At first, I thought I had actually killed him or something.
“…Oh boy, Chizi, he’s got asthma…” Olumide murmured ineffectually as they all stared at me in shocked silence.
“You talk foolishly like that again and I’ll KILL YOU!” I suddenly snarled down at Hassan’s limp body, adrenaline rocking through my veins. I probably looked like a psychopath before I lifted my hands to show my friends I was cool again, heart roaring in my chest.
Eventually, Hassan started coming to and breathing again in little rasps. The funny thing was, outside our table, nobody seemed to have noticed a thing. Maybe they thought we were just playing fighting or something.
I grabbed my stuff and walked off into the campus, leaving my friends to wonder what the fuck just happened.
There was a time I would have just gone along with Hassan’s hateful crap like usual. All of us were wealthy kids, spoilt brats in our own way, but that kid took it to the extreme. He had bragged about spitting in beggar’s cups on the street.
Like I said, I had changed. I had snapped. Maybe gone insane. I guess it’s true that love makes you do crazy things, right?
There was a veritable litany of deep shit that I could get into if Hassan or someone else snitched on me. Suspension, most likely. Parents notified. Maybe more humiliating punishment, like when I skipped school a few times back in junior school.
But as the rest of the day crawled by, I didn’t get the call from the principal’s office. The only attention I received at all was from Funmi, who kept making eyes at me in English class, but I ignored her.
I was sure she would go on to have that TED Talk and make those 6-figures in tech crash between relationships and marriages, all while needing to be medicated to sleep every night. Eventually, end up childless as some has-been narcissistic marketing guru in New York or something.
Funmi might have been hot, but getting sucked into her orbit was the last thing I wanted. Ironically, if I hadn’t gone after Jumoke, she would have easily had me wrapped around her finger by now. Probably been her first ex-husband.
Instead, I followed along with Mrs. Tolani’s lecture on Achebe’s Arrow of God and scribbled my usual nuclear explosions and boobs and dicks and skulls in the margins of my notebook.
When school was finally let out and I was riding the air-conditioned bus home, I dreaded what I would come back to. If Mother had gotten to her, Jumoke might already be gone. I didn’t know what the fuck I would do if that happened.
Worst case scenario. If not, she would still have to survive the family meeting. I was ready to enact my plan, though, dumb and desperate as it increasingly sounded in my mind. I bit my knuckles as I watched an overgrown, encroaching slide by outside the window, D’banj thumping from my headphones into my skull.
Lines of shanty stalls huddled beneath the rise of bald concrete towers and apartment buildings and glass skyscrapers beyond.
A sparse copse of trees lined the road, billboards above giving the swell of snarled traffic something to look at as we moved at a snail’s pace deeper into the city.
Among the chaotic sea of people and vehicles, I saw two street dogs knotted together at the edge of a brown gutter, ass to ass. Someone from a nearby stall selling crackling roasted chicken dumped a pan of dirty water over the pair, sending them yelping and pulling in opposite directions before the male shrunk enough to scamper away. Gross.
When we entered my compound and pulled up to our big, imposing-looking mansion, I bolted through the walled gate and past the garden, up the walkway stairs to the main door. I was frantically looking for Jumoke without trying to draw too much attention to myself.
I glanced over at the covered garage to the left. My father’s BMW was still out, as expected. Unlike Mother, he enjoyed driving himself to work and around the city, despite the ridiculous traffic.
The house was still when I let myself into the entrance hall and pulled my headphones down around my neck. Usually, Jumoke would be hovering around somewhere if she wasn’t there to greet me. Either she had taken my advice and stayed away or Mother had already gotten to her.
“JUMOKE?” I called out, letting my bag drop to my feet.
“She’s not here,” I heard my mother’s unwelcome voice from the living room. She drifted into the doorframe wearing her white bathrobe and slippers, graying hair tied up in a severe bun. One of her large wine glasses sloshed precariously with red as it dangled from her ringed fingers.
Mother watched me with a distant air, a quiet frown touching her lips. She seemed sleepy — probably the Diazepam.
“She left a note,” my mother sighed before taking a contemplative sip. “Out shopping. For hours, can you imagine? Probably socializing with that wretched group of neighborhood maids…”
“Uh, yeah,” I uttered, trying to hide my relief. “I’m just hungry.”
“You’re not a child — go make yourself something,” mother waved me off dismissively before she stalked back into the living room. Like a spider lying in wait or something. There was no other reason for her to be in the house the entire day — usually she was out doing her fancy lunches, events, Foundation meetings, or shopping trips. The sheer level of bitterness in her was just insane.
I went into the kitchen and slipped out of the back entrance to wait for Jumoke on the verandah. Outside the kitchen and laundry area were lines where clothes and sheets hung to dry.
Reminded me of one time a month back when she had let out this blood-curdling shriek one afternoon after I’d come home from school. Turned out there was a fucking viper coiled around one of the beams on the wall next to the laundry. The guard on duty was too high on weed to help so it was my job as her man to kill it, obviously.
After I had armed myself with a bamboo pole, Jumoke pressed her small body into the safety of my broad back, hiding behind me as we both crept out toward the snake. We were hissing between each other as she trembled against me.
“You kill it.”
“No, Chizi! YOU kill it!”
Yeah, I was scared. And at the time it really felt like it fell into her job description, not mine. But I smashed the shit out of that snake like bashed its head in while my slutty maid screamed behind me in terror with these cute little yelps. She gave me some amazing head afterward as a reward.
I smiled at the memory.
Eventually, I heard a tricycle or keke napep stopping outside the gate. Loaded down with heavy grocery bags, Jumoke was finally back home. She looked so relieved to see me. It was hard not to embrace her, kiss her — I didn’t know if Mother was already watching from the window. I took the bags from her to carry them into the kitchen. We could only brush digits, and touch arms until we were out of sight behind the house, where we risked a long, soulful kiss.
“I do what you said,” Jumoke whispered after our lips parted, entwining her fingers with mine. “I dey shop all day.”
“Yeah, you did good, baby,” I nodded. “Just remember what to say and it’ll be fine. I’ll keep my mom busy.”
We slipped back into our respective roles after I helped her set all the bags on the kitchen island.
“JUMOKE! JU-MOK-E!” I heard my mother’s shrill call for our housekeeper. My maid gave me a frightened, uncertain look as she placed a protective palm on the gently rounding curve of her belly.
“Just make dinner, okay?” I frowned. I gritted my teeth and went out to try to buy us more time.
“JUMOKE! WE NEED TO TALK!” she barked across the house.
“Mom!” I huffed irritably as I crossed into the living room. “Can you just wait until Dad gets home? Please? It’s already late and I’m starving. I told her to make dinner.”
My mother was lounging on the sumptuous couch in front of our massive LED TV. A bottle of red wine was nearly empty on the coffee table, its remnants slowly siphoned from the glass in her hand. Mother turned from the episode of Big Brother she was watching to stare at me cobralike. Like she wasn’t sure she actually heard what I just said.
“Well aren’t you just the man of the house?” Mother mocked through her snarling teeth. “How dare you presume to run my home and talk to me like that? ME. Your mother. You will show me some respect.”
It was extremely uncomfortable, putting myself into the line of fire like this. Years of emotional manipulation were twisting my guts into knots.
“Sorry, Mom,” I winced apologetically. “I’m just really hungry.”
“Useless boy,” my mother sneered before downing another swallow of wine. “Fine. But since you’re apparently in charge now, you tell her I’m very unhappy, and we’re having words about her employment after we eat.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as I escaped her presence. Rather than follow my usual instinct to retreat all the way into my room, I decided to do my homework at the dining room table just in case I needed to run interference again. Jumoke gave me a grateful, loving look when she emerged to set the plates and cutlery, placing a tall glass of frosty, homemade orange juice and a bowl of chin-chin in front of me.
Soon the delicious, mouth-watering smells of local flavors and delicacies started wafting from the kitchen. Right. Tonight was local cuisine night. All the good stuff. Melon soup, chicken, and pounded yam. Jumoke cooked it at least as well as an international chef.
The sun was going down and Jumoke was just starting to plate the steaming meal when my dad pulled his BMW into the driveway. I had never been so happy to see the guy. Still didn’t mean that what came after dinner would go our way, but I was feeling more confident than earlier.
The family dinner was probably one of the most tense and uncomfortable ones I had ever sat through. My mother, still in her bathrobe, found issues with almost every single thing in retaliation for not getting her way. This annoyed my father, who kept gently downplaying it in front of me. Jumoke took Mother’s microaggressions and hurled verbal abuse pretty well, all things considered, and wisely spent most of the time hiding in the kitchen.
Conversation was almost nonexistent and consisted of the usual platitudes. We didn’t get farther than ‘how was school’ — I didn’t mention the part about choking out Hassan Walster, obviously. There was an invisible power struggle going on between my parents, all expressed in silent contempt. Looks. Body language.
My father was deep into his phone while my mother just kept staring daggers at him from across the table. It was like being caught between two superpowers ready to go nuclear. I ate as quickly as I could to be excused, even though it was really fucking tasty.
