By B. N Wendo
Nobody saw the shrouded corpse leave the building. Nobody saw the red van speed away. And Kevin’s family felt the weight of a broken son uplifted from their backs.
In her eyes, there was that dreadful disgust. What was he doing? Was this her son?
She screamed at him. But there was a strong wind, one that her voice was unable to overwhelm. And the swishing trees and grass swallowed its timbre. He could not hear her. Engrossed in the football game. Bathed in the dust. Bathed in the dust!
The dust. Her son. The clothes. The dust. Who was going to wash these clothes? But that was not the mother’s greatest fear.
“Kevin!” She called out. “Kevooo!”
The boy was startled. He was visibly shaken at the sight of his displeased mother. Her instructions that morning before she left for ‘chama’ were pretty clear. Do not leave the house. Study. Read. The exams are nigh. But this was a tall order. The moment her figure disappeared from the eyeline, he instantly made his way to the field. He thought she would return in the evening. But at noontime, she came. And saw him at the dusty playing field. He knew war was coming.
“Kevooo!” She called out in rage. The others stopped playing. Kevin ran to her. But stood at a safe distance.
“Kevin, what did I tell you to do before leaving the house?” She asked in a threateningly low tone. Her eyes darted to her son’s body. Dust coated him everywhere. On his feet. His arms. His face. Even hair.
“I did what you asked…mum!” Kevin lied.
“If I get to the house before you, I will do something to you that will make your people scream! To the house right now!” She blasted him. Kevin instantly shot up and ran before her. But in his mind, he could not overrule the flogging that awaited him.
Mama Kevin was a strict, no-nonsense woman. Her fourteen-year old son and ten-year old daughter knew her. But even this knowledge was not enough to whisk them away from her trouble. That Friday evening, Kevin met his wage for disobedience. His mother flogged him hard. And constantly gave him a tongue lashing like she did normally.
But there was a raw revelation that evening. Something greater that came from his mother’s lips. Something his heart was not able to dislodge as mere fit of rage.
“Look at you!” She doused. “A 14-year old boy out there playing with small boys. Playing in the dust…”
He sniffled. His backside searing with pain.
“…Do you even respect yourself?” She continued. “Your mates are out there behaving like focused candidates. I was at Pato’s home for the chama. And do you know where Pato was? Under the shade of the tree, reading. After completing all his chores. And he was very clean.”
Pato. Why did his mother have to bring up the name of that boy? Pato was his classmate. A fierce academic rival. Kevin had severally beaten him since standard five. And yet, his mother still imagined that comparing him to Pato…He could not wrap his mind around it. And it hurt him.
That night, he slept in distress. There was a solemn desire to understand why he was never enough a son for his mother. Kevin could not bear the fact that Pato was his mother’s ideal son. What was special about him anyway? Just because he reads under the tree? But didn’t he study hard too? Why did his mother refuse to acknowledge all the good things he did?
A tear streamed from his eyes in the dark.
“Let me tell you something,” her mother’s voice echoed at the back of his mind. “You’ll never amount to anything. Useless boy!”
You’ll never amount to anything…
You’ll never…amount…to…any…thi…ng…
Anything…
Ne…ver…
He was breathless. Stumbled over the stones in the dark farm. Then his pace was intensified. Someone or something was hot in pursuit after him. He wanted to scream for help. But his throat was parched and no sound glided through it.
He was running into a maize plantation.
“Help!” His throat screeched. The footsteps behind him were punching the earth like an insane typewriter. He fell hard on the darkness and bruised his arm. But he gathered his strength. And rose up in flight again. But there was no outrunning that beast.
But the end of the road awaited him. And he was falling off the fringes of an unseen cliff. He was screaming. Screaming. He was falling. The solid abyss awaited him. He was gazing at the starry skies. How they hastened away from his sight as he fell.
A ghostly beast appeared. Right at the edge of the cliff he had fallen from. How terrible it was. Its head – A leopard’s. Steely class. Drool dripping all over its lips and those rock hard canines. He was dying. Help me! Lord! Mother! Father! Anyone. But the precipice was unending. And yet he could not lose the sight of that beast. Nor of the edge of that cliff.
Then instantly, the beast shapeshifted into his mother. Her dough-sprinkled cheeks. Her red headcloth. And that infamous scowl that was casted on her face when he made even the simplest of errors.
‘Son!’ Her voice boomed through the descent. Following him to his decline. “You’ll never amount to anything!”
And there was a gritty laughter. And beside her, he saw his father. His sister. His headmistress at school. His friends. Classmates. Pato! A crowd was forming. All of them, jeering him. Laughing at him. Their fingers pointed at him.
“He will never amount to anything!”
He closed his eyes. But then he woke up in his bed. An aroma of eggs wafted from the kitchen. As he was preparing to kick away his blanket, his mother’s voice streamed from the door of his bedroom.
“Candidate! Ndio unaamka?” A sarcastic tone wrenched him back to his mire.
“Mama Kevin!” A voice tore through the crowd at the market. She at once recognized it and a surge of shame stirred inside her. She pretended not to have heard the call, and burrowed her way through the congestion. But the woman’s call was unrelenting. And she knew that if she feigned deafness once more, the woman would have reason to imagine she was being ignored.
She cursed at herself for being weak. And for coming to the market that day. And she cursed Mama Pato for remembering her face after all those years. Eight years had fleeted like a joke.
“Aah. Mama Pato! Bado uko?” Mama Kevin pretended to have missed her. She did not. Infact, she spat at fate for engineering this meeting.
“Eeh. Na umekuwa msupuuu!” Mama Pato laughed hard. It was an ambiguous laughter. It could neither be assessed for sincerity nor sarcasm.
They would talk for a long time about the events that happened within the eight years they had lost contact. Mama Kevin and her husband moved to Isinya after Kevin was done with his KCPE exams. One he flopped beyond comprehension. Mama Kevin could simply not imagine the scourge from other women at her chama. The results were public. Everyone knew that Kevin, that star boy, had flunked in all his subjects.
“So, how are kina Kevin?” Mama Pato inquired much to Mama Kevin’s chagrin.
“They are doing well. I can’t complain,” Mama Kevin said simply. But her knees felt like rubber. Praying that the woman would find no reason to venture into his son’s progress.
“It’s a good thing,” Mama Pato said. “You know my son is graduating this Friday. First class honours. UoN school of law.”
“Wow!” Mama Kevin trembled. She could hardly betray her pain at such a glorious declaration. “I am very thankful that God has made your son succeed. I knew he was a great child that one.”
“Indeed. We have suffered. And struggled. But God has given us the victory!” Mama Pato said. “I am also sure Kevin is doing well…”
Mama Kevin nodded. She then excused herself. There was something important she needed to buy and she was afraid that the shop would be closed. They exchanged contacts but neither women was easily going to revive communication. Mama Pato knew this. Mama Kevin knew this.
Mama Kevin fought back her tears. Pato. How she wished his son was as fortunate as that boy. Kevin. That boy had caused her much grief. He would never amount to anything.
“You’ll never amount to anything!” Omosh said to Kevin. “Stop trying to be clean!”
The two men were hiding at an incomplete building. A twilight fix.
“Hii maisha mazee!” Kevin said in a drowsy manner. “Unajua nini brooo…Mimi nilikuwa boyz chepe! Nilikuwa…na…future…maan!”
At every leap of the nightly hour, Kevin spoke at length about how he dreamt to become a doctor. A surgeon. A neurosurgeon. He was good at science. Got 100% at every test. Every night he saw himself in this monstrous hospital. Patients thanking him for saving their lives. Their beaming gestures. The warmth of their courtesy. The candor of his humility. He would drive his favorite Mercedes Benz. Impatient to get home to his family. His pretty wife. Pretty kids. Hale and vibrant.
Omosh knew the sensation was already kicking in. This fool, he thought. Who cares about his dreams? Everybody at one point of their lives dreamt. And only a skim of these dreamers achieved their dreams.
“Oyaa bro! Tulia,” Omosh admonished him. “Leta hii blunt mazee!”
“Wee tulia,” Kevin protested. “Si ni mimi nimebuy!”
Omosh rose up and sauntered across the room. The floor was rough. He stood at the window ledge. Gazed for long into the darkness. As if waiting for someone.
“Brooo…” Kevin towed along his story. “My mother… That woman always reminded me who I was to her. No matter how high I could go, it was never enough for her. She always pointed out my failures.”
“Huyo ni mzazi budaa!” Omosh said absently. “Kwanza matha!”
“Nikuulize bro,” Kevin objected. “Wewe, did your mother ever wrong you?”
Omosh answered in perfunctory fashion, “I wish my mother even cared about my education. But I don’t blame her. She could not afford to give me the life I so desired. Maybe my life would have been better.”
“Na mzae?” Kevin asked.
Omosh was silent. Plumes of smoke rose in the dark. Kevin did not need a verbal answer. There was no father.
“My father was there when he saw that woman shred my confidence!” Kevin lamented. “He never said a word. He sat there and swallowed every turd that my mother fed him about him. ‘Take him to approved school!’ He takes me to approved school. ‘Don’t give him pocket money until he excels in his exams!’ He did it. What a gelded fellow!”
Beneath the building, a red van was driven to a halt. Omosh knew it was time. Kevin was still slouching on the mildew-tanned wall. Taking deep puffs of marijuana. Two men alighted from the van. It was dark but they could spot Omosh from the ledge two-stories above. He nodded at them. They nodded back and made their way into the building.
“…My mother literally asked my father not to bail me out after we got arrested for theft last week. If not for Chairman, I would not have left that dungeon. Is that a Mother? Sometimes I wish I died. That failed suicide attempt in form two haunts me to date…”
Omosh gazed at the stars. “Usijali bro!”
Kevin was surprised to see two hulk-statured shadows pervade his space. He was about to scream for help when they grabbed him. But a tiny piercing pain tinctured his intoxication. Everything became black as coal before his eyes.
“Omosh…Ni nini?” Kevin cried.
“Ssshh!” The man who induced him into unconsciousness signaled.
Nobody saw the shrouded corpse leave the building. Nobody saw the red van speed away. And Kevin’s family felt the weight of a broken son uplifted from their backs.
BRIGHT NEWS ONLINE. 