CANDID TALK: Beauty is in eyes of ‘beer holder’…after a quick one
Tatu, my favourite barmaid at Mzee Shirima’s beer and ‘kitimoto’ (pork) eating joint is an ordinary gal. She is an expert in ‘boosting’ her looks by applying the magic ‘mkorogo’. This is the concoction said to perform real miracles on dark skins that dare it. Pitch dark Cushitic skins undergo tremendous metamorphosis after mkorogo. The skin takes a Caucasian or Indian look and feel (did I say feel?). There is more to Tatu’s endeavours at beauty that is even more amusing; with insatiable crave for food I have never seen anywhere.
She never lets a morsel pass by her. Add that to rivers of beer supplied by admirers, including me the poor son of Uswaz and her sagging beer belly naturally takes resembles a sack of potatoes. What makes all of us love Tatu, her bleached face and horrible galleys of stretch marks on her forearms notwithstanding, is her good natured disposition and generosity with her all.
On an ordinary day I saunter into Mzee Shirima’s joint for a quick “quickie” and finally a binge. Please don’t conjure up images of us having quick sexual flings on the bar floor with Tatu. No! Quickies, according to one versed with third-rate English like me are simply the first two or three ceremonial beers that any guzzler guzzles down his throat before real binge commences. They are the first beers that cleanse the dust off my Kalahari-thirsty throat before fully plunging into the cockroach coloured bottles. These often go down my throat at the speed of lightening; not in sips but in gulps. Bisho Ntongo thinks that all alcoholic drinks are invention of Satan and his buddies but who cares?
The second beer and my mind becomes clearer. I suddenly feel like Paul of Damascus after conversion into Christianity. Indeed, the entire systems within me open up. I can see better, hear better and my metabolism stabilises in me, not to mention “presha” that before the beers read something like 260/190 returning to the normal 120/60.
Playwright William Shakespeare once said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He should have put it this way; beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder. I will tell you why. By the fifth beer, Tatu who at initially looked more like Dracula after a hefty drink of blood suddenly enters the ilk of Naomi Campbell and similar beauties in the fashion world. Of course, dimmed coloured lights at Mzee Shirima’s help a great deal. Her stretch marks on her forearms, varicose on her thighs clad in a mini skirt suddenly start looking like those of Cinderella and thus desirable. With her hands in my zipper, my mind blanks out and goes gaga. The only thing I can think of is Tatu, visualising the unimaginable. My one and only Bisho sinks into oblivion.
The more the ‘juice’ goes down my throat and into my woozy brains that becomes woozier by minutes, the more beautiful she becomes.
