Nakato’s Bar: Part 2

What you need to know:

  • Goddess. The following day, I trudged over to her house and rang the bell. When the door opened, a man with a toothbrush mustache above a Colgate smile stood towering over me. He was wearing only an underwear.

“I met her here,” I replied, with a smile that curled the corners of my mouth like my happiness was David Beckham.
Later, I walked out of the bar with her as arm candy.
It was midnight.
Outside, I tried, with burning breath, to kiss her. But she halted my aerodynamic lips with her fingers.
“Wait, let’s not ruin this. Why don’t we meet tomorrow afternoon…there’s afternoon service at my church. Do you go to church on Sundays?” she asked.
“Well, I do now,” I replied.
“Okay, meet me at Kampala Pentecostal Church at noon,” she said.
With that, we parted company.
The next day, I hailed a taxi.
As soon as I jumped in the taxi, it sped off, then, quite suddenly, came to an abrupt halt.
The conductor then brought in five other passengers; yet the taxi was already full.
So full that he had nowhere to place himself.
I thought he’d see sense and unload the taxi by at least four persons.
Instead, the guy got out. Then spread his arms wide and held onto the back of the taxi!
Seriously, we were riding with the conductor on the outside of the taxi.
To make matters worse, when we reached a red light, another taxi pulled up alongside ours.
Some mobile pastor stuck his head out of its back window and started preaching the Word to us.
He addressed the occupants of our taxi like there were no passengers in the taxi he was in.
Sure, I’ve heard a prophet is rejected in his own land, but I didn’t know that land included taxis too.
To add insult to obvious injury, as soon the light turned green, we moved on and he pulled his head back into his taxi and became as silent as a loudspeaker in a home for the deaf.
Then the lady in the seat in front of mine whipped out her phone and started showing pictures of herself to the guy next to her.
The guy complimented her pictures so fulsomely that I was forced to take a look at the screen of her phone.
And there, before my very eyes, were a series of bizarre photos of her lying on her side, her back and on her stomach in the middle of a deserted road!
Of course, she didn’t forget to flash the peace sign in each picture!
At noon, I met my date outside Kampala Pentecostal Church.
Even though she was swathed demurely in a floor-length dress that fortressed her body, she looked so seductive.
As we walked in for the service, my thoughts had to switch from “Kama Mbaya Mbaya” to Kumbaya.
After the service, we went to the beach.
Sun-bleached and teeming with semi-nude folks enjoying a weekend caper, the wet sand scintillated with a casual elegance.
Later, I dropped her off at home.
“Can I come in for a bit…or are your parents home?”
This question seemed to agitate her.
“Yes, my parents are home…next time…when we know each other better…you can visit,” she said.
I got the unsettling feeling she was laying me down gently.
Then again, I had only just met her.
So she was right.
But, as I leaned in close for a kiss, she pulled away and said: “I think you had better go…someone might see us.”
At a loss, I looked at her as my lips were caught in Mtcheew-mode. Seeing that there would be no kiss, I relaxed my lips before turning to leave. Suddenly, a fly showed up.
Instinctively, I ducked.
“Are you scared?” she asked with a smile.
“I’m not afraid of getting stung, I just don’t wanna BEE there when it happens,” I punned.
She didn’t get the Woody Allen-esque humoru.
I kept glancing over my shoulder at her as I walked away. And she was just standing at the door of her house, not moving an inch and waving the whole time. It was like she was waiting for me to get out of sight before she could step safely into her home.
The following day, I trudged over to her house and rang the bell.
When the door opened, a man with a toothbrush mustache above a Colgate smile stood towering over me. He was wearing only an underwear.
“Have you seen my trousers, they’re yellow?” he asked me.
“Er, no,” I said as I titled my head in confusion, “I’m looking for…” stopping myself mid-sentence: I realised I didn’t even know her name!
So I described her to him, as I consciously avoided looking at his underwear.
“I stay alone. I’ve been doing so for two years. There was a family here before me, though. A family of three. Father, mother and girl…they died in a car accident two years ago,” he replied.
“If you see anyone with my trousers, hola,” he said, raising a balled hand to his ear as if he was receiving a call. Then, he closed the door.
A chill swept over me, this all didn’t add up.