Playing a Dangerous Game

by Patrick Ochieng

  Taking up his dare, Mose spits and so does Dado.

  I try to spit, but my mouth is sore and my spit comes out red. I run my tongue over a gash inside the wall of my mouth. My hand aches like hell.

  We draw a line in the dust and stand behind it, to see who spits farthest. If it wasn’t for the pain in my mouth I would be second. Only Dado can out-spit me. We spit and spit until our mouths are dry.

  Dado wins, Odush sulks, and we go our separate ways.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ***

  LIKE A SHY TOAD that does not want to be seen, the railway dispensary squats behind the huge locomotive sheds. Parents often use it as a bogey to silence noisy kids. I’ll take you to the dispensary for an injection if you don’t shut your mouth, grown-ups will threaten them.

  I’m with Mama in the dispensary waiting room. My left arm is swollen the size of a cassava tuber, and it feels like there is a fire under my skin. Anything that might reduce the pain is welcome.

  Mama looks everywhere but at me. She does that when she is angry. Right now she is mad at me for breaking my arm yesterday and concealing it until today. She says I could easily have lost the arm.

  There are other kids with their mothers in the waiting room. I don’t see any fathers, just mothers and their coughing, crying babies. I guess fathers are at work, or they just don’t like dispensaries.

  The stench of disinfectant tickles my nostrils. It stings my eyes and settles at the back of my throat, never going away.

  A nurse in white shouts “Next,” and a mother rises with her child, to disappear behind a door marked EXAMINATION ROOM. The rest of us slide our backsides against the wooden benches and inch closer. It must be the sliding that has worn the benches smooth and shiny.

  THE DOCTOR WEARS A white lab coat with a name tag that says Dr. Jeevanje. He sits behind a big brown desk. A happy smile plays under his jet-black mustache. Even though I’m the one who is sick, he gestures Mama into the only empty chair, while I remain standing. He examines my arm, rings a bell on his desk, and a slim lady in white appears.

  “I think he will need an X-ray of his left arm,” he tells the lady, who ushers me through a side door and to the X-ray room.

  “LUMUMBA, how did you break your arm?” The doctor raises the big black picture a nurse has handed him, against an overhead light. “Most probably playing football?” he says, not waiting for my response.

  I nod.

  “Don’t let him fool you. The scoundrel fell from a tree while stealing people’s fruits,” Mama shoots me a warning look. “Imagine—at his age and being in Hill School, he still goes about climbing trees,” Mama clucks.

  “Aha! So you are in Hill School?” the doctor looks up. “I had a son there. He finished a couple of years ago. Does Mr. Bumbles still teach there?”

  I nod.

  “You must have been named after Patrice Lumumba? He was a great man. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nod again. How could I not know when Baba sings about this Lumumba guy, day in and day out? How the African continent lost one of its greatest sons to some people he calls “imperialists.” And that the guy was from Congo, which has diamonds as big as a baby’s fist and other precious metals sticking out from the ground, just waiting to be picked. How the imperialists had set their greedy eyes on the diamonds and since it was only this Lumumba guy standing between them and the diamonds, they had to kill him like a dog.

  Africa’s riches are her curse.“You have a fracture, which will require a cast,” Dr. Jeevanje says and rises from behind his desk. He is taller than I’d expected. He tells me how he broke his arm twice as a kid. He jokes about the plaster, says it will be one dirty mess when I return to have it removed in a month’s time. It might even have lice on the inside.

  Mama makes a laughing sound, but I know she is not really laughing. I can tell from the way she keeps blinking. Her eyelids snap up and down, like they are competing to see which one can move faster. She does that when she is really mad.

  Dado’s mum stops us near the pharmacy, to fuss over my broken hand. She has a spotless, white uniform.

  Mama pretends to smile, grabs my good arm, and propels me away.

  “Two tablets; twice a day,” a short, fat, balding man says and hands us medicine at the pharmacy.

  We step out into the sunlight and Mama storms ahead as though she has remembered some place she has to hurry to.

  I follow from a safe distance.

  MOSE TAPS MY CAST—tock, tock, tock. “Wish I could get one, then no one would mess with me.”

  “You’ll have to break your arm if you want one.”

  “Must be painful?”

  “Yah!”

  “Is it really broken, or just a sprain?”

  “Of course it’s broken. They even took an X-ray.”

  “You mean the big, black pictures that show bones?”

  I nod, and we lean on the Zephyr and stare ahead. Sometimes it feels great just staring.

  A green grasshopper leaps out from the grass like something is after its life. It lands on the Zephyr’s hood, slides to the ground, and vaults off into the browned grass. Lost in our thoughts, we do not move. I don’t know what Mose is thinking, but me, it is about the time a big brown grasshopper landed on Njish’s lap. She leaped off her seat and yelled so loud, Teacher Focus panicked and ran out of class. When he realized it was just an innocent hopper that had caused the ruckus, he ordered the entire class to stay in during break, as punishment. For days I could see the embarrassment on his face.

  “Do you think Odush really saw a ghost in the white house?” Mose asks in a whisper.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know! But he looked scared before you and Dado caught up with us.”

  “Odush is always scared. He pretends to be tough but the guy is a wimp,” I say.

  A kite swoops downward then lifts off. Something white flutters under its wide wings as it glides away. What fun it would be, to be able to fly about like the kite and go anywhere that I please.

  “Why are you smiling?” Mose says, and I ignore him.

  A jet plane slices through the clouds. It leaves a long, fluffy, white tail in its wake. I once saw some jets from the waving bay of Embakasi Airport. Huge monsters, those jets, bigger and better than stupid trains. When the pilot turned on the turbines, I felt it right in my gut.

  The plane is barely visible now. It floats on and on like it doesn’t have a care in the world. Maybe it’s arriving from some far-off place. Could be it’s off to another country and the people in it are going away for good. Me, when I get into one of those, I will go and never come back. Then Mama can find some other backside to use her switch on.

  A muzungu with the Peace Corps once told us that in their country parents get in trouble for caning children. They even get locked up in prison.

  If they did that here, Mama would spend the rest of her life in prison.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ***

  “WHY DON’T WE VISIT the deserted house on Desai Street at night,” Dado says. “After all, it is the time ghosts come out to haunt.” He grins.

  “Are you crazy? You think I’m going to risk my neck in that eerie place at night? It’s scary enough during the day. There’s no way I’m going there at night,” Odush shakes his head.

  “If we want to find out whether there really are ghosts in that house, we have to go there after dark,” Dado insists, and me, I’m wondering whether it’s a good idea. What would Mama say if she heard I’d gone to that evil house at night?

  “Don’t you think the ghosts will have an advantage over us in the dark? At least during the day we’ll be able to see them in good time and run if we have to,” Mose laughs.

  “And how would you know that ghosts see better at night?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what it was I saw behind the window of the abandoned house the day you fell from the tree, but I swear, something moved,” Odush repeats what he told us before. “I’m not
going anywhere near it at night. You people can tell me what’s in it if you come out alive.”

  “And how are we supposed to get out of our houses at night without our parents knowing?” I ask. “My mother is still mad at me for climbing that tree and breaking my arm.”

  “We could do it on Friday after the open-air film is over. That way no one would know we are planning on going there,” Dado suggests.

  “Count me out,” Odush says with finality. “Do you people even know what a ghost can do to you? It can enter your body and turn you into one of them.”

  “We don’t even know if there are ghosts in that house,” Dado says. “And even if there are, I thought you said you weren’t afraid of ghosts?” He eyeballs Odush.

  “That was then and this is now. And also that was during the day. Now you are suggesting we go at night.”

  “Maybe we should toss on whether to go. Heads we go, tails we don’t.” Mose pulls out a ten-cent coin, and I’m not surprised because he is always betting over everything. He tosses the coin in the air and clamps it in his fist as it falls.

  Odush shouts, “tails,” but it’s heads.

  “So Film Friday it will be,” Dado says. “That’s only two days away. I’ll bring a flashlight along.”

  “I’ll bring a rosary and a crucifix to scare the ghosts. I read somewhere they can’t stand religious stuff,” Mose says.

  “And Odush can bring some of that holy water the Riswa people who worship and beat drums in their houses sprinkle on themselves,” Dado laughs and we all join in.

  “Me, I’ll be between Mose and Odush the whole time, so the ghosts don’t get me. And if they get close, I’ll hammer them with this.” I raise my left arm in its cast and laugh.

  “Wait until those ghosts enter your body, then you will wish you had sprinkled some holy water on yourself,” Odush wags a forefinger at me.

  IT’S FRIDAY EVENING and the film corporation truck is already parked at the edge of the estate playfield near the social hall. Mama sent me to Mama Nandwa’s kiosk for a packet of milk, but I’ve decided to stop and watch the adverts.

  A fat lady in a neat white apron fills the big white cinema screen. She scoops large portions of cooking fat into a frying pan. “Pika kwa Kimbo. Pika kwa Kimbo,” she sings out.

  Her wide smile never fades as she flips crisp brown chapatis. When the Ambi lady begins to rub cream on her long legs, I suddenly remember the milk Mama sent me to buy, and I’m off like Kipchoge Keino. That’s the Kenyan who won gold medals at the Olympics. He would sometimes lap the other athletes and you would think they were winning when the truth was that he was a whole lap ahead of them.

  “ANYONE WHO LEAVES without helping with the dishes better find their own house to come back to,” Mama says, after we’ve had our supper.

  She is always saying weird things. Other times she says that if there was a market where children were sold, she would sell us all at half price. I try to picture a big market where sweaty men drag screaming kids along, instead of sacks of cabbages and potatoes, and shout out, “Fifty shillings for two healthy boys; a good bargain,” and buyers make offers.

  Awino’s head is buried inside her Safari book. She pretends to concentrate on it, but me, I know she is spying on us. She will inform Mama the minute she sees us leave. As if it will add any sugar to her tea.

  Deno presses a finger to his lips to gesture for her silence and she nods. Deno is also going to the film and Awino always listens to him.

  Apondi is washing dishes and singing:

  “Good morning Mr. Ooko,

  I come and see your daughter.”

  “You want to make her angry?” Deno says when I start to laugh.

  “No!”

  “Apondi, can we leave?”

  Apondi just continues singing.

  “Please!”

  Still nothing!

  “Maybe we should just go,” I whisper to Deno.

  “So what if you go? You are not helping anyone with anything. You think those stupid films you are rushing to see will help you in your exams? No one will ask you about people kicking and punching each other, or about mannerless people kissing each other. Go! I don’t care,” Apondi shouts, and we are off like the house is on fire.

  I SQUEEZE THROUGH the crowd in the playfield, drawing curses each time I step on someone’s foot. All the faces look the same in the moonlight. A shrill sound pierces the night, and I know it is Dado whistling. I shove two fingers into my mouth to let out a response. A couple more whistle blasts and I trace my three friends.

  “What’s with you, man? You almost missed the Coming-Soons,” Mose says as I flop down by his side.

  A Chinese man wearing all black appears on the screen. Without warning, another in blue pajama-like trousers leaps into his path.

  “You killed my brother,” the man in blue screams and punches out as the other blocks the punches. His ponytail bobs up and down. They kick, chop, and punch like they are dancing. As one advances, the other retreats. They make sounds like “ugh” and “agh.” Their kicks slice through wooden poles, and the punches leave cracks in the walls. In no time they are flying around and around, like the overhead fans at the railway platform.

  Mose kicks out in his excitement.

  The guy in black runs off with the other in hot pursuit. They run with brief, jerky steps.

  “Just watch the action that follows,” Mose says and elbows me. “I’ll bet you Chang Sing beats Wang Yu,” he says, but the two men just stare each other out, then turn and walk away.

  “Ahhh!” Mose sighs in disappointment.

  “Who doesn’t know that you can’t chop through logs with your bare hands? These guys don’t even know how to fake things. They fly about like they are dancing. No one gets hurt, no one wins, and there’s no story. Their faces are blank. They don’t smile, laugh, or cry. They just go on and on and on,” Dado says.

  “Did you bring a flashlight?” I ask Dado, just to remind everyone we will be going to the ghost house.

  “Of course I did.”

  “And you, Mose, your rosary?”

  “Oh! Yes.”

  “And, Odush, did you bring your holy water?” I ask, and we all laugh.

  “I’ll sprinkle it on you right here and now if you don’t shut up.”

  After a long wait the main feature of the film begins. A man in the film corporation truck runs a commentary in his shrill voice. Most of the time he exaggerates, but we love the way he does it. His voice rises and falls, like he is singing:

  “Here comes Otero on horseback, Kukuru, kakara; Kukuru, kakara,” the man rhymes out the sound of horse hooves against the ground. “Haiya! Now you will see Otero avenge the deaths of his people. If I were those thugs, I would fly like the wind, before Otero arrives,” he warns, as if the actors can hear what he is saying.

  Not long after, the lead actor gets off his big brown horse. His blue eyes are as still as marbles. He pulls off his hat, turns his back to us, and is about to enter a place that has the word SALOON on a sign above it, when three thugs appear.

  “Haiya!” the commentator exclaims, and everyone goes silent.

  Faster than the eyes can see, the lead actor draws out his guns and shoots—gushungya, gushungya, gushungya.

  When the dust settles, the bad guys are sprawled on the ground and we all break out in cheers as he holsters his smoking guns.

  “You can’t shoot three people so fast,” Dado says. “Do they think we’re stupid?”

  “It’s only a film, man!” Odush groans.

  “Why don’t they show us things that are real? Even the blood isn’t real. I’m sure it’s tomato sauce.”

  “Since when do you know anything about acting? Just shut your big mouth and watch,” Odush says.

  “Who doesn’t know that the guns they use are fake? They’re the kind they use to start races.”

  “Did you expect them to kill each other for real with real guns? Just shut up and watch the film.”

  “
Why can’t they show us wildlife films with African actors, instead of these ufala things.”

  “Look! One of those guys is not dead. I just saw him move,” Odush says, and we all focus back on the screen.

  Sure enough, one of the bad guys slowly rises and slips out a tiny gun from his jacket. We shout out warnings to the lead actor, who ignores us and continues to walk away. With barely seconds to spare, he turns and shoots the bad guy between the eyes, driving him back down.

  Everyone claps and cheers as the hero mounts his horse.

  “At least they have Black people in wildlife films,” Dado says as the lead actor rides off into the sunset.

  “Even those wildlife films are made by white people. They only allow a few Black people to play ufala roles of cooks and watchmen,” Odush says. “That’s the way things are and you can’t change it, so let’s just watch the film.”

  “I once saw a film where all the actors were Asians, including the lead, and they were speaking in their language and singing their own songs,” Mose says. “If we want to have films where we aren’t cooks and watchmen we must make our own. Me, I’m going to be an actor.”

  “Aren’t you the one who is always laughing at Njish when she plays Mary in the school play?” I say.

  “That’s different. I’m not talking about ufala school plays, where they dress up like dolls to sing. I want to be in films where I can punch people and shoot them dead. And what’s with Njish acting as the mother of Jesus when she is Black and the mother of Jesus was white?”

  “That’s only in the books and films where they show Jesus and everyone as white, but it’s not true.”

  “So, now Jesus wasn’t white?”

  “He could have been any color.”

  “You mean, like black?” Mose sniggers.

  “Maybe even brown, like an Asian.”

  “He could have been an Arab,” Dado says.

  “But Arabs are Muslims. You want to say Jesus was a Muslim?”

  “No one was talking to you,” Dado glowers at Odush.

  “And how are you going to act as Otero or the Chinese guy in pajamas when you are Black?” Odush asks Mose.

  “They’ll dress him up in pajamas and give him one of those cook or watchman roles,” Dado says and laughs.