KIM +9

"You know we fire!"
The East African Bashment Crew, Fire Anthem

On the night I met Kim at The Rocks, a girl called Patricia asked me to dance. Patricia of the Poetic Justice Janet Jackson smile, Patricia of the hand slung over my shoulder Richot bottle in hand at 4 in the morning on her veranda, Patricia the peacemaker between two warring lovers in a room of overturned chairs, distended mobile phones on the floor, high heel in the mouth of a TV screen in an island holiday hotel room, the horrified warden at the door. Patricia of the silent look, the strengthening shoulder squeeze, the prayer of all our sins at Easter in Rubaga Cathedral in the midnight mass. Patricia. Patricia I met on the night I met Kim when I had come to see Africano at The Rocks.

Africano my primary school bully turned buddy, torment of my sporting years to whom when bare-chest in ill-fitting sports shorts on the Buganda Road Primary School field with lung-bursting cheers from the girls on the sidelines, I always came second to on Sports Day alone because my father and my mother were too busy working to attend. My first illuminator at break time 9 years old with an oily pancake stuffed in my mouth and another to follow, my back against the chain link fence, briefly turning from the push and shove of the canteen kiosk to tell me, “Kyokka Jack, you can’t see! Molly likes you and you you are there not seeing!” Africano gone from my life for eight years after my primary school years until one night on a night very unlike this one, I wandered bored into The Rocks because I did not have to pay any entrance fee and suddenly stood still listening and watching, feeling the flow in stunned shock as Uganda’s greatest deejay created a night of magic, a Prospero of fingers spinning, a Pavlovich Diaghilev of sound transforming each dancer on that floor into a Pavlova and Nijinsky of movement; one hand in the air, clean shaven head with massive black headphones thrown back, the other hand’s swiftness on the disc barely visible, dark navy blue tee-shirt thoroughly sweat-soaked, Africano a vibrating incarnation of Orpheus behind his turntable. Me three steps in front of the laser security wielding guard at the greenery wreathed arced entrance, arms hanging loose, mouth open, not listening to the muttered growls I stop obstructing entry, wondering, “Fuck! Where have I been?” deciding, even before confirming from him how often he deejayed at The Rocks, this would be a fortnightly devotional, bobbing my head into the flow.

It had been two fortnights before I realized that what I was missing in my life was not just Fiona but my fortnightly devotional. To rectify that, I was here. Then a girl with a Janet Jackson smile called Patricia asked me to dance. On her birthday. On a dare. From her three best friends. When I was trying to get Africano to drink.

To any girl that night, I would have said ‘No.’ To Patricia before I knew her that night, my lips were forming ‘No,’ when I saw, jut like Fiona nervous making to me a difficult request, her little finger twirling and untwirling around the 2nd loop of her beltless blue jeans and my heart stopped.

Before I ever saw her, I heard her voice first. Not in song or whisper or moan but exasperated reprimand, “Will you ever be a gentleman?!” In my mind, as I turned from handing in my receipt calling it a whine. Then I saw her. The girl at the School of Education building on a chilly 9 o’clock morning I had shouldered out the way to the counter to be among the first first year Sociology students to hand in my payment for my first Makerere University student’s Identity Card. She had looked so commanding that despite her odd little finger twirling around the loop of her black jeans habit, for a moment I thought and was terrified that I had disrespected a second or third year student. And she was so heartbreakingly beautiful I never minded I spent the rest of the sunny, sweaty day in queues all over Makerere University cold shouldering so she could reach the counter and ‘clear’ in comfort like the lady she was to settle into Makerere University for her first year an Environmental Management student. I met Fiona like that.

With Patricia it was at The Rocks early Saturday morning with her little finger twirling around the buckle of her blue jeans, asking me to dance. I should have said ‘No.’ I did not. But then it might also be because I did not really think she could dance. She seemed to me, even before I knew her story, a girl who can dance with only one man all her life. Some sadness about her said she believed she had already lost that man. The fearful look in her eyes gave away a girl who will only ever trust one other man after her father; the man who would claim her virginity preferably on her very bloody wedding night. A look Fiona had in her eyes, a look after 3 months of tears, begging phone calls and sleepless nights, I still had not forgotten.

I said ‘Yes’ because I had promised myself that if Fiona ever gave me another chance I’d never hurt her again. I would never hurt that look again. I said ‘Yes’ because I did not really think I would have to get up from my stool next to Africano because I did not think she could dance. I was wrong.

She proved me wrong. Not wrong about her being like Fiona. She is. I have woken many Sunday mornings nude in her bed, yawning with a throbbing headache in her Kamwokya flat without the slightest sense of foreboding to walk over in slacks and badly creased shirts to Al Zawadi to get us breakfast because I know the night before when dispossessed of my own mind she never let the balance of our friendship tilt ever because she’s more Fiona than Fiona. That night would be the last time she ever entertained I being more than a friend and when she decided we be friends that Saturday morning, she made it up to me. Because she can dance. At least that night at The Rocks, she danced the dance of our lives. She danced Fiona out of my life and Kim in. At least I thought so and liked to. That night as much as it is possible for The Rocks dance floor to clear when Africano’s in the booth, Patricia cleared that floor.

Africano’s an evil muthafucker! Back then Fire Anthem was not just a song; it was a declaration of war! No tune charged up dance floors from Kampala, Dodoma, Kigali, and Bujumbura to Nairobi like the East African Bashment Crew’s Fire Anthem. Bebe Cool was not bragging when he claimed Bashment Crew to be the most “unstoppable combination since The Fugees.” In East Africa, it was! And that was the song Africano popped in after looking up to see me being led to the dance floor. And no one was immune to Fire Anthem.

The girl I was talking to was not the girl I was with on The Rocks dance floor. Until that night I had never met a more devout lover of Bebe Cool’s unpredictable grooves but that night I did. And her name was Patricia. As soon as “King of the Jungle love child, first lady, Washington, Ham, Tony Hall, Ladies and Gentlemen introducing the East African Bashment Crew, you know we fire!” Patricia was another person.

Bebe Cool’s raspy intro transformed her into a worshipper and Necessary Noize’s Nazizi’s follow-up was enough to turn her into such a devout I was the source of sympathetic smiles as she whirled devilish dance circles around me, Bebe Cool roaring into her ear. For the duration of Fire Anthem I was catching up.

But they don’t call Africano a genius for no reason. There’s no other deejay’s sessions I have ever been a part of who could switch flawlessly from Fire Anthem to R.Kelly’s Slow Wind. Africano’s done it. On the night Patricia became one of my most trusted friends and I met Kim, Africano did it. I knew Africano was a genius when without distraction he switched from Bebe Cool’s Fire Anthem to Slow Wind.

From the moment I heard R. Kelly’s, how shall I describe it, half whinnying half growling, “Girl I want to be alone with you, just to see what you can do, oh you’re dancing all over me, baby this is like some kind of fantasy, the way you move, you’re teasing girl,” I knew this night was mine and I was not going home alone.