The heat was oppressive, even though it is not yet midday but the two men were thankful for their shaded spot, underneath the canopy of an old tree with a rugged trunk.They sat on a wooden bench by the roadside, where a closed tin shack marked the junction. The main tarmac was a glistening obsidian river that disappeared over a hill but their narrow road, the one that led to the village, was a rocky ochre murram road, its entry marked only by a stout signboard written Ascona Gardens, and a lonely dwarf banana tree, freshly planted.
They had not planned to meet but circumstances and history had engineered this encounter. The taller of the two men wore a clean ironed white shirt, bulky for his lean frame, tucked into his dark grey trousers and his shoes with slanting heels, were polished. His colleague on the bench had on an lopsided, oversized knitted sweater, that was discoloured from lack of washing, over baggy jeans and tattered sports shoes with different coloured laces. He wore a black cap on his head that looked new and it had an emblem, the Kenyan Coat of Arms.
They were waiting for the hearse and funeral party coming from Kisumu about a 40 minute drive away. Their old classmate from primary school, Junior, had died unexpectedly and his body was arriving in the village later that day for the wake.
A scrawny brown dog passed by them, pausing cautiously, as though anticipating some aggression before scurrying along the murram road. “ That’s Wambasa’s dog”, the dishevelled man said, his voice a low rumble.
“It is probably heard there’s a funeral and it’s going to look for food”.
The lean man watched the dog flee. He let out a dry, dismissive sound from the back of his throat, “Pelele,” he said, using the man’s village nickname, “you know all the dogs in the village?”.
“I am telling you, “ Pelele insisted, his eyes still on the dog, “ This one I know. It never misses a funeral. It’s a survivor”.
They reverted to silence, watching the tarmac road. In the distance, the heat conjured up pools of false water on the road’s spine. Apart from the occasional car zooming past, the air was stagnant, no breeze to rustle the leaves above and the sun bore down from cloudless blue skies.
Pelele pulled out a half smoked cigarette from his jeans pocket and lit it with a match box after many failed strikes. He took several shallow drags and blew the smoke upwards, curling his dry cracked lips to create a funnel.
“We have lost a man who had a clean heart. A giver and he liked people. He never forgot me, never left me thirsty” Pelele grinned and shuffled on the bench, pinching his cigarette as he talked.
“The expensive drinks I had on his verandah … .this death…it has robbed us of a human ”.
“You two got along, but your problem was that you just got drunk together. Junior spoiled you. Whenever he arrived, you moved into his home and did not return to your hut until he left,” the lean one said, tapping Pelele’s shoulder.
Pelele chuckled. “No! Junior knew me. Me! you give me something to drink and eat, Baas! am happy…because Junior knew, I cannot stay with money in my pocket…” he felt his pockets for confirmation and then added, “You know he liked helping everyone, he didn’t choose”.
“Yes he did but if you paid attention, keenly it was mostly widows and, this I also noticed, you had to appear on his Facebook. His own older brother’s son, his own blood, he abandoned”
“But that boy was a madman?“
“It doesn’t matter. Charity begins at home”.
Pelele shifted his position on the bench, now digging into his pockets for a cigarette and found none. The two men returned to their silent gazing as the scrawny dog from earlier walked past them confidently, without looking in their direction. It stopped a few metres ahead, sniffing the bushes and then finding a spot, it lifted a hind leg and began to urinate.
“Wambasa’s dog is back?” observed the lean one.
“It has surveyed the ground. The cooks have not arrived. There are no fires lit in that home?”
Both men smiled broadly and then they were silent again, watching the road as a boda sped past, blaring ohangla music.
Pelele watched it disappear over the hill and then said, “Junior, loved listening to Ohangla… Where will we find a man in this village with the same heart of giving? He was like a supermarket. His stock never ran out”
The lean one felt the need for a response.
“He was our brother, but it is good to tell the truth. I think the money ruined him. This is something I told him when he was still alive. Whenever he arrived in the village, men and even women got thoroughly drunk. People just moved into his home and it was just drinking that didn’t end. Then, he’s back in Nairobi, leaving us with our problems. People like Junior corrupted the village. These days all these young men just wait for handouts, someone to release them from stress and think only of riding bodas, easy money. ”
Pelele shifted his position again, “Me, the Junior I knew, was a man who liked people”.
The lean one gazed straight at him,
“I am not saying he did not like people… but the truth is, he corrupted the village. Especially him and the late Morris. They behaved like politicians during campaigns. Even in church, elders followed him, a young man, because of his money. Wasn’t there a time, he paid for land in boda bodas. Just imagine. How long did Ochiel have the bodas? He couldn’t maintain them and he died landless”.
“But Junior was just trying to help him start a business”
“I don’t refuse but Ochiel was a drunkard. Junior didn’t seem to realize the effect of this habit of his, of just throwing money around”.
Pelele was getting shifty, “The way you say it…like he was doing it with a bad heart ….he was just a life-ist”,
“Junior is someone we grew up with since childhood, in this village. He knows how money can be sensitive. I tried to warn him but he wouldn’t listen…the thing I never understood is how you two got along?”
“I also don’t know” Pelele mumbled, his voice suddenly softer, “ Our spirits, they just agreed since primary school. I could even feel his presence in the village, before I even saw his Pajero”
“I think he liked you for the gossip” the lean one teased, his voice dry.
Pelele was defensive. He shook his head “ No, no. You people don’t know him. I agree with you, he liked the high life. Big cigarettes and whiskey. But he also liked to talk. When you find him in a talking mood…”
“What would you talk about? Women?” the lean one asked with inquisitive eyes.
“He was never busy with women…it was women busy with him…he used to complain that people only saw his money. Do you know, one evening, we spoke until 4am, just the two of us on his verandah, the one facing the hills”.
“I know that verandah. He called it Galleria villa Juno” the lean one said, grinning after the memory.
Pelele smiled broadly in return “That one. Galleria, where only his friends from Nairobi sat. Us, villagers, would be in the front. The back was for his guests. We sat there until morning and he scared me, when he told me that people don’t like him. They just want his money. People, always trying to use him. Told me it was the opposite when he worked in Europe, people did not like him because he was an African with money”.
This caused the lean one to fold his arms and then, he crossed his legs
“And what did you tell him?”
Pelele held out his palms, an expression of surrender on his face,
“What could I tell him? The man was speaking with pain. And it wasn’t only that time”.
“Another day, he surprised me and sent an uber from Kisumu. Kisumu! The car came from Kisumu empty, to pick me up in the village… like a mheshimiwa. A black car. Subaru. All the way to Dunga, by the lake. I found him alone, and that was the day he confused me, kabisa! He said I was the only true friend he had. Me, Pelele” he concluded, poking his chest.
The lean man crossed his legs the other way. It was clear to him that the Pelele was a true confidant of the deceased.
Pelele had now stopped shuffling as he spoke, “Do you know what he feared the most…
The lean one leaned forward,
“That someone would poison him. He was scared of people in this village. That is why he always came to the village with a cook. He gave away money so he could never be accused of being mean. He said making money was easy for him but making real friends is not easy when you have money”.
The lean one tilted his head, as though noticing his former schoolmate in a new light. There was more to Pelele than his alcoholic addiction. Indeed, he had a happy disposition and the ability to get along with everyone. The area MP once called him out by name during a funeral and people were shocked. How do they know each other?
Eventually, after some time in contemplation, he confessed,
“Hmmh…you have made me think… but was he sober… when he told you this?”
“You know Junior never used to get drunk. He could drink all night but he never staggered”.
The lean one was now defensive and he held up a finger as he made his point,
“Me, the thing I vowed, was that I would never ask him for money, even though he was my brother.”
‘And that is why he respected you. He used to say he liked how you were not afraid to be yourself and maintained your own standard in the village”.
This statement seemed to surprise the lean one. He unfolded his legs and then arms and rested his palms on the wooden bench. He remembered the young Junior from primary school. They had grown up together but their paths had taken such wild turns after primary school.
The lean one never ventured far, working sporadically around the county and maintaining a simple, dignified existence in the village. Junior, who was always number one in class, used his brains to change his fortune. He got a scholarship to Europe, started work as a software engineer and he became very rich in a short time. Yet, throughout these changes, he always returned to the village. He never got lost. But he was never lucky with family life. He lost his marriage and children in divorce, and for the first time, the lean one, saw a different side to his childhood friend and feelings of regret washed over his body.
Was that what he lived with, the knowledge that all people, I included, only saw his money?
Pelele finally stood, his movements slow and deliberate. He walked a few steps away from the bench to get a better view of the road.
“I wonder where they have reached”, he said, the words barely a whisper. “I could have called but I don’t have credit”.
The lean one did not offer a response. He was staring sideways, at Wambasa’s dog, that was lying on the bare ground, fast asleep, perhaps also in wait.
******
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