Dead Men Tell No Tales

Caution; you may find this post disturbing.

We were a dozen or so, former high school classmates piled into a van. Fond memories had kept us reeling with laughter all the way and soon after dawn broke, we rounded off a final bend; a sudden, sullen reality dawning on us. We were on our way to burry our departed classmate. Before us was a network of buildings that make the Nairobi City Mortuary. There were two salon cars at the parking, one with the familiar plates we had been given. We parked next to it. There was a guy in the back seat of the second car but he had dozed off so we decided to make our enquiries further on. “Funny.” I laughed… “What?” “That guy, the suit and the baseball cap, my sister once found me dressed like that and she pulled it off. I never saw it again.”

Behind the reception desk, an attendant sat pointing out areas to fill on a form to an elderly man who momentarily looked up to greet us. He was Joseph, the deceased’s father we had been in touch with. Four other men were seated on a long bench; they were introduced as the deceased’s two brothers, cousin and a family friend. I didn’t feel like crowding in so I stayed at the door. Joseph handed out some money to the attendant who thanked us and wished us well. We trooped out of the morgue, back to the cars. “The hearse has left already?” someone asked… “No.” “Where is it then? Joseph tapped at the boot of the second car. “right here”… “what! you are going to … you have already… stuffed him in there?" …this didn’t look right… “No,” the family friend interjected. “How can we? He is an honourable gentleman on his last journey.” “So?”... “So there he is... back left.”

Whenever adrenalin kicks in a little too fast, my quiet little organs turn to thundering drums, as if, in protest to a ghastly site presented to one of their own. I stood there, mortified, throbbing in my own techno. Through the rolled down slightly tinted window, I stared again. It was him, sitting there, limp; frozen, as though, in deep thought. The baseball cap had been jammed low into his head, the bill covering his eyes. The cotton wool up his nostrils and mouth had been dyed black. The same colour he had turned after a week in the freezer… it wasn’t much of a freezer anyway, I had already began picking up traces of a stench. The safety belt firmly secured him to the seat covered with foil… “Let’s go”…

We sandwiched the “hearse” for the entire two and a half hour ride to his home in Nakuru. The father and sons led the way. We were pretty much part of the early morning traffic. Only once did we stop at a road block but the police were only interested in licences and cargo in the boot. The cousin and another relative had joined us for the ride and they were lost for words as we begged for answers “You know, a hearse would have cost us up to 17,000 KES, and a pick up truck is not cheaper by much. A cheap coffin is 10,000. We cannot afford that.” He went on. “We managed to raise 15,000. The family friend, he’s really a taxi driver who specializes in this business. He charges 7,000 and another guy you will see will charge us 1,000. We have made the coffin ourselves… the rest will go to assist his wife and child. She doesn’t work you know.”… “So any of you guys attended a basic hygiene class?”… “If you feel so strongly against this, why don’t we go back, you get a hearse and … “Okay guys, call it off.” This wasn’t getting anywhere “oh, and by the way, friend, we are supposed to drive into the compound like this and scatter everyone?” “No.”

About fifteen minutes to his home, we stopped in a thicket, an old pick up truck was waiting and in it, a coffin. The body was transferred into the coffin and the taxi driver drove off to have his car cleaned. Red ribbons were fitted to all cars and we now sandwiched the pickup as we drove into his home through rows of dirge singing women, a final farewell to a departed son.