Kid Moses

by Mark R. Thornton

  Moses made his way past the big shops and away from the market. The cars were loud and busy and he walked through the fumes and heat and yelling people.

  When Prosper grabbed him, he tried to run, but it was too late. Prosper pulled him into an alleyway and pushed him against a wall. He looked around to see if anyone was near.

  “I know that old man gives you money, little rat,” he said, slapping Moses in the face.

  “I don’t have any today.”

  Prosper slapped him again and hit him in the stomach. He pushed him harder against the wall and punched Moses on the cheek, on the bone. Moses squirmed, trying to get free, but Prosper hit him three more times in the face, hard blows to his eye and lip.

  “If I ask for money, you give money,” he said, pushing Moses to the ground.

  Prosper left, and Moses stayed on the floor of the alley. He could see rubbish around him and water coming out of one of the buildings. Both human and dog shit lay about. Some was on his arm. Plastic bags, shreds of soggy cardboard, papaya skins and fishbones were scattered around him. Moses lifted himself to sit against the wall. His back and side and bottom were wet from the garbage and shit and water, and he sat there in it, holding his face in his hands.

  He could see the big road from where he was slumped in the dark alleyway. Out there it was sunlight and cars and people and dust and fumes. It was hot out there, but he was wet and dirty and his cheek throbbed with pain. Moses rested the back of his head against the wall, one hand over his sore cheek, the other on the wet ground.

  He did not make it to Mama Tesha’s that day. He did not want to be around anyone. He just wanted to go back to the ship hull. And he did not want to run into Prosper again.

  The next morning he didn’t go to the orange vendor, and he stayed away from the market. Only after a few days did he go back. The old man didn’t ask him why he had not showed up the days before. Instead, he touched the boy’s cheek and said little, and Moses went about his work. And Prosper hung around.

  Prosper found him again that day and Moses gave him his money. The next few days were fine, but then he got beaten again. Moses tried running once, and got away. The next time he tried, he got another beating and his money taken.

  Prosper didn’t have his assistants around him when he mugged Moses or beat him. He was always alone. He always found Moses somewhere away from the market, away from his friends, Hussein, the orange vendor, from anyone who could see him. It was as if he didn’t want to be seen doing something so low.

  And the next day, it happened.

  “Well, good morning, Moses,” the old man greeted him. “I got some tea. But first help those drivers with my sacks, and get the stall ready.”

  Moses unloaded some sacks. Mainly the small ones, as some were bigger than he was. In fact the whole job was fit for a person twice Moses’s size, and there wasn’t very much he could do except run errands for the old man, move smaller sacks around and arrange the oranges and other fruit neatly on the stall.

  Moses did not see Prosper until late that day when the old man was preparing to go home. Moses was waiting for him to finish and pay him some change, and then he would help him hobble his way to a matatu to go home.

  But then Prosper showed up.

  “Old man, why are you helping this shenzi rat?”

  The old man rose with difficulty and looked at Prosper. He actually appeared tall when he stood, but was unsteady. He leaned on his cane and squinted his eyes with an anger that Moses had not before seen. But before the old man could speak, Prosper slammed both hands against the old man’s chest, sending him backwards onto the crates, the fruits spilling and rolling with him. Prosper remained still, somewhere between rage and disbelief at himself. His jaw was clenched as he stood looking down at the old man, who lay where he had fallen, and did not move.

  When Moses hit Prosper in the back of the head with the shovel, Prosper’s knees fell in like the old man’s had. Blood came from his head. The market fell silent. Hussein ran up, looked down at Prosper, and then told Moses that he should drop that shovel and run and never come back.

  And that’s what Moses did.

  Chapter 3

  Is the old man dead? Is Prosper dead? Did I kill him? Now I can’t ever go back. Did his friends see? They’ll get me, and Prosper will get me too, if he isn’t dead. Or I’ll go to prison and they’ll keep me there in those bad places where they got you all shut up in small rooms and you get beaten. Some go to that other place for kids, but Mika told me that’s no better. All those kids and the bigger ones beat on you, just like on the streets. Except you can’t run anywhere.

  I can’t even go to the harbour. Prosper knows I stay around there, already got me there once. Need to get to another part of town. Somewhere far. Some place where I won’t get found.

  I don’t even know what happened after I left. Hussein just said run. Did the police come? Maybe they’re now looking all over for me. I need to get on a matatu or something. Get far from here. There’s one.

  A matatu driver pulled over.

  “Where you going, kid?”

  “I don’t have money, but I need a lift. Please.” Moses slapped the door, but the driver sped off.

  Another matatu pulled up and Moses asked again. The driver eyed him with caution.

  “Okay. Get in. Sit back there.”

  Moses sat in the back while the matatu drove further and further away from the market area. He got off at the stadium and walked across the empty ground in front of it. He crawled behind some broken boards and wire where he could be out of sight. He stayed there for a little while, but it did not feel right, did not feel safe. So he left.

  He began to walk to Mama Tesha’s house, the one place he knew where nobody could find him. It was getting dark as he walked up to her house. The rooms inside were dark, and the small dirt street in front of it was empty. Quiet.

  Moses knocked on the door softly for a long time. He was nervous, but had been there before, many times, and the kids and the husband knew him, and were used to seeing him come around.

  But today, nobody. Moses banged on the door, louder and now more urgently. He turned to look at the street, and then banged again and peered through a window. When he realised there was no chance, no one at home, he sat for a moment on the ground in front of the door. He looked at the sky getting darker in this strange part of town, and thought of Mama and her family, feeling like they had somehow abandoned him.

  Moses spent another night walking the streets. It reminded him of the first night he had left Mama Tesha’s house. It was dangerous to walk the streets at night, and he knew it. He knew he should just get into some safe place and stay put. But every time he crawled inside somewhere, he felt trapped. Out here on the street, he thought, at least he could run.

  Moses walked down the big empty street, black and dark like the sky. He saw the big empty shops that looked so different during the day. He watched a couple of rats fighting and cats digging in rubbish containers, and remembered Prosper beating him for the first time in the alley. He walked on and down towards Mkwepu Street where the discos were, but thought again about all the people there, and decided to stay clear.

  It was late and the skinny prostitutes were out. Always waiting and acting like the day was just beginning. He walked over and stood near the women. He feared crowds, but he also feared the emptiness of the streets, and he felt better standing near these women, whom he knew would not harm him.

  He watched them talk, lean against the wall, smoke. He saw them stand up straight and call out to men and passing cars, and then slouch down when the cars kept driving. They sat on crates and old stools, just like anyone else. They even acted like little girls sometimes, he thought, laughing and chatting and listening to the one tall woman who talked the most.

  A car stopped. One of the women got in, and it drove off. Another just got taken over to a field near the road, and she came back after a few minutes. The rest stood or sat and watched the traffic and the
few people still walking around.

  Later, when business got slow, they called him over and talked to him, and gave him a cigarette. The tall one gave him a free touch. She put his little grubby hand up her shirt, and the others laughed as his hand just sat there on her big warm soft tit. But one woman did not laugh. Moses was embarrassed and skulked off to the side to sit on a crate. The woman who did not laugh came and sat down next to him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Moses.”

  “Hi. I’m Grace.”

  They sat for a while, watching the road. A car passed, slowed, the driver’s head turning to look at the women, and then it drove on.

  “What are you doing here, boy?” Grace glanced over at the other women as she spoke. “Don’t you have anywhere you can go? Not even some place?”

  “Not today.”

  She did not say anything else, but sitting next to her felt comforting. She seemed different from the other women. She wore the same clothes as the others, but she did not talk like the others, or chase after cars, or walk in that funny prostitute way like the others. He had known many changudoa in his short life, mainly the ones down by the harbour, but she was different. She did not laugh a lot, but when she did, she did not seem like a prostitute as he knew them to be, but more like the women selling things at the market.

  As it got very late, the women went off to their various homes to sleep away the few remaining hours of the night. Grace also rose to leave.

  “Bye, Grace.”

  “Bye, Moses.”

  She started off down the road, but stopped after a few tired steps and turned back to Moses.

  “Are you going to sit here all night?”

  Moses did not answer. He actually didn’t know where he was going or what he would do once everyone had left.

  “Look, if you stay here, one of the gangs will come and beat you kabisa.” Moses kept looking at her as if to say, “Well, I got no choice.” Grace hesitated.

  “Mimi kichaa kweli,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “Come with me. I’m going home.”

  They started down the street together. Moses was astonished that this woman would actually take him into her house. He knew that if he were a prostitute, he would not invite some dirty streetkid into his house.

  The two made an unlikely pair as they walked along, the prostitute in high heels and a black skirt cut high on her thigh, and Moses in his usual stained, torn shirt and stolen sandals.

  They arrived at her room. It was a shack, but it had sturdy walls and a door that locked, and it felt like a safe place to be. She had a bed, a hotplate, some clothes hanging from nails on the door, a little table, and a kerosene lantern that she lit once they were inside. Moses looked at her clothes and her fancy work shoes. Next to them were old sandals just like his.

  She told him to turn around as she took off her working clothes, put on an old shirt, and wrapped herself in a sarong.

  “That woman gave you one free touch tonight, but you are not looking at me. You’re still just a kid.”

  She smiled, but looked tired. She put a blanket on the floor and told Moses to lie down and sleep there. She told him he had better not take anything, that the door was locked and that she had the key, and that there would be no place for him to run anyways.

  She went outside to bathe and Moses stayed inside on her floor in the dim light. He lay down with his blanket, finally realising how tired he was. He waited until Grace returned to the room. He watched her come inside, moving slowly. He could see the outline of her breasts as they sagged in the thin shirt she wore for bed.

  She lifted the glass of the lantern, shortened the wick, blew out the flame and lay down on her bed. Moses fell asleep.

  Moses woke up thinking about Grace’s tits. He relived, moment by unsure moment, how the other prostitute had taken his hand up into her shirt, and the way she and the others laughed. How warm and mysterious she had felt. He wondered what Grace’s tits would feel like.

  He looked over at her sleeping on the bed. Her lips were softly closed. Her eyes looked peaceful. She held the bedsheet clenched up to her chin with one hand, the other tucked under her neck. Some light was coming through the small window and across part of her bed.

  Moses thought of other people waking up, Prosper too, wherever he stayed. Moses imagined him in a room with other men around him, making a plan to find him. In his head, he created their discussions about the various and many ways to beat him, what they would do first, and where they would take him afterwards.

  He felt edgy, but knew that it was still early, and that when Grace woke up, she would make tea, and he would probably get some. So he watched her and looked around her room and waited for her to wake up. Tacked on the wall was a photo of some people, her family maybe, standing in a row looking nervous, as if having a photo taken was a special experience. Behind them were trees and a field. It looked like nothing he had seen around Dar es Salaam. More like the country he had seen when he and Kioso had jumped off the lorry. There was also a necklace of plastic beads hanging from a nail in the wall, a cross on the wall as well, and some old magazines on the floor by the bed.

  When she woke up, she boiled tea, and Moses had three cups. Her hair was a wiry spasm, upright, but at odd angles, so she pulled it back and under a scarf. She sat on the bed with her back against the wall. Her sarong was wrapped and tucked nicely around her body, and her shirt was loose and low. Moses looked at her tits and thought again of the night before when he had touched the other woman, and how these seemed different and low. When Grace leaned forward to pour more tea, he could see them hanging like large, smooth aubergines.

  Later, Moses went to check Mama Tesha’s house, and again there was nobody home. He waited around in that part of town, checked again, and then walked back to Grace’s house. She was still there, reading her magazines in her sarong, and Moses stayed with her until the late afternoon, when they ventured out together. He was surprised that she tolerated him around, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  She took him to a busy shack selling tripe soup and rice, and they ate sitting across from one another. She watched him as he ate, lost in thought, as if he resembled someone she knew, a younger brother perhaps. Or as if he made her think of a place, a person, or a time in her life when things were different.

  After they had eaten, they returned to her house and spent more time relaxing. Moses looked at her magazines, at the pictures of musicians and famous men and women all dressed up and looking important. Some of her friends came by and stayed for a few hours, chatting and drinking tea. After it got dark, Grace bathed outside again and began her preparations for the evening.

  Moses joined her and the other prostitutes at the same corner, and spent another night with Grace. The next day and night were the same, and the following morning, Moses finally found Mama Tesha.

  “Well, look who is coming by now. You still owe me a pair of sandals, you know?”

  “Hi, Mama.”

  Moses stood looking at her, then at the street, then back at her, as if waiting for something.

  “I haven’t heard anything about your friend, my child. I’m sorry. You know, it’s been a long time. I have also been away.”

  Moses nodded and still waited.

  “I have to go, Moses. I have to get to my shop now. Come, walk with me there.”

  She shut the door to her house, and the two started out along the street. Moses didn’t talk much, and she told him about her trip with her family down the coast for the funeral of her husband’s mother, and how hot it was, and how all they ever ate down there was fish.

  “Here. Come in. You’ve never seen my shop before, have you? And don’t touch my sandals, child.”

  Her shop was not as small as it appeared from the outside. It extended deep inside, and was stocked with food, clothes, footballs, nails, glue, all sorts of things. There was a storage room at the back and an enclosed courtyard with a toilet. Moses sat with her on stools behind the counter. She
kept no lights on, and it was cool inside. Another boy was there, older than Moses, and he looked after most of the customers who came in. But it was still early, so Mama made tea, and the three of them drank and ate slices of bread with margarine.

  The morning got late, and while the older boy was busy with a customer, Moses told Mama about the old man with the clubfeet and Prosper and the fight and Grace. Mama listened and cocked her eyebrow the way she always did when she found something interesting, out of place or wrong.

  He told her he wanted to know what happened, but that he could never go back, even though he liked working for the old man. He asked her if he could work for her, just like he worked for the old man.

  “I never stole anything from him and I was always there and helping him.”

  Mama looked down at Moses, wondering how best to say “no.” She thought of excuses, that she just could not have a streetkid hanging around her shop. Simple as that. She looked down at him with her eyebrows together, crossed her arms and looked away, and then told him to go fetch something while she thought some more.

  Moses jumped off his stool and went into the yard, and Mama called over the older boy and asked him what he thought. He also said “no” at first, then “no way, never,” but then they discussed it. Moses came back.

  “Listen here, child. I will let you help, but if you cause any maneno, then I will throw you out.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  “I’m saying, here’s how it works. You help me out and I’ll give you change and food to eat. You steal from me, and you’ll get a real beating. And I’ll bring the police and that other boy from the market that you’re so scared of. Hear that?”

  Moses nodded.

  “Fine, then. But first you work to pay for your sandals. After that, you can get change.”

  The other boy in the shop was called Ali. He reminded Moses of Hussein from the market, but he wasn’t as friendly. He was serious and as he did his work, he kept a watchful eye on Moses. Like Hussein, he liked his music, and played the old radio in the shop when Mama wasn’t around. As soon as she would leave on an errand or to go home, Ali would turn up the music and sometimes smoke a cigarette.