The cop who flags me down, the traffic cop who later leans into my window, has a face that isn’t in the mood for folk and dance. And he has eyes that have been bled off sympathy. Think Judge Ian, without the white hair. And his chin, my God, his chin is so sharp I bet he uses it to slice open envelopes. And enemies.
I’m in the wrong, of course. I have broken some traffic law, the one that frowns on driving while talking on phone, but in my defense, traffic was crawling. But when he raises his hand – a stiff defiant and authoritative gesture – an image of a nude goose squirming over a flame leaps in my head.
He swaggers over. Large girth. He’s maybe 40 and has a face that has been standing in the sun for too long. He looks like the kind of chap who has been dealing with scumbags like me all his life. But that walk of his: unhurried and resolute, a walk of someone who knows exactly where his lunch will come from. There is nothing friendly about him or his walk, but I’m not perturbed, I’m not even anxious because I have since perfected the art of charming my way out of sticky situation with cops.
He silently checks my insurance then deliberately walks over to my window and without as much as a hallo, without any emotion or nicety he barks in my face; “Licence?” I hand him my driver’s license while I chime happily, “Habari ya leo, officer?” I’m dutifully ignored. If I were a lesser man, if I was impetuous, I would have broken down right there and cried. But I didn’t, because I was wearing my lucky underwear; it’s black; and old (obviously).
My license is studied in complete and loud silence. I’m let to sit there, to stew in and contemplate my unlawful ways. You’d think I had tried to run the vice president’s motorcade out of the road. Which would have been stupid, but – admit it – fun.
Finally – after I have grown senile – he growls; “ Sasa mbona unaongea kwa simu na unaendesha gari? ” Don’t be fooled by the question mark at the end of that sentence because it’s not exactly a question, but a statement. But if you choose to take it as a question it’s one that doesn’t need an answer, it simply draws your attention to your error.
I start talking fast. I’m plying him cock and bull. I’m charming him. He stands there, leaning his weight on one foot and staring at me like I’m scum (and I am), like he is a god (and he is, a traffic god who needs to deworm) and he is beautifully unimpressed and unmoved by my string of narrative. And he doesn’t blink.
Now, I have this routine that I have down when I encounter the law. I have learnt that cops will let you go with a slap on the wrist if you make them understand that you know your place in the food chain; that you are nothing before them. So you don’t argue with them, you don’t challenge their opinion; you keep your head low. But most importantly, you don’t ask to touch their gun. So you smile and look remorseful and say you are sorry and that you exercised bad judgment. Or you play to their manhood or fatherhood.
I once told an obstinate traffic cop who had caught me making a U-turn; “Look, I have that money you are asking for but it’s exactly mine; I’m going to buy my daughter a school bag tomorrow [I know, I’m disgraceful]. Please don’t make me beg, you look like a father, come on, let this one slide, officer.”
And he had stared at me for a while before saying coldly, “I’m not a father.” And for some reason I found that funny as hell and I laughed, and he stared at me before be broke into a broad smile, then I said, “You might not be a father but you are a man and we don’t kick each other while we are down,” He shook his head and let me go.
But normally if diplomacy crumbles (hardly ever) I use my tramp card; The Press Card. That’s always my last ticket to freedom. It’s gotten me out of some grim situations.
So anyway, back to the cop. Just as he’s ready to drag me away to the station, I sort of play that last card. Only I play it to the wrong chap because for one, he’s having a bad day and two, he felt like I was arm-twisting him and lastly, I suspect he was just having bad bowel movements that morning. So much for lucky underwear.
What happens next, happens first. The card, he feels rightfully, was used to try to undermine his authority. And so his ego is tested, not only as a cop but as a cop with worms. I stand no chance. All bets are off. As this story goes, will end up at Muthangari Police Station at some point and at the parking lot, I will embrace my brother’s mantra “Only fools don’t change their minds,” and I will hold his arm (not his gun) as we walk towards the station office and I will tell him, “It doesn’t have to go this far, I don’t want it to, and I can tell you don’t either.” And he will stop and look at my hand on his arm like it will infect him with foolishness, and before he says anything, before he proves that I came onto his turf and undermined his authority, I tell him something I should have told him as soon as he asked for my license: “It’s too early in the day to start it in this fashion. I’m sorry, officer,” And lets me go without a bribe.
His name was Kipruto.
This post was to be about Kenyan cops but like most posts in High School they always seem to turn to be about my lack of sound judgment, or my fumbling and unfawning (Word keeps underlining this damned word) thoughts. But I always intend them to be a window into human nature, as I see them at least. Mostly I fail. But since we are elbow deep in the topic of cops, I will tell you a story about an encounter I had in high school.
I attended Maseno School. For reasons – borne in literary and generational bravado – Maseno students felt that they were too lofty to refer to themselves as “High” or “Secondary” school. It seemed to dilute the academic potency of the institution. That was a province for other lesser schools or, “the rest”, as we naively referred to them in moments of mythical intoxication. So it was always Maseno School, and no less. Referring it in any other way attracted public flogging at the adjacent Mabungo market.
I loved Maseno; The weather was excellent; You could get avocados across the fence for a pittance; Our uniform wasn’t half bad – we had kick-ass blazers and the teachers took their jobs seriously. Also, Maseno somehow built your self-confidence; it turned us into cocky young prats. You left there almost certain of your success. You left there truly believing that if you didn’t make it in life it was not because someone didn’t try.
The other reason I loved Maseno was because of our next-door neighbours; Maseno University.
When you are 17yrs, you look at campus guys as demi gods. They look, oh so cool. They look knowledgeable and sharp. And they wear civilian clothes. But if we used to admire those campus guys, we used to lust over the campus girls. From across the fence, campus girls represented mountains we never could climb because we were ill equipped to climb (no puns here, Gang. Er, not yet, oh the puns are coming though). Which is to say we were desperate, randy and tactless, something you don’t want to be at any age.
On Sundays we would take a walk over to campus to watch rugby or something, and I remember looking at these girls in fitting jeans and those Kris Kross tops (yes, I’m a fossil) and I would feel my head swim a little.
Anyway, as young men seeking the pleasures of the world, it was not uncommon for us – some of us – to sneak across to campus and try our luck with the campus girls. And why not, you would too if you were 17 with hormones drowning you. Sports and paraffin in our meals couldn’t suppress most of us. So we sneaked out on Saturday nights.
To sneak out of school on a Saturday 10pm you had to have a few watchmen in your payroll, which generally meant a few packets of cigarettes for them to look the other way. And it was nice if your Dorm Captain was in the loop- nothing that a loaf of bread couldn’t sort out. We would use the gates less used, near Mabungo. Sounds lunje, eh? Well, that’s because it’s a lunje name.
And in pitch darkness, like outlaws, like Kony’s soldiers, we would tread in darkness and head to the campus, in search of happiness. In search of a female bosom to lay our heads on. Our success rate was embarrassing, we averaged about 10% a term, but we weren’t fussy, even a flash of a thigh would keep us smiling the whole week. A sight of cleavage would see us drift through chemistry classes in a daze. And a kiss, a kiss would take us to cloud 9 for a month!
To sneak out you dressed in dark civilian clothes (allowed in school). You carried your school ID, a condom (you know, just in case?), some cash for a beer for those who drunk (I didn’t, but I bought one beer and held it in my hand as a prop so that I didn’t look like a complete schmuck) and you prayed that everything went well. But there were victims, chaps who were caught and suspended. Chaps who didn’t pay protection money.
But when I was finally caught, when I finally came face-to-face with suspension, it wasn’t even by high school cops; it was by real cops.
They weren’t supposed to be there. Nobody was. It was 1.30am for crying out loud! We were headed back, the three of us, after a fruitless evening when about 100m from our hole in the fence a strong beam of light suddenly falls hard on us followed by a hard growl, “nyinyi simameni hapo!”
In a blink of any eye one of my partners in crime legs it. Yes, when push comes to shove, you never really have friends, they will desert you. He was Kissii, about 5’5’’, with the lowest center of gravity you will ever see on any man. And that brother could tear! So, poof! He was off, gone! Gone through the hole in the fence and into the embrace of the dark football pitch before the cops could say boo.
We were rounded up. Their torches shining in our faces and their menacing breaths in our ears. I remember thinking of how I would be sent home and how I would have to face my parents and explain that I sneaked out of school to chase tail. I could handle my dad’s disgust and rebuke but it was the thought of my mom’s disappointment that was going to be the death of me.
Oh and those cops harassed us.
What I remember about these cops is how mean they were, how they stunk of cheap liquor and how they made us beg like slaves. At that point of vulnerability and hopelessness, at that point when I faced suspension, I truly wondered why we had to chase women, why we had to go through the hands of these rogue cops for it. And you know what, I resented women a bit at that point. I told myself; if this is what it took to get some tail, if this is what a man had to go through to get laid, then I would definitely be more careful when I sneaked into the university the following weekend.