…Continued from last week
Saturday
dawned bright and early. I was in such a good mood that I chose to wear my
superman shirt that afternoon. The day had finally come, I was going to smoke
weed! I had seen Uche smoke it but I was never allowed to, today he was
allowing me to get to ‘cloud nine’ all by myself!
Uche
had called me earlier to give me directions, he said I should tell any bike
driver in front of UNILAG gate that I was going to ‘westend‘. I did as I was
told but my luck wasn’t so good that afternoon because the driver of my okada
was an ‘aboki’, he only had a vague idea of where we were going to so
he had to stop at intervals to ask for directions.
I sat there at his back,
trying really hard to control my temper, talking only when the person he was
asking for directions did not understand ‘aboki pidgin’. We finally got there
but we didn’t even know because my dear aboki didn’t know the way, we say a guy
buying something from a malam’s shop nearby, I got his attention, flashed him
my brightest smile and asked, “excuse me please, how do we get to westend?”
“…
(No
answer)”
“Hellooo,
I asked you a question”
“…
(Still
no answer)”. That’s when I noticed he had
been staring at me and he wasn’t listening, I has to snap my fingers to bring
him back to our world. I asked my question again, this time he answered, “I’m
sorry! Your smile is lovely *clears throat* this is westend”, he said pointing
to an open field with a structure made of bamboo in the corner and boys playing
ball. I got off the bike, thanked the dude and called Uche to tell him I was
there and the nerve of him! He told me he had to go somewhere urgently and I
had to wait for him at the field.
At
this point, the day wasn’t looking so bright anymore because I had to wait for
someone that I knew won’t be coming anytime soon, in a neighborhood full of red
eyed boys (I’m
calling them boys because I’ll be insulting the ‘men’ if I called them men) that could probably be sex starved, there wasn’t any chair
to sit on sef!! I just found a wall to lean on and had started working myself
up to boiling point when a door opened beside me, it was the dude I asked for
directions, “you again! You haven’t seen the person you’re looking for?”
I
smiled again but this time it was a sarcastic one, as if to say ‘yeah I
found him but u can’t see him because he’s invisible’ I still don’t know why I didn’t say it, instead I said, “no
I haven’t, he asked me to wait for him” and then I went back to my business of
working myself up to boiling point but my nigga wasn’t giving up oh! “My name
is Augustine, u seemed in a hurry the other time so I could not talk to you” can’t
this guy see that I’m trying to get angry?
I
looked at him again, “nice to meet you Augustine, my name is Dami” back to
business.
“Dami you can’t wait outside in the
sun, why don’t you come inside, my friends and I will keep u company till the
person you’re waiting for comes” this guy doesn’t give up tho.
I weighed my options and realized that the probability of being kidnapped by
the red eyed boys outside was higher than the probability of getting raped
inside so I went inside with Augustine and that was the beginning of the
end…
Augustine and his friends were good
company, they made me laugh and offered me paracetamol and Fanta when I complained
of a slight headache. Uche still hadn’t come back, which had me wondering what
would have happened to me if I had stayed outside. He finally came after about
1hour30minutes, apologizing like his life depended on it. I wasn’t angry
anymore but I still got my revenge because I made him wait for me to finish my
Fanta.
Westend
was much more deeper than it looked, I thought the structure on the field was
our destination but Uche took me way past it, we ended up at a spot shaded by
about 3 trees, facing a canal, there wasn’t any chair here either (it
seemed like it was a taboo to sit on chairs there) but there were places to sit created out of bamboo sticks
wedged between trees. We could still go deeper but I dared not continue because
we would have to cross the canal on a shaky looking bridge with no railings,
made out of slippery and weak looking bamboo and there was no guarantee that my
sense of balance would be the same when I was leaving (no
thank you!), only the bravest and most
experienced people crossed the bridge, besides the water didn’t look like water
at all, it was green with everything you could think of inside it, ranging from
seaweed to cans of beer.
I
finally smoked weed that evening, lots of weed!!! I couldn’t think right when
we left, not that I could not think at all cuz trust me I was thinking a lot
more than I usually do but none of my thoughts were normal. I made it to school
anyway but I didn’t make it to my room.
There
were several more visits to westend and on all those visits I stopped at
Augustine’s house to say hi. The ‘HI’s’ started getting longer and after a
while I came to westend just to see Augustine (u can’t blame me, he was cute
and single). Things got more interesting
overtime, he invited me to sleep over one night, I accepted and we became’
friends with benefits’, this went on for about a month until he officially
asked me out on Christmas eve (it wasn’t anything romantic so don’t
expect me to give you details).
I
had graduated from the weed class, I was now a pro, so I decided to move to the
next thing on my list… it was time to party!!!....
…to be continued next week