All he asked was to be given something
Only last week, the Pastor had stood you up in church and publicly chastised you, and gave you a mandate to reconcile with your wife, her people, your people and your children. He mandated you to cease and desist your adulterous overtures on the widow from Umunya, and to pronto start making arrangements for a new apartment in Onitsha so you can come back together with your family. He asked you to ask your son for money if you do not have any, or to ask him. He gave you one month to effect these changes.
You agreed without fuss. You rejoiced greatly at the mandate and promised to make sure it came to fruition. You pledged that apology and restitution is no problem at all for you. Everyone believed you because they knew you had an open mind and could very well go down on your knees to anyone as long as peace will reign.
Today, this Sunday, you were drunk again by start of service. The reek was a permanent perfume on all your apparels. Everyone knew this and nobody cared anymore. So long as you made peace with your family, nobody cared how much inebriation you subjected yourself, nor how early. Saving your family was still possible. Saving you from alcohol, nobody was sure of that.
You danced at the first stroke of praise. You were always one of the first to respond with careless abandon as soon as the first line of songs escaped the large speakers stationed on the four corners of the church hall. You always responded to praise. You loved praise. You danced more than anyone. You always made attempts to dance with anyone who as much as made eye contact with you. Most people did not care for they could not tell if it was the alcohol dancing or you. I knew it was a combination of both. I knew because Kwanwa your friend is a brother-in-tipsy like you but he did not dance unless in days of intense praise when everyone was lost in the frenzy and a forlorn lonely face sitting at the back suddenly became uncomfortable even to a bloodstream pale with ethanol.
Our eyes met, and you immediately took the cue and danced towards me and I responded briefly with a joyous smile and a matching flailing of arms to mimic your random but strangely synchronised movements to the song. You failed to catch my attention for too long as you came too close for comfort and all I could feel was the reek which put me off and I did my best to politely discontinue what was dangerously leaning towards an unsolicited hug.
During ministration as you paced about the congregation probably to ease the effect of the spirits’ call like you always did every Sunday, our paths crossed again. You lurched your frame to my row of seats. Our eyes met again and I smiled and you took the cue to approach me, lean and tell me how I had abandoned you and no longer give you something. I shook my head and you whispered that I should give you something — the restatement perhaps to preclude any chances I failed to understand your earlier plea. I shook my head again which made you call me a wicked man and amble away.
The Pastor reminded you again of the mandate from last week to which you enthusiastically answered in the affirmative and then said some inaudible stuff which elicited roars of laughter from the backseats who were privy to whatever gaudy quip you must have made. You were always comical.
After service our paths crossed again as you held another man’s wife tightly in an embrace well past its prime, deaf to giggling wife’s entreaties to call it off. I playfully dragged you away and remarked that I would pay so much to see you in such frisky camaraderie with your own wife, to which you playfully retorted that the current subject is also your wife, to which I logically answered that I meant the wife who bore your kids. You obviously was not cut out for logic so you changed the subject.
You asked me why I was being wicked to you — a question which really should not have surprised me but it did and I raised my eyebrows and, like a CD with a scratched surface, the line that I had abandoned you was on permanent repeat as it escaped your lips again.
I kept quiet. Then you said I should give you something so you can branch at Madam Kene’s joint and take one bottle or two before heading home. I reminded you that the last time I gave you something after church you immediately used it up on Madam Kene’s joint which disappointed me because you told me you were hungry. I told you I would be a fool to repeat that mistake again but you should not worry, I will see you some other time. You reminded me today was Sunday and it would be wrong to not give you something to go enjoy yourself small before heading home. I was unmoved.
You hissed and called me a wicked man and sauntered away. I chuckled. I knew you did not mean it. I knew you cared less about the world to worry about my supposed wickedness. I knew you were merely disappointed I did not budge to your persistence and are merely saving the conversation for another day.
This evening mum called to inform me you died* from injuries sustained in a collision with a car while riding home on your bike. She said the car swerved into your lane and smashed you into the gutter nearby. I asked when. She said around 3pm. That was less than 30 minutes after we spoke. I know this because while we spoke I had a missed call and the time was 2:37pm.
Maybe I should have given you something. Maybe a stopover at Madam Kene’s would have averted this fate. Maybe I should have been the fool and listened to you asking me to indulge you once more to save your life. I should have seen the signs.
I am heartbroken.
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*True story.
