by Meja Mwangi
“But you are still looking, right?” she said.
“Still looking,” he told her.
It was a lie, and she guessed it, but she understood. Shanty Town was full of men who would work given a chance. Her father and her three brothers were such men. When they were not in prison, for doing something desperate, they were out looking for work.
“One day,” she said to him. “One day.”
“One day.”
One Day was their mantra; Shanty Town’s mantra. One day I will do something other than what I am doing now. One day I will have something that I do not have. One day I will be the somebody that I am not today.
Sometimes the gods smiled, and some wish came true. Delilah had a job.
They walked down the alley together, talking and laughing about the day’s trials, the difficulties of dealing with life. Maina was the only man in Shanty Town who dared hold her hand and walk with her. Her brothers were members of a violent gang that preyed on Shanty Town residents rather than go out in the city and deal with the police, and the competition.
Maina had sneaked her back to Razor’s house once, when Sara was away visiting her sick mother, and the gang out on patrol. He and Delila had sat on Sarah’s bed and talked about hopes and dreams.
His hope was to get a job, any job and make enough money. His dream was to start a plastic recycling business, buy a house and a car and be someone. Her dream was to get out of Shanty Town, have a house of her own, and a man of her own, but the man had to be a loving man, and have a decent job too.
Delila had gone to one of the best schools in the city, and read books he never heard off, and set her sight on the stars he could not see. It amazed him the things she knew and thought, and he could not see how she had had no job for such a long time. With her looks and her brains, she should have been in the suburbs, already with a rich husband and a car and all the things she dreamed of. But, alas, she was of Shanty Town, and seemed destined to live and die in Shanty Town.
She would not marry a Shanty Town gangster, no matter how much money he had. She did not consider Maina a real gangster, since he had been to school, and he tried to get a real job, and he was not like the others. Still he was in a gang and therefore a gangster.
They stopped halfway to the bottom of the road. She lived somewhere to the left of the road, in an area controlled by her brothers’ gang and he dared not set foot there. Razor’s gang had a historical reputation, but none of them dared venture alone in areas controlled by new gangs. The new gangs were younger, educated and carried guns.
“I will stop being a gangster,” Maina promised. “I have a plan.”
And she had to hurry home before her brothers came looking for her and find her talking to him. She laughed and walked away. Watching her walk away from him, Maina swore to leave Shanty Town and get a job. It was the only way he could hope to have a chance with her. He walked on home to Razor’s house to tell them his plan. He hoped the gang would be delighted by his plan, and the news that they would soon eat again.
The gang was sober, and hungry and desperate, as ever. When food and chang’aa were absent from the house, so were fun and laughter, song and dance, rowdy brawls and any sign of life. The only visible vital signs were the eyes popping open when Maina walked in, then clanging shut again when they saw he had not brought any food. There was the slight movement of bottoms seeking better, more comfortable positions.
“Anything?” Razor asked, the moment Maina walked in.
“Lots,” Maina said, standing over Nyoka and waiting for him to vacate the crate so he could sit down. Nyoka hesitated.
“Snake!” Maina said to him.
Nyoka moved to the floor. Maina flopped on the crate. Since his first big score, Maina’s standing in the gang was just below that of Razor and Sara. Razor was alone on the bed. Sara was out extorting money from bhangi and chang’aa dealers to buy food for the gang. Razor was feared for slashing uncooperative sellers with his knife, but Sara, with her mixture of threats and feminine charm, was better at coaxing money and goods from the most aggressive of the dealers.
Other than the sitting arrangement, there were more changes in the house. Now there was a stove, some pots and pans, plates, and mugs, and all of it stuff that had unnecessary before Maina and his big score. The jacket from that job was now Razor’s royal cape. He wore it with pride, and he was right in bragging that there was no other like it in the whole of Shanty Town.
Since Maina’s memorable job, Sara had unexplainably started cooking, concocting meals, some of it edible, and being the housemother, and overly friendly to Maina, when Razor was not around. She had shopped for the kitchen things herself, but it was doubtful any of it would be staying long. With the gang’s resources deteriorating by the day, the crockery was becoming irrelevant by the day. The stove was already a nuisance. It too up space and consumed wooden crates, formerly used only for sitting on, and was demanding more firewood. One of the hut’s support beams had disappeared in its hungry belly. Soon someone would have to go for firewood and no one had energy to spare.
“What did you get?” Razor asked Maina when he returned from his day’s patrol.
“Nothing today,” he said.
Those who had opened their eyes hoping to catch a ray of hope closed them again. A stomach rumbled.
“Tomorrow?” Razor asked.
“Not even the day after,” Maina told him.
It would take a few days and lot of patience. It would also need cash.
“Cash?” Razor turned to face the paper wall. “What for?”
“I will need things,” Mains said to his back. “A file, some paper and a pen.”
“A pen?” Razor turned to face him.
“A pen,” Maina confirmed.
“What for?”
“To write with,” said Maina. “This time it will be different. This time I will use paper and pen like they taught me at school.”
“Forgery?” asked Professor.
“Nothing so primitive,” Maina said.
Something totally new, something that would pay a hundred times or more what it cost.
“It had better be,” said Razor. “We have no time to waste on foolishness.”
“I will need a work coat,” Maina said.
Razor lay back and closed his eyes like the rest.
“It is like this,” Maina started.
He expected the gang to sit up and listen. Not even Razor had the energy for it.
Chapter Eight
Maina woke up very early on the morning of the next big action, washed, combed his hair, and did his best to make himself look respectable. Sara had given him the money he needed the night before, with a warning not to squander it on foolish plans.
“It is an investment,” she explained. “You understand what that is?”
“You want it back,” he said.
“All of it,” she said. “With interest.”
She had a little book in which she recorded all the gang’s income and expenses. She recorded everyone’s input, commented on how much food they ate, and threatened with starvation anyone who did not get off his seat and start bringing in money.
“No free food,” she said to the gang, as they watched her dish out extra meat to Maina.
Razor did not like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. She was looking after the interests of his outfit and Maina was the only man in the house who worked with his hands as well as with his head.
“She is good,” Professor said quietly, “But for the fact that there is no business here to talk of, she runs this outfit like a real enterprise.”
It was still dark outside and only Sara was awake when Maina left Shanty Town that morning. He had to jump in the ditch to hide when he saw approaching cars in case the occupants turned out to be policemen.
During his research patrols in the past weeks he had confirmed that not all the houses on Shady Avenue had guard dogs. Now he waited at the end of the avenue until the milkman came
along pulling on his cart loaded with milk crates. As soon as he passed, Maina started after him, staying out of sight, and watching every move he made. The milkman stopped at every gate, to deliver a carton or two of milk and then moved on. Maina noted every move the man made and how long the household took to fetch the milk from the gate. He followed the milkman to the end of avenue and on to the next road. When they got to the third road, Maina turned back. He had seen enough. He took an early morning bus to town and walked the rest of the way to Shanty Town.
He heard the noise and the commotion from a long way, a rumbling sound punctuated by cracks and booms. A pall of black smoke hung in the skies in the direction of Shanty Town. Maina heard the distant wails of ambulances and fire engines, and he started running.
The residents of Shanty Town were gathered at the top of the hill watching their home burn. They were confused and frightened, but no one cried, not even the children, as they watched their lives go up in smoke. The valley was a lake of fire so fierce that the firemen were afraid to dive in and rescue those who could not get out of it on their own.
The destruction was fast and ferocious. The flames consumed everything that stood in their path, illuminating the frightened and confused faces of women, half naked children and the sweat-drenched men in their underwear who gallantly tried to save their possessions. Firemen fought back to save houses on the edge that were untouched by the flames. It was a losing battle. Fuelled by the enormous amount of paper and plastic, and other flammable trash that had been used to construct the houses, the fire rampaged through the pit, leaping from house to house, and consumed all in its path.
A man ran out of the flames with his clothes on fire, and dashed towards the watching crowd with the things he had salvaged from his burning house. The crowd ran from him. A fireman tackled him to the ground and smothered the flames with a blanket. Then he carried the unconscious man to an ambulance waiting at the top of the hill.
Shortly after, the fire engines ran out of water. The firemen went for more water leaving the fire still raging on. The crowd heard the screams of a child and three men ran towards the source, but the roof collapsed with a burst of sparks and smoke, and the cries stopped.
By mid-morning, the flames were out. The ruins smouldered for the rest of the day. The cloud of smoke drifted away across the city, and soot rained down in fine particles that settled on people’s heads and on their bodies, entered their eyes, mouths, and nostrils, and weighed heavily on their hearts. It was not until late afternoon that someone was able to venture down to see what he could salvage.
Maina found his gang on the other side of Shanty Town, between the cemetery and the crematorium, leaning on the perimeter wall of the crematorium staring with vacant eyes at the destruction in below. They looked up when he joined them, then went back to staring at the charred remains of their Shanty Town.
“What happened?” he asked them.
They gestured at the ruins, but could not find the words.
“We were asleep,” Razor said.
“We heard a loud noise,” Nyoka said.
“We went outside and saw a big fire,” said Kifagio.
“Then we all ran,” Professor said. “We do not know what happened.”
Maina thought to ask how they had ended up on this side of the valley. They did not know, they said. They saw a big fire, they ran and they ended up on this side of the valley. It was enough that they were all alive.
Maina sat on the grass next to Sara. She seemed to notice him for the first time.
“Do not cry,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Everything will be all right. No one should cry.”
Maina could not cry if he wanted to. It was not something that men in his family did. Below them, firemen were sifting through the ashes looking for human remains. At the edges of the town, where the fire had spared more structures, rebuilding had already begun. Then policemen and city askari arrive in lorries and chased away spectators. After that they descended in the valley and drove everyone out with clubs and gun butts. Those who resisted were arrested and tossed on lorries and driven away to jail. The gang was mystified and alarmed.
“Why?” Jitu asked himself.
“Did you think the fire was an accident?” Professor asked him.
That was the first thing that came to the mind. But why would anyone want to cause so much destruction?
“Because of money,” said Professor.
The valley was prime property, now vacant and untitled. It made no economic sense to leave such land in the hands of vagrants and destitute, to be occupied by criminal mobs that had no income, or work ethics, and did not pay taxes.
“Why?” asked Kifagio.
“Are you deaf?” Professor said to him. “Chokora, you went to school, explain it to him. Tell him, Chokora.”
Maina shrugged, for he too did not understand it any more than they did, and went back to staring at the unfolding chaos in the valley below.
“This is now vacant, prime property and ripe for development,” Professor said. “The time has come for the squatters to be encouraged to move on.”
“Burning and beating?”
“It is called constructive eviction.”
Down below they were pelting policemen with sticks and stones. Policemen responded with batons and clubs. More policemen arrived, with dogs and tear gas, and escalated the war. There were gunshots, and tear gas canisters started exploded all over. A chaotic fight raged through the ruins, the smoke, and the ashes. The gang watched it flow one way, then saw it go the other way, as the two sides fought to force each other out of the valley. It seemed there would be no winners in the end.
“What now?” Maina asked Sara.
“I am thinking,” Razor said.
He sat with his head in his hands looking thoroughly devastated. Like other residents who had lived all their lives in Shanty Town, he had never imagined this sort of eventuality, the possibility of a life without Shanty Town. This was the end; he might as well be dead.
A cloud of tear gas drifted across the valley toward where they were. Sara rose abruptly, looked at their sad faces, and shook her head disappointed at them. She touched Maina on the shoulder.
“Let us go,” she said.
“Where?” he asked startled.
“I will show you,” she said.
She did not look at anyone else and, for a frightening moment, Maina thought the invitation was just for him. Then Razor stirred, and the others rose with him, and the gang was ready to be led.
“You heard the woman,” Razor said. “Let us go.”
Maina stepped aside. Razor followed Sara, who was already walking briskly away, and the rest followed.
“When do you start?” Razor asked Maina.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said.
Then they were silent. They followed Sara along a path hugging the hill, away from the smouldering valley, and then down to the river’s edge, and kept walking. No one asked where they were going, or what they would do when they got wherever Sara was taking them. After trekking for an hour, Nyoka complained of hunger. Jitu did not see too well in bright light and asked when they would get where they were going. Kifagio wondered whether anyone knew where they were going.
“I know a place,” she said.
Somewhere on the other side of the city, away from the city authorities and their askari, was a place where they could start over. They would rebuild their house and their lives. Shanty Town would be reborn. And just as they had done before, the other residents of the destroyed valley follow. There had nowhere else to go. Like frightened creatures, and hounded by squalor, destitution and a city government that did not care, or recognize them as people, they would follow Sara and her gang to their new Shanty Town to continue their disrupted lives.
Chapter Nine
Cedar Avenue had not had milk delivered to the houses for a long time. Delivery trucks stopped serving the area after the last rains when the roads turned to rivers and potholes becam
e impassable. The area residents were excited when an agent of Riverside Dairies came around and offered to resume milk delivery. Riverside Dairies would deliver milk to their doorsteps at no extra charge. All the customers had to do was pay Riverside Dairies a weekly deposit and the balance at the end of each week.
For two days, Maina went up and down Cedar Avenue in white overalls, bearing the logo of Riverside Dairies that Nyoka had stolen from a milk delivery truck. He carried a file in one hand, three different coloured pens in his breast pocket and a pencil behind his ear. His hair was combed and parted in the middle like a politician, and his shoes had been mended and polished by Nyoka.
Each day he returned to new Shanty Town with a tidy sum of money. The gang was all in, looking hungry and lifeless, when he entered the hut. He showed them the money he had made that day and they hugged him and told him how good he was. Nyoka promised to shine his shoes every day from that day on, and Jitu offered to carry his file, and Kifagio asked if there was anything he could do for him. Razor merely patted his back, but Sara rose from the bed holding out her hand. She counted the money while Maina waited.
“Is this everything?” she asked sternly. “You did not give any of it to your girlfriend?”
He shook his head. She stashed some of the money inside her blouse. Then hugged and kissed him, right in front of Razor and said Maina was the sort of men she wanted in her gang. Her gang! Maina’s mind jolted in panic. No one else seemed to notice, or care that she had just usurped Razor’s role as leader.
“Jitu,” she said, “take this money and go buy meat. All of it for meat, and meat only, you hear? Kifagio, go buy charcoal. And, I mean, just charcoal. Nyoka, get off Chokora’s seat.”
“Sit down,” she said to Maina. “Today I’ll show you I am a woman. I will make you pilau.”
Maina hesitated, and glanced in Razor’s direction. She shoved him in the seat vacated by Nyoka. She fetched a bottle of chang’aa from under her pillow and poured him a generous measure. Nyoka offered him a joint. They smoked and sipped chang’aa, while Sara prepared a special meal in honour of Maina’s ingenuity. She let everyone know, and acknowledge that the only reason she was feeding them was because of Maina. Otherwise she would have let them starve to death.
