Bingo's Run Read online

  The Thaatima patted my hand. His smile was empty.

  People love things. With Mrs. Steele, it was hustling art. With Father Matthew, it was money. Mr. Edward loved his philosophy. Charity loved everything to be perfectly in line. Slo-George loved food, Wolf loved power. I loved the run. But the Thaatima was different; he had no love. Because love does not trap him the way it traps everyone else, the Thaatima always wins. But the reason the Thaatima always wins is also the reason he loses: his love is locked inside him, like a nut in a shell that never breaks—no one ever tastes it, and so it is tasteless.

  The Thaatima’s smile of false kindness tipped into me like milk into black coffee. The color inside my head changed. That is how the Thaatima works: he pours nothing in and you become just like him. He patted my hand again more firmly. “Fine, Bingo,” he said. “Keeping the contract is your choice. But, Bingo, is that really how Father Matthew taught you to behave?” His white emptiness flooded into me, and I feared him. He would have made a good killer.

  One evening in Nkubu, Senior Father and me walked home from the field. He stopped suddenly and jammed his long stick into the ground in front of me. When he lifted the stick, a scorpion was beneath it. “Scorpion,” I said. Senior Father, a giant against the sun, said, “Look closa.” Stuck on the shell of the scorpion was a fly. Senior Father said, “Tha ichneumon fly sting make tha scorpion always taste death. Tha’ why tha scorpion bite—he afraid to die by himself.” Senior Father lifted his stick and the scorpion ran off. The light blue eyes of the Thaatima made me feel like I was stained inside with the taste of death. The Thaatima said, “Bingo, why don’t you leave Colette and me to chat for a while.”

  As I walked away, my thinking and my legs both moved unevenly. The Thaatima had mixed up my thinking, and I was no longer sure of what was what.

  Chapter 43.

  Spider Necklace

  When I was small, Senior Father and me used to walk home from the field in the evenings. As we walked, he told me the legends. Mama called them “old-fashioned,” but I liked them more than the stories in the Good News Bible. My favorite legends were about the Trickster and his long clay pipe. The Trickster fooled everyone and always came out smiling. I laughed so hard when Senior Father told me stories about the Trickster because I knew the Trickster was me. One day I said to Senior Father, “I am the Triksta.” Senior Father shook his head. “No, Bingo, you’z not tha Triksta,” he said. “You’z tha runna.”

  Senior Father said, “The runna can run anywhere. He can run into the sky and into a tree. He can run fast, but sometime he must run slow. He can run right out tha world to tha purple Jwasa.”* He poked my head with his long finger. “Bingo, you iz special. You can run on light. You can run through dark. You can run where everything is nothing. You run foreva, and only when you stop it is tha end.” Sometimes, when he spoke like this, I thought Senior Father had gotten too much sun on his head.

  Mama also said I was special. Many times she said, “Bingo, you’z a special boy. You made from special clay.” But then she would say, “Clean tha floor,” or “Wash ya clothes,” or “Do two pages Bible writing.”

  “But you jus’ said I’z special,” I would say back.

  Quick as a bet, Mama answered, “Bingo, you’z such a special boy—make sure ya clean tha floor special good,” or she said, “Bingo, you so special, you can write out four pages of Bible writing.” That was Mama; she was special quick.

  After my father left, Mama and me lived in Senior Mother’s house. When I was not in school, I went to the field with Senior Father, cleaned the floors, and did my Bible writing. At night, I slept next to Mama and it was good.

  Mama and me came to Nairobi after the gang boys killed everyone in my house except Mama and me. Mama tried to leave me at a church outside Nairobi, but I cried so much she kept me. Mama said, “Bingo, we have no monay.” I was twelve. I said, “Mama, I get you monay, I promise.” But Mama got money herself. Mama oiled her skin and smelled good. She smelled so good, men paid to smell her. “So good,” they said—then we got money. Mama was special like me; all the men said that. But Mama wanted none of them. Mama only wanted me; I was her only special man.

  I carry nothing now, not even Mama, because she is dead. But I can smell her, everywhere and always.

  Walking away from the Excursion Café, the storm inside my head cleared. I smelled Mama in the air. I felt strong and I understood it all. I remembered the Africa Business program; it was all about contracts. Father Matthew had sold me with a contract. I had a contract for Hunsa. The Thaatima had a contract for $750 per hour. Marriage and divorce are both contracts. The Bible is a contract for the churches. Now Mrs. Steele had a contract for me. Everyone has a contract, a thread to tie one to another. I did not have a contract with Charity, but I wanted one.

  I ran to the front desk of the hotel. “Mr. Edward, give me string, ya.”

  He started to take in air; he was about to talk philosophy. “Mr. Edward,” I interrupted, “I’z in a hurry.”

  “Of course, sir,” he said. He reached under his counter and handed me a ball of thick brown string. “Scissors, too?” he asked.

  “Ya,” I said, and took them.

  “My pleasure,” he said to my back.

  I went to my room, switched on the television, and sat on the bed. It was the same Nigerian soap that had been on before. The girl from the village, who had ended up the girlfriend of a drug dealer, was now let out of prison. She went back to her village. When she got there everyone ignored her, even her mother. Her mother called her Disgrace. Disgrace shaved her head and went to live alone in a hut outside the village. A few days later, a little orphan boy, who was also bald, showed up at her hut. The little boy and Disgrace said no words to each other, but she let the boy stay there; like her, he had nowhere to go. The next day, Disgrace made sure that the boy went to school, and she started to farm in her garden. Still everyone ignored Disgrace, but she did not seem to mind. She did not do white or men. She lived with the little boy and seemed happy. The episode finished when the boy got sick and the girl had to take him to the doctor in a nearby village.

  As I watched the soap, I cut four pieces of string as long as my hand and one piece twice as long as my arm. I had not done this since I was small. I lined up the four short pieces on the bed and squeezed them together in the middle—it already looked like a spider. I took the long piece and wrapped it around the spider’s middle—round and round. I tied it tight—now the spider had a body. There was enough of the long piece left over to go around the neck. I tied knots in each end of the eight legs—spider feet. It looked so good I thought the string spider would run away.

  I opened the door and looked out; the laundry cart was outside a room down the corridor. I ran down the corridor and burst in. “Charity, this for you!” I shouted. A woman straightened up behind the bed. She was four times older than Charity and uglier than a brick. Her voice shrieked, “Charity not here till lata. She comes in at 7:00 P.M.” I was surprised that her brick voice didn’t crack her face.

  Tak! I thought. I pushed the string spider necklace into my pocket and went downstairs to the hotel entranceway. I was hungry but I did not want Livingstone food.

  Kenyatta Avenue was full of workers getting lunch. I found good food in the bins outside Chicken Heaven and went to the benches at the bus station to eat it. I sat, ate, and listened for an hour to men talk about politics. They went on about the new Kenyan constitution. But they knew nothing. I knew politics; I had run white to a hundred politicians. They are like hookers—they just get paid more. One does prostitution, the other does constitution. It is all for sale; the contracts just get bigger.

  I decided to head back to the hotel. I wanted to lie beside the still blue of the pool and wait for Charity to come on duty. I was just about to walk up the Livingstone driveway when bam! My head filled with light. Then it was dark, utter black darkness.

  * * *

  * Soup.

  Chapter 44.


  Nyayo House

  A gray blanket lay over me. I was cold. It felt like death was a close friend about to visit. I was in a windowless cell lit by one electric bulb. The door was dark green iron. The bed was wire. The walls smelled of rot.

  I guessed this was Nyayo House, Nairobi’s famous prison. I pulled the blanket up to my neck. It was stained with maroon blotches. Time passed. The back of my head hurt. I thought, Would Mrs. Steele really do this to me? Put me in Nyayo House just to get a contract? My contract was worth millions; I, obviously, was not. Somewhere, a man howled, screamed his head off for a bit, then hushed. In the new quiet I stared at the four concrete walls, the floor, and the ceiling—all gray, all cracked. I thought about Senior Father’s stories about Fam, the evil brother inside us who sits in his prison hole and drinks from the different skins of evil. I never realized it before—how lonely evil is.

  A black spider crawled out of a crack in the ceiling. It looked down at me, and I looked up at it. It reminded me of my hotel room. And thinking of my hotel room reminded me of Mrs. Steele. I thought of her sitting by the pool, and of our deal: her Bloody Marys and my Tuskers. I smiled at the thought of my face in her dark glasses and her breasts in the black bikini. I know scammers, liars, and thieves, but by the pool—just her and me—she didn’t seem to be scamming. What had happened? But who can stop the chang’aa greed from making you forget what is right?

  Locks clanked. The cell door swung open, and Gihilihili clicked into the cell. A wave of perfume attacked me. “Hello, young man,” he said. He smiled down at me with his giant grin. “And how are we feeling this evening?”

  I stood up and the blanket fell. I said, “I’z fine, sa.”

  Gihilihili turned to two policemen behind him. He waved the back of his hand at them. “They call me General,” he said. “But you, Bingo, are to call me Prophet. You and I have a great deal to talk about.” Then Gihilihili turned and clicked out of the cell. The two policemen took my arms and we followed Gihilihili to Interrogation Room 6, which consisted of two wooden chairs and a metal table. The two policemen stood at the door. Gihilihili said, “Mr. Mwolo, sit.”

  I sat. Gihilihili sat on the other side of the table. He put his hands on the metal and spread out his fingers. His gold Rolex watch had diamonds on it. His fingernails were smooth, like a girl’s. His skin was dark, and his light gray suit was shaped to his body. His white shirt was bright and he wore a blue-and-red striped tie. The silver cross on his lapel shone. The bright ceiling lights bounced off his bald oval head, but his teeth were brightest of all.

  Gihilihili took a deep breath. “First of all,” he said, “let me say that I am most sorry that we had to bring you here at all, Mr. Mwolo. I know that you are a busy young man.” He tried to wash the Kenyan out of his voice, but it stained every word. “But understand this,” he continued, his eyes wide. “I am here to help you.”

  “Yes, sa,” I said.

  “Prophet,” he corrected. “It seems that Father Matthew received a troublesome telephone call from Mr. Goerlmann, an associate of Mrs. Steele. Father Matthew asked that you and I have a talk to help you walk surely in the way of God.” Gihilihili touched the silver cross on his lapel. “I have brought you here, Bingo, in order to remind you of your good fortune and to counsel you on your possible fate.”

  I was right; it was the contract. Mrs. Steele and her Thaatima had called Father Matthew. But I knew that Gihilihili could not dispose of me—not until Mrs. Steele found Hunsa and was able to take his paintings. Gihilihili was here to play, not to break the toy.

  “Mr. Mwolo, it has come to my attention,” Gihilihili said, “that you may not be showing our visitors from America all the kindness that is becoming of a Kenyan of your stature.” He picked his teeth. “But my greater concern, as a minister of the church, is that greed has gotten the better of your sense of right and wrong. Might it be, Bingo, that you have become trapped by worldly things?”

  The chief of police spoke through his smile. “Mr. Bingo, the matter we have to discuss is most straightforward.” He got up and clicked around the room. I wondered when he would get to the Kepha Kepha contract.

  “Yes, sa,” I said.

  Gihilihili leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “For the last time, it is Prophet.” His breath was minty, and I felt sick from the mint, the breath, and the perfume. He went on, “We are here to discuss the matter of paradise.”

  “Paradise?” I repeated.

  Gihilihili’s voice was soft. His breath puffed on my ear. “Mr. Mwolo, where is paradise?”

  “I don kna’, Profit,” I said. I pointed at the cracked ceiling. I said, “Paradise up there?” I knew that whatever I said was wrong. “In heavin.”

  Gihilihili said softly, “No, Mr. Mwolo, I will ask you again. Where is paradise?”

  I said, “I’z not certin’, Profit.”

  He threw the metal table sideways. It smashed against the wall and clanged. But I knew it was an act. He stepped in front of me. He pushed me, and the chair I was seated on tipped back. I fell onto the floor. Gihilihili was on me in a second. He knelt on my chest. “Mr. Mwolo, I asked you a simple question. I swear, I will rip your arms off your body if you do not tell me.” He glared down. “I asked you, where is paradise?”

  “In heavin,” I repeated.

  It was a game. If I told him where the Hunsa paintings were: game over. If I showed up to see Mrs. Steele with no arms: game was also over.

  Gihilihili stood up. He pushed his peg leg into my belly. I could see that the wood was scratched up. “Let me tell you about paradise, Mr. Mwolo.” He leaned forward, and I screamed under his weight. I grabbed for the wood. He smiled down at me. “In paradise, it is the poor man who is the king and the rich man his footman. That is the first teaching.” He lifted the weight off his leg. I cried out and reached for my belly. The scratches on the wood told me that he had played this game before. “Mr. Mwolo, do you wish to know the second teaching?” he asked me, still smiling. He continued, “Paradise is the poor man’s dream.”

  “Yes, sa. Profit,” I said.

  Gihilihili looked at the ceiling for a moment. “The third teaching,” he went on, “is that paradise is a dream inside you. Deep inside.” He leaned his peg leg into my belly again. I screamed out and gripped the wood to try and lift it off me. “Paradise, Mr. Mwolo, is where you go when everything else has cleared away. Paradise is what remains when everything else has gone.” He looked down at me. “Mr. Mwolo, you understand?”

  I screamed, “Yes, sa.”

  He said, “I am sorry?”

  “Profit,” I said, and his leg relaxed.

  “Mr. Mwolo, God has bestowed upon me the burden of guiding others in their duty on earth, of guiding them from beneath the shade of sin into the light of eternal paradise. Every man has his duty. A man without duty is like a clock without hands; it does not matter if it works or not. A man without duty is as good as dead. My duty, dear Bingo, is to help others find their sense of duty.”

  I knew about the cut-up boys found in sacks at Krazi Hari’s feet. Gihilihili had brought many supplicants to paradise—many, in fact, without hands. He saw that I was thinking my own thoughts and stamped the peg leg down on my belly. The pain felt worse than death. Gihilihili talked on. “The problem, Mr. Mwolo, is that paradise is only for the poor man. The rich man cannot reach paradise drunk on Satan’s greed.” He looked down at me. “You understand?”

  I nodded. Pain ripped across my body and into my back. Black crept in from the edges. If this was paradise—with everything gone—I was close.

  Tears rolled off my face. Gihilihili adjusted the peg into the middle of my belly and leaned forward. “That is why, Mr. Mwolo, the thief can never go to paradise. That is why a man who clings to worldly possessions can never go to heaven. A greedy man, Mr. Mwolo, is lost to heaven’s song. The greedy man can never taste bliss; avarice is Satan’s kiss. Mr. Mwolo, clutch unto worldly things and paradise is forever lost. But because forgiveness
for Jesus, is like thieving is for you I shall offer you an opportunity to correct your ways. The contract you cling to is a worldly thing more fitting for an American’s indulgence.” His smile fell. “Now, are you certain you fully understand?” Then he leaned forward so that all his weight, the peg leg, the concrete floor, and me were one. He whispered, “Now you sure?”

  My scream was my prayer. I begged to enter paradise, if paradise was painless dark. But Gihilihili, chief of police, doctor, curator of art, and special envoy to paradise clicked out of Interrogation Room 6 and away.

  Chapter 45.

  Charity’s Tale

  I lay in warm water in the hotel bathroom trough. A trail of blood floated from my bottom hole like a baby snake. I thought about pain. Dog liked to give pain for his pleasure. Sadist Sister Margaret used her ruler to teach. Gihilihili liked to watch how pain changed people’s faces. I thought about Boss Jonni and his two hookers; the pain of the gun was the last thing they felt before they died. Now that they were dead, there was no pain. Paradise is when the pain has gone. I had seen paradise, and it was dark. For a second, I remembered the fall of Knife into Mama, but I pushed that thought away. She was in paradise—no pain. I lived, and pain is a part of life. My life was worth a contract. I wondered if that was America—all contract, no trust. I looked across the bathroom at the sink. Everything was lined up, but not like before. Now the small bottle of shampoo stood on top of the soap and the toothbrush was balanced against the bottle. They formed a column that pointed up at paradise.

  There was a tap at the door.

  The only visible mark Gihilihili had left on me was a coin-size bruise on my belly, but I could only just stand. I put on a perfectly folded bathrobe. It was long and dragged on the floor behind me. I staggered to the door. It hurt to pull it open. As if it knew, the door pushed opened by itself. Charity grinned. “Mr. Mwolo, would you like turn-down service?” She stepped toward me, looked at me, and the smile dropped off her face. As the door fell shut, I heard the toothbrush column she had made in the bathroom topple.