I stopped living with mother once I
turned 22, barely a week after she
found that wrap of weed under my
pillow. Long before my dysfunctional
romance with Jumai and Suzanne,
before Ayonette hung my heart on a
line to dry, my mother and I had
started what would be a chain of
complicated relationships with
women.
It’s your life Victor, good luck, she said
with all the measured resentment piled
in her voice that pale Sunday morning
I told her I had to go.
Since I didn’t live with her anymore, I
had to find a means to earn myself
some living, and I did. Got hooked to
this big mag in town that paid me
enough money to cruise on. So I had to
joggle school and work which was fine
with me.
Back then I was going real hard on
freelancing and I had enough bread to
afford a tentative accommodation
before I moved to a two-bedroom flat
with my friend, Tekena and two other
guys. Tekena, who we called Tek, was
a friend I met online who was
coincidentally posted to my state for
his youth service. He was eventually
posted to the town for his Place of
Primary Assignment and he came
along with the two other guys he had
met in camp with whom he shared
common interests like marijuana and
pussy with.
We split the rent.
Tek worked at the magazine I served
as assistant editor for, deliberately
arranged by me, while Kelechi and
Itodo taught chemistry and
mathematics respectively in a school
close to home.
We all met at home in the evening
when we got back from work, and
spent the rest of the night living like
boys did—smoking pot, arguing trivial
stuff, playing FIFA and bantering
football. Tek supported Manchester
United and his impassioned voice
soared above ours during such
arguments, his smooth, inveterate
southern pidgin English rolling
seamlessly off his tongue. Kelechi was
a Chelsea fan and Tekena’s most
vicious opponent during such banters.
Itodo talked the least. He just smoked,
contributed some comments here and
there, a quip or two, some laughs, and
that was it.
Kelechi, slightly older than the rest of
us, had a face stonier than a balled fist
—the sort to get one into trouble very
easily. He had a drawn-down scar on
his temple that made him even look
like a drug dealer, so we called him Al
Pacino every time we needed to
persuade him to help us buy weed,
which was all the time. Sometimes one
of us went with him to act as his
consigliere, other times he went alone.
On one of those days he went alone, he
came back home not with only weed,
but with an ugly girl trailing behind
him.
She looked like she came straight off
the set of a low budget porn movie
with her heavy makeup and
exaggerated lashes. She chewed gum
loudly and fiddled with the tail-end of
her braids. Her name, Naomi, she said,
but we could call her Nahnah. After
making her comfortable in the room
Kelechi came out grinning, and
explained to us how he had met her at
the bunker we bought weed from and
instantly connected with her and
somehow he got to bring her home
immediately after.
It sounded real odd to us but who were
we to judge?
She left the next morning but kept
coming back like an untreated flu,
visiting every other time. Sometimes
she came along with her friend Jane
who also looked junkie, and hooked
her up with Itodo who was too shy to
get a girl of his own. We got real used
to her anyway, and she started to
seem alright to us. I mean, if you
didn’t pay her face much attention she
had enormous boobs and even bigger
behinds. She had this badass butterfly
tattoo behind her right ear and wore
an anklet on her left leg. And, we
generally considered a girl
automatically more attractive if she
smoked grass. Point is, it didn’t take
her more than two weeks to fit right
in. Plus she cleaned and cooked so we
didn’t complain about how much she
now cut our weed rations. Madam
could smoke half a jar of grass in the
morning alone and still ride Kelechi
through the whole afternoon.
At the end of every month after we
picked our cheques we did a little
house party. We bought drinks—vodka
mostly—and lots of grass and coal for
shisha. Cookies and catfish and snacks
and sodas too. Nothing big, just the
boys getting wasted for sport.
Sometimes we had some female
friends over and then one of us would
get lucky with one or two depending
on how high we all were.
The blood moon came on a Friday, on
the last day of that damp August. We
had all just been paid so it was fitting.
There were a lot of hysteria about the
blood moon everywhere so we thought
we could catch up on it too. Even more
fitting was the fact that it was the day
we set our party for, so when the
evening came we set a table in front of
the flat and moved the speakers out.
Tekena and I went to get the drinks
from a supermarket at the junction
while Itodo went to get the chewables.
Kelechi, well, simply set about
procuring the women.
By 9PM we were crowded languidly
around the table, feasting. All seven of
us, including Nahnah and Jane and
another more attractive friend they
came with. Whatever was left of the
fishes laid bare on the table like fossils
of extinct creatures. At that point we
were munching on junks and mixing
soda with vodka and laughing aloud in
a drunken exhilaration while swinging
our inebriated bodies to music loud
enough to draw concealed hisses from
our neighbours.
Thirty minutes later, while Itodo was
tying another round of kush with all
the finesse in the world and Kelechi
was trying to negotiate his way into a
ménage à trois with Nahnah and her
pretty friend, the full moon hatched in
all of its orange glory. By this time we
were already floating, soaring high
above the Lokoja skyline, feeling
invincible, laughing about nothing
funny while patting our backs and
stomping our feet on the concrete
interlocking. Nahnah tried to get a
picture of the moon with her phone
but was disappointed at the outcome.
Tekena started to tell of an Ijaw myth
that suggested that the blood moon
came with a looming doom but Kelechi
cut him short by saying that the night
was a happy one that shouldn’t be
tainted by any outdated superstition.
Time passed and darkness drew over
the town like a blanket. Thunder
cracked and lightning flashed. The
moon hid behind the clouds and the
rain started in lazy drizzles. We
started to pack up to move inside
when the girls suddenly announced
that they had to go. It didn’t make
sense, but they insisted that they had
another party to attend the same night.
We asked to walk them to the road
and they refused. They left and we the
guys settled inside the living room, still
smoking pot while listening to Kelechi
grumble about his ill-luck with the
ever elusive threesome.
Less than thirty minutes later we
heard a knock at the door. Gently at
first, then a bit more prodding the
second time. Probably a disgruntled
neighbour coming to tell us to tune it
down. There’s nothing more difficult
to do than getting the door when you
are sitting with a group of friends. No
one tells the other to get the door and
no one is willing to get it. So we sat
still till the third knock. Kelechi got up
reluctantly and sauntered to the door,
his potbelly poking out in front of him,
impeding the hook of his briefs. While
we watched, he opened the door,
stopped wide-eyed and backtracked
into the room, the steel barrel of a
handgun following him in.
Soon there were five of them inside
the living room, masked and armed
for the loot. We were all on our bellies,
being stomped upon by heavy boots
and our buttocks slapped with the flat
end of heavy machetes. It didn’t take
so long and they were done
plundering us with the most
undeniably impressive agility. Mobile
phones, video game console, cash,
unopened bottles of vodka, DVD
player, sound system, CD collections,
laptops, shoes, Kelechi’s jeweleries
hidden under the rug and even Itodo’s
watch that was hidden deeper than all
of my most ignominious secrets, all
gone.
We remained bellied to the ground for
a few minutes after they left, and then
sat up, speechless, taking in the
sourness of our losses as amiably as
we could. Literally saw Tekena pinch
himself just to be sure he wasn’t in an
ugly nightmare. He wasn’t. A cascade
of realisation washed through him like
a blistering cold shower. Itodo got up
first. He went looking for something,
then came back around to announce,
with the grimmest chill in his voice,
that they had taken all of our weed
too. Kelechi just sat there, burning,
bare, stomach sitting in front of him,
his scar glistening in the faint lamp. I
got up, climbed the sofa, shrunken,
folded into a fetus, shut my eyes and
listened to the rain gain more and
more ferocity until it turned into a
downpour clattering heavily, almost
maliciously against the aluminium
roof.
To this day, it’s hard to tell what hurt
the most—the helplessness we felt as
men armed with death raped our
treasury, the agony of starting over
again, or the coming to terms with our
own naivety when we realised that
since the incidence Nahnah’s number
stopped going through and the night of
the blood moon was the last we ever
saw her.
