When Karinawa the matatu used to ply the Runyenje’s-Embu route, Mũhakũre was the Conductor. Now Mũhakũre had risen from a humble family at Kĩviũvĩ. He had gone to school and managed to get himself a job as a Matatu conductor. He was good. Good at banging the vehicle sides, good at causing a sharp loud whistle to escape his lips thus miraculously causing a matatu to either stop or move, and good at using the vulgar language heard at bus stations. Mũhakũre was doing well for himself. Well until the hubris of one not used to success got into him.
When the day was good, meaning he had pocked a sizeable amount of Karinawa’s collection, he would be heard saying that although he was just a hustler he now eats with kings. Actually, that was at the beginning. We were talking about the end of Mũhakũre. So let us go to the end.
Mũhakũre would tell whoever cared to listen that the driver was a drunkard and so he was the one driving the vehicle. To his credit it is true the driver did leave him at the driver’s seat to rev the engine, lean on the horn and generally cause a ruckus. Somehow matatu operators have put it their empty heads that travellers like the noisiest matatu. And so the nut behind the wheel, Mũhakũre, would rev and hoot and shake the matatu back-and-forth to create an illusion of taking off. In this way, he was in charge of supervising the boarding and touting. While at it, he would call passersby over and ask rhetorically, “mũndũ, have you ever seen a drunkard drive?” without waiting for an answer he would add “I am the driver”.
At around the time Karinawa the driver bought a new Karinawa the matatu, Mũhakũre started going to church. While there he would use the most pious language and all too conspicuously contribute an inordinate amount of money. No one cared. It was his money. In Jukistopia it is your money no matter where or how you get it. Then the new vehicle came and a new tout with it. The new tout, I forget his name, Christened the vehicle “Buffalo Soldier”. Buffalo Soldier was all the range in a matatu; music, velvet seats (actually a strip of velvet at the centre of the PVC seat), but yes, velvet seats and the inside decorated with torn out covers of Viva magazine. Buffalo soldier would arrive at the Runyenje’s bus station blaring Robert Nesta’s hit single “Buffalo Soldier”. The new conductor, whose name I still cannot recall, would dance around the matatu anointing it with a flywhisk and declaring “no one can stop reggae”. Mũhakũre felt threatened. He would talk to Gatavi the Kenya Charity Sweepstake vendor loudly enough for all to hear, “Gatavi, hii biashara haitaki Waganga na walevi” other times he would say “huwezi fanya hii kazi kwa uchawi na bangi”.
Karinawa must have had enough of Mũhakũre’s thinly veiled broadsideT. On this day Karinawa the vehicle was hired to take some dancers to Sagana Lodge to sing for Kenyatta-the-first. It was not a good day by Mũhakũre’s definition. Up Kairũngũ hill they went, Kĩrĩmarĩ (Embu town), Vi-a-ĩ, SamsonKona, Macakuthĩ, and on to Sagana. Then as they were going up Kangoco hill, Karinawa the matatu stopped. Naturally, Mũhakũre alighted to check what was up. Karinawa the driver asked Mũhakũre to close the door. Mũhakũre, still standing outside closed the door. Then once the door was firmly shut, Karinawa the matatu and Karinawa the driver spend off.
