My First Experience at a Police Station
My first experience at a Police Station is not one I would ever forget unless I have an accident where I have a brain damage. I still remember how it felt. I didn’t exactly feel in any particular way I can explain. I know I was just too shocked to even speak. Too many questions ran through my mind without answers.
I recall my parents’ distressed faces as they lingered in the station for hours and were only asked to leave when it was already dark. My dad said little but his 55-year old face seemed to have formed tighter wrinkles. My mom paced around crying, reciting different psalms from her head and breaking into tears at intervals. I had never seen her cry so heavily, so painfully, so helplessly in my entirely life. If you grew up in a white garment church, you know that Psalms are the go-to rescue points for mothers so she recited from different Psalms, often starting another before finishing one due to her impatience.
“Oluwa, ma ma je ki ota yo mi (Lord, don’t let my enemies rejoice over me)”, she said a million times.
I watched them from behind the cell. Times without number, my dad had asked, “Bawo lo se see? (How did it happen?). After trying to explain myself the first few times, I figured he wasn’t expecting answers again all the other times he asked me.
A call came in on his phone which he picked, while signalling to my mom to stop wailing. “E kaale sir. Beeni a si wa mbe… Rara, aa ti ri DPO…Won je ko jade o…(Good evening sir… Yes, we’re still there… No, we’ve not seen the DPO… They’ve not allowed her out o).” I could figure he was speaking with Daddy Adeyemi, his elder sister’s husband who was a barrister. He had called him about two or three times since they got to the station to see me that day.
My thoughts shifted to that child.
“What was I even thinking?”, I asked myself after remembering the event that had led to my arrest. I was still trying to replay everything in my head and fruitlessly wishing I could turn back the hands of time. You know that moment when you’re begging God to tell you you’ve been dreaming.
Just that afternoon, I had boarded a bus back home from work. We had had a short day so everyone could leave before the normal closing hour. As though I was expecting it, I finished up my work and immediately set to go home at 2pm. I dashed out of my office first and gladly. Nobody could be as lazy as I was.
On my way to the bus park, I stopped an hawking trader who was selling soft drinks and headed on to the park, entered the bus and settled in. There were about four or five other people on the bus. I took my seat on the front row right beside a woman who had a delightful baby on her back.
Damn! The baby was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. She had lovely eyes and a very cute smile. She also had a thrilling cackle that softened my heart everytime I heard it. I started to make funny faces at her so she could keep laughing. Her mom looked at us a few times and smiled back. Her smile gave me the perception that she didn’t have any problem with me playing with her daughter so I didn’t stop.
When I had gotten fed up of laughing and playing, I took my face off and reached out unconsciously for my phone which was in my bag to check if I had messages I needed to check. Then…
“Please sir. What can you do for us? Anything sir. We will do it sir. Please. Abeg.” I was brought back to consciousness by my dad’s voice. He was speaking to…well, I didn’t know who it was. My mom had taken position beside my dad, only that she was kneeling and pleading with tears still.
“Oga. Make I tell you the truth. Nothing wey we fit do for this matter o. Because pesin die. If to say pesin no die now, na another case be dat. The pikin papa don talk say he wan carry the mata go court. My own advice be say, any stroooong connection wey una fit see wey go epp una, make una go find am. Because as e be so… Ehn.”
My dad stopped pleading. My mom too. O
After an hour or so, my dad pulled my mom from the ground and told her it was time to go home. My mom went berserk, screaming on top of her voice in Yoruba.
“God forbid! God forbid! Me, leave my daughter inside cell overnight? God forbid! Over my dead body. I will sleep here. If they want to kill us, let them kill us together. I am not going anyyyywhere!”, she utterly refused. I still stood behind the cell, my face expressionless.
After minutes of trying to persuade and order and persuade and order my mom, my dad finally convinced her to let them go home. She was weak from crying already but I could still hear her silent sobs as she made her way out of the Police station.
My dad moved close to where I stood behind the visible cell bars and told me in the most manly way possible. “Don’t think about it. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you. Just keep praying. I will go and see Barrister Adeyemi first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t worry, we will get you out of here.”
As though, my tears had been staying back only because my parents had been there, they now poured out freely non-stop. It was the first time I cried.
“Daddy, please don’t go. Daddy please I don’t want to sleep inside the police station. Daddy please don’t leave me. I didn’t kill the baby. I didn’t kill her. Daddy, I swear to God. Daddy, please don’t leave me. Please. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to go to jail. Daddy please.” I sobbed uncontrollably. I could see the heavy tears in my dad’s eyes as he kept gesturing for me to calm down.
When my wailing became too loud, one of the policemen ordered me to shut up. I kept quiet, but didn’t stop crying. My dad turned to leave the station and as he left, I wondered if it would be possible for me to ever experience freedom again.
Then the reality of the shitty situation I was in hit me, and it hit me hard. I buried my head in my hands and bowed down on my face weeping. I remembered the baby again. I didn’t know her name. The scene from that afternoon replayed again in my head over and over again amidst my tears.
Just when I reached for my phone in my bag, I saw the drink I had bought earlier. I had absolutely forgotten about it and I immediately reached out for it, opened it and took a few gulps while scrolling through my twitter feed.
I heard the baby’s cackle again and remembered her. She seemed to be trying to reach out for my drink. I smiled and proceeded to pour some into her mouth. Her mouth opened immediately. She had taken about three gulps before it occurred to me that I hadn’t even asked her mother if I could give her some of the drink. I stopped immediately.
I continued scrolling through my Twitter timeline and momentarily forgot about her again until she started to cough…and cough…and really cough. Her mom got worried about the sudden cough and released her from her back to give her some water. Everyone on the bus (which had started moving, by the way) started to chorus their “Sorrys”.
In the next two minutes, what was an ordinary cough turned into the baby vomiting. And it wasn’t food or water. It was blood. The woman’s terrific shriek shook the bus and some passengers on the bus, on seeing the baby throw up blood, ordered the bus to instantly stop. Some others disagreed and ordered the driver to find his was to the nearest hospital.
The division calmed down in an instant and switched into painful pity when the woman started shaking her baby vigorously, calling her by her name amidst burning tears. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me that the baby was already dead. In minutes.
I was shaken. And terrified. And confused. And then, I stared without blinking at the drink which was still in my hand, wishing that the effect it had on the baby could also happen to me right there and then.
Orifunke Lawal.
OL
Fiction.
