Up in the land of Washington, they say life occasionally throws you a curve ball or two. It’s a baseball metaphor, meaning that life is like a pitcher who throws a ball you can’t hit. Like getting a big promotion only to visit the doctor and learn you have cancer and only six months to live. Or the one time you get mad at the missus and you give in to that lingering desire for your young house help, and, lo and behold, the house help gets pregnant. Or the missus herself finally gets pregnant after years of trying, only for the baby to come out resembling one of those Chinese fellas building the road across your town.
Or if you live in my shoes, it’s more like a curve ball every day. The one time my fiancée Sophia and I bite the bullet and actually elope, we end up visiting the one judge — of all the judges in the country — whose son has been forcibly betrothed to Sophia.
“He’s the son of a judge, Sophie,” Mrs Kali, Sophia’s mum, says, her arm around the young man. “He’s bound to be a judge one day, you know, like his father. This is miles higher than marrying a lowly, anonymous cop.”
“He’s not anonymous, mum,” Sophia protests, putting her arm around my shoulder. “His name is Makini, and I love him. And he loves me.”
“More than anything else in the world,” I chime in.
“Of course, you’d love her more than anything else. You have nothing else, do you?”
“Come, Makini.” Sophia drags me out of the judge’s chamber. “There is more than one place where we can skin our cat.”
“I know you mean something different,” I say, “but sometimes you scare me to the bones, hun.”
She stops in the middle of the corridor. “If you’re scared of me, I could always go back and marry Mr Smiley Face back there. He’s bound to be a judge one day, you know, like his father.”
“Hey, I was only kidding. Does everything have to be black and white with you?”
“Look, idiot, life is either good or crappy. Never anything in between.”
“First of all, it sucks when you call me words like idiot, even endearingly. Second of all, some things in life aren’t always that crappy.”
“How can I not call you idiot if you keep saying things like ‘Second of all’? Maybe we should quit.”
Fear grabs me like a vice. “You don’t want to get married anymore?”
“No, silly. I’m saying we should quit being cops and run away to a place they can’t find us.”
“Run away from your parents? Come on, Sophie, we can’t just give up our lives simply because your parents don’t want us to get married. We’re consenting adults. The law is on our side. We can do anything we want.”
She grabs my collar. “You just don’t get it, do you? One way or another, my mother will ruin our lives. We can get married and have children and my mother will teach them to hate us. Or she could do something worse.”
“Like what?”
Just then, a man walks up to Sophia and grabs her in a chokehold from behind. “Take me to judge Wetangula’s office. Now.”
“It’s called chambers, stupid,” Sophia says.
I switch to fighting mode. “Let go of her, you bastard.”
“Or what?” The man brandishes a gun which he puts to Sophia’s throat. “Get marching, both of you.”
My hands in the air, I lead the way back to the judge’s chamber.
