Transformer Money Part 4

It is three minutes to midnight according to Boi-Boi’s phone. It has been an eventful night to say the least. What I have experienced so far equals approximately three normal nights out. I have further confirmed that IB is a far cry from the innocent boy he has branded himself as. Designated driver? He is very far from that. The way he cruises in his Corolla is nothing less of suicidal, not to forget the insults he hurls at virtually everyone outside of the car. He actually stopped to ruffle the feathers of a girl walking alone on a deserted street:

“Sema msupa,” he was calling out to the girl after slowing the car down to a pace corresponding with that of her mild trot. “Naskia kuna makarao hapo kwa corner.”

She stopped in her tracks visibly shaken by this false information. “Wako wapi?”

“Wako kwa corner. Sasa si uinigie kwa ndai tukufikishe penye unago?”

The poor lady was confused, caught between the potential threat of cops around the corner and moving around with people she had never met before. Eventually she decided to take off in the opposite direction, emitting tiny but sharp shrieks of terror. We have had a major laugh about it ever since.

Boi-Boi is not joking about his “paper power” policy either. The amount of money he has withdrawn at the Nakumatt M-Pesa and at the Equity Bank ATM combined amounts to almost fifty big ones. Before exiting Nakumatt, the chap bought a fan just because he felt that it was “kinda hot nowadays”. I’m beginning to love this lifestyle every minute.

We are at Spree Club, perhaps the only club in Eldoret with the uptown feel and a youthful energetic crowd. In other words, it is virtually the only place to pick up a chick after she has tired from dancing to the predictable playlist consisting of mainly crunk and kapuka. This time it’s a little different than the other times I’m clubbing there. Our table had been reserved, waiting for our arrival, suitably placed at a dimly lit corner of the club, conveniently close to an air vent for those of us who wish to smoke. The head bouncer, Brayo, has been excessively friendly especially after handing him a number of beers. We haven’t been frisked either so we came in with all the weed and mbachu. The drinks are freely flowing and of course, the girls are different, the ones who hang around the big money dudes, milling around our table like vultures on a recently discovered carcass. The other boys are enjoying the attention and taking full advantage of it. I however, am more interested in testing my weed and liquor limit. Every now and then I look at the bar and order what I’ve never drank before. That’s the best use of an open bar, according to me.

A familiar face catches my eye, a face which smiles back at me with mutual recognition. It’s dear Yvette, my primary schoolmate who was one year my junior. She is now a far cry from the girl I used to play hide and seek with. Standing at around five feet seven, long legs peeping out of her pleated miniskirt, supporting a trademark Luhya ass, and this girl is nothing but a symbol of fresh change. I’ve been hearing stories of her in the rumour mills of her strange addiction to white men so much so that she had sneaked off to England to see a certain man she met on facebook without the knowledge of her folks. The damn cracker was dying of cancer, or so I’ve heard, and he had mentioned the girl in her will so a girl apparently went for her cut. Too bad the mother discovered and breathed fire through Skype and Yvette was on her way back to Kenya without as much as a postcard.

“Yvette!” I shout out to her above the bass line of Ali Kiba’s Anita, “Hey, you’re looking good. Where have you been hiding at?”

“I’ve been around, it’s just that some people don’t bother noticing,’ she replies slyly.

“Well, then whoever doesn’t notice all this should have his eyes gouged out!” I make an imitation of her figure in the air.

I’m mesmerized by her laugh. It sounds like something out of an opera, a brief sonata, well arranged and varying pleasantly in tone. I ask if I can spoil her with drinks and she doesn’t seem to mind and pulls up a chair. She orders red dry wine, which she drowns in three brief gulps then suddenly orders red sweet wine in the middle of conversation and downs it in the same fashion. Boi-Boi is amused by her antics and tells the waitress to always have a full glass ready the moment she takes down her current one. It becomes a “red sweet – red dry” circus and she finally resorts to slow sips when it becomes apparent that it doesn’t matter to us how much she drinks.

“So you were serious about spoiling me, huh?” her voice is now slightly raspy and she is fidgety. She is high.

“Yeah, kwani you thought I was playing with you?”

“Well it’s not like that…” she pauses to listen to which song the DJ is introducing. It’s Lil’ Wayne’s Lollipop. “Oh, My, Gosh…I LOVE THAT SONG!” she is screaming and, before I know it, she has dragged me to an empty space and is gyrating against me skillfully. So, this is what Boi-Boi was talking about when he says a girl knows how to zungusha. Thoughts of my ex-girlfriend rush in, of how she could belly dance so nicely. Thoughts that don’t last long because somehow, my lips are locked in a tight kiss with Yvette’s. She firmly holds my face firmly to fend off all opposition I may put up. She tastes mostly of the wine we have been feeding her and PK Peppermint gum. When she is satisfied with her uncalled for coupe de grace she whispers fervently into my ear:

“I’ve seen you around but I never knew you were this fun to hang around. Is this how you and your boys roll every night?”

“Yah, that’s us pretty much…we love to do things in a big way.” I’m lying, given the fact that most times, it’s usually me and my regular pals nursing our half litre vodkas all night. I am not willing to take away my moment of glory tonight when even a white boy lover like Yvette can pay homage to me.

When we return to our table Yvette now settles on my lap and resumes her wine wasting game. The surrounding is turning blurry with every puff of the weed. The laser lights that are being reflected back by disco balls seem to grow fatter and fatter. The cue sticks at lying idle on a nearby pool table also seems to be glowing. It’s getting harder to make out forms and objects. Boi-Boi who was seated across me has either transformed into a tiny ant like figure or is very far away from what my eyes are telling me. The sheer weight of Yvette’s arms around my neck feels like one of those neck shackles slave drivers used to use to steer errant slaves to their will. Contrastingly, sounds are much clearer and, with time, I am getting a clearer understanding of how bats feel. It must be the weed…shit, it’s the weed. I can make out IB’s distinctive baritone arguing with Omosh about whether Sauti Sol are sons of members of Them Mushrooms or not. Much closer, Yvette’s breath is firing up my left ear. She is going on and on about something to do with relationships, studded condoms and why she hates most black men. My system soon cannot bear this Tower of Babel inside my head and I gradually sink into an abyss of blackness.

* * *

It is not everyday that you wake up between the sheets of a bed you do not recognize in a room that is certainly not yours. It is also not kawaida to realize that a strange person’s legs are possessively intertwined with yours, suggesting that something physical may have gone down between you two. It really bothers you as well that this person’s face is vaguely familiar but you cannot place where you had met. She is like a character from a lucid dream. You actually entertain the thought of her not even existing at all; she could be the figment of your imagination. However, when she yawns, emitting an unmistakable smell of PK Peppermint gum, she draws further away from the fancies of your mind. What is more bizarre is the fact that you pick up your phone from where it is lying on the floor to read a strange text message:

“U stupid punk! U were chips fungwad by that broad, huh? We bin lukin 4 u all ova da place. Nway, holla wen u get up. Wanna show u how 2 rob a bank minus breakin a sweat. Cheers, it’s your T-Money buddy!"

What is most disturbing though is that I am the one in this strange bed with pink sheets with a totally naked girl straddling me as if we have gotten married or something plus this strange text on my phone. What the heck is going on here? Shit! It’s the way of the world, ain’t it? It’s the way of this goddamn world!

Transformer Money Part 3

Six o’clock. The sun is just above a single hillock right at the edge of Sukunanga, through which I am walking briskly. It has been quite a while since I was here. Nothing much has changed about it. Still the same old uneven dirt road snaking and branching all over, still the same old smell of frying pork and mutura; still the same old sounds of reggae and Citizen TV emanating from the same old dingy hotels and pubs and of course, the occasional drunk emerging from one of these joints to vomit right in the middle of the road.

The only new addition to this real life rendition of Les Miserables is The Comrades Bar, a joint rumoured to be jointly owned by the Chairman of our Students’ Association and its Finance Director. Its initial capital is also said to have been snatched from the Association’s coffers designated for a condom dispenser project. Nobody is complaining, though. It is quite popular with the comrades (university students, nothing communist here) due to the cheap keg and spirits in a cleaner environment than other joints with equal rates. Most people dropped down here for some “Comrades Lager’ before descending on uptown joints. However, the real residents of this place prefer Waadan Bar, located more into the mashinani, further into the squalor and smack in the middle of shabby residential houses. In fact, were it not for the noise and the vomiters outside the door, this place would be quite hard to locate. An unmarked mass grave where one would enter voluntarily to slowly end his or her life.

I branch to the houses opposite the bar and begin my search for Boi-Boi’s residence. They look decent enough but nothing close to what we have on the other side. Upon inquiring from the mama mboga at the entrance, she points out to house 5A with a knowing grin. Seems to be quite popular, this Boi-Boi. As if by some weird telepathic instinct, he opens the door just as I am about to knock.

“Will! I was almost suspecting you’d gotten lost.”

“Nope, I could get here with a blindfold on, Boi-Boi.”

“Karibu basi. Some of us were getting impatient so we decided to start without you.”

It is a brief bachelor’s pad consisting of two rooms at most. We pass by the kitchen into a living-cum-bedroom. It is considerably darker than outside, the only source of light coming from a huge flat screen TV. I can make out the forms of two guys sitting in two of three plastic chairs in animated chatter as they sip from glasses containing any of a vast variety of drinks displayed on the table before them. Lying leisurely on a queen sized bed is a simple petite girl sipping on juice lost in the fantasy of the soap opera showing on the telly. The introductions are made. The rougher looking of the two guys is Omosh, the weed guy who came over to deliver the weed and is just taking “one or two for the road”. The other calls himself Innocent Boy or IB even though he is far from innocent looking. He will be our designated driver for the day. “I take Sprite”, he tells me, showing his glass; “mbachu is my poison.”

“And this is my woman, Jane…” cuts in Boi-Boi, reaching out to deliver a friendly spank on her ass, visibly annoying her. She says hello and promptly switches back to her soap. He switches to mother tongue: “and we all think women are multi-taskers. That right there is a one track minded woman, the reason why we don’t have girls up in this bitch! No worries, we gon’ get us some at the club, boys!”

We all laugh, well, all of us except Jane who has understood neither the dialect nor the joke. I sink in to the remaining seat and assess the liquor set out on the table. Clearly someone is desparate to impress – Wellington, Smirnoff Red Label, the tiny bottle of Johnny Walker, Meakins Rum and a variety of Ceres juices. A mzinga of Safari Cane, Omosh’s preferred choice drink, is the only spoiler to this impressive display and I make it known to my host as I pour me some vodka:

“Very nice vituz here, man. Did you win the lottery or something?”

Boi-Boi laughs. “It’s just the fruits of good business, my nigger!”

“Really? Then it must be the business of winning lotteries ha ha ha!”

“You might just have a point, bro!”

We continue in silence for a while, partaking in the drinks, lost in our own thoughts. The vodka seems to make my vision clearer with time. A few more sips and I can see the Morgan Heritage poster on the wall, the naked wire running across the wall down to the socket powering the TV and the home theatre system below it. Boxes and boxes of shoes are strewn on one corner of the room. Beyond the door and into the kitchen, I can make out a toasting machine, fancy coffee maker, a two burner cooker on the worktop and a thirteen kilo gas cylinder by its side. This is the ghetto edition of Cribs, no doubt. Even my place at Mushroom is not half as pimped as this. Seems like I have underestimated this Boi-Boi. I’ve always known that he is the kind to hustle and all that, but not to this extent. How can a dude from the bush who had hardly been exposed to such fine things of life get there so quickly? My curiosity as to exactly what type of business he is involved in is increasing by the minute.

It is as if everyone has been consuming the liquor at the same rate because the mood suddenly explodes to loud blabber, everyone seeming to talk simultaneously either to themselves or to someone else. Omosh has downed half the Safari cane already and his glassy eyes shield everyone else from the world he has now plunged into. He declares solemnly that he is going to conquer the mzinga and will still be able to get to town. We all place a two hundred bob bet that he will not make it past his next five shots and watch with clinical interest as he gulps down each shot. It becomes apparent that we may lose the bet so we extend his threshold to the next ten shots.

“Omosh slow down, at this rate you won’t be able to distinguish between a male and female poko!” quips IB, chewing on some mbachu leaves.

“That’s what I have you for, IB” replies Omosh, clearly on the defensive, “you are the designated driver and sex determiner. It is your divine duty to ensure that I don’t chips funga Caster Semenya’s twin sister!” He is overcome by a fit of mirth, clearly enjoying his own wit.
Boi-Boi, noticing Jane’s uncomfortable response to the lewd turn the conversation has taken, takes over the conversation, returning to the safety of vernacular:

“Speaking of pokos, one of those broads messed me up big time. She was a fine ass broad and, man she knew how to ride stick. Used to do her every now and then at her place in Huruma. That girl could zungusha you to cloud nine. Then she just disappeared with my phone one time. Into thin fucking air! That phone cost me like thirty Gs!”

“Let’s go to her place right now and teach her a lesson then.” That is the drunken contribution of Omosh.

“Nah, she’s already moved by now to somewhere like Kericho to keep a low profile. Broads like those are too smart. But if I ever see her in this town again, trust me guys, you’ll be looking at one fucked dead woman.”

Out comes the weed that has been hidden all this time in an empty soda bottle. I select a fat roll and light it. The acrid taste soaks my taste buds. I suck in the fumes contentedly. It is some really good shit. Perhaps today I will get to see that zombie world. Boi-Boi taps my shoulder. “Mind taking a walk with me? There is something you have to see”

I follow Boi-Boi out into the night. I’m not sure if I am staggering but my vision is slightly hazy and I am not sure if I am the one screaming “Boi-Boi, you’re the shit!” The path is visible courtesy of the street vendors’ lamps and butcheries that are still busy. I suspect it is around 9PM. Our two minute walk leads us to what seems to be an unoccupied house. Boi-Boi produces some keys which grants us access to the dark space, partly illuminated by the built-in torch function of Boi-Boi’s phone. I can only make out a bed and a rusty metal box through which Boi-Boi is rummaging.

“This is where Omosh devours his take aways”, he say over his shoulder, “and even you too can crash here if you get lucky.”

“No thank you, I prefer sleeping in the comfort of my own bed. So what was it you wanted to show me?”

He turns around holding a stuffed polythene bag and hands it to me.

“Open it.”

I fiddle with the stubborn knot binding the contents of the bag. Inside are neat wads of what looks like nearly burnt rectangular papers, each of exactly the same dimensions.

“Do those look like anything you have seen before?”

“Hmm, no, never seen nothing like this.”

The clear whites of Boi-Boi’s smile are visible through the semi-darkness. He chucks a thousand shilling note from his wallet and places it atop one of the paper rectangles. They fit in perfect congruence! I’m even afraid of thinking what this means but there can be only one meaning. The gates of my zombie world are drifting far far away. Sanity is returning faster than I expected. Fuck that useless weed. My throat is instantly parched in anxiety.

“Fake cash?” I inquire.

“Not exactly fake. That paper is from some guys of mine down at River Road in Nai. Don’t know how they get it but this right here is CBK grade paper money…already printed by the way.”

“Doesn’t look like ready cash to me!”

I nervously look around. It is at times like these that you expect the cops to burst in and fuck up your innocent life or even worse end it that instant. Boi-Boi on the other hand is quite comfy and in his element:

“No, it ain’t ready. You have to get some reagents from the School of Monetary Studies, soak them for a few hours, wash them in special oil used in transformers then finally add some chlorine to give it the texture and voila, you got yourself free regular money!”

If it were not for the alcohol, I probably would have been a shaking mess. The liquor has given me a strange secondary calmness.

“So what do you do with it when it’s finally ready?”

“There’s a place in Nakuru to trade the stuff at some petrol Station. That bunch you’re holding is about two hundred and fifty thousand transformer money. It could fetch two hundred genuine cash at the trade.”

“How do you know whoever you trade with hasn’t planned to wack you and take all of the paper for free?”

“It’s a business of trust, my nigger. Besides, we trade in a public place, nobody would think of wasting us there.”

The missing bits of the mystery in my head are now piecing up. The expensive phones. The pimped up crib in a ghetto. The fancy shoes and clothes. Somebody screw me sideways, this is too fantastic to believe!

“So this is the business you’ve been talking about?”

“Yeah man, sisi ndio tunahustle usiku mukilala. My, nigger I’ve realized one thing about the way of the world. All you need is the money. If you got it then there is nothing you cannot do, you can be absolutely anybody you want to be, you can fuck anyone you like and make anybody love you. Paper is power, absolute power.”

He takes his bag of transformer money, reties the knot and places it back into the box.

“Enough of that shit. Lets go party, Omosh must be drunk as a skunk by now.”

* * *
The story continues HERE...