CHAPTER NINE
I walked down to my car when all was done and settled; when I had made sure, the money was split among the workers according to experience, which includes numbers of years spent. I thought of how it would be like to be the governor of this great state. I would even move around the state one day to see the state and people I will soon rule before am officially announced as the flag bearer of DOPP for the governorship elections, I know certainly that spirits will drop when they hear am the one running, because just like anything else I will win this one, rigging is not required because am so popular, many will believe I will do a lot of work because even before going into power I have being doing great things for the people, but if the situation warrants rigging then I guess there is nothing else we would do but to rig, I just have to become the governor no matter what. Though, then I had never thought of it before, all I thought of was going into more and more business possibly even build an airline, but now that the idea has been put into my head I feel a strong desire within me to do just that, it’s very easy and very lucrative. Bisola had never liked anything politics because she believed it was violent, it really is anyway especially in this part of the world but even the bible says, ‘… only the violent takes it by force’. If am requires to go violent to take this by force, then I certainly would not minding what Bisola would say, she would definitely not even know all the violent means I will use, that would certainly be kept sealed from her and the rest of the world just like everything else I do.
Things change too quickly, I thought as I sat in my car, wind up the tinted glass so I won’t be seen, then I put on the car’s air conditioner. It just seemed like yesterday to me when I struggled so bad with life, that certainly what happens when you are born with no spoon in your mouth, you certainly don’t know your future, but in my case perhaps I did but things changed so easily. Born by a lazy man, who didn’t know why he was even on earth, he could hardly put food in his mouth without biting his finger because the food was never enough but yet he went out to pick a wife, a wife whose father faced the same problems of my father. According to him, he said he struggled for two years to work so he could buy a chicken as bribe price for Mama’s family. on the other hand, I guess they too were very happy, because if they were as poor as we were, a chicken would certainly be a life time opportunity, they couldn’t reject that after then my father never tasted chicken again till he died, he never even tasted chicken, garri- cassava flour was his favorite, rather the only food he could afford. And I wondered ‘what if garri never existed, would he live till when he did?’ I guess not. I suffered more after he had died, at five years old, I had to start taking care of myself and certainly someone else who was suppose to be the one taking care of me, Baba Agba, his father, a very lazy poor old man just like his son, or rather the son was just like his father. Though I wondered why he lived so long, perhaps the son had just the laziness and poverty quality of his father but not the strength.
There was one thing Baba Agba never ceased to say ‘honesty’ and ever since, till I found out what honesty means I hated it so much, if Baba Agba who claimed to love honesty this much and still remained so poor, then I guess to be rich, that’s just what I needed to hate. I love to sing a lot and play trumpets and flute, then and I had a good way of catching an audience with my songs, he usually flatters me that I could even entertain animals and that if I could settle on that I would be known by the whole world.
“You could be like Michael Jackson or King Sunny Ade,” he would say in his old quack but melodious voice, he could sing, why didn’t he go into music too? Alternatively, did he and he become this poor by doing it? Then certainly, I won’t do what he says. My life will certainly not end like his; a nobody. If he worked one, I would work ten, if he hated rice then I would love rice and if he loved beans then I would hate beans. Everything I did soon began to work for me, I became a mason, building shops for different poor people then working tirelessly from morning until night until I met a savior, wasabi who introduced me into cocaine dealings. At first, he started that he wanted to take me abroad and I was so excited, me a commoner would go abroad. At least, I had something I could boast about that my father and his father didn’t do, I don’t know if anyone has done that before in their generations, possibly the ones taken away for slave trade, but I also heard the lazy ones weren’t taken because they usually die on the sea. When he told me all I would do, I agreed, charms were given to me and when it was time to do the oath of allegiance, trust me I was smart, would I risk going dumb when I knew certainly I would betray him one day? No, so I didn’t swallow the kola nut of allegiance. When I betrayed him he laughed and told me I would go dumb because I had sworn the oath, I didn’t take him serious because I knew what I did, and I watched him walk into jail.
The sun was going down already so I drove home, as usual met Bisola outside, waiting for me on situations like this when she doesn’t know where I have gone.
“Where have you being honey? I have searched all over for you, dialed your number but it wasn’t going through. You got me really worried,” she said in a romantically worried tone. I needed to just like to her, if not she won’t be satisfied, but I haven’t thought of what I would tell her unlike other days when before I come I sit for about ten minutes to fix words together, she believes almost everything that comes out of my mouth, what I just needed to do was speak.
“Err… err” I stammered words refused to come into my head at that moment and I wondered why I hadn’t spared a little time from thinking about my past to just think of what to tell her. I waited for a while and words still refuse to come, but just what I needed at this time she did.
“Don’t tell me it’s that DOPP office you went to again?” she said, she had just given me something to tell her.
“Yea honey that where I am just coming from, I didn’t want to tell you because I know how much you resent politics” I said in a low and as though sad tone.
“That’s okay honey, if that’s what you want, I won’t stop you and besides, I will be the first lady of this state when you win” she said as she walked proudly on her toes bouncing as though trying to imitate a queen. We then went inside the house and the usual routine continued.
Although it was an entirely different day from all others, with too few weird things happening around me, the most that shocked me when I saw Michael waiting outside with Jessinta to listen to my songs.
“Wow you came to listen to my songs today, son?” I asked.
“Yes dad” he replied happily.
“You won’t understand it, didn’t she tell you that it’s a continuous song story, I usually continue from where I stopped the night before.”
“Oh, she also didn’t tell you that I have been interested in your song stories since day one. It seems she not so good at telling things that happens in one party to the opposite party, she tells me of it daily, today I have decided to listen to it from the horse’s mouth” he said and that shocked me. He had never acted as though he was interested in my singing so I was pleased at his turn up.
“Wow, that’s interesting,” I said. “So where did I stopped last night?” I asked Jessinta. “Today is trumpet night” Michael replied. That shocked me even more.
“Wow, okay then I will do just that” I replied and I cleaned my trumpet and blew for a while.
“Dad, how do you play this thing so well? I want to learn, I want to be like you” jessinta said when I finished.
“one day I will teach you, but now we have to go and sleep, it’s getting late” I said and we all went to bed.
TWO YEARS LATER