The Yard

The dorm was named after a bishop. It was furthest from the admin block, Away from teachers, from watchmen and the rest. Behind it was the sin city. All contraband made it way into the compound over the fence behind that dorm; Bread, donuts, mandazi, juice, avocados, sugar. We had a small economy, a sub economy. It thrived. It made some random boys village merchants, and wealthy, by village standards. Two hundred bob made you rich, very rich. You had bragging rights; you were the boss with a complete posse of cohorts. All you needed to do was make runs between the shops and the fence, where luxury starved boarding school kids waited with bathed breaths. That and trust. They waited for simple luxuries, for bread and juice. It meant giving the awful sukuma  wiki a miss, and respect and bragging rights, for loudmouths.

Between the dorm and the fence, was a space that was slightly scorched. A lone tree stood at the middle of this space, donning a weepy face, forlorn, about to go teary at any moment. It was lonely, forgotten. On any day, it was just that, a semi parched space with a lonely tree. But occasionally, it transformed, it became something else, christened. It became the yard. For, at the school gate, someone had written prison, bringing into life what we believed, and whispered about, or mentioned deprecatingly in reference to the school.  On such days, lonely tree had some company, loud company that cheered and jeered. And patted her and caressed her and hugged her. Their minds were on something else, but the tree didn’t know. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t know. She enjoyed her moments.

It was the place where issues were settled, the way men do, but by boys. Knuckle to knuckle, hand to hand, till a victor emerged.

It is on this space that I had an appointment one day. Because of briefs, my briefs, my new briefs. And because of Node, and against Node. It all began at the football pitch.

That is where we had our release. All the tensions, the worries and everything else that needed an exit, was left there, at the pitch. It came out with the sweat. It was never washed off. We just wiped our faces after games, and merrily went for supper. Where the sweating started all over again.

But on this day, I didn’t get my release. Because, Node took off his t-shirt. For before some genius came along and decided to allocate each dormitory its own colour, our games kits looked the same. During games time, one team had to take off their t-shirts so that we could tell the teams apart. Node happened to be in the opposing team. The one that happened to take their shirts off. And I saw my briefs. On him! Three pairs had gone missing from the clothesline, and Node was wearing one of them, the one I liked most.

I was shocked, Node was my friend. He had taken my new briefs, not knowing they were mine. But still, who takes other people’s briefs. I say take and not steal because garments disappeared for fun. And if you happened to meet someone wearing your shirt, the much he could do was promise to bring it back afterwards, and not necessarily clean. Nobody bothered to report anybody to the teachers. People who told teachers things about fellow students were not so liked.

I asked Node why he was in my briefs. He said they were not mine, but his. An argument ensued. Other guys were not happy. They didn’t want to see two very dark guys wasting their time fighting over blue underwear when they were supposed to kick ball. Nobody commented. It was shameful. They felt ashamed on Node’s behalf. I was too. I felt uncomfortable confronting someone over such a thing. It showed how low we had sunk. That someone could actually wear another’s briefs was too much for all of us. Ours was an elite school, by local standards. Some GK cars parked at the school during parents’ day, sometimes complete with bodyguards.

Nobody wants to be accused of stealing underwear, especially not in front of classmates. They can be ruthless. So, Node went on the defensive. His defense was actually an attack on me. I accordingly, in the voice of a village headman, told him that I will whack some sense into his big, thick and dark head. He kept quiet. I knew I’d whack him senseless at anytime. He knew I ‘d knock him senseless at anytime, even though he was of a larger frame. I rode on that. I told him he was silly and stupid, and very dark. I picked on him throughout the match. I guess, a man, at whatever age, can only take so much of being called very dark. He started answering my taunts, and our friends happily pointed us to the yard. Now, I became slightly afraid. What if he beat in front of these guys? To them, it is me who had taken it that far with childishness and my mweupe kama pamba attitude. For a moment I thought of bailing out. After all, it is me who had lost something. I was some aggrieved party. They should at least support me because of that, you know, lets call it the aggrieved’s understanding.

But they had gotten a whiff of blood. We were hounds. We loved the adrenaline that came with fights. We loved the yard. I had to go to the yard. The day was particularly interesting, the two biggest boys in the school had decided to square it out on that same day. We were looking forward to deciding, once and for all, who was the first body. My fight was to be the curtain raiser.

It was written, by some celestial being, that on that day, I was not to fight. And it came to pass. The two boys, their egos pumped up to the maximum by two opposing camps exploded into each other the moment their eyes met. Their fight was long and good. The good lonely tree got so many caresses that she must lived off them for the next 100 days. By the time it was over, we had had enough of the gory. We also had a first body. Everybody was busy celebrating him. Everybody was busy forgetting our fight. I was the last guy to leave the yard. As my hand let go of the lonely tree, I looked at her, and felt sorry for her. It will be a long time before she got so many hands on her, for the fight had been so big, that the master on duty had come to find out what we were celebrating. We didn’t know how it unfolded. All we knew is that it would take a long time before we had another fight. For the yard was now a keenly watched area.