WHY CAN’T MY HEART STOP ROVING?

WHY CAN’T MY HEART STOP ROVING?
I am 22, a woman - but I feel my emotional experience is 60, yet I just can’t feel contented with that vastness in emotional dexterity enough to sit back to reminisce. That’s truly me, Maggie.

Often I ask who will tame me, for my heart is so lawless. Who will get my tons of the emotional heats in my soul scaled down into true submission, to the point where the high revs in my heart cease to be, or rather getting to meet that match to answer back to lucidly? Where will that man to bring all my heats to a standstill come from? Taming me to the point that I feel like a woman meant for him and him alone – deep in love, in a family setup and managing the daily life’s bustles with the most gusto. A baby here, a baby there, or to the extremes of having to bring forth a team of kids that look up to me a mama, and a dependable one at that!
I never knew my true mother; that is for starters. And not even a good dad. Maybe those are the reasons why I have been so emotionally hell-bent on self destruction every moment that I loose a piece of my mind. And they have been plenty... I have been told many things about my mother, but none of the tellings ever had a good hinge enough to form a belief to clutch proudly on to. I remember back in the days, when my step-mother would be pissed with me and yell such obscenities as, “bastard kid! What curse is this on me to take charge of brothel’s little bitch who will end up back in there any way?” Sometimes, drunk, she would remind me that my father was a bandit; she’d go further on to push my face down by the hair, roughly to the mirror to take a good look at my hair, “what does that thatch remind you of? You belong to the northern bandits!” It took me so long but I realized she was talking of lawless Somalis in the north. It hurt, especially knowing that my father wasn’t going to defend me even once. If he was out of the house, he was in a bar. And if he was not in a bar, then he was on the way back home. To fight with his wife – calling her such names as a mean stupid slut! Their fights would get physical for long, and by the end the house was a mess, broken stuff strewn all over the house and one of them would be locked outside the door. Most of the time I would be with the one spending the night in the cold. Sometimes, it was my father; and she would scream things from the inside as, never again stooping so low as to sleep on the same bed as a dim-witted, stinking pig. And if it was my father in the house for the night he’d tell us bitches to stop thinking with our $%#^**$ if we wanted to sleep in the house ever again. I was only five then but as much as I remember, it was bad! The following night my father and my step-mother would be together, laughing as they went out to seek cheep alcohol together. In the night, if they never fought again in their drunken stupor, then I found a warm bed space to lay my back on. I never minded if I ate nothing in the day… peace of mind was all that mattered.
I never attended nursery school or pre-unit because my step-mother kept firmly reminding my father that I was good for nothing, that I will be a little slut by the time I was ten and school would only hasten it. She needed me in the house for the times when they were out. That is what I was born for. It took the local chief’s intervention, and silently, the neighbors, to enroll me into the nearest primary school, but by then I had been coined into a hard nut. Nothing mattered and nobody matter any way; I was rude to the core. It was my best defense. My language was so strong, hard and negative that fellow kids were not allowed to play with me. I often abused fellow girls to tears and they quickly ran back to their mothers. All the time I ended up alone, quiet and withdrawn, until I got provoked again by those who dared. Beyond foul mouthing, I became more and more physical, bullying fellow kids for the kicks…
My first personal encounter with the school’s headmaster was on the first day, right after the morning assembly. I remember one tall and lanky boy; he was in class three, I learnt later; he came to me and without a warning, grabbed me by the backpack and pulled me back. I resisted but he proceeded to easily push me forward, sending me hard to the ground. I fell straight, nearly hitting the hard ground on my nose… instead of being terrified I picked myself up and proceeded forth as if nothing happened. My palms were bruised and blood was starting to come out. Inside me I was burning with rage. For the first time I wanted to cry but from anger. If this was how school was, I decided that I would not continue. And nobody would force me.
The boy wasn’t through with me yet. He rushed forward and once again grabbed me by the backpack, yanked me to a full chocking stop and forcefully turned me round to face him as he rudely asked to know my stupid name. He was big and menacing and among the lot of kids around, no one seemed to want to come to my rescue. Why he chose to initiate me that badly, I still wonder. I wasn’t the easiest seeming target because I was big bodied and obviously looking a lot older than the eight years of my age.
I quietly opened out the palms of my hands so he could see the pain he had caused me and so – to leave me alone but that stirred him further. He quickly grabbed my wrists and sadistically rubbed my bruised palms hard together. A new heat of searing pain set on and I wanted to scream helplessly. I tried to set myself free but he was too strong and in charge of himself. He grabbed my hands into each of his and squeezed them hard. The few bigger boys around began to enjoy the game and were laughing sheepishly. I was hurting but there was no easy way to escape. In desperation, I sent my foot into his crotch. It was a feeble move but it managed to make him slackened his hold. I wrenched myself free and dashed off to escape but he turned out faster, reaching me in a quick sprint but instead of grabbing me from the back the boy tripped me and I fell once more to ground, but this time, harder and I dragged forth as I rolled in an awful way. The other boys were clapping and cat-calling joyously.
As he reached me I saw his foot come down towards my middle and I rolled fast on the side. One of my legs nipped his right foot as he was about to make a step with it and he came down too. He crashed like a brick wall. I fought hard to be the first to stand and I made it. Something told me to run again but I knew that he was now truly offended and would track me into a rat hole if that was where I went. I had to pay for it. Suddenly the terror in my being dissipated and I stood there waiting for the worst, though not scared now. When he came on he had a broken broomstick in hand that he was sweeping menacingly to hit me with. I moved back but sooner my back hit a wall and I had nowhere to run. The stick came and hit me on the head. Hard but I grabbed it fast as I a grimaced in pain. I yanked the broomstick from his hold and before I could think better I brought it down hard on his nose bridge. Suddenly the fight was over. The boy went down on his knees, his hands on his face and very quickly blood filled them. He wanted to cry but he was too in shock to do so. He stayed quiet down on his knees and in my new control I felt like punishing him more. He had attacked me and now he was down and I had the chance to repay. He had hurt me badly without any reason and now he was at my mercy. He bullied me and I had never been bullied by anyone than my bad parents. If I didn’t show him my mettle he’d be temped to repeat what he did to me again one day. Before I could stop myself I was on him again; hitting him with the broom and kicking him in the groin endlessly. It must have gone on for long but all I remember is that I was crying, cursing and hitting and kicking the boy over and over. Whoever pulled me away… I don’t remember.
Briefly, I got expelled in the first morning of my real schooling. The headmaster promised me that I will kill someone one day but soon. In the little hearing in the headmaster’s office no one expressed my side of the story, not even me when I got the chance to speak because I had hurt the boy in a big way and there was no way to successfully explain myself out of what I had achieved.
The headmaster called his deputy and together they decided that I would have to be expelled from the school because according the deputing headmaster, it was just a matter of time before I burnt down the whole school. I was sent home with a letter to take to my parents.
When my father had read the content of that letter that afternoon he quietly passed it to my mother who fought to go through it but only got to read the key words. I beat a boy badly. The headmaster wanted to meet my parents the following day at nine in the morning. Without me!
“I told you she is not good for school. Her head belongs to a brothel.” That’s all she said.
“She takes after her mother!”
“But the sperm is yours!” She countered. “And it’s a bad sperm!”
They were tipsy and I knew they would argue and end up quarrelling over nothing but away from the issue at hand.
“I told you her story before, you have a very small brain, it’s annoying.” My father said.
“What story? What memory? You are just an idiot! Just like your daughter, you think with your rear!”
“What your mouth or I’ll hit it now!” My father’s voice was starting to rise.
“Like father like daughter!”
”I said I told you her story! She is not my daughter!”
“Then why is she not in a children’s home? Your answers are all but about convenience. Now that she is a killer you disown her!”
SHE IS NOT MY DAUGHTER!
So who was my father? Something in the voice of my father told me that he was certain he wasn’t my father. Silently, I promised myself to find out the truth.
…………………………................
And so I gathered more knowledge of myself over time. My mother stayed with my father though they never were married. I came along and very soon they fell apart. My father left, saying mama had dogged him to get me. That my true father was a cross-country fuel truck driver with whom my mother had a one night stand in the back-bunker of the trailer. She had been high on beer and he, on Kat. And so they got urges so strong that they had to hit the sack for that mere quickie, out of which I got coined…. no wonder my step-mother called me a bastard each time she breathed out.
My mother became ill and knocked on my father’s door. I was barely three and a half then. He was sympathetic, though by then he had turned into an alcoholic, he took mother in but for only a short while till she was fine…It was for a few months but I knew that they were indulging in adult things that they could barely hide from me whenever those feelings climbed them beyond restraint. She got better enough to be up on her feet and mouth and tried to control him; they began to quarrel but more often and sometimes they became physical. In the end mother met another long distance truck driver and they eloped in his Fiat fuel truck. He took her all the way to Rwanda but on the way back, in Kampala, Uganda they had a stopover and put up in third rate lodging. In their second night over she got involved in a brawl with the man’s Kampala wife. The woman stabbed her in the chest with a military dagger and by the time they reached her to Mulago hospital mother had lost too much blood. She died. Then after I got stuck with the man I called father. Mother was buried in a public cemetery in Kampala after no one claimed her body over many months. She had no sister that I knew of. Not brothers or cousins. No one! And father got angry each time I asked to know about mother. The culmination was when he retorted, telling me to grow up fast and leave, just like your mother!
I left at ten. Not because I loved to. I had come to believe that I was too big for the single room tenement of a home. Nights and sometimes in the daytime, father and step-mother would hit the sack without due care of my presence. I had assumed school again but I wasn’t interested and took every little excuse to keep me out. The two would get around their act in my presence without a distraction. I felt sad, especially in the nights when I had nowhere to go. If only I had a relative I would have moved in with him long before. The turning point came one day when national exams were being sat in my school and junior students were given a two-day leave from school. Step mother had left the house in the morning of the first day, leaving me and father alone. In a way it was a relief since she hurt me all the time and I had grown to stand up against her over the years. I didn’t enjoy it anyway since I knew she could get violent sometimes and hurt me.
Father had left the house but returned shortly. I was lying on their bed when he walked in. I got off fast but he assured me that it was okay. He wasn’t drunk but sooner I realized that he was tipsy. He came to my side and before I knew what he was up to he got on top of me and he was fondling me. I tried to resist but he pinned me down harder. Everything was going on fast; he went on fondling my bare stumps of breasts and kissing them. He reassured me that it was okay, that I should love what he was doing. He kept saying that I was a big girl and I should be brave to try what he did with step-mother. He touched my body and my private parts, and all the more he was getting breathless. His weight was a lot and before long I got tired of resisting and just lay there, my eyes closed and hoping that he won’t hurt me. I prayed that it soon ends and he leaves the house. If step-mother walked back into the house, I knew it would have been a disaster. Lying there, I waited for father to let go of me until I felt a sharp pain in my private parts. I must have screamed, for he covered my mouth with his hands for a moment. And then he was moving his body the way he did with step-mother. Before long he was breathing fast and his body moving faster and faster. And then he stopped. For a while he was on top of me and then he slipped to the side, panting heavily. He was tired.
My private parts were sore and painful and I sobbed. There was some blood on the bed sheets and he made me to wash them immediately. I was happier because he was kinder than ever before. When I finished the washing, he gave me one hundred shillings to buy whatever I wanted and he left the house till evening. At age 10, I had just been raped by a man that I called my father!
It was never the same again.
Over the next few months he repeated the act nearly three days every. He was nicer to me but I now knew it was because I was his sexual object. He gave me money and he defended me whenever step-mother’s outbursts broke forth on me. Over time I became accustomed to his act and sometimes I went for it whenever we were alone; I knew that I could get anything I wanted from him after he did it. In the nights with step-mother, often I felt bad that it wasn’t me and I stayed awake all night, hoping that she would go away in any space of time.
At school I got my first boyfriend and I easily led him on to sex. Over the next few months I had been with six boys, three at school and three others in the neighborhood. I had learnt the power of sex over men and I used it to get nice things. Money, clothes, company, treats, everything. The bigger boys had a lot more to offer that the younger ones. Because I had a bigger body than my 10 years, I looked 16 or sometimes 17, sooner I was dating higher age-wise but I kept everything as discrete as possible. I was always keen on what a boy would give me before I led him on. And then I made sure that he gave it first before I listened to him.
But the real turning point came one afternoon when step-mother caught me and father red-handed. I do not know what happened after, because I slipped off the house right when she was beginning to turn up the heat in her voice. I left, and I have never been back there since. I never met since; and I never went to school again.
With the little money I had I took a bus to Nairobi, reaching in the early morning of the following day; and with a little help from some watchmen I managed to locate a bureau for house girls’ employment. That same evening I had a job as a house girl in South C. I had a roof over my head, a room of my own for the first time in my life. The couple was in their mid twenties and newly married. They had no kid yet, and so my portfolio was basically to keep the place clean, to cook some meals and to be available at home when they were out for work of leisure. I didn’t mind the meager pay but the life. It was better than what I had known all my life.
In the following two years that was my home. Within the first three weeks I had a boyfriend in the neighborhood court; a boy, he was seventeen and in Form 2. Four weeks after I had another boyfriend; the electricity meter reader. Married with twin girls. He was better than the Form two so I discarded the latter since he had nothing but sex to offer. The power man left me with financial baksheeshes which, to him would have been negligible but meant the world to me. In the eighth month the mama of the house was visibly expectant and thus too less of energy. She slept all the time. And so I had to do stuff for her, and stuff for her husband who sometimes came back home late after eleven in the night. I had to open the gates for his car. Then I had to serve his dinner. Wait over him as he took it. In the morning I had to set his breakfast table and to wash his car before he was ready to leave the house with it. I washed all clothes and pressed them. I had to brush his shoes and all. In between I kept mama smiling whenever she seemed down, though it seemed to be all too often with the climbing of the months.
One evening, Baba came home a little too late. I had waited for his arrival as usual but it seemed he wasn’t coming as soon; and so I went to sleep but with one ear to the gate. And sure enough I heard him arrive. That was at one thirty in the morning. I went over my rituals but didn’t notice that my nightdress that night was too see-through until I discerned him staring across into me at the couch where I sat as he ate his meal. It unsettled me a bit and when he was through I was reluctant to wake up to clear the table. He just sat there, reading from a file and peeking across the room at the TV. He wasn’t in any hurry obviously.
“How old are you?” He asked unexpectedly.
“18.”
“OK.”
And he got up and left the table for his bedroom. From that evening I knew that he would want me, though discretely. The following morning he was more quiet than normal, until he backed the car from the packing and the gates, I was closing the gates when he called me over and silently handed me a five hundred shillings note. I remained still, waiting for instructions.
“Keep it!’
I nodded. And he drove off.
That evening he came home late again but I remembered to dress well. He was silent, just like in the previous day. After he finished eating he sat there, his eyes half on a file before him and then on the TV screen.
“What are your hobbies?” He asked abruptly.
“Nothing,” I didn’t have to think.
“OK”
I remained silent. I read his mind though my eyes stayed on the TV screen. Just another man. At the onset I had thought of him as tight and deep in lust for his new wife. Now he appeared like all of them; bored and wanting a change of dish. Looking at him inside my mind’s eye I saw a man wanting to go back to his prior life; hitting here, and hitting there, all for the sake of meeting the ends of his indefatigable libido. Not that he wasn’t in love with his wife, or that he missed copulating with his dear wife but – Jeff, just like all of them, the males of his species, pile sperm the urge to cast, far and wide is only Godly. In his pet venture, I was being measured prior to a trial to lure me into the cast net. I knew that I would let him, come the right time; but just like with the other boys in my life I would have a thing to clasp on to. A good thing!
“Will you go for some college?”
“One day.”
I didn’t look to his side but just gave the answer. I ran back to my silence; a soap opera was on TV but I wasn’t following a thing of it. If only he knew that he had hijacked my train of concentration…. Maybe it would give him more gusto to punch on. Jeff shuffled the papers in the file before him, I knew that deep inside he wasn’t focusng but I felt good that he was laboring because of me.
“What was your average grade?”
School! I barely had any schooling and I wasn’t into talking about it. I love the way I look. I know that I am beautiful and when it comes to my belief, beauty takes care of any lack books in the head, the only thing that a woman needs to do is to dress her mind to the top; any inadequacies get a foolproof camouflage. I read novels and magazines in my free time. I watch movies at home when I can. And when I have to converse I remember to speak with a dressed up mind!
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
He fell silent for a while.
“Why?”
I didn’t answer. I decided to give him silence instead. He waited. I stayed quiet and it took long. I knew he was thinking of my response and what next to say. Five minutes elapsed. I knew I was waiting for his next line and the more he kept silent the more I became eager and fidgety. I didn’t want to show him that I cared, so decided to break it by getting up to clear his dinner table.
As I placed the utensils onto the tray Jeff watched my fingers. I was fighting to keep the tray steady, his eyes were stealing at my fingers and my conscience was spilling into the open. Just then his gaze run up my body and rested on my bosom. I left his presence fast towards the kitchen.
“Maggie!”
He called me back. I stopped and turned in a huff without an answer. I was afraid to speak a word for fear of breaking my private laws.
“Sorry, don’t bother,” he said.
I left.
I went to sleep that night but it took long for sleep to come. I was worried that I would crumble in front of Jeff. I hated my heart that night and I wished to reverse time so I could at least try to play scenes with much more control. I was certain of one thing though; that he would get me. To get me, I wished that to happen but the terms had to be mine. I wanted gains.
The following three weeks pursued the same trend but I was more in charge of myself. Jeff kept prodding me. He wanted to know the hinges of my life. Where I came from. About my parentage. My schooling. My interests and hobbies. All the more I kept my guard up. I wasn't any giving up to him even when over the days he was insistent; wanting to sound like my big brother, yet turning out a seducer instead. I wanted to give the feeling that I was not aware of his intent by showing the most disinterest in conversations with him. He didn't give up. By the end of the third week as he was leaving the gates for work in the morning he beckoned me as I was shutting the gate. I went over to the car window and he gave me a thousand shillings. I took it, waiting for his instruction. He followed to say I give it to Helen. He had almost forgotten that she had asked for it. I turned to leave but he called me back again and added another fifteen hundred. I asked what for; my hair, he said. I grinned inwardly as I quickly moved back without a thank you.
“Have a nice day!” he wished me. I smiled back.
He was growing intoxicated faster than I envisaged. I was hoping not to get so sucked into it before I thought wise.
Back in the house, Helen was where she ever was; in her bedroom. I sat on the side of the bed and watched her closely as she strove to wake fully from her light early morning sleep. When her eyes focused on me she smiled. She was a beautiful woman; full lips and the sexiest eyes I had ever seen. Her eye brows amazed me the most; thick, almost beginning to curl, and dark. It added to natural wild sexuality to her basic beauty. Her smile was radiant but it made me more joyful the way she took me for a kid sister, not her housemaid. She indulged me in conversations that went over boss-servant attitudes. I thought back to Jeff, why he was straying away from this enchanting woman. My eyes focused on her belly and noticed the bulge was much bigger than the previous month’s. Wasn't he getting any sex already? I smiled within as I handed her the money. If only she knew the reason for my smile...
“This is for you,” I said. She thanked me and I woke to leave the room.
“Maggie, I want my breakfast here with you at eight.” That was in an hour's time.
I nodded and left her. On the hour I set breakfast for us and settled on it. We talked a lot about issues, politics and social. The difference between Helen and many women was that she was reserved but open minded. He mind was wide and she spoke slowly and softly. I never saw her loose her temper once, though her mood often left her, especially, lately; something to do with her growing ball.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked abruptly.
“Me? No!” I lied
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You know, watching you and being around you over time, I know you can get any man you set your sights on.”
I laughed inwardly.
“I don't know about that.” I said.
“I mean it. You have an aura around you that is mystical; men love such in women but they never find it commonly.”
“One day what will be will be. Ma’am I don't like to talk about myself. I get uneasy.” It was the truth. I knew that talking that way would make me be conscious of her husband's urges towards me. I would quickly feel guilty. There was also the ever growing pain of living without a family. No one would believe that possible because most people had someone in the least. I was all but alone.
“But do you have any good friends? Your phone never quiet goes off!”
I looked at her and only smiled. She wasn't going to lead me on, especially since there was nothing beautiful about me. My past was all but putrid.
The rest of the day's routine went on as usual till evening. The repeat of the ritual with Jeff came and proceeded as usual. After his dinner he sat to go through what looked like letters. He was signing them, one after the other, seeming endlessly. After some quarter an hour the shuffling of the papers stopped. My eyes were on the TV and I wondered what he was up to.
“You didn't do your hair.” He said.
“I will.”
He shuffled more papers.
“What does your boyfriend do?”
“Nothing.”
He worked on silently. I knew he was thinking vigorously. Whichever avenue he was going to try to reach me I knew that he realized the near impossibility of getting through. If there was to be a next successful move, it was mine. Whatever it would be I knew he would welcome it if it was positive and destined towards his goal. I sat there, thinking to myself what to do. My initial fears of reacting like an innocent teenager had long waned in the past weeks and I felt more in charge of my ego.
“Why do you want me?” I asked. My voice was strong but kind and the words lucid. I didn’t turn his way.
I got no answer. A minute later I still got none. I didn't want to wait longer since the wait would eat me, so I got up to leave, destined for my bedroom. On the way I picked the empty glass before him. His eyes caught mine briefly and I saw him smile. I didn't like that. I wasn't going to give him any chance to control events...
The following day almost repeated itself.
“You go for movies?” He asked.
“I don't.”
“You read?”
“I don't.”
“You seem to love TV a great deal...”
“I asked you something yesterday, why do you want me?”
My eyes stayed glued to the TV screen. Expectantly, I waited five minutes for a response and I got none. I got up and as I approached his direction to leave the room he looked into my eyes and the same glint of amusement of the previous day’s evening was there. It pissed me so bad that I reacted. Not that I was in control of my deeper emotions but – it just erupted. It still shocks me today, what I did. Stopping short at his foot and before neither of us could control it; I grabbed his cheeks in my palms and kissed Jeff on the lips, fondly but firmly. But as soon as he began to be passionate I pulled off and hastened to my room.
I was breathless but shocked was the main feeling I felt. I locked the door to the room and for a long while wept. The long sleeping devil in me must be awaking, I sobbed into the pillow in hope that it would bring pardon into my soul. Why Was I wicked? Or was it the impulsive lust for a man that drove me to act that so? I hadn’t been with a guy for three weeks and that was a record. It had late in the night, eleven; maybe the beckoning of pheromones of the late hour was all too strong to resist being wicked, kinda. When finally sleep came I had no notice.
The following day was a Saturday. In the afternoon of it I was free and I requested Helen to visit the salon. She obliged. The following day’s Sunday was my free day and I decided I was going to be with Thomas, my Power man. If that would erase the guilt of the Friday night it was all but welcome.
Back in the house that evening I spent in my room doing my girl things to get me ready for Thomas' date. When Jeff arrived at nine in the night, Helen was asleep as usual. I set dinner for Jeff but instead of waiting over him as he took it I returned to my room for my girl things. I did my nails and I pressed my clothes over the next hour. By the end I prepared to go to bed. In the bathroom I brushed my teeth and went back to the living room to clear Jeff's table. He had long finished eating and was lying on the long couch, his face towards the television but fast asleep. I cleared up and silently left for my room.
The following early morning was a Sunday but he always went to work half-day. I went over the rituals of getting him set. As I opened the gate for his exit from home he beckoned me over.
“You look good today, what's in the offing?” He asked. My mood was not good. I looked into my mind for what to say but no lie came.
“My boyfriend. It’s my Sunday off.”
It jerked him. Jeff looked hard into my face, he tried to read beneath and I stared back with a plain but determined face. I waited for him to speak but he seemed lost for words. It took long and it was awkward.
“May I go back to the house?
“Oh, yeah!” he answered but from his voice I knew he wanted to ask something that was hard to get out. It pleased me to see that I was in control, that as much as he ever tried to lead me on I managed to get Jeff back to the level I wanted him to be.