Dilemma

The judge; a middle aged fat fatherly man enters the court room amidst hush hush, shuffle of feet and a loud bang.

I was escorted in, from my corner, in my yellow buba by two constables. The 55 pair of eyes peered into me but were blinded by the shiny gold sequins that adorned every inch of my yellow buba.

The judge asked me, “did you kill him?”
I smile and reply, “no I did not”
He bows his head and looks at some papers before him, perhaps my statement of “guilty” the morning I was arrested.

The judge, eyed me again trying to judge the emotions behind my dark brown eyeballs, and the way I had half hidden them behind my eyelids made it hard.

Please tell us what happened he said.
I didn’t kill him, but I’m happy he died. I’m happy someone who caused me so much pain has left the earth. I’m happy he is dead, I wish the death that took him was rough and painful and that he knew he was dying. I wish I was the last face he saw as he breathed finally.

Another round of hush hush ensured, the scrapping of feet across old tiles, the shuffling of hands, perhaps by those who where mourning and the stroke stroke of pen on dry paper by the stenographer.

Miss Nkah, you would tell this respectable court everything that happened and leave wishful thinking for bed time stories, I ask again what happened?”

I adjust my headscarf and look deep into my audience, the crowd. “He died and I’m happy, but I didn’t kill him.
I would never kill anyone, that’s why I serve God, it is he who kills and He is pretty much great at killing. Do you remember how he slayed all the first born Egyptian sons? In one night! Or when the ground opened to swallow up those couple that lied about their money.” I burst into an insane laugh. “Why would I kill? incur his wrath when he would readily murder for me?

I did not kill Matoh and I’m very glad he is dead. For everything he did to me and for all the time he stole from me, how he lied to me and sold me castles that were made with mere paper. For how he tricked me into believing he was a good man and that he was in love with me, for how he dumped me over the phone and made me cry, for how I lost my job because I lost my mind, for everything, even death seems not enough.”

You Miss Nkah was the last visitor to the hotel room Mr Matoh resided, can you tell us what happened that day?”
“It was for closure, he invited me for closure but I know he hoped to defraud me of my genitals, I went to talk. I wanted to see how easy the lies would leave his mouth.”

It showed here according to the autopsy that he died of heart failure caused by poisoning. Did you have anything to do with that?

“I did not kill Matoh, I did not. The weed was a gift, he liked to smoke before having sex and he asked me to bring him some. I don’t smoke so I don’t know.”

Where did you purchase this illegal marijuana?
I’ve had it for a long time, about 2 years ago, I seized it from a friend of mine who tried to commit suicide.
Heavy sighs and hmmns filled the room but my face remained expressionless.

The accusing counsel who had been silent since stood up and clapped his hand. “So you gave him a piece of smoke that you knew could be dangerous?”
I reply back “I didn’t know it was dangerous, I had it. Where did you client expect I get marijuana from in a country where it’s illegal?
We had broken up and I was done doing his dirty jobs.
It was he who chose to smoke and chose to drink, his eyes were red and peering into the deep cut blouse I wore, I saw his organ rise. I remember his croaky voice as he asked do you have anything to drink. I told him he should order from the restaurant but he was reluctant, perhaps not wanting any interruption if we started fucking. So I gave him the can of beer that was with me.”
The counsel jumped so high, clapping his hands and said “aha! But you say you did not kill him? What was in the drink and where did you get it from?”
“It’s a memorabilia, it’s part of the things I seized from my friend who tried to kill himself with it.”
“You mean you took poisonous things off the table of someone who wanted to kill themselves and gave them to a man who did not want to?”
I did not give them to him, he asked for me to give him the weed and a drink and I did.
Poisonous weed and drink
I wouldn’t know, I have never tasted them
If you had we wouldn’t be here
I’m not a smoker, neither am I a drinker like your dead client
Miss Nkah could you tell us what happened after he drank and smoked?
He pleaded with me and moved closer to me, he rubbed my laps and attempted to kiss me, he took off his shirt and his trousers and help me removed mine and he proceeded to sleep with me. I couldn’t stop him because he was so eager and even if I told him about the vow, he would not have understood or believed
What vow?
The vow to keep myself clean and chaste
Pretence
Your honor?
Lies
Are you saying Mr Matoh forced himself on you?
….
Miss Nkah, you will answer this honorable court
Not really
Then?
He was eager and cunning and I couldn’t stop him. He had broken up with me, why would he attempt to rub my breasts and have sex with me even after I told him to stop.
This vow you mention, please tell us about it
It’s just a vow between me and my God to remain holy and clean for him and it was Mr Matoh that made me break it.
The entire court house was thick with silence and you could hear a pin drop. Someone coughed from one end, another coughed from another end and the court became like a coronavirus infirmary ward with coughs erupting from all corners of the small room.
The judge peered deep at his crowd and hit the gavel loud and there was order
He looked at me
Miss Nkah, you gave your ex lover a…
I cut in, he wasn’t my ex lover o, he was the man who deceived me, he was my enemy and I had gone to dialogue with him.
You gave your enemy some weed and a bottle of beer that were poisonous?
Your honor, I gave him what he asked for. It was a stick of weed and a bottle of beer I had seized from a friend who wanted to end her life with them
Ha!!!
So they were poisonous?
I don’t know, I never tasted them
More hush hush, more shuffled feet.
The judge is up and my case is being adjourned till the last Monday of the next month.
When my constables lead me out. I pass by matoh’s mum, sister and cousin. They eye me and mouth “murderer”
I draw out my tongue and whisper “family members of a demon”
The constables push me forward into the long corridor, the van is at the other end but I am happy.

Tales by candlelight.

It is this love we fought for, when we sought to undo the damage already done.

Those hours I stayed up with tears in my eyes begging you not to leave.
You were always at the door, always ready to turn your back on the rumpled sheets and our passionate passion, you never could stay the night and it reminded me of a life before where I was alone.
It was always cold, I was afraid, it was dark and there was no one to hold my hand. They say trauma makes you forget, but they never tell you all the things you’ll remember.
My heart racing every time I walked though the long corridor, would I open the door to an empty room, or find you sitting by the corner?

It was this love I fought for when I made you say those words, somehow the I love you was enough to fill the pit of my empty stomach.
A comforting robe on the shoulders of a child who had spent a lifetime naked in the cold.
If only I knew that I was a seamstress
And I was skilled enough to weave a million “I love you’s”
I would have pushed you out long long ago from the corners of my head.

It is this love I fought for
Long nights alone with myself
Air filled with the smell of roses
Skin shining and a glass in hand
Smiling at the thought
That I had been foolish enough to love myself less.

J 11:11

It’s not cold tonight,

You’re just lonely

No love in sight

Your heart beats slowly

Stop spinning

Trying to form the words on your tongue

Conjuring a future that never happens

You shouldn’t wet your pillows either

Just forget him

We are queens here

We don’t lay our beads for men who are unworthy

Those who wouldn’t go to war for us

And are to weak to fight with us

Take the fire in my hot words

I give them with hope that it would set your soul free

Help you soar

Instead of twisting around in circles

Questions, Thoughts and open discussion

When I write my story
I wonder the parts I’ll leave out
Because I’m scared of being bare, naked and empty before you.

Would your large eyes scrutinize me?
Big hard palms flip through the pages
Tracing lines, hoping to find a connection?

How soon after its over would you throw me away?
Like those other journals laying useless beneath your bed.

Would I get a place on the shelf, along those other favorites?
On top? So the others know you’ve been here.

Thoughts

I love magic,
The way you charge as you run your fingers over me
Laughing loudly by your own self

I love madness
The way I get you impatient
Crazily flicking to the last to find out it’s ended.

Open Discussion

Is guyphobia really a thing? Or does having standards make you lonely?

Scribbled this poem in response to the feelings after a confusing date. Maybe I don’t know what I want yet, maybe I should chill a little and figure it all out while hoping that the right answer comes. Perfect answer for a question I’ve never dared to ask out loud.

Hope we are all having an amazing May?

Don’t forget to follow and leave a comment, I’m looking forward to reading some.

Love, Chukulee

Zainab’s tale

Chapter 2

By Mid April, the wedding preparations were already in full swing. With Alhaji shuttling between Abuja, Lagos and Asaba sharing whatever gold he had in between his legs and his briefcase.
It didn’t bother me as much because I was still angry and too occupied with plotting my revenge. I remembered my wedding. It was too hushed and to quiet, not because I was ashamed of Alhaji but because I was so much in a hurry to get the rites done with. I opted for a not so elaborate nikkah against my mother’s wishes
My best friend Hadiza almost had a heart attack when she realised we wouldn’t be flying all the way to morroco to paint Casablanca red.
Now look at Alhaji planning to shut down Dubai with this igbo girl.
One cool afternoon, I was by the pool side, sipping a drink and trying to catch up on some latest magazine copies. My phone rings, waking me up from myself. It’s a strange number but I pick up regardless.
The deep husky heavily accented voice drowled, it’s Andrew. I knew it, Andrew, but I didn’t remember giving him my number or calling him, but I was so excited about his interest to pick offence. We had a little chat and he invited me to dinner.
By 5pm, the car was ready by the gate. Again I wondered how he did manage to know my house but it wasn’t too important, I was hell bent on having an amazing day.
There’s no doubt that I enjoy having a train of eyes on me, I was wearing a grey sequin dress and patent red Louboutin’s with a purse to match. Of course, I always covered my hair, the only accessories on my head was the diamond drop earrings alhaji had gifted me on our first date. The car was chauffeured by a black short man and he drive all the way to Eko Atlantic.
It was a dinner on the pent house of one of those mansions there. Andrew was a gentle man, offering me water, pulling my chair and all the other sweet things that would have left any other girl drooling from under. The only thing I loved about him was his singsong British accent that felt like music to my ears.
After the dinner and our light conversation, I found out that Andrew was here on government request for 3 months and he had spent about two months here. The way he looked at me, I could tell he wanted to be buried deep inside me. The lust was evident with the way his breath stopped momentarily every time he looked at me.
I told him I wanted to divorce my husband for taking in another wife and I needed him to help me prepare the divorce papers.
We dined and drank wine and talked about everything from living in Lagos, travel food to music late into the night. I loosened my scarve, letting my sleek permed shoulder length black hair fall freely, he lit a Cigarette and started o smoke, I let him blow the smoke on my direction as we sat there talking till it was late.
By 11 pm, I had to leave for the house, Andrew placed a call to his driver who came around on feet to inform him that he car wasn’t working.
I was fuming, how was I going to get home, I had never had any reason to use the uber app and my car was far away at home in Opebi. I was left with no choice but to spend the night in his guest room.
I was uncomfortable at the idea but on Andrew’s word and the fact that it was just a few hours until 6am when my own driver would pick up my car from the house to take me home.
That night I could barely sleep, I spent all night tossing and turning on the bed. Something felt off, but I couldn’t place it until I realised I was trying to sleep in my complete clothes. I picked up the pyjamas Andrew had offered and proceeded to change into them.
As I undressed, dragging the sequin dress across my waist, down to my hips, a shocking revelation hit me.
My bead!, the bue eye waist beads wasn’t on my waist! ” how could the entire string fall off my waist without my knowledge, did it cut?” I wondered. But such a thought was silly. How could the bead have loosened without my knowledge, I tried to remember whether it was on my waist this morning as I forced this silver sheat up my hips.
“this bead has always been here, securely strung together with shoemakers rope., my heart is racing fast, trying not to think of the implication of this.
I hopped over to the bed to get my phone and call madam J, informing her of this latest. There is trouble in my camp!
As soon as I swiped in my password in, boldly was a text from Alhaji , informing me that his lawyers would be at the house with divorce papers tomorrow.
Somehow the shock had caused a tear to start rolling off my left eye
“Kai! rayuwata ta tabarbare”

So I finally got around to doing chapter 2 of Zainab’s tale. I really love how the story seems to be spinning.

I know it’s been a while, so pardon me on that. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you like it, it would be great to read from you.

Love,

Chukulee

Mother, money and New age lies

my first idea of money was that it never came easy. Very early in the year, my mother would draw two thigh long lines in her black note book and write our names in it, my sister and I. The black book was her book of income and expenditure but a page, every now and then was always dedicated to us, to save about 10 % of every naira that was given to us, by her, my father or any visitor in a wooden piggy box. The money was to be put down in advance for Christmas, against our shoes, bags and dresses.
She grew up during the war, when money was a scarce commodity and every penny had to be held down unless it grew wings, flew away never to come back again. One ice cream satchel cut in halves, shared between my sister and I because, according to her, after 5 seconds of creamy milk, it was all ice and not worth spending 20 bucks a piece on each.
So every month, we would keep money in advance for Christmas. There was this joy of building, of hoarding, with a purpose to lavish. Once it was December she would faithfully bring out the book and by candle light we would calculate how much we had each saved.
There was great joy in breaking the wooden box to reveal tiny folds of five naira, ten naira, twenty naira and even fifty naira. She would count the pile of money, and carry them to the nearby grocery store to exchange in hundreds and two hundreds naira notes. The grocer lady was always happy to help.
She made sure we visited the market very early in December, before the harmattans came to fill the air with the smell of Christmas, before the market women brains realised it was time to increase the prices of their wares. We would visit the local market each with a bag, she would follow us as we led her to the shops that displayed the wares that caught our eyes. Dresses with flare skirts, jackets and matching hats and bags. She would help us negotiate a deal with the seller, pay then cross the amount off the ledger in her black book. We bought dresses, shoes, bags, sunglasses.
Before we left the scorching heat of the market, she would permit us to reward ourselves with an ice-cream cut in half. Whatever change that remained was to be kept and put against next year because it was going to be another Christmas.
Now I’m 30, and I don’t save anymore, I read and learnt the secret of abundance and how to manifest money by standing with raised arms in the smiling buddha position. One hand a little higher than the other, both held loosely to receive while bad vibes were dropping off from the other hand tilted towards the floor.
Mama still keeps her black book, in her small flat at the end of an orchid garden. she still reads them early in the morning sitting by her big window, she still likes to shop early in December before the smell of Christmas hits the air, and she is usually willing to lend me some money whenever I fail to manifest some.

Zainab’s tale

Chapter 1:

It’s the same night as every other night and the same quarrel with Alhaji every damn time.

This night, I drive off in anger just in hopes that I can let some steam off. Suddenly I’m craving suya and ice cream.
Turning the black Prado Jeep from Opebi round about, the only place on my mind is the suya spot, If I step on the accelerator and increase the spead to about 150km, I would probably make it in time before the mallams finish selling torso.
First stop suya, then hopefully I can get a supermarket that would still be open at this time and one that stocks Ice cream I think, trying to form a mental picture of my drive.

The phone is ringing and the call is automatically picked by the car. Fuck these technology… bullshit, I reduce my breathe and refuse to speak. To hell with Alhaji!
I can hear him muttering under his breath, Zainabu ko! his heavy voice in between breaths that sounded like fat puffs of air from tired lungs. I wait a few minutes until he gives up and hangs up the call.

Another wife, barely six months after our marriage, kai! Shege! One of these small small girls after his money has struck a goldmine. I rack my head wondering who her magani must be. Alfa Sule and Madam J, the only note worthy herbalist in the whole of Lagos are sure loyal to me. This one must be fire and oil mixed together to get Alhaji to tell me of his desire to bring a new wife in, as he usually just keeps them around, lavishing the spare change I and his kids leave him.

At the suya spot. As always the men in pairs, eating and laughing. There’s always one pair of lovers who can’t seem to get their hands off each other.

At the other side, a line up of ikeja harlots, taking cover under the bad street lamp flock in a straight line displayed like the new high-rise building at Eko Atlantic, each screaming, “pick me, pick me!”
I buy my suya without coming down from the car and do a quick U-turn to get on the road that leads to shoprite.

09:37pm. Hopefully I can get there before they close to quickly snatch a cup of blue bunny vanilla icecream.

At the mall, I enter hurriedly as usual, it was too late,dark and not sunny to wear my sunshades so I adjust my scarf making sure my fore head and lips are very covered. My gown is a long and flowy black Jhalabia, the entire front covered in swaroski crystals that catches light with every sway of my modest hips and long legs. On my left wrist, the hublot watch Alhaji gave me for my birthday was big and fierce. I rarely wear my wedding ring, the diamond is too huge and paired with the watch was so weighted that it kept my hands perpetually down, but tonight, I was even wearing the ring, the perpetual symbol of our barely 6 month old marriage as I heard him talk about how he wanted to marry another wife, Ngozi, abi whatever he called her.
My anger, starts blazing again like new coals freshly poked into the fire, I walk directly to the freezer section and picked up two cups of blue bunny, vanilla and strawberries.

A white expat struggles to catch my eye, I yawn in reply and exhaustion. My tall, slim, nubian figure must be tensioning him, but he’s not my type, I smile back and hurry on. He has abandoned his shopping and follows me trying to talk. At the counter, he pays for my ice cream and hands me his card. I nod and manage a polite thank you. Promising to call. I smile and take a look at the card. “Andrew Hopson, Lawyer.”

Alhaji would never expect this.

Icy End (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

I remember the day we beat up a nonsense man silly, for having the guts to come inside our zone to sleep with Eloho and tried to escape without paying. After dealing with him, we sold his handset for 3000 naira.

Iya Pato’s bar was our zone, our safe space. As much as competition existed, we sort of liked each other.
There was sisterhood, fellowship and hierarchy. Iya Pato was our mother superior, followed by Vero, the grand patron, wise and experienced. Kpeme, Ose and Lilian were the mamas in the game, oldest and perhaps the most frustrated.

Aunty Kpeme was the oldest of 5 children born to a professor father and a nurse mother, I know you have started wondering about what I am saying and if my medulla is not missing some vital knots. Kpeme was born and raised in America to two well to do parents. Her life’s problems started when her family came back to Nigeria to bury and pay last respects to her paternal grandfather.
Uselu, a small, tiny yet vicious village in the remotest part of Delta state, one long boat ride away from upper Oluku. It was there a wicked neighbour casted a juju spell on Kpeme which made her go missing. After several efforts by her family to find her, they had to return to America without her.
When the spell wore off, Kpeme returned back to Uselu to learn her parent had travelled back to America and her grand mother, the only contact link between them had been dead for bout 2 years.
What could a young girl do, how would she live, eat or survive if not in Lagos. The city that they claimed flowed with milk and honey. Kpeme started to work from 15 and now she was 45.

Ose and Lilian had similar stories, some would say it is greed that would make a woman leave her husband house to live on the street, others believed it a curse. Ose was once married at the early age of 13 to one of her late father’s friends. A smelly sweaty and greying matter of 75 years. It was a thing of joy to all his wives when he died of a heart attack shortly after his 76th birthday. Ose and Lillian, sister wives, bound by a common struggle. Cast offs in their homes with a vow never to return and a great need to survive. They had to escape before the burial where they would be inherited by their late husbands brother, Calistus, whose penchant for young, nubile, virgin girls knew no bounds.
Iya Pato’s place was a no judgement zone, she accepted the girls without question. She would urge the girls to broaden their minds by watching DSTV “ashewo na work, no mind wetin ‘them’ they talk” she quipped whenever she noticed extreme frustration, fatigue or discouragement creeping in.

Some days at Iya Patos were very bad. We could go a week without a single horny soul walking through the beaded curtains. They would sit in the bar with their ugly overweight girlfriends and guzzle plates of peppersoup, shouting loud at a group of twenty-two men kicking a round leather ball on the TV. Those were days of extreme frustration and dry pockets. It was mostly those days that the ‘them’ preachers seemed to come in droves, like they had an invisible alarm they used to notify them when the seed of discontentment has be down by bad business.

The Jehovah Witness’ own where too much. Despite Iya Pato’s stern warning, stiff face and angry stares. They still managed to sneak their way into the bar just as the day was fully breaking. Whichever way, they were better than the police men. The Jehovah preachers would bring tracks and pamphlets and stories, engaging in lengthy conversations and arguments. Sometimes with any unsuspecting man in the bar at that hour, but I know they came mainly for we the girls. The came in pairs, a man and a woman or a woman and a young boy, they never brought a young girl here for fear of her being corrupted.
It was the usual conversation of a better life and death for unbelievers, sprinkled with lots of argument, self righteousness and confidence. But it was the sum of these things that made life at iya Pato’s really exciting.
“Do you believe in paradise on earth? A new heaven and a new earth?” Vero would mimic them, her coarse voice sounding like the rustle of freshly emptied cement bags.

Icy End (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2

“Faith, faith… faaaittthh… ! ” came the call. I was far away in dreamland and about to board the aeroplane that would take me to hellfire. 48 hours without food or water!. My roommate Queen has just gotten back from her weekend outing.

I manage to open my eyes and mutter a faint “what is it” to assure her that she hadn’t come home to a corpse.

She eyed the pile of me strewn carelessly in a corner and handed me a white Mr Biggs nylon. Queen is a lifesaver. She’s one of those babes that knows everyone, everything and everywhere. She was my lifeline out of the other hell I used to live in and into this life.
Queen threw her bag carelessly on the bed and prepared to remove her dress, a red tight fitting dress with gold italic letters that spelled ‘fab’ written across her large chest. “You dey dull yourself babe, I’ve told you… her voice faded off with the warning.

“I know these line well well, in fact, e dey my head, sitting in this room to depend on poor parents sitting down probably hungry cannot help me. I am a pretty slim girl and I can run the world if I choose to”. Queen was in charge of arranging girls for the men in a night club at ikeja.
It wasn’t anything big and fancy, but it put food on the table for a lot of youngins. Skimpy dresses, lots of make up, a fancy cigarette and some slow moves. You can go home with a nice guy and guarantee as much as 5000 naira that night. If you were super fun, he can become a steady customer. 5000 times as many times you can think of is a lot of money.

That evening, fully energised from the fried rice and peppered chicken. I borrowed one of Queens night time dresses. They were about two sizes big, but my desperation was heavy enough to fill up the empty curve spaces.

Should I go on to tell you about my first night?

I really wish it was a Pretty Woman story, but this was much better. I was picked up by an oyinbo guy, white man with ‘smelly dollars’. All the doubts I had cleared up as he handed me a shiny straight 100 dollar bill and dropped me off at the taxi park. I was fully in.

The minute his driver reversed the heavy ford Jeep out of the taxi garage, I left the taxi men I was pretending to haggle prices with and boarded a bus to my dorm.

I got to my dormitory, and entered my room with the elegance of the English queen. “Who say money no dey cure problem ?”

After discussing the nights affairs. I realised i should have collected my sponsors number. But, I shrugged it off as there was always a next time.

In no time, I was living, learning and earning. Making money and sending some home to the family.
Working nights didn’t always go so well, some where bad day, or fuck boys who suddenly developed issues with their ATM card the next morning. Along with the glamour was horror. But I lived through it each day.
After staying in the dormitory for a few more months, I was sent out due to a minor quarrel with one of the hall security.

I needed a place to stay urgently, I couldn’t go home or go and live with any runsco as that would lead to free work or someone policing my precious time. It was during this period that I met Vero.
Vero was one of the regulars at the club then. Way older than me but she was nice.

Ashewos aren’t supposed to be friends. We fought for the same piece of meat on these streets. Vero told me about Iya Pato where I could stay for a little fee and make money round the clock. Monday till Friday evening and Friday at midnight in the club. The prospect of more money was more than exciting.
Not that I wasnt living a good life, I was, and hunger was far from me. Not only could I afford 3 meals a day. I could send money home too but I needed a place to stay. It takes a lot of disrespect and zero values to operate as a prostitute from your parents house. How would you explain leaving the house at odd hours?

I made up my mind and called Vero the next day, she picked me up in her red small Volkswagen and we drove to the place. It’s was a shanty shack at the far stretch of a deserted road somewhere in Lagos island. The best part about Iya Patos was that it wasn’t crowded with lots of girls, and it was directly opposite the construction of a new mega property. There was less competition and a steady stream of runsco. This was the life.

At iya Pato’s I usually would wake up during the weekdays by 10, bathe, wear make up and use my small bottle of special perfume. The perfume was for good luck and attraction. All the other babes; Kpeme, Vero and Lilian all had theirs. A special blend of ancient scents and a ritual that is meant to protect the uniqueness of my star against the other girls. On the streets, we do not call it juju, it is a necessary evil for the hustle. After bathing and dressing, there is almost nothing to do.

My clothing were mostly small skimpy pieces and an occasional Jean. After washing, I would sit all day in my phone chatting on dating apps, pursuing John leads. Other times, one or two casual who couldn’t wait till evening time would stroll in for a little beat. Quick, hot and sharp just like 1000 naira in the hands of a greedy man.

Night time was the main, the bar was full, plenty ogogoro in the system, the men are needy and we the girls were always ready.

Money for hand, back for ground.

So finally chapter 2 of icy end is here. I hope you enjoy reading, don’t forget to drop your 2cents, like and follow my blog

To catch the full gist, please read Chapter 1

Until next time

Love, Chukulee

Icy End

Chapter 1

As soon as the sun goes down, hiding it’s orange face behind the semi dark, greying clouds. it’s dark enough to play.

•••

Lagos state

At about 5 pm, the birds are all oiled up, trimmed and pruned. They come out to play. Iya Pato’s bar, at first glance, is just a large rusty caravan with odd color paintings of lewd sayings where the tired construction workers can have a glass of ogogoro and hot peppered pieces of ponmo to just cool off. But looking round, really intently, you’ll find that there’s a beaded curtain that leads to hell or paradise depending on who’s looking.

—

Barely furnished rooms and thread bare mattress in the red dim light.
For as little as 500 naira, you can get to pound a piece of fresh flesh. Every evening, the construction workers pile there, taking turns, taking numbers, powered by the false feeling of ogogoro excitement. 4 rounds, 2000 naira less than their daily take home of 4000 naira. Indeed! Something must kill a man.

For the girls: Faith, Ose, Lola, Kpeme, Vero, Katherine, and Eloho. Iya Pato’s was just a step in the journey, an inevitable rite of passage, the wilderness where they all must pass through.

It is not what you think. They aren’t forced to work here, iya Pato is not a wicked madam that uses them as slaves yet pays them peanuts.

This na Lagos, “we dey hustle”. Apart from the room charge which is 1000 naira per day, the girls are entitled to their earnings, their time, and customers.

Amongst the girls, Eloho is the youngest and perhaps the prettiest, if you liked tall, dark skinned girls, she had the looks of an exotic Sudanese princess. Long face, pointed nose and rich dark hair. It was hard to believe she is Nigerian. She would have passed fully as a model if not for the over fullness of her chest and roundness of her waist. The agent had told her after paying a hard earned 10,000 naira “you have to loose weight, to fit into dresses you know. .. these fashion designers like lepa” which translated to “I can’t help you”.

Maybe she could do better, but it was easier to make money as a working girl. You’re in charge of the show, everywhere and elsewhere the men still want to fuck you and they are in charge. Your oga, the landlord, your uncle, even the preacher.

All the girls think Iya Pato is God sent, they owe her a lot. It is better to be working from a safe house than off the streets. Lola can tell you that “it’s cold, too cold and you’re scantily dressed waiting and waiting and waiting and walking, on the bad days, the policemen come, pack all of us into their van, beat us, take all our money and still want to fuck. They say we are illegal but they don’t mind if we pay the registration fee. Yeye people”

Katherine’s case is a tale of a long struggle, her mama, her brother, her sister and her twin children. Losing her father at an early age plunged the entire family into the poverty drain. She stopped schooling and began hawking fruits, it was there she met oga loco.
Oga loco was a nice young carpenter, nice enough to always buy the entire oranges off her tray on the days when business was bad, saving her the hot lashes her mother would have prepared for her bare unripe buttocks. Oga loco carpentry shed was cosy. A large bed of sawdust where she and other underaged hawkers gathered to rest their aching feet. From buying the oranges, Loco moved onto the real oranges, ate them and discarded them like trash. Katherine was three months with child, barred from visiting Locos workshop. He and his boys even swore she was crazy and that he Loco had never even seen her pants, he didn’t even like fat girls.

Katherine’s mother that could barely feed her family off the proceeds from the fruit trade could not even afford a proper abortion if she even wanted to. One candle lit evening, after series of failed concoctions in their small one room apartment, Katherine mum ‘mama Katy’ told Katherine the sad news “my Pikin, this tree wey you plant, E go grow o and you go chop the fruit.”
With child comes responsibilities, an additional mouth to feed meant more energy put into hustle. With big belly and swollen feet Kathy went on to be a cleaner. Life would be better earning 4000 naira per month. Unfortunately, Kathy wasn’t paid. Her Madam insisted that she was missing her gold necklace, a gold necklace she placed on the dressing table, the dressing table in her bedroom, her bedroom where only Kathy and her had access to.
The tummy kept on growing despite the hardship and hunger that abound and yet there wasn’t any silver lining in sight. Kathy went back to selling oranges but life wasn’t any sweeter.

Suddenly the babies came, two bouncing babies. she set up a small business selling used clothes from donations gotten from her neighbours and well wishers. Things started getting a bit better. But eventually life happened, a new government banning road side hawking removed all possibilities of making enough money.

Unlike Katherine, Vero always had it in her. If anybody was ever born to work the streets it was Vero. Pretty, hot headed and without a care in the world. She came to Lagos on her own at age 16, with only the clothes on her back. Worked her ass off to earn every naira she had, built a small house in port Harcourt for her parents on her back.
Vero had dark eyes, those kind of dark pupils that seem to tell a story of the hard life they have seen, dark, captivating eyes that if you looked deep enough you could read the sorrows: the days where a John used her all night and yet refused to pay in the morning. There’s nothing to do except fight cause a scene, risk public embarrassment then still go back home empty handed.

Friday nights are usually the best days. There are enough guys who come out to flex, some young and unmarried living the ‘wasting their youth stage’ many very married escaping their sour spouses and the smell of children at home.

They weren’t all the same. Some were drunk, loud and bold but couldn’t get it really up. others too shy and tried to read permission from your face. Those ones were the easiest, time was ticking by and soon it would be an hour. The worst ones were the ones that talked too much.

My name is Faith, I was born some years ago in a small house to a small family, I shouldn’t be here naturally but life has it twists. My parents were neither poor nor rich, we ate two times a day, they were neither religious nor faithless, but caring and kind. I wasn’t really much of a bookworm. I was a long faced child with eyes that made lot of people think I had it in me. Random people on the streets never failed to complement my eyes, they were a strange shade of bright blue that looked full of wisdom.

So I guess it was my choices that brought me here.