Encounter With Matatu Hijackers (2)

By CLIFFORD OLUOCH

There was minimal talk as the four men acknowledged each others presence. The same strategic positions were taken by them and off we went. No one spoke. We all had this premonition that something different was going to take place. We hoped for the best as we snaked out of Eastleigh and when we approached a police check spot along Thika Road just before Muthaiga Police Station, our hopes again rose to the highest.

My bums tightened as I said a short prayer invoking on all the prophets to come to our aid. Something. Anything. Nothing happened. My sins must have outnumbered my good deeds by 10: 1. The only commandment I remembered at this point was the one of loving your neighbour like yourself. I had done that diligently, so where was the problem?

The vehicle slowed down and then stopped some few metres past the check point. “Everyone look in front!” Njoro hissed, knowing very well it was a matter of life and death. Or was it? Two armed policemen dressed in military fatigues with AK47 guns slung on their shoulders, lazily moved towards the vehicle but the driver, being seasoned in these missions, alighted and met them half way.

A handshake between the driver and the policeman saw the vehicle being waved away. No wonder these police checks had been renamed ATMs. The despair in the vehicle was palpable. None of my three daughters would marry a policeman, I swore silently.

The harrowing drive took us past Thika Road, onto the perennially dark Kiambu Road that in more than forty years of Kenya’s independence, had never seen any street lights.

Finally we drove into the dreaded Karura forest, a heavily forested place. It was off Kiambu Road, and the driver took a dusty turning. He drove for more than 5 minutes into the forest. He at last stopped the vehicle on a cleared area. Some signs of activity were evident from the scattered cigarette wrappers. I was sure the gang had been here before, probably a daily rendezvous for such activities.

“Alight!” The Pilot, the driver, shouted as he got out of the vehicle. We alighted and all lined up beside the matatu. Four of them armed against 10 of us. Of the ten, 6 were men and four were women, my wife included. We huddled next to each other, our fear and discomfort being our unifying factor. We were distraught. The night wind blew eerily across the tall and imposing trees making the silence rather loud. The darkness was broken by the vehicle’s parking light.

“Strip!” shouted Shabby, the new commander. He was wearing dirty black jeans, a stained brown shirt, a faded black leather jacket and worn out sneakers that had seen better days. Dirt is good.

No one took the initiative to strip, so he removed his gun and fired in the air. In less than 30 seconds, we were all naked. All? One middle-aged woman refused to remove her inner clothing. Njoro moved from heap to heap, collecting our clothes and shoes. When he reached the lady in briefs, he shook his head and moved on. He seemed amused by our array of clothes.

“Smartly dressed Nairobians with withered inner clothing,” he mused as he paraded a thong that looked more like a fishing net than a piece of clothing. It wasn’t mine and I am sure his underwear was not any better. That is if he had any. Njoro put all the clothes in the matatu. We shivered in the cold, awaiting the next set of instructions.

“Pick a partner,” shouted Shabby again. My wife’s hand quickly slid into mine, the trembling in them summarising the mood in the evening. After some hesitation from most, there were four left without partners: three men and one woman, the same one who had refused to remove her inner clothing.

“The Lord will not allow me to sin,” screeched the woman, striking at any man who came her way. “I am prepared to die,” her voice rose as she went on her knees, her hands spread out to the heavens and her eyes rolling out like someone possessed. “Lord of Jacob, Isaac and Job, protect me from the evils of mankind. Almighty and ever living God, send your thunder from the sky and strike all the sinners in this world. Lord, have mercy on your servants.……”

The rest of us tensed as Shabby casually moved towards her and without uttering a word, raised the gun and fired into her chest. The reverberating noise of the gunshot, sputtering blood and slumping body struck terror into us. Instinctively, the other three women screamed and as Shabby turned to them, they quickly kept quiet. This time the shock hit me and I almost threw up. I hate dead bodies. She fell on her side, her twitching coming to an end in a dramatic manner with her hands spread unevenly on the ground. Her haunting eyes and gaping mouth fixed on me. I tried looking away but somehow always ended back there.
The three men who had no partners looked lost. “Get a partner,” Shabby casually ordered them. Two of the men quickly joined the other three groups, thus making it a three some.

“No, that is not what I mean,” the sarcastic Shabby whispered dangerously. “Man to man,” he said, his gun not leaving his sight. “Move it!”

The two men slowly moved away from their acquired group, the gravity of the problem hitting them head on. They would remain like that: three of them!

Shaggy proceeded to inspect the guard of honour mounted by the nine scared souls that we were. At each point, he would make derogatory comments on people’s anatomy.

“Are these slippers or breasts?” he asked one of the surviving women. She kept quiet but one hard ondole kick on her sheen made her answer.

“Slippers.”

“What size?”

“14!”

Satisfied, the man moved on.

“How many months pregnant are you?” he asked the next person, a man whose belly was protruding. He was the legit driver. I almost laughed.

“Four months,” replied the driver without batting an eyelid.

“Who is the father?”

He hesitated before replying, “I cannot remember, I was too drunk.” That seemed to satisfy the interrogator.
“Bob Marley and the Wailers,” he remarked to the next man, the conductor, who had long and knotted pubic and armpit hair. That got me and this time I suppressed a laugh.

“Jah?” he invoked.

“Rastafari!” replied the dreadlocked conductor with a smile on his face.

“Shake dem dreadlocks Rastaman,” he was commanded in a fake Jamaican accent. The order was met with the wiggling of his hips which seemed to gratify our Shaggy.

Next was my turn and he smiled cruelly. “Wow! I have never seen a man with 3 balls,” he said in slow motion as he flicked my shrunk member with the nozzle of the gun. The coldness of the gun was no match to the cold whipping my backside. I looked at him and for the first time noticed the small size of his guava shaped head. I wondered what answer he was expecting from me. (….and I have never seen a man who is a BALL!) . He completed his guard with more comment that drew laughter from his gang members. The cold wind mercilessly whipped my back.

“Okay,” implored Shabby. “Here are the rules. You only fuck when I say so and the style that I choose so. Anything short of that will be met with…” He shot into the dead woman’s body and we all got the message loudly and clearly. I flinched. Those haunting eyes again. Remove the damn body!

Before the show could continue, Njoro lit four rolls of marijuana. He smoked one roll, passed two to his colleagues and one he passed on to me. “Puff and pass it on. You will need it,” he croaked. Even as a teenager, with marijuana readily available in the estates, I never became a disciple of the Holy Weed. The only time I had puffed marijuana was as a high school student on a visit to the village. This had led to disastrous events of me fucking one of my grandmother’s chicken to death. My wife has never known why I don’t eat chicken.

I took a puff, inhaled and then passed it on to my wife who pulled a Bill Clinton: smoke but do not inhale. She coughed and then passed it on to the dreadlocked man. He took a long puff and had to be reminded by Njoro that there were others waiting for the puff. He reluctantly passed it on and it went up to the end, the area completely filled with smoke. Njoro was right, I felt light headed and warm, though sounds of clucking chicken intermingled with human laughter roared in my head. I smiled. The cold was gone.

“Ngui!” shouted Shabby and we all stood there waiting for instructions. It was some moment before we realised that he meant doggie style. Another gun shot and we all took our positions. My wife knelt in front of me and I had problems rising to the occasion. Lovemaking, to me, is a private affair. Any prying eyes kill the magic and mystery of it.

Another humiliating guard of honour before Shabby shouted. “Fuck!” This time we knew it was an order and not an insult. I struggled to find the point of entry.

“Stop!” Shabby shouted and we all stopped and moved back. What followed was one of the most humiliating experiences ever in my life. We were ordered to change partners by simply moving to the next person in the queue until all the people, irrespective of age or gender, had had a turn. I don’t know what was more humiliating: screwing a man, seeing another man mount your wife or being watched by your wife as you pump into another man or woman.

I lost count of the number of times I had to restrain myself from attacking any man pretending to or mounting my wife. The presence of the dead body was a continuous reminder of what awaited us if we chose to disobey the gang. I chose to play hard ball, after all I had three. The marijuana was also taking its toll on me. I envied the dead woman. She looked so peaceful and would not have to live with all this. She was dead on the outside. We were dead on the inside. I wonder which is worse.

After what seemed like a whole night of the orgy, the four men seemed to have had their share of entertainment. The Pilot went to the vehicle and threw our clothes out. The other men joined him in the vehicle and they started the vehicle leaving us behind. “Same time, same place and same styles,” invoked Shaggy much to the amusement of his friends. They hurriedly drove off.

We quickly went for our clothes and within a minute we were all dressed, savouring the warmth of our clothes. My wife clung on to me, the tears refusing to stop. Someone had to take charge. Not me. The marijuana had all but evaporated in my head.

“Let us follow them,” said one of the short men whom I had pretended to screw during the ordeal. I could not bring my eyes to look at him.

“Sure!” I croaked and we started the slow walk to nowhere.

“What about her?” one of the women asked, referring to the dead body. We all stopped and wondered what to do.

“Leave her there. We shall look for help once we get to safety,” the man in charge replied. It looked cruel but it was the only sensible thing to do.

We trudged on. The imposing trees did not allow the faint moonlight to penetrate through the foliage. We stumbled our way and after some half an hour of trial and error, we finally reached Kiambu Road.

“Muthaiga Police Station is nearer than Kiambu Police Station,” the same man said. We knew that no help would come as a group of nine walking in the middle of the night (or was it morning?) would attract more suspicion.

We walked all the way to Muthaiga Police Station without any hitch. As we walked, the talk veered away from the orgy and more on what we had lost. One man had his house rent (shs.15 000) in his wallet; another man complained of losing shs.5 000 that he had just been lent by his brother. The ladies had lost earrings, necklaces and a couple of rings. It was during this time that my wife whispered about a HIV test. I agreed with her but it had to wait.

We made our way to the reception desk of the police station. The imposing portrait of the country’s president and the police commissioner adorned the pealing yellow walls. Did the two gentlemen know what was happening to their subjects? The police force motto: Utimishi kwa wote (Service To All) was boldly displayed on the wall as well. It is a motto that, while I was in college, we derogatorily used to refer to girls of loose morals. It must be the same even now.

The police officer in charge seemed quite shocked to see such a big group so early in the morning. It was close to 4am by the clock on the wall.

We all recorded statements and the incident was written in the occurrence book. By the time we were through, it was close to 6am, a time for a change of shift of the policemen. The change of guard came with the raising of the flag. For the first time in a long time, the raising of the flag refused to spur any patriotic emotions in me.

“Please wait for the incoming team so that I can hand you over to someone who will follow up your case,” the polite officer informed us. He explained that there was only one patrol car and it was out in the field. He would radio the details to them.

At exactly 6.30am, a contingent of officers arrived for their duty. The change was swift and we were handed to one tall and amiable officer. He looked very familiar: the shape of his mouth, his voice and walking style. Where had I seen him? He could not stop looking at his watch, either because he was expecting someone or it was a new acquisition. I stole a look at the watch and it was too familiar.

“Nice watch,” I told him. “Where did you buy it?” I asked.

He moved closer to me to show off and I saw that it was indeed my 5 year old treasure. I noticed the thick brown leather strapping. Some things just never leave your mind.

“My younger brother, Njoro, gave it to me as a birthday present this morning,” he confidently told me. My shoulders slumped.

“Happy birthday officer!” I muttered.