Bingo's Run

Krazi Hari was the only person I didn't mind calling me Meejit, because he was crazy. As me and Slo-George walked along the East Wall that surrounded the Kibera slum, I looked across the three-hundred-yard mound of garbage and there, as ever, was Krazi Hari, black as char, tall as heaven, hair wild as a riot. He sat on top of the mountain, his temple, surrounded by flies—his disciples—and, as always, he read. It was sometimes a label from a can or a shred of newspaper, but whatever it was Krazi Hari read it. “Hey, Krazi Hari,” I shouted. “What da fook iz ya readin', ya?”

Krazi Hari looked up. The swarm of flies that cloaked him stopped their buzzing for a short second. He looked at me and Slo-George and shouted, “Meejit. Who's ya callin' Krazi, ya. Ya don' even know ya arse-wipin' hand from ya wankin' one. An' as for that half-brain fook-head with ya, he can hardly ‘member what leg goes in fron' of tha nex'.” With that, he burst out laughing the way only the insane do. Krazi Hari was right about one thing: Slo-George did only have half a brain.

“That Krazi fooka,” I said to Slo-George as we stepped across the trail of garbage that was Krazi Hari's home. I looked down at
the mix of paper, plastic, medicine packets, old food, rubble, and black rotting filth. It felt warm on my bare feet. Scrawny dogs, women, and children sniffed over the gigantic dump, but there were no rats—they come out only at night.

Me and Slo-George turned right through the break in the gray stone wall and entered Kibera proper. We walked down the red-sand path, and Slo-George grunted at me. Grunts were his main way of talking. Slo-George, like everyone over the age of six, was much taller than me. But what amazed me about Slo-George was that he was fat. In fact, Slo-George was the only fat man I knew. “Georgi,” I would ask, “how da fook did ya get sa fat?” Slo-George always answered with a grunt. I rarely saw Slo-George eat; Kibera is a place where a person gets cut for food. His fat, like his age, was a mystery. Some people said Slo-George was sixteen; others said he was thirty. It did not matter, for, however old his brain was, only half of it worked.

It was filthy hot. We walked slowly down the East Gate Path that cut through the slum, a half-brain and a midget. In actual fact, I am a growth retard.

Wanjiru, Wolf's general and chief debt collector, spotted us. He barked, “Meejit, where da fook ya been? Wolf need ya.” Wanjiru was called Dog, even to his face. This was because half his nose was gone. The rumor was that when he was a boy a dog attacked him and bit off half his nose. No one ever asked him, because everyone was afraid of him; Dog loved violence the way women love bangles. Dog had a gun in his belt, but most of the time he did his business with his hands. Dog did not kill everyone he visited. Some lived, but for them the difference between living and dying was difficult to tell. One time he said, “It's ma art.”

While Dog waited for an answer, he breathed through his bitoff nose. Even Dog's breathing was violent—air feared him and he breathed it.

I shouted back at him, “Dog Sa, I'z go to Wolf now, ya.”

Dog nodded and scampered away.

I said to Slo-George, “Georgi, get ya lata.”

Grunt.

I ran to Wolf's office; I had work.

Wolf ruled half of Nairobi's drug business from deep inside the Kibera slum. The head boss was Boss Jonni, who lived downtown, in an apartment in a high-rise. The drug business was simple. From his apartment, Boss Jonni handed a runner blocks of white. The runner carried the blocks to Wolf in Kibera. Wolf had cutters cut the blocks into finger-size hills that went into small plastic bags. When a whitehead called in an order, Wolf sent a runner to deliver it. The whitehead gave the money to the runner, who brought it back to Wolf. Each week, Wolf had one of his top runners take the week's money to Boss Jonni. Boss Jonni gave the runner blocks of white for the return journey, and so the circle was complete. The system was smooth. The circle never stopped, like breathing in and out forever.

The police never stopped Wolf; they did not even try anymore. They once sent a man into Kibera who pretended to be a local. He smelled too clean, and his headless body was left on the highway as if the slum had vomited him out. I am not sure what happened to his head. I took his boots. Anyway, the police were well paid not to worry about Wolf, and so most of Wolf's secrecy was for show. Wolf was my boss; he was a good boss. People feared him more than God.

Though God had forgotten me, I never forgot him. When I was small I lived in a village called Nkubu, two hundred miles north of Nairobi. I went to the School of Benevolent Innocence, and every day after school Mama made me write out two pages of the Good News Bible. Mama never learned to write or read, but I was the best reader and writer in my class. In the Bible there
are ten commandants; I have twelve—two better than the Bible's. My Commandment No. 4 is: “Do not steal the whitehead's money.” Other runners took the buyer's cash and got away with it once or twice because there were so many runners and so much white. But they were caught in the end. If you got caught, Wolf's punishment was instant. If the thief was a boy, he got the death of the thief. He was folded facedown on the cutting table and his hands were laid flat. Knives were slammed through each hand. Once the hands were pinned, one of Wolf's generals lifted the boy's head. Wolf took the knife from his belt holder and, with one slash across his neck, smooth as a lick, killed him. The scream was like a TV advert: “No Thieving.” Punishment of a girl thief also started with her hands being pinned. Then she was “turned”—left folded over the table overnight. Any hungry man could plow her. If she did not bleed out, she was pimped. You can tell a turned runner by her hands.

There were very few thieving runners. Wolf's motto was “Fear and obedience.” If you cheated, you got punished—like with God. If you were good, Wolf gave you twenty or even a hundred shillings. God never did that. God didn't even have an office in Kibera.

Being a growth retard was an advantage as a runner. I was fifteen, but I looked as if I was ten. When I got pulled over by the police, which happened a few times, I started to cry (real tears) for an imaginary mama (my real one was dead), and I was let go. In five years as a runner, I was never arrested. It was just as well; Gihilihili, the head of police, made runners disappear. What Gihilihili did to boys no one said out loud, but he opened them up the way a jimmy iron opens a shut door. When he was done, the leftovers were put in sacks and added to Krazi Hari's garbage pile. I was Wolf's best runner. Della, a one-armed handicapped, was
second. This was how a four-foot-tall growth retard survived in Kibera. I was well fed and had my choice of hookers.

I have nine cuts on my face, three across my forehead and three down each cheek. Senior Father cut them there when I was ten, the day I became a man. I am Bingo Mwolo. I am the greatest runner in Kibera, Nairobi, and probably the world.