Brian was in his first year at Makerere University, studying Economics 3:1:1 and living in Lumumba Hall.

In class, he was among the top five.

Outside class, things kept disappearing.

First his laptop. Then his phone. Then two good shirts and a pair of shoes his mother had bought him for Christmas. Each time, Brian had an explanation. Each time, his parents discovered where the money had gone.

His father tried talking to him. His mother prayed with him. They brought in Christian counsellors. They took him to deliverance services. Brian went along, answered politely, and returned to Lumumba Hall.

Then his father called his brother.

Uncle Rwamiti listened without interrupting. This worried Brian’s father, who knew that silence usually meant an idea was forming.

“I’ll take him out on Saturday,” Rwamiti said.

“Where?”

“For a beer.”

Brian’s father gripped the phone.

His mother, who had been listening beside him, took it from his hand.

“When you get there, what will you do?”

“Offer him a drink, Mum.”

“And then?”

“Another one.”

“And then?”

“Perhaps another one.”

She gave the phone back to her husband and walked out of the room.

By Saturday afternoon, Brian’s father had run out of people to call. At four o’clock, he told Brian that his uncle wanted to see him.

“Which uncle?”

“The one with that little brown car.”

Brian smiled for the first time that week.

At half past four, Uncle Rwamiti’s Suzuki Samurai pulled up outside the house. Another uncle had once called it a back breaker. Rwamiti considered that an unfair description of a vehicle that had carried him through Kampala potholes for years.

Brian climbed in. A driver was at the wheel.

“Where are we going?” Brian asked.

“Ntinda first,” said Rwamiti.

His father came to the car window. “Please bring him home early.”

Rwamiti looked at him. “I’ll bring him home.”

In Ntinda, they sat where they could watch the traffic. Rwamiti ordered two beers.

Brian waited for the questions. How much had the laptop cost? Was he throwing away his degree? Had he considered what this was doing to his mother?

His uncle asked none of them.

They talked about Lumumba Hall. About a lecturer Brian admired. About the boys who borrowed his notes and then acted surprised when he scored higher than they did.

The second beer arrived.

“You know I’m in trouble,” Brian said.

“Yes.”

“Dad sent you to sort me out.”

“He called me because he’s frightened.”

Brian peeled the label from his bottle. “He sounded angry.”

“He is that too.”

They stayed until the traffic thinned, then the driver took them to Kabalagala.

Brian spoke more freely there. He admitted that the first thing he had sold was his phone. Without it, his mother could not reach him for two days. She had called the police before he returned to the hostel and borrowed someone else’s phone.

Rwamiti did not laugh. Brian had expected him to.

By the time they reached Kikubamutwe, it was well past midnight. Music came from somewhere down the road. Their driver found a place to park and remained with the Samurai.

Brian and his uncle sat under a light that made everyone look tired.

“I don’t even know why I keep doing it,” Brian said.

Rwamiti pushed a glass of water towards him. Brian drank it.

“When Mum asks me, I give her a reason. Stress. Friends. Exams. She listens, then tells me to pray. I’ve tried praying. I’ve also lied to her about praying.”

“What do you want to tell her?”

“That I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Have you told anyone that?”

Brian shook his head.

“Then tell her tomorrow.”

Brian looked down at his empty glass. “She’ll think you put those words in my mouth.”

“She thinks worse of me already.”

That made Brian laugh. They sat for a while longer. Rwamiti told him about mistakes he had made at Brian’s age, leaving out the ones that would have made him sound wise.

At four thirty in the morning, the driver brought them home. Brian and Uncle Rwamiti were both drunk. The driver was sober.

Brian’s father was waiting at the gate. He saw his son struggle out of the Suzuki and turned on his brother.

“Is this what you call helping?”

Rwamiti had no answer his brother wanted to hear.

Brian’s mother appeared behind them. She looked at Brian, then at the uncle who had promised to take care of him. Her face said everything she had said on the phone, and more.

“Go inside,” she told Brian.

At breakfast, Brian came to the table. His mother put tea in front of him. Nobody mentioned the night until he did.

“Mum,” he said, “I don’t know why I keep drinking. I’ve been telling you things because you ask me for a reason. I don’t have one I believe.”

His mother sat down. His father stayed standing.

They talked for a long time that morning. Some of it was painful. None of it solved everything.

But Brian did not drink the next day. Or the next week. The months passed, and he did not drink then either.

Years later, when someone asked Uncle Rwamiti what he had said to Brian that night, he shrugged.

“Very little that I remember.”

Brian’s mother still did not approve of the outing. She had every reason not to. She was glad her son came home, and she was glad he had finally told her something true. She would never call the beers a cure.

Neither would Brian.

As for Uncle Rwamiti, he was no longer welcome to offer advice on anyone else’s child without first explaining exactly where he intended to take them.

He considered that fair.

Uncle Rwamiti
The uncle your parents probably should never have introduced you to.
Created by Petero Wamala (Dr)