Bingo's Run (3 page)

“Bus fare, Masta?” I said. He gave me a coin from his pocket.

“Masta,” I said, “tha paintin's is good. You eva sell any of them?”

The Masta dropped the bags of white into his pocket and picked up his brush again. “Years ago I sell paintin' to tha touris'. Touris' love ma paintin's, but tha American art deala screw me.” Hunsa sucked on his reefer. “Tha touris' buy ma paintin' for seventy thousan' shilling, but tha deala give me jus' five thousan'.” He looked at me wide-eyed. “Five thousan'! Da fookas. So I sayz screw ya. I'z keep ma paintin's. No one cheat Thomas Hunsa.” He threw open his arms, and paint and ash flew into his dirty gray dreadlocks.

I said, “So why not sell to someone else, maan. A deala who gives ya'z betta monay?”

He smiled and said, “I got me in trubel.” He nodded, then repeated, “Trubel.”

“What trubel?” I said.

He cut the air with the bone handle of his brush. “I sliced a
deala boy—the one who work for tha American deala.” His eyes opened wide. “I'z cut him. Cut him up!” Hunsa's voice got louder. “But tha basta' Chief Gihilihili neva find tha Masta. Neva find me!” He turned back to his painting, and shouted at the turtle, “Neva!”

Everyone knew that Gihilihili was the one-legged chief of police. Even Dog feared him. When I was little, Senior Father told me about the flycatcher. When the eagle hunts, it flies in the sky, and when it rests, it sits on a high branch so that it cannot be attacked. If the flycatcher comes, he snatches the eagle's fly feathers and the eagle ends up in the mud. Soon the eagle is dead from the other animals ripping it apart. Often, Gihilihili killed you, though sometimes he did not. It did not matter, because Gihilihili was the flycatcher; he could take away from a person what he was.

I guessed that Gihilihili and the police had forgotten the slicing artist long ago. Death in Nairobi is a way of life. But, because of his fear, the Masta only let me run white to him; no one else was allowed. I liked that. Me and him were private. I said to Hunsa, “Oh ya, Masta. Gihilihili speak about Hunsa tha artis' every day, but I say'z NOTHING!” I watched Hunsa remember the fear for the flycatcher and I smiled into our private silence.

I put the coin in my pocket, turned to leave, and almost bumped into Deborah. I'd forgotten she was there; she had vanished into her nothingness. Me and Deborah walked back to the main street. As we walked, Hunsa's paintings made me think. What if a tourist really paid seventy thousand shillings for a painting of a turtle with a giant bhunna? Here was money that begged a keeper.

On the street, in front of the matatu stop, was a red-and-blue drink hut. Next to it was a bright pink shack with a sign for S
YLVIA
H
AIR
S
TYLIN
' and a picture of a large-lipped woman painted on
the side. I bought Deborah a beer from the drink hut and we sat on a wooden bench looking at the street. My mind had not stopped its thinking. If each of Hunsa's paintings was worth even fifty thousand, the whole houseful was worth at least seven million. Deborah seemed happy not to talk, but whenever I remembered to look at her she was staring at me. She made me feel lonely, I guess, because she was lonely. Her voice spoke into the cool, empty night air. “Ya have a smoke?”

I answered, “Na. It stop me growin'.” Deborah laughed. “Your teeth are crooked,” I said. Her eyes fell like dropped balls. “I like that,” I said. “You'z beautiful, you like a film star.”

She looked up and smiled.

“So grown up,” I said.

She smiled again, and I took her behind the hut and plowed her. I plowed her until I was a shadow of her darkness. Then I caught the 16B matatu back to Kibera.

I got back to Kibera after midnight. The slum was silent except for the scratch-scurry of animals, occasional screaming, and dog barks. I headed home to Mathare 3A. I walked through the alleyways slowly, because I was tired and not working. Some people were still drinking, some snored, and others sighed in their sleep of hope.

Most Kibera homes are frames made from scraps. Some have walls made from cardboard, cloth, or wood. Roofs are board, mabati, or sky. Between the huts are pathways; they were not put there on purpose—they just mark where people are not. Ditches were cut into some of the paths to carry away human and dog filth. The smell was strong, but not as strong now as in the day.

At my home, Cousin Festa was asleep. I was not surprised to find Slo-George there, too. He snored louder than Festa. I was tired, but not ready to sleep. I sat at the entrance and listened to
the night. I had thinking to get done: Hunsa, a hundred paintings, seven million shillings.

I smelled Deborah on me and wanted more of her emptiness—she had calmed me. She had written her mobile number on a cigarette pack, but I did not have a phone.

My home did not have a roof, and so Kibera's sun woke me. The giant red ball crawled up the sky like a lazy spider. I still had money in my pocket, and so Slo-George and I walked to the market to get food. “Georgi, what ya do las' night?” I asked him.

Grunt!

I wondered why I even bothered talking to him. His replies were only grunts or silence. I said, “Afta food, ya wan' a throw rocks at Krazi Hari?” It was our standard morning activity.

I bought Maandazi, coffee, and five mangoes. We sat in the open area and watched children play football with a rusted can. An old bent blind man hobbled over to us balanced on a stick. He was the beggar Dafosa Warrior. “Pearls from heaven,” he shouted out again and again like a goat. I threw a mango and hit him. He found it with his stick, took it, and hobbled on. It felt good to help him out.

Slo-George said, “Can I'z be a runna?” You see, Slo-George could speak when he wanted something.

I laughed. “No, you can't, you fook-brain. You'z too fookin'
slo' an' you'z too fookin' stupid.” Question closed. I said, “Georgi, let's go throw stones, ya?”

We left Kibera through the East Wall entrance. The garbage mound was in front of us. Already eight children, eleven scarf-headed women, and seven dogs sifted through the waste. The garbage mound grows forever. On its throne sat its king, Krazi Hari.

Krazi Hari read a half-eaten magazine. He nodded and mumbled to himself. I picked up a palm-size rock. Slo-George had a pebble. We threw. Despite being a growth retard, I am strong. The stone flew past Krazi Hari's left ear. Slo-George's pebble was short by four feet. The reader did not move from his magazine. We threw again. This time Slo-George hit Krazi Hari on the chest. The king of the garbage leaped up. He wore an unbuttoned black shirt and shredded black trousers. He yelled, “Ya dumb sheet, brainliss retard. Ya have nothin' betta to do than dis. Take da Meejit and piss off ya half-brain fook-head, go fook da Meejit.” Krazi Hari threw his arms about and danced. He liked our daily visit. We wandered off as he continued to scream at our backs and shake his rolled-up magazine.

“Hey, Georgi, ya wan' ta do Maasai Market?”

Slo-George's grunt was excited.

Going to the Maasai Market meant a morning of lipping, which, because of my size, I was particularly good at. Slo-George was lookout. He loved it.

Some of the older thieves use thieving tricks, but I think they are rubbish because they have no class. One of these tricks is to trip a woman tourist, push her down on the floor, grab her bag, and run away before she can get up. You see: no class.

I had my own three lipping rules. Rule One: Make risk pay; do not steal junk. There is no point in stealing Maasai jewelry—it is worthless. Watches that look like gold are usually tin and are not
worth the risk. Rule Two: Be patient. Better to wait for a bulging wallet that hangs off a fat foreign ass than lip a skinny Kenyan. Rule Three: Stop when you succeed. Do not get drunk on greed; the Maasai Market is every week. Once you win, you are done.

The Maasai Market was on a hill at the edge of the business district, by the old Euro Hotel. Years ago the hotel housed rich foreigners, but now it gets scruffy white tourists dressed worse than me. The market was well under way when we reached it. I left Slo-George at the entrance, with orders to be a lookout for a police raid that would never happen.

I walked through the stalls patiently and watched. The Maasai sold everything: food, jewelry, furniture, clothing, medicine. I walked up behind some white tourists, but one of them, a beady-eyed woman with gold glasses, spotted me and clutched her bag to her chest. I thought about lipping an old white couple buying antique tribal masks but passed them by; they had been ripped off enough for one day. Then I saw my target: safari tourists.

Safari tourists are special. They feel mighty after the animal parks. Then they spend a day in Nairobi before heading to the airport. They buy a lot and they are careless with their wallets. They feel as if they are hunters when in fact they are hunted. There were four of them, three men and a woman. They crowded round a hat seller, haggling over knitted hats. The woman got my attention; she was the only one not wearing safari clothes, and she had huge breasts. To lip tourists like them takes less brains than even Slo-George has.

I chose to use a Bingo Special, the Camera Grab, not because I needed to but for sport. I waited for the hat seller to complete his performance. The seller dropped his shoulders and looked sad; his act was almost over. He once told me, “The performance is what they pay for.” The wallets came out. One of the tourists (a man; large, gray, and heavy) was about to push his thick wallet
back into his front trouser pocket. I ran and grabbed at the camera dangling from the neck of the younger man next to him. The younger tourist saw me (he was meant to) and swatted me down. I landed on the ground and the three men grabbed at me, like I was safari catch. I let them push me about, and I cried out; my act for them. I fell hard against the left hip of the fat man and, in a second, lipped his wallet. One of the men gripped my T-shirt, which ripped like paper. I ran. It had been a perfect Camera Grab. Three minutes later, I sat in a torn T-shirt at the entrance to the market beside Slo-George. I woke him up and we sifted through the fat man's fat wallet.

There was no time to chat. I had less than an hour to get downtown and sell the six credit cards. The driver's license for one Peter Guttenberg of Iowa, U.S.A., might, at best, fetch ten shillings. There were four hundred and sixty shillings in the wallet, and eighty-six U.S. dollars. I gave Slo-George forty shillings for his work and said I would see him later. He slid the folded notes down the front of his pants as I'd taught him. He grinned, happy, and left.

I ran to the business district, where I took Guttenberg's credit cards to a man named Joe-Boy, although he had not been a boy for forty years. He owned a tailor shop on DuCane Street and wore a small silver cross on his left lapel. He wanted to know how long ago I had lipped the cards, and then we argued over the price. The questioning and the haggling were rituals; he always bought the credit cards, and always for fifty shillings apiece. He did not want to buy the driver's license, but I gave it to him for free—good business.

When I was little, Senior Father taught me, “Man go back from where he come.”

“You mean back to Mama,” I said.

“No,” he said, and laughed. “Back to the mud.”

I was born in Nkubu. When I was a baby, the Senior Mothers of the village told Mama to put me back in the mud. “He is too small. He will die,” they said. But Mama folded me in her brown shawl and pushed out her hand. “Don't touch my baby,” she said.

They let her alone.

Mama and me came to Nairobi, and then Mama was killed.

My feet burned on the noon street. My head was tight. Spirits floated up through the cracks in the tarmac from the dry red mud below. The spirits called to me, “Bingo, run; run from here.”

It was time to hide my morning's takings. I always split my money; half I hide in one place, half I hide in another. I have double risk of half of it being found and double safety of never being broke. But I start each day as I left the last—just me, Bingo. I carry nothing of yesterday. The past weighs you down; too much past and you stop. I am Bingo. I am a runner; the greatest runner in Kibera, Nairobi, and probably the world.

I hid my takings from the Maasai Market in my two safe places and made it to Wolf's gold-and-blue throne after midday. Three runners lay about. Dog sat at the cutters' table smoking. It was filthy hot. Wind bursts carried smell and dust. Wolf saw me and bent a finger, calling me to him.

I worried that Wolf already knew about my visit to Joe-Boy. Business on the side was not forbidden, but whatever Wolf discovered became Wolf's. I feared Wolf more even than Gihilihili. Wolf's eyes flicked to my hands, which trembled for a second, and he smiled because he liked the taste of my fear. “Meejit,” he said. “I need ya tomorra night afta dark. I need ya ta run ta Boss Jonni, ya. Tha Boss Jonni run tomorra at eight at night—you hear? Exact at eight, ya.”

“Yes, Wolf Boss Sa.”

I burst with joy. I had won the Boss Jonni run. The other runners lying about heard, but it did not matter. No one in Kibera slit one of Wolf's runners (except Wolf). Life was a bonus that came with the job; obedience was a small price to pay.

Wolf looked down at me. He said, “Hear that, Meejit—Boss Jonni run at eight tomorra night,” like I was a retard.

“Yea, Boss Sa,” I said servant style. I did not ask why Wolf wanted me at eight exactly. Normally, it did not matter what time I did the run. But that was why I was chosen; apart from Zel So-Slo, I was the only runner who knew how to tell the time.

I learned to read time at the School of Benevolent Innocence. It was useful then, too. Many nights Father told Mama, “Me and Bingo have Bible study tonight at eight.” Father gave me his Timex and said, “Bingo, fetch me from Jesse's house at eight exact.” That was our code. I put on the Timex, which was too loose for me, and then Father and I would leave. Those nights, I got Father from the drinking hut exactly at eight. Eight was his time for gambling, which took place in the back of the village shop. When Father did his gambling, I did the count: “Bingo, what cards gone?” “Bingo, how much for tha win?” “Bingo, how much I jus' lose?” Father lost the Timex in a bet, but he didn't care. He couldn't tell time anyway. Zel So-Slo had a watch, but he never got a Boss Jonni run. He was so slow, the road thought he was part of it.