CHAPTER SIX
April 2019
Mo was everywhere. I had seen him several times after the day he walked me to my hostel: at the gym in TDC, DJ-ing at Seasons Deli in the evenings, ushering at church, training on the field whenever I went to watch Tara play, and of course in our college working on his final year project. Everywhere I went, he seemed to be there too.
It was the abuad effect, and sure as day, he would walk over to say hi every single time he saw me. We established a familiar kind of rapport and before long we started hanging out. He’d come to sit with me and work on his project while I read in college, he would help me with my assignments, I would proofread his paperwork for his project, and we would chat and laugh and tease each other.
We managed to create a beautiful, very platonic, friendship, but as is with every male-female friendship, there was a lot of gossip. Mo was a very good-looking guy, and I dare say the most good-looking guy in the college at the time. He had also served as the vice president for the college the year before so everyone knew who he was.
It was a wonder I had never noticed him before the day at the pavilion. It didn’t take long for everyone to know who I was too once we were seen together more than a couple of times. A lot of the gossip had to do with how uncomfortable people were with us ‘being together’, even though we weren’t. I turned 19 that January and Mo was 22, but I understood that a relationship — or in our case, the speculation of a relationship — between a fresher and a final-year student would raise some eyebrows, at least the amebo ones.
Mo belonged to a different crowd from Ceekay and they hung out at totally different spots on campus, so although everyone knew everyone, I never ran into any of Ceekay’s people when I was with him. I was grateful for that because the congress in March was epic in the most horrible of ways.
A week after our second-semester lectures began, there was another congress. I still didn’t get the point of the exhaustingly long meetings. During the first one, they didn’t say anything that couldn’t have been printed and posted on the notice boards, social media, or better yet, sent as a broadcast mail to all the students and staff.
When we were instructed to cut our 08:00 AM class short and proceed to Belgore, I had a feeling that congress was going to be more than just a boring lecture, and unfortunately, I was right. During the first semester, a few days before our vacation, some students tested positive during a drug raid.
They were allowed to complete the first semester and write their exams after which their one-semester suspension would begin. That information didn’t make much of a difference, I still felt like there was more to the congress than the aftermath of some random NDLEA raid.
There has to be!
Names were called out and projected on the cinema-size screen as the students climbed up the stage to be viewed by the whole school. Close to forty-five names were called so I couldn’t help but wonder why we were asked to sit and watch them parade victims of a failed system and drug abuse.
The dean of student affairs mounted the stage where the students whose names had been called out stood and told us about a recent Students’ Disciplinary Committee (SDC) case and the verdict they had reached. It was a case of bullying, intimidation, extortion under false pretences, and drug abuse. The culprits were not yet on the stage.
There was a lot of side talk amongst those of us who were in the audience, speculations here and there but all that was quickly shut down as he began to call out their names. The hall was as silent as death… until the third name,
“Dave-Offor Chima Nwoke”.
A series of chants, whistles, claps, screams and a standing ovation as the person made their way to the stage. Kate left her seat in the front to find me, and when she got to where I was seated she immediately held my hands. I was confused but I was sure something was wrong. The camera zoomed in on the individual climbing the stage and I went stiff.
Ceekay?
I turned to look at Kate, the horror evident on my face. She knew what I was thinking so she sighed while rubbing the back of my palms with her thumbs,
“He meant to say ‘Chimaroke’, I came as fast as I could”.
Suddenly I could make out the chant, “Ceekay Drug-Free” or maybe it was “Ceekay drug king”, I really couldn’t focus anymore. The crowd’s favourite was my favourite law student. His chain suddenly began to tighten around my neck, or maybe my temperature was rising with panic and I needed air. Either way, I had to take it off, so I did. He and the others were subjected to an indefinite suspension.
Later that day, I found out Ceekay was the mastermind and his ‘gang’ wore black socks after school hours to identify each other, it was an open secret. It didn’t make sense to me that I was the only one who didn’t know about the whole thing. I couldn’t understand it, he’d always seemed sweet and harmless, but by all accounts it was true and he hurt a lot of people.
My heart ached for him and I mourned the loss of what could have been, so I wrote a poem, and I called it Lethargic:
“…Songs that were never sung
Tunes that were never made
Memories and old adventures
Thoughts behind silly smiles
Daydreams with one theme
Stories, charades and laughs
Feelings that remain untold
For night falls if the day runs…”
As for the chain, after I took it off during the congress in the hall, I never wore it again, for the sake of my reputation at the very least.
Jones started warming up to me and we began to hang out a lot more often. On the nights I didn’t have classes, I usually had enough time to hang out with both Jones and Mo and still get my schoolwork done. I’d see Jones at 19:00, and we’d talk about home, life, music, books, our childhoods and a lot of other stuff while we walked, making stops to sit for a few minutes or to get something to drink before we’d make the final stop at my college at 20:30, where I’d go in to study with Mo.
It was a schedule that worked well for me, and for both of them as well, I suppose. I was occupied and entertained. It was better than a boring night in my empty room, after all, my roommates had places to be and people to see.
Kate and Tara knew I went to read with Mo every other night — though they didn’t believe we were only reading — but they had no idea that I had been hanging out with Jones. We weren’t as close as we are now so I strategically left it out of all our late-night conversations, but as all things come to light eventually, there was only so long that I could keep it a secret from them.
One midnight sometime in the middle of April, I said goodnight to the girls and turned off my bedside light when Tara shouted,
“Ehn hen! I can’t believe I even forgot, don’t sleep oh! Better open those your eyes and sit up!”
I sat up sluggishly. Once she was convinced I was awake and paying attention, she turned towards Kate and continued,
“Guess who I saw Tete with this evening. Gisting and laughing like there’s no tomorrow. JONES! Jacob Jones ooh! Tete, when did you and Jacob Jones start blocking? I didn’t even know the boy could smile.”
She rambled on and on, looking away from Kate and towards me from time to time, narrating and exaggerating what she thought she saw until Kate interrupted her,
“Wait oh, Tekeme. So you were with Jacob Jones true true? Because I don’t understand why you’re not saying anything…”
“What do you want me to say?”
They gave me a side-eyed look, which was enough to get me talking.
When I was done narrating the events of those past couple of weeks, they had one question and Kate asked on behalf of both of them,
“So, you like Jacob Jones?”
“I don’t think so”
“Okay… So, you like Mo”
Tara concluded.
“Honestly, I don’t know”
I replied defeatedly.
More than anything, I just wanted to go to sleep and they got the hint. They let me be, but I knew for sure that wasn’t the end of the conversation.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, or incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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