Surname 1

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

Course

Date

On 8 January in an introductory piece for the Men and Marriage series I wrote about a little spat I
had with my best mate in our investment Whatsapp Group. You can read it here.
(http://bit.ly/2IproFg ). I was driving past Parklands Police Station at about 11am, headed for a
meeting on 3rd Parklands avenue when he called me. He was bemused that I had written about
him, that I had mentioned his marriage. “You had no right,” he said. He wasn’t particularly
angry, just disappointed. I protested that I didn’t mention his name. “I called you X!” I said. “Do
you know anyone called X in this town?” He said it was still shit. Over the next few days it
became a storm in the teacup that is our Investment Whatsapp group until my bro Julius, who is
the treasurer, and Paul, the secretary, eventually called for order. A kangaroo court was quickly
convened on the following Saturday in a banda at Motor Sport Club in South C where we
normally hold our meetings. I sat in the accused’s box while X sat scowling in the plaintiff’s box.
He had a writhing case against me. His grouse; it was disloyal and disingenuous to write about
his personal matter without his consent. It betrayed the friendship.

The other buggers nodded gravely.

After a terse and sober discussion it was agreed that I had crossed a line; you don’t bloody write
about people here and their issues and if X feels that you crossed his line then you did. They had
a point. I didn’t have legs to stand on. I had no right to mention him and his marriage even in
anonymity. I apologised to him and extended an olive branch which he gracefully took because
he always was the better man. He said, “It’s cool. We are cool.” We shook hands. Then we talked
about him and his situation, and resolutions were made to keep the communication channels
open. We cracked a bottle of whisky and touched glasses to brotherhood then drunk and joshed
until late.  

Almost a month later, X drove his car into the back of a stationary trailer at 140km/hr. You can’t
imagine what happens to a car when you ram into a stationary object at 140km/hr. The bonnet –
even of the high-strength steel variety of his car – crumples like a deflated heart. It was a
Mercedes E-250 and the launched dual two-stage airbags resembled deflated parachutes. The
gear lever area showed a few cracks from the impact from pictures, but somehow the front seat
 Surname 2

area, apart from broken shards of glass, looked relatively undamaged. He survived, with a
fractured spine, but lay in hospital paralysed neck down. We gathered around him in his hospital
bed. He was coherent, still cheeky. I remember making a long joke about his stubble and him
chuckling and saying he’s now ready to join a Congolese band with that beard. His left eye was
bloodshot. There was dry blood on his teeth.

The next week I was driving a rickety ass hired car from Homabay for some personal assignment.
The evening sun was behind me, creating that beautiful glow of the golden hour in the car. I had
just got off the phone with Charles my car hire chap from Kisumu to bitch about the state of the
car he had given me when another call came in. It was one of my uncles. The conversation went
something like this.

“I’m so sorry. I heard about your friend.”