Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

They waved to a group of friends as they joined the queue. “This Bath fool is even here,” Innocent indicated. Responding to an argument, Bath broke away from the line. He hummed to the music, danced a little, putting away a beat with a foot and picking up a rising beat with the hand and gently spurn round. Then he mustered a body heave and whipped up a Michael Jackson finger-snapping. He didn’t have wonderful steps after all, somebody observed. But a colleague contested that. Bath was among the best in the school, he asserted. He had such works. Bath himself was smiling. He addressed Zeggy, the last speaker. It wasn’t for him to speak for himselself. He was inviting sceptics to come watch him at Lara’s at the weekend. Everything would be laid to rest at the Mr. Unimaid competition. He was a practical guy. “Yeap,” he told the ticket seller later. “Four tickets.” He turned to a colleague. “Collect your ticket and your babe’s, like.” He handed over two tickets.

Some change would turn up after his meal, the ticket seller said, handing an in-house credit card to him. He would disappoint him, Bath said. For three naira he would come back to bother him? Out of the place was out of the place. The ticket seller thanked him. If the money would meet some needs, then wasn’t the cashier lucky? was Bath’s reaction. Fool, Imoni thought, those cashiers would never have change for him.

This goddam meal, Imoni thought, as they carried their foods to a nearby table. And at such disproportionate price of six naira.

“Hey,” they heard a fellow say. “Piss ya arse off here, Rolli. It’s like you’ve forgotten to bring the Swan water and you seated to blast.”

The two girls beside him laughed. “Don’t blame Rolli,” one said. “It’s like he’s hungry good.”

The entry of Eva, a girl with a boundless drive for adventure tickled Imoni and Innocent. “My God,” Innocent exclaimed.

She pecked a few kisses without gender discrimination, and gave Innocent and Imoni an I will be with you in a minute finger sign salute. A few moments later, she walked provocatively in her body-gripping jeans trousers to them. “My, my, Cent.” A hand went around Innocent’s neck, while she rested on his laps. Imoni felt himself rise. “It’s like we have always been for each other, Cent,” she said. “Only you think you’re clever.”

“What have I done?”

Her eyes questioned him. “What you have done? Well, let’s not start remembering things.... Imoni Waltz,” she called suddenly.

“Hello, Eva.”

“It’s like you don’t want to say hi, so you won’t buy me a plate of meal,” she said to Imoni.

“You’re being on the offensive because you know I was going to accuse you.” Eva’s eyes glowered questioningly. Imoni pointed. “Discrimination.”

“My, oh my,” the girl exclaimed, transferring to his laps.

Imoni felt her warmth. “This is how it should be.”

Innocent was smiling. “Envy. So, you’re happy now.”

The girl left Imoni with a peck on the cheek, then posed beside Innocent. She said she was coming to his room that night. She wanted to get away with him. But, meanwhile, she was penniless. Could she have something from him? She tried to dig out a ten naira note from his pocket. He halted the money’s exit, but let go of it. The daughter of a wealthy ex-Senator, he ought to be picking money from her, he said. For him, hunger was a next of kin.

She turned the money in her hand, then lead it into her own breast pocket. He shouldn’t be cheap, she cautioned him. She thought him civilised enough to concede her a more appropriate status. Innocent pulled her to him with apologies, but enquired if he came first, then. He should think, she told him. That was what his head was meant for. How about his address? He wrote it. She repeated how she wasn’t kidding about getting away briefly with him from the gossipy place. How they could make each other mutually available, and see who was the cleverer person. He should improve his rating before her, she added. It was a real deal. The paper she got from him meanwhile peeped out underneath the hand placed on her lap. He needn’t bother about the bills, she said. He was just the lucky one.

Imoni asked if he could join them. What use would he be? the girl asked him. She detested this crowd thing. Moreover, he had enough worries in Gladys, already. She wouldn’t want Gladys to start having ideas. And he was too young to lose his life. Too bad. The girl walked off.

“That girl is dynamite,” Imoni remarked.

“Real dynamite.” Innocent resumed with the rice. “And I don’t know what she’s spotted in me. The first time I met her, she just walked up to me, and said she dug for me. That girl, the mags have bored readers with stories about her, and have given up. At a stage, it appeared as if they dedicated special columns on her.”

With such a girl, Imoni said, one didn’t start wondering where it would all lead to. She was a unique girl, he said, only she was a nymph.

“Yes,” Innocent agreed. “She’s a girl with a string of one-night stands. Never been known to spend any three-straight nights in her room, or to stay any seven days with one boy.”

“You’re the boy on contract this time.”

“You can’t try.”

“Going to obtain that Senator. Wao.”

“Including the attorney general mum.”

“Obtain an attorney general without apprehension. That’s some guts.”

“And obtain the girl as well, as I won’t have to spend a single ticket.”

“That’s two-pronged obtain. See, a lot of girls know about me and Gladys.”

“What do you think they do most of the time, if not talk about boys?” After the unsatisfactory meal, Innocent drifted to Eva who now had a mixed, hearty company. Imoni waited outside. Soon, Innocent came out. “She’s still serious about coming over tonight, and the date, tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you lucky?”

“I’m warming up, already.”

“What’s your schedule like?” Imoni asked later.

“To have some rest.”

“Same for me. I won’t go anywhere until night time.”

“Well, we’ll collide tomorrow.” A smile played on Imoni’s lips. “As your night has been contracted out.”

“Ya, men.”

“Best regards to Eva.”

“Okay.”

Coloured water slopped over the brim of oily bowls, unto the dining tables. This created pools which branched into deltas; eventually rid from steep slopes. A student carelessly released water on his hand over a sated bowl. The unwanted water dropped on the table, and stretched its fingers towards the table’s borders. Another student rescued his legs from the flood. “Sorry,” the offender waved, and descended on the garri before him. Ahead, a hand was dangling out of a wall, collecting money and presenting tickets. The line progressed, but was broken by an unpleasant announcement. Invectives followed.

“These people are not serious,” somebody remarked, going to a corner for his books.

“Only 9.15pm; if you people are tired, you better hand over to a new management,” some said loudly.

“Pigs.”

Imoni fled the place in anger. Anger over laxity and programme misapplication. He caught the road to trade fair, the late comers’ terminus. As usual, self-ordained oppressors were distributed in outdoor conferences in the place. Whereas, for most students, it still remained an unavoidable junction.

At the immediate quarters of a kiosk, a rising voice touched him. The voice owner measured about six feet, even in his sedentary posture, and boasted about five listeners. Imoni meanwhile discovered an inconspicuous corner, from where he called for two wraps of moi moi in exchange for four naira. He undressed one of the wraps, and cut into it. The voice still dominated the airwaves, transmitting ridiculous things. “It’s like, I don’t have any problem in my life,” it was saying, “but to spend my old man’s tickets.... What? My old guy is bastardly loaded, my three brothers swim in money around the world, and our only sister, a lawyer, is married to a Colonel. My admission was a foregone conclusion. I deferred it.” So, you’re yet to be admitted? Imoni thought.