Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

“I’m surprised about the time, too,” Imoni said. “I have a Pol. Science lecture at eleven. You won’t even know it’s so late. It’s because of the harmattan.”

Aham got up, and was followed out by a tooth brush and tooth paste. Mickey returned with a bag. He rummaged through it, his hand appearing with toilet articles. Where could he have left his dressing case? he said, as his hand brought out one cream, two, three, four.... Both Imoni and Yunusa’s eyes lost count at the crowd of them on a table. “What a collection of creams,” Imoni observed. “You intend setting up a cosmetics shop?”

“Cosmetics shop, indeed.” He brought out a bottle of perfume, then a tablet of an expensive soap.

Yunusa approached the table. He studied some of the creams. He wondered if the acquisition of so many creams bordered on mere appetite for them. “Yes, and I will eat them,” Mickey replied briefly. It was simply too much for mere body care, Yunusa said. Mickey drew out a towel from his portmanteau. “That’s wrong attitude, I tell you. It’s like we hardly learn. If you know what real skin treatment is, you won’t say that thing.” He put the towel around him, and pulled and stepped out of his pants. Aham soon came in. He stood, transfixed, with questioning eyes. Mickey laughed. “What’s biting you, like?” He asked him if the things were for sale. “You wonno buy?”

They weren’t meant for exhibition, Yunusa informed him, but for Mickey’s skin. “You’ll be bleached to hell, when you finish applying them.” Aham got rid of the dental instruments, then came back to examine the creams. He shook his head.

Mickey was filled with music of indistinct notes, and with accompanying body movements. “It would have been wonderful to have a mean musical gadget here.”

“Yunusa has one,” Aham told him.

“Then, where is it?”

Yunusa said he needed someone’s approval to get it from where it was for safe keeping. But it was due in later in the day. Not a disc player, he was told. “It’s like the bathrooms here give me the horrors,” Mickey said. “I think I should bath quickly, go to Chinese Restaurant for a breakfast, and...”

“I am preparing to get us some bread, so we can design some breakfast here,” Imoni said.

Their guest’s face was incredulous. What was that again? he asked. Eating in the room? What was wrong with it? Aham asked. That way, it was better than what one got in the restaurants. That was strange, then, Mickey said. But cooking wasn’t allowed in the hostel. Yes, Aham replied, but the law was not easy to enforce. “You guys must be very domestic like,” Mickey said. “I never thought of that. But, don’t you think that either way you still spend something? What’s money meant for, anyway? Well, who’s going to buy the bread and others?”

Imoni offered to, going for some money. Aham slipped out with a bucket and a soap dish. Mickey moved for his portmanteau. But Imoni forestalled him. He needn’t worry about the money.

Well, if he insisted, Mickey said. But what would they do for omelette, for instance? He wouldn’t mind having some. Imoni pinched the money in his pocket. The kiosks were no place for those things, he said. And cooked ones? Mickey asked. Imoni, with regret, went for more money. “And, by the way,” Mickey said, “I prefer biscuits for breakfast.” He looked at Yunusa. “Some other guys go for heavy things like the bread I’ve seen here.” Imoni was irritated at being held up by unreasonable requests. That would be accommodated as well, he told him.

When he reappeared, both Aham and Mickey were through with their bath, and Mickey was attending to his creams. Imoni wasted no time on his toilet. When he came back, Mickey was still beside his creams. While Aham was putting together the breakfast, Imoni hovered around their friend and his collection. He picked up a tube, and received some cool, yellow fluid into his palms. He locked both palms, moved them briefly, then made to employ the cream on his legs. But he was dissuaded by Mickey.

“You disappoint me, Imoni. You ought to know that, that cream is meant for your face.”

The other three young men spurted with laughter. Mickey laughed, too. “It’s the right thing I told him. Why are you laughing? Here’s one for your legs. And this one is for your hair. This other will be good for your beard and moustache. If you can top them with a perfume, you become loud, and send every babe crazy, like.”

Aham had finished preparing the breakfast. “That’s real cosmetology,” he said, smiling.

Imoni was still amused. He complied with the directions. There was a lot of movement and activity in the room. The announcement of breakfast quickly changed everything.

Mickey’s attire quietly amused the others to no end. The shirt negligently sat on him, and seemed to jump off his waistline. In contrast, the jeans trousers, in an emphatic acceptance of the intended taste, seemed more fashionable. Rough, dark patches dotted it, a job that must have cost Mickey quite some pains to prepare. About two inches of cloth teased into separate, fine waves, moved away from his ankles. The snake skin shoes and the trousers appealed more to reason. But Mickey’s disapproving countenance formed a different judgement.

“It’s like this jeans is too clean for my liking,” he complained, before sitting down on the rug. The other three passed funny glances. Aham asked if he would have preferred it dirtier? “Why not? At least for a perfect...”

“I don’t think I can wear one, with those patches,” Yunusa said. “And in this cold?”

Mickey took offence. “Then, you’re still at the starting blocks, pal.... I remember, while I was in secondary school, we used to douse our jeans with dust, just run them through sand before wearing them.”

Imoni termed it secondary school foolery. “You may call it what you choose. You see, this is the problem. Most of us don’t still know how to use jeans like, or the concept that’s jeans.”

Aham wanted them to forget fashion now and get on with the breakfast. But Mickey’s talk on jeans-wearing carried on through the breakfast. Aham finally packed up his books and ran out. Mickey wanted to know what was going on, that Aham had to leave the way he did. He was reporting for lectures in a different part of the school, at the Law Faculty, that was why, Imoni told him. But his was in the main academic area. “I think I did better join you,” Mickey told him. That was outside his course area and level, Yunusa reminded him. Was he doing it out of goodwill? “Goodwill what?” he asked. “Is there any difference between Pol. Science and Geography, and being in part one or two?” He laughed. “It’s like, Imoni, you better hasten up.”

Yunusa was bound for the town, and taking an order from Imoni. Mickey nudged Imoni impatiently. “Please, forget him, and let’s go.” But he had to add something to the shirt, he was told. He grumbled, and quickly had a long sleeve pool-over under it.

Students’ movement, charged by the slightly cold atmosphere, was business-like. It was a criss-cross, three-pronged movement. Forged westerly, to the academic area, and both easterly and northerly, to the new science complex. And, gradually, the old man, with his millennium-old rituals, hurried their years with grey crowns placed on their heads. Mickey had a cigarette in his lips, but he stopped suddenly, his hands digging into his trousers pockets. He had set out without his cigarettes, he said regretfully. Imoni was surprised that such unimportant thing could produce such reaction from his friend. Well, he said, they had barely left the hostel. He could still go and get it.

Mickey’s ears must have picked up the most disgusting sounds. “How can I do such a thing?” he asked, moving towards a kiosk. He got two packets of cigarettes, then joined Imoni. “At least, these two will be okay for a few hours.”