BAD: BULLIES, COWS AND THE STRANGE SHAPE OF COURAGE We gonna go back! Way back! Back in time.......( cue superheavy beats). Year is 1985 or thereabouts. Place is Teldet Primary School, Kaptumo, Aldai constituency in the glorious Nandi county. I am certain that you are as tired as I am of being reminded that for much of my school life I was the runt of the litter - the puniest, cheekiest little monkey ever you did see. Everything I did was a punishable prank at some poor souls expense. I couldnt keep quiet. I was a compulsive gabber, with a well-regarded repertoire of wisecracks and yarns. I was unkempt, always on the move, averse to organised sport and the bane of every stuck-up, prissy teachers pets. I didnt take education seriously, largely because it never occured to me it was serious business ( that curious idea of repeating words or sentences in chorus, over and over was one sure indicator that school was a retarded form of Sunday school). It did turn out by the grace of God that school would only become difficult upon encountering the legendary Mr Weru, Mathematics master in the humble village of Kikuyu, now represented by my fine friend Kimani wa Ichungwa. I digress. What the heck; since its Friday afternoon, I will digress further. Allow me, Your Eminences and other good folk, to illustrate how bad things were. At the beginning of class Six, I was absent from school until late February. If the teachers noticed anything amiss, it was that overall noise levels had significantly reduced. I am sure they congratulated themselves for finally making a good fist of this Discipline and Order thing. Not to be confused with Bondage and Discipline, dears; the children are online. As it happens, one Friday afternoon early that term, the class monitors were lodging their final returns of the week, or in other words, handing in lists of various miscreants - noise makers, mother tongue speakers, girl-peepers, etc. When all the lists were done, my class monitor was given a lashing for omitting what lawyers would call necessary party. My name was missing! That is when they were told that I was ailing from measles. The teachers felt so sorry that a high-powered delegation was dispatched to visit me. Anyhow, that is how I had been profiled. What I did not do was any physical confrontation, including sport. I didnt have the stature to afford me the confidence, nor was I of a particularly violent inclination. This was both good and bad. Good in the sense that I escaped childhood and adolescence with all my teeth, bones and skin intact. Bad in the sense that if it came to that, I didnt know what to do. The thing was to ensure that all the badass guys in school regarded me well. My acerbic wit and high-pitched voice prevailed over the most thick-skinned louts residual sense of shame and, by and large, I got along well. By and large. One day,one of the guys I truly feared crossed my path. I harboured an irrational fear of this guy. It was absurd because although burly, he wasnt menacing in any way. As a matter of fact, he possessed the genial countenance of Hon. Kiruki MMukindia, and looked in every way like someone about to invite you to tea. Thing is, I had seen him in action, and he was totally fearless. He gave his all to every fight, and often won against much older and bigger opponents. When I say his all, I mean, for instance, that he once stuffed a vanquished sods mouth with cow dung, grass (most fights were staged on the grazing fields, by the by) and threw soil in his eyes. Even if you didnt mean to cry, this chap would force tears out of your eyes, and you all know what that meant. He would bite, gouge, squeeze, scratch, punch and head-butt his way into a messy, unglamorous victory. Like Jose Mourinho, I hear you quip. Or Chelsea. We were required to bring pangas to school one morning, and this chap hadnt. He didnt have to. He just strode over to my brother and borrowed his with menaces, QEF. When my brother protested, he was shoved away with rough contempt. So he did the logical thing. He confidently fulminated that he wouldnt take such effrontery, and that there would be consequences. For good measure, he suggested that he had connections in the upper classes who could make his life miserable. The bully calmly - I imagine with the heartiest MMukindia grin- invited my little brother to do his worst. With his loyal coterie of humiliated friends, my little brother walked up to me at break time as I entertained my clique with hilarious, apocryphal tales. We heard the case with a sagacity that would have impressed any Council of Elders anywhere. My heart started beating fast when I heard who the malefactor was. Yet the consensus was that higher authorities could not intervene before the family chain of command is exhausted. In short, everyone who knew and liked me had consigned me to an inglorious early death. Left with meagre options - I mean, running away under any pretext is quite appealing at such a time, but not an honourable thing to live with for the long term. I stood up and walked as bravely and purposefully as my little frame could allow. The distance across the school field that day was woefully short. As soon as the lower school heard that a big kahuna had deigned to grace the battle field and restore family honour in my brothers behalf, a vast gaggle of eager kids surrounded the villain. At my approach, kids gave way to create a corridor free of all obstruction leading to the improvised colliseum. When I stopped close by the bloody monster, I scanned the crowd around with what I trusted to be arrogant ease. Then I looked at the craven incompetent before me ( I knew I was dead anyway, so why not be cocky about things). Unfortunately, Excellencies, I had to look up, for this rascal was a head taller than me. Anyone who knows power and violence knows that I was at a moral and physical disadvantage. He looked back with a bored, almost reckless casualness which put the fear of God in me. There was a hush. Pin-drop silence. Breathless, expectancy. Perhaps a rapt, bloodthirsty avidity, who knows? Now, all duels, including boyhood brawls have a rigid protocol. In our case, we had to stand apart, facing each other, with the left arm outstretched, palm, or fist facing the ground. A trusted umpire would place a blade of grass on each wrist. This blade was known as a cow. One protagonist would have to dislodge the blade from his opponents wrist for the duel to commence. In so doing, you violated the Nilotic Code. Messing with cattle of all things. Effectively, you threw down the gauntlet. Crossed the Rubicon. Declared readiness for war and assumed responsibility for all that came with it. Cows were duly placed on our wrists. I studied my opponent as this was done. I wouldnt last a minute under his tender ministrations. Therefore, I was not prepared to let things get that far. I needed a swift conclusion. How? My breathing was shallow. My eyes were unblinking and my whole body alert. My heart was beating steadily in my ribcage. My limbs felt a rush of warm energy pervading every extremity. My brain was calm, clear and systematic. In later life, when some wrongheaded captain forced me to rugby training, I learned that this was the classic adrenaline rush. I noticed that the fool before me placed his weight on his front foot, and kept his right hand behind him, no doubt to deliver a lightning strike as soon as a cow fell. I began to calculate and consider the odds. It could be done, I concluded. It must be done. With the same motion, I flicked my left foot in a slick outward arc as I swiftly battered the brutes cow-bearing wrist. My foot connected and tripped his right leg, and he registered double surprise. First, the viciousness of my cow-removal, and his sudden loss of balance. His hidden weapon - a humongous fist hidden from view unclenched for purposes of greeting the earth in the interest of balance. But I was working in milliseconds. Gravity was barely done with Bogey Boy before I was atop him, sitting astride his chest and holding his head down with both hands. He had fallen badly, and his entire weight lay on one hand. His other hand couldnt get around me for a good grip since my left knee rested firmly on his bicep near the elbow joint. I had grasped his ears and cheeks with a desperate tenacity and was pulling at them with all my might. All he could do was roll his eyes pathetically and make curious, gurgling sounds. He couldnt move. The surprised spectators let out a collective squeal of amazement. Then genuine ululations rent the air. After what felt like three hours of gruelling battle, the umpire and a few aides came and separated us. I had beaten him. He rose slowly, dejected and reduced, then slinked away into ignominy. I had stood up for my little brother. I whad won a daunting duel. The guy was third in the schoolground ranking in terms of violence, so I automatically dislodged him from that perch, puny me, and reordered the ranking of men and mice. I had done something I never thought I could ever attempt. I was officially - albeit comically and incongruously - BAD. That was my only fight in school.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:45:27 +0000
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