Nothing wakes one up more rudely than a full bladder. Normally when that happens I try to ignore it as much as I can, but it wins. And I have to stumble in darkness to the loo, afraid to open my eyes and let all the sleep escape. All this is usually futile because once I step on the floor barefoot the cold runs up my body and jolts me awake. Why don’t you then wear your house sandals, Biko? You might ask. Because that would mean me opening my eyes to locate them. Well, you might ask again, why don’t you position them at the foot of the bed that allows you to just step into them? I do, but house sandals move on their own at night, so there is always one under the bed. So barefoot it usually is and when I get back to bed, I’m usually fully awake and my brain knocking against my skull for two hours before sleep overwhelms me. Disjointed sleep disorients my sleep pattern which disorients my day schedule. So I hate that, obviously. I try to protect my sleep jealousy; phone on DND, the works.
If you have read this blog for a minute you must remember Joe Black. Brilliant young writer. Well, he dropped out of university and fell off the face of the earth. Occasionally, after months or even years he would call me in the bloody middle of the night with a different number and I’d say, “who the hell is this?” and he’d say, “It’s me, Joe Black.” And I’d be so irritated because it’s 2am and I’d snap and say, “are you mad? I will call you in the morning.” In the morning I’d call and of course the number would be off or someone would pick up and ask, “Joe Black ni nani???” It happened countless times. He was on drugs. He’d be spending nights in furnitureless houses, with people he didn’t know, doing heroin and stuffing things up their noises and under their gums.
It’s been quiet from his end for the past two years or so until last night (time 2:25am) when he WhatsApped me. (Don’t know how he remembers my number). He sent me something he wanted me to read which was manna because I’m still off-grid for a bit, tying up loose ends till next week.
We spoke for half hour, at only 26 it’s amazing what he’s been through; dropping out of UoN where he was a triple major ( psychology, literature and philosophy), drugs, jail, anxiety, depression, hawking shoes, almost dying in the hands of a mob, two jail terms, living in crackhouses and whorehouses, falling in love and almost dying from that (because love can be perilous) and finally cleaning up, one year and a few months now.
He will be filling in for me today. It’s very eccentric, his writing, it seems to be coming straight from his mind, like a burst pipe of untreated water. Half of it was vulgar and incoherent, I chopped all that out. (Kept his title). The rest are debauched rumblings which distinctly remind me of Charles Bukowski’s work. Just try and keep up.
I’m writing all these from my phone, forgive any typos ya mighty grammanazis. I’m on the back of a lorry, the lorry being life speeding to cross a lagha before the floods maroon us on this side. Talk when I cross safely.
Don’t lick sugar.
Here is Joe Black
BY JOE BLACK
Whatever I am, I’m many things and I know that’s what people say but really I do believe I’m a special breed of someone. I mean, I’m like 5 ’11 and till I met myself, interfered with myself and all that bull, I really never thought they could stack shit this high, until I met myself of course. What it does, what it does.
At the straits, fucked up, messed up and prolly the whole cause of the Troubles, and probably the Ilemi Triangle situation too. I mean, if we’re going to stretch that far, perhaps y’all could also blame me for all the fuckery.
Well, you see, life took a swing at me. I’d thought it’d be a fair blow, naive and all, but well, I took one in the nuts, right between that line that cuts across manhood, intersects and makes a distinction as marked as the hoove of a “mariamu” when you smoking on a blunt, tryna finish it off, suck all the goodness off it and thank God you’re alive and you’re in Kenya and at least you’re smoking coz there’s niggas in Zimbabwe scratching they asses waiting on a government job, or whatever it is they do in the Zim. Not slandering any country, mind, it’s just in my travels I had this bird from Zim who looked like a straight up Marabou and spoke with the most crisp of British accents I forgot myself and hollered, ‘Oi, you wouldn’t want a tumble, now would you?’
Just to keep myself busy as one does when you on stout, depressed and thinking of Hades and with the Catholic guilt all over, dripping off you like candle wax and then you can’t help but think about BDSM and other sins and that takes you down a rabbit hole with this chubby mama from Kilimani who once found you drunk off your mind, took you in, tied you up, whipped you and when you cried into her ear told you, ‘Shuushh, c’mon now, you’re a big boy, keep silent for mommy.‘
You wanted to…how she held you close to her massive bosom ( so enormous you were like these be “Twin Rushmores”), got your tongue tied. She proceeded to whip you more, then turn you out and tell you she wanted somebody submissive but not one with his bladder near his eye, whatever that meant. Well, lessons learnt. Clubs, pubs, taverns and the dark spots you find in Eastlando where you drink a pint with an eye over your shoulder and a hand over the hole of your arse because people who come to these places be shady and your daddy told you that you cannot trust a man that neither drinks or smokes.
You never knew hunger till you were on prison rations, struggling it out with hardened criminals. Nah, felons. That’s the correct term. Everyone I met in prison was innocent, or at least they thought so. These two guys, youngins, prolly 16 or something. One has a nasty scar across his chin. I’d like him to sing me some Wakadinali, kovu and all, but you just don’t be asking cons to sing you tunes, they might just misunderstand it and the next thing you known as flowery, and next you’ll be getting many singing offers and not all of them will be singing with they mouths. It’s a good thing the cops, wardens I should call them, don’t tolerate fights in the cells, or any other sort of mischief. I once saw a guy, a real First Body, who got so bodied up by four wardens with batons that he died four days later. They went at him so bad everyone in the cell, which is a dorm-like room, went silent and about a quarter of the prison population were in prayer.
There’s a reason you don’t see Kenyan prisons, at least, the insides of them featured in any visual media. The scenes would horrify, and maybe deter would-be criminals. But I digress. So this Scar-lookalike, I’ll call him Jagged, took a liking to me, told me all about his life story and how he’s been in and out of prisons since he was 12 and I was like damn, i couldn’t even get it up at 12 but my G’s mad serious and at 19 he and his buddy – a junkie – were caught having pigad koto at a shop. They thought they’d be freed up anytime soon because the “complainer” forgave them. I can’t tell him that’s not how the law works, how happy he is with himself, primarily because he’s friendly with me, let’s me use his phone which I kid you not, when the cops came for some random inspection, he stuck it up his ass and didn’t even flinch even though we had to stand for two plus hours. Prison muscles, mademoiselle. Still, they’re pals, shaggy hair and stout kegels. If I had to stand for that long with a Nokia kabambe up my bum I’d probably die and go straight to the pearly gates. St. Peter be like, ‘My son, you have sinned, you have engaged in unnatural acts, sticking that gadget up your poop hole.’ What’s it anyway? Well, Saint, Blessed are you, mercies and grace. It’s a gramophone. I was in prison and they wouldn’t allow me to listen to Amazing Grace so I took my player with me. ‘Liar!’ he’ll roar, ‘you were dilating!’
Prison’s a riot, yes. But life’s even more fucked up when you meet a chic, light as sunset, witty streaks of brown and a surpsing purple. Straight outta Komarock, a Taita babe and you know right away she’ll break your heart. You love her, or try to. The concept of love or romance you should say, isn’t as clear as it was once. No need to draw a long story out; she uses your black ass and dumps you like the useless mongrel you are. That cuts you deep; not the breakup but you left your best boxer at her place and now you’re only got one which you don’t even struggle to wash and wear because you’re good going commando and sometimes the breeze flies by your way, makes you feel like Johnny Sins, with legs over his shoulders, on top of the world and on top of his world.
I’ve neither written for Biko for so long, nor read him (sadly) but I know he’s a G and he doesn’t catch over small things, save for his forehead, still, he’s a G and I necessarily wouldn’t blow the sand off his parchment but I’d begrudgingly hold his ink bottle.