Safara gets a very late night hustle and bets on football games
You’ll remember from last week that I hadn’t paid my rent for August three and a half weeks later, and I had only been given by the landlady till end-of-week to do so.
Sure enough, come Saturday morning at around nine, my buzzer rang very loudly.
I had lowered the TV set to nil volume since seven, and sat quiet as a mouse.
I could picture the caretaker, Doug, on the other side of the door, dressed in his weekend wear (blue overalls, with a Stars-and-Stripes t-shirt inside), the frown in the middle of his forehead getting deeper as fat fingers pressed the bell knob.
“I know you are in there, Mike!”
I pictured the powerful anti-burglary Mindy padlock in his hand, how he would ask me to step out of the door once I answered it, then swiftly lock me out of my life.
But if he knew I was in there, he wouldn’t dare to lock me inside, would he?
“You can’t lock me in, Dawg,” I texted him on WhatsApp.
“That is false imprisonment. Against the Law.”
I could hear his sharp intake of breath as he read my message, then a bark that passed for a laugh.
“Unajifanya wakili, Mike?” he said. “Sawa! Monday morning, I will come with a master key and remove you by force. Uko na bahati sana I don’t have it now.”
Left unsaid was that the following day was Sunday, a day when no evictions can be done, per the Law.
So, my bravado had bought me a day or two to raise rent and a little ‘me’ money.
But having been turned down for loans by men and Apps, money from where?
“Your network is your net-worth!”
I raised the volume on my TV as I thought of a solution.
Quest, in a program for his ad, was saying, “If you can stand with the bears and run with the wolves, then Wall Street and all that is in it, will be your friend.”
I had run out of money, and had no real friends to tap for some, only hustlers.
Maybe because of Quest crying ‘wolf’, I thought of Michael Fossel, with his long lupine face, and my fingers found themselves calling his number.
“Hello?” he said.
Clearly, I was the one person in the world he had never expected to hear from again – after all, he had stuck me with a hotel bill in Lamu which I ran away from.
And had been peeved that the ‘yellow’ lass Karen Li had chosen the broke black hustler (me) over his loaded and condescending smug mzungu self.
“I need work.”
“You ran out on your tab, Bwana Safara, and stuck Karen and I with it.”
He sounded very satisfied to have me at his mercy.
“You left me no choice, namesake.”
My pride kicked in, “You suck!”
“I suck?” Mike Fossel said.
“Yes, you do,” I went for broke, no pun intended.
“You are the one with the gold, leader; but you stickin’ the bill with the broke n**** …” I literally sang this, like in the Kanye West song, and caught Fossel’s shocked gasp at this political incorrectness, even as I guilt tripped him kiasi.
“She gives me money (Karen Li),” I sang on, “when I escape with bills …”
That cracked the white man up completely, and by the time he stopped laughing, he’d handed me the names of five Chinese clients who ‘can’t afford him.’
It was a simple virtual gig.
Every morning, Monday to Friday, for ten days in a row, I would hold a one-hour Zoom meeting with five men – Li Bai, Bai Jin, Lu You, Du Fu and Su Shi – and tutor them on “online Live selling”, “Something you know how to do well,” Fossel said.
“The money isn’t much,” he added. “A thousand yuan per man for the ten morns.”
I checked the exchange rate. That was Sh18,000 per Chinaman, or 90K total.
“So, namesake,” I asked. “What time in the morning will the Zoom be?”
“Six till 7am.”
“That’s cool!”
“Beijing time,” he clarified.
“D*mn!” That would mean one to 2am, Nairobi time, and being a 10pm to 6am sleeper, that would mean waking up in godforsaken hours, when I was meant to be dead-bang in the middle of my sleep.
“Fossel, I need half the money by 6am, Beijing time, before I begin,” I said, with Dawg on my mind.
“Done!” he promised. Then asked this: “If you don’t mind, Mike, did you ever get...”
He paused, and for a moment I was tempted to stick it in his craw.
“With Karen Li? Nuuuhhh, we met in Nairobi, but her paying for my bill had made me lose face …”
Not exactly the truth, but I needed to keep his ego happy.
“No worry,” the man said magnanimously. “It’s such a pity that women don’t see through our wallets into our souls. Look at you, for example – fairly okay-looking guy, well-toned, funny, smooth talker, with an eye for the ladies and the hustle. And yet your women flock to guys like me, merely because of our bank accounts.”
“I bet you don’t get women like that in the West.”
It was in a good mood on Sunday that I went to catch the Chelsea VS Wolverhampton game at the local, where I met a Manchester United hater who, eyeing my t-shirt, smirked: “Cheo Sea reo watakurwa na Woof! Kwanza game iko kwa nyoba ya Woof, Morrie Knows …” (Today, Chelsea will be mauled by the Wolves, especially since Wolves are playing at their home stadium; Molineaux).
“I’ll bet you four grand to your two that we destroy Wolves today!”
The Blues ran out a 6-2 killing of the Wolves, Madueke scoring a hat-trick.
“Sasa kuja next Sunday tu-bet da-bro on Man You fusses River Fool (Liverpool)!”
