TheOne In A Hardware Shop In Longonot Pt2

“Her name was Alexis and she was fine,” I announce again and drain my glass. In that uncanny way that only she has mastered, Mueni appears at my elbow, a fresh Pilsner in hand. It’s steaming cold and my previously watered mouth suddenly goes dry. I take a greedy gulp and swallow. The cold brew burns a frosty track down my throat.

Across the table from me, Nick narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Remington,” he says and plants one of his ominous pauses after my name. “How is it that you can’t remember where you placed your phone before sleeping yet you can remember names of all these women you been with?” he says “all these” as if the words taste bad in his mouth and he has to spit them.

“It’s the small things that matter Nick. Women like it when you remember their name. it places them on a small pedestal in your hall of importance.”

“Stop interrupting Nick,” Jack growls. He’s getting tipsy. The veins on his temples are beginning to pop out. Soon they’ll resemble a thick spider web woven by a drunken Black Widow. “Let’s hear about Alexis. You said she was religious.”

Or so I thought from her headscarf. The moment I noticed it I was ready to bolt. Religious women come from a whole other planet. First of all they listen. In case you don’t know, that’s a very good thing but these Jesus Chics can turn that into one horrendous experience. After you are done with your spiel, they will do one of two things; attempt to preach the devil out of you or take a chance and cling onto you all the way to momma. And if you are lucky enough to come across the one who just dreamed that the next man she talks to is the one assigned to her by God, and you happen to be that person… well you can fill that blank.

So there I was in a hardware talking to one of the prettiest faces in Longonot and she just happened to be in the Big Bus bound for heaven. She must have noticed my sudden change of demeanor as she handed me my nails.

“What’s wrong,” she said. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

I flash a weak smile. “More like the Holy Ghost.”

“Hallelujah!”  she said and laughed softly.

I took my package and fled. Just outside the door, I bumped into the earlier customer who had bought chicken feed as he hurried back into the shop. I guessed his chickens must have asked for something extra. Maybe a drink to go with their cereal.

“Watch it buddy!” he said in a voice struggling to climb down from teenage octaves and join the low ranks of men his age. So far the man only managed to sound like a strangled sixteen-year-old boy. I raised my hands. No offense here buddy. You actually bumped into me. I stepped aside and almost fell on a bad of cement displayed outside. At the last moment I twisted my body and sat on the bag. If the man-boy noticed he didn’t show it. He stormed right into the shop like a bull in heat which I later learned he actually was.

“Who was that?” I heard him growl inside the shop.

“Just a customer,” the shopkeeper said. “Why, are you jealous?”

I’ve never been known to run from a good challenge. You should have seen the smile on my face when I heard those words. Maybe Miss Headdress in there was not such a Jesus Freak after all. No stretch of my imagination could fathom the chicken guy as a pastor. I wouldn’t even believe he was one if he wore a black robe and collar and literally shit Holy Communion bread. Chicken man was Common Joe like me and Shop was ripe pickings. I stood up, dusted cement off my pants and walked right back into the shop.

“That’s my boy!” Jack bellows and slaps his thigh. “I swear if you’d said you tucked tail and took off I’d have disowned you and banished you from Jack’s Pub.”

There is all round laughter at the table. Even Sibuor, who had managed to fall asleep somewhere along my narrative, wakes up. Looking around groggily Sibuor says, “Drive slowly. You are shaking my intestines.” Don’t ask. We never do.

So I was now back in the hardware shop. Chicken Man’s eyes were two smoldering pits of fire and I was certain any time now he’d aim two flaming balls at me and reduce me to cinders. But Shop Girl smiled. I was not sure if I was seeing things or it was just my horny self justifying what I was to do next, but I could read desperation in the girl’s eyes. On behalf of her entire self, they were crying for rescue. Even her blinking appeared to me like Morse code for SOS.

“Yes customer,” she said. “Did you need something else?”

“Yes,” I said. I crammed all the sincerity I could muster into my voice. “I did forget something. You.”

“I beg your pardon?” This came from Chicken Man.

“I am not talking to you,” I inform Chicken Man, my eyes not once leaving the girl’s. “Alexis, I don’t know you from Eve and I swear upon all the saints you believe in that when I entered this shop I only wanted some nails. Then I saw you and something inside me shifted but I was ready to let it go. Ready to leave this one street town and only remember, albeit on rare occasions, a beautiful girl who weighed nails for me. Then I ran into your boyfriend here.”

Alexis interjected quickly, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“What are you saying Alexis?” There is so much pain in the man’s voice that was I not thinking with my smaller head I would have pitied him.

“Oh he thinks he is alright,” I tell Alexis. “But he is not in it to like you. He wants to own you. To him you will be no more than that chicken feed he carried out of here.”

“And how do you know that Mr. Mwamba?” asked Alexis.

 “Yeah. How do you know that?” Chicken Man echoed.

“Because I am a man. Something he is yet to become. A man who knows you deserve more than a backwaters hillbilly who includes you among his assets.”

“A what?” they chorused.

I put the nails on the counter. “I am going to lay my cards on the table. There’s one jail I’ll never sentence myself to, Alexis. And that’s the ‘What If’ jail. I could walk out of here and go take out my heat on those wooden planks I got the nails for and you and your Chicken Man here can duke it out and decide who collects tithe at first mass on Sunday but come Monday and you'll remember me and ask yourself what if you had had that dinner with me.”

“What dinner?” Again the two said in unison.

“Shut up Peter!” Alexis commanded but her eyes stayed on mine. Oh my, oh my. “What dinner?”

“The one I am going to cook for you.” (The game is afoot Watson). “And I am a good cook. In fact if I ever cook one of your Chicken Man’s chickens for you, I suggest you ask to see the feathers before you eat it coz you might just find yourself relishing something only considered a delicacy in the Philippines.”

Horror splashed allover Alexis’ face. “You can cook a dog?”

“Do you eat dog?”

“Of course not.”

“Chicken then it is. I’ll pick you up at eight.” I turned and walked out of the shop.

“But I didn’t say I’ll come,” she shouted after me.

“But you didn’t say you won’t either.”

“Man, that’s terrible,” Jack retorts.

“What?” I gawk. “I don’t really eat dog. Come on.”

“I mean what you did to that poor guy.”

I take a long sip of my beer. “I didn’t do anything to him he wouldn’t have done to me if he had half my balls.”

“So you mean if he had one of your balls,” Sibuor says. We all turn and gaze at him as if he is a dead man risen. “You know, since you have two, half would mean one. But wouldn’t that leave you with only one also?”

We burst out laughing until my phone rings and cuts us short. A quick glance at my cell phone. It’s a strange number. I answer it.

“Hey Remington,” a female voice says. “It’s Patricia. I am now in Nairobi and it’s about to get on fire.” My balls shrink into my stomach.