Jeff and I have been friends for years. It’s one of those friendships that burn slow like lit charcoal, with enough effort the fire keeps going. I would call it a low maintenance friendship which might look like a bad thing but in fact it is one of the best things a guy can experience. I am happy that Jeff’s life is coming together, you know the whole works. He is climbing up the corporate ladder, visiting new places, and has a young family. The only downside – he is living under this punitive tax regime. But aren’t we all. Now this friendship that’s been built over years has seen us do the most ridiculous things that guys can do when they are together. The levels of debauchery we have reached have probably given the devil himself ideas on how to tempt newbies.
But you know life happens and sometimes people sort of drift apart and that’s been the case here. No hard feelings just the reality of things on the ground. No one holds any hard feelings. I mean what would be the need for the guy to call me up on a random Wednesday to tell me his kid started walking or it lost its first tooth? Those are conversations best saved for when you are with the missus and her friends and you are just echoing her thoughts as you bludgeon through the evening without spilling a drop of the whisky in your glass or dropping the baby. Either way it’s a win.
So after a while this chap decides that the fire is dying and decides to hit me up and blow some life into the flames. My phone rings and the conversation brief and concise goes something like:
“Hey mate, been a minute.”
“Yeah, I’m good bro, what’s up?”
“Si we link up on sato ama?”
“Sure thing.”
The phone goes dead because there really isn’t else much to be said. Most times, the conversation between guys feels like you are ordering for chapatti and beans at the kibanda outside your workplace. Nothing fancy like asking what kind of oil they use and if the guy behind the stove is doing it for the love of the game or it’s just another pay check for him. We leave the flowery niceties for our significant others. Because, trust me, if you take her to the kibanda she will develop some stomach upset and blame the oil convinced they reused it and it is not a hygienic practice.
As life would have it I forget about the meet up as I was worked up over important things. Like every other guy out there you know your mind is occupied with whether Arsenal will make a new signing for the upcoming season and whether Elani will finally decide to break the dry spell and give us an EP – we do not even want an album at this point. So when I get the text asking me where I am I get disoriented. I am somewhere in the CBD resenting the sun and why I had to be out on a weekend. We decide on a meet-up point and I head there. I usually like meeting up in joints that can pass for a boda-boda stage. These places are usually the melting point of city life. You will find the frustrated young lawyer there with their tie loose around their neck as if they are waiting to find the nearest low hanging branch and just end it all. You will also find the errand guy for the local hardware shop still in his overalls standing by the counter making jokes hoping to impress Njambi to have his credit line extended. Then you will also find the up and coming corporate guys together with the office baddies always being loud and throwing around their English with an air of self-importance forgetting that there, there has no class, everyone is the same.
However, Jeff loves a bit of comfort so of course we have to meet at some swanky joint. Those places you go and you find couches shaped like cute little cups and when you sit down it sucks you in forcing you into a comfortable hug like its drowning you in to a nostalgic childhood memory. Those chairs almost always feel like a hug. I walk in, and spot Jeff sitting at some corner, in hand already a cold frothy brew in a tall sweating glass. I wave and walk towards him careful to trip because I tend to be clumsy in these joints – for some reason I feel like I do not belong and calculate each step which ends up in disaster.
“Yoh Jeff, what’s up?” I start as I get within hearing range.
“Good bro” he says as he stand up and we exchange the bro hug.
A brief silence engulfs us as we wait for the waitress to come and take my order. There you don’t shout. You don’t raise your hand. You wait. They see you and will attend to you. They are the cat and you are the human who should be deserving of their attention. Luckily on this day the cats liked me.
After my drink was displaced into my glass the silence was broken.
“So what’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing man, a guy just can’t miss his friend?” he retorted.
I took two sips to of my drink to marinate on his response. This got me thinking guys really do not say they miss each other. They just imply it in passing like how we know traffic cops stopping matatus on the road on a Monday morning are not doing it because they care about traffic laws but they are conducting other business and we just let it slide as long as we get to wherever we are going.
“So you just missed me?” I said mid chuckle because that is the only way to make it not seem weird.
“Don’t be stupid, anyway how are you doing?” he asked as he was wiping of the foamy moustache that had formed on his upper lip with the back of his hand.
I could tell he really did not want to talk to me about how I was doing. If you have been friends long enough with someone these are things you can pick up on. Something was on his mind and I could see it from the way his brows would crease every time someone passed close enough within ear shot of whatever we were talking about.
“I’m pretty much okay, but what is it?” I lean in closer, almost clasping my hands to give off a sage look.
“Listen bro, don’t judge me” his eyes dart across the room like he is expecting a team of FBI agents to bust in at any moment. “It’s her toes man!” It felt like he wanted to shout it but it came off as a supressed whisper his eyes darting across the room again.
At that moment I did not know what to think. Whose toes? Are we talking about the same thing? Now I have a brow raised in confusion. Jeff picks up on this, shrugs his shoulders, takes a swig off his sweating glass and says it again;
“Her toes man, I hate them.” He lets out a sigh. Not like he was tired but like he was relieved. Like it was something he had wanted to say for a long time. Under his breath he says it again “I fucking hate them.”
At this point I have no idea what to say but I want to laugh. I don’t.
“Have you tried socks?” I ask with a smirk struggling to hide at the corner of my lips.
“Don’t try to be funny!” He snapped. “I just don’t know how to tell her.”
In my head I am trying to figure out when I became the toe whisperer. Like what about my persona says I can talk about toes and solve their issues. Maybe it was this article I did here but still that does not count for much. Maybe somewhere in his mind he thought I could magically make toes become beautiful like a party trick I pull out to win the ladies when I am at house parties. I am already imagining myself talking to a damsel and my opening line is “Can I have a look at your toes?” Her reaction would be her freaking out and brushing me off rushing off to find her friends and warning them about the freak in a beanie that is walking around asking to see people’s toes.
“What about them?” I ask but this time with a bit of sincerity. I mean if someone is opening to you about toes you have to take it with an air of seriousness. Is she like missing one and they need me to offer one of mine for a toe transplant? Do they do toe transplants? What would that look like? Would her shoes fit the same after that?
“They’re just ugly man. I don’t know.” This time he raises his hands in the air like a man that has given up.
“Have you talked to her about it?” I ask.
“Are you mad? You never tell your wife anything about her looks let alone her toes!” he sounds surprised that is not common knowledge to us unmarried folk.
“Look Jeff…” this time my tone changes and it feels like I am about to give an award winning Ted talk in the middle of a swanky bar to a crowd of semi drunk aloof guys who have no idea how to handle a conversation on toes. “I don’t know what you want me to do here. Maybe you guys should visit a therapist?”
In my head that sounded really profound. I mean every marital problem should be solved by a therapist.
“And tell them what?” he responds
“That you hate her toes Jeff, you hate her toes!” I shoot back almost loud enough that the waitress throws a glance at our table and decides to swing around and bring us more drinks but this time with a small bowl full of ground nuts.
“Any way what do you hate about them? What did they ever do to you?” I add.
“I just never really looked at them you know. It is just one of those things you don’t think would bother you but it does.” He replies.
As he says it, it hits me that I have never really noticed anyone’s toes. I have seen people that have a foot fetish and wonder if toes can turn them on or off. Maybe in the middle of texting they ask you to send them a naughty picture and you are there all shy saying how you don’t normally do it, then finally when you are about to slip a nip they say it would be nice if you could send a picture of your right toe; or a video, yes a video actually, where they will ask you to wiggle that sexy nail farm for the camera just for them.
Snapping out of it I respond “I don’t know man, I don’t think I can help.” Shrugging my shoulders I add “Maybe you should just tell her or kanyagia that story” this time I did not hide my smirk it was too good a joke to let fly past us – plus if two guys cannot joke about toes what else can they do?
After a few more rounds and useless banter we parted ways. It was a good meeting though weird. We promised to keep in touch more often but we both knew that was one of those things people just say.
However, as I was heading home it got me thinking was the meeting really about toes? Could there have been something deeper veiled in that statement?
I made a mental note to go visit Jeff at his place and catch a glimpse of those toes he so detests.