Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

Aham disagreed. “You can never tell. They must have their reasons. The girls. Weren’t there girls around?”

Aham enjoyed disagreeing with popular argument. That was the problem. Imoni found the young man’s conduct disgusting and told him so. “And that won’t carry the message that they’ve got good pay. What put them up to such nonsense?” He simply refrained from further discussion of the irritating episode. He instead got absorbed, watching the antics of new students, making their campus debut. They were all over the place, especially the girls, unspoiled, and invoking the devil.

It was a routine, purposeless walk. Realising Bee Hive no longer ideal, they decided for lunch at the restaurant nearby.

Some moments later they strolled into the place, and into a queue. It was soon Aham’s turn to get his meal. “Why?” His eyes ran from the food to the teenage girl behind the counter. “How can you give me this thing for three naira?”

“Next.” The girl looked beyond him.

“My friend,” a muscular, bespectacled student in a sleeveless T-shirt called, “please, we can’t keep standing here because of you. It’s like this line got to be moving.”

“Who is that fool?” Aham turned.

He had abused decorum. Numerous eyes followed him to his table. His opponent was an instant hit. He soon got before the buffet. “Hello, Steve,” the teenage girl called.

“Hi, Deko.”

“What’s it by your time now? You’re late today by one hour...”

Yunusa and Imoni’s eyes expressed amusement when they joined Aham at the large, round table. “My God, they gave it to our guy,” Imoni said. “But check out Aham’s current. He almost laced the guy.”

Aham said nothing, and was smiling, instead. Mid-way into their meals, Yunusa went for drinks. Imoni’s fresher observation was diners in the restaurant barely touched their foods and drinks. Like a rite. It was less puzzling now.

Later, their emptied plates out of the way, they went slow on the drinks. Yunusa recalled a request he couldn’t grant. It was Nnamdi. He was talking about putting up with them. He told him anyway about their collective decision against squatters this time. Nothing would change from what it was the previous semester, Imoni put in. The room couldn’t support any more persons. Ambrose had been there before. And Ambrose stood ahead of any other person, thinking of humanitarian considerations, but he had to go away without a promise.

Aham smiled cynically. Ambrose, the Agri-econs dud? That was a nice guy. He would have clinched it. But Nnamdi? He talked to him, too. He held him away. He told him no way. This wasn’t a matter of collective decision. He wasn’t entertaining any requests. He wouldn’t have to fight with somebody over his bed in the day time or tolerate somebody lying in the middle of the room. Like those guys, Deji and Uwem, they had early last session. That, without their approval. A friend of his took two colleagues the previous semester on board, and what he got in return was disappearance of his items. With one directing the other to the host’s things. Some people, he said, were determined from the on-set to live on others.

Nnamdi was so fund of that thing. His past records would even work against him. If his parents weren’t well-off, so were his. He couldn’t be spending his money on girls, and expect him who forfeited his to hall officials to squat him. People who had better ideas with their monies having him on their schedules as one to mix their problems with. In fact, he wanted any further enquiries about the room passed over to him. If he did get another Nnamdi, he would burst him and turn him around to rational thinking. Such people couldn’t exploit him. He wasn’t their fool. And no girl on campus had obliged that Nnamdi.

Notorious fool, he continued. And that was where he missed the point. He was unwise. All those students who sold their bed spaces to late comers, only to turn squatters. It was a lot of inconvenience one had to bear. And saving one’s accommodation money to squat saved one nothing. Spending it on girls was even senseless. No girl dug for a squatter boyfriend. They all laughed.

The girls appreciated boys who owned their own beds, a key to the door, and the privilege to keep their guys’ roommates away as long as possible, if not permanently.

“Have you heard?” Yunusa asked. “That fat daughter of this state’s past Governor bought off her boyfriend’s roommates’ shares so she could move in herself.”

Laughter.

“Big eaglet.” Imoni made a sign, toward a huge girl that had come in with two boys and a second girl. “What a big scoop Duncan and Tony have made.”

The two young men waved.

Their wave was returned. “Duncan has finally landed a babe,” Imoni said.

“I saw that girl at the registration hall the day before yesterday,” Yunusa said. “She must be of rich origin. Was brought by her mother, probably in a big Mec, and they were accompanied by this BM. Officials were running around, and the woman was being addressed as Chief Ogunsanwo.”

“Maybe one of the Ogunsanwos. Those guys then want to obtain the girl’s mother, and Pa Ogunsanwo himself.” But he doubted, he said, if they could hold on. Hanging around such a girl. The argument was, if Duncan made it with the girl, he might need to get past the mother to clip it.

They were smiling and looking at what they thought Duncan was looking at. Perhaps, what could be gained off the girl.

Aham drained his bottle. “I don’t know why; it’s Yunusa who always sees everything. Let’s fash, guys.”

They all stood up and left.

Back in their room, Yunusa was by a large window, lapping louver glasses with newspapers, an exercise meant to insulate the room from heat outside. Beside him, was Aham, decorating the pasteboard before one of the two reading tables in the room. Aham had commenced to stick a Nature Conservation Society calendar on the board. And to Aham’s right was Imoni. Imoni was seated on Aham’s bed, his legs spread on the padded floor. He was set for laundry downstairs, but he wasn’t done with sharing his worry.

This was a story that had been told before. It was about cigarettes. Cigarettes depreciated quickly, Imoni was saying. And he had turned this thing over and over in his mind. He still couldn’t understand how he could have invested all the money into it, when he didn’t have any income or sponsor. He was beginning to think it was all over with him. Really. Aham still disagreed with him. He wasn’t any the worse for it. He didn’t see why Imoni should continue being unfair to himself. After all, if everything had come off as planned, Imoni would have been smiling. He pinned a press clipping on the organisation on the board. He shouldn’t blame himself. The customs were human beings. All they needed was explanation. Here was a genuine subsistence effort by a helpless student. That should be encouraged. So simple. Everybody suffered financial reverses sometimes. And any good businessman would have done the same thing.

For certain, Yunusa agreed. He crossed a tape over a paper. Business was all risk, he added. It was rather unfortunate it was happening that way. Imoni would still recover, he assured.

Imoni appeared unconvinced by the assurances. There was no crash barrier if one was going down, he still argued. When it was all over, and he had walked away with his fortune, he started wondering where he did go from there with all that money. It came up to fifteen thousand naira, and more. He was confused about what to do with it, start a small scale business, or acquire a new commercial bus, or even resign and go back to school. He wanted his friends to draw a line between having money and getting anything going with it. The company’s fortune had started looking up as well, he continued. He was no longer keen on just having money slapped into his hands. At his place of work, his colleagues started to notice when the money started coming in. One of the directors wanted to take a closer look at what was happening. The man suddenly turned around with a hey, what’s going on here attitude, and came up with various schemes and before he knew it, he had started reporting directly to the man. The man came up with some guidance, but behind it were some traps. It wasn’t a good game. Everything ceased being fun. His employment terms were reviewed. He was placed on full salary, and no more commission. But he was no fool. He took JAMB, the entrance examination anyway, and here he was. He now regretted his decision.