The awkward Lift conversation

Its early morning, for me, but very late according to my boss’s watch, I hurry from the noisy bus, cross the always busy Waiyaki way fighting for stepping ground with the now thick traffic at the pedestrian crossing. There is this lady we are walking side to side, she seems the confident kind, so I keep up.

As we cross the zebra lines, a deep black Jeep Wrangler’s brakes hiss to a stop..(I was told big car’s brakes don’t scream or screech to a stop, they hiss, like a puff adder.)

“Look out lady..! nkt!” Screams a man whose grey hair betrays an age he is obviously trying hard to hide. 

 The lady jumps, and lets out a tiny scream, just a few inches more and the monster would have run her over, and then me. I feel angry, why should we fight for space at a zebra crossing? I almost withdraw the finger in the middle, but then, it’s a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. He is forgiven, no, the car is forgiven.

“Foolish drivers….!” The lady curses, and throws up her trembling arms towards the driver.

She has the disgusted face a cat gives when you sweep away the remains of the rat it was busy munching on your glass coffee table. A face full of hate and anger, a face trying to show you all the obstacles it hit trying to catch the meal, a face which promises you a future full of rats in your house since it has quit.

“Yea, foolish drivers… it gets worse when they drive big cars..” I add, trying hard to make her feel better, as I stare at the large threaded wheels with shinning alloy rims, and manly front bumper sticking out of the large deep grey machine like a mammoth’s tasks,  “I think it goes with this thing called EGO.”

“I know, Right…!” She answers, and I try to figure out how someone answers to that and nothing comes to mind, but then, I figure out it’s the same as the ‘ikr’ I once received from someone and thought they had told me that they Don’t Care.

We chat on, and part ways as I head into the workshop where I waste away my days, and she vanishes behind some make shift food joints, the kind of which Sorghum calls vibandaski.

As always, I run like a mad cat to the lift which is almost closing up, place my hand on the sensor (one of the things any village-born and bled fella feels proud doing), and I have to squeeze through the door blades since the sensor is not sensitive enough to know my hand is placed on it.

“Good morning..!” I say, finding ground. (yes, my mum taught me well, to always say hi to strangers in the morning to help distract them from the demons eating through their brains.)

In the lift two people stand,  a lady, neatly clad in cleaning attire, holding onto a vacuum cleaner, and drilling into a newspaper article on what I peep later and realize she is reading about babies, and I figure she is one of those corporate cleaners who leave an office mart smelling of money and success. She looks up, decides my motive is good, and says an inaudible ‘morning’ my way. Next to her is a man in a broken suit- grey striped oversize blazer with a yellow pair of trousers which are oddly complimented by a pair of rubber shoes, blue rubber shoes which look somewhere between Bata Bullets and football trainers, but a little bit oversize.  He doesn’t even look my way.

I punch on 4, and notice 6 and 8 are blinking amber.

After a few seconds of soul searching and probably hating it’s job and deciding, the lift slowly starts it’s climb, filling the air with a metallic cling then hum, and random clutters, like pieces of metal asking for service soon before they get angry and take the occupants for a free fall.

“Madam, you are reading about babies…!” The man asks, in Swahili ridden with a heavy western province accent. All along he has been peering into the lady’s newspaper, I notice.

The lady looks up, smiles at him and gives him the “mmmh-hhh.. I love babies”

Every other man gives up at this point, but our blue rubbers Romeo was nowhere close to throwing in the towel.

“What does it say…” He spits out with a childish grin.

“Nothing much, just something about number of kids in this day and age and such…” She answers  trying to spell ‘mind your business boss’ with every vowel.

“How many do you have…?” He asks.

I look up sharply, very surprised, and expecting the lady to smash Romeo with the vacuum cleaner in the face, and then leave the lift through a secret exit on the top and leave me in the crime scene (like they do in the movies), but she just smiles back.

The tiny indicator on the lift indicates a fading ‘2’.

“Just one..” She answers. At this point I put on my earphones with no music on, to give them the fake impression that I am not concerned with whatever they are saying.

“….. Nairobi people..” Rubber shoed Romeo answers, with a shrug full of sarcasm and disapproval. “Just one child? Back in my day a lady your age would have a litter.”

For a moment I feel some sweat in my armpits, look at the man with disagreeing eyes, try to convince him to change the subject to something more interesting like bull or cock fights. My look just fuels him to probe further.

“But you plan on having more.. Right?” He goes on despite the shouting snob she gives him.

In an instant I think she would get angry and give him a deserving lash, but she keeps her calm, smiles at the guy, and throws in another “Mmh –hhhh…”, looks my way and then back to the newspaper. I like her, I like her spirit though I still think her tolerance for bullshit is quit overstretched. I remembered a high school colleague called Alphine, he was a very easy going dude, laughed with almost everyone even the school sell outs. He had a very long fuse, which we came to find out was attached to dynamite, since the day he got angry at someone was the same day he was expelled from school. I should most probably look for him and learn if he really broke the fellow’s nose.

 Madam calmness keeps her cool, in my head she is like a breath of fresh air, an injection of fuel into a dying hope in humanity. She shines out the kind of feeling you would get if you slid in a Friday Night in a Monday morning, somewhere between the hair-dryer sales meeting by the people in the upper office at 10.00 A.M and the never attended tea break at 11.57 A.M.  

“Where do you work..?” Rubber shoe Romeo rushes me out of my thoughts, trying to look at the lady in the lift with wooing eyes.

“On the sixth floor..” She answered, in a cool but obviously labored voice.

“Me too..  I will look for you around.” The lift beeps and the lazy amber light falls on 4.

I wish the lifts had a “Do not talk” sign, but then cursed that thought since we would never get to know the proverbial ‘light-skin on the lift’. Am dying for the lift to halt and open, dying for the gash of fresh air that will hit my face once I get out of the full of embarrassment confines of the lift.

The  blades open, quite reluctantly, like they want me to stay stuck in the whole situation, pauses half open like it’s trying to figure out if it’s really half open or half closed, then with a final push stands ajar, wide open, and I can see “4^Th Floor” engraved on the opposite wall.

Madam cool runs for it just as am stepping out, our heads collide, and she says a hasty ‘sorry’, her newspaper is crumbled beneath her arm like you stash an unused blanket in a sunny afternoon. She pulls her vacuum cleaner, and I let her have her way and follow her out. Romeo is stunned, everything happens so fast for him to follow.

As the lift doors shut and thrust him in a solo abyss, I hear him shout at us… “Si ulisemakho sixth floor…..” (You said sixth floor)

It shuts and his last words are swallowed away, as the machine hums on the ascend.

“Wait, you realize this is the fourth floor ma’am..” I offer, after she has caught enough breath.

“Yea I know, you think you will leave me in a lift with that guy? The kind of questions he is asking…” She laments.

“Well, I had my earphones on, didn’t hear a word…” I lie.

She falls for it, and I see some relief on her face.

I point at the vacuum cleaner, look at the tiny display on the lifts, which turns from 9 to 10 , on the ascend.

“I’d rather drag it if I should..” She laughs.

I think of asking her how she managed to keep her cool, how despite the very personal low jabs she still managed to keep this effortless smile, but I remember according to my lie I heard not a single word, so I let it rest.

“Am sure the lift will be back in no time..” I offer.

“Well, I hope it will carry no jerk this time round..” She says. Well, a kind heart with a sense of humor? Must be from another planet, I assume.

We both laugh and I dash to the work. My watch shouts 8.51A.M. Damn It!