The Rolls Royce of Poverty

All I wanted was his wallet and his mobile phone. He shouldn’t have panicked the way he did. He shouldn't have tried to run away and then turn round to put up a fight. It was all over in a matter of seconds. Although he was taller than me, and probably older, he had no chance against my fighting skills. One moment he was swaggering along as if he owned the place; showing off his fancy mobile phone; his trouser hip bulging with his fat, loaded wallet; wearing a filthy smirk on his chubby city-boy face. The next moment he was howling like a baby pig, writhing on the ground, in the pool of his own blood. The strange cracking noise that echoed with the impact of the stone with his pompous head told me that he wouldn’t be getting up from there anytime soon. I did not hang around. Once I'd picked the mobile from the ground and yanked the wallet from his pocket, I bolted, casting one final glance at the sorry little bastard, before disappearing into the dry, brambly foliage that surrounded the dusty footpath.

He asked for it, of course, the stupid city boy. The chicken-shit brained, rich kid wandering into the slum - a place where he did not belong, brandishing his mobile and waving his wallet about. He deserved everything he’d got. I palmed my booty and smiled; something to brag about to Ramon and the boys. It will drive them mad with excitement and envy.

I skipped across the open drain that crossed the path just before the thatched structure that served as the communal mosque. I’d been living in the Purakija ever since I was born. It wasn’t exactly a village or a town, but it was a dwelling place of sorts. The place used to be a desolate, waste site at the edge of Makimwe Township. But as Makimwe developed extremely fast the Purakija was now where the dregs of society ended up - the waste product of the great civilizing process. The Purakija consisted of several clusters of small settlements littered with hundreds of corrugated iron shacks. The shacks, each one about seven by seven feet, were interspersed with open drains that stank of organic waste and urine. Each one was a single-room apartment that housed a family of three to sixteen. One of those shacks was my home, shared with my father and my Mother. The smell of the place always filled me with disgust, despite my father always saying that it was the smell of the effluent of wealth.

I remembered the look on the young man's face the moment we came face to face. There was a brief flash of panic; a sudden widening of the eyes in an expression of doomed surprise. Dancing flames of naked fear, quickly replaced with an almost perfect semblance of confidence that prevailed until his initial instinct proved to be real. But it was that flash, that brief betrayal of vulnerability, which always fascinated me. I’d seen it so many times. I’d seen it in my father’s eyes sometimes, even when he was laughing.

When I got home, my father was talking to Mr. Abdul who was not a dweller in the Purakija. He was well known in the area because he was born there and had grown up there. He and my father were childhood friends, so he visited regularly. I did not like him. I thought he had a patronizing attitude and was sure that he visited just to remind himself what his life would have turned out to be if he had not had his lucky break. He was always flaunting his wealth and boasting about his possessions.

Backtracking into the shadows, I crabbed my way round to the back of our shack. There, part of the corrugated sheet had peeled, allowing me to creep through, unspotted. I was immediately engulfed by an discomfiting warmth and the stale odor of gone-off food and dirty clothing, as I penetrated the dark interior that served as our lounge, kitchen, bed-room and, sometimes, toilet.

I took refuge under the bamboo bed that was raised at one corner with a battered wooden case that contained my Mother's clothes. The only thing I loved about our home was the darkness and the solitude that I found under the bed. I'd lay there all day, lost in my world of dreams gleaned from old magazines and images caught in rare glimpses of a TV screen, or from the fantasies and yarns concocted and spun by Ramon and other members of my local district gang.

From my vantage point, through the litter of boxes, old shoes and other mouldy junk, I could see and hear Mr. Abdul and my father. Mr. Abdul was enthralling him with tales of his latest trip to the United States. Still in his threadbare shorts and flayed-sleeved shirt, which he wore around the house, my father was gazing, mouth agape, with the rapt attention of a beloved dog, at his friend, who was dressed in opulent satin pantaloons, embroidered native top and a red fez hat with sequins that glittered in the dying evening sunlight.

‘This one is called the Statue of Liberty, people can see it many miles away….’

‘What, You mean, like the great Atiba monument in the center of the Purakija market?’

Such was the level of ignorance of my father, comparing the Statue of Liberty to the Atiba monument, which was cobbled together from scrap metal, had no hint of beauty and could certainly not be seen from anywhere. Everything he saw, no matter how magnificent, how awesome, had to be scaled down to the limits of his tiny, squalid world.

‘Just look at the lights in the houses and the streets, how they twinkle like reflections of sunlight in the street gutter floods.’

Mr. Abdul was showing my father images in a camcorder which he held up while my father peered and squinted over his friends left shoulder.

‘That house must be bigger than the house of the Municipal Councilor, just outside the Purakija’

‘Yes, of course, that is called the Empire State Building.’

My whole body crawled with shame at my father’s narrow-mindedness. The stuff he was watching in that camcorder was beyond the limits of his comprehension. He couldn’t see the beautiful streets, the marvellous buildings and the magnificent cars with real appreciation. His mind was stuck in the odious mud of his his squalor and his ignorance. Despite his impoverishment, everything around him remained beautiful. In his mind, he roared away on his Harley-Davidson of embarrassment; cruised about in his Volkswagen of disgrace, and he merrily glided along the streets of the Purakija in his Rolls Royce of poverty.

Deciding that I’d had enough I started towards my makeshift rear exit, but I was stopped in my tracks by what Mr. Abdul said next.

‘Look, my dear friend, Daud, look what I brought you from the States.’ He passed a white cardboard box, which had been out of view until then, to my father who accepted it with a curious mixture of gratitude and surprise. His hands trembled as he opened the box and gingerly lifted out its contents with the same care he would handle a newborn baby. They were a pair of white plimsol shoes.

‘Ah!’ his eyes were wide with wonder and pleasure, ‘angel shoes!’ he whispered.

I almost burst out in laughter. What a stupid gift! I couldn’t see my father wearing them in a million years. But he was overwhelmed by his friend’s generosity. His eyes glistened with joy and excitement, and he genuflected in front of his friend with the fervor of an apprentice ironsmith working the bellows.

Long after Mr. Abdul has said his farewell, and departed, my father stood in the doorway, still cradling his prized possession. Only much later on did he suddenly snap out of it, and put them away under the bed, almost poking my eye out with the corner of the box as he shoved it far underneath.

My father was sitting on the floor, with his back to the front wall, playing his flute, when my Mother arrived from the cassava farms, where she had been toiling all day. The farms were so far away that it took more than two hours to get there - two hours walking barefoot on the baking hot, gravelly path that wound steeply up and down the savage hills of Makimwe.

She slowly lowered the huge basket that she was carrying on her head. It contained a few skinny cassava tubers and some corn cobs. But the bulk of her burden was the hand operated grinding equipment that was essential to her work in the farms. It was no use in the house, but she couldn’t leave it out there for fear that it would be stolen. So she had to lug the chunky beast all the way to and from the farms every day.

Mother immediately set about making some cassava porridge for dinner. Dinner was the only real meal we had, each one had to make do during the day with any sort of snack that came their way.

I remained in my hideout for most of the evening. I could hear the undulating mutter of my father's voice as he whined between mouthfuls. He had not made any money from his busking sessions. He’d been out there fluting all day in the heat of the sun, and he hadn’t received a single penny. It seemed to him that people becoming increasingly mean and tightfisted.

Mother’s ensuing laugh was not the sort of laugh that people laughed to something funny. It was a sad laugh, the sort of laugh that didn’t make the other person laugh back.

‘Don’t you think you should be doing a proper job – working on the farm, peddling a real trade or joining the laborers on the building sites in the Township? The farm hands at Kikawa take home no less than 50 shillings after a hard day’s work. I'm telling you, Daud, one of these days..., one of these days...’ But she could never bring herself to complete her threat, and my father never pressed her further.

Mother was always making out that she's had enough of life in the Pura. Her disaffection had increased in leaps and bounds in recent times, and when she started her tirade it was like an unstoppable dam. My father quietly continued to eat his porridge, his expression deadpan. Even, after he finished his food, Mother kept at him without letting up.

‘Aren't you just a little bit ashamed of yourself? How many real men would stay home all day while their wife goes out to make a living...?’

He fiddled nervously with his flute and then after a while he said, ‘Well, I’m sure you know that God's time is the best’, which, as usual, did the trick. That magic phrase was his faithful get-out-of-jail card. It always shut her up, because she, herself was deeply religious. He father was a catechist, and her Mother was a chatechist's daughter. She never missed Sunday service, and she unfailingly tithed her meager earnings to her local church in cash or in kind. So when my Father played the God card, it was always a sure banker. It left her crestfallen, sitting on the upturned pail in the corner that was only good for sitting on, staring glumly at my father.

The newly restored calm prevailed for a short period, during which the tension evaporated slowly. My father felt safe enough to broach the matter that had been exciting him all day.

‘Abdul was here earlier.’

He weighed up her initial silence and preceded cautiously, watching her face for the glow of wonderment he was sure to see after he had given her the full gist.

‘He’s only just arrived from America, where he’s been to see his son.’

‘Hmm…’

Emboldened by the seemingly positive reaction, he continued. ‘He brought pictures – motion pictures in a small transistor radio, the thing was like …like a small television. You should have seen the fabulous life that they live out there.’

‘Hmm…’

‘Yes, I too was astounded. The roads are wider than the Mulamkiwe stream… Everyone lived in white palaces, and you should see the cars…the cars! They’re like … like…nothing I’ve ever seen before.’

As she hadn’t uttered a single word, he assumed that she had been awed into silence by his picture of the foreign scenes.

‘Let me show you what Abdul brought back for me.’ He rushed away and returned with the shoes, ‘Look! Aren’t they just delightful?’

But Mother did not share any part in his awe or his excitement. She sat on her feet, and her shoulders heaved as she wept.

‘Why, what is the matter?’

Lips pursed, eyes deep and sullen, she just rocked back and forth as if she was in the throes of a devastating grief.

My father moved closer and touched her shoulder, but she swatted his hand away like an irritating fly.

He stood there holding the shoes, staring sheepishly at the floor for a while, and then he put them away and quietly, took up his flute and waddled out of the shack, back to the Barber’s shed where he whiled away his time, arguing with other men of his hapless, wasted ilk.

The sight of my Mother crying had become quite rampant in past weeks, and I no longer found it unnerving. But I still had no words to say to her under the circumstances, I only guessed it might help if, at least, she knew I was there. So I crawled out of hiding and sat next to her. After a while, I became bored and felt awkward about the whole thing, so I got up and headed for the door. But, just as I was about to escape, she called after me.

‘Rafik, you haven’t had something to eat.’

My cassava porridge was in a small bowl beneath the square hole cut into the corrugated walls, which served as the main window. The cassava was still warm, but I wasn’t hungry. However, I swallowed each morsel without tasting it.

‘How was school today?’

‘Fine.’ My response was an involuntary reaction - a programmed reply to any question relating to school. If I’d been asked that question in my sleep, I would have given exactly the same answer, even though I’d not been to school for longer than I could care to remember. And it didn’t matter, either, that I knew that she knew I was lying. I could not understand the whole point of school, when there was only one teacher between more than 90 of us. And the dirty old jerk was drunk most of the time. All he ever did was harass the students and molest the older girls. I doubted very much whether a single word of knowledge or wisdom had ever crossed his wretched lips.

I could feel Mother watching me as I ate. She sighed. ‘You must not become like your father. You must learn a respectable trade and work very hard so that you can leave this miserable place.’

After that she busied herself about the shack, moving things around and sweeping out the dust. There didn’t seem to be any sense in her activities. Whatever she did, everything always remained the same way. The floor was still dusty, and the walls were still dark with grime and rust, and the place still stank.

By the time I’d finished my porridge and licked my bowl clean, Mother had perked up, and I could hear her humming a cheerful church chorus. I went under the bed and gathered my father’s new plimsols, and quietly slipped out of front the door.

‘Where did you get those?’ Ramon’s eyes were wider than a couple of dyeing pools. We were in backdistricts of the Pura where the black oily Mulamkiwe stream deposited waste from the Township and scrap iron was dumped. Our usual hangout was near one of the piles of scrap that lay in heaps around the place. Here, we were shielded from other gangs that roamed around, or gathered near their preferred scrap piles. I did a fanciful catwalk up and down a small clearing, in front of Ramon and two other guys.

‘My father bought them for me’ I declared

They all burst out into an unexpected cacophony of raucous laughter, which took them some time to recover from.

‘I bet you stole them.’ Ramon said.

‘No. I assure you that they belong to my father, but these…’ I said, proudly bringing out the wallet and the mobile phone from the pockets of my oversized shorts, ‘…I stole.’ I savored the look of respect that came upon their faces, but it was so short lived. I soon realized all too late that we were not there alone.

Ayana, who everyone called ‘the vulture’ not only because of his appearance, but also and his behavior, was lurking around. He was one of the most odious characters in the neighborhood, and was always picking on the younger gangster to please the older ones because he was not accepted by any gang. It was not because of his age, but just because of the way he was.

‘How kind of you to be looking after my precious belonging in my absence.’ he said in mock courtesy. I turned round sharply and glowered at him. He was leaning on a free standing Caracas of what could once have been part of a brand new Toyota Hiace. He sauntered lazily over, and stretched a long scrawny hand, suddenly harshening his voice. ‘C’mon, squirt, don’t be slow in handing them over.’

I stared at him, but not for too long. It was no use, of course. If I resisted, it would only be one word to the grand junta, and I was as good as dead. These guys never messed about. The life of a young man in these parts can be bitter and short if he kicks against established authority. There had been too many examples, and I was not eager to add to the sorry list. My moment of glory had come and gone, and I had no huge misgivings over my loss: The lord had given, the lord had taken away. That was just the way it was.

It was very late when I got back to the shack. I expected that my father would be asleep. I tried to creep in to lay on the small raffia mat in the corner.

‘Where have you been? Do you know how late it is?’ My father’s voce boomed from somewhere in the darkness, causing me stumble.

‘I was in Ramon’s house, and I’d overslept’, I congratulated myself at the promptness with which I thought up plausible excuses. I’d become such a competent liar.

He did not say anything else for a while, and I just about managed to feel my way to the place where my sleeping mat was before stopping in my tracks..

‘Where are my new shoes, Rafik?’

But I was ready for that one. ‘What shoes? I haven’t seen any shoes.’

Silence, again. Which was worryingly uncharacteristic of my father. At this stage, he normally be threatening and cursing. But this time nothing more was said. I promptly fell into a grateful sound sleep.

The following day I woke up at about 6:30am and went through the motions of preparing to classes which I had no intention of attending. Mother was not around, she would normally have set out for her grueling, marathon trek to the Casava farms. My father was still in bed. He was often still in bed by the time I set out for school. But, of course, I did not go to school. I hung around the Mulamkiwe with the lads until late in the afternoon and then, generally had a wander about town.

Later in the afternoon after the sun had spent up the worst of its sting, I was on my way back from my adventures. As I passed the place where I’d thrashed the stupid rich lad, I looked around furtively and hastened my pace. But suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me, and I walked faster. To turn round would be to betray my fear. The footsteps sounded closer and faster, and it was soon obvious that I should break into a run. But just as I took off, the person behind me shouted 'Thief!', which filled me with cold dread because, in these Purakija slumlands, instant justice was the thing that prevailed. The first shout of 'Thief', and the vigilante would chase you. When they caught up with you, what you got was the necklace of fire.

'Thief, thief! I saw you yesterday...it was you...thief!'

I ran faster than I’d ever run, but my assailant wasn’t doing too badly either. He did not relent in his pace, for once, and his deafening shouts of accusation did not decrease. My luck lasted only as long as my energy. Soon he was joined by more pursuers, and I had no chance when the mob descended on me, baying like a pack of blood thirsty hounds.

Someone grabbed me by my shirt lapels in a grip so tight that I was beginning to choke. Another one locked my hands behind my back, and I was dragged down the dirt path towards the central square, against my feeble protestations.

‘If you are not, a thief, then why did you run?’ the man who had me by lapels insisted above the ever thundering chorus of ‘Thief, theif, thief…’ There must have been up to fifty of then. I looked in their faces, in their eyes, for mercy, but all I saw was hatred and vengefulness. Although some of them looked familiar, no one seemed to have any inclination to appeal on my behalf. I felt a sharp pain on my calves where a thin, red-eyed boy in oily rags, was whipping at me with a long, thorny stick, his eyes glowing with a crazed glee.

But just as things were getting downright ugly, a sharp, authoritative voice cut through the frenzy. ‘Stop, Stop, please. Let the boy go.’ I immediately recognized the voice of my savior. Mr, Abdul.

‘I know him well, and I can tell you that he is not a thief.’

‘But I saw him yesterday’ said the man who had me by the lapels ‘He beat up a young man, stole from him and ran away before I could catch him.’

‘It couldn’t have been me,’ I cried, ‘I wasn’t even anywhere near here yesterday…’

‘I’d vouch for him like my own son’ said Mr. Abdul, ‘He wouldn’t do any such thing.’

I felt the grip slowly loosen. The mob fell back and slowly dispersed, leaving only Mr. Abdul and me. I regarded him with a new kind of respect. He had saved my life. I thanked him and ran all the way back home.

The plaintive sound of my father’s flute greeted me from a distance. It had a particular melancholy quality that I hadn’t noticed before. When I saw him sitting in the doorway with his shoulders slumped, his head bowed and tilted to the side, and the way his eyes glittered, I knew that something was amiss. He moved aside slowly, to let me into the shack without interrupting his dolorous racket.

Mother hadn’t yet returned from the cassava farms, and there wasn’t a single scrap of food anywhere in the shack. I crawled into my usual hideout under the bed, laid on my stomach and closed my eyes. But I could not drift into my magic world. The rodents of starvation were rampaging in my stomach; it felt as if they were gnawing at my insides and making mincement of my guts. I went and sat beside my father and stared out in the slum. His eyes were now shut, his thin dry lips wrapped around the mouthpiece of his flute, and twitched gently as he breathed out each note. I heard loud gastronomic growls, but I couldn’t tell whether they were coming from his stomach or mine.

He stopped and looked at me for the first time, ‘Your Mother left us yesterday. She said she’s had enough, and she’s gone back to her father’s house in Wariri.’

I did not know what to say. I felt a hard lump ascend my gullet and explode in my larynx. I sobbed without inhibition for several minutes and my eyes hurt from the salt in my tears. That night, we went to sleep without anything to eat, and I dreamt of being chased by a seven-headed monster with fire for tongues and rocks for eyes.

For the first time, as far I could remember, my father was up before sunrise. He paced about in the dark, and glanced out of the window, from time to time, as if he was determined to be the first to catch the first glimpse of the morning's rays.

I did not have to pretend to go to school, instead we set out for someplace that my father did not tell me about, but, judging from the purposefulness of his strides and the determination in his eyes, I was sure that he had a specific destination in mind. We came out of the pura and carried on walking along the pitted road that led to the Township. I’d never been that far out of the slum. We walked on for over an hour and a half before we finally came to a stop in front of a sumptuous white building surrounded by a concrete walls with large coils of barbed wires on top It had massive gates and There was also a small pedestrian entrance and a small place for a uniformed gateman.

We stood before the gates and uniformed gate-man came out and started stonily at us while my father explained to him that we were there to see Mr. Abdul. We waited for a few minutes while he consulted with somebody in the house through a wall-mounted speaker, and then he turned round, ‘The master is not in at the moment, and we are not aware that he is expecting you at this time.’

My father said, ‘Yes, we will be happy to wait until he returns.’

The guard started to say something but stopped and just said, ‘OK, please yourself.’ before going back into his little office.

There was nowhere to sit. We remained standing for over an hour and were quite relived when a white BMW with tinted windows arrived, and Mr. Abdul wound down and popped his head out of one of the windows.

‘Daud, What are you doing here?’ The shriek in his voice indicated alarm, rather than surprise. Perhaps he never expected the squalor of the slum to catch up with him in his world of comfort and luxury, preferring rather to visit it on his own terms, and his leisure.

He stepped out of the car and then he turned angrily to the guard, ‘For goodness sake, why did you not let them in?’

He cast a benevolent glance in my direction and then we walked with him to the house while he carried on chatting with my father.

As soon as we were seated in Mr. Abdul’s spacious lounge, my father told his friend that he’d resolved to do something about his situation. He needed some money to start a small trade in kola nuts. He went on about his past hardships and how he had constantly been eluded by fortune. He was at his wits end, and something had to be done.

His host listened patiently. After my father had finished talking, Mr. Abdul was silent for a long time. He appeared to be in deep though and at some point, I was wondering if he had simply fallen asleep. But he spoke eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, ‘OK, I will do everything I can to help. What sort of a friend would I be otherwise?’

My father face bore a melancholy smile of pure gratitude.

‘I will loan you some money to start your trade, and I’ll see what I can do about putting some business your way.’

My father rubbed his hands together, ‘That would be wonderful. I will make sure that I return every penny to you. You will never regret this, I swear.’

And then Mr. Abdul said, ‘Why don’t you let Rafik, stay here with us in the meantime. I need more hands at the saw mill, and there is a lot he could be helping with around here. Once the loan is repaid, he will return to you.’

My father’s eye glistened, and his voice carried a fatigued rasp. He stooped slightly and gazed at the floor. He seemed completely overwhelmed with his relief and gratitude. ‘Of course, Abdul, I hope that one day I will be able to pay you back for your massive kindness’ he glanced at me briefly, but he did not catch my eyes.

Mr. Abdul patted me on the shoulder and smiled at me. ‘Don’t worry, Rafik, I assure you that you will be very much at home here. I have no doubt that you will behave yourself, and not let your father or myself down. …You will be sharing a room with my nephew, Mashood, who is just about the same age as you. Your first task is to look after him, as he is currently recovering from some injuries to his head.’ He led me to a tidy room that smelt with soft, sweet scent. There was a bed in the corner and someone was lying on it with his head bandaged. His eyes were closed, and he was still.

Mr. Abdul’s voice sounded distant and somewhat resigned, ‘He hasn't opened his eyes since his accident.', he gently brushed his hand on the forehead of the bed-ridden young man, 'He got beaten up all because he was carrying an empty wallet and a toy mobile phone.’

……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Next Story:
Due date: 20 May 2011
Working Title: Stranger in my house

Rough synopsis:

Fred Tatersall, his wife Mary and their two children Cherry and James, have saved up for years and look forward eagerly for their first holiday in Spain. Their dissapointment could not have been more profound when, at the last minute, they have to change their plans to accommodate an unexpected and unwanted tag-allong.

They are only too happy to return to their Humble abode in Tunbrige Wells after two weeks weeks of sheer frustration. But they have no idea what is waiting for them back home.