’Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’’ was the sound i heard of bleating like a goat as soon as the window was wound down and his head pops out, all character, all funny face with the bleating sound and i swear the shock was only for a second, then the laughter began, crawling from my insides, jumping in my tummy and glides through my lungs getting to my throat, blubbing through my and before i could stop it as i quickly covered my hands with my mouth it soars through my fingers over my hands, like invisible air with a sound as loud as his bleat, i laughed ..and i laughed.
Stop laughing Adora!!
I pinch myself, but the bloody laughter didn’t stop.
I held my tummy and laughed, taken unawares like that, to see Brian, mimic again my bleating of last night all because i was trying to insult him and it ended up turning into a mocking tease, a tease he is using against me now..
But it was his funny face, his tongue stuck out, his both hands to his head, four fingers dangling upwards each while both thumbs are glued to the side of his head, his eyes rolled inside his head and the make-shift face of an imbecile as he moves his head from side to side and then …the bleat!.
“’Mehhhhhhhhhhh!!’’
Oh i laughed, .
Then he stops doing stupid, he is staring at me, a weird smile on his face ..
Stop laughing Adora!! I pinch myself..
As the laughter bubbles down and clears itself from my mouth, leaving my throat and slowly pipes down buried back into my tummy to wherever the hell it came out from..
I clear my throat and cough …yes i pretended to cough and clear my throat again.
Stupid stupid!! Now you laugh Adora, Argh!! I scold myself. I adjust my dress and then i frown, waiting
‘’You know, when you are laughing like that, that uncontrollable laughter like that, you look less of a witch and more off a –‘’ as though realising he was about to say something he shouldn’t, he clears his throat
‘’what?’’ i ask standing there with my hands folded “’And i wasn’t laughing “’
‘’yeah!! You weren’t laughing, you were howling in laughter but that’s okay’’ he says with a half smile
‘’Why are you here Brian?’’ i fold my hands
‘’what do you think, there is a machine with four tyres, four doors and cushion comfortable for a king, there is Ikena who is an expert at handling this machine and there is me..ofcourse who is…well you know already and we are here, not our house, nor the office and there is you standing outside your apartment alone, work to stand soon and back again there is us…what do you think we are doing here?’’
‘’i don’t know, came to see the view maybe, the environment, passing by maybe”’ i shrug
He smiles his half smile again ‘’Well actually that would have been nice but i didn’t come all the way from mine to here to see the view”’
‘’Then why did you come?’’
“’Ohh Adora are you going to make it difficult?’’
‘’make what difficult?’’ i ask,
I stare at him, wait!! Did he actually come to pick me up for work today, like for real,he came to pick me up for work? But…why?
We hate each other, we don’t work well together with each other without going into fights and curses, and he was the one that caused Mr Emeka to pull away my official car, and ..we hate each other.. so why is he here to pick me up?
Was it because of last night? Because of John, the fight and the male ego he has of not wanting John to take me home he made sure he won so he could prove something to John by asking Ikena to take me home.
But that is over, that’s last night, why come again today? To still prove a point, was he doing this still because of John, is that it? I frown
‘’I only asked a question which you haven’t answered me”’
Phew! He sighs “’look, i am heading to the office and i thought to come pick you because we both know you don’t have an official car and i figured you don’t know your way around and so that you don’t depend on anyone else and there is a car big enough to share, we might as well”’
Exactly, just as i thought, it has John written all over it, that male ego thing, who the hell does he think i am, some toy…that John pulls i want to take her home and he pulls i want to take her home and John goes i need to come pick her up and he goes i best get here first before John does because what? They hate each other and because now i am in the middle of this hate..
How the hell did that happened ..
And how the hell did i become some…some…tossing ball between these too, what the actual hell!!
My frown deepens
‘’Okay why the hell are you frowning, it dampens your makeup and your morning glow!!’’
‘’my morning glo-‘’ i shake my head “’What the hell do you want Brian, i think it is too early for your..whatever your is”’
‘’Can we just have a civil conversation without the fights please’’
‘’I am not fighting, i am just asking a question, you are the one who showed up at my house this morning when you weren’t asked to, you are the one who isn’t answering my question, you are the one who has his male ego all over the place, i would have you know that i see through you Brian and this thing….not happening!!”’
‘’what thing?’’ he frowns
‘’You tell me!!’’
He sighs putting his head in his hand and then he sighs, he really should have just gone to work, he woke up today with not bad intentions whatsoever, not to fight her, not to fight anyone actually.
After his talk with his mother he was tired of it, tired of the pressure, tired of the fact that they keep waving his father money and status and wealth over his face, that he isn’t anything without calling his father’s name.
And he thought about it all night, and it was sadly true.
All his life he had depended on his father, why shouldn’t he, Kenekan was his father and children depend on their father, and he has for everything he had, for the care and love and luxuries he enjoyed, the expensive cars and houses, the travel expenses, the fat breathing cash in his various accounts with no limits, the access to places, the VIP access as well, the list and list of long things he gets just because he is Jonathan Kenekan Andrew’s son, he had enjoyed and he did enjoy it.
And he was happy about it, has been happy for as long as he could see, speak and think. Who wouldn’t be.
He was, everything was going great until his father had the brilliant dumb idea to teach him a lessen he termed valuable lesson which to him was not valuable …was dumb too.
But he had said ‘’This training had been in our family for years, the father puts his son through a test, a leadership test but from the bottom, and it wasn’t appreciated from the beginning, but the end justifies the means, we always come out victorious and grateful at the end for what our father’s put us through, wasn’t to suffer us but to teach us that sometimes, one needs go bend the knee, care for another, serve another, understand that being rich and having wealth didn’t fall from heaven and until you know how to till the earth would you be able to appreciate the crops that comes out of it and nourish it accordingly to make it multiply into your barn of crops but when you have no idea of the mechanics of life and the intricacies of how wealth works and no regards for those who help you get to the top, you appreciate no one, lobe no one, understand no one, but you will sit on your high Trojan horse , bask in the splendour you inherit and begin to sip it little by little or in large portions and just like a well that isn’t constantly refilled, it would dry out, dry up and then one day, even that Trojan horse you sit on would be malnourish and die and you will be left alone because those who are below you, at the feet of this Trojan horse wouldn’t want to be there for ever to love and care for you and help you up because all you did was stamp on them because you are king and when you are left alone, to yourself and to your empire…how do you keep it running..how do you keep a generator running when it lacks lack, it’s essence.. so you see son, the human body has so many functions, the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the mouth to eat to speak to swallow, the hands to touch to feel to carry, the legs to move, to stand and a strong foundation , and when you begin to loose your body parts, other ones begin to take upon themselves to act like themselves and that of the other they can like the leg can act like the hand when you have no hand so doing two jobs you see son, but it cannot act like the eyes and the ears too. Eventually, you will have nothing and no one, how do you manage? Your name and your supposed wealth won’t help you.
This is a lesson my father taught me, and his father before him and his before him, and this is a lesson i will teach you and you will some day teach yours. I am not doing this to punish you and believe me son, if you had been responsible from the start, enjoyed all that i have yes, but known that one needs to stand on his own as he stands in his father’s own, you and i wouldn’t be having any problems concerning this, you would have gladly picked this up and proven to me that yes, one should know that being independent even in wealth is like a free man even in chains, that is what i want you to understand Brian.
This, all that i have, whether i like it or not or you like it or not, it would be all yours. You are my only son, the heir to my empire, my wealth and everything that carries my name …would be yours, but you have to ask yourself, did i earn it because i worked for it, or did i get it because it is my right, i am the son of kenekan so it is my right and i will do what the hell i want…i am Brian Andrews, the son of Kenekan Andrews, or this is me, Brian Andrews, a man who isn’t defined by his father’s wealth or status, who is defined by his ability to be him, has achieved this because he can, and made a name for himself because riches and gold pales in comparison to a good name. If this is all i leave with you Brian, this lesson and you take it, chew on it and let it sink in, then i have done my job as a father, i will die happy, because i know that you will be greater than me as i was greater than my father and my father before him, and you will train your son to be greater than you.. that is the joy of fatherhood
Brian, to see your children to succeed, to watch them soar high like an eagle and be proud that they carry your name far, but prouder that when they call their own names, they remember the child who sprouts up from the shell and became his own person.’’ Yes, maybe his father was right, maybe he was too blind and stubborn to see it, who wouldn’t be, so he acted out, fought it… Yes, he didn’t like it, leaving the soils of the states and coming to Nigeria, coming down to Port Harcourt and working as a PA was a blow, a degrading blow to anyone, to an elite high son, it smelled like a monkey’s ass.
And then meeting the witch, having run-ins with the dog and then fighting the authority of the pigged-face acting director landed him in this mess.
The frozen accounts, the job at the club cleaning pukes and disgusting things and being a waiter, to having no maids, to eating at mama puts and at the mercy of ..whatever he was at the mercy off,
It sucked, big time.
He hated it, he hated it all.
And to think if he had just listened to his father, not being stubborn, maybe he still would have had all his money, all the luxury, enjoyed it all, even as he doesn’t tell anyone his name as his father wants, he gets to enjoy, throw out his ego and work as a PA, ignored the dog , being passive with the pigged-face director, and maybe got along with the Witch, …all would have been okay.
But because of pride,
Because of ego.,
Because of him..
Now this.
He sighs, he was tired of it all, the defining him as nothing and nobody without his father, now he needs to prove them all wrong, even his father, his mother, even the pigged-faced director, even the dog and the witch who knows nothing. He needs to prove something to himself.
His father’s money isn’t everything, his father’s money and name must have done alot of things for him and made him who he was today..
But it didn’t give him his brains and his heart and his thoughts.
He was the best graduating students in his class, his father’s money didn’t write his exams, didn’t give him those awards he had at home, didn’t give him some high esteemed recognitions when he bagged it at the royalty university out in the states.
His father’s money didn’t put smiles on the man’s face when he single handedly designed his first house, worked hand in hand to give his professor his dream house, that was his project, he choose that, he achieved that, that was him, all him.
And when he achieved so many other things, out of fun, because he can and he did it because he enjoyed it, that was him.
He had signed on for marketing and managing classes for a year, he aced, his father didn’t know about that, he did it for fun. It was a great feeling.
Everything he did, that he wanted to do and he excelled in them without influences from his father he did great. And it made him happy but the sad thing was that despite he not being serious in them, he was great at it, he excelled.
And when he took on a job as an intern as a bet with some of his friends telling him he can’t pretend to be a nobody for 6months and earn a salary like everyone else and work as an intern for a social media company after school hours, he proved them wrong..
Because he could, and for six months he enjoyed staying in a city where they didn’t know him, living in a house with strangers, putting away his credit cards, parked his Ferrari in his house garage , changed his look and cloths just to fit in and allowed people called him ‘’kenekan”’ not knowing that his father was so rich he could buy the company he was working in, pay all their salaries and set them up for life.
And the most exhilarating thing that he did, he called someone sir, called the other madam, he accepted orders, he went for errands, he got his job done excellently, he got paid at the end of the month..
Okay he didn’t clean or cook or do his laundry and all other things, …
But he worked, under someone who didn’t know him and he did it without complaining, why?
Well, because it was a game, a bluff, between him and his friends, and because after work he hangs with them and laugh about it and joke about it and by the time it elapsed, he had gone to work, told them who he was and everyone wanted to lick his shoes.
Maybe the reason he was doing that freely was because he was having fun,..he wasn’t forced.
Maybe the reason why this upsets him more and he is rebellious about it is because his father was forcing him, leaving him no choice, taking the stool from under his ass so he falls.
Maybe because it was cock and bull and dumb and stupid and because he didn’t want to because he didn’t see the point.
Maybe, just maybe it would be better if he doesn’t pretend, doesn’t get angry, just for once in his life he listens and accepts and does what his father wants because, like his father said, it was for his own good, a valuable lesson.
Just maybe he was tired of being defined by his father’s wealth and status and name.
Maybe he was to change all that, to be defined by himself.
So he decided, as he told his mother, he would prove something to them all, not out of spite, all of that he would let go.
And he would make something out of himself, he was almost 30, he wasn’t a kid, he should have stopped thinking like a child a long time ago, being his own man.
So this morning he woke up and made up his mind, Brian Andrews, you are going to change things around here.
And it doesn’t mean he would be a pushover and bend over for someone who wants to screw his ass, no!!
He would be nice, unless someone steps on him, he would try to be civil, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t put anyone in their place if they try to spit on him, and he would do his job, doesn’t mean he would take shit sitting.
He is Brain Andrews, with or without his father’s support at the moment, he would be the man that his father would be proud off and his mother.
Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t tell his father how much he hates his lesson though.
And now, he is trying to be nice to the witch, okay yes he doesn’t want John to come pick her up too though but hey.. He put her in this messed up stress anyway, he might as well cushion it up. And he has no idea why he doesn’t want John close to her or she close to him, seeing John touch her hands yesterday while she put the ice to his face made him uncomfortable, maybe him slightly jealous, And that was a mystery. He sighs.. He opens the door and comes down from the car, walking to her.
‘’why are you coming down Brian, i suggests you enter the car and tell your driver to drive you away, i am waiting for John. He is on his way to pick me, so thank you but no thanks”’ i fold my hands
I see the frown hit his brows before spoiling his handsome face, but it was gone, he walks and stands infront of me.
‘’okay, let’s do this. ‘’ he takes a deep breath ‘’ How about we start all over?’’
I didn’t hear him clearly, what was this, some stupid joke “’Excuse me, start what all over?’’
‘’Us!’’
‘’what Us, there isn’t an US!!’’
‘’Argh Adora, please just for one bloody minute i am trying here okay, please put down your witchy wand and lets start all over”’
‘’For someone who is dangling a white flag you are steal calling me a witch!’’
‘’A pretty feisty foxy witch maybe?”’ he asks
I stare at him, “’Pretty? Are you smoking something new Brian because i won’t be surprised, the Brian i know wouldn’t come here to pick me neither would he put in pretty when addressing me’so i wouldn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult’’
Tbc
