The Percussionist; Bent, not broken
I got a call from Allan. A year ago it’d take him three jokes, three insults and an three variations of “bro!” to make his point, but these days he gets right to it. You see, he’s a father now, no beating around the bush, his focus in life and mobile telephony is razor sharp. Every beating moment is one, he’d rather dedicate to his boy, “DADing different” is what they’re calling it. Allan is a surgeon now as well, so he appreciates my appreciation for directness.
He told me he had a church friend who’d been all over Nairobi shopping for solutions to an injury he’d gotten riding his motorcycle. “I didn’t know you ride?” I joked, “Not my motorcycle JP, his!!” he replied, slightly irritated. You see, he’s a father now, you tend to dial down your risk appetite when you’re one of those, so biker-dad wasn’t his aesthetic. We conclude that he’d share my contacts with his friend and that I should expect his call soon. I could hear the baby babbling in the background and tugging at his phone, the kid is probably the one who abruptly hang-up, or at least that’s the version I’m going with, because Allan would never hang up on me. I’m sensitive.
His friend called 10 minutes later. He spoke with a lot of confidence and was politely assertive, chatty, but still always managed to get to his point in a tenth of the time it takes the average Kenyan. You know those meetings that we always hope could be an email or a text message? this guy was the email and the text message. Efficient and economical with his words. We agreed to meet in the clinic, the following day. It wasn’t my regular clinic day, but I figured I’d squeeze him into my schedule.
He always kept time, very unlike us Kenyans. I told him if he wasn’t careful they’d take away his citizenship. He almost laughed…I’m getting closer. Even though he stooped over with his crutches he was still tall, he had a black sleeve covering and cushioning his injured right leg. I could tell he’d been using the crutches for a fair bit of time, he was quite graceful shuffling around in them as I ushered him into the examination room.
He had a laid back look going on, sweatpants and black printed t-shirt. His hair was semi-combed, and looked longer than it should be. This was earlier on during the COVID pandemic when we were all avoiding barbershops. He wasn’t ashy, chances are he’d picked up a skincare routine during lock-down, I mean, as men we had to have something to show at the end of all this, and moisture was a very low hanging fruit that has evaded us for years, good on him. He had one of those athletic, sports type scents going on. It wasn’t the “I just jumped out of my 2 minute shower” fragrance that’s been locally sourced and packaged for years; there was sincere effort. He had these massive calloused hands that caused a small breeze whenever he gesticulated. I asked him if he was an Air-bender, he said ‘No, but close…I’m a drummer.’ The sooner you can get to the ice-breaker with patients, the better.
Now that that was out of the way. I began to open up his leg wound as he narrated to me how he got into the accident. He had a nasty gash on his leg, that every surgeon he’d been to for the three months prior had been unable to fix. “Give it time.” they all said, “the wound will close”. But his instincts told him otherwise. His guard was always naturally up, he had this ability to recognize what wasn’t best for him, an innate street-smart, one of those things you can’t be taught. Never ran out of questions either. The why, when and how were important to him. “So, can you fix it doc?” he asked with a cautiously hopeful look on his face.
It was a challenging injury, one that left almost no options other than to wait and see what happens as he’d been told previously. I could understand why he’d so far gotten no help.
Plastic surgery as a discipline encompasses both reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. When it comes to trauma surgery, difficult wounds and surgical oncology, we consider ourselves the last line of defense. They call us in when you require a radical solution to restore form and function or where all else has failed. In Africa, difficult reconstructive procedures is where you earn your stripes in Plastic Surgery. We dabble in the cosmetic work, but hardcore reconstruction is where you cut your teeth.
I suggested to him, a novel technique. One that, I came to find out later, had never been used in a situation similar to his. I explained to him what needed to be done, and what could potentially go wrong. He barely let me finish, he said, “Do what you need to do.” He looked me dead in the eye when he said this, his lower lip now trembling slightly and his pupils getting beadier. There was a lot of raw uncut emotion breaking through, I could see it in his face.
2020 had been a rough year. He was an artist, an extremely talented percussionist, I’d heard him play about a year before this encounter. It was at one of those fancy rooftop restaurants in Nairobi, overlooking the national park on one of those vibrant Sunday afternoons. He was born and raised in Nairobi, a city that also happened to be his best teacher. He hadn’t done particularly well in primary school, but still managed to make it to a decent enough high school, where he struggled even more. The rigid educational system and colonial manner of teaching was unbearable to him, as bright as he was, he just couldn’t fake it or luck-in like many of us did. This took a toll on him and his relationship with his parents, whose expectations of him were just as warped and tone deaf as the education system itself.
The only thing he ever really got good at in high school was playing the drums.
He never made it to a University and was eventually asked to leave home and figure out the rest of his adult life for himself, because his predicament was as a result of ‘his own inadequacies, mistakes and decisions’, his father said. Nevertheless, it was what it was. He bounced around from odd job to odd job, getting just about enough to keep the rent paid and tithe consistently. He was very close to the church, he had a lot to pray for, and God, though erratic and notoriously bad with time, always seemed to deliver. He’d prayed for a good wife growing up, and ended up meeting his then future wife during a Christmas service a few days after his father kicked him out the house.
His lucky break came a few years later, he remembered every detail of it down to the exact date and time, even showed me a photo on his phone he’d taken with Robert that very day. It was a hot afternoon in the city center, when he bumped into Robert, his old high school friend he knew from his days in the choir. Robert at the time was in banking, and doing well for himself. He wore a short thick red tie with a light blue half tucked-in shirt that had those sweat circles beneath the armpits. His heavy big faced watch dangled lazily over his left hand. He was the type to keep lifting and swiveling his wrist to set his timepiece in place when perhaps simply re-sizing would have worked. ‘Definitely a banker’, I thought to myself. He had broad shoulders and his chest was puffed out like he had two giant sets of lungs. He played the trumpet back in high school, still did, it turned out. That Robert invited his old friend, our percussionist, over for practice session at his house to play some music and reminisce.
For a few years now, Robert had been bringing together budding musicians in and around his neighborhood and mentoring them. He thought it might be a great idea for them to ‘jam’ once more, for old time sake.
It was during that first session that our percussionist was born again, a salvation not too dissimilar from what he felt in church, he stopped himself from saying ‘better’, but I could see it in his blasphemous eyes. He picked up, the drums that day like he’d never stopped playing. They started a band, and it felt right, he knew this was his only way out, so he gave it every single thing he had. Fast forward two years, they were the most highly sought out band in the city. Robert even quit banking and stocky red ties.
Better days, and it’s attendant sense of true purpose were finally here. Then COVID-19 hit. March 13th 2020, we all scrambled to our televisions, radios and smart devices to listen to the health Cabinet Secretary’s address as he announced the first positive case in the country. The percussionist didn’t, he was practicing his craft relentlessly with his team, they had shows lined up the entire year. The shows got cancelled with unsettling instance as sponsors pulled out one after the other in violent succession. Fight is a preserve of the jungle; in a capitalist society, flight is how you survive. Within a few weeks, there was nothing left. Not a single event.
He’d now been living off his savings. His outpatient cover now completely spent from the alternate day clinic visits he had to make at his previous clinic. His family had grown too at the turn of last year, two children now, and up until a few weeks ago, they’d been living in a good part of town. He had his accident soon after the pandemic began, and the money dried up fast. His wife held down a decent job, but the pay-cuts inevitably came, as COVID tightened its’ strangle hold on the pale economy. It wasn’t long after this that they decided to scale down and move out of the city to the rural outskirts. In uncertain economic times, cash is king; so he sold the motorbike soon after it was repaired. The cash injection was useful, but fleeting.
His sons’ birthday was coming up, he wanted to walk by then and be able to get him one of those ‘Paw Patrol’ cakes. His lips always trembled faster when he talked about his two boys, he wanted to cry, but honestly I don’t think he knew how to. Not because he didn’t feel the emotion, but because unfortunately, like many men, he’d only ever been taught to channel it to decisive action; not healthy self-expression.
We were interrupted when a nurse walked in looking for nothing in particular; they do that sometimes when you’re taking too long with a patient. He quickly gathered himself together and we cemented plans to operate in the coming weeks. There’s a distinct characteristic to the voice of someone who is silently at the end of their tether, frail and wrinkled; I could sense it as he thanked me and bid me farewell with an elbow bump.
I operated on him two weeks later. It was a success, but the convalescence and physiotherapy were the arduous bit. He was patient with the healing. He told me he’d use his little boy as a makeshift weight when he exercised his leg from home. He never stopped playing the drums either. We spoke a few days ago. I called him up because I saw him doing an Instagram live Christmas show, where his theatrics, against all good judgement, had him jumping up and down on stage celebrating the nativity. He admitted that it hurt a little, but it felt great. Can’t argue with that. He had two gigs lined up for December, and a wedding in January.
Music and family, the two things he cherished the most and was good at, were the two things that a turbulent year couldn’t take away from him. But it was more than just the graces of God that held this man together. Underneath this talented artist and family man lay true grit. Grit forged by failure, disappointment and a deck of bad cards.
To his family, a protector and priest. To the rest of us, a percussionist. He got bent out of shape this year, but never broke. I salute you sir.
