Of all the things I thought would happen to me on a Sunday, getting involved in a fistfight to the death was not what I had in mind.
Here’s what happened. I was in Ruaka because someone’s daughter complained that I do not see her enough, so I needed to “unpack” that. She said she would make chapatis. “Na kuku ya kienyeji – your style.” She’s a Delilah this one and she can shave my hair anytime.
Anyway, as I made an illegal turn onto Northern Bypass Road, maybe due to absent-mindedness or the demonic nature of driving in Kenya, I didn’t put my blinkers on. Unbeknown to me, a nduthi guy had been tailgating.
As I turned, he screeched to a halt and froze, his nduthi shaking from the near miss. The only time I have seen a man angrier than that was when Wachira, our high school chef, was ordered to serve us more food after we reported him to the principal.
On principle, though, I was the one in the wrong—with the nduthi, not Wachira. On the bright side, at least he had good brakes.
This will sound wrong but we all know nduthi guys share one brain so when I stopped the car to assess the damage, he blocked me. He was frothing from the mouth, his hand in a fist while removing his helmet, and tying his hair in a cute ponytail. When a Rasta man ties his hair behind his back, that is a declaration of war. I held my breath. He approached the car. I waited.
My man card had expired at that time, and so, lowering my windows I told him, “Buda, iza. Makosa ni yangu.” He threw a few f-bombs, saying, “Kwani hamutuheshimu sisi watu wa boda boda?” I said, me, personally, siwaheshimu; but Jesus held my tongue.
My mouth just mumbled, “Pole manze. Makosa ni yangu.” He grated and berated and ranted and all I was thinking about is, damn, what if they finish the chapos before I get there?
Life’s mysteries get no deeper than a 90-kilogram man with dreadlocks shouting at you while all you are thinking about is how many chapos he can fit in his mouth in that molten rage, believe me.
So that I don’t bore you with minutiae, I came clean, told him, I am not emotionally sane at this point. Can I come out of the car you hug me? He said what? I said, I need a hug. He said, you’re weird. “Wacha ushebedu.” Then he burst out into laughter.
I told him my name is Jonte because a) that is my brother’s name and b) my brother is always in trouble. Might as well add this to his repertoire. Mark told me he was going to pick his wife. I told him I was lost; someone’s daughter had sent me locations to her place, and the AI lady in my phone was currently filing for emotional torture on account of that road.
This is why no one should live in Ruaka, or drive to Ruaka, except anyone who lives in Ruaka. Ruaka, like the Kamulu-Joska-Chokaa axis, should be cordoned off and declared a national site for human biological experiments. Where was I? Oh yes.
Mark and I became friends, he directed me to where the apartments were, his mouth dangerously if not suspiciously close to mine so much I could pick up the alcohol in his breath—and was that supu ya mbuzi? We (he) agreed to be both better drivers, and I asked him to take care of his wife for me. You know what I mean.
When I told this story to someone’s daughter, I left out the part of Mark threatening to cut my hair (an atrocity) or beating me up (a bigger atrocity), I told her, huyo jamaa angeniona! He would never ride a nduthi in this town again! Do you know who I am! Self-identity issues aside, your woman should always think you are Superman, even on the days you are Clark Kent.
That you are Stevo “Makmende” Otero, even when you’d just rather be Stivo Simple Boy. What I also did not tell her is that Mark confessed he was on to his second marriage. He wanted this one to work.
I asked him why. He said because he hates being a failure. I said it is the marriage that fails, not the person. He said labda, hizi vitu hazina formula .
Mark doesn’t know what he did to me that day. Despite it being matatu sticker wisdom, Hizi vitu hazina formula really stuck with me.
For a long time I have tried to live my life within certain precincts: Milestones that would announce I am making it big in the city—a degree by 24 (done!), a Murima babe by 26 (uhm…) a car by 29 (done!), a baby by 30 and another one on the way, and perhaps a house in the village which I shall never visit but shall randomly throw in conversations during bar talk—monuments that would earn me a status, or a slow smile, an approving nod from an adult. Confirmations that I was adultlike, not childlike.
So far, life has thrown me certain curve balls, and my hip reflexes just aren’t what they used to be.
I wonder how many men struggle with the same. The other day, a friend of a friend, who hopefully won’t read this paper, lost his job but couldn’t bring himself to tell the wife.
Some Makmende brouhaha of trying to be a hero. He was feeling rather ashamed of his situation and I tried to talk him out of it, mostly because my beer was getting flat and, however salty the tears, they do not make a worthy replacement for table salt on the nyama choma. I’d want to lie to you and say I checked up on him. I haven’t. I didn’t even think about him until I started writing this article and I probably won’t think of him again. It’s selfish, but it’s the truth.
If you ask me, I think advice is the only commodity whose supply exceeds the demand—well, if you discount the boda bodas in Kisii. What one prescribes for a certain situation would be fatal in another.
Hizi vitu hazina formula . It sounds hopeless, a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t kind of situation, but I would like to say that it is exactly that. The life of a man is one of a constantly rolling boulder, as soon as we get to the top, we start again. Futile labour.
An eternity of hopeless struggle. It is the curse of man. The human being is never content to just be human.
There is this noble, idyllic drive to always become more. That you brought something to this world that you were not given. I suppose this is one reason why people get married, to become more, more than just a man—a husband, a father, a family, a me becoming a we. Kama mbaya, mbaya. Hizi vitu hazina formula.
I am thinking of Mark right now, his smile, his anger, his love for his wife. I’m thinking of the boulder he has to push up his kind of hill, desperately, when his Makmende just wants to be msee wa mtaa. Perhaps hizi vitu ziko na formula, but I doubt it. I mean, just look at the nduthi guys in Ruaka.
