LAUGHTER IN THE SLAVERY by Mwaura Karagu

I will never forget my experience in that cell

LAUGHTER IN THE SLAVERY

There is a reason I do not like Hussein yet at the same time you cannot afford to avoid him and his friendship. One time he is busy cracking your ribs with escapades he went through while growing up and the next moment he is putting you in trouble with almost everyone. With your boss. With his boss.With police. With your girlfriend and even skunks. The idiot is made to attract trouble even when you are not expecting it. You go with him to a club and he abuses those miraba minne bouncers then points at you and tells them, “Don’t try to be stupid or my bodyguard will slap your bare behinds and throw you out.” How many times have we left those joints with blackened eyes and humps protruding on our heads from a clean beating we get from bouncers? I do not like Hussein. He is not my friend. He is just that malady you cannot avoid.

You cannot avoid him because sometimes you must visit his homeland with him. While there, his lovely mother will feed you as if she has been sent to kill you with food. The starters will range from nuts to oranges to bananas and sometimes even sugarcane. Chickens will be assassinated in your honor and your plate, nay, tray will be stuffed with drumsticks, the gizzard and other chicken parts. The soup will be in a separate bowl. The thug’s mother will have prepared boiled bananas and made some mukimo too. Then the feasting will begin. More will be brought until she sees tears in your eyes! She will apologize for not feeding you enough since she was unprepared for your visit! She will then go to her farm and bring you foodstuffs enough to fill the boot of the car then she would stand there and watch you with satisfaction that as you go to Nairobi, your needs for almost two weeks are covered. Next time I take the fool to Kitale he will wish his mother never tortured me! I will bribe my mother to kill him with food.

There is this one time he abused another fellow whom I understand is from Kitui and his name is Mutiso. He was Hussein’s coworker. I was there and as it is expected, I was on his side. We chided him that he is the fattest man in Kathonzweni yet he is so thin that he can pass through rain without getting wet. Hussein told him that if he becomes fatter than that, he will be bewitched.

“Do you know that I can curse both of you by invoking my ancestors?” threatened Mutiso. Hussein laughed as if he had seen a hyena with lipstick.

“Fool, do you know that my grandfather would milk an elephant while seated on a porcupine? I will just scratch my naval and your organs will start falling one after the other. I come from a clan that just looks at an eagle from above and it just falls.” Hussein ranted a threat.

“And as for me, do you know that I was circumcised by my drunk grandmother under the midday sun using a mature sisal fibre? Look here coward, no form of witchcraft beats that,” I added. Mutiso cursed us more and left us chewing our herb without a care.

That evening while going to our habitat, Hussein and I met a group of police officers who stopped us. I knew if we ran away, we would be shot and the police with help of the media will call us armed thugs. The only thing we were armed with was a bunch of twigs and groundnuts. We were going to have a gang meeting together with the other members of the crew Mutheki, the owner of the illegal River Mbane Bar which doubled up as a brothel, Winnie the mad woman of the group, Daisy the skunk, Eddy the meek fool and Ken, Hussein’s brother whose love for the weed was second to none. The police officers were on our back.

“Who are you?” one of them demanded.

“Kenyans,” Hussein answered before I said anything. I was the sober one so I thought I would talk nicely to them.

“Kenyans, mnatoka wapi na mnaenda wapi usiku?” another one asked. Before I opened the hole on my face to reply, the idiot had already answered.

“Kwani apo mko ni mchana tukuje. Mtuachishe sisi twaenda kuchana. “The next thing we realized, we had been thrown in a black Mariamu which had been packed nearby. We were taken to the central police station and thrown into a cell.

I will never forget my experience in that cell. We were met by mean thugs with bloodshot eyes from years of torture by life and smoking bhang. One of them held Hussein by the scruff of his shirt and lifted him up. His feet left the ground and only toes touched the ground. He was shivering. Sweating. Sober already. Begging. I almost laughed when I remembered the moment early in the day with Mutiso of Kathonzweni. The idiot had told Mutiso that he was the first person to snatch a prey from a tiger (yet there are no tigers in Kenya). Here, the thug was wetting his pants. They finally let us be after we lied to them that the reason we were incarcerated was because we had hit a police officer with a car and he was battling with death in a hospital. We became instant heroes. The food here tasted like soil. I did not even touch it the second time. I gave to one of the long “serving’’ inmate. The room smelt a mixture of cigarette smoke, piss, sweat and poop. What a nauseating environment! The jerry can we used to pee in was in a corner and as it was the rule, it was always the turn of a new “inmate” to go and empty it in the morning. I was made to do it because Hussein had already made friends there and was considered a trustee. I couldn’t wait to leave that place.

Before we were bundled into the cell, we had left Mutheki’s contacts with the officer in charge just to inform him and the other fools that we were guests of the state. The following morning the whole crew was there. They had a huge task of convincing the police that we were law abiding citizens and that we are honest earners in the streets of Nairobi. In the OB, our crime was listed as ‘’trafficking bhang.’’ I had never touched nor seen that thing until recently when I had found Ken smoking it. They paid a ‘’fine’’ of 3000 shillings to secure our release. I left the cells cursing Hussein. When we told Mutiso what had happened to us, he laughed and told us that next time we tell him that if he is rained on he will smell soup because he is bony, we will see worse. 

That is why I don’t like this unavoidable son of the soils born and brought up in a village in Muranga. My revenge mission is on track. I must put him in trouble. Deep trouble.