I intended to blog twice a week. But just when I was about to bang out something late last week I hit a man. Yes, I hit a man. Run him down. Mowed him over. This is a true story; nobody can make up something as sick like this. Well, except Kagame.
Thursday. 7.46am, crisp morning, like Nairobi has become lately. Wet tarmac because there was a drizzle the previous night. It’s fresh. I feel good. I’m listening to Hot 96, only because they play kick-ass music, not the jabber. I have an 8.30 editorial pow wow at Nation center, so I decided to go park at my brother’s office along Harambee Avenue. I approach it from Parliament road. I make the roundabout and keep to the left lane. There are folk walking on the edge of the road, some on the road and I remember thinking; change lanes, get to the right lane sonny. Get to the right lane.
Then it happens.
I hear the noise before I became fully conscious to the fact that I have hit something. I hear the noise of something coming apart. It sounds like plastic splintering. But above this sound, I hear the sound of flesh meeting metal, a sickening sound that stayed with me for days; dull and haunting. It’s the sound of man meeting machine. It’s the sound you don’t want to hear when you are having a swell morning and you are headed to a meeting. It’s an alien sound, and it fills your head with dread and horror. A sound of fear, naked fear.
I stomp on the brakes in a split second, and peer at the side mirror; I see nothing because I can’t locate my side mirror. So I look at the rear view mirror and that’s when I see this man. A man who only a few moments ago was a complete stranger but who now would become my problem. My biggest problem.
While I engage my reverse gear, I see this man stoop down and hold his knees. Like he’s about to vomit. Like all the weight has been transferred to his head. He is clutching at his laptop bag, a Mac bag. Nairobi being Nairobi in an instant people gather quickly, I don’t know where they come from but there is already a crowd. They crawl from the woodwork. They surround this hapless man. The city gives birth to them in throngs.
I reverse like a mad man. All this while I’m thinking, “Shit! Shit!” (Yes, I will be using words like this on this blog; I hope it doesn’t bring bile to your face). Everything starts unfolding in slow motion when I step out of the car. There are a lot of shrieks and sharply drawn breaths. Women are tightly holding their mouths, horror written on their faces, like they have just played witness to a horrific event that will forever change their lives…you know how dramatic that can be. Sigh.
I remember not wanting to look at the man I just hit, I remember dreading to stare at result of my unfortunate handiwork. I remember thinking, “God, don’t let this guy die on me, not on a bloody Thursday!”
When finally I get the spine to look at him my heart sinks. He seems to wobble on his feet, as if he is balancing on an imaginary pivot. He is wearing an expensive looking suit, navy blue. A fetching blue shirt, the type you buy from Manix. Ksh 8,000 a pop. You can tell an expensive shirt when you see one. The threads are bolder. As I’m going around the car to attend to him, he staggers back, and plops on the sidewalk. He sits on his ass, like a little boy making a castle at the beach. That’s when I really see his face.
There was a gush on his face, a big gush that took 15 stitches to cover, and this wound was white. White like an Arabian sheet. It wasn’t bleeding, at least not yet. What was bleeding was the wound on his cheeks, a wound that took 8 stitches to cover. I have never seen so much blood in my life. It was bright red and it came gushing. It poured on his blue shirt. On his tie. There is something about watching a man seated on the sidewalk, legs splayed out before him, clutching his laptop. Bleeding. It’s a pathetic tableau. Pathetic because the man looked helpless, helpless and shocked, shocked at seeing his blood. Shocked at imagining that this was happening to him.
I remember picking his spectacles which I had run over while I reversed. I remember picking pieces of his phone; a blackberry. I remember going to him and grabbing him by the arm, lifting him up all the while telling him how sorry I was. Assuring him that he will be just fine (like I know because I run people all over every Thursday). I remember calling him “buddy”, like we catch pints every so often,
like we have knocked back the bitter over a spit at Olei Polos. It felt insulting, this unnecessary reference and I remember thinking I wouldn’t blame him if he swung at me with a right hook. But I called him buddy repeatedly because I didn’t know his name, because I was scared. Because I didn’t want him to bloody die on me, not on a Thursday for chrissake!
As I am opening the passenger door and sitting him in, someone (one of them lay-abouts in town I suppose) grabs me by the arm and demands, “Where are you taking him?”. And I remember thinking “Really? I dunno, for a cuppa, perhaps?”. I tell him to jump in the car if he wants. He doesn’t. He steps back. I give this guy my corduroy jacket that was in the back seat. A jacket that I had planned to drop at the drycleaners but never really got around to it. I fold it into a ball and ask him to hold it against his head to stop the bleeding. A futile exercise if you ask me because the blood is coming like a burst well. The upper wound is now bleeding as well. I’m talking profusely.
Some tough GSU guys from Kibaki’s office which isn’t too far from the accident scene pitch up with snarls on their faces and guns on their hips. They look at him and tell me to rush him to the hospital immediately (brilliant idea soldier, I hadn’t thought of that).
I shut the door, run to my side and jump in, make a U-turn in the middle of the road, right outside Kibaki’s office (I’ve always wanted to do that), cars give way. I step on it and watch a huge crowd recede in the background as we rush out.
All these happens in under two minutes.
I will need to let you know what happens in the car and the conversation I have with this bleeding and dazed guy….next.