Sam (a very awful name) was crying uncontrollably. He squirmed and wheezed on the bed in a feverish but not scary manner. It was an acceptance cry. Submission to fate.
I stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do. Or even what to say. It is not what I anticipated when I decided to return home. A man was sobbing. The wail had a terrible melody to it, indicating a great personal loss, not death.
"What exactly is it, Sam?"
More tears. More sobbing. More uncontrollable twitching. For over 10 minutes, I waited there, stuck, waiting for him to collect himself.
Sam was a young man I housed a year ago. He'd come to stay with me for the weekend after his brother told him he needed to find a place of his own. This was the second month he was living with me. He was a young man, way younger than me. Muscular. Quiet. Humble. Average height and build. A voice that spanned from ordinary tenor to average alto spoke.
He left the house early in the morning and returned late at night. But here we were, about 6 p.m., the sun getting ready to eat and sleep. And Sam was in tears.
"What exactly is it?" I asked, much more authoritatively and impatiently.
Sobs. More sobs.
"It's my girlfriend," he muttered, bursting into another tearful twitching.
"So what about her?" I inquired, disapprovingly. I despise males who cry. The sole exception is when they're chopping those Ukambani onions...
"She's pregnant." He expressed his skepticism.
"Is that why you're crying?" I asked, trying to remain calm. "That we can handle; it's a minor problem." Every male will 'accidentally' impregnate a lady at some point in his life. Unless her father is the director of CID or an OCS..." I began rambling...
“No. That is not the issue." Even as he cried more intensely, he stated it firmly.
"What exactly is it?"
"It is not really my pregnancy!" He proclaimed.
"Oh, no..." Is that why you're crying, I inquired, sympathetic to his position.
He briefly went into a monologue about how much he loved the girl.
I put on my relationship expert hat and sunglasses and went into 'unsolicited advice mode,' sounding like Sigmund himself speaking in Dr. Phil's voice.
"Take a look, Sam. That does not imply the end of the world. A lady will betray you at least once in her life. You should be grateful that it happened when you were still young, not yet 18. Stop sobbing; we need to go have a beer."
"Not at all, Duke." That is not the issue!"
I was completely lost at this point. What could possibly be worse than what Sam had told me...
"Hiyo mimba mwanaume alimpea ako positive," (The man who gave her the pregnancy has HIV.)
Sam had conveyed to me in one statement that he had been tapping the lady raw. He anticipated the worst. I was dreading the worst. But I was familiar with this stage of life.
This has happened to every sexually active male I know. You're terrified of your overnight transgression. It might be a chips fungus. It may be a woman you met in a matatu. It might be your neighbor.
It usually happens with a woman when you don't have her sexual history or can't find it elsewhere (not that there is a woman whose sexual history you can be 100% certain of). But at least with those you meet in the correct areas, you can ask around and get a distorted image.
So you meet this lady. You don't know her quite well. Not even her second name. You take her to bed. Perhaps you are inebriated. Perhaps she is good in bed. Perhaps you are thirsty. Perhaps the two of you are very thirsty. Perhaps you went too fast, and the condom ruptured in your ferocious and vicious job.
In the end, you end up chewing it raw. After reaching the climax, you sleep, and the next morning, reality hits you like a cold stone.
Normally, you wake up, your mind overheats, and something brighter than the sun shines in your eyes. You have lost your appetite. And you begin to think seriously about life.
"If she had given it to me raw." How many men has she met and slept with in this manner? I swear to God, I’m positive." You persuasively tell yourself.
You look up to God and consider the 13 locations you should have been before making the dumb move. Your entire life flashes before you. You speculate about the castles you would have built and the joyful family you would have had with your official girlfriend. Your adoring mother and an aloof father. Your cousins. And your friends.
It used to be worse until ARVs arrived to give dying HIV patients some dignity. You used to see your own body, withered to the last bone, skin discolored and reduced to a pile of shrunken bones that required people to squint and lean down to see you in the blanket. You become hysterical.
I've never seen ladies bothered by such things. They are usually cool as long as there is a chemist on her way to the stage or in town. It's as though ladies don't care about HIV. But only two ladies close to me have ever phoned me out of the blue—do you know those 10.37 a.m. calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Those, indeed. These women called to tell me they had passed an HIV test. I could sense the joy in their eyes. It's difficult to go to the V.C.T. when you know you haven't been a nice boy or girl recently.
So I was aware of Sam's predicament. Anyway, Sam did go to the hospital after we counseled him as men many weeks later. He was negative. He joined a church and I am happy he is.
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