Godi eased the vehicle into the Mohitos club parking and let it idle a minute as the engine died off. He took another two minutes to open the door and enter the last hours of the Saturday night. He missed a step or two, he was drunk alright. But he was not the staggering type. How could he? He was the tank; the tank that drank all night and still remained sober! But tonight was different. He had been drinking since Friday evening. He remembered an old mzee who; to get a can of the local brew from him had shared with him some cheap advice. “Usikunywe fombe na stress kijana, fombe ni ya kunywa na stalehe. Ukikunywa na stress utalewa sana”. Maybe he was right. He was drunk.
He passed some two prostitutes who had lined the way to the club. The sound the Subaru made had attracted them-like moths to a candlelight. There was a strip club opposite the Mohitos club. Its parking was full. Funny people, he thought to himself. Why should they still be watching people they don’t know show them stuff they can’t have? They should be home cuddling with their wives or be doing something. Anyway, that’s them. His thinking was cut short by one of the two prostitutes. “Boss, come nikufurahishe” she said while blowing a cloud of smoke from whatever she was smoking. She smiled, exposing one missing the upper tooth. But it was a smile anyway, maybe it could warm his cold heart and body. “Hapana, asante”, he answered as he made his way past them and into the club.
There were still a few people inside sitting scattered in no particular pattern. But the corners seemed to be their favorite. The lights were a bit bright for a club. The speakers seemed tired of being forced to sing the whole night and had gone on a go slow. He opted to sit next to one of them, to give each other solace or so. In his mind, he wondered what time it was; and even which day it was. Could it be Sunday morning? His mind was playing tricks with him. Lately, he had lost a sense of time, lost sense of many things. No; he knew he had left work the previous day and partied in Westie the whole Friday night with the boys. He woke up yesterday at 2 pm, hungry and nursing a bad hangover. Yes, it was still Saturday night.
He remembered that he had woken up alone in the house. It was so hot. He took a quick shower and put on the blue jeans he had worn the previous day. He rummaged through the wardrobe looking for one of his favorite weekend shirts. He found none. Cursing, he realized that it had been a month since she had been gone and he had exhausted his stock of clean clothes. He could not believe that he couldn’t find anything to put on. He went to the clothes basket that they had kept. It was full of dirty clothes. Just as he was looking for a not-so-dirty shirt in the rubble, he remembered he had some work branded Polo T-shirts he had brought home some time back. He found them, picked one and wore it the creases notwithstanding. There was some unknown sense of urgency to leave the house. Maybe it was dusty since it had been a month they were last there. But no, there was dust all over as the construction of the southern bypass sneaked through their estate. Maybe the house was haunted. Yes, it was haunted. It was them who haunted the house. Yes, the house was haunted. It was haunted by their laughter, by his cries, the movement of toys, by the smell of something nice cooking in the kitchen. It was haunted by her charming presence, her smile, her making sure everything was ok; that he had clean clothes and the ‘mlevi’ stew would be waiting for him when he woke up for him to cure his hangover. Now it was all gone. Gone in a flash, gone with the wind. He had to get out of the house fast or he would lose his mind, plus he had a bad hangover to cure.
He had left the house with no particular destination in mind. Funny that he could not even find his drinking plan yet for all the years she had been there he had always known where to be at what time the whole weekend. She has even disrupted this? Maybe he was wired to her. The hunger biting, merged with the hangover informed him that what he needed now was the mlevi stew or boilo or tumbukiza as it was called- a mix of boiled mutton meat with cabbages, green bananas and a lot of pepper all boiled together. Ronga was the place to go. He got into the Subaru and slowly left the estate. Tom, one of the boys called as the sub started to hit the highway. He said they will join and asked that he places an order of 5 Kg since he got company and they will be there in an hour’s time. And that how his Saturday had started. He made it to Rongai-Ronga, as it was known, a bustling town in the outskirts of Nairobi. The town seemed to have been shaped by the main road that went past to Maasailand. There were many bars along the road and it was not hard to pick one as they all screamed Nyama choma tayari with roasted meat on display begging to be eaten. He ordered the meat then settled down for his cold beer as he read the Saturday newspapers. The place was slightly busy. He busied himself with his drink and papers, once in a while getting lost in a stray thought over her. Ben, one of the boys called, saying they will be joining shortly. Ben was surprised that he was alone, and assured him not to worry because his latest campus girlfriend was stringing along her friend. It was going to be fun.
They had arrived, the food came, they ate and started drinking. Tom was with his ‘Sato clande’ as he called her since he saw her only on Saturdays. True to his word, had come with the two girls. They had introduced themselves. The way they had sat instantly sent the message home on who was whose, or was going to be whose. Tom always took pride on how good he was with winning beautiful women. And it was true. Sheila, or whatever her name was a quite a beauty. Her figure-hugging leggings left nothing to be devoured off her curvy body. On the contrast was her friend. She was not very pretty. She wore a lot of makeup to make up for the looks. She seemed to roll her eyes forever each time he looked at her and never stopped saying Oh my God. The boys bonded, the girls chatted and did wherever they did with their phones. More beer flowed, lips got loosened and the conversation got easy. They did not realize it had gotten dark until someone suggested they change the venue.
Rongai’s nightlife gave in to them. It gave them a night to remember. There were many clubs, they hopped from one to the other, went back to the previous whenever they did not like the music. They partied hard, they got closer; he got drunk more and more. They tried everything, but for him, anything went in. Dee, as he came to know later that was her name smoked like a train and drank like a fish. He was on the receiving end of whatever tot she ordered. He drank as many Tequila shorts that he could count.
It was late when they left Rongai. As usual, it was Tom who gave the signal that it was time to go. They had sheets to patch and sleep to catch; that’s what he would say. Dee staggered halfway to the car and he had to support her the other halfway. She slumped into the passenger seat and mumbled something he didn’t hear. By the time he was starting the engine, she had passed out. One by one, they got out into the road and drove into the clear Rongai night with Tom leading the way in his Mark X. He followed closely. They had parted ways on reaching Mombasa road. He was left with a drunken girl in the car not knowing what to do. He thought about taking her to his house then thought otherwise. That was their sanctuary and he could not mess it up by bringing another woman to that house. He gave another look at the drunken girl sleeping in his car and decided it was not worth it. He had some unwritten rules that he had coined when in campus and had always followed. One: Don’t hunt what u can’t kill. Two: Don’t kill what you can’t eat. Three: Don’t eat what you did not kill. He had not made the kill, he was no scavenger. He decided to take her back to campus then head home. Home? No; it was a house. And the house was haunted. He was not going there. It was then that he decided to have one last drink at Mohitos
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