Crossing the red line

CHAPTER ONE : HAIL JAIL

Hail Jail! The the home for all. The only house where a government minister and a pick pocketer dine together and discuss matters at equal terms. It was here that I met Alex, the convicted minister, Joseph the convicted Bishop, Isaach the convicted Doctor, Carlos the rapist and moses the chicken-fucker and most remarkably Seith the gangster. It is a large family of angels and devils.

I loved this house called Jail, the only place where equality was exercised irrespective of the social class. However, I was quiting it getting back to the free world I had loved to hate. The world full of hate, greed, struggles for power, assassinations and above all social injustice. But most of all I hated what I was.

A factory reject, made up of third class material. The leftovers of creation. I suspect God must have created me on his way to lunch. He must have been hungry enough to be in a hurry to get lunch leaving him with only one option of giving me the brain like that of a chicken in a human body.

No wonder he lives in hiding where I can't find him for complaints. Out of question I tried all kinds of phrases and flatteries to him but all in vain. I finally figured it out that his computers were never channelled to my station. I accepted that I had succumbed to the ignobility of creation. But that all happened before I met Ameria. The woman who made me cross the Red line.

I had developed a forgetting theorem, where the life full of misery and acceptability of creatures like bed bugs, lice, cockroaches, and the amicably choired music from the rats in the grass thatched roof had started to become a nightmare to me. It had been long since I last noticed a jigger in my foot or any notice of wounds around my feet following soft tissue injuries sustained from the serious mice in the house. I had started failing on pinpointing which rat was a mother of which and which cockroache was expecting. All this had started to happen upon my stay in heaven which I was living in.

Yes I was a houseboy in this heaven, I loved it although I was aware of its temporary comfort. I knew that I could be kicked out at any time and get back to the god forsaken suburbs where adults sang Christmas Carlos in the middle of the year; where folks walked miles and miles to draw water and where wives never wore nickers because their husbands didn't mind.

Quite unlike home where folks shared meals with animals --- short of chewing grass, in this new heaven I shared the luxuries of my master.

I chewed the same royal jelly that I prepared for him, lived in a stone house not a mud cave , slept in comfortable bed instead of that rock had bed I had known for years, clean bedding instead of rags, electricity and all. I was more than determined in staying when the unexpected happened that ominous night.

It was around midnight when I was jolted out of by sleep by a soft knock on my emerald door. I was in the middle of a dream and first thought that the knocking was an illusion. A mix- up in my dream. I listened attentively. All I could hear was a gentle hum of the winds brushing against the twigs of the neatly trimmed eucalyptus trees in the compound. Soft and musical, the wind sounded like a night angel singing a lullaby to the sleeping bosses who lived in those exclusive residencies. Ambassadors, Company executives, top civil servants and other representatives of the cream creation. This reflection always gave me a feeling of guilt. I felt like a thief, breathing the same air as those men of distinction.

I dismissed the knocking as imaginary and resettled myself gently in my bed clothes. But it came again, this time distinct and insistent. I was suddenly alert and partly alarmed. I couldn't figure out who the visitor could be at that time of the night. A night thief? I wondered. But the place was well guarded. There was a security guard at the gate, not to forget the constant police patrols which kept undesirable characters out of this honoured place. After all I reasoned, only a stupid thief would come to the servant's quarters while all the precious things were in the main building where the boss and his family slept.

Who is it? my voice quivered with apprehension. It's me ,' a soft voice replied. I felt a cold stream and shivers sent down my spine when I realised who the visitor was. At first I was frozen in a mixture of disbelief, fear and excitement.

In that moment of frenzy, the only person who jumped into my mind was my boss, Francis. The rich brute who could happily cut me into pieces and feed me to the dogs if he got to know what was going on at this hour.

Francis was a progressive native. A top civil servant, he lived among the dignified, owned a large bungalow, big cars and uncountable property. To him I was just part of his discarded property. He was hardly aware of my existence in his home except when our paths crossed which was rare.

Like most people in his social bracket, Francis lived the western way and talked western laughed and coughed western, dinner jackets and all. His children hardly spoke there mother tongue or used there native names. They literally knew any thing about other natives who lived in the un priveledged surbabs because they were born and brought up in an exclusively western atmosphere. His son Peter couldn't tell the difference between a goat and a dog as he hadn't had a chance to visit surbabs where people shared the same room with the animals.

The unexpected visitor was Francis' only daughter, Ameria. The pearl of the family. She was also Francis's major problem. The rich civil servant had always had one fear that Ameria might associate herself with those outrageous teenagers wearing funny bell-bottoms and bring shame to the family. As a measure to save her, he strictly supervised her. To protect her from hungry teenagers, he made sure she remained in the compound whenever out of school and never went out without a chaperon.

But as the saying goes that; Man proposes and God disposed. When Francis was making plans for his daughter, God was busy drawing his. Ameria, already grown up adult and beautiful and lonely would try to find company of a member of opposite sex. But the only man within her restricted reach was the only man within the home compound. The house boy named Bworo.

So it was a bolt out of the blue when I realised Ameria's voice calling at my door in the middle of the night. I hesitated before I could struggle out of the bed to open the door for her. There could only be one reason for her calling at that hour, unimaginable reason.

My heart thumping and my knees buckling, I gently slid out of the the bed and went to the door. I unlocked the door with all due care lest the clicking of keys might attract unwanted attention. She was standing there, her majestic frame, silhouetted by the blazing moonlight. Her cream- white nightie added a splendor and gave her a ghosty look. I was seized by a whirl of consternation.

' Are you supprised?' ' Yes' I admitted in a voice that sounded as if it was coming from a deep pit. She didn't make any attempt to be invited in and I was too mystified to welcome her in.

'Sorry to disturb your sleep, ' she said after a lengthy moment. ' Or maybe your girlfriend is in,' I don't have any girlfriend. ' I am sorry if I butted into your affairs,' she said. You didn't butt into anything'. The tension was now beginning to relax as the conversation developed. But I was uneasy. My eyes kept roving here and there , just in case Francis emerged and caught us.

'It appears you don't want me in your house,' she said with urgency. ' I am going'. ' Oh, pardon me,' I had now enough courage to welcome her in. She looked reluctant to enter, as if she had suddenly changed her mind or she dreaded her own idea. It was not until we were engulfed in the darkness of the room that I screwed up my courage and sought her hand. She put up a slight resistance, the way they always do. A rule among women. They say no when they mean either yes or no. Because they are supposed to be on the defensive side and men on the offensive side.

She let me hold her hand as I desperately groped for something to say. She was an elephant and I was a mouse. How could a mouse court an elephant?

' Eh.... won't you sit down?' I stammered. I dragged her towards the bed. I didn't switch on the lights for the fear it might draw attention from the main building. She seemed to understand as she didn't suggest putting the lights on. We sat on the bed, side by side.

' It's nice of you to visit me,' I mummered the only sentence that came in my head. She didn't say anything. I racked my brains, searching for something to say.

' Your father,' I said. ' How do you think he will react if he found out what we are doing?'

' My father!' She spat out a word as if it reminded her of something unpleasant she had eaten and was getting rid of.

' But he loves you dearly,' I said. ' Don't you love him as much?'

' I didn't come here to discuss my father,' she said sternly. If you have nothing better to tell me.....'

She made as if to go . I held her back and struggled to calm her down.

' O.K. O.K.' It was now the moment to make the approach. The darkness served it's purpose for I couldn't imagine how I could face her with lights on. The special commodity I wasn't supposed to make friends with, let alone touch. Then it occurred to me that she was using me. I didn't mean anything to her but I had something her farther couldn't buy her. The only precious thing God gave me.

I pulled her into the bed and noticed that she had nothing on under the nightie. There was no time for preliminaries as I lacked the appropriate language for such an extraordinary encounter. But while so much happened that night, I didn't pause to consider how much damage I was causing to myself. It wasn't until much later that I realised the major significance of that night. I had crossed the the social red line. I was on the other side, far away from where I rightly belonged. And it was too late to to turn back.