It all begins with a smell.
Silence stands tall between mother and I. Once in a while, the silence leans back and the fire cackles, a log burnt to embers splinters sending sparks flying all over the kitchen. Some sparks find our clothes- our dirt clothes- and drill holes onto the ageing fabrics. Mostly, I ignore them but mother, always with reflexive gestures, brushes them off. She reaches for another log but all the wood is gone. She rummages in the dirt around her and gathering a handful of tinder, throws it into the fire. It bursts into flames.
Smelly flames.
A breeze creeps in through a gaping hole where, with all their discordant shapes and sizes, the flattened out tin cans that make our kitchen's walls refuse to meet. The breeze sends a plume of smoke in my direction. I choke as the strong smell of burning Meru oak imprints itself into my childhood memories.
We lapse back into inertia. Silence stands up straight. The smell hovers.
Silence leans back again. The sufuria on the fire boils over. Mother sticks a calloused thumb under the lid and flips it over. It clutters over one of the three hearth stones and on to a corner. She reaches for her cooking stick, stirs the contents of the sufuria. She turns the cooking stick around and uses its handle to poke the fire.
The moon gapes at me through another hole this one high up where a section of the the wall shies away from the roof. I lean back- playing peek a boo with the moon- but she spies me through a constellation of holes and tears on the tin roof. In a few minutes, yet another bland dinner will be served. But this one I will have to miss because my phone rings and yanks me out of my day dream and into the _ _.
I did not name this place. She did. The white girl leaning over me. I ask her how I got here all the while trying to crane my neck and check the place out. My neck is immobile. Held in place by a neck brace.
Suddenly, things race through my mind. The strip bar. A stripper with her legs around my neck. An out of body experience. A drink with John the Apostle. The beginnings of a story ... the middle of a story... an end blurred out.
That day was the 10th of April 2008. I had, once again, lived to die another day.
***
The challenges of being a blogger who is not anonymous, and yet chooses to tell real-life stories, has finally caught up with me. I wrote the final three episodes of the Sleazemeister series, throughout last night, on note paper while lying on the floor of the kitchen described in this episode. Those three episodes were, in order of appearance: White Chicks; Miscegenation and Coitus Interrupters. Those episodes covered my experiences over the period May- August 2008. (August being the time when I wrote the first Sleazemeister episode.)
But as I lay there watching the kerosene lamp flicker, and eventually go off, my mind raced through the last one month the culmination of which was an episode titled Paradise Lost. This episode, written this morning, was a sort of afterword to the Sleazemeister that reveals me to be recently returned to Kiambu. Again.
So where are the posts? They will not be published here but I hope to turn them into a chapter in my memoirs. At that point, assuming I will finally make some money out of all this writing, I will have someone to deal with the legal issues- my publishers- and enough resources to not bother about pissing off some hoodlums and a string of lovers and sex partners both past and present.
The import of all this is that the Sleazemeister series has had to end prematurely and on a rather lame note here. I can be convinced though to make a limited edition PDF of it. But that is just a thought.
In the meantime, now that my return to the blogosphere has been firmly established, look out for new stories from the here and now. I might be back in the city by the time I write the next post or I might still be in Kiambu. Wherever I am, I promise to write. So see you all next monday.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
RETURN OF THE SLEAZEMEISTER- Jesus Wept
[The Story So Far...]
“In the beginning was the word.” the ancient Hebrew yelled.
“Take the word and stick it up your Kike arse.” I yelled back. “It all started with a smell.”
“What in heaven's name are you talking about Potash?”
“Listen here John,” I said to him as I lit up my third cigarette of the hour blowing smoke into his face. “It don't mean a thing to me that you have sold over a hundred million and I do not even have a bloody book yet, but you got to let me tell my story...”
We were seated at the terrace of a bar on the seedier side of heaven.
“Keep it down, out there,” shouted the barman his voice following his scraggy beard and screwed up face out of the window, “I am not licensed.” He looked the type that had started out as a bootlegger in Vanity Fair and through an oversight of Divine Bureaucracy or using a forged visa on Pilgrim's stolen passport had got into the Celestial City. John made a victory sign at him which in my newly enlightened state I knew to be the 60 AD equivalent of showing someone the finger. The barman jumped onto the window sill and pulling out an upstart penis wagged it at John. That I assumed to be a Masonic sign because, their type not being allowed here, I had no way of interpreting it.
The terrace faced a slow moving body of water that was, to my Nairobian's eyes, too clean to be a river. Nairobi River must have looked like that once long ago before even the do-gooders at UNEP gave up on it and decided to spend their money on duty free Hummers, I mused. Then my eyes were drawn to something on the river's west bank: Hyacinth? Detritus? Before I could figure out what it was I heard a series of loud bangs coming from that side of the river. The kind of loud bangs that you quickly learn to sleep through if, like me, you have lived in Kiambu or certain areas of Nairobi.
The sound of gunfire.
John: “Bastards!”
“What?”
“They just delivered a fresh bunch of virgins to that side”
“No shit!”
“If I had known that there was more than one way to heaven do you think I would have bothered to give up fishing?” John lamented. “I mean, look at fuckers like you, for all his vengeance who would have known God could give out guilt-free-passes?”
“Wacha I pee.” I dismissed his rant.
The toilets were at the back of the building. Down a dimly lit corridor. NAPOLEON WAS HERE! A squiggle, in dark coloured shit, on the wall informed me. HITLER TOO! Another, in a sloppy hand that was trying so hard to steal my attention from the other, insisted. “Who would have known?” I mumbled at the wall and reminded myself to sign this guest book on my way out. (Unfortunately, hard as I tried, a shit was not forthcoming so those of you that pass by that way in future might feel inclined to call me a liar but that is yours.)
As I walked back through the bar, a couple of medieval Popes beckoned me over to their table. “Hey moor,” one of them extended an avuncular smile at me, “you are new here no?”
“How about a glass of Roodeberg for two old hands who need it?”said the other.
“If you fuckers had bothered to store your treasures up here,” I said leaning against their table with all the weight of Sunday School behind me, “You would be drinking vintage Lachrymal Christi up in here instead of trying to cadge some cheap South African crud.”
“If we had known they would let Caliban in here we would have signed up for the other side.” one Pope yelled.
“Devil's dam, if you know your Shakespeare, Leo,” the other said to his friend, “every one of these bloody moors. I am so glad that in our time there was a sea between us and them. These days an honest to God man cannot afford decent neighbours for a lifetime of trying.”
Leo, returning to fiddling with the TV in an attempt to catch an illegal channel: “They even make the world turn now...” The TV screen stopped flickering to reveal one of porno's greatest moments: Bobbi Bliss deep-throating Mandingo. “... and just look at what the world has come to- a hot babe like this can only find fame by deep-throating that horse sized savage? Like who is this Mandingo anyway- Othello or something?”
“Fuck Othello,” Leo's friend retorted, “that son of Caligula ravished Maria, my youngest Venice mistress... caught the bastard negro jumping out of the window as I stepped into my lady's chamber and as I...”
I never heard the rest of that Pope's story because having shaken hands around the bar and stopping to show Kapuscinski where his arse was so he would know where to shove his Africa stories, I stepped out into the terrace.
“You know, “ I said to John, “those losers in there... the Popes... they remind me of some crafty Kenyans in America. Fuckers who hang around and wait for new kids to arrive from home with harambee money and welcome them with hearty smiles and before the kids can tell a quarter from a dime, it is all gone.”
“Forget those small timers, Potash,” John said shaking his head. “I have seen Kenyans here in heaven who make me think I am in the wrong place.” He paused and beckoning a waitress, ordered another drink for himself. On my tab. (It is surprising how much wealth a guy like me who cannot tell God from Adam has got stored up here. For those who like a moral with their story all I can say is that there is no rhyme or reason to God. God, like I have said before, works in mysterious ways his blunders to perform.)
“There are, er...” John stammered when I caught him staring at the retreating backside of the waitress. “There are Kenyans living up on Kingdom Hill and playing golf with God that have been damned by millions on earth. It is easy to be down there and see someone rob an entire country blind and say: 'That one is going to hell' but then you get here and you marvel at how much stock they bought up here.” He paused to commend the waitress, as she brought him his drink, on her good looks. “Potash, man, it is like there is some insider trading going on here.. it is as though the Nairobi Stock Exchange is the eye of the needle that you have to pass through to see the kingdom of heaven.”
“So how did I get in,” I asked him, “if as you say blessed are not the poor”
“Potash, have you seen the records office here?” He spat. “It is worse than a court registry down in Nairobi; even Jesus cannot find his own file if he tried to.”
“Ah, well... talking of Jesus,” I segued, “I am sure he is a spoilt brat... the type I know how to pull drinks out of...”
“He is a regular kid, I must say,” John said with a smile, “You know me and him go way back from when he was setting up his hustle down there...”
“I know man,” I responded, “I read your book a thousand times... it is one of my favourite books of all time...”
“Thanks, Potash.” John said raising his glass and clinking it against mine. “But you know I have had some people come up to me here and say I didn't write it. That I was just a fisherman who couldn't know better...”
“Hehehehe! Some people say Timi wrote the early posts on my blog; that Potash was a character N.M. created and formed a committee- the so called Potashian Book Club- to write fictional memoirs... and I am not saying that you and me are on the same level, but all I am saying is that once your work is out there then people are bound to say all manner of crass things.”
“But I wrote that book, Potash,” John said and I could fell a tide of tears assail him, “I want you to know that.”
“John, I am your number one fan.” I put my hand over his and he turned towards me. I looked him straight in the eye and said: “Forget Jane Austen and Tolstoy, you have my favourite first line of all time: In the beginning was the word...”
He rubbed a wee tear of his left eye and stared across the river as yet another salvo was fired to celebrate the arrival of more virgins. A rocket propelled grenade flew through the air and landed dangerously close to our terrace. As it exploded I wondered what happened to the virgins when they were virgins no more. Did God have a recall system and a warehouse full of 'virginity' creams or did the men just use the virgins and toss them into the river to float their useless way, alongside the spent mortar shells, towards hell?
“But Potash, if you liked that line so why were you disputing it?”
“I like it because of the metaphysical punch it packs... I am told that it has something to do with that gnostic stuff you were up to that almost had the Popes showing you where to get off... But, let us not miss the point, which is, that was your first line; your story, but it is not mine. All I was saying is that my story begins with the smells.”
“But which story, Potash?” John wondered. “The one about your death in a dingy strip club or the one about your resurrection?”
“Look here Hebrew,” I glared at him, “I am not dead. All I know is that for some weird reason I am stuck in this gaudy looking city listening to you bore me to death and wondering how the hell I got here.”
“You broke your neck, Potash.” John explained. “Well, sort of.”
“When...? where...? how...? What do you mean sort off?”
“Luke is the doctor not me.” He laughed. “Don't you know your bible, Potash.” I did not even humour him with a rude retort.
“So,” John started, “it was about 0230hrs East African Time and Jesus, some angel called Dino and I were on duty at The Panopticon...?”
“Hey, hey... easy on the jargon old man,” I interjected. “Panowhassat?”
“Oh, The Panopticon,” John explained, “a newfangled observatory this Frenchie faggot Foucault built for God in exchange for a visa into the Celestial City. Turns out later this Foucault guy had stolen the idea from some long dead English dude so visa got revoked.” John paused, cackled. “You should have seen the amount of water- straight out of this here river, I tell you- that Jesus turned into wine that day to celebrate and spite a bunch of his detractors here who say like to say that he, and the rest of us boys that hang with him, is queer.”
“Be easy on the faggots man,” I said to John, “God sure must have made them in his own image, no?”
“What shit you talking man?” John yelled at me.
“I am not talking,” I replied. “It is you who is telling me about being on duty at this Panopticon thingum.”
“Yes,” John continued. “so The Panopticon is not useful really, we just sit and watch the live feed from earth but there is not much we can do about it. Not much we are meant to do but watch; put the scient into omniscient; the presence into omnipresence and such things seeing that God caught the Outsourcing bug long before everyone else and men do the creation and the killing for him. Men know who to thank for small mercies: God; who to blame when they receive no mercy: The Devil.”
“Cut to the chase, old man,” I complained, “God played you, so what do I care, I have a story to write”
“So,” John carried on with his exposition on heavenly politics which, as far as I was concerned, was not only wasting my time but also messing up my word count, “there we were and I was the only one watching the live feed.
See, things have been very slack in heaven these days. Global warming means that God cannot grow his weed out in his garden any more so he spends most of his time in Hell- where The Devil has a massive grow operation going on- trying to bum a joint or two. The way I see it is that someone needs to tell God that if you give a man a joint he will get high for a day, but if you teach a man how to grow his own shit he will stay high, every day.”
“Word!” I said because I am the kind of person that will credit a good point when I see it. Even when it is standing in the way of my story.
“Anyway, God being absent more often than not has meant that no one is bothered to earn their Celestial digs. Most beings- the junior staff who need his signature to as much as sneeze, especially- cannot even get their work done even if they tried to. Jesus on the other hand has become more than a bit jaded. I mean, since people down there were able to split the atom, no one has remained impressed by some hippie who once upon a time split a few loaves between thousands of people. Who has heard of the miracle at some wedding in Canaan since men discovered 'bottomless' beer? So Jesus was on sms chat with Mary Magdalene while he should have been watching the live feed with me and Dino. (Which wouldn't be a problem if only Jesus had not been using the prayer Hotline.) Dino? Dino had fallen asleep, for the tenth night in a row, trying to read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow.
So, there I am, watching you. You had just done an impressive job with that Lolita in the 'Presidential Sweet' and were back at the bar.” John continued. I had a vague memory of being the fuckee rather than the fucker but I could not be bothered to interrupt John with small details. “Your friend Dinda and that mercenary cunt of a writer, ...N.M?”
“Yeah. N.M.” I confirmed. “More cunt than writer, I dare say...”
“Indeed. Dinda and N.M had gone off to handle business in other sections of the club so you perched your arse on a stool by the counter and ordered a yellow drink.”
“Damn, a yellow drink that soon? Yellow means I do not want to get it up again...”
John: “And you didn't. One of the girls dancing on the counter crawled over to you after a signal from the hostess.”
“I'll be damned,” I whistled the events of the previous night coming back to me, “the ones on the counter were ugly!”
“Sure was ugly...” John agreed. “The one that crawled over to you was uglier that Celie in The Color Purple. She whispered in your ear and you nodded your approval.”
“Inebriation.” I shout thumping my fist on the table and spilling our drinks. “Mitigation, sir!”
“The girl spun round and with her hands resting firmly on the counter she curled her legs around your neck...”
“Woah...” I exclaimed remembering that moment.
“Ditto.” John said. “'Check this shit out,' I said to Jesus. He glared at me and asked: 'What?' I pointed at the screen. Jesus switched off the phone- the prayer hotline mind you- and pulled a seat closer to the screen.”
“I see labia like an elephants ears lunging at me and then my mind goes blank.”
“That is when you ended up here.” John explained. “The table was wet, the girl's hands slid off it. The girl's legs were curled around your neck- Twist!”
“Snap?”
“I have seen people die in the freakiest of ways,” John laughed, “but yours Potash, yours was intolerable. An anti-climax, even.”
“Anti-climax?”
“By the time your neck snapped every one had been watching the show on their Panopticon Portable 2000s. Suddenly, phones went buzzing with blame games and buck-passing. The Fates insisted they didn't do it. Both God and The Devil were adamant they didn't do it, either- and they were each other's alibi.”
“So what the hell happened, man?”
“Baku.” John said shaking his head in exasperation.
“Baku?”
“Your guardian angel.” Said John. “He is a faggot. He has the hots for you.”
“Jesus F. Christ!”
“It is Baku that pushed the girl off the slippery table.”
“But, er... come on now,” I stammered. “What did you all do when I broke my neck? You, them, someone... Jesus... what did Jesus do?”
“Jesus,” John said a tangible solemnity taking over his voice. “Jesus did what Jesus does when bad things happen to good people.”
“Yeah, and what's that?”
“Jesus wept!”
“In the beginning was the word.” the ancient Hebrew yelled.
“Take the word and stick it up your Kike arse.” I yelled back. “It all started with a smell.”
“What in heaven's name are you talking about Potash?”
“Listen here John,” I said to him as I lit up my third cigarette of the hour blowing smoke into his face. “It don't mean a thing to me that you have sold over a hundred million and I do not even have a bloody book yet, but you got to let me tell my story...”
We were seated at the terrace of a bar on the seedier side of heaven.
“Keep it down, out there,” shouted the barman his voice following his scraggy beard and screwed up face out of the window, “I am not licensed.” He looked the type that had started out as a bootlegger in Vanity Fair and through an oversight of Divine Bureaucracy or using a forged visa on Pilgrim's stolen passport had got into the Celestial City. John made a victory sign at him which in my newly enlightened state I knew to be the 60 AD equivalent of showing someone the finger. The barman jumped onto the window sill and pulling out an upstart penis wagged it at John. That I assumed to be a Masonic sign because, their type not being allowed here, I had no way of interpreting it.
The terrace faced a slow moving body of water that was, to my Nairobian's eyes, too clean to be a river. Nairobi River must have looked like that once long ago before even the do-gooders at UNEP gave up on it and decided to spend their money on duty free Hummers, I mused. Then my eyes were drawn to something on the river's west bank: Hyacinth? Detritus? Before I could figure out what it was I heard a series of loud bangs coming from that side of the river. The kind of loud bangs that you quickly learn to sleep through if, like me, you have lived in Kiambu or certain areas of Nairobi.
The sound of gunfire.
John: “Bastards!”
“What?”
“They just delivered a fresh bunch of virgins to that side”
“No shit!”
“If I had known that there was more than one way to heaven do you think I would have bothered to give up fishing?” John lamented. “I mean, look at fuckers like you, for all his vengeance who would have known God could give out guilt-free-passes?”
“Wacha I pee.” I dismissed his rant.
The toilets were at the back of the building. Down a dimly lit corridor. NAPOLEON WAS HERE! A squiggle, in dark coloured shit, on the wall informed me. HITLER TOO! Another, in a sloppy hand that was trying so hard to steal my attention from the other, insisted. “Who would have known?” I mumbled at the wall and reminded myself to sign this guest book on my way out. (Unfortunately, hard as I tried, a shit was not forthcoming so those of you that pass by that way in future might feel inclined to call me a liar but that is yours.)
As I walked back through the bar, a couple of medieval Popes beckoned me over to their table. “Hey moor,” one of them extended an avuncular smile at me, “you are new here no?”
“How about a glass of Roodeberg for two old hands who need it?”said the other.
“If you fuckers had bothered to store your treasures up here,” I said leaning against their table with all the weight of Sunday School behind me, “You would be drinking vintage Lachrymal Christi up in here instead of trying to cadge some cheap South African crud.”
“If we had known they would let Caliban in here we would have signed up for the other side.” one Pope yelled.
“Devil's dam, if you know your Shakespeare, Leo,” the other said to his friend, “every one of these bloody moors. I am so glad that in our time there was a sea between us and them. These days an honest to God man cannot afford decent neighbours for a lifetime of trying.”
Leo, returning to fiddling with the TV in an attempt to catch an illegal channel: “They even make the world turn now...” The TV screen stopped flickering to reveal one of porno's greatest moments: Bobbi Bliss deep-throating Mandingo. “... and just look at what the world has come to- a hot babe like this can only find fame by deep-throating that horse sized savage? Like who is this Mandingo anyway- Othello or something?”
“Fuck Othello,” Leo's friend retorted, “that son of Caligula ravished Maria, my youngest Venice mistress... caught the bastard negro jumping out of the window as I stepped into my lady's chamber and as I...”
I never heard the rest of that Pope's story because having shaken hands around the bar and stopping to show Kapuscinski where his arse was so he would know where to shove his Africa stories, I stepped out into the terrace.
“You know, “ I said to John, “those losers in there... the Popes... they remind me of some crafty Kenyans in America. Fuckers who hang around and wait for new kids to arrive from home with harambee money and welcome them with hearty smiles and before the kids can tell a quarter from a dime, it is all gone.”
“Forget those small timers, Potash,” John said shaking his head. “I have seen Kenyans here in heaven who make me think I am in the wrong place.” He paused and beckoning a waitress, ordered another drink for himself. On my tab. (It is surprising how much wealth a guy like me who cannot tell God from Adam has got stored up here. For those who like a moral with their story all I can say is that there is no rhyme or reason to God. God, like I have said before, works in mysterious ways his blunders to perform.)
“There are, er...” John stammered when I caught him staring at the retreating backside of the waitress. “There are Kenyans living up on Kingdom Hill and playing golf with God that have been damned by millions on earth. It is easy to be down there and see someone rob an entire country blind and say: 'That one is going to hell' but then you get here and you marvel at how much stock they bought up here.” He paused to commend the waitress, as she brought him his drink, on her good looks. “Potash, man, it is like there is some insider trading going on here.. it is as though the Nairobi Stock Exchange is the eye of the needle that you have to pass through to see the kingdom of heaven.”
“So how did I get in,” I asked him, “if as you say blessed are not the poor”
“Potash, have you seen the records office here?” He spat. “It is worse than a court registry down in Nairobi; even Jesus cannot find his own file if he tried to.”
“Ah, well... talking of Jesus,” I segued, “I am sure he is a spoilt brat... the type I know how to pull drinks out of...”
“He is a regular kid, I must say,” John said with a smile, “You know me and him go way back from when he was setting up his hustle down there...”
“I know man,” I responded, “I read your book a thousand times... it is one of my favourite books of all time...”
“Thanks, Potash.” John said raising his glass and clinking it against mine. “But you know I have had some people come up to me here and say I didn't write it. That I was just a fisherman who couldn't know better...”
“Hehehehe! Some people say Timi wrote the early posts on my blog; that Potash was a character N.M. created and formed a committee- the so called Potashian Book Club- to write fictional memoirs... and I am not saying that you and me are on the same level, but all I am saying is that once your work is out there then people are bound to say all manner of crass things.”
“But I wrote that book, Potash,” John said and I could fell a tide of tears assail him, “I want you to know that.”
“John, I am your number one fan.” I put my hand over his and he turned towards me. I looked him straight in the eye and said: “Forget Jane Austen and Tolstoy, you have my favourite first line of all time: In the beginning was the word...”
He rubbed a wee tear of his left eye and stared across the river as yet another salvo was fired to celebrate the arrival of more virgins. A rocket propelled grenade flew through the air and landed dangerously close to our terrace. As it exploded I wondered what happened to the virgins when they were virgins no more. Did God have a recall system and a warehouse full of 'virginity' creams or did the men just use the virgins and toss them into the river to float their useless way, alongside the spent mortar shells, towards hell?
“But Potash, if you liked that line so why were you disputing it?”
“I like it because of the metaphysical punch it packs... I am told that it has something to do with that gnostic stuff you were up to that almost had the Popes showing you where to get off... But, let us not miss the point, which is, that was your first line; your story, but it is not mine. All I was saying is that my story begins with the smells.”
“But which story, Potash?” John wondered. “The one about your death in a dingy strip club or the one about your resurrection?”
“Look here Hebrew,” I glared at him, “I am not dead. All I know is that for some weird reason I am stuck in this gaudy looking city listening to you bore me to death and wondering how the hell I got here.”
“You broke your neck, Potash.” John explained. “Well, sort of.”
“When...? where...? how...? What do you mean sort off?”
“Luke is the doctor not me.” He laughed. “Don't you know your bible, Potash.” I did not even humour him with a rude retort.
“So,” John started, “it was about 0230hrs East African Time and Jesus, some angel called Dino and I were on duty at The Panopticon...?”
“Hey, hey... easy on the jargon old man,” I interjected. “Panowhassat?”
“Oh, The Panopticon,” John explained, “a newfangled observatory this Frenchie faggot Foucault built for God in exchange for a visa into the Celestial City. Turns out later this Foucault guy had stolen the idea from some long dead English dude so visa got revoked.” John paused, cackled. “You should have seen the amount of water- straight out of this here river, I tell you- that Jesus turned into wine that day to celebrate and spite a bunch of his detractors here who say like to say that he, and the rest of us boys that hang with him, is queer.”
“Be easy on the faggots man,” I said to John, “God sure must have made them in his own image, no?”
“What shit you talking man?” John yelled at me.
“I am not talking,” I replied. “It is you who is telling me about being on duty at this Panopticon thingum.”
“Yes,” John continued. “so The Panopticon is not useful really, we just sit and watch the live feed from earth but there is not much we can do about it. Not much we are meant to do but watch; put the scient into omniscient; the presence into omnipresence and such things seeing that God caught the Outsourcing bug long before everyone else and men do the creation and the killing for him. Men know who to thank for small mercies: God; who to blame when they receive no mercy: The Devil.”
“Cut to the chase, old man,” I complained, “God played you, so what do I care, I have a story to write”
“So,” John carried on with his exposition on heavenly politics which, as far as I was concerned, was not only wasting my time but also messing up my word count, “there we were and I was the only one watching the live feed.
See, things have been very slack in heaven these days. Global warming means that God cannot grow his weed out in his garden any more so he spends most of his time in Hell- where The Devil has a massive grow operation going on- trying to bum a joint or two. The way I see it is that someone needs to tell God that if you give a man a joint he will get high for a day, but if you teach a man how to grow his own shit he will stay high, every day.”
“Word!” I said because I am the kind of person that will credit a good point when I see it. Even when it is standing in the way of my story.
“Anyway, God being absent more often than not has meant that no one is bothered to earn their Celestial digs. Most beings- the junior staff who need his signature to as much as sneeze, especially- cannot even get their work done even if they tried to. Jesus on the other hand has become more than a bit jaded. I mean, since people down there were able to split the atom, no one has remained impressed by some hippie who once upon a time split a few loaves between thousands of people. Who has heard of the miracle at some wedding in Canaan since men discovered 'bottomless' beer? So Jesus was on sms chat with Mary Magdalene while he should have been watching the live feed with me and Dino. (Which wouldn't be a problem if only Jesus had not been using the prayer Hotline.) Dino? Dino had fallen asleep, for the tenth night in a row, trying to read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow.
So, there I am, watching you. You had just done an impressive job with that Lolita in the 'Presidential Sweet' and were back at the bar.” John continued. I had a vague memory of being the fuckee rather than the fucker but I could not be bothered to interrupt John with small details. “Your friend Dinda and that mercenary cunt of a writer, ...N.M?”
“Yeah. N.M.” I confirmed. “More cunt than writer, I dare say...”
“Indeed. Dinda and N.M had gone off to handle business in other sections of the club so you perched your arse on a stool by the counter and ordered a yellow drink.”
“Damn, a yellow drink that soon? Yellow means I do not want to get it up again...”
John: “And you didn't. One of the girls dancing on the counter crawled over to you after a signal from the hostess.”
“I'll be damned,” I whistled the events of the previous night coming back to me, “the ones on the counter were ugly!”
“Sure was ugly...” John agreed. “The one that crawled over to you was uglier that Celie in The Color Purple. She whispered in your ear and you nodded your approval.”
“Inebriation.” I shout thumping my fist on the table and spilling our drinks. “Mitigation, sir!”
“The girl spun round and with her hands resting firmly on the counter she curled her legs around your neck...”
“Woah...” I exclaimed remembering that moment.
“Ditto.” John said. “'Check this shit out,' I said to Jesus. He glared at me and asked: 'What?' I pointed at the screen. Jesus switched off the phone- the prayer hotline mind you- and pulled a seat closer to the screen.”
“I see labia like an elephants ears lunging at me and then my mind goes blank.”
“That is when you ended up here.” John explained. “The table was wet, the girl's hands slid off it. The girl's legs were curled around your neck- Twist!”
“Snap?”
“I have seen people die in the freakiest of ways,” John laughed, “but yours Potash, yours was intolerable. An anti-climax, even.”
“Anti-climax?”
“By the time your neck snapped every one had been watching the show on their Panopticon Portable 2000s. Suddenly, phones went buzzing with blame games and buck-passing. The Fates insisted they didn't do it. Both God and The Devil were adamant they didn't do it, either- and they were each other's alibi.”
“So what the hell happened, man?”
“Baku.” John said shaking his head in exasperation.
“Baku?”
“Your guardian angel.” Said John. “He is a faggot. He has the hots for you.”
“Jesus F. Christ!”
“It is Baku that pushed the girl off the slippery table.”
“But, er... come on now,” I stammered. “What did you all do when I broke my neck? You, them, someone... Jesus... what did Jesus do?”
“Jesus,” John said a tangible solemnity taking over his voice. “Jesus did what Jesus does when bad things happen to good people.”
“Yeah, and what's that?”
“Jesus wept!”
Sunday, September 14, 2008
RETURN OF THE SLEAZEMEISTER- Humping Humbert
Also known as: Misleading Lolita in Nairobi
[The Story So Far...]
“Niaje, Niaje!” Dinda said acknowledging the salutes of all the watchmen. All the watchmen guarding that street had left their posts to come and say hello to Dinda. Most of them just to stare. A cripple selling cigarettes, condoms and other things nice from behind an upturned carton made as though to stand and shake Dinda's hand. Dinda put his hand on the cripple's shoulder and pushed him back onto his rickety stool. Dinda leaned over and asked him something that I could not hear. The cripple shook his head and lifted a calloused arm over his head. Dinda held him by the jowls and knocked his head against the wall. His stool gave way under him and the cripple crashed to the pavement his crutches flying one way and his wares the other, down the street. Suddenly all the watchmen and a motley crew of night-runners, gathered to hail Dinda disappeared into the shadows.
We stormed up the stairs and into the club the bouncers and the ticket girl ducking out of our way.
The main section of the club was small. To the left and directly in front of us was the bar. Spread along its counter or dangling from a metal rail above it were four girls. None good-looking. Well, maybe it was the gloom in the room but the parts of their bodies I could see clearly, and that was all of their bodies, were not impressive. Neither was their act- a bored gyration to, of all things, crunk music. Several guys sat at the bar, oblivious of the drinks before them, staring at the girls as they mined their crotches with chipped nails. One of the guys was wearing a checked suit. A long abandoned lime coloured drink stood before him. One of the girls turned and pinched his face with her ass cheeks. His arms reached out blindly. I caught the gleam of a gold wedding band. He found both of the girl's thighs and anchoring his hands on them pummelled his face deeper into her.
To the right, a table with a pole through it that reached from the floor to the chipping plaster of the ceiling. A girl was perched on the table, her dangling legs splayed and her breasts- the shape, size and colour of Mombasa mangoes- curved upwards their nipples standing firm against the odds of what would soon be an early and droopy retirement. In front of her and with her face bobbing in and out of the others crotch was an intensely dark skinned girl with curves that would make King Mswati consider monogamy. Behind them a couch was cleared for us. The hostess whispered something in the ears of these two girls. They stopped their play and gave us a full frontal salute.
We did not bother to acknowledge them.
“What will you have, cocktails?” the hostess asked us.
“A cold Tusker for me,” N.M said, “and a double Viagra for Potash.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said flipping N.M a birdie. “Why don't you order a bitch for yourself and a Rohypnol for her, you perv.”
“We will call you when we are ready to order.” Dinda told the hostess once again intervening between N.M and I.
Now, our friend Jane used to say that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a Kenyan man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a teenage mistress. She was talking about me. I called the hostess over and asked for two things: any blue coloured cocktail and any girl under the legal age of consent. It was a dive spot this one: no blue coloured drink and far too many under aged girls to choose from. I settled for a strawberry coloured drink and a girl in underwear of a matching colour.
We stepped up to the VIP section, then crossed the floor past miles of pulsing dicks crouching under rapidly gyrating rumps. The men's faces were blank. The girl's faces were blank. The girls groaned in unison; mumbled the same things. I looked around for a matronly madame hiding backstage of this debauched set holding a groan-script. What I found instead is what I needed most: the uber VIP room. I knew it from the sign on the door that invited you the heightened level of privilege that was their 'Presidential Sweet.'
Sweet!
I pushed the girl into the room and immediately pinned her to the wall. Like a butterfly, my fellow paedophiles, no? The rest of you readers will have to, as Vladmir says, imagine us- the girl and I- because if you do not then we cease to exist. So, the girl: Pinned to the wall of the lepidopterist. Potash: the lepidopterist with a dissecting scalpel that looks like a penis and acts like a penis.
“What's your name bitch?”
“Natasha”
Whatever... when I am humping you, your name is Lolita and I am Humbert.
“Ati what?”
“I have to do it to you in Nairobi,” I said to her knowing she wouldn't get it, “so that the millions, in tyrannous Tehran, living on less than one orgasm a day can find something to jerk off to.”
NOTE: This episode was delayed by my inability to access my blogger account. I wonder if other users of blogger have experienced such difficulties.
From a narrative point of view, this story has bored me and I do not feel inclined to tell it to the end any time soon. In the next posts we just might have to skip to the present.
[The Story So Far...]
“Niaje, Niaje!” Dinda said acknowledging the salutes of all the watchmen. All the watchmen guarding that street had left their posts to come and say hello to Dinda. Most of them just to stare. A cripple selling cigarettes, condoms and other things nice from behind an upturned carton made as though to stand and shake Dinda's hand. Dinda put his hand on the cripple's shoulder and pushed him back onto his rickety stool. Dinda leaned over and asked him something that I could not hear. The cripple shook his head and lifted a calloused arm over his head. Dinda held him by the jowls and knocked his head against the wall. His stool gave way under him and the cripple crashed to the pavement his crutches flying one way and his wares the other, down the street. Suddenly all the watchmen and a motley crew of night-runners, gathered to hail Dinda disappeared into the shadows.
We stormed up the stairs and into the club the bouncers and the ticket girl ducking out of our way.
The main section of the club was small. To the left and directly in front of us was the bar. Spread along its counter or dangling from a metal rail above it were four girls. None good-looking. Well, maybe it was the gloom in the room but the parts of their bodies I could see clearly, and that was all of their bodies, were not impressive. Neither was their act- a bored gyration to, of all things, crunk music. Several guys sat at the bar, oblivious of the drinks before them, staring at the girls as they mined their crotches with chipped nails. One of the guys was wearing a checked suit. A long abandoned lime coloured drink stood before him. One of the girls turned and pinched his face with her ass cheeks. His arms reached out blindly. I caught the gleam of a gold wedding band. He found both of the girl's thighs and anchoring his hands on them pummelled his face deeper into her.
To the right, a table with a pole through it that reached from the floor to the chipping plaster of the ceiling. A girl was perched on the table, her dangling legs splayed and her breasts- the shape, size and colour of Mombasa mangoes- curved upwards their nipples standing firm against the odds of what would soon be an early and droopy retirement. In front of her and with her face bobbing in and out of the others crotch was an intensely dark skinned girl with curves that would make King Mswati consider monogamy. Behind them a couch was cleared for us. The hostess whispered something in the ears of these two girls. They stopped their play and gave us a full frontal salute.
We did not bother to acknowledge them.
“What will you have, cocktails?” the hostess asked us.
“A cold Tusker for me,” N.M said, “and a double Viagra for Potash.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said flipping N.M a birdie. “Why don't you order a bitch for yourself and a Rohypnol for her, you perv.”
“We will call you when we are ready to order.” Dinda told the hostess once again intervening between N.M and I.
Now, our friend Jane used to say that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a Kenyan man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a teenage mistress. She was talking about me. I called the hostess over and asked for two things: any blue coloured cocktail and any girl under the legal age of consent. It was a dive spot this one: no blue coloured drink and far too many under aged girls to choose from. I settled for a strawberry coloured drink and a girl in underwear of a matching colour.
We stepped up to the VIP section, then crossed the floor past miles of pulsing dicks crouching under rapidly gyrating rumps. The men's faces were blank. The girl's faces were blank. The girls groaned in unison; mumbled the same things. I looked around for a matronly madame hiding backstage of this debauched set holding a groan-script. What I found instead is what I needed most: the uber VIP room. I knew it from the sign on the door that invited you the heightened level of privilege that was their 'Presidential Sweet.'
Sweet!
I pushed the girl into the room and immediately pinned her to the wall. Like a butterfly, my fellow paedophiles, no? The rest of you readers will have to, as Vladmir says, imagine us- the girl and I- because if you do not then we cease to exist. So, the girl: Pinned to the wall of the lepidopterist. Potash: the lepidopterist with a dissecting scalpel that looks like a penis and acts like a penis.
“What's your name bitch?”
“Natasha”
Whatever... when I am humping you, your name is Lolita and I am Humbert.
“Ati what?”
“I have to do it to you in Nairobi,” I said to her knowing she wouldn't get it, “so that the millions, in tyrannous Tehran, living on less than one orgasm a day can find something to jerk off to.”
NOTE: This episode was delayed by my inability to access my blogger account. I wonder if other users of blogger have experienced such difficulties.
From a narrative point of view, this story has bored me and I do not feel inclined to tell it to the end any time soon. In the next posts we just might have to skip to the present.
Monday, September 01, 2008
RETURN OF THE SLEAZEMEISTER: The Night Watchers
[The Story So Far...]
It was mid-April, 2008. Above us: an overcast sky that was all thunder and lightening but no rain. Like a bull with premature ejaculation. The street was empty. It looked dead, but only to a stranger.
Standing there, smoking in silence and exchanging swigs on the bottle of Viceroy, we knew that from behind the shadow of darkness, more than a dozen eyes were watching the street. Lurking in alleys, peering through peep-holes on boarded up windows. They watched and waited. They knew we knew they were there. We knew it was not us that they were watching and waiting for because we knew that they knew that we, like them, were creatures of the night. At least Dinda was and because of him we were protected from them.
Them!
The police with their guns, the thieves with their bigger guns and the prostitutes with their disease-ridden bodies. They were watching and waiting for you. Waiting to take your money or your life. Most likely both.
“That blog is just a crutch, Potash,” N.M broke the silence. He was not looking at me and seemed to be addressing the plume of smoke he had just blown into the air. Dinda swigged from the bottle, hesitated and instead of passing it on to N.M., he took another swig emptying the bottle.
N.M. stared at him. For a moment.
N.M's eyes moved to the now empty bottle. Dinda shrugged and hurled the bottle at a nearby window.
“Mbwa!” screeched a female voice.
“Malaya!” N.M. laughed.
“Kimya!” A man barked somewhere up the street.
The sound of two guns being cocked, simultaneously, down the street.
Silence.
Everyone knew of the others; that they were there. Everyone knew what was needed of him or her: that they mind their own business.
Everyone returned to watching the street.
Everyone but us. We piled into Dinda's car and drove off.
“Tao?” Dinda asked, N.M. N.M was riding shotgun.
“Eee,” N.M. responded. “Tao ya chini... huko juu niko na bill?"
“Ya kuma au ya pombe?”
“Pombe.” N.M. said. He passed me a cigarette and lit one for himself.
“So what I am semaing, Potash...” N.M. said. He unbuckled his belt and turned to face me. Dinda started fiddling with the stereo.
“You are blowing smoke into my face,” he said to N.M.
“Fuck you,” N.M. responded. “Just shut up and drive. Let me for a moment tell this bastard what is real and what is not?”
“Why say it while Culture can sing it?” Dinda asked and pushed up the volume on the stereo.
“Yo!Yo!Yo!” Tony Rebel's yells tore through the car as he introduced Hungry People, his collaboration with Joseph Hill and Mighty Culture.
“Why, oh, why, poor people 'ungry again?” Dinda sang along with Joseph Hill.
With one hand on the steering while and his eyes on the glove compartment, Dinda leaned over and pulled out a half smoked joint. He lit the joint using the car's electric lighter and then stepped on the accelerator rushing us towards hell or the city centre, whichever would come faster.
As fate-or maybe the gods who watch over us creatures that run in the dark- would have it, we found the city centre long before we could reach hell. “Hell is filled with good intentions,” I muttered under my breath as I stepped out of the car. “I have bad intentions, my brothers,” I said to N.M. and Dinda, “take me to heaven.”
“You speak my mind, home boy,” N.M. laughed.
“Welcome to fornicators heaven!” Dinda said his hands in the air and his groin grinding against the air around him.
The Saga Continues in the Next Episode: Humping Humbert or Misleading Lolita in Nairobi.
It was mid-April, 2008. Above us: an overcast sky that was all thunder and lightening but no rain. Like a bull with premature ejaculation. The street was empty. It looked dead, but only to a stranger.
Standing there, smoking in silence and exchanging swigs on the bottle of Viceroy, we knew that from behind the shadow of darkness, more than a dozen eyes were watching the street. Lurking in alleys, peering through peep-holes on boarded up windows. They watched and waited. They knew we knew they were there. We knew it was not us that they were watching and waiting for because we knew that they knew that we, like them, were creatures of the night. At least Dinda was and because of him we were protected from them.
Them!
The police with their guns, the thieves with their bigger guns and the prostitutes with their disease-ridden bodies. They were watching and waiting for you. Waiting to take your money or your life. Most likely both.
“That blog is just a crutch, Potash,” N.M broke the silence. He was not looking at me and seemed to be addressing the plume of smoke he had just blown into the air. Dinda swigged from the bottle, hesitated and instead of passing it on to N.M., he took another swig emptying the bottle.
N.M. stared at him. For a moment.
N.M's eyes moved to the now empty bottle. Dinda shrugged and hurled the bottle at a nearby window.
“Mbwa!” screeched a female voice.
“Malaya!” N.M. laughed.
“Kimya!” A man barked somewhere up the street.
The sound of two guns being cocked, simultaneously, down the street.
Silence.
Everyone knew of the others; that they were there. Everyone knew what was needed of him or her: that they mind their own business.
Everyone returned to watching the street.
Everyone but us. We piled into Dinda's car and drove off.
“Tao?” Dinda asked, N.M. N.M was riding shotgun.
“Eee,” N.M. responded. “Tao ya chini... huko juu niko na bill?"
“Ya kuma au ya pombe?”
“Pombe.” N.M. said. He passed me a cigarette and lit one for himself.
“So what I am semaing, Potash...” N.M. said. He unbuckled his belt and turned to face me. Dinda started fiddling with the stereo.
“You are blowing smoke into my face,” he said to N.M.
“Fuck you,” N.M. responded. “Just shut up and drive. Let me for a moment tell this bastard what is real and what is not?”
“Why say it while Culture can sing it?” Dinda asked and pushed up the volume on the stereo.
“Yo!Yo!Yo!” Tony Rebel's yells tore through the car as he introduced Hungry People, his collaboration with Joseph Hill and Mighty Culture.
“Why, oh, why, poor people 'ungry again?” Dinda sang along with Joseph Hill.
With one hand on the steering while and his eyes on the glove compartment, Dinda leaned over and pulled out a half smoked joint. He lit the joint using the car's electric lighter and then stepped on the accelerator rushing us towards hell or the city centre, whichever would come faster.
***
The Fates huddled. Deliberated. They called God but, inaccessible to Immortals as he is to men, his phone was off. “Hello, this is God's phone. I am sorry I cannot take your call at the moment. I have gone to Hell to find a fire. Bloody Global Warming has turned my house into a freezer. Leave your name...”
They called the Devil.
“El diablo...,” a high pitched voice with a Shona accent answered. The Devil listened briefly then apologised: “I am sorry I cannot do a conference call right now. God is, down here, sobbing in my house and flooding my kitchen.” In the background they could hear someone sniff back tears while blubbering something about Kyoto and how his E had turned out quite unequal to MC2. “Which would be fine,” the Devil added, “if he wasn't trying to use another one of his sob stories as an excuse to smoke up all my weed.”
The Deities otherwise engaged, the fate of three miscreants, driving recklessly drunk through the Nairobi night, was left to, well, The Fates.
“Everyday I am ashamed I gave those farts life,” Clotho bitched. “What do we do with them now?”
“I have given them more than a full measure.” Lachesis yawned and went back to her knitting and following of the Obama campaign on T.V. “Damn, I wish I was a nymph,” she cooed. “I would go down there and fuck that Negro!”
“Let the inevitable occur.” Atropos said reaching for her shears. She was referring to the three miscreants in Nairobi, of course, but her partners could not be bothered. Clotho was slumped by the fire drinking cheap South African wine from the bottle. Lachesis was, her eyes glued to the TV, now trying to weave her vestigial fingers- past a colostomy bag and folds of skin- towards her crotch. (The last time she had ogled at Obama that hard, Stevie Wonder had tripped on stage).
“Damn shears!” it was Atropos again. She had dropped the shears down the lavatory hours before. She had been, once again, using office equipment to shave her pubes.
In Nairobi, a silver bubble of chrome and thumping reggae crossed the Tom Mboya street line and entered the Third World section of the city. Its occupants, too intoxicated to be thankful for Global warming, a lachrymal god, a devil too busy saving his weed rather than damning the world and three witches with no office etiquette, staggered into a strip bar.
***
As fate-or maybe the gods who watch over us creatures that run in the dark- would have it, we found the city centre long before we could reach hell. “Hell is filled with good intentions,” I muttered under my breath as I stepped out of the car. “I have bad intentions, my brothers,” I said to N.M. and Dinda, “take me to heaven.”
“You speak my mind, home boy,” N.M. laughed.
“Welcome to fornicators heaven!” Dinda said his hands in the air and his groin grinding against the air around him.
The Saga Continues in the Next Episode: Humping Humbert or Misleading Lolita in Nairobi.
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