CheThava

[Published in the Weekend Nation in 2009]

CheThava had always fascinated me with the way he boasted, a habit that had on several occasions landed him in problems or humiliation, but he never learned. Despite his dreams never coming to pass, he never ceased to pose big about his fake ambitions.

“Just wait, pal. Shortly, I’ll get a good paying job,” he would sometimes roar self-importantly. And I had lost count the number of times he had told me that. 

“I’m the only person the boss likes,” that would be CheThava again boasting in his deep throaty voice though under-qualified. “When he retires he will leave that most top mantle to me,” he would finish pompously.

My friendship with CheThava dated back to my primary school years where we used to nurse ambitions of becoming priests. Our childhood dream seemed to be on track when we made it to the seminary but we were expelled in our third year when we were caught drunk. This was despite CheThava’s assurances after I had raised reservations over the idea of drinking.

“You’ll be very surprised, pal, how many priests you’ll find there at the tavern taking a dose of grandpa’s cough medicine,” he proclaimed, “They can’t catch us. They too have something to hide. Can’t you see?” I have been blaming myself ever since for believing him.

Years later I was dismayed when I met CheThava at this non-governmental organization where I had come to attend interviews. Since that fateful day at the seminary, I had lost track of his whereabouts and had not cared even to know. From the look of things, it appeared he was working at this NGO.

“Don’t worry, pal,” he said assuredly, “I’ll influence the outcome of this interview. You’ll make it.” I just nodded at his bluffing since I knew it was the thing he was good at. Two weeks later I was called that I had made it and CheThava was at it praising himself that without him I would not have made it.

“Get lost,” I retorted, “I’ve been taken because I convinced the panel that I’m the right candidate.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

For lack of space CheThava shared his office with his immediate boss who most of the times worked in the field. Such a development accorded him the opportunity to sit in for his boss. And every time such an opening would rise, CheThava was not himself. He would change his manner of speaking to boringly nasal accented tedious expressions, punctured by bombastic words. And his bossing relics would not relent there. He would deliberately leave files unattended to or even made sure to carry keys for important filing cabinets and rooms with him when traveling just to make people feel his officious importance. He was even more irritating when found in the office especially to juniors and outsiders. He would bossily make sure to engross himself with anything his mind could get hold on. He would pretend to flick through some important papers or to be too busy reading or writing something very significant to even accord you a peek or vomit a greeting. Other times he would take the office phone that had not been functioning for years and bluff nasally, pretending to be talking to some prominent people, just to keep them waiting.

“It’s a crime for the boss to keep time,” he justified himself when I talked him against his appalling habit.

“But you’re not the boss, right?” I protested.

“Oh, what the hell, when I’m the only one in the office, I am the boss!” he thundered banging his hand on the table.

Then one day it was the turn of our office to be introduced to the new country director who was to arrive that evening. I spent lunch-hour time chatting in CheThava’s office as we had nothing for a bite. As we chitchatted we heard shuffling of feet outside and then a heavy knock on the door and two people, a slim lady and fat gentleman, entered without waiting for an answer. Both were immaculately dressed. Even the fragrance they brought into the office bared a different story that they were not just another horde of souls. But that did not stir CheThava. He was already in action using the dysfunctional office phone, leaving the two standing as statues. I knew his bad-temper had knocked sense out of him by the two people’s entry without his say-so, and he wanted to ‘explain’ to them that they might be important where they hailed from but not in his office. I motioned the two to sit down though, and the way CheThava heaped his disapproving eyes on me showed he would have loved seeing me rotting in hell.

On the phone he was ‘talking’ to a friend, bluffing that he was waiting for the country director to cordially welcome them personally as accorded to him such a dignified duty by the chief executive. I had to suppress laughter. He even started to apolitically poke fun at the two visitors, now in Latin, the subject he sailed best in our class at the seminary. He was ‘telling’ the driver that lately two ugly souls had arrogantly just walked into his office without being told to do so; one stinky and fat, grunting like a pig and the other one, malnourished and thin, panting like a rabid dog.

“… and the way the obese pig’s sweat is soaking the floor, it will take cleaners the whole afternoon to dry it…” he bad-mouthed, and taunted and taunted, taunts spiced by loud laughter.

“Eh, how do I help you?” he long at last hanged up and bragged with an air of arrogance.

“I’m the country director and this is my secretary. Would you show us the chief executive’s office?” The fat man snapped in fluent Latin. “He told us to wait in his office until he returns.”

You should have seen CheThava the way his stature pitifully shrunk, looking like he was caught sodomising an under-aged boy.