Dantata
I don’t know if what I did was the best. I sat down on a low fence calculating my chances. I could hear my heart beat. Maybe it wasn’t the regular thumping sound, just the squeeze like you’ve lost something. I have lost something. It is something I consider priceless as most of my life work is in it. Yes, my laptop.
How did it get lost? I have been racking my brain for the answer. The last succor is this fence I am currently seating on. The sound of loud music blaring from the speakers in the beer palour did not move me neither did the numerous girls plying their trade entice me. Maybe one had. Tall, fair, obviously bleached, had a massive cleavage. Yes, I love cleavages but there are well packaged ones that when freed from the momentary prison called brassiere, would force tears down your eyes. Women are deceitful and men, just blind. I had stared at that particular commercial s-x worker longingly but the thought of my laptop pushed my lagging legs into jet motion.
One must not live by bread alone, in this context, b—–s. You allow those things control you and you will end up a tad poorer. If you are among the unlucky lot, you will have urine laced with latex condoms as an evening bath. Better stay away from them and by them I mean s-x workers referred to as ashawo in some quarters.
My name is Dantata and I like to rant. I am not much of a talker but if you should open my mind, be sure to cover your ears with wax. I am a jigolo by coercion. Yes, I know I have judged the girls but then, they are the masters of the game. They have the freedom to come out in the night and display their huge packages, flaunt what their mama gave them but us guys, a long story.
You try to flaunt yourself and you will incur the wrath of the mob. Many a guy had been mistaken for gays and had been set ablaze. When your clients decides that you have to meet them dressed in seductive clothing then putting on tight fitting leather trousers that brings out the contours of your buttocks comes into play. One had to survive. In my case, I was surviving for my family or helping my family to survive.
I had not always been like this, meeting clients, rich women, taken to posh hotels and returning with fat envelopes and a painful waist. Yes, I did not have to think if by the age of fifty I would start using diapers when I meet clients that decides that my shithole would be their tool of amusement. They poke me with different set of objects and even use horse whip on me. All through I have to pretend that I enjoy it.
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There are days you don’t forget in your life. These days are marked by incidents that altered the course of your life forever. I was in my room, room that I had managed to push my dirty clothes that littered everywhere to a corner and covered it with a not too clean bed sheet. My dad had gone on one of his numerous journeys and had promised to get me a PlayStation One if I manage to keep my room clean.
He said he was going to return in exactly a week’s time. Today makes it the seventh day. I had woken up and had quickly piled my clothes in a corner then went ahead to dig through it again to get a clean boxers. The one I was putting on smelt like a rat had died in it. Anytime I dip my hand, scratch my balls and return same hand to my nose, the smell seem to knock me out.
The “fresh” boxers smelt less bad but it smelt damp. I had no time to spread it out on the line to dry. After covering my clothes, I swept my room for the first time in many days then proceeded to play “Chicken Invasion” on my desktop computer.
“Dantata.”
It was the voice of my elder sister Suraiyya which she had Americanized to Suresh. I turned to look at her, my finger on the left click button as I wasted the d–n alien chickens making drumsticks from their body with the bullet fire from my jet.
“Ina kwana?”
I greeted her. She was chewing bubble gum and did not bother to respond. Instead she twisted her nose upward and said in a nonchalant voice.
“Daddy is dead. The plane he was travelling in crashed.”
She did not wait for my reaction before spinning around and leaving my room keeping my door ajar. A thousand and one reaction came to my head but none surpassed the numb feeling that ran from my head straight down to my legs.
“Alhaji ya rasu…”
I muttered over and over again.
To be continued…
