Wanaume Hufanya

“After my weekly psychiatric self examination,” I am saying to N.M., “I like to take the time it takes to smoke a gaff to contemplate the meaning of life.” This seems to stretch his mind like a miraa high for a bit before he starts to bang on the rolled up window of Dinda’s moti of the day.

“Wee, Dinda, huyu boyz amejidai nani raundi hii…?”
“Kaa sii condom…” Dinda yells back rolling the window back up, “usinisumbue.”

“You see that, Potash,” N.M. turns to me, “The man with the takeaway in the mots is my kind of man. And clearly he has no time to contemplate the meaning of life with you. And neither do I.” He fishes, in his jeans for a pack of Sportos. What’s with the Calvin Klein pipe and pointed boots, I wonder, giving him a once over.

“Is that Kenyan Marlboro man or post modern Gikuyu?” I ask him. “I thought khakis, brown loafers and a Bonk tshirt is the look of your Nairobi?”

“It is Friday night, Potash,” he sounds agitated, “and you are talking too much gay shit while all I want to hear is ‘do me… do me… oga my broda…la la la la la la…’”
“Smack that, yani,” I laugh, “Shaking it like in the Akon video lakini you jua how that shit plays out when you do the horizontal.”
“I know what you mean,” he smiles, “and those are the weighty issues of men. If you must contemplate anything…” He pauses to stuff a wad of leaves into his mouth and bite a G.

“Is how,” I interrupt, “you are kulaing goks these days?”

“If you must contemplate anything, Potash,” he stares me in the eye, “it is the fate of some pussy with your name on it that is at this moment katikaing huko Molly’s.”

Half-lifing me the gaff, he says, “No guts, no morning glory! So will you be man enough, as Conrad says, to face the darkness? And that is all the difference between a thinking man and a doing man on a Nairobi night.” Then he started to walk off towards Qs.

“By the way,” he said turning around, “seeing that you have all this time to think…” He laughed and started walking back towards me. “Frankly, I can see how you can find the time, I mean, jerking off is what… one minute… like short time and then you are back to the cogitations in lieu of production; living out their existential angst- real and imagined- instead of writing that is your kind of artist?

This is Nairobi, not New Fuck.” He was, briefly interrupted by a lupa dawg, whoz happening and one armed hug from a street boy. “Fucking Westlands,” I say to myself, “Didn’t like Tupac die?”

“Listen Potash” N.M. said walking towards me and offering me a cigarette. “In the time it takes for you to smoke that cigarette,” he mocked, “why don’t you ponder over what your online avatar does on Friday nights. You know, when you are offline in that hovel of yours writing shit that don’t mean shit.

He is a Kenyan man, No? Mwanaume hufanya.”
“Wanawake,” The street boy, still hovering around, said and walked off after N.M.