Mama Night’s bar (Part VII)

As they say, it is never the size of the dog that determines the fight, but the size of the fight that determines the dog.

From the fight at the bicycle washing pond, our local bodybuilder, the first cinema hall investor in the slum, turned out to be just big body.

You should have seen the village euphoria upon the demolition of Mr Sunday’s supposed invincibility. The youthful lads who Sunday had scared away from the beautiful girls at Mama Night’s bar could not hold back their happiness.

Kiti was their man; he had slayed a monster. The story goes that when Kiti went to the nearby clinic to have his broken nose cleaned up, the boys crowded around and cleared the bill while chanting, “Our man, Kiti, our man, Kiti!”

It is instructive about how some people, with a bit of power and influence, tend to see themselves as “masters of the universe,” something like, without them, the world would come to a standstill. It never happens.

Indeed, as you would have imagined, not only Sunday’s own cinema hall continued to run its scheduled movies, but Mama Night’s bar worked as normal as ever. Inside the bar that night, Paul Kafeero’s Akasanke blasted away on replay, often interrupted by Fred Sebata’s Singa Abagenda Bandikomyeewo.

You would tell, most of these drinkers had not liked Sunday at all, and were tipping the barmaids with wanton abandon. Kiti’s name would be admiringly whispered here and there.

It began with the veteran leg vendor herself, Mama Night. She was in moods for a good laugh about how her muscular ‘boyfriend’ who had been demolished by a man who washes bicycles for a living.

“He could not fight, hihihi! What is he always doing in the gym!” Mama Night broke the silence and muted chit-chats. “Those muscles are for nothing, hihihi! No wonder even under the sheets…don’t make me say things…hihihi!”

The more Mama Night joked and laughed, the more the drinkers felt empowered to share more nuggets about Sunday’s demolition. “They say, big bodies tend to have small lousy dongles…and small men like myself, you despise me at your peril!” one drinker quipped in.

The night continued with the usual merrymaking before Mama Night would ask for the new hero to be brought over. I could not believe my ears; in an instant, Sunday had been thereby forgotten. A couple of weeks had passed without any useful updates on the Kiti-Sunday-Maida affair.

It was custom that often at a football match, we crowded together in groups of four or five and caught up with the latest in the streets. It was there one time, when one of the boys, Kasumba — not the renowned NBS TV news anchor — one of the bicycle washers, opened a narrative line with Kiti and Maida.

“Did you people know what Kiti and Maida have been up to?” he started grabbing our attention immediately. As you could imagine, dear reader, anything about Maida, Sunday and Kiti was scoop.

That night after Sunday’s demolition, the belle herself, Maida, in body and spirit, smuggled herself into Kiti’s dingy domicile. She had gone to check on him. This was the first visit Kiti ever received from his crush, Maida, but as it turned out, Kiti had never known freedom — or intimate happiness — and actually had no idea what to do when the moment arrived.

Kiti lived with his older brother, Mpiima, and since they had one room — what would be described as a studio apartment for folks in Kololo and Ntinda — each set their beds on either side of the room. Mpiima, realising that his younger sibling had serious business to take care of, allowed him more privacy by going to spend his nights elsewhere.

Despite being a new arrival in the slum, as they say at university, brother Mpiima dustbinned himself. Kiti, almost seeking advice, told his co-bicycle washers, that on the previous weekend, Maida spent the night at his dingy, as she had promised on the night after his victory.

Kiti told the boys further that anxious about the visit, he had lost appetite for the entire week, and ate but very little.

“Bana, mbakobere, I still don’t know what to do. I do not know why she refused to remove her clothes the entire night; she is so stubborn!” Kiti started drawing his listeners in animated laughter.

“You fool! Bona entama eno. You are such a sheep!” one of the boys quipped in sharply.
“How? I think she is into me, but she is just playing, jumping from this bed to the other for the entire night. What is this!” Kiti said, arousing more uncontrolled laughter.

“Yet, I was like a rock the entire night, but was jumping from one bed to the other, giggling. Nga kali kunsaliza! I got frustrated.” Kiti continued, as the boys closed in on him not to miss anything from their visibly frustrated hero.

“And then in one instance, I managed to squeeze my hands under her lower garment, but then I immediately suffered a wet dream! Bana munambe!”

I should tell you while I laughed along, my teenage ears could not fully make head or tail of this story until much later in life. Kiti was older than all of us, and we had always thought, the older one is, the more knowledgeable one is about the world. But here was an older dandy, having fought so hard for his happiness and freedom, but had no idea about how to enjoy it.

Sunday was not done: Before school opened that week, we learned that Sunday had gone to the police station and reported a case of assault, and that Kiti would be soon arrested. We expected Mama Night might step in to stop Sunday from embarrassing himself further.

But it was not lost on me, how a man who had carried himself about as the John Rambo, and Jean Claude Vandamme of the slum, all of the sudden resorted to seeking help from the state.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.