Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

His eyes ran critically through the room. The others observed their room pale in his estimation. He reduced himself on one of the beds. “This is a beautiful rug you have here,” he said to their relief, feeling the carpet. “My, I’m sated already from wining and dining, but could somebody volunteer to get us something?” Thirty naira dangled in his hand.

Yunusa raised a hand and volunteered. So wonderful of him, Mickey said. He let go of the money and told Yunusa to simply exhaust the money on anything he thought okay, but if the money wouldn’t be enough.... He recalled his wallet. But Aham restrained him. They were startled by such lavish.

Yunusa returned quickly and, everyone, except Mickey, helped himself. Mickey declined to join them. He said right from the day’s first whistle, up till a while ago, he had been dining and wining. At least one shouldn’t die by bread. He laughed, joined by the others. He fished out a packet of cigarettes from somewhere. “Can I smoke here, please?” Need he ask? He lit a stick, and flogged out fire from a match stick. “Does anybody care for one?”

Yunusa’s hand demanded for one. Mickey said it was his fourth packet that day. Could one consume so much quantity in one day? Imoni asked him. He must be some fume pipe. Their questions were all amusing. The previous day, Mickey told him, he smoked six. His fingers spread out the figures. And talking about he being a fume pipe, even his kid brother, Fid, only fifteen, consumed a packet daily. Yunusa wouldn’t believe that but Mickey told him why. Their family was so civilised that they were all allowed such freedom.

Yunusa had started now to smoke. He said Mickey’s family must be truly civilised. Civilised, to Mickey, was an understatement. It was a family where everybody had at least two cars.

“My God!” Aham lowered the can in his hand. “What a family.”

In the house, each person had a three bedroom apartment, fitted with every comfort possible, no matter one’s age. A central video system served everybody. But one could play one’s own film if one felt like it, like he and Joe, his elder brother, wanted to go off regular programmes to watch blue films.

Yunusa had his cigarette the way Imoni had never seen him before, with amazement never leaving his face. That house, he said, must be big, opulent and wonderful. Mickey sat down, raising an expensive shoe. He said Yunusa’s statement made him laugh, because the house was a family estate built with fifteen million naira, that was seven million Dollars. All the gadgets, even spoons, were imported. Imoni snapped his fingers, wanted to know where such a house could be situated. Where else, if not in Ikoyi, on Lagos Island? Mickey replied. The house was even declared open by the Central Bank Governor. One needed to be there to witness what happened. Mickey said he never before witnessed such grandeur. Imoni even dreamily admitted himself into the house, exploring it extensively.

Mickey freed the chain around his neck and rested it on Aham’s reading table. Aham requested to see it. Mickey passed it over. He said the chain was worth two thousand naira, and he had stolen it from his mother’s jewellery store. The store was supposed to be the largest and the richest in the country.

Aham gently redirected the focus of a table lamp. The pendant spoke for it, he said. It was gold-coated, about ten percent gold, but he could get him one for six hundred naira. Mickey wanted him to take a proper look at it. It was pure gold and couldn’t be less than two thousand. Aham said it was just as he had said.

“Aham’s old guy is a goldsmith,” Imoni said. “But it could be worth one T here and more elsewhere.”

Mickey laughed recklessly. How could Aham compare prices of trinkets desperate widows brought to his father to sell for them, with fine and completely Yemeni types sold in a jewellery shop along Allen Avenue in Ikeja? Everybody laughed.

“But my estimation isn’t wrong,” Aham said. It wasn’t at all, Mickey accepted; by what operated in Aham’s father’s shop. But he admitted Aham’s father must be rich, one who did gold business. It was patent fence-mending. He said his mother had some broken gold items. They were worth about fifty thousand naira, and he was going to give them to Aham to mend. The items were damaged in the course of their manual handling in the country. Those airport workers could be so careless. He unsheated a stick of cigarette, then another for Yunusa who could be smoking in arrears, to match Mickey’s record.

Mickey asked if Imoni and Aham didn’t smoke. They said they didn’t. He said he couldn’t stand people who didn’t. Imoni said he did before, but hadn’t touched it since two years. Two whole years, that was too bad, Mickey said. He honestly found the no-smoking attitude repellent, he continued. Smoking was a depression killer and soul lifter.

Riding on his triumph over Aham, Mickey plaited more sparkling tales about himself and his roots. He spoke of a father with forty percent shares in about twenty companies nation-wide, mostly multinationals and himself who seldom spent his vacations in Nigeria. Eventually, his disinterest in their compositions of the cold night’s withdrawal held obvious indications. He had their consent. His company was desirable. And he suggested a distinction from a squatter.

Finally, he asked, “Do you have something like a camp bed or foam?”

“We have just one extra foam.” Yunusa brought one out of the two on his bed, sliding into his bed.

“You can have this wrapper,” Imoni stretched out. “Oh, past two and past knock-off time.”

Imoni opened his eyes. Aham was still sleeping, a pillow under his arm, as usual. He remembered Mickey, their guest. Mickey was backing him. His right shoulder was making gradual, tense movements. He stretched to the left. What he saw, surprised him. With a razor, Mickey was poised over an expensive shirt. He had separated the shirt’s collar and sleeves, and had worked out a headless bust. He chopped off part of the lower field, then dug out a twin window for the navel. Aware suddenly of some conscious eyes, he shifted. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“What do you think you’re doing to that shirt?” Imoni asked in a friendly manner.

“Gee, that’s what I want to give them today. A designer’s shirt, straight from Harrods, atop a skin-tight, jump-off, faded jeans. With the meanest snake-skin shoes they’d seen ever. That will be followed by wild 25-carat gold chains, ring and Mundane wrist watch, topped with D’Laerence macho perfume. I’m gonna burst loose on them.”

“And, that, in this cold?”

“Fuck the cold.”

Imoni laid back. Aham steered. His eyes, too. “Good morning, Aham.” That was from Imoni.

“Imoni, good morning.”

Mickey hung the shirt briefly in space, regarding it. “Aham and Yunusa, good morning,” he greeted excitedly. Aham’s sleepy voice asked why he chose to deform the shirt. Yunusa rolled out of his bed. He was going to ask the same question, he said. “Hold it, guys. You’ll not understand,” Mickey said.

Imoni rubbed his eyes. “l guess that shirt isn’t up to two months old.”

That got Mickey exclaiming. “Two months! “How can I still wear a shirt that’s two whole months old? The shirt’s two weeks old. And I’ve won it only once.” He was sure, Imoni still puzzled, said some money must have gone into that shirt, at least a hundred. “You mean bucks?” Mickey’s voice was laced with cynicism. “You call that bucks?” He got up and visited his portmanteau. He came back with a faded, jeans trousers. “Okay.” His teeth bit a finger. “The shoes are inside that bag.” He went out.

“What’s the time?” Aham asked nobody in particular. Yunusa told him. “Almost nine!” he exclaimed. “And I’m still on the bed. I have a lecture by now. That means I shall have to prepare for the next one.”