COLUMN
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JACKSON BIKO
ART
MOVIN WERE
MAN
on the
TOWN
Those guys would
have shot us. I swear
they would have put
lead in us
Jackson Biko, is a lover of whisky and
people watching. He likes to walk the
shadows of the city at dusk, picking
conversations of a people spurred by
the night and by their drink.
I
know it’s time to say no because now my tongue feels
blue. And heavy. Words drag
out, tumbling and knocking
against each other. My eyes
are at half-mast. When I breathe
I feel the fumes of whisky bristle
the hairs in my nose. And did my
mate’s new girlfriend just hold my
gaze for a naughty beat or did I
imagine that? I raise my hand in
protest, like a Viet Cong cornered
in a corner of the plantations by
the Americans but the next glass
of whisky still lands before me, sitting pretty under a glowing white
serviette.
The foreign correspondent, the
one with Donald Trump’s hair, is
talking about South Sudan. About
the Janjaweed and some deep
well. About a boy with a skin that
is darker than ink. And camel.
Many camels. I snatch pockets of
these dismembered conversations.
There are gales of laughter at the
table behind where a blonde girl
is trying to balance a tequila shot
42.
on her forehead. 1AM is the hour
that the devil comes to play and
up here at Level 8 bar at the Best
Western Hotel is the devil’s den.
Level 8 is like a spaceship
project that astronauts decided to
change into a bar midway. (That’s a
compliment). Downstairs is blue-lit
cave, all glass, where patrons look
like hibernating extraterrestrials.
(Another compliment). There, in the
humming blue, your whiskey suddenly looks like jet fuel.
Nairobi’s skyline, now flaming
with colourful light, stretches beyond. It would be enthralling only
if I could see it clearly.
“Those guys would have shot
us. I swear they would have put
lead in us,” Trump’s hair is saying.
I didn’t know folk still use the
word “lead” in reference to bullets.
Sounds very pre-Schwarzenegger. I
suck on an ice cube for a moment,
then quickly get bored and crush it
loudly. Nobody turns to look at me.
I reach for my wallet and slip
some bills under my glass. Then
I sip my drink one last time and
get up to my feet. “Bathroom,” I
mumble shuffling away from the
table, a cold wicked wind slapping
me in the face in the process. Then
I’m out in the parking lot, looking for a cab. Then I’m zooming
up Argwings Kodhek, the cab guy
playing an old Kenny Rogers song.
How miserable are you to listen to
country music at 2am?
The next day I will wake up to
numerous missed calls and a few
WhatsApp messages all ranging
from the concerned to the abusive.
That’s the thing. You can’t say
goodbye in a bar. You shouldn’t say
goodbye in a bar. It goes against
the grains of drinking etiquette. As
soon as you announce departure
someone will send you a drink or
hang onto your coattails insisting
on telling you a story you have
heard many times before. So you
do the Irish Exit, discreetly, soundlessly and with dignity—at least
what’s left of it after 2 AM.
43.