Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

2004;

I
t was now almost three years since I left home, and two years as a social pariah.

The
prodigal
son. That’s what I was. The aura of everything resembled the Biblical allegory of the prodigal son. Just like in the geographical idea of circumnavigation so is life – circumnavigation. I was back to where it had started – home. Coming full circle. That was it. I was back where it had all started. Home sweet home.

Mom was the happiest of all. Dad was the same old him. I could see him frowning disgustingly as I tried to make it up to them, telling them how sorry I was for running away, for worrying them for three years. Or maybe I was just making it up to Mom. The man I called ‘Dad’ was not concerned in the slightest, and I doubt he ever gave thought of my whereabouts while I was away or give a damn of what I had been through now that I was back. Were it up to Mother I’m sure she would have re-enacted the Biblical scenario for I was dead and I was back to lif, I was lost and found.
Amen. Hallelujah.

My sister, Virginia Waithera, was in her third year at a local day secondary school while the younger two, June Wambui and Stephanie Nyambura had stepped up three rundles in their primary school academic ladder. There was another addition in the family, a toddling girl whom they called Claudia. Simply, everything had changed a lot the time I was away.

But here’s the shocker: Contrary to what I remembered of Dad, he no longer went on his infamous drinking sprees. Perhaps he too was changing.

Three days later I went back to the capital.

Home is the best, east or west, the cliché goes. Right? This was what was on my mind as the so noisy
matatu
took me back to the city of Sodom and Gomorrah.

As I sat back in the supposed-to-be-long-cast-by-now Nissan
matatu
I could not help reflecting on how unfathomable life is, as well as the whole poetry of living. In life we are haunted by our childhood experiences. Right now I could not imagine the enthusiasm I had when joining the campus, aristocracy emblazoned at the back of my head only to realize that life out there does not have a template. Perhaps this was because of the pop idols we see rise to fame day in day out from nowhere. They get the requisite publicity from the media and within no time they are riding on top of the wave of success. I always admired them and envisioned that I could be like them only to realize I was laughably off beam. They come from rich families that can afford to buy anything, everything, for their children.

When joining the university I had a mental note of the make of the car that I wanted to have after leaving the university, the house that I wanted to build, the businesses I wanted to invest in, places I wanted to go, and how I would pamper Kate. Now I knew it was just a dream, elusive forever.

Nevertheless, this was my third year, almost over with nothing to show, except a tart jaded dark name, ever
the suspect
, a victim of the common. I couldn’t still blame ‘the common’. It was I who put it that way... only now I was no longer a suspect. I was a changed person with a life to live, a beautiful girl for a partner, and a bright future ahead.

Although now unemployed, I still had enough money to cater for my haute living. It was such a shame that the hundreds of thousands I earned in my tragic, extremely perilous yet well-paying job went to extravagance, dining at restaurants and brasseries by day, then dancing the night away with sweaty women of questionable moral standing in the city’s top clubs. I never focused so much on saving for tomorrow but I did save at least.

All friends that I had left me the minute they got the rumour that I was
the suspect.
Some of those with whom I had so generously shared my earnings and payments of crime with were now employed with names and reputations to protect. They had not only become some of the wealthiest and flamboyant guys in the country but also among the very few who cared for the underpriviledged and the downtrodden in the society.

The greatest foible we have is the belief that the true determinants of how great we are is through visible symbols like our lifestyle, our wardrobe, the type of car we drive, the estates we own or how state-of-the-art our mansions are and how many times we appear on the magazines, TVs, and newspapers even when we are dead and being feasted on by worms. When I called it quits on robbery, drugs, hedonism, and paedophilia and most probably necromancy – the ‘scarletest’ of sins according to me – I made a vow never to live profanely again. Never ever! Not even the most subtle of snares would entrap me. I had seen them all, even in their disguises, and I knew them when I saw them.

I was all lost in reverie when something happened, something I was not expecting so soon: we arrived at the city and.... voila!

A surprise was waiting for me.

It had been like this since the day I made the decision. It was not an easy one. I needed to have a life – that’s what Kate had told me. But my decision was not spurred by what she had told me. Nay. Nobody controlled my life. Nobody tells me what to do, ever. I called the shots in my damn miserable life, but Kate had a point, a valid point at that – I had to get a life. Urbanas himself, who was graduating this year, had told me to tie up the loose ends without compromising the gang. I had quit Mavis, and crime.

Susan was giving me that do-you-like-what-you-see smile of hers and I liked it, no, loved it. It was so good to be in love again... I mean GOOD. At least I had gotten over Kate and limped the hell on.

Though I had had an array of women those gone days, none of them mattered now. They were all fuck buddies, technically peddling their flesh for me because I had something to splurge on them. Nothing mushy. After all I had been the prodigal son all along. A sinner. A coffin robber. A mugger. Killer.

But those days were long gone. Now I was the Saul of Damascus.

I love her,
I thought as I watched her over the brim of my cup of cafe-au-lait. She had received me at the Commercial Bus terminus with a hell of a kiss I found myself afraid of reciprocating with all those people watching. She said that if you love somebody tell him/her, show it wherever you are no matter what.

It was her idea that we have coffee before going back to the campus. I did not disagree. I knew better than even to argue with her...
because I loved her.

She had seen me through but not just as a friend. She sometimes played the role of my shrink. She unofficially diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder claiming that it was brought by my struggle to do the right thing yet seemingly nostalgic of the life I had lived. Half of it was true, but I actually was fighting with myself. The fear and trepidation of the defection from the gang and the punishment of my quitting, the fear that if I walked out on Mavis something bad would happen and how I would cope with the new life.  I was surprised she knew all about me, everything about the skeleton I was trying to force into my closet. However she knew I did not know, never asked and probably I shall never ask.

It was not that easy at first to get to her even after our first encounter when she had given me her cell phone number. I was convinced that she liked me. We saw each other severally and I think that’s how she got to know about me. She must’ve gone ahead to dig around and maybe stumbled on to the sordid details of my buried life; the real me. I could not lie to her that I was not ‘the suspect’ when Urbanas had just gotten me out of police custody. When she knew the truth she didn’t want anything to do with me. It was one hell of a job getting her back. And once she was back, she was more than a friend – she was a shrink and lover.

She was this church girl who would not go against religion.
No sex before marriage.
But she would show how much she wanted to be with me without crossing that line. I had kept vigil for long hours in the night waiting for my victims, so why not this?

Just like in the good old days with Kate, everything seemed to be going like a dream. Terry had graduated the previous year, first class honours, and gone out to be the lawyer of lawyers she had always wanted to be. I wondered whether she was actually going to be giving out her services
pro bono.

Terry had given me a present, a novel, James Patterson’s
Hide and Seek.
Though I was not into novels, I read it just for her. I mean
for her.
After reading the novel I was sure that she had saved me. I was not to end up like Will Shepherd, the antagonist in the novel. Will Shepherd had had deep secrets that he kept to himself and could not be saved, (mainly due to his stinking pride) which was why he ended up in a sanatorium. I was never to end up in such a place. Somebody
had
saved me. Somebody loved me.

Now as we enjoyed the coffee I realized how much I loved her. She had made a difference in my life and... what more is there to say, really?
I loved her.

That’s my gal.

I loved her.

That’s Susan.

I loved her.

No more
Hide and Seek.

Urbanas was sitting up in his room doing nothing but doodling. He hated ingrates. That’s what Kennedy
‘Stupid Son of Man’
Maina was. How could the bastard be such a buffoon? He should have known that the stupid Ken was just but a piece of shit. Cowshit to be precise. The words of James, his up-line in crime, echoed in his mind.
Don’t do anything stupid, Urbanas. You are an idol.
Only those few words made him not to kill the ungrateful son-of-a-bitch then. In hindsight, he probably should have.

He glanced at the heap of books on his study table. They were piled higgledy-piggledy one upon the other. Somebody seeing how messy his room was could not imagine he was the inspirational orator guy the world knew – ever clean, smart, well organized, and seemingly sharp as a tack.

Just for an instance he decided to think big. Big things first. First things first. He had a big hit. The price was triple the standard going rates. That’s because he did not do standard hits.

His mind went to sometime in the recent past. To a place he did not want to think about – the Officer Cadet School at the Armed Forces Training College in Lanet, Nakuru. The military gooks there just thought it worthy to send him away from the college just because he was late coming from town for a weekend outing. Even though the whore responsible for his dismissal had paid dearly with her profane life he did not forgive the instructor who sealed his fate. But he did not leave the military empty handed.

The army gave him a skill, knowledge they never fathomed could prove perilous even to them. They trained him on weaponry and made him a top-notch marksman.
One day they will pay for that.

His phone was ringing. He did not need to check who was calling. It was his contact for the upcoming hit on the line. The contact was confirming whether he had been contacted by his bank confirming the deposit of his two-thirds down-payment.

“No. But if you have deposited I would have been…”

“Of course I have done it.”

“You better be sure about this.”

A minute later, Urbanas was not talking to a gadget. There’s no need after all.

I was, and I’m not, a fan of looking back on my past life either with nostalgia or regret. I believe that yesterday is but a dream while tomorrow is a vision. My time with Mavis was profitable and probably valuable on the flip side of it but I emerged a stinging mortal sinner. If I were to be tried I’d have pleaded guilty on all counts.

But I wasn’t prepared for the incredible feeling of almost paralysing relief I felt every time I sat at my desk at my house in Nairobi’s Ngara estate with nothing but books and the famous academic handicap (a cup of hyper-caffeinated drink to stimulate the mind) literally chewing books as the cliché goes.

Now it was year three, end of semester two. I was studying as hard as I could partly because I was due to graduate the following year and partly because I wanted to make up for the time I had lost while I was around making crime and insecurity prevalent in the country. I felt as though thousands of tons of bricks had been lifted off me, a burden I hadn’t known was there. I didn’t know for sure I had made a good decision, but it sure felt like it. All I needed to do was to just forget the past and puff and huff ahead.

It was long after midnight and I was not feeling like sleeping. Not long ago I used to be this wide awake nowhere near a bed but at some deserted cemetery scooping soil desperately to rob and disrespect the dead. The inborn human fear of such places had long filtered away from me and I didn’t see anything wrong in robbing the dead. They surrendered themselves even before the robbery was planned.

My mind went back in time. It was on a Tuesday morning, a week after Urbanas got me out of police custody. I found myself all alone in Urbanas’ Madonna Hostels room.

“Hey, Ken. You look great in that outfit,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfy. I have been waiting for you, we should talk, Ken.”

Terrific – he wants to admonish me for what I did… too late bro,
I thought as Urbanas entered from his morning exercises he had made a ritual.

Urbanas had this kind of a way with people – he could start a completely meaningless chat and be talking sense. That day we talked of everything but Mavis before going to why he wanted to talk to me.

“So, what do you think I want from you? Your gratitude? I was just doing my…”

“Jack told me you wanted to see me, so I take it this isn’t entirely a social call. I have few things to go over with you too.”

Suddenly I felt tense and a little unsure myself. He had called me to give me a stern warning of the mistakes I had done, to admonish me.

Finally, I interjected and cut him off. “There’s no better way to say this, Urbanas, can’t even try to beat around the bush, so I’ll just say it blatantly. I am here to tell you that I am leaving
you.
This is very difficult, and unexpected. I appreciate everything, I mean everything, you’ve done for me, but I have made a decision for myself. It’s final. I’m not going to change my mind, so don’t even think about it.”

“What?” Urbanas said and curved his hands to a fist. “You can’t do that. You can’t just leave after…”

“Getting me out of police custody?” I finished for him.

“You just can’t do it and you know that. I won’t let you go. You know that, right? I am not going to let you go.”

“There’s nothing you can do, Urbanas, to stop me,” I told him. “I’m sorry, but I’m sure I am doing the right thing, the best thing for me, myself, and I. I’ve thought about it over and over since…”

“Don‘t you give me that crap,” he blurted. He stared into my eyes and he must have seen something in them I never knew, and maybe shall never, because he stopped abruptly.

“You are making a terrible mistake, an atrociously bad occupational move, but I can tell you there’s no point arguing with you. You know better than that, Ken.”

I got up without saying a word to leave his room.

As I reached the door, Urbanas had called, “Ken, I hope you are ready for the dangerous task ahead of you.”

I smiled derisively. “Eventually,” I said. “But don’t you try something stupid like rushing in where even the angels fear to tread, okay?”

“What do you call that, a threat?”

“In your own parlance, perhaps. You know better than that.”

He said nothing. I knew my message was well passed. My crime career with Mavis was over and done with.

Also, I was jobless and...
A human target.