed pubs on my goddamn feet. Skilled drunkard!
‘Lemon flavoured, ‘ she says, devoid of any emotion. A rock
would say the same words without altering anything.
Green, blue, yellow….whatever (Breaking Bad fans). I want to
taste Chrome. I grab it and she demands cash. Like I just stumbled into the
pub. I reach for my pocket and retrieve a two hundred shilling note. I hand it
to her and she hands me a glass. For the first time I see a glass. Maybe first
timers are served in glasses, like most homes do to visitors. Those reserved
utensils, you know. I pour a little and gulp it down and waited. Nothing happened.
I poured some more and gulped. Nothing happened. The music still sucked. The two
lovebirds were still miserable. Me too. Leila is distant. Like she’s never
existed. May this Chrome is as slow as the one am used to. I pour half the
glass and gulped down.
Then, without notice everything turned beautiful. The music
became the best sound one could ever hear. The ugly couple looks sexy. The motherly
bartender looks sexy too. I want to rise and gyrate whatever I have. That would
wait, I think.
Then she calls. Leila calls. I look at the phone and toss it
aside. She calls again. Same procedure. She calls once more. Same procedure. She
texts. I look at the text.
I’m sorry.
Doesn’t sound real.
I mean it.
You’d have texted immediately. Not three hours later
Just received the text now
I’ve haven’t seen yours too, will check them tomorrow. Good
night.
More and more sorries come in. I’m sorry for her because I wasn’t
even reading them. Minutes later, after clearing my drink, I summon a boda boda
guy. Ten minutes I’m fumbling with the door lock, it isn’t actually a lock but
a nail driven into the edge of the door and curled, just to keep the door in place
but not for security.
Lights out.
