The Lives We Lived

26: Flying Fists

The moment the taxi roared to life and began its journey away from the house, Osa marched down the street. He knew Mayorkun's house by heart. It was the same house that his mother had warned him never to visit. He was never to think about the house his father had spent most nights in. The same house that his father had died in.

What right did Kemi think she had to give away that which was his? Mayorkun already had his father's one storey house. What else did the man want? He would die before he gave the land to his step brother. He swore right then and there that he would sell the land to the first buyer no matter how ridiculous the amount was.

"Ha, Osa. When you reach town?" He heard mama Ejiro ask. The older woman was dressed in her characteristic faded blouse and wrapper paired with simple rubber slippers on her feet. As always, she was seated on a white plastic chair, just underneath the corrugated iron roof that provide shade to her wares of beans and rice and garri.

"Yes ma," he stopped out of respect and returned her smile. Inside he was boiling but he knew better than to ignore the greeting of an elderly person. Especially one who had close ties with his mother. He could still remember the strokes of cane that his mother had blessed his buttocks with after mama Ejiro had informed her of his refusal to greet. The funny thing was that he had thought she was sleeping as she lay, reclining, on her white chair so he had decided not to bother her and he got punished for it.

"Good evening my son." She said, rising to her feet. "How Lagos?"

"It's fine Ma."

"Ehen and that our fine wife?" She asked.

"She's okay."

"And your children sef?"

Osa couldn't keep the frown from taking residence on his face. His brows narrowed as he clenched his finger. He forced on a smile that showed his brilliant white teeth. The one Kemi had forced him to whiten.

"None yet ma." Mama Ejiro opened her mouth to speak but he caught her off. "God's time is the best."

"I know. I know but you sure say nothing dey worry your wife? When been dey like your wife, I don carry my third belle."

Osa was tempted to ask mam Ejiro where her children were now? The last he had heard about the younger of her two surviving children was that he was in jail. And the older one had been studying abroad for about fifteen years now. He had always wondered what kind of course never ended but his guess was as good as that of the general community. Rita, mama Ejiro's elder daughter was probably a prostitute but it wasn't something that anyone would be stupid enough to mention around mama Ejiro. But he would rather have a depraved kid than none at all.

"We're still hoping on God." He replied and walked on before he said something that he wouldn't be able to take back.

The road to Mayorkun's house was a dusty narrow path boasting of hideous road bumps and flanked by small bungalows on each side. Mayorkun's house stood out like a black blotch on a white shirt. Osa sneered at the yellow paint of the house. He had only stepped into the house once. That was the day Mayorkun was christened and after that he was forbidden by his mother to even look at the direction of the house.

The closer he got to the house, the faster his heart beat. A certain feeling of dread, akin to the feelings he had always associated with this house washed over him and fueled his anger. He hastened his steps, speeding past the little shirtless boys playing in the street. He ignored the greeting of the local hairdresser who had a shack at one corner of someone's yard. He would have kicked a goat too if it had not raced past him in a spilt second.