T— is telling me that she’s ditching her contraceptives. “I’m tired, man,” she says.
She’ll read this later and be like, “you put me in those stories of yours”. It was only a matter of time, I’ll say. We met a few years ago at a book event, she was taking photos or something, and I asked her, Hey, how will I get those photos? So she gave me her number. I wasn’t really interested in no photos.
“You have nice teeth,” I’d texted her later that night, because I am that kind of guy, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, but I know how to aim. She sent back three laugh-crying emojis, the universal sign of go on, ‘brother, nidanganye.’ But I wasn’t lying, and I told her as much, where, yes, she was in a relationship, but beautiful all the same, her teeth were indeed pretty.
We became good friends, not that it’s any of your business. Which is how we started talking babies and contraceptives. And the pressure to have them, babies not contraceptives. It seemed to us that an overwhelming majority of people who want us to have babies, already have them.
I am thinking about this as I am sitting, extremely hungry in this pork joint in Waithaka, sneering at other revellers clearing their plates and—how can I put this?—now looking like round little pigs.
The sign at the door reads: Mabatini Pork Palace, written by hand, like they couldn’t care less. No prizes for guessing that the establishment is rudimentary at best, the ‘palace’ nothing but false advertising, with corrugated iron sheets the only semblance of a wall. You wouldn’t find this place on Lonely Planet or Trip Advisor or Booking.com.
Here, they serve only one delicacy, ugali and pork, that type of thing. The clue is in the name, Mabatini Pork Palace. How I got to know of this place is irrelevant, but the chef, excusez-moi, the cook reminds me a little of T—, must be the way he holds that mwiko. I don’t know. Something.
My brain cells are arrested by a thought, the way blood seizes cotton. The thought of T—. Her pretty face, her perfect forehead, her coquettish smile. I could picture her clearly. She would make perfect babies. “Weka kilo!” I place my order, insatiable brute that I am.
Nobody comes to Mabatini Pork Palace for the conversation. We are here to eat pork at the right place, at the right price. The cook recommends lining your fingers with green pepper and red chillies so you don’t bite them fingers off.
The men who come here aren’t coming here because they are not married. Actually, methinks they come here to save their marriages. I can tell because one of them has been complaining about his two children for the past hour.
He is in a half bomber jacket, jeans and cap; you don’t need to be a Kibera Fundi to know this is the Kikuyu oligarch uniform. I can tell he probably uses a brand of toothpaste I would hate the smell of. “Lakini, vijana, mzae mapema.” Ngai fafa. Here we go again. This is my hell. When it comes to bad luck, I got perfect timing. People can’t stop dishing me advice.
This one here is talking about how everyone is pushing baby-making well into their 30s. In my days, he says, men used to have six children running around in different homes. “Na hao ni wale tu najua,” he says, slapping his knee and chugging his beer. But he was raised under maziwa ya Nyayo. My president is black and so is his heart; but I can’t say that, can I?
It’s not even that millennials don’t want children; maybe they can’t; what with our lifestyle diseases, sedentary routines, and AI coming for our jobs? Plus, kids ain’t no picnic either, with their moods, opinions, demands, ego plays, and all the rest—not that I don’t like them, it is just that they always seemed to manage to get in the way and demand everything every time. Or maybe I don’t like them, maybe that is it.
“In fact,” Solomon here from Gachie says, “you want your name to live on. Ama?” No, I want to say. “I don’t think so.” That is a selfish reason to have kids. No wonder there are so many fatherless kids out here, chaise lounges in therapy rooms are filled by boys raised by the manosphere and simps and incels whose idea of masculinity is going to the gym and having sex with as many women as can let him. And don’t get me started on the women either. Actually, I’m started.
The situation is so dire, when you leave for the shop, you have to affirm and reassure her that, No baby, I am not leaving you. Yes baby, I am just going to the shop AND I will come back. All because some Dimore who fathered her 27 years ago went to buy bread and took the wrong way home, and is now fighting in Russia for Siberia. Or something like that. That reminds me, I should text T–.
The best parenting advice I’ve received? If you ever raise a son, just know this: how you raise your son is how he’s gonna raise his son. And that cycle is hard to break. I got that from a movie, too. Landman actually. Season 2, Episode 3. And I thought life was over after “The Sopranos”.
“Mtu lazima aache kitu nyuma,” he says. A man must leave something behind. Is that you or the beer speaking? That’s me speaking to the beer, he says. Ha ha, I say. Miaka inaenda, he insists; childless people, people believe, age faster. That’s the problem with most advice—it’s always dressed in someone else’s life, and truth be told, only God knows how long he put us here. But I have to stop here, because my pork has arrived, and nobody comes to Mabatini Pork Palace for the conversation.
