Ignore the noise, men love deeper and unconditionally

What I am about to tell you does not leave this page. Men are in love with each other, and women are a convenience. Don’t say you heard that from me.

Our friend, K, (remember K? He bought a car in Mombasa and we did very bad things there), also moved houses. He has money like that CS who likes watches. And like that CS, he is not afraid to tell us. Which is how we landed at his house in Ngong, a good middle-class neighbourhood where neighbours each have two parking spots and the landlord interviews you to ask what you are bringing into the “Summer Waters Family Gardens”. K is now gentrified, having bleached the stain of a dirty childhood in Dandora. He recently discovered he likes plant-based milk and is considering becoming a pescatarian. A what? If you don’t know what that is, you can’t afford to live at “Summer Waters Family Gardens.” Maisha London. It’s not like here in Lavingware, Ebenezer Flats, house #401 where I stay, where people don’t have secrets. Mama Mark gives you mboga on credit and suddenly, everyone wants to know how long ume-Dishi na County. Ama umedishi county. The upstairs neighbour goes to the bathroom twice, God, do you think he has prostate cancer? The caretaker is also blackmailing you because he once kept two of your lovers from clashing at the gate. No, he doesn’t want money. He wants you to give him one of them. Which is what I think that faux engineer and self-congratulatory PhD holder grapple with in their scramble for and partition of Kenya. K isn’t like that, and you can tell Ngong isn’t either. This explains why we went down to feng shui the house, a quaint little crib with flowers at the awning and a security guy, Ben, who has refused to embrace the white man’s customs of using soap and therefore constantly smells like a Zebu bull. If we were in traditional African society, women would chop each other’s heads for him—a man among men.

In our group chat, J keeps asking what we should buy. That’s when we know we don’t know what this son of man likes. At least, not anymore. Back in the day, njugu mdalasini na Konyagi was enough to buy his birthright. Now, he is a plant-based pescetarian. A fine dining bourgeoisie. Top philistine. Kumbafu. I propose getting him lotion and a working SHA, because that is the ultimate show of wealth in this society. M suggests we do shopping because M is responsible and was raised right, in a two-parent household, mum and dad. We quickly shoot him down. J insists we should do a good whiskey, and someone (me) says “Let’s just get him the Best Whiskey.” Funny guy. We agree to do shopping and a heavy bahasha, something that would impress the clergy that visits State House, faith diplomacy kosokoso which translates to not how deep is your faith, but how much for your faith? The root of all evil is not money, but the lack of it. Like denizens of Nairobi who are best classified thus – those who have made it, and those who are in the process of making it—we are yet to make it, but we are getting there. Kuna deal flanizinaivana. I, however, can’t tell you how much the bahasha had. Okay, it was Sh20,000. Pesa taslimu ya Kenya.

That is an amount a corrupt president of a small East African country might sneer at, hardly enough for them to get out of bed. But it is sufficient for a humble, hardworking man like K. K and I became friends when we both knocked at the house of a girl back in campus. She was setting us up for what the Kisii call ménage à trois, yaani a threesome, and we thought her head is not screwed on correctly. Luckily, it didn’t work because the devil may work hard, but my mother prays harder. Okay, if I’m being honest, it’s because Moi University was cold and things had shrunk, and I couldn’t afford to let down a whole community. Si you understand? We were young. We had ideals. Maybe if I didn’t let my erection determine my direction, I would be the one moving to Summer Waters Family Gardens. Who knows? What I know is, you can get real close to the guy whom you’ve shared a woman with, and when you become friends like that, you can’t go back to things like getting to know each other and small talk and niceties and nani must go.

As is true for most of the men I know, my oldest, closest friends and I drew close while surviving various trials that can best be described, in the clarity of hindsight, as vengeance, jealousy, justice, cruelty, transparency, stupidity (please pick one). It’s as if the unwritten rules for men who wish to be great friends require that we nearly die in the trying. I told K that if something were to happen to him, and his brain started touching wires, and he went mad, I would have to put him down before he started spilling my secrets in the market. I look at K and my friends now, and like a pruning dad, I couldn’t be prouder. Nearly all of them are where they want to be, in the process of making it. If they tell you we slept our way to the top, you shouldn’t believe it. I am not saying they will be lying, I am saying you shouldn’t believe it.

Speaking of, if you ask me, we should normalise male sleepovers, but we can’t, because, “society”. I mean, corruption is pretty much molten into our souls, so why not have men something small to enjoy themselves? Have you seen men around men? The touching? The hugs? Sycophancy is the spinal fluid of bromance.

And the scandal on top, the men are sitting down eating and bantering while the women are in the kitchen. Just like how it was written in the books. This is not how kingdoms are built, but it is how they are sustained. Was it chauvinism? Sure, but human life is shot through with all kinds of advantages of birth, and nothing beats being born a man. Male privilege, baby.

At Summer Waters Family Gardens, we talk like men talk when they are with men. E swears that his house is not a democracy. “Mimi mwanamke haezi niambia kitu!” He is a lion before us. But we all know that under her regime, he is just a cat with blow-dried fur. J is on his phone (of course), lying to a 24-year-old (of course). F is redoing his dreadlocks; his entire personality rests on those crochets. M startles when I find him slashing his seventh chapati, and I feel guilty, and I have to look away like I have intruded on a moment of private grief. N recently quit alcohol, weed—mambo ya dunia, the ways of the world—and he sneers judgement, having seen the light, he can’t believe how dark we are. “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors”. Freire didn’t know the half of it.

It's 1-something-AM when we decide to leave, mostly because E’s wife has threatened divorce/seclusion/prosecution. K doesn’t want us to leave, but my caretaker is calling, asking if our deal is still on. I hug my boys a little longer, and a little harder. None of them pulls away. Hypothesis proven. Men love men more. Women are convenient.

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