Truth, Finding Us!

Truth, Finding Us

AND FRANCIS EGU WRITES: *This is how a lazy writer writes, forgive me please"

I went to see my sister's kids where she'd taken them to make her daughter's hair. There, I saw a very young lady who looked old; she was cooking close to a kiosk when I walked into the compound that housed the traditional stylist, but we exchanged pleasantries.
Having spent some time with my nephew and niece, I left the way I'd come. When she felt I was close enough, she smiled and went 'Bros, I dey on top table o.'
This time, she was seated with her plate of rice and stew on the table; there was neither meat nor fish, just survival.
I returned that sweet smile with an amazing flash of mine; it was about her strength and hard work... I couldn't help adding 'thank you' for her attempt at living, being understood and giving.

That was one! keep reading........



I met another in the market where I’d gone to buy items for stew before heading home. She sold fish; smoked and fresh ones, vegetables as well as oil.
The fresh fish and vegetable on display, most especially, held my fancy; they looked really healthy. The usual period of haggle took only a few seconds, both of us really appeared to want to do business.

After I’d paid however, she did what I hadn’t seen in a long while after leaving my village, Idah, Kogi State, for the state capital, Lokoja; a dramatic wait for my balance. She undid her veil and dipped her right hand through the neck of her blouse into her brassiere; I saw it was the left breast she went finding. When that hand was done with its quest, it returned to my sight with bills of different denominations; all were dirty.

I thought of her husband, she wore a wedding ring, he must have had a lot of those germs during foreplay; then, I thought again, many of those types of men knew nothing of fondling and sucking; it was more of 'oya, open your legs; I wan do'.

I was before her, but couldn’t resist being lost in the imagination of a kind of husband licking germs and being brutish to her sensual sense of womanhood. Would he allow her a bath or rest before that moment, or would he demand for it like a ‘man’ demanded for food? Some of those kinds of men, knew nothing of how food got to the table; only chop, chop and chop; yet, they're men!

She found me when she offered her breast, sorry, I meant what was my balance from our transaction. I smiled sheepishly, stared at those full breasts and muttered 'thank you, use am give me ugwu and bitter leaf'.

Home. Cooking wasn’t a problem, but first, I had to wash everything I’d bought; I kept seeing her breast and those dirty bills, they wouldn’t just leave my mind. Until a knock on the door brought me out of the kitchen, it was a moment spent reflecting on the many dangers that woman could be ignorant of.

Johnny was at the door, a young but old gossip who told me great stories about people I knew, tales that ended up as fiction in my book of stories; a reality often too good to be true. He did me a favour by telling, I did his appetite for gossip same by listening. Since I hadn’t started cooking, the timing was right to lead him into telling all the details he’d heard.

Alhaji Sule was the victim today, one of his friends, married like him, but very promiscuous like many these days. His greatest mistake was confiding in Johnny, two bottles of Legend Extra Stout was always enough to loosen the genius of his creativity for telling, always very apt; the life of his truth was for me to embellish with humour, it was mine to write life from those pockets of truth.

While he drank the first bottle, we spoke about other things; this man had rare penchant for gossip, he was very good at digging and keeping people’s secret.

He asked about my neighbour, a married woman with grownups whose husband is in the UK working. He wanted to know if I knew men passed the night with her in the house where her children also lived; I replied that I knew, but it wasn’t the kind of story I wanted writing yet. I knew one day, I’d paint the picture of one of them, the most regular visitor, who almost created a scene because he met her in another man’s car in front of her house. I still remember his angry face, the words that forced themselves out of his clenched teeth and how she'd begged him.

By the time he’d gone deep into the second bottle, it was Alhaji Sule all the way; the tale of how he had left Zainabu and their kids that Thursday morning for a village in Kwara State, having earlier told them he had a colleague's funeral to attend at the start of the week. He called hours later to inform his wife that he'd arrived safely and would return on Sunday instead of Saturday as he'd planned due to a mechanical fault his car developed. Pauline who had been playing with his penis, at that point he was making the call, looked up and smirked at him before he cut the line. They'd been in bed at the hotel since he left home, picking her from the park and straigth to Nostalgia Hotel, but they weren't exhausted; it was so sweet that he made reservations for an extra day.

Back home, Zainabu who'd gone to her boutique, continued offering prayers for the soul of Walter, the name her husband had called his colleague who'd died; she prayed fervently using her Tesbaha asking that the father of her kids lived long. Her business was doing very well, but nothing could compare to the joy of her husband returning home to his family.

Meanwhile, after many hours lost in febrile desires, they ordered for pounded yam and Egusi mixed with a little of Okro soup, cleaned up themselves as well as the mess of condoms and tissue papers before refilling the energy they'd lost.

When they were done, he decided to hang out with friends under the cover of darkness, but against the use of his car he'd parked hidden from the hotel entrance. Pauline who'd wanted to rest for a while having arrived Lokoja from Lagos via a luxurious bus that journeyed through midnight, opted to rest in preparation for the marathon that would begin on his return.

He took an Okada and headed for Saatof Hotels, where he had friends waiting.

There, he told them of Pauline's eventual arrival after being difficult for months and her alluring bed arts; they laughed, hailed, congratulated him for playing as they'd taught and urged him to try new tricks in bed after bottles of Guiness Extra Stout and several bitter kolas. They were four, were all married, and spoke of their escapades through many rounds of beer.

Some minutes after 9:00PM, Alhaji begged to take his leave... Richard who could have gone his way was enthralled in the match between Barcelona vs Real Madrid; he couldn't wait since it was just fifteen minutes into the first half of forty-five minutes, a game of two halves that made ninety minutes apart from added time.

Consequently, he bid his football loving friends goodbye amidst hails of different kinds as he staggered to the road to get an Okada back to Pauline's powerful art.

He got one after a long wait, but instead of Nostalgia, the alcohol chose home where he found himself naked in bed the next morning. He knew he forcefully made love to a woman he called Pauline that night, brutal sweet sex, but he didn’t know how he ended up home or why it was the teary face of his wife he saw next to his the moment he opened his eyes.

Speechless, guilty and confused, he had many questions but no answer, not to talk of answers. Only his phone could provide those answers but he was so stricken by being caught and weaken by guilt to leave the bed; they just kept staring at each other, one’s vision blurred by the tears that welled. She was broken, he was guilty and Pauline was worried.

She'd spent the night calling his number repeatedly until a female voice calmly broke the constant sound of rings with ‘Hello? Alhaji is asleep, this is his wife. What should I tell him when he wakes? Hello? Hhheeelllooooo?’
She hung up, looked at the time, it was 10:00pm; there was enough time to pack and check into another hotel. First, she'd had to break open Alhaji’s box where he’d taken money to pay for their meal. She did and was relived to find several denominations of Naira and Dollar. This was robbery, but she wasn’t waiting for him, it was simply very dangerous.

She called a hotel taxi using the intercom, and made off with all the money and most of the valuables in his box, as she made for Rock Garden Hotel, an alluring hotel built in and on top the beauty of rocks; a recommendation by the driver she bribed to keep her location secret until she'd left town.

Back home, Alhaji knew he’d terribly hurt this woman before him. He knew he had to apologise, but he was too guilty to even know how. He tried, but stammered. Zainabu, gave him strength when she asked him where he’d left his car.

At that point, he got out of bed, staggered to the side where she laid and knelt, saying he was sorry. That was the first time he ever apologized for anything, she turned to look at him and those rivers of silent tears that drowned and left her motionless, turned to a great volcano of sobs. She was such a pitiable sight; he grew even weaker and sorry for this woman who had done everything to make their home happy.

He forced her into an embrace, gently patting her back like a caring mother would her baby, kept apologizing and promising never to cheat on her again.

This was the umpteenth time he’d been caught, but never was the truth so evident, never had he apologized and never was he so sorry.

When he finally made it to the hotel where he’d lodged with Pauline, he was even glad that she’d checked out, but sad that he lost so much to her. If not that he’d left the previous night with his car key, he knew he would have lost a lot; he had a briefcase filled with money locked up in the boot. He picked his car and returned home to a family he has vowed to live and love.

I looked at Johnny, he looked at me, and I made him promise to come back for more bottles with a roasted fish this time. I knew he couldn’t resist my offer, but I made it look otherwise knowing he’d love to think I was begging him. I knew I’d be writing again, maybe of my neighbour!