Must Read: Ade

7 years ago

Must Read: Ade

It is Sunday morning and we are not in a haste to get out of bed. We all eventually met to the sitting room around ten o’clock. None of us was in a hurry to go anywhere. We had not even brushed less having a bath. We were really hungry.

The three of us headed to the kitchen and after one hour of cooking and frying amidst bantering and chatting and even backslapping, we came out with boiled plantain and fried eggs with steaming mugs of beverage.

We settled as usual on the rug, in front of the cable teevee and tucked in the food while watching the programmes they had to offer.

After eating, we were sweating like Christmas turkeys. We all sprawled there and slept for God-knows-how-long.

We woke up to the loud ringing of a phone. It was Shola’s. Tokunbo had called her thrice and she had not picked his calls. Immediately she picked it, she put it on speaker as usual.

”Hello dear,” She said sleepily.

”Don’t dear me, what did we agree on yesterday, you have refused to pick my calls since.” He complained bitterly without a pause.

”I was sleeping…” She tried to explain but he cut her short.

”What sort of sleep is that? Did you die? Ah ah!

You will burn in a house with that your foolish sleepiness. Your phone’s ringing was not enough to wake you abi? And you expect someone to marry a bad sleeper like you. Okay o, you have found a husband o.” He tongue-lashed her.

”Are you now at home?” She said after sighing.

”Mba, I am in your house sleeping like you.

If you won’t come lemme know o. I have places to go.” He said and ended the call.

Shola looked at us and smiled. Her mind was made up. What sort of a man would not listen to his partner’s excuse? Tokunbo was far worse than my friend in terms of anger. While Rotimi will listen to yours before exploding, Tokunbo just blew up without listening to anyone’s reasons.

Too bad for a man who claims he will get married.

We went to speechlessly after the call to the bathroom to shower and prepare hastily for the journey ahead. By the time we came out to the sitting room, it was well past two in the afternoon.

Shola was looking very cute in the long green dress she wore. Her feet were in a black slippers and she draped a black scarf round her neck. She was just too beautiful. I could not help but stare at her. She caught me staring and smiled, I felt ashamed of myself. To cover up, I complimented her dressing and she said I wasn’t looking bad too in my green and black striped tee shirt on my dark blue denim wear. Rotimi and I loved plain materials, we believed that those with drawings or too many writings on them are for touts and exuberant teenagers. Hence we go for plain tee shirts, polo, and round necks. Rotimi on his part looked at us and laughed at us he had also caught me staring at Shola and knew that I was getting more interested in her by the day. I was just being cautious and biding my time before making any move. That day, Rotimi’s fiancée would be proud of him in his plain white round neck tee shirt and his black jeans wear on his beloved black moccasin. He dresses better than I do, I give him that.

We stepped out of the house and hailed a taxi which took us to the Ojuelegba residence of Tokunbo. Shola had a car but hated driving and we are still learning to drive hence the need to charter cabs around town. All on the bills of Shola.

She told us to stay in the local cafeteria not too far away from the house as she made her way to the green three storeyed builing which had black gates. The area spoke of the mixed statuses of its residents. Tokunbo’s house seemed to be occupied by middle income earners and the rich ones who are waiting for their houses to be completed.

We had been at the cafeteria for close to two and half hours and counting nursing our second bottle of malt drink when Shola came out of the house eyes puffed and nose bleeding. Hot on her heels was the guy I believed to be her Tokunbo shouting at the top of his voice for her to wait and receive more beatings. The neighbours were restraining him and he was shouting to be allowed to deal with her the more. He shouted obscenities at her and exposed as much of what she had just told him as possible.

I stood up from my seat, headed towards her, walked past her and cleared the crowd. I met with Tokunbo held his shirt and gave him a head butt on his nose. We were separated but I left him with a cut mouth and bloodied face and a lesson not to beat up a woman again in his life.

The bastard could not fight his fellow man.

I rebuffed all those holding me, joined Shola and Rotimi at the cafeteria. By then, people had gathered to know what happened but I told the crying Shola not to utter a word. Her wounds were cleaned at a nearby pharmacy where the idiotic Tokunbo lay as one who had had an Okada accident. I never looked at him twice as people pointed at me some saying he deserved it and others hailing me.

We got another cab and headed home…