Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

Shannon Njeri pulled the blanket over her and turned to the wall. Her husband’s post-coital grunts were subsidising. Making what
he
called love to her was a herculean task for her. She had to pretend beyond convention she was into it. He always came home with the stench of alcohol all over him. After demanding for his food which she usually warmed with tears stinging at the back of her eyes he would
demand his conjugal rights.

Over and over they had fought about the whole thing, but it seemed she was fighting a losing battle. She was just hurting herself. She decided to be the wife she ought to be to her husband.

For her sake, she loved and hated him with equal measure.

Today it had been just like the other days.

Shannon turned her thoughts to her children. They were all she had and hoped in albeit she always carried the blame of a bad mother whenever one of them made a mistake. Why? Why is it that it’s only women who bear the brunt of parenthood? Fathers always get the medals, she wondered.

This made her think of her son, Kennedy. She loved him with all passion a mother could garner. He was the by-product of her teen hominess. How she wished to go back in time and correct her mistake. For a moment her mind darted to that first night.

She had attended provincial secondary schools’ drama festivals at a boys’ secondary school in Embu. She met her high school boyfriend from Kitui High School. She did not even participate in the festivals. Her solo verse presentation was never presented.
Love
was in the air.

That night her boyfriend booked a room at the Highway Court Hotel in Embu town, recently opened and attracting diners from all over the town. It was as though everything was him. She gave herself fully to him. By morning, she was no longer innocent. The whole night she showed her love for him in actions. Before the festivals were over she thought of going with him, but where to.

They continued to communicate over and over until when she told him. She did not believe it. He stopped replying her letters and when they coincidentally met one holiday he just told her to go and look for the father of her bastard, he was too young to be a father.

She cried rivers that night. The following day she was going back to school for holiday tuition. She did not even tell her mother.

As it was the tradition of the school a pregnancy test was conducted before backing on to studies. She had to be expelled. She wanted to die. She did not, though. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. Naturally, her father would have killed her, he did not. For the first time in her life her mother showed her that she understood and loved her more than anyone else. It was her mother who took her to hospital the night of first January the following year.

It took six long hours of gruelling labour to deliver.

It’s not mine…
that’s what she said when she saw the baby.

Almost twenty years later her voice echoed and reverberated deep inside her like the cries of a disturbed ghost haunting her.

My God… he’s my son. I love him. I want all the best for him. Why don’t you make him see that?
It was a statement that had become part of her thoughts these past days, and then had become her prayer.

There was loud noise coming from somewhere near her. She already knew what it was. She hated snoring…

She felt she needed to respond to the call of nature. The latrine was some yards from the main house. She got out of bed and went outside to relief herself.

Even in the blackest of the night she could not fail to recognize her son.
Where’s he going at this hour…?

Maina must hear this.

Virginia Waithera loved and adored her brother
without wax.
Though she well knew that he was her half-brother, it never mattered to her. He was her idol.

If there was any man in the whole world she liked to be with was her brother. She was always at his service. Whenever she was at home she liked to study from his one-bedroom house. She did not find it hard to take food to him and even take hers from his place with him.

This morning she prepared scrambled eggs for him. She poured black tea – her brother’s favourite – in a flask and took it to him at his house.

She had known the moment she had seen him the day before that he was not himself. He was going out when she arrived from school. He was gloomy, sad, and he had not returned home by the time they went to bed. Something was wrong.

She knew that even though there was no sign that her brother was awake he would have unlocked the door. He always did – to let her know that she could let herself in anytime.

To her flabbergast, the door was closed from outside but not locked.

Maybe he’s tending to the cattle. I will wait for him.

She pushed the door open and entered.

After setting the breakfast on the makeshift table in his
living room,
she decided to tour his house. Whilst he was always very strict with his personal space he did not mind her intruding. They were more than just brother and sister. They were friends, and great friends at that.

Everything was there… the evidence. She did not need to be told.

Her brother was gone.

She rushed to tell her mother.

Were it not for her mother’s sharp voice she would have hit the door to her parents’ bedroom with a bulldozer force.

“Why do you always do this to me?” It was her mother.  Her mother was crying. “Do you really love me?”

“I told you I’ve got no son…”

Virginia listened a little more and aborted her mission.

They already know that he’s gone. But why…?

Urbanas drove the stolen sedan with audacity he never had. Not ever had he snaked through the streets of Nairobi with such confidence. Only twenty minutes before he had parked it outside the Central Police station and nobody could have noticed it was the one that was reported stolen last week. Pius was a jack and master of his trade.

Today Urbanas had a meeting with somebody higher up the food chain. That was one way he prospered – making friends with the people who mattered.

Urbanas got along well with people. The man he was to meet with was already there when he arrived. Desperate times really call for desperate measures, Urbanas said to himself.

The man was not in his trademark sleek-funeral-pall suits. He was dressed in dirty jeans, a T-shirt and sports shoes.
The man
fit in the milieu as though he belonged there.

Urbanas and the man sat at a dark corner drinking whatever was served at such places. The man did not mind though he tried very much to use the slang used there to conceal his uptown twang.

It was during the drink that the man spelt out the assignment to Urbanas. He was to pay handsomely. Urbanas did not turn down lucrative deals, like this one.

Half an hour later the man walked out of that malodorous place in haste. He was getting late for the cocktail party at the Hilton. He did not want to be late.

Urbanas watched the man walk out of the pub and shook his head. The man and his ilk were always like that. Greedy bastards. They wanted everything to themselves.
No wonder they are killing each other.

But do I care?
Urbanas thought as he finished his drink.
All I want is cold hard cash, the fruit of my sweat.
He left half an hour later.

Life at the university was what one made it to be. During the day, you couldn’t tell the robber from the victim, or prostitute from the virgin. At night they all looked the same. The nun and the tart were one laced as though with LSD at orgies like witches in a séance. Fraternities existed of who’s who; who did what, when, where and how. I made a life of my own.

I was a good student for the first semester, but things started changing when I had spent all the money Kate had given me. I needed to pay rent for the shanty that I rented at one of the Nairobi’s sprawling slums, buy food and other personal effects. 20K had seemed a lot, but not for somebody living in the capital. I had nowhere else to go to since I had no intention of going back home, and I could not live under Kate’s auspices.

Moreover, with my CPA and computer papers I got nowhere. All those I contacted to offer me a part time job blatantly turned me down. They wanted somebody with at least five years’ experience on the job. My pleas landed on deaf ears always. For jove’s sake, how was I going to have the experience if they were not ready to offer me the chance to experience?  At some point I considered Uncle Job’s offer, but I was too proud.

I mulled over how to get money, my mind swimming in a pool of possible strategies and courses of action worth taking, but all possibilities were not viable. Desperation, bleakness and squalor pulled me down to the bottom of my pool of thoughts as though they were a millstone tied around my neck.

Then one day something happened. I felt a tender pat on my shoulder and snapped my mind to the present. I opened my eyes to an apparition, a slender girl with a lean frame, small waist, skin like Cadbury cocoa, lumber length hair, snow white eyes and a flat lying nose.

It was a real dream.

She introduced herself to me as Terrine Tina Okanga a.k.a Terry… “And you are?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know my name? It’s a name of wonder…”

She smiled, again.

“Are you always this wintry?”

“As though you give a damn.”

“Come on
handsome,
drop the sarcasm.”

“What difference does it make?”

“It makes in knowing what the hell is wrong with you to be talking in your siesta.”

“Ahem…”

“I have been watching you. Since you sat here in the guise of studying you did not even touch the books from where you placed them two hours ago. You are just staring at them… and worse still you are saying things in your nap.”

Saying things…

“What things?”

“I think I’ve got your attention now…”

“If you say so.”

“You’ve got an attitude. Do you hate women?”

“I got better things to do than hate
you
.”

She rolled her eyes in you-are-not-my-type manner.

“Anyway,” I said before she decided to go away. “I’m sorry. Be my guest.”

As she took the seat next to me I saw that you-should-be-nicer-to-girls look on her face.

I preferred to call her Terry. She was the Secretary-General of the Nashville University Students’ Christian Union (NUSCU) and the Chairlady Women Students’ Welfare Association (WOSWA). She had come to spend some time with me because I looked lonely and she was convinced that something was bothering me and she was ready to help. No strings attached, she added.

For the record, I was not lonely. I was just alone.

“And what’s your name?” she asked me again.

“Repeating the question for the umpteenth time does not change anything.”

She smiled again. The gal was blessed with a beautiful smile.

I told her anyway.

“Son of Man? That’s a ridiculous name. I don’t believe you…”

“What’s with you? You wanted to know my name and I have just told you. If you’ve got a better one for me why not tell me?”

“Son of Man! Where did you get it from?”

“This conversation is over… I don’t like pregnant questions.”

“Okay. I am sorry. I never meant to…”

“Forget it.”

With a sorry look on her face she told me that she was just concerned.

“I need nothing
from you.
If you’ve got nothing else to say to me I better get going…”

“I was just wrapping up the day… it’s already in the evening. We can have a walk to the…”

“You are not giving up, are you?”

A smile lit up her face for the umpteenth time.

“You say so…”

Terry was in law, fourth year. She wanted to be a lawyer of lawyers. Stand for the poor defenceless ones in court as though
pro bono
would pay the bills.

“I have seen and heard of many injustices around: the paedophile was acquitted because the little girl did not testify or because of lack of incriminating evidence;
Nolle prosqui
granted to those whose blood veins course with royal blood; the poor illiterate man was killed because he did not see the ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot’ sign…”

“That’s quite a moving discourse. I hope your dream one day comes true… and where will you be earning your living from?”

“Let me ask you something,
Son of Man…
a serial killer kills your fiancée on the eve of your wedding, you know him, the police arrest him and he’s taken to court, but he’s acquitted due of lack of evidence. Would you forgive and forget?”

“The law, I think, is right… it deals with evidence and if there’s no evidence, the suspect is innocent.”

“But how far would you go to mete justice… the law did not impose justice.”

“Some debates are better left to lawyers… but to mete natural justice I will revenge on whoever perpetrated the heinous act.”

“Yes, and you would’ve obtained justice for your fiancée, but you go down for murder. You become the lawbreaker.”

I did not like the heat of a debate that was beginning to mount. It was not the right time, and definitely not the place.

“I don’t intend to talk about this anymore. You can chase your dreams Terry… I wish you all the best.”

“Seems like sarcasm is your first name.”

“Not that I know.”

A friend of mine, Arnold Kimani, everybody called him Schwarzenegger, a second year BCom student, called me from behind. He was from the library.

Terry excused herself with a parting shot of seeing me soon.

“The name’s Ken…” I said to Terry’s back as she shimmered away.

“Hey you, Ken man. What’re you doing in OTTYs club?”

“Just talking.”

“It all starts like that. You will not like it with OTTYs.”

“Leave the hell alone with me…”

OTTYs was acronym for old tired third years. Guys used to call third and fourth year female students so meaning that guys were tired of using them since they were old.

Mostly the OTTYs did their hunting after seeing that guys did not have much of time for them by forming merry-go-rounds for peddling sex and calling themselves socialites. They mostly, in retaliation to what was done to them by the campus guys, went out with working class men much older than them.

The OTTYs formed fraternities and those who wanted to be members had to subscribe by paying a non-refundable fee. The activities of these sisterhoods were exclusively known to members, but investigative grapevine had it that they provided escort services to ‘who’s who’ in the country – politicians, blue chip company CEOs and celebrities who paid them handsomely for their services, a freelance bordello kind of a thing.

Every Members Day, Fridays, they would be picked by their men for a weekend away only to return with their reticules bulging with lucre on Sunday evenings or Monday. They were the object of envy by the girls of lesser or no means because they boasted of trendy fashion styles, home appliances in their hostels and dough, sometimes cars and high-rise apartments at leafy ‘burbs if they pleased their clients enough to be promoted to a regular service provider or even more lucrative, mistress.

“That’s not what I called you for, though,” Arnold told me. “You were looking for a job?”

“Oh yeah… did you…?”

“Yes. There’s this friend of mine who wants a transporter…”

“Like in the movie?”

“Not really. He owns a sugar warehouse in town… drivers are there, but he wants somebody to be there as they transport the cargo to wherever… something of an overseer.”

“Does he know I will be doing it part-time?”

“Of course I told him. He’s the one who got me the one I have.”

I did not conceal the joy in me. A sly smile formed on his face. I too smiled.

God answers prayers. That was so quick.

“Thank you Arnold. What are friends for?”

“Welcome, Ken. What are friends for… we meet him tomorrow at Uhuru Park.”