OF BREAKFAST,HOOKERS AND MY BROKEN HEART

I know what you are thinking you bofoon,I will not task myself in explaining.
I grew up a tad close to Kanu Street,Nakuru's priemere red light street.So, well up untill my early teenage years,I'd see hordes of girls,nay at times women,young old,fat(mostly fat) tiny,women with bad hairstyles,bad combination of colors,heck!women with bad attitudes,attitudes that could cow Mugabe and his Gucci Grace at once,they had attitudes that talked to you long before you said a word,attitudes designed in hell-by the devil himself and not his operatives.
I saw hookers I knew, hookers whose children battled with esteem issues whenever an indifferent excuse of a teacher brought the topic of parents' proffesions.
I saw beautiful hookers,hookers that didn't look anything like the shindigs they exercised their vices from,hookers with tones and tones of beauty,beauty that would put Halle Berry to shame-Oh God Halle Berry,Didn't I just obsess about this woman when growing up.By the way if you don't know Halle Berry you are kid,you should be reading Sound & Read or English Aid,Hell!you should be reading Hello Children.
Helle Berry was the SI unit of beauty..I had her poster cut on the wall adjacent to my bed.I worshiped her,I had an evil lust over her boobs,her ass,I learned these things early in life-I lived next to hookers street remember? my mother cursed me everyday,she wondered why an overtly older woman would intrigue me,excite me and among other things-too lucid to be said here in one sentence with my mother.I digress.
Halle Berry was our woman-me and my boys.You know that saying?The blacker the Berry?? hahahahah...see what I did?
She is not the hooker here,she is our forever and ever obsession.How i wish I'd marry Halle Berry.(it is that bad)
We love you Halle,me,Jerry,Nick,John and Joel..Joel kwanza.
Now,one morning-well after my Halle Berry stint,I walked in a certain alley in town,I was wearing a corporate shirt,a chilly morning my fingers felt like a cucumber,or a watermelon,have your fingers ever felt like they did not belong to you?Like they should have another life in Kinoo growing up as cabbages because you are cold?That kind of cold.
So a group of women stood at an impossible place,impossible because I had to pass through that thick,on both sides,they were women of all ages,mostly fat,with wobbly bellies,acres and acres of cellulite,bad cellulite exposure,nothing announced they were twighlight girls, I mean, you don't want to pay for cellulite and wobbly tummies,you want to pay for petite,for beauty and for all those things you imagine hookers can do right?Ok,I am weird.
So when I passed through the small space they had left as a passage,one held my hand
" uko na tisho pooooa Si unipee"
"hapana
"aiii nipee tuu"
"hapana sitaki"
(ofcourse we were talking about the tshirt you moron)
Nobody was willing to give anything-Tshirst or otherwise.
Then I did the unthinkable,I bought my freedom-with money of course.I splipped a note into her palm.Though I wanted to slip it elsewhere like in the movies,who places notes on hookers hands?who? It is not 1789..
"Hii nunua nayo T-shirt kama hii"
"asante,Mungu akubariki"
A hooker just said a blessing over my poor soul.
I kept on seeing her,we became great friends,and she kept on teasing me daily..
"Unataka?"
which I kept on asking
"nini?"
"Breakfast"
"eeh nataka breakfast,the eggs sunside up,hihihi"
"aki wewe unakuagha mufanee"in that heavy Kikuyu accent from Nyeri.
We built a relationship,we became great bossom buddies-hahaha.
We laughed,sometimes I wanted to spend time with her,because that is what hookers do to you,they make you want to spend time with them,they are a happy lot,they live in the spur of the moment,life is always a risky affair that they are too willing to take head on(no pun)
I wanted to ask her questions,I wanted to know her more,like does she have a family?a husband maybe?kids?What does her mother say about her?do they talk?Does she have a dream man she'd really want to have?Heck,does she turn on.lke we normal people?
What was her best proffesional moment-like the moment she realised she was born to do this.Like if she woke in World war 9,she'd still be a hooker in some street in Beirut,of Wrockrow,or Boston or Kenyatta Avenue.So one day I gave her my card,and she called,only that she wanted me to advice her on how she could save,how she could invest..From then,she started calling me kijana wa bank..I called her Jo' her name was Joan.
I told her that she could save,but on loans,it would be tricky..She scoffed..
"Mnafikiria hii si kazi?"
"No,si hivyo Jo,"
She hanged up.I was lost,how do you calm down a hooker,honestly how? She called later,apologized,said she had a bad night and she was venting.
Then one day,I saw her with a bleeding eyebrow,she was teary I have never been so heartbroken-by a hooker.She looked tired,wasted,angered and all those bad things.I wanted to hug her,but people would think I was crazy,So I held her by hand,told her it would be fine.She came closer-hookers need hugs.The rest is history.As I went to work I wondered,who harms hookers,like if you wanted a wrestling match,go find a man,go test your strength there,not on a hooker whose biggest strength is in talking you up..No.There are some levels of low unaccepetable if we should call you a man.
When I called her later,she told me she had been involved in a "small" fight with a client who refused to pay.Like really?You sort their services and pink cheque them??Who are you?King Solomon?Who is she?Your corncubine?
Days later she came back,wound healed,and the scars in her heart probably forgotten.
Then one day,I missed her at her usual spot,I thought she'd had a goodnight and thus went home early.I did not call her,I knew,if she was going through something she'd call,I was her shrink,her go to person when she couldn't hold it together..She did not.
And I got worried,so I called,she was off.Something was wrong-very wrong,hookers don't switch off thier phones-they can't.
Then her friend, one I always ingored told me one morning that she'd been killed..by a man. A man who did not know what to do with a hooker,and the best he could do with her was to kill her.A man senseless enough to end the life of a bread winner,a sister a mother and my only hooker friend.
That day,I did not have my breakfast- eggs sun side up,and my heart was broken-by a hooker.
We loved you Joan.We did.
Embrace the sun my friend..Take it out of the sky.
You are a sunshine..
Keep shining.
We loved you.We really did.