All Waf’s Exes Are Crazy IV

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Thank you for your time.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality. – Seneca

Chapter IV: Penny For Your Thoughts?

Penny first told me the whole story by accident, a confession whispered through the potent echo of her memories. I wouldn’t have recognized her almond-shaped face if we’d brushed shoulders at a family gathering, so unassuming was her presence. She was soft-spoken, so much so that one instinctively leaned in, not just to hear her voice, but to catch the very current of her being. I spotted her as I was having a makeshift lunch one afternoon, before I knew anything myself, waiting for my best friend whose flight had been delayed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. I sat facing the arrivals exit, a Java House coffee and sandwich, my solitary companions. Our eyes met across the glass, naturally aligned like two girls sharing a glance in a crowded street. I suspect she was looking for anyone who might recognize her, and my gaze, by chance, offered that fleeting connection. More, I suspect she was looking for anyone who would truly listen, not with their ears, but with an open space within them. The next moment, she was seated opposite me, her spine aligning with an invisible meridian, the posture of quiet readiness.

“It’s funny, being here,” she begins, her voice a low current I feel more than hear. “I gravitate towards this Java because it is one of the last places I sat with him.” Her gaze drifts, a phantom thread stretching towards the washroom door. I keep my eyes fixed on the arrivals exit, anchoring myself against the growing pull of her narrative. “I went to that bathroom to fix myself before my flight, as was routine. This was not my first rodeo, yet he kept reassuring me. I don’t know if he was always like that. Sweet. I don’t recall much of his sweetness.” The words resonate with a faint, almost imperceptible dissonance. “That last time, things felt different. His father didn’t send anyone to accompany us. He had told him that we would be fine. I already knew the ropes and we didn’t need Frank with us. He was sent on a different errand. We were on our own. I must admit, it was exciting. The process was unpleasant, but it didn’t beat the money, and I’ll have you know, the money was more than simply attractive.”

An hour before her departure time, she had gone to that bathroom as usual. She gestures vaguely, but my internal vision doesn’t need the physical cue. I see it all: the small packages of white powder, neatly wrapped in clear and brown plastic, being shoved with practiced ease into the lining of her underwear. This was not her first rodeo, not by a long shot, and she was pushing herself, the urge to impress him, a silent whip. She had asked for more grams than the last time, justifying this dangerous escalation with her perceived expertise. Having transported the packages more than a dozen times, she felt, with a chilling confidence, that she was somewhat an expert.

Her first time, a stark memory rising unbidden, she had been shocked when Frank followed her into the bathroom at Waf’s bedsitter as she stripped. I witness it through her words: the hesitant unclasping from inside her shirt as his eyes, unblinking, watched her. “This is not a job for shy people,” Frank had boomed, his voice a disembodied echo, before Waf appeared at the door as she put her left arm back into her shirt. She pulled the right strap with her left hand, and her bra came off, a small surrender. Waf had grinned. “Just like magic,” he’d said, and I saw her, walking past him, placing the cup in his face, a gesture of almost desperate playfulness. They were in Roysambu. Waf had just told her his father had a way for them to make easy money and travel at the same time. Not one to waste an opportunity, Penny, ever eager to please, insisted he showed her immediately. They had walked from her last class, Waf explaining everything, painting a picture of adventure. Basically, he said, the job was to be a courier. Think Knight Rider, he had said, but she’d be Kitt, not just the driver. It would be easier for her because she had more places to hide things. “Like pockets?” She joked, a flicker of lightness in her voice. “You have all my pockets, babe. You’re carrying my phone right now because all I have is this,” she put her index and middle finger in the small pocket of her jeans. He grinned.

“That’s not what I mean. Dad said he’ll send someone to explain.” His phone rang. He stared at the caller ID, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, then swiped to pick it. After a few seconds, he assured the caller they were on their way then hung up.

“That’s the guy?” she had asked, her voice laced with a tremor of apprehension.

“Yeah, Frank. He’s my dad’s handyman. Helps him out with all kinds of errands.” He quickened his pace, already detaching himself. “We should hurry. He sounds like he has somewhere to go.” He dropped her hand.

After a brisk walk, they found Frank at Wafula’s door. Penny watched the tall, lean man from the corner of her eye, a primal instinct flaring. She didn’t like the look of him. Frank explained everything in a few clipped sentences. One. The traveller needs to be a woman. Waf couldn’t go with her. Two. She would need to be trained on how to fill her pockets. Three. The training would happen immediately. She had to take off her bra and panties.

Penny turned to her boyfriend, whose challenging eyebrow offered no comfort, only silence. She turned back to the handyman in a suit. Silence filled the small bedsitter for what seemed like years to her, stretching, suffocating, before Waf broke it.

“Lover of mine.” She did not look at him. She couldn’t. “This can’t be too hard,” he sighed with a hint of impatience. “I’ll be with you the whole time, like I said.”

“No, Waf. He just said we can’t go together. What does that mean? How can we be together if we can’t travel together? I don’t like this.”

The tall man slapped his knees and stood. “Well, I guess we’re done here.” He picked up the leather bag he showed up with and walked to the door.

Wafula stopped him, asking for a few minutes to speak with her. The man said he would wait for five minutes on the balcony then leave. He closed the door after himself. Waf took Penny’s hand and looked in her eyes. “Lover of mine,” he purred. I feel the warmth she felt, the magnetic pull she succumbed to. I can see it in her eyes. She loved it when he coaxed her. “Let’s think about this. This time next year, we’ll be engaged. I’ll be done with school, have a stable job and you, my love, will be my one true queen.”

“I know that, babe.” Her voice was small, almost a plea.

“Okay. Okay. So, we both know some sacrifices have to be made for us to live the good life, right?” She did not answer him and he took that as a sign to continue, already convinced of his own logic. “I love you. You love me. What’s a few flights without each other? When we’re married with little humans we won’t even remember that we had to be apart for any amount of time. You know I like to live intentionally. Be still, lover of mine.”

She let out a sigh. “That’s not what I mean. I love you, Waf, but to strip in front of another man like that doesn’t feel right.”

“I hear you. I do. But we are past that. Look,” he held up her black bra and put the cups around his eyes. “I’m the coolest guy because I’ve got the coolest girlfriend, who will be the coolest fiancé and the greatest wife ever!” She giggled, a fragile sound, and he smiled, taking the bra from his face. “We can do anything when we’re together. I believe that. Do you?”

“I do,” she whispered, her conviction already wavering.

“That’s my girl. Can we call the weird teacher back in, then?” he whispered and touched her chin, pulling her in for a kiss. Penny let herself feel the heat rise in her, needing desperate warmth against the cold dread. She let him kiss her, let him call Frank back in to continue with the lesson.

“If you knew what you know now, at the time, would you have continued?” I asked, my curiosity an unquenchable thirst, growing with every word of her silent confession.

“You have to understand something I realized about myself very early on,” her thoughts drifted, painting a picture in my mind. “As a people pleaser, it is ingrained in me to make others happy, sometimes even to my own detriment. Put that together with being a lover girl, and I was a goner in that relationship. Before him, I had had a situationship that ended a few weeks before I started dating him. You know those unserious high school relationships where you send each other perfumed letters in calligraphed envelopes? His name was Victor, and we broke up during my first semester at UoN. I wasn’t desperate for a relationship. In fact, I wanted to be alone. I had planned for at least a whole year of getting to know myself. I wanted to do picnics with my girls, ice cream dates with the bestie, and when I was ready, try to go on a few dates, for fun. I wanted fun. Then he came along, and he was fun, and it was fine. I broke my own rules for him. I had a rule, since I joined as a first year, to never date a classmate. I should have widened that net to include students in the faculty. Then, maybe I would be fine.” Her eyes were fixed on the bathroom door, lost in the echo of her past choices.

“It was my sixty-ninth trip. A lucky number, and not because of what you think. His birthday was June ninth. Quickly, it became my favorite number. Our best days were his birthdays. I always made sure he had the best time. I gave him experiences, gifts, and all manner of things. I always gave, even when I should have kept some to myself. This would have been the first of his birthdays since we started dating that we would be apart. I cried all that morning begging him to come with me. I begged him to take a different flight and meet me in Abu Dhabi. I almost went on my knees, can you imagine? I just wanted to spend time with my man on his birthday. He promised to try. But by then, something in my gut knew he wouldn’t try. It was not that I didn’t believe him. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man so I had to trust his word, right? I had to believe he was who he said he was for my own sanity. Believe his promises, even though he had broken some before.”

Expertly, in that bathroom over there, she nods, touching her chin, I see it, her nimble fingers working. She takes off her bra, then the pregnancy pillow she had strapped to her body. She unzips the pillow to start with the larger surface area. Waf walks in with the bag, his movements casual, and they get to work; him on her bra, she on the pillow. She had lined the product more times than she could count and was faster. They put the powder in layers of plastic, wrap the small packages in cloth to prevent any slipping, just as Frank had taught them, and secure them in with duct tape. This was the first time they were using the fake pregnancy pillow, so they had more powder than they had ever handled. “You just have to walk through security,” he constantly reassures her, his voice a smooth balm. “Your suitcase should be fine, and I’m sure this is a foolproof method. Dad said they have used this pillow thing before so it will work.”

She comes out of her daze. “If you asked me then, I may have told you I wasn’t sure. If he actually asked, I may have disclosed that I was scared, terrified even. I wanted to go home and curl up in bed with him, then go out to a museum and walk around with my hand in his till my feet tingled from fatigue, then get takeout for dinner and curl up with him on our couch again, and wish him a happy birthday. But I let him secure the pillow straps to my body. Tears stung my eyes as he hooked my bra behind my back, then wrapped his arms around me. There was a storm in my chest as I put my dress back on and he placed a hand on my protruding belly, a gesture both tender and chilling. I wanted to do everything but be in that bathroom, watching him stuff white powder in my bra padding, watching him caress a lie.”

He watched her in the mirror, turned her around, and wrapped his arms around her, the fake belly between them. “You remember when we met?” I hear his words, sharp and clear. She did. “I loved how big you were. We started dating, I thought I was getting a fat bunda but you kept losing weight.” I feel her freeze in his arms as he touches the fake belly between them. I feel her desperate longing for him to say more. To fix the way her heart was already breaking in his arms. He remains silent, the moment stretching into an unbearable eternity. She turns from him. “We should go,” she half-whispers, half-groans with the agony in her chest. But she doesn’t say anything more. The silence looms, weaving webs between them. He holds the door open as she drags the suitcase behind her. It was empty, save for a few clothes they quickly bought at the mall to fill it. A decoy. The plan was to buy more clothes as they shopped in Dubai, celebrating his birthday weekend.

The last part of her story played out with a horrifying, sickening clarity, not from her quiet recount, but from a vivid, shattering premonition that seized me as she spoke. She walked through the bustling airport, the hum of conversations and distant announcements lulling with a deceptive lullaby. As she approached security, a cold dread, not her own, but a part of her unfolding future, grips me. The familiar process began: bags on the conveyor, shoes off. Then, the polite, yet firm hand on her arm. “Ma’am, could you step aside, please?”

My vision sharpens, focusing on the details she articulated. The uniformed officer, a woman with kind but resolute eyes, guided Penny to a private screening area. The pat-down was thorough, too thorough. The officer’s fingers lingered, a flicker of professional curiosity turning into something more. “Ma’am, we need you to come to a private office. We’ll need you to undress.”

Penny’s heart, a bird trapped in a cage, began to pound. I felt her terror as a cold, sharp blade. She nodded, her face pale, her gaze darting around the sterile corridor. The officer turned, taking a step, leading the way. That was her moment. The sudden, desperate surge of adrenaline also courses through me. She bolted.

It came in a flash of motion, a blur against the airport’s neutral tones. Her legs, unaccustomed to such frantic speed, propelled her forward, away from the inevitable exposure, away from the ruin. She just had to get to Waf. He would protect her. The officer shouted. Other security personnel materialized, a wall of uniforms. A sharp thwip sliced the air. The taser’s prongs found their mark on her back, two fiery points of agony.

Penny’s body convulsed violently, giving her uncontrollable spasms. She crumpled faster than a broken doll, falling onto the cold, unforgiving tiled floor of the airport. Her mind registered the dull thud of her head that gave ger a fractured skull, then the sudden, overwhelming darkness. A final, desperate thought, a mother’s instinct, burned through the fading light. A tiny flutter, a movement deep within her, distinct and undeniable. It was a desperate, almost imperceptible kick, the last vibrant act of a life just beginning, a silent farewell. She hadn’t even told him yet. Her hand instinctively flew to her lower abdomen, desperately trying to hold life in a protective, futile gesture. And then, I feel it too, the echo of two heartbeats faded, replaced by an absolute, terrifying silence. Her body, the vessel of so many secrets, so many desperate hopes, lay utterly still.

All Waf’s Exes Are Crazy

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Thank you for your time.

All I’m trying to do, all the time, is just open people up so they can let themselves be open to someone else. – Nina Simone

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Chapter I: In Summation

Wafula gained a scar when his parents separated, an invisible etching that surfaced whenever he felt the walls closing in. He couldn’t have been older than seven when he was hauled to boarding school. His younger sister, Peace, a fragile echo of their fractured home, had her small heart tethered to their father even as her body was uprooted to Kakamega with their mother. Their older brother, a silent witness to the unraveling, found his only solace in their mother. This comfort was shattered the year he faced his crucial class eight exams. For weeks, he’d worn down their mother’s resolve, begging for a glimpse of his biological father. The encounter left him hollowed out, having spent hours in a sterile office lobby while his mother’s hushed pleas remained lost on a secretary whose disdain was a palpable barrier. The biological father, the architect of half of John’s being, remained behind an unyielding door. John returned home, his hand a loose weight in their mother’s tight grip, and the subject remained entombed in silence.

In the stark, echoing halls of boarding school, Wafula’s scar manifested as a quiet certainty, a shadow self that whispered reassurances when the world felt hostile. The youngest among boarding students, he navigated a landscape of both petty cruelty and grudging assistance. It was a precarious balance that kept the small boy tethered to sanity, a fragile thread of hope in a world that threatened to consume him. Yet, this inner voice, this shadow, often eclipsed reason. When older boys pinned his slight frame against the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, a detached voice within him would ramble on about his mother’s imagined domestic bliss, his older brother back from school for the day playing with Peace, awaiting a father who was no longer there.

Meanwhile, back in the reality of their former home, two-thirds of his family were engaged in a silent battle for survival, attempting to sway Wafula’s father’s kin to offer them sanctuary. When no offers came from her husband’s relatives, she made the only logical decision. In the rigid social architecture of the Luhya community, a woman did not simply return home, especially not one who had once possessed a capable husband. In Were’s eyes, it was an affront, this woman bringing her illegitimate firstborn and her legitimate youngest back to the fold. The absence of Wafula, their recognized first son, the namesake, was an even greater anomaly. His mother, however, a woman forged in the fires of stubbornness, simply hoisted her youngest onto her hip, took her oldest son’s hand, and walked back to her father’s compound. Her head was held high, whether by pride or the precarious balance of the suitcase, no one could truly discern.

She entered the familiar space, a compound she had avoided for the decade since her father joined the ancestors, finding his wives already orchestrating the evening meal around open fires. Her belongings remained untouched, silent sentinels until darkness cloaked the homestead. The oppressive quiet from the women was so profound it startled even the normally boisterous crickets. Without a word, she retrieved her suitcase and ascended the cracked stairs to her father’s abandoned hut, the door sealed since his death. Cobwebs, intricate and undisturbed, draped every surface, mirroring the tangled tales his wives would soon spin throughout the year. She was home.

When the school term ended, Wafula was dispatched to his father’s new life, to Lucia, the woman who now occupied his mother’s former place. Years later, recounting this fractured childhood to a revolving door of girlfriends, he would casually dismiss any suggestion of trauma. The separation, he’d insist, had barely registered. Even as he presented a carefully constructed facade, a polished shell, he maintained that he had emerged unscathed since he was away at school, conveniently overlooking the years spent away from what he termed “drama”.

His intellect, however, shone brightly, a beacon in the turbulent waters of his adolescence. He navigated the KCPE and KCSE exams with remarkable ease, securing a coveted spot to study electrical engineering at the University of Nairobi. Wafula’s mother, in her own way, fostered a sense of independence in her children, a legacy inherited from her own father. She prioritized their image, ensuring their needs were always met, their social lives vibrant. Freedom, within the carefully constructed boundaries of appearances, was her gift. She encouraged them to spend time with friends and ensured they had enough money to buy whatever they wanted during these excursions.

Growing up, Wafula cultivated a habit of convenient untruths, small fabrications that smoothed over minor inconveniences. His backpack? Stolen, of course. The missing kitchen scissors? Surely Peace had seen him in the bathroom, a fleeting glimpse behind the shower curtain, snipping away, the evidence neatly deposited in the trash. But Peace, even at three, understood an unspoken loyalty. Waf was her anchor, her true brother. Of the two, he was her sun, and she instinctively orbited him. School was an agonizing separation, a void created by his absence, a feeling amplified when they relocated to Nakuru Town. The year in Kakamega held a certain magic, a hazy nostalgia that paled in comparison to a Nairobi she barely remembered. Their mother had secured a teaching position at the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology (RVIST), uprooting them from her ancestral home to a fledgling existence along the Nakuru-Kericho highway. The Ngata area was still a wild expanse when they first arrived. Peace watched silently as the men her mother paid cleared the dense bush to erect the makeshift shed that offered their first night’s shelter. The cold that night was a visceral memory, the mud walls of their temporary home yielding to her curious poke, the rain a relentless torrent that defied gravity. They huddled together, her mother’s gaze a silent reassurance, a familiar warmth that transcended the downpour. John, however, remained an enigma, his expression unreadable. Yet, his new school uniform lay neatly pressed, a testament to a resourcefulness Peace couldn’t fathom. She eyed the charcoal iron box amongst his things. It was a prized possession of her Kakamega grandies. The women had fought over the device countless times and its acquisition was shrouded in a quiet mystery. Angry phone calls from the accusing women were deflected by their mother’s practiced ignorance. Adamantly, she denied having seen the iron box, even after she found it wrapped in John’s school sweater.

Wafula’s fabrications extended to school life, a tapestry of minor deceptions that somehow never entangled his stellar grades. The teachers, blinded by his academic brilliance, often overlooked the inconsistencies. His deskmate, Lucas, learned early the futility of reporting him, especially in the precarious lead-up to exams. There was a brief window between the initial tests and midterms when consequences might materialize, but even then, Wafula’s carefully cultivated network, the strategic placement of imported snacks in the matron’s room, the discreet deposits with Mr. Odinga, the calculated generosity towards key individuals, often shielded him. Outside that narrow timeframe, he was untouchable. A KitKat, a Snickers bar, a packet of macadamia nuts from the airport; these were the currency of his untouchability. Lucas’s attempts at justice ceased the morning he opened his locker to a wave of acrid fumes, his textbooks soaked in what his nose identified as ammonia.

“Were you in the lab?” Wafula inquired, his voice devoid of concern as he opened his own locker, the offending liquid still dripping onto the linoleum.

“What happened?” Lucas whispered, his face contorted in disgust.

“I think someone was playing with some chemicals around here.”

“What?”

A dismissive shrug was his only reply before Wafula’s attention returned to his Science encyclopedia. Lucas spent the entirety of morning preps salvaging his waterlogged books, leaving them to air outside, and scrubbing at the persistent stench within his locker. The smell of ammonia became an unwelcome constant in his academic life. By the second week of that second term, he had pleaded with his father for a new locker, relegating his old one to the back of the classroom, a silent testament to Wafula’s unseen hand.

When their classmates, sensing an injustice, subtly encouraged Lucas to retaliate, he declined even offered assistance, becoming a tightly wound spring of resentment. Not until the last day of school, after the final Physics practical, did Wafula finally break the silence. He approached Lucas, a predatory glint in his eyes, and whispered, “I did it.”

Did what? “Your locker. I peed in it.”

Lucas stared at the smug curve of his mouth, his deskmate of fourteen years, and a hollow smile touched his lips. “Did you hear me? I know nobody believed you. You were right, that whole time.” He drawled the last sentence, mimicking a southern accent he knew grated on Lucas’s nerves. Lucas’s gaze remained fixed on the abandoned locker at the back of the room. The rest of the Form Four class was gathered around a bonfire near the pit, a chaotic conflagration consuming unwanted remnants of the academic year. Old sweaters, ill-fated love letters, forgotten textbooks, even threadbare blankets were set aflame. Some students, in a symbolic cleansing, burned nearly everything they owned, save the clothes on their backs. Lucas could see the flickering flames rising above the basketball court, sparks ascending like fleeting memories into the twilight sky. He shook his head, not believing his friend.

“I’m not stupid,” Wafula stated, turning to leave.

“That’s not what I meant.” It was the precipice of their shared history. The last day of high school. “I…don’t know.”

“That was always your problem, Luc. A lack of balls. It will be the end of you. You don’t trust yourself enough.”

“I do. You peed in my locker in Class Six. I said it was you. You denied it, called me a liar, said I did it myself. You said you saw me,” his voice trailed to a whisper.

“I know.”

“No! You don’t know. How could you know? Waf, I only wanted a friend.”

“I know.”

“But you have many.”

“What?”

“I knew,” Lucas repeated, his voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t know what you…”

“Waf, it’s okay.”

“No!”

Lucas recoiled. “Okay, okay.”

“No, Lucas. You don’t get to do that.”

“What?” His bushy eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“You don’t get to come here and say things like that.”

“Like what? What am I supposed to do with this information? I can’t tell anyone, it’s the last day of school. I just want to go home tomorrow and forget these things ever happened.”

“You don’t mean that.” Wafula narrowed the distance between them, getting closer to Lucas in the aisle between lockers.

“It’s true. I don’t want anything to do with the memories at this school, with everything that happened, the humiliation,” his voice cracked, the carefully constructed facade crumbling. “I can’t do it. I’ll probably have to talk to someone about it.”

“Someone, what? Someone like who? Who will you talk to about your little problems? Poor Lukey had it bad, huh? Poor Lukey. Who will you talk to, Lukey?” Wafula’s voice dripped with mock sympathy.

“Stop!” Lucas’s voice cracked with desperation. At the gate, Bad Boy, the towering watchman, straightened himself and began his deliberate march towards the classrooms.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Wafula sneered, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features.

“Let him come. At least Bad Boy will know the kind of person you are.”

“I’m warning you, Lucas.” Wafula took three deliberate steps, his frame now looming menacingly over the smaller boy.

“It’s the last day. Let’s just go home and leave this alone.”

“I bet you’d–” His words were abruptly cut short by the sharp rap of the watchman’s baton against the doorframe. “Vijana mwondoke mpatane na wenzenu,” Bad Boy urged them to join their peers by the bonfire, his deep voice resonating in the sudden quiet.

Wafula turned with exaggerated gentleness, facing the imposing figure of the Masai watchman. “Of course, I was just telling Lucas the same thing.” He sauntered towards the door, his gaze lingering on the vibrant red and white checks of the man’s shuka. “By the way, Bad Boy, I have a new shuka that I’m sure you’d appreciate. My mother insisted I use it as a towel. She seems to think, apparently, my whole body needs to be shrouded when I emerge from the bathroom. It makes me look like a wizard. I’ll have my dad bring it to you tomorrow when he picks me up.” He was out the door before the watchman could formulate a response.

Lucas offered a hurried greeting to Bad Boy before trailing after his departing classmate. “It’s really nice of you to give Bad Boy a shuka.”

“It’s been living in my locker for years. Time it got some use.” They walked towards the distant glow of the bonfire in strained silence.
The next morning, as the Form Four parents picked students from their now alma mater, minutes after Bad Boy had carefully placed the pristine checkered shuka, still encased in its plastic wrapper, on his weathered wooden bench in the small shed by the gates of Friends Academy Secondary School, its red and black vibrant in the sunrise rays, a frantic summon called him to the Form Four East classroom. Lucas Bosire’s body was already cold.