Bingo's Run (23 page)

It was a song for an ant. I ran across Kenyatta before the chorus came again. Mr. Edward was not at his usual place, and so I did not get a philosophy lesson as I ran into the Livingstone. Anyway, ants do not need philosophy lessons. The commandment of the ant is to follow the other ants.

I went to my room, drank six vodkas from the room bar, and felt pain deep inside. I was Ant, not Man. What man lets his mama's shawl fall and doesn't pick it up? Show me the man that does not serve justice to his mama's killer? Show me the man that lets Knife kill his Mama and then runs white for his mother's killer? I know that man. He is a coward. He is an ant. He is Bingo Mwolo. He is me!

I lay on the bed and switched on the television. The pillow made a noise at me like marching ants. Under it was a pink bag of Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps. I opened the packet and began eating. The Nigerian soap was on again, about Disgrace, the girl from the country village. She still lived in a small hut outside the village, but her hair had started to grow back and she looked pretty. The little orphan boy who lived with her had
gotten sick and Disgrace took him to see the doctor at a nearby village.

The doctor was a big, gentle man. The glasses he wore looked fake. A nurse brought Disgrace and the orphan boy into the doctor's surgery. In a second, you could see a spark between the doctor and Disgrace. The camera focused on his smile and her happy eyes. The little boy looked up at them and coughed.

The doctor dealt kindly with the boy. He examined the boy's mouth and listened to his chest with his ear tubes. Disgrace held the boy tight against her, and the doctor gave the boy some injections. When he was done, the doctor put his large hand on Disgrace's shoulder. “You are a very fine mother,” he said. “What is your name?” The young woman looked down. “Grace,” she said.

Grace then looked up and said to the doctor, “Your wife is a very lucky woman.”

The doctor acted sadness. “I am afraid my wife died several years ago. I am a widower.” Grace smiled, because she knew the doctor loved her.

The camera showed the little boy's face. He had big dark, sad eyes. I knew what he was thinking. He thought, Something better has come along and now I will be forgotten. This is the other face of Missing: knowing what you could have had and then letting it get away. I finished the crisps and fell asleep.

Senior Father came into my sleep. He did not look tall and strong like himself. Instead, he looked like a stick with a face and hands. I ran across a purple field, chased by Senior Father stick-man. While I was running, I stepped on a seed-yam Senior Father had planted and trampled it flat. I stopped running. The stick said, “If ya kill what ya eat, ya starve. Ya kill, ya die.” Then the stick hit me and I felt bad for the seed.

I ran to a tree at the edge of the purple field. Under it was a skin filled with water. I tried to help the crushed seed-yam get
better with water I carried in my hands. But whenever I got close to the seed the water dripped away. With my knife, I dug up the baby seed-yam and inspected it. The thin husk was cracked. Life is just the thinnest cloak over death. I knew the seed was dead.

The stick beat me hard. “Ya kill, ya die,” it roared with Senior Father's voice, the voice of a thousand voices. I grabbed the stick, broke it, and threw it down. The next second, it burst into flames and was soon ash. Sirens filled my head. The police were coming for me. Senior Father was dead—I had killed him. I looked across the purple field for somewhere to hide. I became little and hid inside the seed's husk. I will be safe in here, I thought. Sirens were everywhere. Policemen stomped the field. “Find him!” a voice cried. It was the voice of Gihilihili. I huddled in the husk, but Gihilihili found me. He stamped with his peg leg and the husk shattered like an eggshell. “Paradise lost,” he roared.

Pain ripped through me and I woke up. I awoke in a field of orange. “Are you okay, sir?” Charity asked. She looked down at me. My eyes looked away from hers. “Ya, I'z fine,” I said. I was wet with sweat all over. “What you want?” I said. I wanted no one to see me like this. I felt small: an ant.

The moon and the streetlights outside made her skin look like dough. She pressed her lips together. She seemed sad.

“Why you sad?” I asked.

“Sir, I wanted to say goodbye. I heard you are going to America tomorrow.”

I shrugged. “Ya,” I said. There were no other words.

For once, Charity had no words, either. She just stood and stared down at me. I wanted her to press against me like when Drink Hut held Wolf. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to dive under her blanket of softest orange. I wanted to love Charity, but I had no words to tell her what was in my head. “There mus' be wata leak in here,” I said.

She tried to smile. “Why is that, sir?”

I said, “Well, your face got wet.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I am sorry. I will miss you, sir.” The street outside was quiet. The moon lit my bed.

“Come lie with me?” I asked. She did this, and when Charity kissed my mouth a bad day became good. Her kiss opened my lips. I told her everything. As I said it, the truth sounded strange. I did not just tell her about Hunsa, Mrs. Steele, and the contract; about Gihilihili and Nyayo House. I also told her about the running, Wolf, and the shootings. I told her about St. Michael's and all the boys Father Matthew saves for his retirement account. I told her about Mama, the riot, and how Wolf killed her for being a squeela. I told her about the village and how Senior Father and Senior Mother were killed by the gang boys. I told her about my father stealing Senior Mother's cook pot.

Charity listened quietly. “But, after everything, you are still here,” she said when I was done. “You must be made from a special mud!” she said, and kissed my mouth shut.

I pushed my hand under the mattress and pulled out the folded-up yellow Khefa contract. On the work desk by the window was a black pen with “The Livingstone” printed on the side. As with the Mercedes, the hotel put its name on everything—it must have been afraid of everything getting lipped. Under my name, Bingo Mwolo, I wrote “and Charity,” and handed her the yellow sheet of paper. “Look afta this,” I said. “It is everything I have.” I did not tell Charity that my contract, like me, was nothing but rubbish.

What is an ant? Siafu gets up in the morning, carries his dirt and food, and then he does the same the next day and every day until he dies in the mud that he came from. What chance does Siafu have? He has teeth to bite the stamping foot, but what good would it do to take a last bite before he dies? Apart from a bite, his back, and his legs, the ant has nothing. Don't call me Bingo; call me Siafu the Ant! I carry all day. At the end of every day, I am as empty as I was when I began. I could not even bite the stamping foot. Mrs. Steele stamped: “Little Siafu, give me that contract!” Wolf stamped: “Siafu, you'z my runna!” Peg Leg stamped: “This is paradise for an ant.”

Mama said, “Bingo, run!” Then she lay still and died. Call me Siafu. I am Ant. I die as I live—nothing with nothing.

I slept again, but without dreaming. A siren woke me up sharp. Police, I thought. Wolf called Gihilihili, and they have come to take me away. When I had the chance, I should have killed Wolf; I should have killed his Drink Hut. I would be free now. But I did nothing. Senior Father, the broken stick, taught me, “You never kill.” I am Siafu, the frightened ant; I never kill.

It was not a siren but the phone by the bed. The Thaatima's voice was slow and controlled. “Mrs. Steele will meet you downstairs at ten. You will need to come down with your bag packed and then we'll leave. Bingo, that's just over half an hour from now.” He did not mention breakfast. Now that he had what he wanted, he did not care.

I drank the last two vodkas from the room fridge, packed my things in the red suitcase, and left the room. The cleaner's cart was down the corridor. I held my breath—Charity! But it was Brick-Ugly Cleaner. She laughed when she saw me.

Mrs. Steele was already downstairs when I got there, standing in the lobby. She wore the dress she had on the first time I saw her—bright white with large black spots. Her gold hair was tied back. Around her neck she wore white pearls; on her feet, black hooker shoes. She smiled at me the way she did when she first saw me at the orphanage, as if I was a painting she wasn't sure she wanted. Anyway, I was on my way to America. Maybe I would get a truck—it was in the contract. She raised her eyebrows. “Come on, Bingo, let's go and meet your Thomas Hunsa, and then we will head to the airport.”

I walked out of the Livingstone carrying my red suitcase. The morning air outside the hotel was cooker-hot and filled with construction, street noise, the smells of sweat and diesel. The Mercedes was already there waiting. My head hammered with the city construction. Mr. Edward held the door and Mrs. Steele got into the car. A hotel boy in a red jacket took my suitcase and put it in the car boot. It went on top of Mrs. Steele's suitcase. It is an old (low-class) trick to lip tourist bags from open car boots like this, so I watched the boy shut the boot. Then I followed Mrs. Steele into the car.

As I got in, Mr. Edward reached out his hand business style. “Goodbye, Mr. Mwolo.”

I shook his hand. “Ya, Managa Edward.”

Mr. Edward went on, “I hope that your stay was excellent, Mr. Mwolo.”

I looked up at Mr. Edward. “Ya, is good. Ah, one thing,” I said. “Can you'z tell tha night cleana there a spida in tha room.”

Mr. Edward smiled. “I will be sure to tell Miss Charity that.”

Mrs. Steele called, “Bingo, we need to go.” I got into the car, but before Mr. Edward shut the door he said, “The freedom fighter Soweto Plato once said from his prison cell,

Mr. Edward, the best-dressed man in Nairobi, could speak philosophy forever.

After the door shut, it was just Mrs. Steele and me and Nairobi's hammering. “Where your lawyer?” I asked.

Mrs. Steele said, “Scott has gone to the airport to sign the shipping documents and check us in for the flights. You and I need to finish off the contract—I still need the Master to sign. Then we will package the paintings and join Scott at the airport so that we can fly straight out”—she swallowed and looked away—“to our new life.” On Mrs. Steele's lap was the thick Thaatima's contract with my signature and the Thaatima's signature on it. Mrs. Steele just needed Thomas Hunsa's. The car was still. She looked at me sharply. “So, where to, Bingo?” she said. “Where is the Master?”

“Hastings,” I said back to her.

Mrs. Steele said, “Driver, take us to Hastings.” But Mr. Alex did not move.

I leaned forward and screamed “Hastings” in his ear. His hat moved just a flicker, and then the car.

The Mercedes drove away from the hotel and onto Kenyatta Avenue, slower than Slo-George thinking. A brown truck-van came up right behind us with DHL in large letters painted on its side. Below the large letters were the words “Delivering Heavenly Love. Always there when you need it!” Somehow it did not surpise me that the caretaker drove the van, his long white pipe hanging from his bright red lips. He seemed to be in charge of all important deliveries.

The car was stuck in downtown traffic. I looked out the car window. People—yellow, purple, red, green, and orange—walked past. Mrs. Steele coughed, and I looked at her. Her eyes—so dark blue that they were almost not green—did not say, “Sorry, Bingo, I am a hustler; that was Mr. Steele's fault.” Her eyes did not say, “Sorry, Bingo, this is just business. Like you are a runner, I am a dealer.” Her eyes did not say, “Bingo, the Master's art—it is worth millions. I am drunk on chang'aa.” Instead, Mrs. Steele looked at me the way she did when I took the small statue off the curator's desk. She tapped her bright red nails on the thick contract. “Bingo, isn't there a quicker way?”

I screamed at Mr. Alex, “Mr. Alex, Mbagathi Way, ya!” I shouted it three times before his hat moved. It was a quicker and better way, past the dam, along the back of Kibera, behind the pharmaceutical plant, and up to Hastings. Minutes later, the car inched down Mbagathi. The potholed tarmac ended and a red dust road took over. We passed Nairobi Dam. Ahead, I saw Krazi Hari standing on his castle of garbage. He was a dark stick on a mountain of black, a flagpole with a crazy hair flag. The flagpole swatted
at flies. Nearer, I saw the children, grown-ups, and dogs scavenging. The old tree was still there, but the tail of the trash had crept closer to it. I saw what looked like a large sack of trash in front of the tree. I stared hard. The sack moved—it moved slowly, but it moved. The giant sack moved again. Closer, I saw that it was human. Slo-George threw rock after rock at Krazi Hari. Rubbish! The retard's rocks were not even close. “Right!” I shouted at Mr. Alex. “Turn right!” I shouted again, and he turned the car. He drove on, and soon I shouted, “Stop.”

I looked at my new mother's cold eyes. “Mrs. Steele,” I said, “wait here. I check where tha Masta is.” Before she could say a word, I ran out of the air-con-cooled car. The heat hit me like a hammer. In the weeks I was gone, I had forgotten the stench. I thought I would be sick.

“Georgi!” I shouted.

Slo-George jiggered. I ran to him. His Livingstone bathrobe was now gray. I grabbed him. He was too big to reach all the way round, but I held him tight, my face against the piece of wire that was his belt. His hand held a rock in it. It thumped against my back hard. I was not sure if he meant to hurt me but he did. His face folds tried to hide that he was happy.