CONNED: A SERIES. EPISODE ONE

CONNED: A SERIES
Episode 1.
A slow smile curved on his features as the Matatu cruised along Thika road heading to the city. In a few hours, he, James, would have the papers that would enable him cross the bridge from the deserts of poverty to the oasis of riches, at a fee. If guys coughed over two hundred thousand shillings to get to the armed forces to earn a paltry thirty or so thousand who was he to let the chance to earn over two hundred thousand a month in Afghanistan?
He surveyed the oncoming cars, discarding from his plans the small ones; he was going to buy a state of the art SUV once he got back. He felt for his passport which he had coughed ten thousand shillings at Nyayo house to fast track and smiled. He was going to make his mother proud, soon. She had stood by him, supported him against his father when he had told her his plans. That is how he had been able to raise the two hundred shillings that were tucked safely in a location only he knew.
His friend since high school Jeff was organizing the whole deal. The sweetest part was that James was not to hand over any money until he had all the papers with him. He alighted at the fire station, a spring in his step. In a few moments he would have the documents and air ticket, paid for by the sourcing company, in his hands. They would then arrange where he was to hand over the money. His plan was water tight and Jeff was obliging. In this times you cant trust anyone, he had told Jeff.
They met at an uptown hotel. These joints James would normally pass with a longing glance but since meeting Jeff he had become a regular. Not that James paid the bills; what were old buddies for and Jeff had made it in life, driving top of the range machines and dressing in top of the market clothes?
There was a hitch though. Jeff was in a hurry to go to a meeting and didn’t have the papers with him. Could James collect the documents at his place in the evening? His disappointment was abated by the heavy lunch and five hundred shillings Jeff pressed into his palm, assuring him. A few hours wait could not kill a dream that had festered for so long.
Arriving at Jeff’s place in the evening, he was ushered in by his wife with a welcoming smile. He had met her several times when he had been consulting with Jeff and had been introduced as an old friend. Since Jeff was not in she gave him a cup of tea and retired to the bedroom. Left alone in the room with the remote his eyes wandered on the pricey items that adorned the room. This was a couple with a taste.
Kept busy by a thrilling movie on one of the pre paid channels and a hostess taking care of his needs now and then, the hours flew by without his notice and dusk tuned into night. His bliss was broken by a high pitched scream that seemed to go on and on. Alert, he listened for its source. It came from the hostess’s bedroom. Rushing in to see what was wrong, he found her in a torn night dress, her eyes wild, her hair ruffled. The room seemed to have been disarranged in a scuffle. He didn’t have the time to get what was wrong from her for in an instant the house was filled with neighbors and one or two people he recognized as Jeff’s friends.
By now the hostess had already attacked him, bawling wildly, scratching biting and kicking. He was felled by a heavy blow to the back of the head by the rescuers, who went on to set on him with kicks and blows. Sense of what was happening deserted him, he was lost for reason searching for answers he had no questions to, while blows stung into his body from all corners. He was losing consciousness when he heard the voice of his friend Jeff shout stop above the din in the house. At last his savior had arrived, his feeble spirit gaining strength.
What shocked him was the reason the hostess gave for attacking him. He, James, had been trying to rape her, she sobbed as she narrated the ordeal. Jeff set on him with a vengeance, admonishing him for breaking his trust and trying to defile that which he held in esteem above all else, his own altar. James tried to profess his innocence to no avail. No one believes a battered man, especially if found in a bedroom that doesn’t belong to him.
The crowd gathered outside bayed for his blood. He was a man besieged. His one hope of salvation Jeff was being held back, machete in hand, lest he finished him off. A hasty jury demanded he give a hundred thousand to assuage Jeff’s rage else he would be tossed to the murderous crowd. These guys were serious. He was fighting for his life and not even his dream, edged on the inheritance money he had pried from his Dad seemed that important now. What use was a dream to a dead man anyway?
It was two cops who escorted him to his place to get the money to pay the liberate, albeit a statement written at the local police station where he was to attend summons while waiting for Jeff to either drop the case or prosecute him. A hundred thousand shillings less, beaten to the edge of death and having lost his ego and the trust of a friend he took to hospital to have his bruises tended to.
He woke up the next day in pain all over his body, but little did he know that the call he was to get from his friend Jeff in a bid to bury the hatchet was only the beginning of his problems.