We spend a great deal of our adult lives chasing down other people’s daughters. We promise them the world when we haven’t understood the world ourselves. We tell them we love them when all we really would love is to see their inner thighs. We manipulate them into offering us their hearts even though we are glaringly undeserving. We look at them, not as individuals, but as legs, ass and knockers. We lust over them. We lie to them. We take away their virginities, and sometimes their self confidence. We knock them up and then jump that story. We make them cry in their sleep and then turn them into cold, angry and untrusting individuals who get on blogs and spew vitriol. We do all these with removed calculation, spurred by lust, gallantry and that imprisoning male machismo.
But one day, in a cruel twist of fate, we get daughters of our own.
Having a daughter changes the paradigm. It puts the boot on the other foot. It means you have to be prepared to contend with miscreants, yobos, lay-abouts, eejits, deadbeat-skinny-jean wearing, Mohawk-hawking eggheads who will park their father’s gleaming cars outside your gate and, with a juvenile chutzpah, press your doorbell. It means some gung-ho kid from Kile will one day get it into his head that he is good enough for your daughter (God forbid!). It means there will always be a good-for-nothing kid who wants a piece of your little girl – a most nauseating thought.
In another 11yrs, I will open my front door to find some wolf-face asking, “Is Tamms home?” and I will be tempted to drive a point home when I drive my foot in his groin. Scaringly, in another 11yrs she will start thinking that perhaps there are other cool guys out there apart from me. She loves stroking my beard now and I shudder to imagine that one day she might admire another guy’s beard, a guy I will die to hold down on the floor and – with my knee buried in his chest – shave off his silly beard using a very blunt and rusty knife. One day she will receive a raunchy sms from some raccoon saying stuff like, “You are my world, gorgeous,” and, frighteningly, she will giggle and maybe even be tempted to believe that horny lout. No, she is my world jackass! Mine!
Deep breath.
It’s tough having a daughter, especially when you know how crafty men can get to get what they want. It’ tougher especially when you think of the heights you have gone to get into a woman’s pants. It’s one of those thoughts that bring a bad taste to your mouth; it makes you green around the gills. But as my little girl grows the clock ticks to the ultimate showdown, that much I know. It ticks to the day cops from the homicide department will shadow my doorway and ask me, “Where were you between 3pm and midnight yesterday?”
On Thursday the little one turns three and a half years. You would think that’s young. It’s not, she is a woman of sorts now, they grow up fast. You will step into the bathroom for a shower and when you come out they have learnt a new word from cartoon network. You step out to go have a drink at the bar and you come back and find a lady in the house, not a girl. The transition is creepily swift. When you are almost getting to know the baby, they have evolved into small girls…like, that!
But three is still a beautiful age. They are inquisitive. They are mighty impressionable. They soak in nuances. Their memories are elephantine. Their personalities are taking shape. At three, they wobble about in their mother’s high heels, apply make-up, demand to pick their own clothes and they can tell Ksh. 50 from Ksh 20. At three they start becoming ladies. And they are particular about what they want: don’t apply butter on both sides of my toast, put ketchup on the side of my plate not all over my fries, I want the green dress…I want my martini stirred, not shaken.
Here is how they change before your eyes. My little girl has always woken up every morning to use the potty in the corridor, you know, sit there sulking because she is not a morning person but most importantly because she can’t understand why she has to wake up so early to go to school. So she will sit on the potty, head somberly resting on her hands, and wear a pouty look of, “if only I had better parents, than the excuse I have now, I would be in bed sleeping, not going to muster colors the whole day.”The other day I noticed that she no longer uses the potty in the corridor but insists that it is moved into the privacy of bathroom instead. At three years she wants privacy because she can’t afford to be seen (by me, I suspect) using the potty in the open like that. I guess she can’t stand the indignity of her father seeing her bare bum (like there is much to see in the first place). Self preservation. Babies into ladies.
I’ve always dreaded that day in future, when she will turn into a teenager. When her chest will blossom out and her ass fills her pants. When she will start wearing fitting jeans and wearing lipstick. When she will start using words like “needing my space” or being an “adult” who needs to be “trusted as a grown up.” When she will start keeping stuff away from me. I will dread when I’m faced with the dicey decision of when to let go a bit and when to put the foot down, you know, that point when I am confronted with the jarring reality that her needs have stopped orbiting around me.
But I’m always consoled that that day is far far away, like Vision 2030, a faraway concept, like something used by parents to scare children into eating their vegetables. I’m comforted that I still have over a decade to cement my role as the ultimate guy in her life. I still have a window to raise the bar so high for all those two-faced boys who will show up with honey on their lips and evil intentions in their hearts. But this reality was recently shaken slightly a few weeks ago.
So one evening the missus tells me grimly, “I have noticed something troubling about Tamms.”
“Let me guess, you found a packet of Embassy Lights in her school bag.” I said.
She ignored me. “She has been doing this dance which involves her lifting her shirt.”
“Yeah? I wouldn’t be worried about any dance, as long as it doesn’t involve a pole.”
“Well it involves another boy.” She said.
Slight pause.
“Another boy, what other boy?”
“She says some boy from school always dances like that with her.”
Here is the thing; my first impulse was not jealousy or anger. I really didn’t feel like this kid would try anything funny, but I was a bit anxious. It’s the feeling you would get when you are realize that it’s a Thursday and not a Wednesday as you had earlier thought and your deadline is looming the next day. Anxiety. Was I a bit concerned? Perhaps, yes. You pay a certain amount of money to take your kid to a school that is big on discipline and integrity and you hope that your child grows up sound and proper, shielded by the truancy that lives beyond the gates. But while you are protecting her from the world, while you are paying some pretty penny to arm her with vital tools of life at an early age, you wake up one day and realize that the wolves were not locked outside and that they actually reside in the same compound as her.
“Who is this boy who dances with you?” I asked Tamms.
“Ian.” She said innocently.
“Show me how he dances with you.” She did. I was disgusted. Her mom said it was a bad dance and that she should not dance it again. She asked, why? She said, it was a dance of “bad people.” I gave her a wow-how-creative look. I wasn’t really interested in the dance; I was interested in this Ian boy.
“He’s called Ian, who?” I asked her. She told me; a lunje last name. The missus said she would go to school and have a word with the class teacher. I asked her to sneak a picture of this Ian kid because I was taking him down. The next day the missus went to school in the morning and talked to the class teacher who admitted that Ian was a bit of a problem child and she would put a stop to it. She didn’t show up with any picture.
I know this is childish but I really wanted to see this Ian kid. I wanted to put a face to this boy, the only male name she has uttered in my house since she was born. I felt intruded upon, ambushed even. Ian was the enemy within and he had to be eliminated Mossad style.
One day as I dropped her off, I decided to walk to their class and see this kid. I pretended to ask the teacher about her progress with counting the months of the year and then casually asked, “Oh, she talks about this Ian boy, where is he.” She pointed at this little devil playing across the room. He had oversized shorts, like he was about to jump off a plane and the shorts would act like a chute. He was chocolate. He had short hair. He was a bit chubby. Innocent looking kid, but I knew better. I didn’t feel anger towards Ian, I didn’t feel the need to run over to him and tackle him.
But I wanted to walk up to him and tap him on the shoulder. “Ian, what are you doing after school, can we catch a drink?” Since he is a belly dancing brat, he would look at me and hiss, “And who might you be?”
“Tamms’ father.”
“Whatever old man, 3.30pm is fine, but I have a lot of homework so I will only be good for one drink.”
After school, I would take him to Kengeles, Lavington Green where I would ask the waiter to give him a double of Famous Grouse. On the rocks.
“I’m sorry, we don’t serve children here sir,” the waiter would tell me firmly.
“He’s not a child, he is just a short guy who likes wearing school uniform, like Inspector Mwala, so come on, be a prince and bring that double and some ice.” The waiter would bring our drinks and recede to the counter to look at us.
“I don’t drink, I’m just a kid!” Ian would whine.
“No, you aren’t. If you can show my baby your belly surely you are old enough to handle a double. Drink up Ian, stop whining.”
He would look up at the waiter for help, but no help will come from those quarters.
“From one man to the other,” I would say firmly, “You need to stop those belly dances.”
“I want to go home to my mommy,” he would whimper.
“Because if you don’t stop Ian, you will meet a very tragic end…I’m just saying.”
His lips would start trembling, like he wants to cry.
“Oh, so now Mr. Belly Dancer wants to cry?” I would chide him.
“I want to go home, please let me go home.”
“Oh please, be a man Ian!” I will snap, “Drink up belly dancer, it will calm your nerves.”
Since he’s short, his feet would be dangling from his seat and his head, would be at the same level as the table. He would lift the glass of whiskey with both hands and then gingerly bring it to his lips for a cautious sip.
“It’s bitter!” he would whine, twisting his face in disgust.
“Please, don’t be a wuss.” I would growl across the table. He would then start crying and the waiter would come to my table and demand that I stop being an ass. I would then rise from my seat, gulp Ian’s drink in one swoop and then walk to his side of the table and whisper in his ears, “If you aren’t ready to be a man, stop showing my little girl your belly.” Then I would leave him there bawling his small lungs out.