MAN TALK: You’re a beast, though a beer from you is ok

Violet is a beautiful girl, if you ask Wa Muyanza. And clearly, you aren’t alone in this view, going by the wide attention she commands at this grocery.

She’s not tall as such, but you can’t say she’s short. Furthermore, she’s dark and liking it, for there’re no signs on her face to suggest she’s making any attempt—like her many of fellow sisters—to turn herself white with mkorogo. Black and proud, soul brother James Brown would’ve thus described her.

Esaya, your ndugu, has an open admiration for her. One day, after Violet had walked away after delivering drinks at our table, he commented: “Let’s face it guys, this girl shouldn’t be working here—or any other bar for that matter.”

“You’re demeaning the work of barmaids, aren’t you, Esaya?” you say, somehow angrily, for you personally consider bar work a job like any other. Looks like he read you, for he quickly backtracked.

“No, don’t get me wrong, bro; what I meant is, this girl looks so great…perfect wife material, but I can bet she’s not married!”

You couldn’t dispute that. Why, of the numerous guys you’ve seen her leave with after the closing time, none looked like he were just giving her a lift home. And, at least two crooked friends of yours assert they’ve had an intimate date with her.

Fast-forward to today at Violet’s workplace. There aren’t many customers today for her to attend to, so she’s sharing your table, enjoying a beer.

“Now tell me, Violet,” you ask her as she puts on the table the Serengeti Lite straight from the bottle, “are you aware you’re an amazingly attractive young woman?”

“Well… thank you, Mzee Muya, though I consider myself quite ordinary despite all the compliments I receive,” she says.

“You’re beautiful and natural, and honestly, I wonder why someone isn’t marrying you,” you say.

“Thanks, but given the treatment I received from the father of my one and only child, I don’t want to be anyone’s wife…never!”

“So, you’ve a child?”

“Yeah, a lovely five-year-old daughter, Rose,” she says as she picks up her beer, then continues after one long swig, “I love Rose and she’s enough…I’ll never trust another man, either as a mere father of another child, or as a husband.”

“Why” you ask.

“It’s a long story, but in short, he’s a beast. Imagine, after I moved in to live with him with our child, and, there’re days he’d order little Rose and I to the sitting room to allow him to entertain another woman in our only bedroom!”

“Sorry,” you say, “but some of us men are different.”

“No way!” she says with a dismissive laughter, “from the way I’ve seen men behave in the bars I’ve worked for, I’ve concluded you’re all beasts,” she says and, shaking her empty bottle while looking at yours, which is almost empty too, she adds: “Now, can we have another beer, please?”

You glumly nod, her assertion that you’re a beast notwithstanding.