My shoulders were beginning to ache; my head so hot and steamy that I felt like I was going to keel over at any minute or maybe die from exhaustion; but none of those happened. I am not new in this field, offloading a truck load of goods was almost the same as me pulling off my shoes whenever I got home from work, but having to stock a supermarket with the same goods I just offloaded is a different thing entirely; capital punishment; except that I was going to get paid for my labor and extra for my inconveniences.
It is past two ‘o’ clock in the afternoon, the sun at its peak, burning my skin to cook. I perceived something funny in the air, similar to the smell of a burning goat meat; I looked over my shoulder at Bobby; oh boy! Was I wrong?
“Bobby you smell like burnt goat skin”.
Bobby turned around and stared at me with a confused look on his face.
“Are you serious? I was going to tell you the same thing, you smell like roasted pig meat”.
We stared at each other like we were going to get entangled in a wrestling bout in any second; we both coincidentally put our hands to our waist and dared to look up at the eye-blinding burning sun.
“The sun is too much, maybe you two need to rest for a few minutes” Mrs. Aisha said, interrupting us.
We quickly turned to face her; she has two plastic bottles of super chilled water for Bobby and i. she handed us the bottles which we quickly gulped down; I poured some of the cold liquid on my head and let it run down my body; I couldn’t feel any better.
“no, it’s okay. We can finish with the offloading without the break”. Bobby said in reply to Aisha’s suggestion.
“Are you certain you don’t need the break?” she asked again, her gaze on me. I looked at Bobby for a second; he looked at me with raised eyebrows. He always does that when he means to say “guy, no fuckup o”.
“Yeah, we have to finish up with this now, considering that we still have to help stock the shop.” I replied her, not meaning what I just said.
“Okay, if you say so.” She said. “Let me go get something for you two to eat.” With that, she walked away, swaying her behind while we watched lustfully.
Wait, I wasn’t guilty of the lustful look; that should be Bobby. Maybe I did like what was before me, but my moral judgment wouldn’t let me lust after another man’s wife.
Just as we got back to work, Bobby drew closer to me.
“she no even send wetin I talk sotey she still gats ask you. E be like say I go leave this work for you o.”
We both bust into endless laughter at Bobby’s joke. Actually, I don’t see any reason why Bobby should decide whether we take a break or not. True, he loves hustling, he has the connections and gets the jobs, but, he happens to be a very lazy guy; I would carry four loads at a time while bobby would struggle with two. And that’s not just where it ends; when Bobby is in his fifth return, I would have made my tenth. So, yeah! He had no right whatsoever crashing my most needed break.
A black jeep pulled to a stop by the supermarket; I couldn’t help but notice; this is the third time it had made a stop there. Nobody comes out; it just chills there for at least ten minutes and drives away. I had a slight inkling that Mrs. Aisha knows them; not that she greeted any of them, but she remained indifferent to their presence. As the jeep drove away, I stopped to ask Bobby a question; he wasn’t in any way bothered by the black jeep.
“Bobby, this is the third time of that jeep pulling to s stop here, you don’t smell any fish?”
Bobby continued with work like he knew I was going to ask just that.
“You need me to tell you that that the driver of that jeep is monitoring Mrs. Aisha? Did you not see the military stickers on the windshield?”
To be honest, all I had time to observe was the color of the jeep and not the banners or stickers on it or how many tires it has.
Gen. Abubakar Danjuma had surveillance on his wife. This is crazy; at least it is to me. He obviously wants no man around his wife. He knows how beautiful his wife is and is aware that many would give anything to lay with her especially whenever he is out of the country; whenever he is in the country and is required to be in one of the states, he takes his wife along and checks her into one of the state’s most expensive hotels; money was never his problem. As funny as it sounds, I learnt from Bobby that before the closure of the supermarket months back, Gen. Abubakar’s boys would go to the shop and wait till eight ‘o’ clock; regardless of the numbers of customer in there, they would ask everybody out and then make Aisha close up for the day.
Twelve minutes past seven pm, and we are still stocking the supermarket; a lot of work still to be done. The delicious meal we just had courtesy of Aisha was so sumptuous that Bobby couldn’t stop licking his lips; I was guilty of the same offence. Aisha came towards me and stopped by my side, she has this look in her eyes, the type you have when you are up to some mischiefs.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked with a smile. I could see Bobby stealing looks at us from the corner of his eyes. There was no need for the question, we couldn’t finish the food she brought for us; food too big for four men. She had just cleared the disposable plates, so am wondering where the question is coming from and to what end.
“Yes, we are filled...” I answered even though I knew her concern was in my direction. “We couldn’t finish it.” I added stupidly as if she had no idea we had leftovers from the meal. She smiled for sometime as I got back to work; I was in no way comfortable in that position.
“How long have you been working out?”
“It’s been a long time, I can’t remember.” I lied.
We hear a vehicle pull to a stop outside the supermarket, Aisha goes to the door as two junior military officers walked in. they spoke to her in Hausa, from the look on her face, I could tell she was not happy with whatever information she must have gotten. The men left her standing by the door and walked up to Bobby and i.
“oya, night don come. Una go come tomorrow come finish am.” The first soldier said with Hausa accent.
Bobby and I were not so surprised. The men saw us off to the door as Aisha watched with apologies in her eyes. Barely a minute after we stepped out of the shop, the men escorted Aisha to her range rover parked by the roadside.
“Please, be here tomorrow by eleven a.m., I will pay for it.” She called after us. She drove away, the soldiers got into their jeep and followed after her.
Some meters into the dark street, I picked my phone out of my pocket to check for missed calls; I had it in silent mode so as not to be distracted. I had twenty-two miss-calls; from just one caller; my dad. The man never called me as long as I can remember. My heart started racing; something must have gone terribly wrong for my dad to have called me in the first place, and now, twenty-two missed calls from him.
“You have to run home and find out what is wrong.” Bobby said. We shook hands and I dashed towards my street. Only God knows what must have happened.
As God permits us to see next week, you will get to find out what went wrong. Yours truthfully,
Chidera Reginald.
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