Drinks

The tribal chief is no more, the self-proclaimed danger to the society and especially to himself finally lived up to his slogan, and there is no going to be a traditional chief send-off.

Not that his tribesmen have forsaken him, no. How can they forget his conceited calls from across the dusty, rusty, and stinking clubs when heavy in the pockets; "kilamtu apewe yake" would be the call, and they would celebrate the sent messiah turning his sweat into liquor for the greatness of the drunkard's kingdom. Sometimes the pathetic begging for just a bottle, and his willingness to do anything for it. 

They have been with him throughout the journey, from his first taste of bottled freedom now to the last. All with reminders that excessive alcohol is harmful to your health. Still, they will be there to see him off, sober or drunk. They must show up for a fallen tribesman. It's an opportunity and reason to drink again!

So sad that with the laying down of a "prominent" chief, there won't be any meaningful tradition accustomed. There won't be women crying their hearts out, a dark grey cloud covering the sun, and later heavy rains that will be assumed to be his blessings and acceptance into the spirit land. No goat, no roster, will be slain to appease the higher spirits to welcome him, but they'll be prayers, so he never visits again.

How unfortunate that with the setting of a figure chief, no child will be named after him, for if indeed people are names and names are people, then no one would wish their child to turn up as him. That no one will want to associate themselves with him unless not in a sober mind. It's shameful to only accustom him to a mere decent send-off, for it's the law of the land. That what comes out of the soil must be returned to the soul. He is a son of the land regardless of his life; he is a son to a mother, so spaces in some people's hearts will be unoccupied.

I've known him for quite some time, from our admission day. We shared a room in our first year before he found his known tribesmen. A bright mind, perhaps too bright for basic street knowledge. He joined the university from a prestigious devout Catholic national school in western Kenya, with high flying grades into the school of engineering and technology to take a degree in aerospace engineering. With the newfound freedom, away from the pressure of the "Holy Mary" gazing from the left as his son hanging on the cross ahead constantly taming your morals.

From the heavy academic burden of being in a national school, top performance is expected. Of course, he was a  genius, an academic giant, so perhaps it wasn't that hard for him. But the campus is different. Being accountable only to himself gave him some new wings, one he decided to use to explore the heights his aerospace degree couldn't take him, yeah,t is a matter of heights and skies, but one is mental.

His family owns a fleet of public service shuttles back in Eldoret, and the father had promised to ferry the whole village on his graduation day to come to celebrate with him. It was a beautiful day. Faces full of hope and pride as their son was finally starting a new journey that would change their status and life. The title of an engineer or a doctor is enough achievement in their lands, and it's the parent's pride to have an engineer as a son. A few months later, the son was still on the journey, but now in a different direction at a supersonic speed.

With freedom comes a heavy burden that no one thought of warning him about; they assumed he was brilliant. He made new friends, but as time passed, I hardly met with him after moving out from the hostels. Whenever I saw him, something was amiss.

He had started drinking. Something he had never tried before, and being in a space in which he was only answerable to himself, he was falling for it. At a more incredible speed, I noticed when I bumped into him along the dirty corridors on a Friday evening. He later moved out too and found a place a few blocks from mine, so we met more often, but on most occasions, he was intoxicated, if not with liquor, he was high with the herb. He had no reason for drinking or smoking, I asked him one day. He was in it just for the fun, the thrill, and the rush boldly convincing himself he had it under control.

Things started getting out of hand in our second year, he had already missed almost all the continuous assessment tests, and sitting for the main exam was pointless. He received an academic warning, but it didn't scare him, and he drank to it. Through his third year, he was now a heavy drinker, and with his friend, they found every reason to drink, from lectures missing their classes, completing assignments, and sometimes they would just drink because they could drink.

He was super pumped from his father's pocket money and sometimes conning his mother for stupid reasons to buy liquor and measure up with his friends. Money wasn't an issue to him; sometimes, he was the group's voice, spending on them earning him the title of governor. It was pretty easy as within the dusty, rusty Kenyatta market clubs; liquor is at a comrade price. But toward the end of the semester, he was pretty messed up as he left for the holidays. The family did a follow-up with the institutions only to realize that the son was barely in school, taking his classes from pubs around the school and attending every single party around the city.

His father withdrew the heavy funding, and he was to survive on a budget through his fourth year, thinking would be forced to quit drinking, but unfortunately, it gave him more reasons. From spending the night in ditches and sometimes in police custody, paying his release in the morning after borrowing cash from anyone he knew to later being forced to wash the police cell to earn his release. 

He went through the whole year without setting a foot back home and hardly talking to his father.

He had tried quitting after he woke up one morning in a city mortuary, naked and on top of a pile of bodies. All he could remember was a drinking game and, later, loud sirens with flickering blue and red lights. He swore to his life he was done, but the spirits of the "spirit" had him in shackles. 

I ran into him a week later. Shirtless, one shoe missing, staggering, and hurling some heavy queens tongued meaningless sentences. He turned sharply like a streak of electric current had flown through his body as I shouted, Governor! He gazed at himself in awe, as if he had just discovered he was drunk and shirtless as he tried to find balance. He had taken his shirt off because he found it too heavy, he said when I inquired about his state.

Things were now hard on his side as the father stopped the funding, and he could barely maintain a job, dead deep into drinking, smoking sadly reduced to a trench drunkard just like the other village men, as no friend wanted to associate with him, for he was now broke. 

A few months ago, he was hospitalized with failed liver after a series of heavy drinking on an empty stomach. The mother tried her best by the bedside, hoping to see him get better. On his furlough, he seemed a different person, one who had realized he was messed up and needed to take a new turn.

Things seemed overwhelming on his side, trying to catch up with his studies while trying to survive on a budget since his father wanted nothing to do with him. He finally gave in, to try and numb the struggle for a moment. He was back to claim his death, his governance throne, and with each sip, he found comfort, for he knew no one to talk to, are how to get himself out of it, after all, he was book brilliant, no genius at all.

I was in fright going through the status early in the morning to see his joyful face patched on a post-reading go well tribal chief. I wasn't sure it was him, and I tried hard not to accept. Still, he was a man of the people and went from each post to another, with different photos of him being celebrated and missed. I felt a significant loss. 

He died from a liver burst or something, they say.

In the end, only winners can write history, he made none, and now all is lost, seen as a loser. He will be long forgotten soon. Perhaps his name will be remembered whenever a warning is given to many of his kind, but it's a blow and, at the same time, part of our daily lives on campus; we need a way out...There are so many ways to have fun!

Go well!