Fear Street's actually Fia Street, but people have been pronouncing it that way for so long that it stuck. I grew up right in the middle of Fear Street, my older brother Obinna and I stepping over broken bottles, used condoms, cigarette stubs and beer cans when we walked home from school. The smell of urine, unease and depression hanging over our heads like a jinx.

The houses on Fear Street were low cost, run down and very overcrowded apartments with face-me rooms standing side by side along passages so narrow neighbours often collided in the dark when NEPA was at it for the zillionth time. There was a common joke in Fear Street: weather report for tonight: dark.

We moved to Fear Street after my father was killed by a hit and run barely two months after getting the new job he spent forty days fasting for.

'' God has really got a twisted sense of humour,'' mama had said that day. But there was no bitterness in her voice, only a certain resignation. A shoulderless shrug.

The first thing you learn when you move into Fear Street is that it was home to the Chain Gang. The second thing you learn when you move into Fear Street is never wear a chain, unless you want to get beaten, mugged have it snatched off your neck. The story was told of a dude who came from America and was visiting some old friends in Fear Street. He had a rolex, cornrows and a whooping eight chains. The Chain Gang Soldiers-as they called themselves- ambushed him in broad day light and stripped him of everything, even his silver earrings.

What they didn't know was the dude was a friend to Mamba Jack, the most feared cultist this side of heaven. The next day, six men in motorbikes rode round Fear Street, their guns thundering vicious death rattles on anyone they found on the street with a chain around his neck. The Chain Gang leader had to sue for peace with thousands of naira.

My worst memory of Fear Street was the December 26, Boxing day gunfight. That took place after we had been in Fear Street for six years. By then, I was done with secondary school and teaching in an unregistered private school three streets away, my mother still worked a 9 to 8 job in a hospital while my older brother walked the streets, his muscles swollen from the hours lifting weights, his head shaved, dark glasses on his face and on his neck, a whooping six chains.

I don't know when he joined the gang. I guess we were not close enough for me to notice the changes. I just woke one morning to find mama shouting at my brother, her voice bouncing off the walls angrily, its echo a ricochet of panic, fear and disappointment.

My brother stood with that bored and Bleep-you-too stance of his. Hand in pocket, other hand patting back a yawn, foot tapping the floor, eyes scanning the room, everything except the yelling woman with glasses and a grey head still full of hair.

'' What do you think you are doing! '' mama screamed. '' God, what sort of idiot did I bring up? What good will those riffraffs bring you apart from nails for your coffin? Can you see your life? After all I went through to give you an education, you want to throw everything away by joining a gang of fools who die with their shoes on? Eh? What is in it for you? Answer me, Obinna!''

I wished I could speak up, to answer for him. To tell her it was all about three things; power, respect and guts. My brother probably felt the same way all the boys growing up in Fear Street did. He needed to earn some respect, he needed to be feared. To walk the streets knowing he couldn't be touched. That he was covered by the immunity of the gang.

Instead I watched him storm out suddenly, his feet hitting the ground as if his anger was fierce enough to cause an earthquake.

Mama put her hands on her head and started to wail. I closed my eyes and feigned sleep.

The next I saw Obinna would be inside his casket in church as the priest delivered some nonsense eulogy.

He died with his shoes on .

Sometimes I thought of it and wondered if mama hadn't killed him with that curse she didn't even know was a curse till it leaped from the sulphuric void it had been in and fastened its fangs on my brother's jugular.

My brother was killed in the Boxing day gunfight that would become a legend in Fear Street because it was that gunfight that broke the myth of the Chain Gang invisibility, freed the youths from ten years of oppression. It was the gunfight that brought in a new order, the Bayawe Bullets who would rule the street for thirty-seven years.

The previous Christmas, my brother had followed some of the Chain Gang Soldiers to a party at a club some streets away. Sometime later in the party, one of the top guns in the gang had spotted a girl he was interested in dancing with another dude. He went over and whispered something into the boy's ears. The boy stopped dancing, looked at him funny then shrugged and resumed dancing. The Chain Gang dude walked away to join his boys.

Later that night, they jumped the guy as he saw the girl off. They beat him so bad he had severe concussions and required thirty-six stitches in the face. And typical of the normal Chain Gang behaviour, the girl was subject to an ordeal that left her traumatised for a long, long while.

Unfortunately for them, the girl's ex boyfriend was Mamba Jack himself.

The next day, the hitmen in motorbikes came again. But word had gone round and the Chain Gang were waiting for them. Only this time, it wasn't just six men with pistols. It was a whooping twenty nine gun-toting goons with blood in their eyes and murder on their minds.

I heard the sounds of the fighting from the comfort of our tiny room. My ears hurt as gunshots thundered over and over. I think one or two had a shotgun. The way a shotgun sounds could make God sue for an infringement of thundering rights.

Someone later told me that the Chain Gang had been overwhelmed by the superior firepower of their opponents and my brother was shot at the back of the neck as he ran from his pursuers. I felt numb when I heard the news and mama cried softly.

We moved from Fear Street six months later, I guess the memory was just too much for us to handle. I couldn't look at a chain and not think of him. I noticed mama doesn't even wear jewelleries anymore.

Sometimes, as I put on my shoes, preparing to go out, I would see Obinna's face with that mean mug expression. I would think of mama saying of the Chain Gang, They die with their shoes on. And I would ponder, I would wonder if things might have turned out differently if she hadn't said these words.

E.H. David.

Source: http://www.unibenblog.com/2013/12/chains-fear-street-gunfight.html?m=1

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

qweenaxx: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Whats Smelling

Godwin10:

Whats Smelling

E no mean say sumtin dey smell o

qweenaxx:

E no mean say sumtin dey smell o

Ok... You like am or not.... no just hmmm go

This story stands out as one of the best short stories I've read on NL... Front page bound. Thumbs up!

P.S: I don't think Obinna's death had anything to do with 'your' mama's pronouncement. We are all responsible for our actions/inactions & their consequences.
Anyway, one thing invariably leads to another... Who knows the future?

alizenbohr: This story stands out as one of the best short stories I've read on NL... Front page bound. Thumbs up!

P.S: I don't think Obinna's death had anything to do with 'your' mama's pronouncement. We are all responsible for our actions/inactions & their consequences.
Anyway, one thing invariably leads to another... Who knows the future?

Thank You. You are not like that queen girl...

Godwin10:

Thank You. You are not like that queen girl...

vexation dey worry u ni

Anyway, never said ur story is bad. I actually enjoyed it

qweenaxx:

vexation dey worry u ni

Anyway, never said ur story is bad. I actually enjoyed it

Am Not Vexed... Thanks for dropping by.