After the heavy rains helped me to put the delicate matter of my marital Siberia at the Palace to rest, at least for as long as the rains last, it was time to deal with my second home’s tribulations—these are my social and political reputation at Happy Valley, which, as you can remember, were occasioned by Mrembo’s misguided and malicious suspension of yours truly from the high table of her Happy Valley Grills.
In her misguided adventure, Mrembo had underestimated my influence in Happy Valley. As you all know, my fame is bigger than my name. My inalienable fame rests on two main pillars.
For one, my first love is the long serving chair of Aberdare’s giant women chama. She is also the proprietress of the one and only supermarket in Happy Valley. As the husband to such a high profile woman, I earn high profile status by marital osmosis. Secondly, my pre-independence vintage Volkswagen Beetle, my second love, is the only car straddling across the entire Aberdare countryside after the rains declared our place a vehicular no-go-zone.
When I left Happy Valley Grills a month ago, all my customers followed me to Green Valley in droves. While Mrembo suffered a drink boycott, Mathey, the proprietress of Green Valley was celebrating a drinks buycott . Before Mrembo came to know what had hit her, Grills looked like an abandoned military camp. Apart from empty chairs and tables, she was only left dealing with Chairman, her partner in crime, and Mhesh, Grill’s chronic debtor.
As I had promised, my divorce from Happy Valley was going to be noisy and messy. My friends made matters worse by creating avenues for arguments at Green Valley, giving me just the fertile ground I needed to exact revenge in the most painful way.
“Mathey, you need to look at Mr. Survivor with a sympathetic eye. Huyu ndiye alitutoa misiri ,” said Professor. He was the first member of Grills’ Sanhedrin to break away and join me at Green Valley.
“This is a man and a half. He has brought us to Canaan,” agreed Kimunya, another member of the Sanhedrin who followed me. Mathey responded “Huyu ni mungwana. Nitamshughulikia na kutimiza mahitaji yake yote .” This made the revellers, most of who suffer from very fertile imaginations, to roar with laughter.
It was now my time to contribute. “Honourable ladies and gentlemen of Happy Valley, we are free men in a free country and in a free Happy Valley. We are honest men in honest businesses. And Mathey is ours. We are here to remain,” I pontificated.
As I have told you in past missives, Mrembo is an entrepreneurial genius. She would not wait to see her business go down the drain because of the selfish interests of some ‘lazy men who had misled her’. Last Saturday, she sent some emissaries to sweet talk me into reconsidering my hardline position.
Now, Mrembo and I have come from very far. Our businesses are both supplementary and complimentary. As a man, I was very ready to remember the many good business times in our long history and forget the one mistake she did under the influence of my enemies. But I was not ready to forgive Mhesh, my marital and political enemy number one.
Although I was under intense pressure from my hardliners to inflict maximum pain to Mrembo, I decided to give dialogue a chance. To achieve this, I ignored my hardliners and secretly met Mrembo at the prestigious Kichakani Paradise Resort, on her bill of course.
After a lengthy discussion, I tabled my two irreducible minimums before I could resume my patronage of her club. The first was that both Mhesh and Chairman relinquish their positions in the leadership of the Sanhedrin at the Grills. The second was a financial handshake in which Mrembo was to be giving me a sustenance fee in return for bringing and maintaining my customers in the taxi business at Happy Valley.
Mrembo is yet to contact me. Of course, Chairman, and her lead hardliner, was going to strongly reject his leaving the Sanhedrin. His fear is that I am going to snatch Mrembo from him. Any mfugo type of a man would fear that. As for the sustenance fee, I know she is capable of giving me a good figure. If she affords to give the O.C.S a protection fee so that she can sell beer outside the legal hours, she can also afford to recognise my contribution to her customer base.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I strictly mean a financial handshake with Mrembo and nothing more than that. As I pen this missive, the drinks boycott at Happy Valley Grills continues as the buycott at Green Valley flourishes. A luta continua.
