The Sponsor

Mzee Ajabu

Mzee Ajabu woke up with a feeling of gratitude. He had married well, he thought. A wife who was not into eccentricities like overspending, overdressing or over-talking. She knew her place in this world and it was on her knees serving his needs.

His kids were alright. I mean they hadn't made him as proud as he would have wanted them too but at least, his youngest daughter was a darling, his eldest had cleared college without shaming him with pregnancies and his son did not indulge in drugs or hang out with crooks.

He got out of bed and took the teeth which were dipped in a glass of clear water beside him and wore them like you would spectacles—entered the bathroom and took a shower and brushed his artificial teeth after. He had long stopped going to work on the crack of dawn, age was catching up with him and if anything his business was now a standing giant.

His breakfast was waiting for him on the table. It was served heavy, the same way lunch or dinner is served. He could not remember when it was not like this. Waking up to clean ironed clothes and hot food. He always felt he had married well. A submissive wife, who didn't make too much of a fuss.

He considered himself a mans, man. To him manhood meant working hard. To him manhood was respect from friends and peers. Manhood was providing. Everything else was trivial.

He drunk his tea. Sipping it so that it made a slurping sound and ate his mashed potatoes and beef stew followed by yams with a second cup of tea.

His wife sat two paces from him with a wrapper on his head and a leso tied on her waist watching the news. He looked at her and he saw the girl she had married thirty years ago. Naive, submissive almost to the point where it felt like a weakness. He chewed his yams reminding himself that he had married well.

"What is Fred doing with himself, lately?" he groaned in-between the crunching sounds of his artificial teeth biting into a yam.

It always baffled her wife how he asked questions about his kids as if he did not live with them under the same house.

"His graduation is coming up, we're going to need to throw a party for him." She did not feel the need to tell him Fred had dropped out of school almost an year now to pursue music.

"A party?" his face contorted. "That will cost us a pretty penny."

They were not doing any major projects yet he was here complaining about money. She wondered what he was doing with his CEO salary but she did not ask. Mzee Ajabu did not feel the need to tell him that he had rented two apartments for his lovers either.

"Let me think about it," he said pouring tea and while he did his small phone beeped.

He had two phones. A Samsung and a Nokia, whenever his Samsung rung it was about work. He would take it and scream into his phone about incompetent employees and good for nothing managers but whenever his Nokia rung he got up and excused himself and whispered in the gazebo, bedroom or balcony.

He looked at the screen and his face gleamed. His whole demeanor changed. He got up and took his jacket.

"It's work, we will talk about this further in the evening."

His wife shrugged. "There's no milk and bread."

"I will come with it in the evening," he said while turning the door knob.

He had married well, he thought while opening the door to the back-left of his Land Cruiser the watchman saluting as he was driven out of his mansion.