Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

“In the east, working hard, tending to cows and pigs, sah.”

The General laughed and said, “Tending to cows and forgetting all about us.”

“I knew that you were extremely busy and I could not pluck up the courage to disturb you, sah.”

“A man needs his friends. It is a cold, mean world out there,” he said complacently, almost amusedly, knowing that he could take care of himself in said world.

“You are right, sah.”

The General looked at the man’s clothes: a bad-fitting suit, a cheap shirt, cheap shoes. The man was developing a bald patch despite being so young. He lacked the gleam of well-being on his forehead; in fact, he looked as if he had not been paid for years. The large scuffed hands that used to steal mangoes, the sunken eyes, the clothes hanging sadly on his frame, made the General wonder what the man’s wife looked like. Another sad-eyed case left behind by the revolution, he thought. He wanted to ask him where his parents were, but he decided to wait. He wanted to remind him of some of the escapades of their youth, but he did not want to bring him too close too quickly, at least not before knowing what he wanted from him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I have a very big problem, General. My son got himself in big trouble. He joined a group of bad people and they tried to ferry coffee to Kenya,” the man said, looking fixedly at the table.

“Smugglers! Smugglers!”

“I failed in my parental responsibility. I was too busy trying to make ends meet to keep track of what the boy was doing. Now he is in police custody. Who knows what the Anti-Smuggling Unit people will do to him? They might burn him as they have done others.”

“Those people are sick, I can assure you,” the General said, thinking about his days as king of the lake. He remembered seeing all those beautiful little islands from his helicopter and feeling that he owned each and every one of them. He remembered thinking that he owned all the fishes, the crocodiles, the tadpoles swimming in the lake. He remembered thinking that he owned the air everybody on the lake breathed. Now it was all gone. Stripped from him in front of his mother. He kept quiet for such a long time that the man thought he had fallen asleep. He coughed a few times in a bid to remind him of his presence.

“You are my last hope, General.”

“What do you expect me to do?” he asked, looking at the stars. The Southern Cross constellation always reminded him of his favourite islands. The water used to look that icy at times.

“I am sure that if you ordered a soldier to move, he would move without question, sah, General.”

The General kept quiet for a long time. He took a swig from his glass. Why should he help this man? Was his son the only one with the threat of death hanging over his head? “Do you realize what you are asking me to do? Do you want me to break the law? And interfere in the affairs of another ministry?”

“Sah, if my cow fell in a pit, I would call friends with ropes and try to pull it out. I would lower myself in and do what I could. In this case I just can’t.”

“Well said, cowboy,” laughed the General. Here was his chance to fuck Ashes. This he would do for fun. It was high time his men did something dramatic. It would wake them up; maybe even whet their appetite for something stiffer. “I don’t condone smuggling. It is treason. It is punishable by death. However, I make an exception. I will free the boy. Warn him never to sin again. Next time, it will be the bullet. A bazooka shell. There would be nothing left to bury, I can assure you.”

“I am in your debt, General,” the man said, kneeling down and placing his palms on the table, face upturned as if for a slap or a string of spittle. Peasants always greeted the king prostrate; kneeling was not a bad substitute for a prince.

“Get up and go and enjoy the party. You owe me nothing. I don’t have time to collect debts.”

“I will send you a bull, General. You deserve a bull, a very big bull, sah.”

Trembling with relief, the man almost fell over as he tried to rise and walk away.

The second man to be called was a tribesman. The mothers of the two men had been friends. Twice before, the General had helped this man. The problem was that he had too many troubles, too many debts. He had helped him to get a business, which had run aground. He had bought him cows on credit, but the money never got repaid, and he had to force the bank to cancel the loan at gunpoint.

“I am not worthy to be in your presence, General. Tolerating me is a sign of your magnanimity.”

“You are right. Twice I used my good offices to help you, all in vain. What do you want now?” he roared, and banged the table.

“I need help,” the man said, trembling.

“You need locking up and learning some discipline. Do you know how much a common soldier makes a month? No, you don’t. Very little. My father was a soldier. He got nothing from the service except a drinking habit. I had to organize his funeral and pay off his debts. Such a humiliation after decades of selfless service. Do you expect me to pay your drinking debts for you? The best thing I can do is to organize your funeral, I assure you.”

“I am sorry, General. I just need another chance.”

“You don’t have any sense. Now go. I don’t want to see you again.”

Next the colonel in charge of his security, his chief advisor, came. They had known each other for a long time, and he was the man behind the colonel’s promotion. The General saw more of this man than he did his own family. He liked the colonel’s advice because it was always sound, even if it was repugnant at times. He was a university graduate, the only learned man close to him. He was the one who handled the most sensitive assignments.

“What a fetid asshole!” the General complained lightheartedly as his last visitor disappeared.

“Some people are not worth anybody’s time, General,” the colonel said, smiling. He knew that the General was in a good mood. It was a good omen.

“Are you having a good time yourself?”

“Of course. There is a lot of booze, meat and music. What more does a man want?”

“Getting down to business, Colonel. I still want to kill Bat. The quicker the better,” the General said, looking very businesslike.

“We still don’t know the whole story, General.”

“Since when does one need to know the whole fucking story in order to act? You see a traitor, you hit him. That is our way.”

“Rabid Dog knows a lot about the ministry. We need him. He is our tool. We can punish him, but killing him would be a waste. Ashes is bluffing. If we kill this man, that reptile wins. Remember he tried to threaten you with investigation. Why didn’t he do it if he knew so much? He is winding you up. Don’t fall into his cheap traps.”

“Rabid Dog is a thief. I don’t even know why we hired him in the first place, I can assure you.”

“It was because he is brilliant.”

“On whose side are you, Colonel?”

“Ours, of course.”

“Rabid Dog is the worst example of a southerner. He got everything for nothing. Nothing. He just walked in from Britain and got this wonderful job. What hardship has he ever undergone? Wiping his ass, I guess,” he said morosely, maliciously. He signalled a soldier to bring him a joint. His wife would complain about it, but he could live with that. He needed the topper.

“Give him some more time while we watch the developments, General,” the colonel said, aware that his boss would relent. It was a personal matter, after all, not treason, not smuggling, not plotting a coup. General Bazooka was not the only one; many others had grudges like this one to settle, and some settled them at the cost of national interest. After all, the Marshal was the biggest grudge-settler of them all. The colonel was at times surprised by how petty some of these top leaders were, how insecure they felt because of their lack of education. Many suspected that their underlings despised them and it hurt, because they were the rulers, exposing their inefficiency day by day. He intervened whenever he could; sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. This time he had hope. He felt very good whenever he could get somebody off because he had studied law, although he was involved more in breaking it than upholding it.