VENTURES TO ANNOY

Ventures to annoy.

 You are still dazed from the previous night’s celebration, called by a few friends to toast your newly published book; ventures to annoy. Only one event still comes glaringly plain to you. The brush with a reporter.

“Have you written other books?” a New York Times diva swirls her brunette brush into a wave, a few strands almost sweep the eyes from your face.

Her steady pupils stabbing into your eyeballs fearlessly indicate that she is way above your class; you know it and she seems to know it as well.

“No it is my first…” your eyes are invading every outward advertisement she has taken so much trouble to embellish. Your lips are too slow, maybe because the throat is having problems throwing down champagne-you wish it was the familiar kachasu. But the hunger in your eyes may be a better guide. She cuts in.

“That is unbelievable," she continues, "but frankly, you are a natural…..” it is your turn to cut in also; maybe the French production is hauling your senses into the sidewalk a bit too fast. You are losing all sense of care.

“Thanks, alot, Darling,” you belch the words out, she eyes you with mild disgust but she needs the interview before other papers wangle it from you.

“That book is fast-paced, did a direct punch where it matters most and sets the stage for some revolutionary thinking in the masses, what exactly was your motivation?” she sums it all before a hunk with puckered cheeks and snow-white teeth elbows her out of your face before her question is even answered.

“Let's drink a toast to such a brave writer!”She yells as her pink backless sundress flairs away to burry her into the crowd.

“I don’t do interviews, eeeee, okay!” you reject the hunk pretending to be totally drunk.

That was a day before the long arm of the law came looking for you. And, not to toast your success either, but to crush whatever little humanity you may have.

“How could you write such nonsense about the police?” the officer shouted. The inspector had ordered the local boys to pick you up for uttering words that bordered on slander in your new book. The local constable, a brown bearded giant nicknamed Sausi Africa picked you for what he called routine questioning which developed into a terrible demonstration of police brutality. The man was more like a robot programmed to inflict pain.

“I am sorry, officer,” you howl in pain. Mouthfuls of blood pour out like water from the Victoria Falls. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“I know that you won’t do such rubbish again, ever,” Sausi Africa yells, his yellow teeth revolting you like the york of rotten eggs. “No one does after I am done with them.”

The last words scald your heart with fear like a carafe of boiling water racing on bare skin. The meaning of his words leaves your heart in tatters like a splintered mirror. They are words carrying an implicit death threat. He has killed before, for smaller cases, and you know that. A chill drops down your spine like the crawl of a little insect; unreachable to be removed and too irritating to be left alone.

Suddenly, a tall, black-bearded bishop drops in driving a car that grinds to a stop with screeching tires. He bangs the outer door with extreme violence, only the police may do worse. You breathe a sigh of relief, seeing your tormenter squirming uneasily.

“Come this way,” he is trying to hide you in a corner of a small cube they call a cell. His uneasiness drives all the pain away and you are almost laughing, knowing that with his status, the Bishop’s presence will force the policeman to behave himself. He is a man of God, after all, respected by all. But alas his next words hurl your heart to the ground in one ugly heap of disillusionment.

“Where is that fool,” uncharacteristic words thunder out like a peal of a train starting off. The outlet, his long lipped mouth, is twisted to look like a beak of a hornbill. He glares about with eyes sparkling with anger and a hand waving about a red bound book “I mean the writer of this book; ventures to annoy, someone told me he is here.”

“Yes, in here,” Sausi Africa shouts, waving his hands anxiously like a rotating fan. His lips break into a stupid smile of triumph as he addresses you. “I don’t think you will object to a little break in my session with, will you?” Sausi Africa was a violent man, the modern-day version of the horrible Genghis Khan.

“Why did you write such nonsense?” the bishop raves as he walks hurriedly into your cell, elbowing Sausi Africa out. His eyes are shaking like boiling oil and his hurried step is for a hungry predator on the prowl.

Before you realize what his presence may entail, the whole world around you just explodes into a mushroom cloud of rising stars. The man of God is tearing to pieces Christ’s teaching on the treatment of enemies. The seven punches that land on your body, bare knuckles, are a crude reproduction of Mohammed Ali’s famous unanswered combinations called a bee-sting. With the same result; technical knock out. Phuu from a man of God; do they also train boxing in these churches?

 Finally, he spits in disgust, the opposite of downing a glass of champagne, which you did the night before. After such an achievement; the whole world should be toasting not condemning you. What is a little slap on it's face, after all?

Than he looks at the pink suit, creasing his face in worry as he tries to peel off a series of scattered bloody smudges. You watch between yells as the bishop proves to be worse than Sausi Africa in the department of pain-inflicting.

“I am sorry, bishop,” you howl in pain at the new enemy. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Don’t you know that we can sue for libel?” he continues while taking off his suit, in preparation to resume his war against you. His face twisted like a debt collector shows the vindictiveness of us wicked mortals. “Which bishop has …….?”

“I have worked in a church, oh sorry,” you howl senselessly. “I mean no bishop has children with nuns, it was a slip of the pen.” Your words are light years away from your heart. Or the truth.

“You slandered holy men, that was extremely stupid….” He can neither kick you nor finish his utterances because the outer door swings open, again violently and in walks, a tall man with unkempt hair and smoking a foul-smelling homemade cigarette, rolled in cement bags. He is Dansi, a street vendor.

The man of God assumes a detached pose you see in deeply religious people who cannot hurt a fly, trying to give the impression that he had played no part in the violence on you. The only hint of violence on him now is the breathing rate, coming in spurts like a broken radiator.

He is still fighting to bring his anger down, pursing his dark lips into a fake smile that even a child would dismiss as a funny imitation of a smiling porcupine. The left hand was rolling the long sleeves, desperate to hide the blood on clothes.

“Where is this writer, of ventures?” it is the man from the streets now screaming like thunder, his thin wary face contorted like a fox in labor, especially the funny grey little brush he calls a beard. “I feed my family from the street, what is wrong with that?”

“In here, my brother” Sausi Africa shouts as if happy to have a new form of violence, one perpetrated by someone with a similar cast of mind to his.

“His face is done for,” the street man says after surveying you for a punching bag. He than turns to Sausi Africa with a slight wink, “Sau, this crap won’t feel any pain. Give me the baton; let me break his legs instead.”

The baton is an excellent producer of pain, especially in the hands of an inexperienced murderer –should have -been. You confirm that through hoarse howls. A stray dog suddenly swoops down; it mistook your cry for a pack of mongrels growling over bones.

“I a..m so…rry,” your speech has been modified to a childish brawl. “I wo..n’t do I..t ag…ain aaa.”

 “It is now sixteen hours, knocking off time,” he says slanting his knob Kerry shaped head to resemble a toasted slice of bread, “I will come back tomorrow to hear why you want the government to fumigate all street vendors like cockroaches.”

The next day a loud noise wakes you up. You are still covered with blood and the pain is horrible, enough to castrate a bull.

“Where is he?” a man with a Longman Publisher’s badge has just arrived. “I mean the writer of this book; ventures to annoy.”

Peeping through the grill bars you see Sausi Africa shaking hands with a man in a zebra-striped tie before they start walking towards your cell.

“This is the man,” Sausi Africa drops his head towards you while clanking a chain of keys to open your cell. “I don’t think he slept well.”

“Why?”The publisher wondered. "His facial mask doing more questioning than the mouth.

“This volubility oasis had too many violent visitors yesterday who came to drink from his misery,” Sausi Africa answered while examining your scalp carelessly, like a chicken scratching the ground for food.

He is wrong, you slept like a log. Pain is not new to you. You could have continued without the pair invading your privacy like a pack of wandering mice.

The publisher however is not one to make wrong moves; his kick into your ribs is an excellent Bruce Lee special. A brutal taekwondo side kick that scraps painfully into the ribs like rubbing them hard against the rough ground.

“Why did you publish the book with them and not us?” he shouts. “How do you expect us to feel, you taking business away from us?” is he a publisher or martial arts champion?

“I am sorry,” your standard chorus tumbles out as the brain starts reconnecting pain from yesterday to the one for today. What formula may be used to estimate the total pain?

“That is not good enough,” he yells as another kick lifts off like a missile, this time coming for your neck. To break it if nothing is done…

“If it is a book you want, “you gasp hurriedly in pain, “there is another one, ventures to slander, it is even better than the first.”

“Did you say there is another book?” he drops the kick and tries to cool down. “That is my book, do you hear me?” Don’t you have the right to choose the one to publish your work?

“Yes, I do. It has even stronger character descriptions,” you dunk your head repeatedly, vigorously like a parrot. Sausi Africa is watching you closely, his anger rising.

“That is stupid,” he grabs a shambok from somewhere, “only yesterday you promised never to write nonsense again and here you are today telling us another pile of rubbish, probably worse than the first, is waiting for us in the gutter.”

“I am sorry,” you scream with eyes fixed on the publisher, eyes that seem to say ‘don’t worry my friend I am just playing with this punk.’ “I won’t do it again.”

“What?” the publisher missed your implied lies, “I must get that book even if the sun develops diarrhea.”

“He is through publishing any more books,” Sausi Africa aims his shambok angrily. It is descending with extreme violence, you can even estimate the amount of pain it will inflict on you. Additionally, you can even estimate the extent of injury coming on your body. What more you can calculate the horror on the ugly face, just use Pythagoras or what do they call it, damn it? ….You close your eyes and contort the dark face expecting the horrible pain any moment to slice through.

You suddenly yell for help. No one takes a million megajoules of pain quietly, hey; do we have any units for measuring pain, a non-physical quantity?

“He is publishing if he does it with us,” you hear the refreshing shout from the publisher as he throws himself on Sausi Africa to grab the shambok. He misses the shambok but grabs the policeman around the waist, hauling him to the ground like a wrestler. The policeman’s belt snaps with a ratatat sound and his pair of grey trousers slides down exposing torn underclothes. The two are now rolling like two seals on the floor of your little cell.

“He can’t ho-ho-publish lies,” Sausi Africa says haltingly looking into the dark slits of the publisher’s angry eyes. For pity or support.

“All of us live on lies,” the publisher was now trying to be reasonable. “You included. How do you reach home with lumps of bread daily from that miserable handout you call a salary?”

“Ahaa!That is what I was trying to say in my book,” you exulted like a vengeful porcupine. “See my book is just alright even if I am being persecuted like this.”

You struggle to stand in exhalation but the street vendor had done an excellent job. Every time you attempt to stand your whole body crashes down all over the place like a zebra dancing chikokoshi. Though pain is racing fractionally ahead of happiness in your system, you rally to thank the publisher for coming.

“Yes, my brother you did well to come,” you howl quickly forgetting the kick he gave you a few moments ago.

“I didn’t come for you, idiot,” the publisher has no manners even bad ones ha! “I want the book and you will give it to me or else...”

He can’t finish his empty threats.

Suddenly a crowd of people invades the police station. They are commoners and most can’t even read but they are anxious to defend you. They don’t know what you have written about them. They love you just because you have exposed the evils of society. Sausi Africa and his goons watch helplessly as the crowd carries you off, away from the police station.

“I will soldier on,” you punch the computer keys in your study, “after all; every true hobby has a risk involved.”