A bottle of water sat on my table. I will sip this till my buddies arrive. The
music blaring from the speaker makes my heart pound. One day I’ll understand
how and why people love music loud. Across my table sits a man and a young
lady. Excess bright red lipstick on her lips and she chews carelessly on a gum,
a trademark of a certain profession. The man was rubbing his beards, said
something to her and smiled. She rolled her eyes in an irritant way and took a
sip from her lager. He winked at her and whispered something into her ears. She
smiled broadly at him.
Emeka nudged me and sat
beside me. ‘Guy, why na water you dey
drink?’ he asked. ‘I no wan start
action without you’ I replied. He twitched his nose at me and ordered for
two drinks.
A few minutes later, Kola
joined us. I can recall our undergraduate days, we were the coolest, and so we
thought. The three musketeers we were.
Emeka has grown to be a
modest man with a decent wife. We have tried severally to hook him up with a
girl for a fling which has been unsuccessful. We think his wife has him
pocketed whilst he thinks he loves his wife dearly. Today we’ll ensure he
drinks more than two bottles so he returns home drunk. What are best friends
for? He sees Kola and I as irresponsible.
I know Kola will die from
a woman related death or live longer than Metusellah. He is an incurable
womanizer. His new thirst for teenagers is appalling. The last time I visited
him, while he saw me off, a tiny girl probably older than his daughter called
him by his first name on the street. As an African man this is a mark of
disrespect. He must have stooped so low for him to get this. The annoying part
was that he smiled sheepishly and called the ‘mgbeke’ baby girl. I had to stroll away from them with a deep frown
on my face. I won’t let anyone see me nor will I be associated with child
abuse.
You don’t have to tell me
I am the perfect amongst the three. I am not bragging when I say I have a
balanced view of everything about life. I know when to get drunk. I know the
limits of promiscuity. Any man that has this in control is the ideal man. I
believe my friends think I have these in control, I know I don’t but what my
friends think is what matters.
Emeka will always have
something nice to say about his wife. He never speaks ill of her. The mark of a
good husband but in his eyes there is emptiness. I can’t help but notice some
flash of admiration when we leave him and flirt with the loose ladies. He won’t
open up to us but we know there is something wrong. Though the boys in us want
him to flirt around, the man in us wouldn’t want his marriage to crash.
Kola has a life
literarily. The charm he used to win hearts of the most beautiful ladies in
campus hasn’t left him totally. The peak of his career was when he met his
match, a female version of him but the slight difference was Kemi wanted
marriage at all cost. The result of the relationship is a daughter but no
marriage. He convinces himself loudly that he’ll get married soon, but I don’t
know if it’s to one of those ‘children’ he calls small chops.
I have the perfect life amongst us. So, I don’t
hesitate to give invaluable advice. I know everything that needs to be known
about relationship, marriage, dating, flings and women. Emeka especially needs
to be tutored about bossing the home. He should know he is free to do what he
likes. He can return home late; get drunk or order his wife like a slave. I
can’t overemphasize these things to Emeka but he won’t learn.
While we chatted from
politics to sports, I remembered I had to take permission from my wife to stay
late at work for a few hours. I sweated profusely under the Air Conditioner as
I struggled discretely to send a text message. I pray she doesn’t call back and
hear the loud music from the speakers. Just about then, call from Ifeanyi came
in. Oh! This Ijebu-Igbo boy again. ‘We
dey Chikodi’ I screamed over the phone. He’ll come and shorten my ration.
He never has money but he can finish a whole brewery if it’s free. Less than
three minutes, he had already arrived. ‘Guys,
I just come greet una. I no get money o’ he said. I hissed.
Emeka ordered two bottles
for him. Shortly he received a call. ‘I
dey with my padi, we dey chillex’. ‘No
o, I no use am buy anything o’ he continued his conversation on phone. ‘Okay come collect am now’.
‘See the yeye boy. Na woman wan come collect money from him so o’ I
muttered loudly.
At around 11:00pm we left.
I forgot to send the message to my wife because of the call from Ifeanyi. I
bought some groundnut and Tom-Tom from a Mallam by the road side. I still don’t
know the story to tell this woman when I get home. I think I should call Kola.
He can corroborate my story that we were at Emekas to settle a domestic
dispute. If I don’t hide my imperfections, who will?
