EYES OF A COCKEREL

We are seated at a seedy joint in the backstreets of Rongai Town. He’s having a cold Guinness. I am sipping from a bottle of Keringet water. I am not on diet or detoxifying. I am just steering away from anything alcohol. Effects of accepting Jesus as my personal saviour. 

 I have been in Rongai for more than a year now. One thing I have learnt, it’s a twilight town. Coming alive under the shroud of darkness.

It’s a cheap joint. Folks who hit Memphis or Kiza won't dare set foot in here. It is a caricature of poles and rusty iron sheets, joining to an adjacent wall. Which is peeling off, you might think it’s a side effect of climate change. There is no reception, no lipa by mpesa. You make an order, and patiently wait for it to be brought. Before it’s popped open, you pay. Those are the rules of the house. There is no bouncer in sight, but nobody dares cause commotion. There is no CCTV, you will be mugged and that’s it.  On the opposite table, a group of four men is sharing mogoka and jugs of keg. They chew into oblivion, in between hilarity and talks of sportpesa. One mentions how he won’t go home to his wife. The others chide him, why did he bring her to the city? As if controlled by a remote, their fanfare dies in an instant. They’re deafeningly silent again, back to their chewing. The wife, forgotten.

The difference between such a joint and Brew Bistro or whatever posh place you go to party, is the people. I have to come to learn that honest people are found in such neverland places. I am not saying that fancy clubs are filled with liars. It’s just that here, everyone talks to everyone. Fist bumps are flying around like flowers. Each reveller who walked in fist bumped at every table. Maybe because it’s a small place. You don’t expect a guy to walk into 1824 and start saying hello at every table. He will be thrown out by the bouncers. Anyway, I found it touching. Compassion I had not felt in a long time, telling you something about this city. A war or a game?

I am here to meet a man who managed to overcome his fears. It had been a war he says, but he is on the right track. And he felt a strong urge to talk about it if other men out there are experiencing such. He is doing fairly well, I asked why he wanted to meet in such a place.

“I want you to experience my world Osoch. I feel at home here.”

He stands out from the rest of the crowd. With his looming figure, model like body and a three-piece suit. He would be better off carrying files at city hall or a butler at the Hilton. But here he is, he dragged me along. A first for me, I have been to such joints before but conducting an interview in such a demented world. A strong cigarette scent fills the air, I cough. He erupts into a laugh.

“You will get used to it.”

The problem was losing his virginity. Ahem! He finished campus before engaging with a girl. I am trying my best to be conservative with language. My big bro visited this space, his criticism, the blog reads like a porn hub blog. According to him, I need to tone down the F language. Boy, I was hurt! But when I say ‘engaging’ with a girl, it sounds so political. “The Americans are engaging the Chinese in talks.” You do get the hang of what I am talking about.

I found that absurd, he finished campus without putting a girl to bed? How? I mean, campus chicks are the ones taking us to bed these days.

Turns out, homeboy was one of those nerds. He dressed awkwardly, and by that, I don’t mean he tucked his trousers in his socks. He says that his sense of fashion was entirely misguided.

 “Which is to mean you dressed like an astronaut.”

We laugh at that.

“Is it your fashion sense which made you not to score with girls back then? Because I know lots of folks who dress as if they are going to farm but they still score the hottest mamis?”

He takes me back to his high school days. He comes from a decent upper-class family. His parents were strict to a fault. The final nail to his coffin, he was the last born. The family members watched him as if he was a chick in the crosshairs of an eagle. His father was a man who showed up only for supper and to sleep. They never had a father-son relationship. With his two sisters and mother ruling the house, he grew up in progesterone filled environment. So, he says, he did not get the chance to interact with other male figures. Know what it is like to be a developing man. He never went for those estate teenage parties. Which I know, some of you reading have gone to, me excluded. Where young folk, driven by lust and wild bacchanalia, drink, smoke weed and have sex like randy rabbits. I would have said randy horses but that would be pushing it too much. Horses are well endowed, something teenagers can’t brag about. That Kasarani guy was something else though. If you ask me? He deserves a state commendation for representing the male gender in spectacular fashion.

In his final campus year, he left a party with a chick. They walked silently to her house, she trying to kiss him and him not comprehending the situation at hand.

“Come on, man! She was over you but ukalegeza kamba. (my Swahili is poetic by the way.)

A dicey laugh escapes his mouth.

“Sikujua cha kufanya.”

“May God forgive you.”

They reached the chick’s house. A fine bedsitter, a hovel really but you know how some chicks do take care of there houses. He remembers that her house was sparkling. They kissed a bit, which he found odd.

“At some point, the chick realised that It wasn’t going anywhere.”

“How can you know that?”

“She pulled away from me and sighed.”

“A bad sign, actually a very bad sign.”

I laugh, I find it amusing honestly. But I understand him completely, it was his first time in a compromising situation with a woman. He was scared shitless, had no clue what to do. Reminded me of my high school days.

The chick gave him that look of, ‘you should be pulling the strings here.’ But our guy was stuck in a rut, his heart pumping twice faster. She took matters in her own hands; she removed her shirt. There was no bra beneath, the juiciest pair of breasts; ripe, full and succulent, exploded into his face. I like his description but I am pulled by a nice ass, knockers are an added advantage. The chick thrust her ‘daughters’ into his face but he sat there on her bed wondering what to do. Shell-shocked by the turn of events. His member had risen to the occasion but he just couldn’t bring himself to action. The girl was growing impatient by every passing second. At last, she asked the most dreaded question that evening.

“Are you a virgin for fucks sake?”

He nodded meekly.

I try to picture that. He seated on the bed, scared, not knowing how to proceed. Then the girl, looming over him, shirtless. Inquiring if he was a virgin. It seems absurd! Like a primary school miss teaching class two kids maths.

“What is 1+1?”

The chick exploded, realising that he’d not been inducted to the pleasures of the world.

“Fuck shit! Get out of my house! If you’re a virgin go wait till marriage. Jesus!”

I was talking to some lady friend. I asked why most chicks are reluctant to sleep with male virgins. Her reaction. Pure gold.

“Osoch, experience man! A girl needs experience! I am not going to bed with a guy who has no idea what to do with me.”

"How can you tell a guy has experience?"

"We know, women can tell."

After graduating, he set out on one sole path. He was going to lose his purity and while at it, learn to drink pia.

One night, in a dingy pub in the CBD, he ran into a man. A guy who altered the course of his life. He surely wasn’t going to die a virgin.  The guy looked at him and told him that he did not belong there. That he looked rich and that wasn’t the kind of places to frequent if he had money. The man scanned him again and said that he was a virgin.

“Stop right there! How is that even possible? Do virgins walk around with some tag of sorts?” (Forgive me, gang. I am tired using this word(virgin) it has a stale vibe; I think you’re beginning to feel it too. But for lack of a better word, we’ll survive.

The mysterious man rolled on.

“Hauna macho ya jogoo. Wee Kijana enda hapo Sabina Joy na umwage  ndani.”

He walked into the legendary house of pleasure. Is there a brothel in Kenya or east and central Africa as revered as Sabina joy? It’s a mythic joint, heroic and scary. In there, he was exposed to a whole new world. A night nurse walked up to him.

“Hujaiona venye mwili ya mwanamke inakaa.”

“Even those girls of the night could tell that I was new to the game.”

He takes a long swig from his bottle and relaxes back in the plastic chair.  He is loosening up, courtesy of Guinness. I don’t take beer; I find the taste appalling. I am one of those guys who would drink Cider but you enemies of progress say it’s a drink for women. Come on folks, that’s a cheesy reason. I have sampled all kinds of beer and they all put me off. I’ll stick to whiskey and chasers. And of course, once in a while I’ll drink Cider. I don’t care what you say. Your opinion on how a man should drink means nuts.

After the night in Sabina Joy, he was changed forever. Hookers introduced him to their world, he found a home. For a period of his life, he toured different joints in the city. Spreading legs of hookers and strippers. At some point it tired him, he wasn’t bedding women of substance. Would he shag prostitutes the whole of his life? He’d just celebrated his 30^th birthday. Forty was peeking at him suspiciously, he needed to get married at some point.

So, he quit chasing hookers. He went down and started doing research on how to date normal women. He gobbled up all the material he could find on how to up his game. From men talks to dating coaches and dating clinics and ancient material on seduction. He learnt what he’d been doing wrong before and his entire mindset shifted. Previously, he had a boring fashion sense which meant overhauling his entire wardrobe. He also upped his confidence, which had been at astonishingly low levels. He was taught how to ‘approach a woman,’ as he put it. Most men just don’t know how to do it. He says.

“How you dress may seem not to matter but it does to some chicks. And your chances of success are limited if you dressing is off.”

“What about Kanye West? Kardashian in the bag.”

I ask because of late Kanye West’s dressing makes him seem more of a slave than a hip-hop megastar. But you can’t blame Kanye, he’s African deep down. Maybe the gods came up to him in his sleep and asked him to dress that way. You never know. Or maybe that’s what makes him happy.

“Kanye has a personality. No chick will mind his dressing, plus he has a wife. But if you have nothing, trust me you got to look your best.”

He says that he was previously blue pill, he’s learnt to be red. He’s Alpha.

We talk of the kind of woman he is hoping to land. To build a life with as he claims.

“First, I will avoid women who go clubbing week in, week out. They are insecure those ones. They have no idea what they want in men and they are still maturing. Avoid them completely.”

He is thirty-five, turning thirty-six this fall. He says that marriage isn’t defined by age and he isn’t in a hurry to settle down. Life begins at forty after all. He wants to buy a shuttle and get into farming before he can think of having a family.

“I want my kids to have a good life.”

“Who is a good lady by your eyes?”

He gazes, absent-minded, at the table, it is a thousand-yard stare, then turns to me.

“A good woman is one who is understanding. Not the type who shout how her money is her money and the man’s money is their money. Those ones will never land good men. They will be aging into their thirties and then it hits them. Oh shit! nobody is interested in them. It’s because she did not take an interest in building a life with someone. Like, it ain’t possible to sleep and wake up successful, this shit takes time. Avoid those chicks who want half of your salary.”

We parted ways, I wished him good luck as he tries to find his good woman. 

P.S

The labour day week, I did not post. It was a holiday for Christ’s sake. Bloggers need a rest too. It is a pity that Francis Atwoli did not ask the president to give writers a pay hike. Shenzi sana!