I thank you for not turning up for my birthday party. There wasn’t any space for you. Actually, there wasn’t any space for me either. I thank you for the gifts, the gift of love, and also for the gift of hate. As Pope Sean de Paul II used to day.
I woke up early. It must have been just before 1600hrs. Jumped into the dark shower room for a cold one and was so fresh and so clean clean in 30 minutes. I put on my old robe, Johnson baby powder and Roadster cologne by Cartier. Stepped out the room, stopped short, oh no, I went back in, I’d forgotten my AK 47 and a grenade. Things I never leave my room without after the Mau incident.
First thing I noticed was people, many. Something was amiss. Right outside my room, this stranger walks over to me, he says he is Mr. George Facebook, the owner of FB. First he says sorry for crashing my party, then says happy birthday. My party? Happy birthday? Actually, he says HB, that’s facebook language for happy b-day. Later when he is very drunk, he reveals his plan to reduce all languages to only the letters of the alphabet. This will reduce the energy spent on thinking, printing, insults, the benefits will be enormous he says. Less violence, fewer wars, it will also contribute to reduced carbon emissions and save the environment (or E) and avert climate change, CC. He then politely tells me his main point. ‘pls to go on CNN and AJ (Al Jazeera) and ask your fans to text…’ me on my YU line. He informs me that he has lost 300 gazillion million billion thousand dollars, my fans have sent so many b-day wishes, FB has crashed or as he says, ‘F H C’.
I push him aside and step into the old wooden stairs. I meet no one all the 3 floors down. Not even my butler Jeffrey. The silence from my garage is suspicious too. The old lex, coups, 2 bimas and 3 benzes are all quiet. I usually leave all my cars’ engines running (since practice makes perfect). Also just to spend more money. My bankers had complained that I need to spend more so that they can have space to put other people’s money. My cash had filled their vaults.
My 11 dogs are fed on gun powder, so they’re never quiet, bark all day all night like sub machine guns (SMGs) in the Democratic Republic of Somalia (serious, that’s what is written on Somali passports, and yes, they do have passports. I was double shocked too). So mes dogs, they bark in unison, having been trained by the crew from Tusker Project Fame, including Ian. But they’re quiet. I hold my gun tighter.
Don’t get me wrong, I know something is amiss, but I am not scared. Those of you over 12 years old recall that incident some years back, when I exhibited courage under fire. I was in an Emirates flight to Kitale, direct. Then we were hijacked by a bible-wielding young woman. She threatened to convert all of us to her radical sect of Christianity if the pilot did not land her in the middle of Mau forest. There is nothing as bad as a religious eco-terrorist. I had had some experience with these in uni. They would pee all over the toilet seat and spat while speaking.
Everyone has panicked, including the waiters and waitresses. Though when you serve food at 39,000 feet above sea level, we call you a steward, or hostess. I look at the poor passengers, they all love their various gods but are not keen on a face-to-face meeting today. I knew I had to do something to save them. The answer was Jesus. Prayer. I stood and said 47 (AK) Hail Mary’s while looking at her straight in the eye. An old trick I learnt from the movie ‘Exorcist’. My mother also used to do this every time she found me listening to Tupac’s ‘Hit ‘em Up’. She is so East side, wouldn’t take a diss on Biggie. She would then play Biggie’s ‘Who Shot Ya’ very loudly on her more expensive stereo.
I was on the 10th Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with you, and yet, nothing. The eco-terrorist was as determined as ever. No one was willing to give up their faith just to save a Mau, they would rather die (?). Since we were over the Mau, we would crash and destroy the big water tower in the middle of Mau and subsequently everyone would die of thirst. That would be the end of water. Dasani bottles would be sold empty. Beer would only have barley and hops. Powdered sodas. The fish in that aquarium in Klub House would have to fly around in that glass cage since there would be no water. We would all be overweight with bad skin since we can’t have the recommended 8 glasses of warm water every day, with a slice of lemon inside to help us lose weight and have good skin. They would be no water baptisms; it would only be baptism by fire. I was beginning to get terrified too. Next to me was the old lady from the TV Show Mother-In-Law. She said something that I will never ever forget in my life. ‘Help us’. That was the trigger, I knew I had to use the ultimate weapon. I sang ‘Kuna Dawa kuna dawa, kuna dawa kuna dawa’ I started clapping and swinging from side to side like in a kikuyu wedding, 2 steps left, pause, then 2 steps right, pause. I even span around twice. In club class, we had plenty of leg room for anti-dancing. Saint arap Moi, Saint Saitoti, pray for us.
Back to the here and now. I step out the last step at the ground floor. Lo! Alas! My unkempt lawn, the pot-holed road to the gate, as far as the eye can see, everything, everywhere, people, full of humanity. I hear one loudest HAPPY BIRTHDAaaaaeeeeoooooaaaawy
I am literally pushing through people like in a number 145 githurai kahawa KU matatu pre-Michuki rules (PMR). The place is crowded like those number 111 KBSes that used to take me to high school. I was rarely dropped to school, I used public transport. My therapist says that is why I am obsessive about taking Zo to school daily, personally. I was once in a meeting in Hong Kong, I flew back to Nairobi just to drop him to school then flew back. The meeting was over when I got back. Up to now I don’t understand why I was sacked. My therapist said that my upbringing would make me an obsessive-compulsive, aggressive-inaggressive, active-inactive, present-absent, good-bad father. Confusing terms that don’t make sense. I stopped seeing him when I realised he was asthmatic. How can someone with such a problem be able to sort out my problems.
Crowds mobbing me, ‘hey Charlie, you’re the greatest industrialist, local investor, DJ (CM), inventor, journalist and international man of action, greater than mike power of Guinness kubwa’.
All nationalities, Congolese, Ugandans, Eritreans and coasterians. Japs, Indians and Luos. Aussies, brits, and former Kenyans now settled in the US and haven’t visited Kenya in the last 12 years. But they send money. And they blog regularly about the need for change. Some of them have even completed their first degrees.
Giant cake, it is 12 feet wide and 19 feet high. Bigger than the egos of my friends from back in the days who became celebrities and their memory failed them. I used to meet them at nakumatt ukay at midnight everyday and each time it went like:
‘It is me, Charlie? Marwa? Remember me? Class mates for 4 years? Registration number AK47 007 JB? Remember? Heeeeey, you can’t kumbuka? (I now switch to some fancy old sheng/slang) back in the days, sneaking to carni na ashu mfukoni, Ukazusha na makarao wakakurusha ndani? Visions? Bubbles?’
By this time a small crowd is gathered. People are staring. I turn to face the crowd, addressing no one in particular,
‘serious, ninamjua. Aki, we were in the same class’.
The attendants in nakumatt are now lol-ing live live. I give up. After that I event, I started going to nakumatt with a folder full of old photos, copies of certificates, report cards, evidence that I was I knew this celebrated ex-human being. To show the attendants and the small crowd.
Now of course I am in the limelight, I made it big and no one forgets me. I have done many things. Averting that terrorist attack on Mau for instance. However, as a result of this fame, I have developed a very short memory and cannot recall anyone from back in the days when we had only capital and metro fm. After my first appearance on beer project shame, my memory got worse. I can’t even recall my real name. People call me buda, mzee, mkubwa, munene, chief, uncle (ankal) and boss (personal favourite). Now when you meet me and I don’t recognise you, don’t get mad, pity me.
Back to the party, I am walking around nodding at people. Being a good host. DK is in the corner holding a vodka bottle in one hand and someone’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend in another, drank and stripped down to his boxers. This boy hates clothes. Tim is talking Spanish to a future ex. It’s an old trick this one, talk to a girl in a language she can’t understand. It is very hard to sustain a debate in a language you don’t speak, that’s why Saitoti was a good VP. Noko is demonstrating to Gatimu’s date how hand cuffs work. I linger a little here; a small sneeze and her clothes would surely fall off. Gangsta is telling Rakesh he can clear&forward 30 containers in a second ‘walai buda’. Don is telling Blakki that the leather seats in his new car, each seat is made from a different cow, but from the same family. They soon start talking about Subarus and the English Premier league. That’s how they have fun.
KAU is bragging that he was so drank, he has no idea how he drove all the way to Kitengela. It is my party, and I am filled with a sad happiness. I am full of emptiness.
Generali is telling some strangers that he just came from SA that morning. ‘I thought the World Cup had started’ he says and they all laugh. Sadly, it is true. He went to a stadium in Cape Town on 20th November 2009 and sat and waited, and after 3 days, finally gave up and went back to his hotel room. His older sister was sent to bring him back home. Generali has never been the same after his cat died in 2001. He comes from an extremely wealthy Kenyan family, his father stole land and money together with our national hero and first president Jomo Kenyatta in the 1960’s. They now changed the name from ‘stealing’ to ‘corruption’ on the advice of their lawyers. In heaven, they’ll argue that the word ‘corrupt’ is not in the 10 commandments and escape eternal damnation.
The party is kicking. As in K.I.C.K.I.N.G! or just K if you’re FB. Dr. Alban is shouting ‘no more wicked people what is it, one love’. The crowd is ecstatic. I put my hands together like in catholic prayer, I lift them up slowly as I shake my waist and look sideways, smiling. Try this dance move at home. Your hands are moving up as you move down and shake your waist with slow rapidity and with vigour. But am not good at dancing. As usual, am dancing to the next song. And waiting for the next birthday.
Though I still don’t get the point.
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