Literary pundits say you have to “structure” your writing. That the intro comes first, setting the pace, then the rest of the narrative follow. That you have to first “internalise” what you want to say before you can muster the literary equity to say it. And that even when you start saying it, this thing you want to say, you have to halt when you feel what you set out to say isn’t literary honest enough to you. This makes writing sound like a science, and it shouldn’t. It’s art. I think it’s Tony Mochama who once wrote that he hates when bloggers go on their blogs and painfully write about writing. That they should just blahdy write already. I remember reading that while slowly sliding lower into my seat and pulling down my cap lower over my face. He had a point, naturally. But this is not about points. This is about something I read over the weekend that refutes what’s in the first para up there. So on Saturday I discovered a brilliant Vanity Fair writer called Michael Lewis who had written a profound piece about Obama, offering such colourful insights into the political life of the potus. It was a very long but engaging read and after I googled him up and found an archive of some of his articles, which I read like I was reading my urine culture test results; keenly. In one of the interviews he said that most times he doesn’t even have a structure in his head before he starts writing. All he needs is an idea and the excitement to write it and he’s off to the races. I found that useful because some days you have an idea, an idea that excites you, but it can’t carry 200 words, let alone 500 words. But you love the topic and you are at pains on how to create a story around it. So you open up a word document and you start writing about it without rhythm or rhyme. At some point you stop and realise that it wasn’t even your idea in the first place. The beard thing was not even my idea. It was Gathoni’s. Gathoni is the lady who washes my scalp at the barbershop. Every week, George – my barber for 5years – shaves me, Gathoni washes and massages me. Gathoni is one of those chicks that packed a small bag and left home somewhere in the bushy armpits of Kagumo, in Kirinyaga, to come to the city to seek better fortune. Which is to say, she isn’t any much different from all of us. See, the village wasn’t working for her. It never does for a girl like this. A girl who always believed she was too big to waste her life in the village, avoiding getting knocked up by the twerp Thuo (pronounced Dhuo), the dysfunctional first son of the chief whose spends his time drinking bootleg alcohol in local dives as he waits for his father to roll over and die so he can inherit his matatus and shamba. Or prot as Okuyus call it. School didn’t go so well for this girl, but with a face that is easy on the eye, a body that that even could stir something in the village priest, a girl like this knew she had a better shot in bigger ponds city. So she lands and gets a job as a receptionist, waitress, an usher for a product launch, or at a salon like Gathoni did. Since she’s aware that she is disadvantaged educationally, she will capitalize on her looks to get ahead. So she will get up to speed in fashion, discover weaves (gasp) and wedges and then she will start dating up – never down – until one day she lands a rich businessman bored out of his ass in his marriage, a man who will eventually get her from her little darkroom (see what I almost did there?) in Embakasi and put her up in a ka -bedsitter in Kileleshwa, right next to the middle-class noisemakers on twirra. She will work hard; picking calls, running errands, waiting tables or washing and scrubbing scalps of balding men like me. She will work hard because the other option is Dhuo back in Kagumo. And at some point, you won’t be able to tell that only three years back she was in Kagumo, milking her mother’s only grade cow and fighting that rut with wild dreams of escape. You won’t be able to tell the village in her until she opens her mouth and tell her colleague something like: “Ciku tafadhali ukienda shop si uninurie shuwing ngum?” Only then will you know that Kagumo still lives in her, that no amount of tall wedges can elevate her higher than where she comes from. Here is what happened one-day. She was washing my head in the sink and as usual we were having some random chit chat about sijui how God picks people from some desperate situations and rise them up when she said, “…ooor [all] u ave to ndo is knero ndown and tell ngod ur witches.” Look, this chic has done my head for close to three years, I long stopped caring that she can’t pronounce words well but when she said “witches,” (to mean “wishes”) in the same sentence as God it took every thing I had in me not to drown in that sink laughing. Look I don’t mean to slight Gathoni and his ilk. She isn’t a lesser person because she says brow-dry. She can’t be defined by her r’s and l’s, which is just a product of her environment, not her character. She is honest, she has tons of ambition and unlike many of us, and she actually works towards them in very many ways every damned day. That counts more than brow-dry and witches, doesn’t it? One day she mentioned in passing that maybe I should let my beard grow longer. I asked why. She said it would make me look “kama mndurume.” I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded like something with horns. And I like things with horns. Like Buffalos. A week later I asked the missus what the hell “mndurume” was and she asked calmly – but an arched eyebrow – “where did you hear that?” and I immediately knew the right answer was going to quickly turn into the wrong answer. So I said I heard someone refer to the late Michuki as that at the barbershop (at least I didn’t lie about the venue). And she told me it’s like “a mandingo or a man’s man.” So I made the decision to grow my beard longer. You would too. No? When you grow your beard longer, you learn to avoid soups, soups and children who think if they pull it I will promptly burst into one of their favourite songs. A big beard also makes you look like you have weighty things on you mind (and chin). It gives you that “distracted” look that you are onto something big. Also, and mostly importantly, it takes away the attention from my forehead. Tamms loves it. The missus thinks it’s going overboard. Sir Charles – Caribana’s barman – said it reminds him of Malcom X’s beard (don’t believe anything barmen tell you) and one cab guy said he used to sport a bushier one, until someone burnt it in his sleep. I successfully wrestled the urge to ask more. My beard is four months old now, longer than most relationships in Nairobi now and I want to grow it until either one of two things happen; a start losing my face under it, or start losing my friends over it. Whichever comes first. I’m on another social experiment; I’ve been laying off alcohol for a month, which you will be pleased to learn doesn’t augur well with the beard. A bearded guy always needs either a drink in his hands or a sword. When I go to a bar, I now order soda water, ice and some lemon slices, which fools everyone (but myself) that I’m on gin and tonic or some sexy cocktail. It’s a miserable existence, if you want to know the truth. But when you sit in a bar drinking stone sober you hear and see things you shouldn’t. Like this story. This is a true – but tragic – story by the way. I was reviewing this bar, which I won’t mention. I’m seated at the counter, sulking at my soda water willing God to show me a sign and turn it into whiskey. I hear a lady seated two seats away giggle and tell her date- or whoever he was – “si you show me? Aii, you are lying!” My first thought was, Oh no, I hope he is lying and doesn’t show her whatever he wants to show her. But he shows her all the same and when he does I hear a gasp from the barman before I hear the gasp from the lady. It’s a gun. He packing a piece! I see it there, tucked into his holster belt against his love handles. Guns look great on TV but they look ugly when they are in your surrounding. I was a bit shaken to tell you the truth and for a moment I wanted to nerro ndown and pray to ngod. I imagine how this gun-flossing thing started. It’s starts with the guy catching the date staring. Guy: You know that guy? Girl: No, why? Guy: Because you keep staring at him like you know him. Girl: Please, I’m not staring at him; I’m staring at his beard. Guy: Hmm, you like his beard? Girl: Naah, it’s grizzly and untidy. But I think it might look good on you, baby. (Guy rolls eyes, which is something men who carry guns should NEVER do) Guy: It’s okay if you like that bearded look. I’m easy. Girl: (Stroking his arm) Come on baby, it’s nothing. I like your look. You have a clean smooth look; besides the forehead on top of that beard makes him look like a Lords Resistant Army rebel. (The guy stares at my forehead and resists a chuckle but fails) Girl: (Poking him in the ribs playfully) You are jealous aren’t you? Guy: Because of a beard? Please! I’m
not jealous. Girl: (Giggles) Yes you are! Guy: Why should I be, I have something that guy doesn’t. Girl: (Blushing), Awww, what, me? Guy: Uhm, yes, but something else. I have a gun. Girl: (Flirtatiously) Ohhh…will you shoot me with your gun, officer? Guy: I mean a real gun. Girl: Oh. Small pause. Girl: Si you show me, aii you are lying…. (Guy parts his coat. Barman gasps. Girl gasps. Bearded man gasps) More and more young urban guys are packing guns in Nairobi to remain relevant to women and to themselves. It’s got nothing to do with protection because when the bad guys rap on your car window, you have no time to pull your piece and even if you had a small window you would be foolish to do that. So yes, if it’s about protection, they are certainly protecting their ego. But most importantly it’s about vanity and a rehabilitation of their manhood. They carry guns on their hips because it gives them power, power that their strength of character have failed to give them. They carry guns because they have lost their talent of persuasion, of diplomacy, of subtlety. They carry guns and show them to women because they imagine that will look more attractive, risque, sexy, mysterious. Pick one. That the guns will get them wet with desire. Inverted machismo. They carry guns to make up for their sexual insecurities and their status misinformation. They carry guns in the hope that guns will give them respect among fellow men even though nobody respects a man with a gun, you fear a man with a gun. But you got to admit it: Showing a woman your gun beats the hell out of showing her your beard. [Photo credit: Flickr]