THE SINKING MOON

 The first time I saw Jacob violent, it was on a Friday evening at Polpy Club. The sun had just set. Jacob, Henry and I often went to Polpy to share good times as friends after a busy week. We were friends (or probably still are) for about twenty years. We first met in high school and fate kept us together since then. We went to the same university and later, started our own business at the city square. The friendship bond remained.

That Friday, we were at the club, enjoying our favourite drinks and listening to the smooth music that played from speakers in the club. Everybody seemed happy, cheerful and friendly. Jacob, on the other hand, seemed sad. The feelings of anger and abhorrence were boiling within him. He kept muttering blathers, pompous phrases and curses under his breath.

Honestly, that was what I least expected from him. For a long time, I had known Jacob as a calm man who was very thoughtful of whatever he did. In him, there was always a mildness of temper, and no vainglory in those things which men call honours; and a love of labour and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had anything to propose for the common weal. For a moment, I kept thinking that when Marcus Aurelius – in his meditations – described his father, he talked about Jacob.

“What’s up, bro?” I asked Jacob nonchalantly but he didn’t answer me at all.

I kept wondering what the problem would be. Was it because our business had been making losses for a week? Was it because he had lost his parents in a road accident the previous year? Was it because his daughter had been expelled from school because of misbehaviour? What really could have been the problem?

Deep down, I knew that none of these things bothered him. We had been in that business for a long time and we understood that profits and losses were the order of the day in business. Sometimes we gained, and at times we lost, but this never stopped us from doing our job. With regards to his parent's death and his daughter's expulsion, he had told us that everything happens for a reason and he had learnt to deal with it. He dealt with everything that life presented before him with calmness, sobriety and clarity in his mind.

We all envied him. At times, whenever we had any problem, we approached him for help because, from his mouth, he spew wisdom and understanding. He was always a great friend with a generous heart. Our healer of souls.

Actually, Henry was the most violent and aggressive amongst us. In our team, he was the ‘no-nonsense guy’. He could fight, insult or curse anyone on his wrong side. Part of our work was to bail him out of the police station because he was arrested almost every day. We had learnt to live with him and in many cases, he ensured that we did our work diligently. We liked him because he corrected us, point blank, whenever we made mistakes. In fact, the idea of coming up with the business was Henry's. He told us that in this country, waiting for employment was a waste of time and we needed to start from where we stood.

On that particular Friday, things began to escalate very quickly. A waitress came to our table requesting Jacob to pay for his drink. For the first time, we realized that Jacob had been wasting himself with a lot of alcohol. He was as drunk as a fish. Normally, he only took two bottles of beer and called it a day but this time round he had taken more than five. Confusion popped in when the waitress began to calculate the total cost of his drinks. She miscalculated it by one hundred shillings only. When Henry realized it, he corrected her and she gave him a sheepish smile, probably overwhelmed by shame. Henry smiled back, assuring her that everything was alright.

Suddenly, almost unnoticeably, she was on the floor bleeding from her mouth. Jacob was on her punching her callously in the face. She tried screaming, but her voice betrayed her. Jacob had begun to strangle her and we had to stop him. He kept asking, "You are playing con-artistry on me?" We tried pulling him away from the lady but he overpowered us. The security guards responded quickly and arrived at the scene at the waitress’s rescue. Somebody called the emergency helpline and paramedics came in, gave the lady first aid and took her to the hospital by ambulance. She was in critical condition. We could hear people in a crowd that had begun to form around our table saying, "How dare he? Who dares to abuse women in this day and age?"

Was he arrested? Yes. What did we do? We bribed the officers at Koroni Police Station because apparently, they had chosen to charge him with attempted murder. Why not assault and battery? We do not know and we could not ask. The fact that he had committed a crime in the full glare of the witnesses in the whole club, we could not begin negotiating the charges – we wanted him out of the cell, and we got him out. What happened after that? He was released and requested to be granted leave to collect his mind. Then we are attending his funeral today. Yesterday, we buried his wife and daughter.

Today, I dread the many assumptions I made when he fought at the club. I regret the thought that came into my mind that probably he was tired and a lot could have been going through his mind. I feel doleful that I took all the bizarre signs from him as something that could be changed with time. When he narrated to us the pain he was going through, we dismissed him with one sentence: “You are a man and all shall be fine."

When he left our business, none of us bothered to know what was happening to him. None of us visited him. None of us cared. We hoped that whatever was happening to him was not that serious. We hoped. We had faith, faith without action.

Now here we are. That is his casket being lowered into the grave. That is Jacob, our once-upon-a-time friend. Jacob is gone, depression devoured him. He shot himself in the head after beheading his wife and his daughter with a machete, in cold blood.

It is evening and I am still staring at Jacob’s grave. Here in this miserable and scary cemetery. I have watched many horrifying films about cemeteries but for some reason, I am not afraid.  My heart is full of sorrow and grief. Lamentation has sufficed over fear.  “I could have helped him,” I say to myself. I have an involuntary soliloquy. I am advising him. I am motivating and inspiring him. But he is gone.

I look at the moon on the southern horizon. It is big, round and full. It’s brilliant and shiny, almost like the sun. Shining in the dark. Suddenly, a soft wind blows, pushing the clouds and the moon seems as though it is sinking behind them. In a blink of an eye, the moon can no longer be seen; just a faint light penetrating through the clouds. It is gone. The moon is completely sunk. I have to go home.

MUNGAI K