Awkward encounter

"Tick! tock! Tick! Tock!" Goes the hand of the clock as it inches towards the hour of midnight. It was a windy night with sparks of lightening flashing through the cloudy sky over waves of  undulating mountains yards away,  the heavy wind sending the branches of the olive trees in our compound waving frantically, whistling along to the cry of some unknown birds in the far distance, the blending of both creating some tune like the soundtrack of a horror movie at its climax. 


At the stroke of midnight, it was Mom's birthday, standing by her window sill staring into the night, a smirk creeped into her lips whilst stroking her belly, her menstrual period had stopped for a while now, becoming apparent that might be the last time she would ever see it, even though women see it as a monthly irritant they have to put up with a week every month coupled with its accompanying hormonal changes and imbalances, the thought of not seeing it again at  a certain age sends a shivering fear down their spines and naturally, Mom was at that stage. Her eyes suddenly got misty, probably thinking about all she's been through and the thought that old age now slowly beckons, she took a strand of her hair off her face and with a sigh turned around to pick her phone on her bedside stool which had been going off with text alerts since at the top of the hour with birthday text messages popping in.

My brothers and I had earlier pinned our handwritten notes on her door but she was yet to see them. Smiling intermittently at every text she opens to read, she dropped the phone when she was done then stood up to go to the toilet and that was when her gaze caught some white sheet on her door, she walked towards it and picking them one by one to read, chuckled excitedly to herself, dropping the notes on her bed before turning back towards the toilet and when she came out, the toilet door shutting behind her as gulping sounds of the
toilet flushing could be heard, walked towards the door and on turning the door knob open, my brothers and i screamed a happy birthday to a startled Mom who thereafter threw her head back and laughed to her heart's fill.       

We all trailed downstairs where we had a brief chat about how she feels reaching menopause and looking forward to the next years of her life, Mom sounded optimistic,  thanking God for her journey so far, her achievements, ups and downs in life and in a tearful conclusion, thanked our late Dad for giving her the best presents she could ever hope for, Karl, QT, my humble self and Hamz, we smiled, going in for a group hug then before we all retired to our respective rooms for the night.

By morning, I sauntered into Mom's room to call her to come downstairs for breakfast and found her going through dated family albums, I joined her on the bed as she showed me pictures of extended family members I hardly knew including distant relatives from my Dad's family which got my cat curious after ideas of who to interview or rather talk to starts filtering into my mind in light of Hamz and I's plan to investigate Dad's family's source of wealth as read in Crimson skyline prompting me to get my phone, beeping Hamz several times but the punk didn't respond or at least scream my name to know where I was and why I was beeping him. I took an excuse from Mom then quickly rushed downstairs to the sitting room and then the guest toilet, searching everywhere for Hamz until I found him in the kitchen performing some "ritual" on his teeth, 

 "What the fuck are you doing here? I've been looking all over for you, didn't you see my flash?" 

Trying to make a coherent sentence whilst scrubbing his teeth, he replied, 

" Why fllu..sh me when yew know I'm inside the same house with yew"

He said, spitting out some black lather-ish substance,

"What's this shit you are doing?"

I inquired, my face looking irritated, pointing to him and a bowl with some black stuff in it, he spit out into the kitchen zinc again then said he was trying to remove and prevent teeth plaque ,

"Wah?!"

I exclaimed, he went on ,

 "Well dear brother, I've been reading a lot lately and I scrolled through your phone's browser history for list ..."

A fart almost escaped my butt crack in utter shock when I heard that, what did he just say? Went through my phone browser history? Good lord! I exhaled, absorbing the shock, patiently waiting to hear where this leads as he continued,

 "...of nice blogs to read and I found one that is so rich in content where I read that to prevent and flush out plaques from one's teeth, a nice trick to use is getting walnut husks and boiling in water and use the water to thoroughly scrub the teeth"

He chirped, baring his husk stained teeth at me, I swallowed, quickly moving at him and twisted his ear as he yelped in pain, warning him never to go through my phone again not the least my browser history, I released him as he straightened his ruffled top, what he said next shocked me,

"Why na? Why are you bullying me? Is it because of the x-rated porn sites and other weird sites you visit?"

My lips fell open in horror but seeing him burst into a childish giggle that brought back a memory of his childhood laughter just melted my heart. I gestured at him and wrapping my hand around his neck, I told him about the family album I was going through and how I'd gotten ideas on some family members to talk to and get some concrete results from,

"Are you still on that matter? Maj seriously I think we should let sleeping dogs lie, there's really no point digging into the past and how our ancestor made his fortune, so what happens if we find out he did something heinous to get his wealth? Maj please let's free this thing"

My face fell disappointingly, I fired back

 "You can't be serious Hamz, we've always wanted this, we've always wanted to get to the root of all this mystery surrounding the family fortune and why it can't be shared amongst all the male grandkids and great-grand kids, that is if the so called wealth still exists, we are all suffering and you know we need this money besides my adventurous slash undercover crime busting genes are all up and kicking, you can't seriously be backing out now"

Hamz shook his head sadly and told me he insist we let sleeping dogs lie,

"Just try and assume we got digging and found out the wealth was gotten from unclean sources, kaput!"

 I twitched my lips angrily and stormed out of the kitchen but not before demanding he immediately wash the zinc and stop spitting into a place where we wash our food, Hamz nodded, shouting after me to let sleeping dogs lie but I was already curious and I know I couldn't just let it go, dig I must. I met Karl and Mom on my way upstairs as they were descending down for breakfast, as usual it was bread and tea and I'd already set the table so I just told them to go ahead while I went into my room to quickly jot down my conversation with Hamz in the kitchen earlier for kuwda purposes.

While we were all having breakfast couple of minutes later, Mom reminded us about the impending ramadan fast which was already upon us and as it is the usual practice, we shop for food stuffs beforehand but this year, the times have been quite hard and as such we have to be really frugal with our spendings,

" You are all aware of how things are financially in this house for a couple of weeks now, so that means our budget for food stuff has to be meticulously planned out so we see if we can have some change left...if you all were working somewhere hip and making lots of money, we probably won't be going through this but, it is what it is"

Mom said making Karl and QT turn their mouths in a ticked off manner as they saw this as Mom's indirect dig at them but honestly, in my opinion, it wasn't a dig at all and maybe deep down their hearts, they knew but were only upset at the fact that they can't help the situation. Karl offered to speak with his mom to help with some dollars which we all appreciated. After breakfast, the boys cleared the table while Mom and I stayed back to draft a list of what to buy with the available resources at hand and after haggling back and forth about how much foodstuffs cost and Mom trying to ensure I wasn't trying to inflate the prices with a few nairas to have some change to myself which got us into some bickering spliced with a lot of laughter, we finally agreed on estimated prices and she begged me to bring any change left back, it touched my heart to hear her talk that way since she wasn't usually like that which means this money crunch must be biting her and by extension us, deep. I nodded, assuring her I will. Hamz joined Karl and I as we took the car onwards to the market.

It was quite a fun ride as my brothers tried miming to raps by 2chainz, it was quite hilarious. On getting to the market, we maneuvered our way through the muddy, dirtied and narrow roads of the market, squeezing our way through fellow market goers, market women and the general market crowd as different sellers beckoned on us to purchase their wares, Karl had his shades on as he couldn't deal with the harsh sunlight on his eyes while Hamz acted as my personal body guard, leading the way and pushing people off my path while a meek me tenderly tip toed on the damp, muddy grounds.

Whilst walking along, a plastic ball from nowhere hit my leg, thankfully, I was wearing a short knickers  which I prefer wearing to the market to avoid motorcycle riders or cars splashing mud on my long trousers so I wasn't stained but my leg got muddied but before I could curse at whoever kicked the ball, I saw a cute 2 year old boy running towards me with a beautiful smile that melted my heart as he sheepishly apologised for hitting me, Hamz who was ahead of me looked back to ascertain what was going on when he didn't see me right behind him, I stroked the boy by the cheeks playfully and said it was ok as I kicked his ball towards him, by now his mother was advancing towards him with a hiss, ready to spank him for hitting me with his ball when I quickly cradled the boy to my laps, blocking the mom's advancing slap with my back, she complained about me defending the boy but I said it was nothing

" He's just a kid"

 I said then paused when I saw the face of the mother carefully, my mouth went agape, I turned in a flash towards Hamz who had also recognised the mother, his face a look of anger mixed with surprised, it was Hamz's ex-girlfriend who had roped him in a paternity debacle as read in Wrecking ball , it was such an awkward meet as Hamz stubbornly turned back and walked on while I crouched down and played with the boy who could have being my nephew for a few minutes then introduced him to uncle Karl who shook hands with the boy, Bisola's eyes got glassy with tears, apparently, things got so bad for her and she ended up grinding cassava flour for a living, I was touched yet angry at Hamz's unbothered attitude, I asked her how she was doing before realising that came out wrong, ofcourse she wasn't doing well but I didn't know what to say and I had no money to give them, we were on a tight budget and I didn't  have extra cash to spare, I thought about the boy and the effects the noise pollution from the grinding mill will have on his little eardrums, it moved me so I asked for her number and told her I would get in touch with her even though she had a look like I was just saying that to escape and might delete her number once she was out of sight but I knew I had to help her however little.

"Come here young man!"

I called on the little boy, hugged and gave him some loose change to buy biscuits with, Bisola thanked me as Karl and I waved goodbye.

"What was the meaning of the bullshit you displayed back there Hamz? "

I cried, he gave me a nonchalant side look and kept walking along, incensed, I wanted to walk forward and grab him but Karl pulled me back, giving me the sign to calm down, I looked at Hamz fuming then let out a long exhale , the local market women kept staring at us, wondering if all was well, I smiled then began bargaining with raw rice sellers.

Thirty minutes later and we emerged from the markets with our arms filled with foodstuffs while local load carriers helped with the bags of rice, beans and other grains towards the car, Karl opened the car boot and all was put in there, we got into the car and zoomed off towards home. Silence descended amongst us all, Karl chose not to utter a word until one of us said something, Hamz kept making faces like he couldn't be bothered while I faced front steadily looking on,
then suddenly Hamz's voice broke the silence,

" I don't know what you wanted me to do, you and I knew exactly what transpired between bisola and I, she tried to implicate me in a paternity drama, so I run into her now then throw my hands around her and her kid with glee? Abso-fucking-lutely NOT" ,

Responding calmly, I said,

"No one is asking you to throw your arms around her, granted what she did was terrible but she, like you, was young and overwhelmed by the trouble you all were in and acted that way,now that you saw her, at least say hello or atl east greet her child" Hamz retorted instantly,

" NO WAY brother! No way, I can't greet the bitch who was shagging around with my friends, got knocked up and now sadly earns a living selling stuffs at the market, I'm almost sorry I didn't break down looking all sad for her, she deserved it, have you forgotten what I went through? The embarrassment and all, ah! Am sorry Maj"

I didn't bother dragging issues with him and all was silent till we got home. The fasting started few days later and it went pretty well and quite uneventful till the end.

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