Dads are usually very influential people. They are the identity givers of generations. Since Adam. This story has nothing to do with dad by the way. I kinda missed him and had to throw this in here. But, I remembered him from back in the days I used to learn Kikuyu as a compulsory subject slotted between porridge and Githeri in a little known single stream school at Musakuthi in the then Kirinyaga district… The same school I once peed on another boy. Dad was in his early lecturing days… He had a very nice white jacket whose zip’s pull decided to retire early. Being the innovator he is, he used a paper clip to act as the pull for a while. I admired this zipper for years! True story… I could not wait to wear this jacket. Which I actually did years later… (Kerugoya people, it is that jacket I used to wear when delivering passion fruits and eggs around the town). It had a stain somewhere either on the shoulder or chest. It was banana slime – ‘Mathina’ In the 90’s we were maize, beans and banana farmers. Banana slime was still rocket science for the Omo & Jik, I didn’t wear it for long, because I overgrew it. My shoulders just blew out of proportion at some point and I had to let it go. I still wear it once-once but indoors just to get that memory…
I am trying to pacify the anger you might get from this story…
So king clown here… In that KBS from Hurlinghum listening to my music, and typing away like a maniac on a story I should have published weeks ago. I am lost in my activity. By this time, I have folded my 50 bob note in a tight roll because the conductor took too long to collect. I actually thought he had forgotten about it and so I was like ‘if he asks fine, I will give it.’ ‘If not, I will consider it…’ But if you are at GPO and the conductor has not even reached half the bus… He is not okay… However, we all have those days, I chose to understand him.
So, lost in my article, and my music I realize, I need to get off this bus… But it seems the driver is not ready to stop. He stops alright. There is only one passenger alighting, and that passenger is between the conductor and the door. I am on the other side. I on the other hand, I am seated somewhere in the middle, window seat on a three seater. Try getting this guy to the aisle and it’s a spectacle. Remember the driver is already breaking Traffic rules by obstructing other motorists – right there on Kenyatta Avenue… He is under pressure to move, and here I am trying to raise my legs over a couple here, trying to get out. I am bending over, rubbing peoples shoulders, bag in hand, earphones dangling inelegantly and the conductor is incessantly hitting a coin on the bar above. Consider this a lunchtime bell to hungry school kids. Hello Attention!
Then the magic happens. Oh! Grey magic! I shout “shukisha!” The driver does not look like he intend to stop. Quick scan tells me the whole bus wonders who is this idiot stopping the bus when it had already stopped seconds ago was. The front section especially. Man!!! They wanted to gobble me up. When they saw the conductor standing in my way. They looked ahead. However! The rear section was all on me.
The guy next to me slid to my seat, I bend over slightly, wiggling my body appropriately, to the two seater side, while I raised my left leg over the legs of the lady who had lifted her legs towards the backrest of the three seater, to allow me to clear my ‘aft’ safely. My right was clear. It feels like you are maneuvering a trailer through a tough stretch. I am struggling to balance my heavy bag on top of the heads of the people to my right, as I try not to intoxicate, the lady right under me to my left with my moist armpits… Phew! Mission accomplished. Earphones are still on my ears and I stop humming to some John Lisu to utter double Sorry’s left and right. I broke free and stretched my hand out to give my fare… Promptly got my change and I start advancing to the door… However, I can’t.
Someone seems to be holding me to where I was coming from. Why would someone be holding my jacket? I mean, its already heated up and I need to leave the bus like yesterday! I tug again at my jacket. Remember I am on my music and for some reason unlike the other times whereby I remove one side (Right) today, was just a confused day I decided to move along with them. I tug again at my left wing of my jacket! I notice someone raising an arm and waving to me from the three-seater side I came from. Why would someone try to get my attention? Aish, I am almost clicking and sneering. Can’t they see I am in a hurry? I touch my right pocket to confirm my phone is there. I feel stupid because … PSshh! I am listening to music from it! Then I think I hear what is a scream and shouts from the rear half of the bus. Therefore, I stop tugging and I stand to look behind me. Oh no!!!
Now, remember that kajacket I bought in Karen after I got locked up… That one. Zipper pull also decided to go kaput on me. I was too excited to pick a paper clip and put in its place. It is no big deal right? Yeah, I walk on these streets like they belong to me. All was well as long as I could use my makeshift pull to mesh the teeth together of this relic of mine. So, my office clip decided to hug and refuse with beautiful daughter’s kinky twists. Waa!!! If men could still smoke in public buses, today would have been the day a man would have been lynched in a bus. Okay, maybe that is too much. They could have burnt my jacket. Haiii!!! I was mortified! Out of this planet kind of – “Oh No!”. I was ignoring them, then I had an office clip on a jacket, then I was acting like I was the busiest business journal editor on earth… I have never straightened a metallic pin that fast. I made one-step towards the lady who was already following me – bent like a play straight from Heartstrings Kenya – “Ndigacokera Ringi!” (I won’t repeat it!). I felt the atmosphere in the bus change. This was one of those, “Mother Earth! Swallow me now!”.
I wanted to burn that jacket immediately. I was now confused in quadruplets. I was meant to walk along Kenyatta Avenue, but I ended up on Loita House. I think subconsciously, I was running away from shame. Like what happens when you hear gunshots and you find yourself at home. (How you got there, you cannot say.)
All this time, I was thinking of how, I will give this jacket to the next street boy I see, or even hoisting it on a street light and attaching a paper like how this is the most embarrassing cloth ever worn by man. When I had figured out where I was headed, I calmed down, and decided to keep it anyway. I reformed my makeshift pull and put it back on the jacket.
To end this tale… To that lady who I almost left with a strand of your kinky… I am sorry. I know I acted as if I did not care, or did not even have time to give a decent apology… I am truly sorry… & for those commuters in that bus who were shouting what I do not know to this point. That idiot from last week thought about it a whole week. He is here apologizing…