Rest-in-Pieces.
The familiar chimes of bells that usually hung above entrance doors of bars were absent here. I scanned my location, looking for the usual dark quiet spot always present in taverns and found none. ‘This is one miserable bar!’ I thought. Shuffling towards the counter, I decided to sit with the attendant, while looking around my environment. A black Benz had pulled in and its occupants were both making their way to the bar too; a young girl accompanied by a man –a way older, potbellied man- literally pushing her through the quiet door. Instinctively, I looked to her hand and found a gold band circling her ring finger. The fool! He hadn’t even gotten her size. I turned back to the counter and was about to ask for a drink when I found my face looking down at me.
Wow! That was fast!
“…is considered dangerous and highly unstable.” The announcer was saying from the old flat-screen TV that hung haphazardly behind the counter, “Please call the numbers flashing on your screen in case of any sightings.” Unstable, eh? The picture changed to another one of me smiling cheerfully. It had been the day I graduated from college.
The worst day of my life.
I pulled the oversized hoodie I was wearing lower over my eyes and ears, instinctively trying to block out the terrors from that day. Yet I couldn’t forget…
…I remembered getting a call from my uncle, a few hours after a doctor had called to tell me my parents had died in a careless accident on their way to my graduation ceremony; pleading with me to come home as soon as possible because he had some news for me. I remembered questioning what could be worse and realizing on getting home that despite just losing my parents, I was going to lose so much more. I recalled fervently pleading with a man old enough to be my grandfather, thrashing about at his feet, beseeching him to give me time to offset the debt my parents had incurred trying to see my siblings and I through school as opposed to letting us become useless layabouts in the village. His fat ugly face made worse by spittle flying in every direction as he spoke, ordering the local touts that he had brought with him to carry my younger sister away as ransom till I was ready to either pay up in two days or marry him as my parents had agreed he would for lending them all the money he had lent them –nine hundred and seventy thousand naira; He was learned, he produced a contract paper he and my parents had signed because they hadn’t been able to read the terms. I recalled thinking the moldy brown patch of sweat on the armpit of the agbada he was wearing, looked like the map of Nigeria without any rivers. I remember my gluttonous uncles showing up unannounced at the house I was made to stay with him demanding my bride price, after they had shied away, giving flimsy excuses as to why they could not salvage my situation. Particularly, I fondly remembered the horrified looks on their faces as I poured scalding hot water on them as they sat waiting; I still had burn marks from where splashes of the water had touched me. Eight days later, I remembered the weakened cries of Egondu (yes! He had a name) as I confessed I had been secretly feeding him excess doses of chloroform after I found out he had forcibly had his way with my younger sister that one night before I been married off to him. He had died, two days later from multiple stab wounds and was missing a major reproductive organ, on the same day she did. The day she was buried, I remembered entering the rest room after the uncle who had led the trip to dump me off at Egondu’s, slitting his wrists and locking the door behind him to give him time, just to avenge her. I never went back to the village after that, not even for his burial two weeks later…
It was now five months on and I still hadn’t found peace. I had run into Egondu’s old friend two days ago and he was found dead in a hotel room yesterday –his lower arm slit from his inner elbow down to his middle finger. For some reason, the police thought I was responsible, because now his picture was up beside mine.
“…all this ungrateful people in this world. I’m very sure she killed him.” The very old man with the young lady was pointing up at the TV, fuming.
“In fact let’s go!” he said suddenly, pushing her off her seat, “I don’t feel like drinking again”. As she fell, our eyes met for an instant; hers filled with sorrow and mine with outrage.
In that moment, I knew peace for me was a long way off. I looked up in time to see him spank her from behind, clearly glorying in the joy he derived from abusing her. I smiled, brought out my sunshades from the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing, wore it and stood up to go after them.
Somebody had to tell them they hadn’t paid for their drinks.