Must Read: The Player

Episode 6 years ago

Must Read: The Player

The house looked like a hotel.

There was a servant dressed in uniform who met us by the door.

“Welcome ma, I trust your exam went well?” the well trimmed black man asked.

“Yes, Gregory. Meet my friend Fifi, he was involved in an auto- accident. He Almost lost his poor life.”

“Oh, Master Fifi, it must have been a car to head collision?” Gregory asked.

Abiabia immediately started laughing, high-fiving Gregory for his mastery in punch-lines. I shook my head and followed her up the stairs that led to her room.

Without any shame, I must tell you that her room was bigger than my flat. It wasn’t pink like I imagined it would, instead it was filled with wallpapers of rock stars like Hoobastank, Staind and Foo fighters.

“So, what did you do to deserve this type of panel-beating, Fifi?” she asked from the bathroom, leaving the door ajar.

“You are seriously going to ask now, after all the yabs?” I asked as I pulled my sneakers and sat on her bed.

I could hear the shower come on.

“Fifi, do you wanna take a shower with me?” she screamed.

“Where are the drugs, jo?”

“Patience,” she said, singing in bits to the slaps of water hitting her bathroom floor.

“Okay, tell me which drug you want, African or Malaysian?” she asked covering herself with towels, one for her body, and the other for her hair.

“Give me the stronger one. I am in pains.”

She giggled and went to her dresser, coming back with two transparent nylons.

“Is that the drug you were talking about?” I asked.

“Yep, Soldier. The one on my right is African from Akure, while this one is Malaysian. They are both SK.”

The African weed was black in color, with tiny twigs, while the Malaysian was smoother and green in color.

“I promise you, you will feel no pain after you smoke up,” she said, placing the Malaysian on a thin brown paper. Bauchi would have loved to be here.

The way she worked with her hand rolling up the joint was like a professional, I was amazed.

“What if your folks find out?”
“Dad never comes up and mum kicked the bucket a long time ago, so we are safe, young man.”

She smoked for a little while before passing the blunt. It was smooth and calming.

“The beauty about SK over the common weed is that SK doesn’t smell much, it will probably never be perceived outside this room,” she said.

“Who taught you how to smoke?”
“My boyfriend,” she replied.

She asked again about what evil had befallen my face and I told her. She told me about her dad and his mistresses. She told me about her boyfriend and how she loved him. She also said she had been deflowered by her uncle in her toilet during one of the holidays. She was 14.

I told her about Hanatu and My parents, then as the SK hit deeper, I told her about Bauchi and we laughed. We got so high that we talked without really hearing each other.

I felt no pain as she had promised. It was dark when her driver drove me back to the Estate. Just before I left her to sleep, she had kissed me on my broken face, telling me jokes were the only way she knew how to hide pain. That she was sorry that I was attacked.

Just when I was getting to believe her, she said “Sykes, loser!”