Good morning,
Welcome to 17 Awosika Season 2, i know it has taken a while to develop, I hope you enjoy it and as always your comments are welcome.
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I was sick and tired of waiting for Jide to finish dressing up. That guy dresses like a babe, takes him forever to be ready. We were just going out clubbing tonight, not like it was any big thing like a chieftaincy title. Jide dragged me out on a Wednesday night. Who clubs on a Wednesday night? I asked myself repeatedly.
Well, I continued to honk furiously calling out Jide for us to be on our way. I dint care if it disturbed his neighbours, I was way past that phase. The girls in my car were already complaining. Why was Jide taking forever to come out?
Jide came out finally and no one was impressed about what he wore out but his date was the astonishing one. She was clad in the tightest leather gown she could find, her boobs were fighting hard against the material of the short gown. Her nipples were clearly visible. Now I understand why it took them both forever to come out.
Jide & Cynthia went into their car and then we all headed to Club Rumours at GRA. The club was bubbling at first. I was with 2 beautiful ladies. Don’t think too far; they were just my new chics, we weren’t planning any orgy. It’s a new girl & her friend, they’ve been begging me to take them out for a while and I have been posting them, this looked like the perfect opportunity to take them out on Jide’s bills.
However, I was in the mood earlier in the week when Jide who just got back into town convinced me to come out tonight. I had withdrawn completely ever since Susan travelled abroad for training.
Susan & I had gotten very serious, so no more sleeping around . If our relationship was serious enough, it’s definitely altar bound. Anyway, she’s been away for a while now, over 3 months. We do cyber sex all the time but it’s never like the real thing. Susan has a way of blowing my mind and I intend to keep myself for her, I can not believe am the one saying this. It’s just that it’s not usually ideal to go to a club alone, it sends off the wrong signal most of time, which is why I insisted Wande and her friend should come along.
We danced and enjoyed ourselves, we were in the VIP section. Jide knows how to party big time and our table was full of drinks, everyone kept peeping at our tables, girls kept eyeing us from their different tables, we maintained our cool, never signalled them back, I stayed on my seat for most of the duration we were there asides for the short 30 minutes that we all danced, Jide & his date disappeared again.
Jide is such a flirt, am sure he was somewhere having his dick sucked as I couldn’t find him for over 25 minutes, the girls were dancing with each other while I sat and consumed alcohol like it’s going out of fashion. Luckily for the girls, they had joined another band wagon of guys they knew from school or somewhere else. I wasn’t really bothered.
I burped my head to the songs, my phone started ringing, I brought it out and it’s was Jide calling, i picked
“Jide, why are you calling me” I asked
“We’ve left the mainland, we’re heading to island” Jide replied
“Jide!!!!” I screamed, Jide wont kill himself, i said to myself.
“Dude, come meet us there abeg, we’ll wait for you at Auto-lounge” Jide said,
I could sense that he was on speaker because his voice will be clear for while and then it will go low and inaudible, I decided to spare him the rubbish he was saying, he was high. I cut the phone.
I stood outside the club, I looked at my wristwatch, it was 1:30am in the morning, I didn’t know the time was that gone, it was already morning. I thought about it for a while whether to bring the girls along or let them be since they’re already catching their fun with the friends.
I went back into the club, grabbed a bottle of water, went out, washed my face and drank the rest of the water. I strained my eyes to see if the alcohol level in me had gone down. I was sure it hasn’t but I convinced myself that it had. As i was about to get into the car, I looked at the front tyre at the driver’s side and it looked like it was a bit deflated. I made a note in my drunken mind to pump it in the morning.
I got into the car and zoomed off, before getting on the third mainland bridge, I ran into a nasty pot-hole. I didn’t stop to check the tyre not knowing that the pothole had damaged my tyre. I kept on speeding, and i ran into another pothole on third mainland, I tried to swerve around that one but it was late.
I began to hear a sound that seemed like air was escaping from a pressured container. I reduced the volume of my radio and listened more. As I reduced the volume, the noise became more. As the noise became more, I reduced my speed and rolled down my glass, the noise was coming from my tire, the one in front.
I kept screaming and screaming, I lost my patience but then again I was the only one on the deserted bridge at a few minutes to 2. I thought about driving the car like that till i got off the bridge but I had just passed Unilag, there was a more road to be covered, if i continued, I will probably be driving the bare rims.
I stopped to get out to examine the tyre. At the halt, the air continued to escape from the tyre. The tyre had deflated almost completely, I walked front a bit and the whole bridge was deserted. Cars were zooming off, it was almost 1 car will zoom past every 5 minutes, i had called Jide endlessly but he wasn’t picking his phone. I had a spare tyre in my boot but I was lazy and drunk to try to fix it, but then the strangest thing happened, i looked far into the waters and i saw something unbelievable.
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Frank was having this argument for the umpteenth time with his father, his father dint approve of his company of friends. Frank would not have any of his father’s argument especially tonight. They lived in the poorest of the poorest places in Lagos.
They lived close to the water, his father came from the creeks of Bayelsa, after working for the ministry of Education for over 20 years, he was fired unduly due to an unresolved case of thefty. Frank’s father, who was such an honest man was set up for a fall, been the head driver for the ministry and refusing to allow members participate in unlawful and corrupt practises. His father was sacked for stealing $10,000 which was brilliantly set up by his deputy. He was sacked without benefit.
The family survived for about 3 months before everything came crashing, his father picked up fishing which he used to do as a boy back in the creeks before he came to Lagos. The income wasn’t much but with his father’s goodwill, the people around the water took them in as family. Gave them a room to settle into, Frank & his parent with his junior brother settled into the one room apartment.
Frank who just left secondary school had to help his father out a bit to raise money in other to pay for his junior brother’s school fees and also to raise money for his own JAMB and higher institution fees.
Frank had always been an obedient boy and very cautious but ever since they moved into Ilaje in Bariga, his behaviour had changed, he doesn’t respect his father anymore, he talks to his mother anyhow he feels.
His new found association is all to blame for it, he has started smoking all sort of things from weed to skonk and drinking those dirty looking drinks.
This particular evening, he got home after 1 in night, his father was furious at him, screaming at him, inquiring why he’s just coming back home. Frank tried to be nice and explain that he went out to do manual labour on a new site in Bariga, but his father wouldn’t buy any of such stories.
Frank’s mother who wouldn’t be bothered by their story just ignored them and slept off. Frank got angry and replied his father harshly, his father could read from his countenance that he was stoned but he kept on lashing on Frank that night. Frank’s father would always lash out at him almost every night but tonight’s own was different. It looked like it was inspired by something else.
His father reasoned to himself that if he doesn’t take out time to iron out this issue of bad company, it might spell doom for the young Frank, Frank replied his father and in anger, his father descended on him and beat him. Frank wouldn’t raise a single finger against his father; his father could see the rage and the anger boldly written on Frank’s face. Frank’s mother got up as soon as the voice turned into beating. She couldn’t help but stare at Frank’s face; she knew her son was gone psychologically.
Frank stepped out of the house, while his father was still screaming at him, walked down to the water, took his father’s canoe and paddled away, checking his breast pocket for the warp of weed he collected earlier on from his friend.
Frank continued to paddle, he made sure he got far away from the shore, he was almost at the foot of the bridge, he stopped. He took out the blunt, brought out his matchbox and started smoking.
He sat on a plank on the canoe as the water rocked the canoe left and right gently. He stared ahead and he couldn’t believe what was approaching from the other side of the bridge. The speed boats were enormous and numbered about 15, in dark colours. The crew of the ship were fully armed. They look like militants.
Frank tried to remain un-noticed as he lay down, threw his blunt into the water. He carefully raised his head to observe whatever was going on, he raised his head up skilfully in a push-up posture.
Bukunmi could see a lonely boat close to the bridge, it looked like someone was there but his attention was stolen by the noise and the bright light approaching the bridge from the other side, speed-boats loaded with ammunitions and bags. He couldn’t see what was going down there very well. He noticed that all the boats headed to different pillars under the bridge, there was however a bigger boat, standing some distance away, BK suspects its the supervisor boat, there was a man standing infront of the boat, stand, well built, wearing a mask.
The individual boats had moved towards each pillar, BK dint know what they were doing there but another boat approached the assemble of boats, this boat had the logo of the Lagos state government. BK said to himself, finally the Police is here;
The Lagos state marine patrol boat rolled up beside the biggest boat where the big guy was, the guys were wearing the uniform of the Marine Patrol.
They talked for a few seconds and then 2 other guys tied a stone to dead bodies stripped of their clothes and dumped them into the water. BK’s heart started beating faster and faster. He kneeled beside the railings watching the whole thing. Cars would speed past but none was aware of what was going on underneath the bridge asides whoever was sitting in the lonely boat.
At a point, BK saw how the big guy signalled to one of the mini-boats and pointed in the direction of the lonely boat across the bridge, the guy powered his boat and rode in the direction of the canoe.
Frank was frozen where he was as the boat approached his location, his heart was beating faster and faster, he began to regret leaving the house after the fight with his father, he began to pray; he knew for sure that if he was found, he will be killed and disposed off, as the boat approached Frank’s canoe, he could hear something over the walkie-talkie. The boats turned around and went to join the other boats.
Frank took a deep breath as the boat sailed away from where he was, Frank was the only witness that saw the whole thing happen, he saw an abandoned car on the bridge but doubts if anyone is in the car. He saw the guys in mask drop huge bags of what seemed like explosive, they were quite heavy, he saw them attach something that seemed like timer to it, he also saw them put some kind of fence around the explosives carefully placed in between the pillars holding the bridge also drilling holes in strategic places on the pillars.
BK watched the whole thing happen from top but he dint get the full story, running across the bridge to see what happened when the boat sped off to the other side.
When they finished, all the boats circled and rode towards the big boat, the big guy addressed them and then they turned around to all leave.
As they left, the big guy turned back and looked at the bridge; he could see something that looked like an abandoned car.
The big guy picked up his phone and called;
“The bombs have been set, the security measures are all in place. We’re set to go.” The line went dead without any response from the other end.When he finished sending the message, he removed his mask, the person behind the mask looked troubled. The person behind the mask was Nnamdi.
The events of the last 2 hours removed all the alcohol in BK’s system as he quickly ran to change his tyres and sped off the bridge as soon as he could. He wasn’t himself at all, he got to Autolounge, he couldn’t relax, he was disturbed, he went back home and called Seye.
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