The Lives We Lived

15: The man at the bar

Osa found himself walking towards the hotel bar with his clenched fists stuck in his pocket. What was wrong with Kemi? He had waited for her to finish her NYSC and he had seen her through her Masters degree. She was almost done for goodness sake? When did she want to start making his babies? By the time she was done with her PHD?

He wondered whether he shouldn't have just listened to his mother's advice of discouraging Kemi from pursuing a Master's degree. He just wanted a child. Just one. He wasn't getting any younger and a child would get Mama off his case about children.

She kept talking as though she would die soon and go to hell except she had some grand children. He sighed in frustration as he face palmed himself.

This would never have happened with Chioma. They were almost always on the same page.They were so alike in so many ways. He shook his head to clear his thoughts from the endowed dark skinned beauty.

He was here with his wife although  she was getting on his nerves. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about other women. Especially not Chioma.

He stopped in front of the large wooden doors that sealed the bar from outsiders. This wasn't how he had imagined his weekend would go. Why were they fighting about children? Why wasn't she ready? Why didn't she want to talk about kids.? He pushed the bar doors open and stepped in. He would have loved to be at any other place but he wanted to be alone in the company of people.

The recessed lights from the ceiling bounced off the soft blue, purple and wine colours of the couch. Coffee brown tables sat among sets of chairs of similar colours. The tiles under his feet were a mixture of tar black designed with a swirling grey pattern. Just across the door, The bar tender stood behind a huge transparent show glass that displayed different types of drinks.

He couldn't believe that he would have to walk all the way to the across the bar to seat on one of the tall plush vision placed on a metallic stand on front of the bartender. He thought of walking back to his room and ignoring his wife then going back to sleep but he was too angry to walk all the way back sothat so he worked up the nerves to walk across the bar. He was almost halfway across the bar when he heard someone call his name from one of the chairs under the dimly lit lights at one corner.

"Osa" He paused. He didn't believe he had actually heard his name above the chatter in the bar. He took another step forward and then he heard the unmistakable name.

"Johnny bravo." He stopped again, turning his head and allowing his eyes to scan the area where the thought his name could br coming from

He didn't expect anyone to know him here. And he certainly did not expect anyone from his secondary school to see him or remember him. He heard a deep throaty laughter and his eyes pinned themselves to the owner of the voice. The laugh belonged to a fat man who sat with one leg tossed aside and with a hand slung against the chair. The fat man's head lolled forward of rolls of fat beneath his head

There was no neck. All he had was just abundant skin. One of the man's meaty hands fell and curved around the waist of a young woman who was preoccupied with smoking something out of a transparent bowl.

There was something familiar about the man's face but Osa brushed off the feeling as he pulled his eyes away. The voice came sharper now. Deeper even. "Johnny the brave. Have you forgotten me that easily?"

"Dennis!" Osa paused and stared hard at the man.

Now he recognized that large nose with a deep scar at the side. The scar seemed to be the only thing about Dennis that had remained the same. Where the man had once had scrawny long arms, rolls of fat now took residence in the same spot.