Bad bachelor: Art goes from jail to home

You last left me at a cop station in Kilimani where we had been arrested, alongside a certain mheshimiwa, after being busted for drinking after hours. This was after my date with Rachel – the corporate woman in charge of a Sh5 million advertising account. This, if given to our firm ‘Worm Advertising’ for the September to December period, even with Cynthia’s now ridiculous eight percent rate as the mzungu pleads ‘Covid-19’ in her irritating clipped British accent, (yet her great grandfather settled in Kenya in 1909), will still see me get Sh100,000 extra a month till Dec.

The shida was that by the time we got to the police station, my phone was out of battery.

Yet my father, whom I haven’t seen all my life (he deserted me and mum when I was three), was outside my apartment building, having finally shown up for us to talk about the whys & wherefores did thou goest?

I asked the afande at the desk to let me make my one free phone call, just so I can tell my prodigal dad niko kwa cell. A young man about my age (mid-30s), the afande laughed and said: “Ati free phone call? Hii ndio ubaya ya nyi ma-barbie! Too much Hollywood!”

I begged him to charge my phone so I can call my father. This really annoyed him.

“Ati ni-ku-charge-ie simu ndio uniitie godpapa, bruh? Kwani wewe ni Senator ka Sakaja?”

It was only at 6am when he left his shift, and a new cute cop called Wanja replaced him, that I got my phone charged till 7am. Then because I couldn’t think of anyone else who can pony up my bail asap, I called my new squeeze, Rachel.

Rachel came to find me caught up flirting with Wanja, who had let my six-foot lean clean shaven frame out to sit on the bench, facing the OB desk.

“I see you’ve made new friends in jail,” Rachel said, but she paid my bail – 10K that I noticed went straight into Wanja’s phone, who tipped her police cap and said ‘unaeza enda’ brusquely.

But somewhere in my heart, I know me and Wanja are just a suspended sentence!

Rachel put up the volume on her Lexus’s car radio, and sang along to the song, so we couldn’t talk till she dropped me off at my new place in Kilimani, the length of a Christian song from the cop shop.

I made to kiss her bye after saying ‘asante,’ but she turned so the lip kiss landed as a peck on her round brown cheek. It can’t be the arrest! – she must be mad that she caught me ‘tuning.’

At the gate, the weekend watchman briefed me about how things had gone with my old man.

Yes, he had come shortly before curfew, and tried to call me numerous times, before giving up.

Since it was past curfew, and he had no money for taxi, ‘mzee alilala hapa kwa hii stall yetu!’

The Security Guard then said dad left at six sharp, crack of dawn, but left me a note.

I took it, heart thumping like a teenager with a love letter, took lift up to my apartment.

“Dear Arthur, I guess you decided to desert me last night. But that’s nothing compared to how I abandoned you as a small boy. Please try and forgive me. I’ll not contact you ever again! Daddy.”

I tried to call his number, but it was now on ‘this line is no longer in use’ mode. Then I sat on the couch and cried for a long time – for a bad bachelor who’d spent a night in jail, from missing my mother, for a lost little boy, whose father had once again ghosted from his Life ... this time forever!

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