She’s called Felicia. Felicia sounds like a woman who- after sex- lies on her back and lights up a cigarette. Felicia sounds like a woman who reads a very thick novel with earphones plugged in her ears. She sounds like a woman who uses words like “However” and “Nonetheless,” in her speech. A woman who loves to patter around her house in nothing more than a wraparound. A woman who can sit at a balcony for ages, nursing a hot cup of something while staring at the moon. They don’t make them like that anymore folks, they just don’t. Felicia is derived from a Latin adjective felix meaning “happy” which is apt because through Felicia I derive my happiness.
Felicia is my laptop.
She is a HP Pavilion with a wide-ass screen. I bought it off my boy, Emmanuel Jambo, who is easily the best photographer in Kenya (you’re welcome big boy). The best 45k I spent that year. I bought it off him a few days after I had lost my job. I lost my job on Friday 13th, November 2010 on a bright morning which soon turned misty with uncertainty. The closure of the magazine rushed us like a rogue wave. I was a new father, lost in a sense of career invincibility, dutifully feeding off the hands of vanity and debauchery – the undisputed deceptive gods of modern living. I didn’t see the sucker coming, knocked my wind out. It inoculated fear in the deepest corner of my stomach and almost robbed me of my manhood. Almost. At the time of closure I still had a stack of business cards written “Jackson Biko, Senior features writer.” What a bloody laugh. Senior my ass, I wrote three measly feature stories a month. An average of 4,000 words a month! Nothing senior with that, I’m sure a clerk in City Hall wrote more words than I did, and we all know how those clerks avoid doing anything. If there is anything the magazine made me was lazy.
For one and half years I have stayed afloat as a freelance writer and I can’t tell this story without talking about Felicia. In the thick of things – in the deadlines and pitching for stories and banging copy – was Felicia, ever so faithful, holding my hand even though they were sweaty from self doubt. My Felicia – the woman who stares at the moon – has literally fed me through this time, me and my dependants. I might get a tad dramatic; please don’t knock the wind off my sails just yet. This is a rolling stone.
For one a half years I have driven with my laptop in my car…every single day, except Sundays. I have always kept my laptop half-wedged under the driver’s seat. You know the myth around the driver’s seat, don’t you? Apparently the safest seat to sit on is always behind the driver because in the event of an accident, the driver will always instinctively save his “side” of the vehicle. And so I unconsciously kept Felicia under my seat. When you keep your livelihood under your ass you are always fearful, fearful that some miscreant will break into your car and nick it.
And so for one and a half years I parked under well lit areas when I’m out drinking. For one and a half years I paid a little more to a street boy to keep an eye on my car…even when I was driving the Vitz (Hehehe, sorry hon’). Wherever I would park I would always tell the security guy, “Chunga huyo msichana” and he would imagine I was talking about the car. Hell the car is insured, take it, just leave Felicia.
I have a special relationship with Felicia. I know her. I know the feel of her kiss…er, keys. For example, the quotation key is faulty so I always have to punch it twice before I get a reaction. Also, the backspace key is a bit rusty, which means it sometimes jams on me – I guess that means Felicia hates to dwell on the past. Felicia also takes a while to come alive, to boot, she is a woman who loves to be slowly eased into anything. So I have to give her a bit more time to warm up, to get in her element. You don’t rush a good woman but when she is ready you will know it. She is also brilliant with multimedia. And sound. Felicia makes sounds and everyman needs a woman who makes sounds, good for the ego, even if you are as good as a cadaver.
My daughter touches everything in the house, everything except my laptop. My laptop is a sanctuary. I could leave my laptop on the table for an hour and she will create such distraction around but leave the laptop untouched. That laptop is the food on her spoon and the clothes on her back.
And Felicia and I have travelled. I have banged copy in the fading light of Samburu, woken up to a problematic piece in the rising heat of Shaba, written an almost blasphemous piece about Mount Kenya as I sat on the porch of those ridiculously priced condos at Mt Kenya Safari Club while I stared down the home of Ngai. I carried her in a leaking boat when I crossed Lake Victoria – a scary one hour stretch – so that I could get to Rusinga Island. While my luggage sat at the bottom of the boat getting wet, I hugged her to my chest. I was with her in Amboselli as I watched- for the first time- Elephants mate, the clumsiest pornography I have ever watched. I was with her in Zanzibar and in Isiolo and Ngorongoro Crater, and in Laikipia, and in Lake Manyara – the home to hippos that smell like decaying pizza- and in Watamu and in Malindi and in Kiwayu and Lamu, and…
But last week it all ended-ish. I started a new job.
For the first time I left the house without my laptop. That morning the house help called after me, “Umesahau laptop,” and I said it was fine. It felt wrong, leaving her behind (the laptop, not the house help, you buffoon). As I have done every day since January I dropped my little girl off to school then drove out to my new posting in Westlands. It’s a nondescript building, a building expunged of any personality. The security guy (a Lunje, I swear) peeked into the car and said there was no parking inside, that I should park outside. Stamping his authority. I told him it was my first day. He let me in eventually. The parking is tight- I parked under a tree.
I have a kidney shaped desk. I have a red swivel chair. I have a phone. My back faces a window, with shutters always drawn down to keep out the zealous light. Thankfully I share an office with two people, a graphics designer (who has nice canvas shoes I will steal after I have drugged him) and a young bright talent whose title is Editorial coordinator. I liked her immediately; she is respectful on top of being a good writer. My business card – when I finally get it – will read Managing Editor. Keep your shorts on, it’s no biggie, many people in this city walk around with business cards bearing huge titles but really they mean shit. I’m one of them.
I will be managing a bunch of writers, thus my post last week. If you wrote in, thank you very much. As of this morning I had received a staggering 362 emails, yes, 362 emails, some horribly written, some brilliant, some so touching (“My father’s shirt” by Sandra Bwire comes to mind), some heart wrenching ( Muthoni Njuguna, her who submitted a piece that brought a golf ball to my throat) some scared me while most made me smile. Then there were the jokers, particularly one who wrote a whole email in pink fonts (you forgot to spray the email with perfume Felix K. Sigh.). Unfortunately I won’t respond to all of them, but thanks and don’t give up.
However I feel like a fish out of water. For one and half years I was my own boss, I did whatever I wanted now I will have to sign a damned leave form. Now I have an outlook email address. And a landline phone. Here is how surreal it is. On Friday as I sat hunched over my laptop reading some copy the phone started ringing; only I didn’t hear it ring. No, I heard it ring, but i didn’t process the ringing. In my frame of my mind, I wasn’t in an environment where landlines rang; you see, I was still in the freelance mode. So it rang and rang until the young talent sort of called out and said, “Biko, the phone?” I picked up the receiver like an archeologist would have picked a precious bone.
Every time I have met someone and they asked me what I do for a living and I have told them that I write they have always asked, “What else do you do?” As if writing is not a career. As if writing is some bothersome trade that you do on the side to appease the loins of your creativity. But that’s all I have done all these time and I have not lacked anything over that time. I haven’t made a pile of money from it, but I haven’t starved either; a living testimony that God takes care of his own. But it hasn’t been easy, oh, far from it. Some months were simply from hell. But as a man you never show when you are in the trenches, you wear a clean shirt and a smile on your face and you face the world even though in your stomach leaps pangs of fear. You suck it all up because this is not a freakin picnic. The guys who can afford to give up are in Langata cemetery.
But I have eventually traded my freedom for this. For a desk, for a phone, and a pay slip. But how could I not? Fuel went up and everything else followed. It had to happen, so I cashed in my chips and leaped into the capitalist bandwagon, a vessel of such senseless hope.
They gave me a laptop; a Compact, she is black and sexy. But she’s not Felicia. She can never be Felicia. Her kiss, er, keys feel different- they don’t yield under my touch like Felicia’s does. She takes a shorter time to warm up which you might think it’s a good thing, but it’s not – I need time to do my press-ups after all, to work up a nerve. Her cursor keeps jumping backwards when I type, she is too sensitive I guess a most annoying habit. Also her face (screen) is smaller, which must feel like dating a Chinese. She is not Felicia, her who stares at the moon. Her who takes her time to embrace me. Her who knows the struggles of my art, the uncertainty of my dreams and the sheer purposefulness of my ambitions. Oh Felicia, she sounds like a woman who takes ages to oil her long legs, legs that many a dreams are born, but also legs that have killed many a dreams of men.