Aleki staggered home that evening while loudly drunk-singing Amarula, to find a very impatient Nduku sitting on the bag of dry maize she had brought from Makueni. The baby was sleeping in her arms. If Aleki was astonished by the sight at his door, he didn’t show it.
Almost everyone in the plot was outside that evening, some pretending to wipe or polish their shoes, others pretending to hang or unhang clothes from the clotheslines, others pretending to get some cool, fresh air because, for the first time, it was too hot and stuffy inside their houses, which had functional ACs, and others, like me, sitting on our doorsteps pretending to have locked our house keys inside the house, acting like we were terribly inconvenienced. Ours is a plot of people who mind Aleki’s business.
Aleki, standing a little distance away from Nduku and looking at her, put his hands in his pockets, then leant back as if about to fall backwards and burped. Then he stumbled. Then he leant forwards as if about to fall on his face. It was the alcohol.
“What are you doing here?” asked Aleki.
“What do you think?” retorted Nduku.
She then went on to explain that she was there because he had not gone to see her in a very long time, and he had even changed his number. Aleki burped again while trying to maintain his balance. He removed one hand from his pocket, holding a bunch of keys. While using a single key to point at Nduku, he told her that their marriage ended the day she sold his wheelbarrow and water tank to Mutiso. Nduku told him that she had done that because he had stopped sending her money. Aleki told her that he had been working so hard in Uganda and he thought that he had explained to her why he didn’t have enough money.
“Are you still seeing Mutiso?” asked Aleki while he let out a loud hiccup.
“What?” Nduku whated, looking offended.
“I have always suspected that you and Mutiso were lovers. Is that even my child?”
The keys fell down and he bent down to pick them. He fell down too, let out a little scream and asked Nduku if she was trying to kill him.
“You’re drunk.” said Nduku. “You can’t even stand on your own.”
“I am handsome, but not drunk.”
“We are here to stay.”
Aleki stood up and said he wouldn’t say anything more until his lawyer was present, because he knew his rights. Then he retrieved his phone from his pocket and fumbled with it a bit. He called his lawyer.
“Can we get inside the house?” asked Nduku while standing up.
Aleki told her that they should, first of all, deal with the problem at hand, before attempting to coexist under the same roof. It was a decision that favoured us, plot members, because we all wanted to know what would happen.
“Your buttocks are bigger,” observed Aleki.
“You’re drunk.”
“I only had two beers at Wakariûki’s with Kui.”
“Who is Kui?”
“I refuse to say anything until my lawyer arrives.”
Nduku sat down on the bag of dry maize again and sighed loudly. In about 15 minutes, Aleki’s lawyer, Kassim, another member of Mafisi Sacco, staggered into the plot.
Kassim is not a lawyer. He is a butcher.
“What is going on here?” asked Kassim.
He was as drunk as Aleki.
Nduku told her (side of the) story.
“I didn’t know you had a wife!” said Kassim to Aleki.
“Me neither!” said Aleki. “She stopped being my wife after she sold my wheelbarrow and water tank to Mutiso.”
“Who is Mutiso?”
“Her lover.”
“Nonsense!” spat Nduku while standing up. “Mutiso has never been my lover!”
“Is that baby yours?” Kassim asked Aleki.
“Do I know?” Aleki asked back, stumbling on his feet and knocking Kassim over in the process.
They both fell down in a pile of inebriatedness. Everyone in the plot was following the court proceedings keenly. The two men struggled to stand up again. Nduku clicked her tongue loudly. She looked tired and angry and impatient and she was mumbling something under her breath.
“We should do a paternity test!” announced Kassim while burping loudly. “If the baby does not belong to Aleki, you go back to Mapeni.”
“Makueni,” corrected Aleki.
“This is ridiculous!” said Nduku.
“Where is the paternity test?” asked Aleki.
“Okay. Wait. Let me ask questions,” Kassim said.
“I am tired and the baby is cold,” complained Nduku.
“How old is the baby?” Kassim asked Nduku.
“One month.”
“When did you last have sex with her?” Kassim asked Aleki.
“Last year.”
“Last year was 2015.”
“The other year.”
“2014?”
“Yes.”
“Lies!” interjected Nduku. “It was last year!”
“When?” Kassim asked Aleki.
“I don’t know.”
There was a little silence in court. The heavy suspense in the air was making all of us, the plot members, sweat. We were anxious to get to the root of the matter.
“I remember!” said Aleki.
We all looked at him, holding our breaths.
“Remember that time you and Khadija were caught having sex at that lodging in Majengo by her husband?”
“Yes. Khadija has a big vagina.”
“When was it?”
“Last year. January.”
“I last had sex with her before that.”
“Lies!” screamed Nduku.
“Then this one month old baby can’t be his,” declared Kassim, looking at Nduku.
“Exactly,” said Aleki.
At this point, Nduku started crying softly and there was silence in court as we all let her express her emotions. Aleki asked to see the baby but Nduku refused. The two drunk men asked her to speak the truth and she would be forgiven. Nduku then confessed that the baby was Mutiso’s but he didn’t want anything to do with her.
“I knew it!” said Aleki. “You are a whore!”
“I am not!”
“You are a whore,” Kassim said too while patting his pockets.
He was holding a cigarette. He was looking for a matchbox. Or a lighter.
“But you have other women too,” said Nduku.
“Who has been spreading those malicious rumours?” asked Aleki.
“Who is Kui?”
“Kui is my sister-in-Christ,” lied Aleki.
“He is born again now,” said Kassim with the unlit cigarette now between his lips.
“And you take alcohol?” asked Nduku.
“His bible says that a little alcohol is good.” said Kassim
“You are going back home tomorrow,” said Aleki.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am married to you.”
“Go bring my wheelbarrow and water tank first.”
www.wanjakavengi.co.ke/2016/02/01/aleki-tales-your-buttocks-are-bigger/