The thigh-monger What do you call someone who spreads rumours? A rumourmonger, right? Well, Robert Maneno was a thigh-monger. See, I had just moved into Plot 10. The other place that I had vacated had too much drama- clotheslines wars, blocked communal toilets, a cartel, led by Mama Tony, that controlled the well where we fetched water, inflated power bills… Well, I was not ready to acquire high blood pressure in my youth and so I moved out. The dynamics of moving to a new place dictates laying low for a while and greeting and being nice to every one as you study the hierarchy of influence. From experience, every residential neighbourhood has its clique of women, usually two- a dominant one that sets the pace and a smaller opposing one led by a single or separated woman professing liberation. The dominant group ensures that law and order prevails- namely by curtailing or discouraging husband snatching or borrowing. Being a nice young man, mothers with teenage daughters would naturally be suspicious of me. Would this suspicious looking young man put their daughters in the family way? The unasked question, it was. The exception being Mama Joyce who had a daughter going on to 30 and who she was desperate to marry off. She was overtly friendly to me- even suggesting that her daughter was amenable to doing laundry for me. That’s how unplanned marriages happen and to discourage her, I brought home a couple of lady friends thus forcing her to move to the next eligible bachelor. A week later at the new place, there was a knock at my door at around 10 in the evening. I did a quick mental calculation as to whether I was in trouble – hanging clothes out to dry on someone’s else clothesline. Nope. Loud music. Nope. Looking at someone’s daughter with intent to commit a felony. Nope. Still, I opened the door with some level of trepidation. He was a neighbour, he said, and he had heard a new neighbour was come. He was loquacious- Robert Maneno was. I welcomed him into my house. Said I didn’t mind him smoking inside the house. He offered me a cigarette. No, thanks, I don’t smoke. I said. I had quit a year earlier, though I didn’t mind the scent of cigarette smoke, more so my brand, SM- nostalgia and all that. Perhaps, in future when I was married, I would smoke again. Woman trouble needed a smoke or two to unclog the mind. He was a voracious reader like I was, so it was natural that we struck a firm friendship. He read everything. Facts and fictions. Biographies and autos. Newspapers, magazines, journals, blogs… I am sure he would have made a good diplomat someday if the world was fair and square with all that knowledge in his head. Except that he is now dead. Thing was, Robert Maneno loved women; or women loved him- it was hard to tell. Primary school kids and secondary kids and college kids and university kids and drop-out kids. Women- single, married, divorced, separated, widowed, status unknown, moneyed and broke. He was light and had Borana hair and was cheerful- what was not to like. The grapevine said he had five outside children. It could have been six. I bailed Robert Maneno a couple of times too. Like when Mama Adhis took him to our local chief for playing with her Standard Eight candidate daughter. After all the talking was done, Robert Maneno was to cease and desist from playing with the said daughter- until she had sat her examinations; there was that hint of inference. He was to pay Mama Adhis a thousand bob and five hundred to the chief and his askaris for their trouble. At the time, Robert Maneno was broke, so he borrowed the money from me to secure freedom. I don’t recall him ever settling the debt. Then there was that time he was almost stabbed to death by Vaite Murume. Vaite was a hot-tempered Meru who beat up his wife regularly like taking medicine. From our viewpoint, the reasons he beat he were clumsy- like not getting his bath water warmed to the right temperature, too much tomatoes in the beef stew- did she think he was a tomato farmer. Hell, tomatoes cost a fortune and he was no bloody millionaire; his tone was strong and his insults even stronger. (Read more at zurikiki/stories/the-thigh-monger/)
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:33:10 +0000
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