“Move! I say walk faster! Yeye boy. No single respect dey your body. I go show you today. Idiot!” I hear my teacher churning out curses at me and pushing my head back and forth like the gear of a manual car. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong or what I am doing now but I can see the principal’s office floating towards me.
Next thing I know, I’m sitting in a chair with five adults towering over me. “What did you say to your teacher, Kachi?” my Principal queries.
“Sir?”
“Maybe Mr. Okon should remind you,” he steps aside and Mr. Okon takes centre stage. He is the head of my school’s disciplinary committee. Simply put, the most wicked teacher.
Like a sheep to the slaughter and without any resistance, I surrender myself to Mr. Okon, who pulls me quite effortlessly out of my seat, turns me around and begins to inflict strokes on my back with his koboko. I keep my gaze on the ground, staring at the tears escaping my eyes. “So can you talk now?” My Principal smirks. I nod. Raising my gaze, I stare each one in the eye. “I sorry for all of una. Una go still beg me!” Then I’m unconscious. Purposely.
***
My chest feels very tight. I know my Principal and his gang are locked up somewhere in a dungeon in my heart. But I won’t think about that now. My mother is crying. I hate to see her cry. I feel like crying too. But I can’t. I keep seeing that boy’s face in my head. And when I do, something greater than sorrow overwhelms me. Something that makes me lock my fist, my jaw and my chest. Argh! My chest is so tight!
“Mama no cry again. I go stop. I no go give anybody trouble again. Make we sleep.” I turn away from her and shut my eyes against the tears that are about to flow. Mama won’t understand even if I try to explain. This is between the boy and I. “Goodnight mama.”
***
It started two weeks ago as my mother rightly observed. On a Friday just like today. My friends and I were in the usual Friday frenzy. No school till Monday. We pulled off our uniform shirts and put on our work clothes; grabbed a bottle of soapy water and wiper each. I love the weekends. I can work and earn money to support mama. It’s a great feeling.
Off to a good start. I had made one hundred and fifty naira. “Pure Water!” I called out, totally famished. Now down to one hundred and forty-five naira. I resumed to a black SUV. It was too high so I went for the side windows and mirrors. But like every other car owner, the man did not let me touch his car; he just threw out the money and sped off. Twenty naira. Altogether one hundred and sixty-five naira.
Traffic was favourable. Not too fast, not too slow. Then came what was soon to be my worst nightmare.
A shinning black Toyota Corolla Sport cruised majestically towards me (I am good with car models because of the nature of my job). I rushed to the wind screen, squirted soapy water and began to wipe. Almost immediately, the driver put on the car wiper, indicating he wasn’t interested. So I went to the window of the passenger’s seat to ask for alms instead.
“Good afternoon sir,” I recited. I stopped. Goodness me!!! The boy in the passenger seat looked exactly like me. Same complexion, only he looked fresher. Same stature, only he was a bit fuller. Same eyes. And should be about my height and age too.
A rush of strange emotions that I had never felt welled up inside me. I felt like I was the one in that seat, riding with the Dad I never had, in the car we never had. Suddenly, I felt a deep sense of connection with the boy as if we were a classic story of twins separated at birth – one to a rich home and the other to a poor one. I smiled at the boy and as if to urge him to help me I said, “Help me beg daddy. I never chop.” I repeated that a few times and then paused to observe the look on the boy’s face. His look made my stomach turn weirdly. It was a look of such disgust as I had never before seen. In the twinkle of an eye, I had crashed hard on the floor, hitting my head on the raised pavement of the sidewalk. “He’s not your dad! Beggar!” That was the last thing I heard.
Since that day, I discovered a new world in my head where this boy exists. But in my fantasy world, the story extends to my becoming a big business man; and the boy (now man) coming to seek for a job. I found solace in this place. It’s where I’ve been for the past two weeks. Unconscious. Purposely.
***
I open my eyes, sweating and panting. I’ve had enough of this daily flashbacks and reminders of that incident. Mama is still sitting, lost in her thoughts. “Mama?” I turn to her. She turns to me. “Wetin kill my papa?” I give her few minutes to compose herself. I will hear this story today, even if she cries a river. I want to know what my father was doing when other fathers were buying cars. Or better still, why he chose to die instead of staying with his wife and only child.
“My pikin, them kill your papa. Him brothers. Na on top land matter. As them kill am, them come collect everything wey I get, pursue me and you comot for their town. I know say if your papa get that land, we no for dey suffer-suffer like this.” She returns to tears. That’s all I want to know. “Mama?”
“Yes my pikin.”
“I go buy you motor.”
“Amen!” She exclaims amidst sobs. But for me, it’s more than a prayer. It’s do or die!
***
The next five years of my secondary school life passed on in haze and blur. The only thing I could see clearly was my soon to be acquired wealth. The thought of this drove me like fuel in a car, so much that it got me a scholarship to study at the University of Lagos.
***
I walk into this new world. “I’m looking for Shodeinde hostel please,” I ask a girl approaching me, now walking past me. Is she staring at me, or through me? Like I’m invisible. Then comes this other guy. I am skeptical as to asking him, but I do anyway. “Excuse me please,” I observe as he nods his head vigorously and rhythmically. He has white wires coming out of his ears. I know what those are; I’ve seen people use them in our town. You can plug it into your mobile phone and receive the sound straight in your eardrums. So maybe he can’t hear me. “Implication! Implication! Implication! Implication!” He chants. He is definitely unconscious. I know that feeling.
Late that night, I lay wide awake staring up at the intertwined springs underneath of my bunk mate’s bed. My sleep has been stolen by how real this reality is. Where do I begin from? I want to start sending money to mama. I need a car. I will not go back to our town without a car. Oh how I wish I would see that boy again.
“O’boy how far?” My bunk mate bends over his bed and points his phone light at me. “Why are you shaking the bed?” I’m not in the mood for a conversation so I turn to the wall and mutter an apology. After a silence that lasts forever, “I need money,” I confess.
“You sure?” Wale asks.
“Dead sure!”
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