Nakuru, sikuendi tena...

(dear couch, i need to stop alcohol)

YAAAAAAWN!

Ah, good morning___jeez, the bed’s small. I would have sworn when I slumped into it yesterday it was the size of two football fields.

HAHAHAHA!

That was funny. Sometimes I crack myself up. Yesterday, anything would have been as big as a football field. I was stone drunk when I finally managed to walk into my room.

Strange. The wall’s warm. I turn my head around slowly to see the reason of the wall’s warmth. I would have done it faster but…the hangee!

WHAT THE…!

AAAAARGH! AAAAARGH!

There IS something the size of two football fields in my bed. I stumble backwards fast. Too fast for the hangee to realize what’s cutting. So the headache that should have followed is delayed.

It turns. Slowly. Creating a suspense like from a thriller. I pinch myself quickly before it’s done turning. I want to wake up from this nightmare before I can meet this creature.

OUCH!

I pinch again. Ouch! Damn, I’m not dreaming.

Maybe, I can sneak out before it turns and I’d never know what it was. Curiosity ain’t killing this cat. So I head for the door.

Either, the hangee has made me slow, ama this THING moves like lightning.

Before I can reach the door, a behemoth of wobbling fat is blocking the door.

I ponder, where did this thing come from? Surely, I would have seen, heard, smelt or felt it come in. It can’t sneak past a deaf blind man lying in hospital in a coma.

“Thanks for last night.”

I’m still trying to get over the first shock of it moving fast, when it surprises me again. It talks. The few remaining nuts in my head slowly and painfully turn to finally fathom what it just said.

LAST NIGHT?

Last night.

It’s 6.30 in the evening and I’m out of town.

Earlier in the day I was sipping vodka and receiving generous doses of dust while watching rally cars in Elementaita. My adventure-crazy head told me to head for Nakuru for the rally and later to party.

Did I mention I’m alone?

Othis has domez with his chick. Wamugunda, as his name suggests, is in shaggz. I’m still not talking to Marto. (but maybe I should, coz after this…he’s a polite)

I land in Naks and immediately start looking for the clubs. (The names and clubs in this narrative have been purposely omitted to avoid any patron at the unsaid club recognizing yours truly) It isn’t hard to locate the clubs, since the clubs outside Nai operate like mathrees. Other than blasting loud music like River Road, they have lights all around. And colourful lights at that. Blinking invitingly.

Having located the club that will be lucky enough to take my money from me, I go looking for a hotel to lay my soon-to-be drunken head later. Unlike searching for clubs, the search for a hotel (I was looking for a lodging actually) isn’t so easy. Plus, I’m looking for a lodging that’s near the club I plan to waste myself. I locate one within staggering distance.

I check in and discover the rooms aren’t exactly your Grand Regency. But there’s a bed. A huge bed. Yep, two-football-fields huge.

At the foot of the bed, is a rickety table that’s struggling to hold a strange-looking telly. It’s a model I can’t make out but clearly Sony isn’t big here. On the bed is an even stranger-looking gadget, which I later discover to be a remote. The F thing has a hole I later learn is a security detail.

I am not about to bother myself understanding it.

The bathroom? Well, there’s a bath and it’s in a room. The loo? Let me put it this way, if you ain’t showering you’s shitting. And vice versa.

7.30 pm.

I check into the targeted club and sit at the bar (as Kenyans love calling it, the counter). I literally climb up the high stool and perch myself precariously on top.

If you’re new in any town, the counter is the best place to sit. No one notices you are alone and you get to see everyone and most importantly, every pint.

I order my poison.

I love ice cubes dipped in Vodka and coke.

Quarter vodka and coke land in front of me. With ice cubes. Ice-cold ice cubes. Bliss. I give the vodka bottle the elbow ritual and I start drinking. (NOTE, every vodka mentioned here and after is strictly Smirnoff)

The club is still fairly empty. In Kenyan standards, this means that only one or two tables remain unoccupied.

I’m amazed. This is such a diverse crowd. Guys and chicks in all shapes and sizes.

There’s fly, flyness, flyest and flyless. Tonight, I’m looking for just plain fly. Flyness and flyest babes are usually accompanied by secret admirers and (your) potential fight opponents. Told you, now see that guy getting bashed for no reason.

Oh, my dear vodka-drenched fast melting ice cube, the only harsh blow you hit me is the one that blacks me out. No black eye.

As for the guys, there are wannabes every which way I look. With my Dettol Juniors t-shirt I’m the only plainly dressed guy in here. (I wasn’t about to dress up for Nakuru guys. Nobody knows me and I know nobody)

The night is quickly moving on and no fly babe has been espied yet.

After my quarter, I walk towards the dancing area.

The dancing area is not in the same area as the bar. It’s across the hallway. Outside the doors I find mean-looking burly fellows who’s Vaseline budget must be astronomical and their dress budget minimal. These shining guys in ill-fitting black suits demand 100 bob from me. I’m not about to argue with them. I get in.

BOOM! TWAF! KACHAAA!

I stagger backwards. The music hits me with way much more ferocity than Conje can master.

I battle my way through heavy music beats and masses of sweaty humanity hurling “assets” all over the place. What happened to dancing? But yet again, this is out of town.

After furiously chasing down another quarter with a couple (six) malts, I become a part of this humanity.

After a few seconds of what me dancing like Usher (or so I think), I settle down and order ana’a malt.

At this moment in time I’m not exactly sober. I’m well over the hill called tipsy. And while sitting there trying to catch the few molecules of clean air I can, I notice a bird (I’m drank anything in a skirt is a bird) looking my way.

Now I’m not exactly Denzel. In fact, when it came to the looks department, I missed that train. I was on the track for less brains.

So I look behind me slyly (who am I kidding, in my state I might as well have hung a billboard) Of course, there’s no one behind me coz my drunken arse is smack on the wall.

She winks.

Hey! Why did she wink? I didn’t. I was just blinking furiously trying to focus my left-looking right eye and right-looking left eye.

Before I can even adjust my alcohol-laden body (I’d make a nice human cocktail for mosquitoes) she’s seated right there with me. Damn, she moves fast.

For a mlevi, moving with that kind of speed isn’t welcome. And it can be totally mortifying if it’s someone that size moving. I forgot to tell you? She’s huge! Let me be polite. She is taller wideways. An imperfect figure 0.

What happens next is vaguely (if at all) remembered, but I attribute it to the secret formula No. 21 in Smirnoff. That formula when mixed with ladies perfume inside the head of the imbiber (imbibee) makes him weak in the knees and will urge him to throw unfresh, alcohol-inspired lyrics at anything in a skirt. (I ain’t going drinking in Scotland)

I buy her a pint. At this point it’s not me doing the talking. I’m Pietr Smirnoff complete with the accent. She’s giggling at every half statement I slur across. If I were in a better state I would have known things were fishy when she burst out laughing at my yawn. Since I’m not, I laugh back. Evidently the louder of the two. Or anyone else.

The night wears on. The more I sip my pints the more her status is upgraded. From code flyless to code fly. Her rapid progress urges me to gulp down pints even faster. Need I mention, in a few minutes she has attained code flyness. I’m going for the grand prize – flyest – when my loud burp jerks my head backwards.

It’s then that I notice the stares. In my state, I think guys are pissed that this guy from Nai (evidently) has come and violated a territory they have worked hard demarcating with noisome urine.

I jealousy guard my prize and I give them what I think is a death stare (I practice every morning in front of a mirror).

I stand up, hold her huge hand (she holds me actually) and struggle to tow her out of the place. The mess cum destruction we leave in our wake as she tries to navigate her mass, which at this time I still think is like that of a Spanish model, is devastating.

This act of Obelix and Asterix isn’t good enough to be classified as a sight for sore eyes.

There’s no taxi around. Not that we need one anyway. But I still find it strange there isn’t a single taxi. I was to learn much later that the taxi people saw us coming and scattered. Big Bertha (her name for the night), apparently, is a nightmare for many a car’s shocks.

We get to the door of my hotel…lodge without any drama. But getting up the stairs to my room becomes a very painful experience. I unfortunately find myself in between her and the wall. So every time she sways she squashes me. Now I know how it feels to be between a rock and a hard place.

By the time we finally drop into bed, the alcohol has taken its toll and I can’t make heads or tails of anything. (which is a good thing…ningeingia hii kitu wapi? Aje?)

Then I wake this morning with this terrible hangee and a terrible sight before me praying and hoping nothing happened.

“Nothing happened” she reassures me. “I don’t give to anyone.” I hold back laughter. “You’re a nice guy, but I’m a girl with her head screwed on straight” I can’t take it no more. I quickly squeeze her through the door. And drop to my knees.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

“See you next time” she shouts.

Next time? I’m in the process of deleting Nakuru from the list of destinations to visit. Not with Big Bertha everywhere. Literally.