Securing The Bag (The Lagos Hustle)

Gingered

:::::::::::::::KANAKU
I was nearly blind with fury by the time I keyed the ignition and sped off. Fuoyo yet again stayed in the back seat with Jessy. She was still a little teary-eyed but was telling us how her friend had taken her in when she first came to Lagos and looked after her before finally introducing her to Mr D.

"She always wanted the best for me, everything just happened too fast before either of us could adjust," Jessy said wistfully. "I can't imagine the pain she must have felt, waking up to feel violated, knowing there was nothing she could do cause people will only laugh and say how can a prostitute get raped? They won't understand the trauma...Oh that man is very evil" Fuoyo interjected, "Mr D wasn't exactly a saint either...when she told him what did he do? Offered her money and more or less told her to forget it which she tried to"

"Until today...."I muttered calmly.

"until today" Fuoyo agreed "Hey where are you going?" he demanded when I missed a turning

"we're closer to Chevron like this, let's check out the address first, see what we find"

"oh....but we were going back to the Mainland now.." Fuoyo said

"and it's almost 11" Jessy added

"I don't care if it's 3am now is the best time to sniff out the bastard, if you guys aren't gingered enough, I'll drop myself off and find my way there alone" I sounded in a fierce no-nonsense tone

"Sometimes when I think this man can't surprise me, he drops another bomb in my face," Fuoyo said to Jessy and I floored the acceleration in response.

"That stuff really affected him," Jessy was still speaking about me, "it's alright Kanaku, he'll pay for Fifi and everyone else he has hurt,,,we'll make sure"

"And find out what his connection with the late Mr D is" Fuoyo added

"yes that too.."

I said nothing, I could only stare straight ahead while the rage I had felt hearing Jessy's friend tearfully narrate her ordeal lit a fire in me I knew wouldn't go away until I had done what was in my mind or something close enough.

"I hope we catch a break at the address, all this Kanaku ginger can not waste" Fuoyo smiled at me through the rearview, I knew he was trying to lighten my mood and would have given a smile at least for the effort but I couldn't. I hated rapists with a passion and the passion was tripled if I found out the victim had been sodomized.

In prison I had become friends with a young boy, Right from time, he had seemed out of place with the violent entities that called the Kirikirin maximum prison home. He was barely 20 and smaller than everybody else, about 5'5, and weighed at least half the body mass of the average moderately built felon. Because of his small stature, we had given him the nickname, mosquito. Mosquito was a very likable fellow. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up for in mental strength. He was street smart, probably the smartest street guy I ever met. He taught me to play chess and always knew so much about life that he got me to begin reading of my own free will for the first time in my life, a book called meditation by Marcus Aurelius which helped me a lot when I got out of prison.

Because of his childlike size and how well the guards and inmates liked him, mosquito was granted more freedom than the rest of us and became an unofficial middle man for prisoners, he could get you weed for cigarettes or vice versa, or a bottle of gin for whatever he deemed a valuable enough trade. Mosquito was the most physically vulnerable person in the hell hole but was still the safest. Nobody wanted to harm the guy who could get you a day-old burger for just some sticks of cigarettes.

Then one day he confided in me that Greyhound was constantly making passes at him and had gotten a little too handsy on a couple of occasions. Greyhound was another inmate serving a 40-year sentence for killing 4 bank staff during a robbery. He was a mean fellow and we stayed out of each other's way. I wasn't afraid of him but I was determined to avoid trouble as my release date drew nearer.

Mosquito complained to me one particular night that Greyhound had crossed the line and touched him inappropriately, almost dry humping him in the workshop. I was disgusted and promised my friend that I would put a stop to it. That afternoon during our yard hour, I saw Greyhound but decided not to approach him because the warden and a couple of guards were in view. So I did nothing, didn't even warn him to keep off. 

The next morning, mosquito's body was discovered in the library. He had been raped to death, his fragile body almost torn into 2 by the inhuman act and degradation he had suffered before dying a painful death. There was a couple of whispers, Greyhound's name came up and I remembered how I had dismissed his worry on more than 3 occasions until it was too late to save him and it killed me inside.

I almost dammed the consequences and went after Greyhound immediately but for a favorite statement of Mosquito, that kept replaying in my head. He used to say; "everything is about perfect timing..."

So I waited for the perfect timing, consumed by guilt and spurred on by the thought of revenge. The perfect timing came 7 months later when I finally caught Greyhound without his clique, preparing to have a shower.

His body was discovered later that day when cell block D had plumbing problems and the inmates were transferred to our cell block for an impromptu shower. His head had been smashed into the hard floor continuously until his skull split open and sent bone splinters down his brain. Most of his teeth had been knocked down his throat and he had been castrated and his penis stuffed in his mouth. The sight was gory and even made some inmates of cell block D shout out in horror and puke their guts out. Greyhound was the first and last person I ever killed, but his death didn't bring any closure, only made me get angrier and regret my earlier reluctance to get involved when even a word of warning might have saved Mosquito's life.

Since then, if I was reading the newspaper or watching Tv and the topic of rape was mentioned, I remembered my friend and how I let him down and I fell into a dark rage. It's been 8 years now and tonight was the first time I had encountered another rape victim physically. And the moment she had begun to cry about being sodomized, the rage had come over me like it first had when Mosquito's body had been discovered. But this time there was no warden or prison guards to stand in my way.

So I couldn't even smile or patronize Fuoyo or Jessy as they tried to cheer me up. They thought I was gingered by Fifi's story but they couldn't understand how deep it was for me. The story had only triggered my demons. I could only hope the address wasn't a dead end.

"We'll be there in 20 minutes tops" Fuoyo announced consulting his google map