Carolyn W. Gatonye | Judgment in the Shadows           

Odhis should have known better and left Skinny-legs alone.

But no, his unchecked manly desires had chosen to betray him openly. And embarrassed, he had been. Maybe for a short while, because he had made his peace with worse situations a very long time ago. Wretched, he had corrected his thoughts. A woman soaked in Johnson & Johnson baby powder on her face and a funny tattoo on her breast was not one to dampen his days. Stifle.

In the blue glow of a cheap flickering light at Club Wa-Jimmy, he had leaned into her, breath thick with Senator lager and cold githeri, from Wa Munyoro’s shack, whispering promises of “si unajua me ni Wakili?” as if his law degree could serve as a second erection. Somehow, he knew she wasn’t the kind of woman he would approach if it were not for his Dutch courage, the kind that comes from nights spent memorizing case laws until the margins of textbooks blurred and the words began to argue back.

It had taken a few beers and a glass of bitter chang’aa to see her as a woman. Someone had paid for the drinks. He couldn’t remember who. She had believed him. Maybe they had deserved each other that cold night. But no one was prepared for what came next.

He had first tried to tiptoe in her heels. A funny sight: a gigantic drunk Luo man in four-inch stilettos, possibility never proven. His ancestors would have been ashamed and would have chosen to die again. Abomination. Skinny-legs had woken with the instincts of survival sharpened by forty-five years of life in the streets of downtown Nairobi, knife in hand. She had for a moment forgotten where she was. She had smiled upon realizing payment awaited. Her client seemed not to be in a hurry to pay her. Momentarily, she had questioned her prowess, then realized Odhis was one of them. Those stingy ones who didn’t want to give Ms. Ceasar her dues. She had then let out a scream, demanding her 150 shillings, her voice tearing the dawn like those matatu horns owned by rich politicians’ sons.

Odhis now remembered it all. The crooked ninio, that’s what Skinny-legs had called him. The cold realization that quoting Lord Denning on Facebook did not translate to real authority. He had never practiced law; he had only practiced thinking he could, the way he had once argued imaginary cases to the dormitory walls at KSL, waving his hands like a conductor leading a choir of invisible jurors. Here he was, lying in those kanjo pavements. Face swollen like he had a visit from those Ukambani “bee-senders”. He now remembered the blows, and vividly so.

Naliaka had even sat on him, poking her dirty fingers deep in his nostrils.

“You! You! Njoki Money! Pay Money!” she had screamed the loudest, even though Odhis knew, beyond reasonable doubt, that he would not have solicited her services, not even if she said pro bono. He had tried to explain that he had probably lost the 150 shillings in the bar, but a fat, left-handed lady had hit his head, saying he should have known better than to go around showing off his university English when he had no money. The streets just wanted money, not English from his big nose; she had then spat on his face. He had been rescued, and someone in an old ‘Arse al’ jersey, its missing “n” having disappeared after too many washes or bleach, had offered to pay Skinny-legs and her colleagues just so the quiet would die down. And had added that Odhis was not very okay “upstairs”. The women had left him, questioning what Skinny-legs’ “upstairs” held too.

He had walked and lost consciousness halfway. By the banks of the Nairobi River, he had made peace with his situation. “Wacha mimi niendelee kuwa chizi,” he muttered, washing a single sock in the black water, practicing closing submissions to an imaginary judge made of water lilies and floating plastic bottles. Sometimes he imagined he was still a student, pacing lecture halls, quoting PLO Lumumba to empty chairs while the other students laughed behind his back. Sometimes he imagined that if he argued hard enough, the river would rule in his favor.

Madness was easier than facing Skinny-legs and her team of defence lawyers, or the corridors of court that never remembered him, or the interns who once called him Learned Friend and now whispered “Wakili wa Gikomba.” When he walked back to the city at night, wrapped in a torn Maasai shuka, the boda guys whispered, “Ule ni Odhis Wakili?”

And he would lift his chin and reply to the moon, “Your Honour, I plead guilty.” Then burst out laughing.

No one really knew what had happened to a straight A student. Some said his Kogelo grandmother had bewitched him when his mother named him after her own father. Some said he had been introduced to bhang in his campus days and the effects had waited till he was about to be admitted to the bar. Others said his fiancée had threatened to leave him for a white man, and that was probably the genesis of his head’s missing wires.

Once in a while, when his head connected well, he would count his losses. The humiliation of being remembered not for his school brilliance but for his delusions was painful. He had once given up and tied a rope from a fig tree, using old neckties, quoting Justice Majanja in desperation. His feet had slipped; the branch broke; he fell into sewage. A street kid shouted, “Wakili, hata kifo imekukataa banaa!” Street dogs gathered, tails wagging, forming a jury as he paced along the banks.

And Odhis had subtly understood that even death had standards.

Then came River Law Chambers. Armed with memory and imagination, Odhis offered pro bono “legal advice” under the bridge. Because Odhis’ demons knew when to strike, he had defended hawkers against kanjos who held them without receipts. Mash had termed them “moments his head would gain network.”

The hawkers would, on certain lucky days, give him white mitumba shirts and black pants and those were the days when angry Council Askaris came to collect their dues, and Odhis’ good network happened to coincide. And, to his brilliance, many hawkers would be allowed to continue with their businesses, often getting freed with a warning, some just parting with only 50 shillings. His grasp of the Sale of Goods Act was so sharp, he would often quote the Acts and the Constitution by heart:

“Sir, under Article 27, the law states, ‘Every person is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law.’”

When the network went off again, he would remove the pants and cut them into many pieces, then write demand letters on torn Nation newspapers, signing:

“Yours faithfully,
Odhiambo Thomas Mc’Oloo, Esquire.”

They paid him in unsold sausages or warm boiled eggs with a strange-smelling salad on the side, and, when it was really cold, warm tea and rice, their gratitude heavier than any cheque.

But sometimes, his life was much better than that of the normal Nairobi career man, driving up the CBD with no laughter, caught in the busyness of taxes and traffic jams, most living but barely. They wore ironed shirts and tight smiles, but inside, their hearts queued quietly at the edge of balconies, waiting for permission to fall.

Because in Nairobi, you either laugh or you die.

Odhis had slowly accepted his fate, crooked ninio and all, and had chosen to laugh.

Even if it meant laughing alone, with the moon, the street kids and faithful random dogs.

On the day the police ran after Gen Zs with placards, shouting and blowing vuvuzelas in every corner of the city, Odhis had been lying down, under a tree, smiling to the gods of the Nairobi River, strictly minding his business. But a loud bang had disrupted his happy thoughts. And a bloody hand had flown and landed near his head. He had instantly jumped up, like lightning, his lunatic mind had immediately differentiated real from fiction. And in that split second, a bullet had caught him right in his left eye, like a person aiming for darts, bull’s eye. He had dropped down, maybe out of shock, or pain or both. His thoughts had drifted to the Supreme Court, and he had, for a second, imagined his life in a black suit at last – his moustache shaped neatly, similar to a famous lawyer he had wanted to emulate. Like Hitler’s. Nazi Hitler, not Hitler Muthee, the one who sold Auto-Spares near the Globe Garage, he had swiftly corrected his thoughts, just in case.

Odhiambo Thomas Mc’Oloo, Esquire, the only one of his name, he read the tag on his office door
.
His body hit the waters with a quiet splash. He floated peacefully, smiling, stark naked, the river taking him with every filth the neglected lower-class Nairobi had to offer: broken bottles, sharp rusted tins, rotten vegetables, fetuses. The air slowly filling with smoke, blood, and screams. His body was still floating when it joined another cold one – a skinny-legged being with a butterfly tattoo that looked like a spider, throat slit, and lying still with the motionless garbage at the entrance of the culvert. On the side of the culvert were words sprayed hurriedly in red ink:

“A LUTA CONTINUA!”

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Translations

Githeri – One of Kenya’s traditional foods made from boiled maize (corn) and legumes, usually beans
Si unajua me ni Wakili – Swahili for, “You know that I am a lawyer, right?”
Chang’aa – An illicit local home-made brew
Matatu – Kenya’s public transport
Ninio – A slang term for something unsaid, expected to mean anything, depending on context
KSL – An acronym for Kenya School of Law
Kanjo – County administration “police” who collect taxes in the cities
Wacha mimi niendelee kuwa chizi – Swahili – “Let me continue being mad.”
Wakili wa Gikomba – Swahili – “An advocate from Gikomba.” – Gikomba is a local marketplace in the city of Nairobi
Ule ni Odhis Wakili – Swahili – “Is that Odhis, the advocate?”
Wakili, hata kifo imekukataa banaa! – Swahili – “Even death has left you, advocate”.
Mitumba – Swahili/Slang for second-hand clothes.

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Image: someshroy99 pixabay remixed