Nairobi News

It was a little after 11:30pm on the eve of Christmas when I stumbled into my car. Trickery had liberated me from the intoxicated hubbub of my cronies in a club where we had been drinking for gods-know-how-long.

I was finally going to join my folks for the Christmas revels.

For someone on whose demeanour booze has the least impression, I was not leathered, so to speak, except a little woozy. I could see the road though, with a little strain. Only a little.

As I gunned it through the streets, my mind was split between my family and the highlight of the year: our trip to Laikipia.

I was dead tuckered out, my whole body clammy with sweat and perhaps a whiff of liquor too. After slogging your guts out all year at work, nothing tickles your fancy than a good time with friends, a treat for your family, and a trip outside town.

All these delights were upon me. What joy! This time, Mama Jill had suggested camping in Nanyuki as our destination, which I readily concurred with. Jill and Joe were all eagerness.

But I had to withdraw some bucks, having sunk all the loot I had had owing to my cronies’ copious appetite for poison. I spotted an ATM at the farthest end of Moi Avenue, pulled off a couple of yards away and staggered inside.

IRRESISTIBLE ALLURE

Shortly afterwards, I dived back into the street with enough war chest to last us a couple of days, half-walking and half-running back to my car.

Few metres away, a young woman blocked my path. This one wore the shortest possible skirt and an orange top that kissed slightly above her midsection. Missy strode with the most sensual wiggle I had ever seen, and fast, holding her handbag in an air of lofty casualness, enthralling me to my core.

Put simply, she was an object of splendour, irresistible allure. At least I could deduce this much in my inebriated state.

Presently, an incredible urge for action tidal-waved through me; specifically in the groin region. There was a dark war inside my pants, as I ached to touch this turn-on in all kinds of places.

What the devil does!

Yes, the devil. Because the devil was lurking by. He had commissioned his most ruthless archangels: to harm and humiliate me.

MUGGED

Two men coasted past me and snatched the woman’s handbag. Three more bulls issued from darkness, scooped her and plunged into darkness with their load, her kicks of resistance and shrieks of fright all futile.

It all looked like a scene out of a blockbuster movie.

As I stopped short to come to terms with what had just happened, a pair of powerful wooden hands gripped me by the neck from behind, and before I could register that I was in shit, I had been wrestled to the concrete pavement.

How fast, how brutally and how clinically the manoeuvre was executed, I can’t recount. But it happened in a nanosecond of complete lunacy and stupor.

In an instant an army of urchins descended on me. There were about a hundred of them, or so I felt, each aching to commit mischief upon me, as I howled for help.

One with talons like an armadillo’s ripped at my face while another attempted to bathe my face with piss. Yet another slipped a metallic bar between my limbs such that I could not move an inch without hurting abysmally. While some sat on me, others pounded me with their bony knuckles, wherever those landed.

One bloody scrawny good-for-nothing fellow yanked and kneaded my gonads, immobilising me.

STILL ALIVE

In a split-second, I had been out-powered, emptied. I gave up putting up a fight. Yet the scallywags went on dispensing upon me punches, scratches and bites.

Passers-by could see that a man was being mugged. But they hobbled away merrily and unaffected, perhaps disinclined to interfere in a scuffle that was none of their darn business.

After I had been reduced to pulp and groaning, coiled in pity and soreness on the walkway, a bully with a gruff timbre said, we’re done here.

The ragamuffins scuttled away and were soon swallowed into the bowels of the night’s blackness. What I had just received was a thorough dusting. A grown family man. I was sore all right.

I lay there for a moment, trying but failing to suppress my incinerating heartache. When I was sure the coast was clear, I sat to assess the damage.

I conducted a swift audit of my sorry body, touching everywhere, searching for blood. There was none, luckily. I then placed my hand against my heart. It was still beating. At least I was alive. Thank the gods.

EVERYTHING GONE!

Phone. Money. Cards, all cards. And my dignity. All were gone.

Slowly, I rose, and limped toward my car. At least I still had that.

No, not so lucky. The prince of darkness was far from done.

A lorry blasted from hell-knows-where, rammed against my Peugeot, breaking the windshield and abrading half the left rib. The front lamp was also dismembered in an orchestra that temporarily ground the wheels of street activity to a halt.

That would need a pretty penny to fix.

The sucker of a driver had the nerve to peek at what damage he had committed upon my car, before speeding away.

May woe betide thee, I breathed choking with revulsion.

If you have ever been consigned to a dilemma of such proportions in the cold of Nairobi with midnight closing in on you with the savagery of a storm, you probably comprehend the height of my quandary.

JEOPARDY

Right then, police officers emerged. Jeopardy.

Charges were spelt out: I had been speeding beyond the legal limits in the city streets, while drunk. Holy macaroni!

I took good care not to plead with them because, well, my pockets were as clear as a summer sky. Besides, these miserable boys were slaving in a dull shift, and were simply out to eke out a delight for the festivities.

While I watched with disgust as the wreck of my car was being towed, I was brought to the present surroundings when I felt cold metal rub against my wrists. I was being cuffed.

You gotta be kidding me, I protested. No go. Someone shoved my sorry self into a crammed back of a police truck.

Effectively, that torpedoed my Christmas plans.

I later learned that the government had declared Tuesday the 27^th a public holiday.

Such is about as merry as my Christmas was.