This Is how Men Break

Mondays are lazy days for me. This is when I go to the market. Yes, market. I love fruits and this is when you get the freshest fruits. Like a pastor, Mondays are my rest days. I take stock, as they(pastors) count sadaka.  So this Monday morning found me at cobbler’s place. I needed to get some shoe fixed. Men come here to discuss politics, the news of the day and even some deals are made here. The local politicians make a stop here once in a while to get word around town. It is the place I first heard that Kabogo will lose to Babayao. The guy told me, ‘you come back and ask me.” I never did, because you know how us men are when we are right.

But the best people to meet there are ‘wazees.’ The guys who have seen it all. Men who only speak in proverbs. Men who never laugh out loud. Men who do not fear death because they have lived their lives fully. And even those who haven’t they don’t have any regrets because it is too late to make a change. They have made peace with their mistakes. Embraced their flaws. They no longer walk around with regrets. Mostly, these guys come here to fill their days and the remaining years. Some come to read the newspaper. Mostly Taifa Leo. Other come to get their slip-ons fixed. Their shoes normally have countless patches. They each seem to have some significance. It is like they represent every decade lived. Some five, others seven and others eight.

it is barely mid-day and I am seated there waiting for my turn. Some guy who is drunk at this time shows up. Defiantly sits on the shoe shinning seat, reaches for his jeans trousers and gets a cigarette and then lights it up. I am stunned by his behavior. I really hate it when people smoke around me. It is very disrespectful. He is a regular here. One of the guys seated there tells him to go smoke somewhere else. That’s when hell breaks loose and a tirades of insults are sent his way. All the nasty kikuyu words you can think of. Though nasty, they are funny when said by a drunk guy, largely because of how he is at ease with profanity.  

The guy’s stressed and angry and probably hungry. Then all of a sudden he turns to me (respectfully this time) and asks, ‘customer, what would you do if you called your wife in the morning and another man answers and says ‘wrong number’?” Thinking it must be the alcohol, I respond jokingly, “kill myself.” With a smirk on his face he says, ‘never, so that I can leave that man sleeping with her?” It’s amazing, even with all the hurt, he still wants his wife. He still feels something for her.

And those thoughts seem to rigger something in him. Some rage. And he starts opening up. At first, he is talking to the cobbler, then we notice he is drifting away and speaking to himself. “How could she? After all the work I put in? I give her everything. I make sure she is provided for. She never lacks everything. But why did she have to sleep with another man. And then take all my life savings? I had only 40k to go. Now it is all gone.”

As he is engaging in the monologue, I look at him. He is dressed in those oversized formula one shirt. Red in colour. One that Flavia belesconi would wear while chasing sunsets and the other things they chase in Malindi. He has fitting but extra-long jeans, and some old slip-ons. The shirt is unbuttoned and there’s a gold chain dangling on his neck- it is hard to tell if it’s an original one. Below the neck chain, there is a tattoo. I only see two strokes of the ink. Maybe it is the wife’s name written close to his heart. He got it when they were in love and inseparable. When one day she asked him, ‘do you really love me?’ He opened his shirt and said, ‘this much.” She was lost for words.

Now she is a source of pain for him. First, because she cheated on him and took away his life savings, but second, because he still loves her. While still there, his sister in law calls him. He hangs up and murmurs, “I do not want to talk to anyone. They should first return my money and then keep their woman” When we ask him what money? Now balancing tears, (a man is most likely going to shed tears twice in his life, when the mother dies, and when the woman he loves leaves him for another man. Worse of a friend. That makes him suicidal.) he says, “that woman when with my money.”

He has been working as an Uber driver for two years and has been faithfully saving up. The bank had asked him for a down payment of 200k. When he told the wife, she advised him to they can save together. She would be keeping the money. They had saved 160k with 40k to go. It was going to take him five more months. Mid this year, he would have his own car. He Imagined and dreamt about that day. The day he will drive his own car. He had even typed out a message on his phone which he will send his mother when he gets the car, “Mummy, I made it. I have a car in my name.” He deleted the message last night and cried for the first time since he became a man.

It was all started when he started doing night shifts. They made more money meaning he would reach his goal faster. He would leave home at 5:30pm and be back home 9am the following morning. The wife knew his schedule. So she started entertaining this man who had been making moves on her. It started as a joke. But now they are too deep into it. Not even his love can pull her out. She left him for the other guy.

As he stands up, he tells us, ‘You know I can go home and light up the gas and burn inside the house?” He looks broken. He is now harboring suicidal thoughts. He tells us he had not drank alcohol for 4 and a half years. He even remembers his last drink. But now he has been drinking since Friday. He has nothing to live for. He is ready to die. A few days ago, he had dreams, now they have come crumbling down.

When he leaves, the guy seated next to me says,’ this is how men break.’ 

Image source: negromanosphere.com