Don't cry for me...

(We get what we wish for. or something like that. Just the other week I told a blogger how crazy it was that he was mugged…well, i should have known better. Here’s my story)

It’s close to midnight, or the other side of it. I’m at my potential chick’s place when I do something terribly stupid (details hidden). She causes (Kenyan-speak for “she gets upset”) and kicks me out. Since her house isn’t that far from my digs and me being in my moment of inglorious anger and madness, I decide to “foot the bill” and walk home.

Only problem is, to get to my place I have to pass a dangerous bridge with a railway line below. There have been stories of bodies found on the railway line after brief encounters with thugs on the bridge above.

But before getting to the bridge, I have to pass a junction, which considering the hour isn’t that safe either.

Which is where I am when my “girlfriend”, fearing for my safety, calls me to tell me to stop being silly and get my sorry arse back to her place before i get mugged.

I listen to her and turn to head back when I meet them. Blocking the road to her place are these two guys who are coming towards me their intentions not yet clear to me. For some strange reason, I’m not terrified. And considering i ain't exactly the hugest tool in the shed i should be running like hell. It’s becomes even stranger why i don't run when i notice one of them is holding up what he so badly wants me to believe is a gun.

You should know that rught now I’m operating on automatic. And the few traces of alcohol in my head can be noticed clogging the cells charged with triggering the panic and run buttons.

I sidestep to get by them but they block my path. At this point it’s still not hitting me that I’m about to get robbed coz all i'm seeing is getting to the chick's house. Just like that learner who still hasn’t grasped the skills of driving a car I successfully manage to ram into them.

I walk straight into their waiting arms.

One thug’s job is to make sure I don’t get away by any means necessary and he’s doing his job well. We roll, frolic, kick, trip and make no headway. At this time it slowly sinks in that i'm being mugged but I still don't panic.

The other thug’s job was presumably easy. He's to grab the phone (they are calling it 'tenje', because of the melodiously funky polyphonic ringtone) from my hand and anything else and run. But I have his work cut out for him. I’m not letting go. He bites. He curses. He receives a blow. He stamps. He misses. He receives another blow. He still isn’t getting the phone. And anyway, he punches like a girl. I smile to myself. (I have a weird sense of humour, if i can call it that. This is the second time I’m smiling while encountering thugs. That’s another story)

We ‘rock and roll’ three times before I realize I’m not going anywhere. We could have done this all night because this guy whose job is to stop me though is good and deserves a raise, couldn't get me to stay down. I get tired of all this and throw in the towel. And anyway, y’all know, the fat lady’s got to sing sometime. But i'm not about to hand them the phone on a silver platter (while asking if they'd ike fries with that). I throw the phone some centimetres away hoping it will get smashed. no such luck.

The lady sings. The ‘rock n roll’ ends.

They make a mad dash for the phone as I on the other hand, walk away from the ‘dance floor’. It is then I notice an audience. And I hear, but don’t look, as they ‘applaud’ and say ‘sorry for losing a well-choreographed dance’.

Kenyans.

I walk on to my ‘chick’s place’ breathing fast and furiously like the Spanish bulls and feeling nothing. Not even anger. There is comfort in the heavy breathing. (Though I successfully managed to get chest problems)

I reach her place and inform her that the possible has happened. She’s sorry, but that little stunt isn’t about to over-shadow what we were fighting over.

I lick my battle wounds with salty water and crash on the edge of her bed. The very edge.

After a fitful night’s sleep, with one dream, I rise with the cocks, limp out of her house in a bloody trouser and an almost button-less shirt and head for home. Feeling thirsty. Feeling nothing for the phone I surrendered (i care less for cell phones).

What hurts me the most isn’t the idea of losing a not-so-cheap phone, or receiving bruises all over, it is the idea that I am gonna lose this girl who I have worked so hard to get. Because of my own stupidity.

And for the first time in a long while, I cry.