By Anthony Muchoki , originally published 2005.
Look at my fragile body. I am just 50 years old. But the wrinkles and terraces all over my body are of a man aged about two centuries. The other day I weighed myself. I was surprised to realize I am only 30 kilograms. Yet three decades ago, I was a national heavy weight-boxing champion and one of the brightest chaps in the Randiera state. Now I am all dry bones – fleshless and withered. I don’t even have the courage to take a rope and end my damn life by strangling it off.
They call me Professor K. K. K. K. Or in short Prof 4K. This is, Kariba Kunyua Kurio Kuinuka. In other words, this means, I Kariba drink to get extremely intoxicated and later go home. But this is not true altogether. Yes, I drink anything that makes me high. When there is no Good Samaritan to buy me one for the road, I sniff glue and get exceedingly high.
After I am really dead drunk, I fall down anywhere and sleep until the following morning. When my legs agree to carry me, I reach the shopping centre and hop inside the sisal sack I call my house, where I lay my frail self in the backyard of this one kind shopkeeper, who has volunteered and donated the piece of land where I will be buried.
This town is called Kariba town. Named after me. It’s built in what was once my land. I sold it all and squandered all the money on drink. Teacher 4Ks, the women would call me. I used to be a ladies’ man. Never married, but I would sleep with almost any woman I desired. Money is power. I realize this now even more powerfully than when I was a stinking billionaire.
It is incredible that I was once a university professor. Today, I am sleeping in the open ground being rained on. I am a reeking mess. The rain water is washing me. I cannot remember the last time I bathed. I don’t have the energy to move away from the falling droplets. I am dead drunk.
The rain is showering on me like fire. Instead of freezing, I am feeling hot. Burnt. Life is funny. And God, if there is one, must be very funny. Why does He keep me alive? Why can’t He simply take my soul and body away? My body though so light and fragile weighs over my heart like a thousand tons of stones.
The gongo I took today must have been laced with petrol. My stomach has not known food for the last 48 hours. I decide to open my mouth and try to take the water falling on me. The crescendo of the rain is increasing. I wish I would just die. I drift to sleep full of memories forever.
I bore a son with one woman. That was 20 years ago. I was so happy. I wanted to marry that woman. No, no, she told me. First buy me a house, a personal car and 10 lorries, register them in my name. Then we can marry. By then I was doing my seventh doctorate but I must have been a fool. I was damn rich. As the first African to win a major title in boxing history, I earned a lot of money. I bought her all that she wanted. I was so happy.
I went to her new house and told her, “sweetie marry me”. She did not give any answer to my request. I slept there overnight. I will never forget that night’s lovemaking. I wanted to lay in her arms forever. Then the morning came. She told me I had to leave. She would never make love to me again. She would never marry me. I cried like a baby and she was in fits of laughter. Forget about your son. He is another man’s child. She told me. I almost collapsed. No. I could not believe it.
I walked towards my sleek Mercedes Benz. She was supporting me. I was profusely weeping.
“Dear, you won’t change your mind?” I asked her.
“No. Nope.”
I switched the vehicle on. She smiled.
“I will tell you something,” she told me.
She was looking like an angel. I wanted her so much.
“If you want to make love to me again, buy me another house.”
She walked back to the house. I drove away. I was angry. I would not go back to her again. I started sleeping around with women in exchange for money. I was looking for a woman who could make love to me like Yaipae. That was the only thing that would satisfy me. The more money I made, the more I sampled more women. In the university I was doing well. I was a respected professor. Yet nothing would satisfy me. Only a woman like Yaipae. Then I would be a happy man. A very happy man indeed.
How have I come to be here? For over five years I never went to Yaipae. After failing to get even a piece of Yaipae in the uncountable women I tried my hand in, I went back to her. I bought a house in her name. I furnished it. Then I called her. She came and took the registration document. To my eyes she had not aged a bit. I wanted her so much. We slept there overnight. She was all that I had ever wanted- the woman of my life. But she would not marry me. She refused.
She would only make love to me every time I bought her a house. Every month I bought her a house. Then we would go there and make love overnight. For three years all I did was to sell my assets and buy her houses. I was too busy looking for the best houses to buy for her. Attendance to my duties at the university became questionable. The university kicked me out sooner than I had expected.
I lived luxuriously with the money I had managed to save. I was so happy doing the needful for Yaipea, until my money dried out. She told me to go and make money like other men. I was never to see her while so broke. Beer became my friend. I pawned my only remaining asset- house and lost it. All my vehicles went to drink. I sold all my land. Later I sold even my suits just for beer.
It’s morning. It has stopped raining. Torrents of water have washed me downstream. Curious on-lookers on their way to work eye me up. A little boy offers to hold my hand to assist me in waking up. I chase him with unprintable abuses usually used by totally illiterate folks. The sun is shining bright. I am freezing. I feel too weak to raise even my head. So I continue lying in the trench.
Now I lie here with nowhere to lay my head for even the smallest comfort. I can see Yaipae coming accompanied by a young man. Could it be I am dreaming. Or I am going mad? I wouldn’t want Yaipae to see me now. In any case, my sexual desires died long time ago. All that is left in me is a deep longing for death. I want to forget everything and die die die…. Death must be better than what my life has turned out to be.
Yes it is her. This is your father. She is murmuring to the young man. I can see he resembles what I was in better times. This is my first time to see him. I don’t even raise my head up. I am numb. The young man lifts me up. He hugs me in all my filth.
“Dad, dad. I have missed you so much in my life. I will not leave you. I am never going to leave you,” he is saying. This can’t be, I tell myself.
Yaipae is telling him they should be leaving. Her car will not carry something as dirty as me. My energy is coming back. I feel so powerful like when I was a boxer. I order Yaipae to sit down in the muddy lawn and listen to me talk to my son. I tell him the story of my life. He asks Yaipae, her mama whether it’s true. She is silent. Then tells him in whispers that its true but I was a fool. A very big fool. The young man is called Haron.
We are all silent.
“Mama,” he tells Yaipae, “You can go home. I am remaining with papa. I want to see him in camera. Go home. I will get in touch with you later.”
Yaipae leaves her face swollen with a combination of distaste, anger and bitter disgust.
“Son, hold me. I am so weak. Let us go home.”
I am taking my son to the backyard of the shop that I call home. We are seated on broken stools. He is so happy. He is a boxer also. He is only twenty-seven, but he has made his own money. I am impressed. Very impressed. I am a proud father. I am a father at long last. A father. How can I contain my joy?
“I am not ashamed of you papa,” he is telling me. He will help me. He will buy a house for me. He would give his life for me, he says in so many words.
But I can feel a hot potato in my throat. Yes, my time is come. I know when a heart attack is coming. This is one.
“Son, I am sick. It’s my heart.”
He is holding me. The crescendo of pain in my heart is rising.
“This pain is too much. Son, take me to hospital. I don’t want to die. Not now. Not anymore.”
I want some more years with my son. I can’t bear the pain any more.
“Hold my heart. Massage it.”
O God save me. I don’t want to die. Yes God, I don’t want to die. I am in a taxicab. We are going to hospital. I don’t want to die. The pain is unbearable. I don’t want to die…to die.
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