An accountant in his late
twenties leaves his office at the third floor of a busy building in the Nairobi
CBD. After such a day of rigorous stock-taking and final accounting in the
budding IT supplies company all he can think of is how to drown all the
pressure away ready for a new week. Clad in blue jeans, sneakers and a black
hood, he heads for the ATM right across Government Road, its end-month and his
employer ought to have met his obligations, he rarely is late anyway.
But on this day, luck is not on John’s
side. On entering his secret pass the machine unceremoniously reveals that his
week-long long overdraft is yet to be cleared. He fumbles for a moment cursing
his employer, before he chucks out the card and paces out of the booth, phone
in hand. There is no way this day was going to be ruined.
The call goes to one of his most
valued allies, Sue, the proprietor of a local dive ‘casino’ synonymous to the kind of gambling lads do here, tonight he
can only appear on the credit side of her books. His khat guy doesn't need a call, he’s well acquainted to differed
payments that he actually reserves a sizeable bunch for him every day.
Now leisurely sitting on the only
leather couch in casino ...
the bubbly
young man chats with his usual clique mostly chipping in with hilarious
comments that come almost seamless, which have earned him a great deal of
friends. Puffing away delightfully he’s startled by a text message from one of
his colleagues at work, the boss had finally come through.
As if in a trance he engaged the
services of mobile money transfer withdrew a third of his salary, paid all his
dues and ordered a round for his friends. The drinking took another gear all of
a sudden and the talking inevitably synced up. At some point he contemplated
calling it a day but was advised otherwise by Kim, a close friend who lives in
the same building as John. They opted to go a notch higher, now that money was
available.
“I was already feeling ready to
leave but the craze of having money on me nudged me on, Kim didn't help either
as his thinking was all alcohol-inspired!” he admits.
What followed was a bar-hopping
spree that finally halted way past mid-night at a whore-infested joint, ‘Relax-Inn’ which the duo had come to
christen ‘The Vault’ since it never really closed doors nor could revelers be
at risk of being arrested for defying the ‘notorious’ Mututho laws.
Now half-intoxicated,
half-conscious John went into a frenzy, buying drinks for every soul that
shared the table with them as hours sped by. His literally comatose friend, Kim
was oblivious of the indulgences going on around him as john became the darling
of every daft, giggly and even horrid-looking girls tittering all around him.
‘The only thing I recall is
arriving at the Vault and finishing
my first beer, I cannot even tell where the rest of them went to by the time I
came to,” Kim regrets.
Thirty six hours later a haggard
John climbs the last staircase to his apartment and knocks at the door. His
worried younger brother opens and greets him with rent payment slip. He slumps
on the bed and grumbles handing him the piece of paper he’s been holding. The
brother is dumbfounded, apparently John made more than seven trips to the ATM
(that is as many as the mini-statement could show) in such few hours, plainly
draining his account therewith, a whooping fourty thousand!
“I can only remember withdrawing
three times, just before and after mid-night. I am surprised that the statement
shows that I was withdrawing even during the day!”
He’s still toying with the idea
that the bank statement was wrong and plans to confront the bank later in the
week. But according to friends he is just a week short of acceptance as the
calls he made during that night (which apparently, he doesn’t recall; even from
his boss), clearly show that he was seriously wasted. An hour later before he
fully recovers from this reverie of a weekend, the landlady knocks!
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