THE GOOD FRIEND
“We are leaving early tomorrow morning” Mama had said the previous evening when she came home from a traditional marriage to proclaim that Aunt Uka had approved our coming to the city to spend some time with her, probably the weekend. So that morning, we woke up early; very early before the cock thought of crowing. I packed our clothes into a big brown bag Mama had bought some days back. Mama packed the dishes in a black sack; round flasks of egusi and ofe onugbu, and we strode out of the house responding almost uninterestingly to the frantic waves my two younger brothers put into our faces. Papa sat on a wooden chair shouting his instructions to me about not disgracing him. Aunt Uka had been living in the city for two years now after she had gotten that teaching job she had been yearning for. She was Mama’s older sister, yet unmarried, not because there were no suitors but because she was almost going barmy about being independent; the independent kind of lady she was.
“Walk fast; I don’t want us to miss the bus!” Mama bellowed. I tried to keep the pace but the bag was making my shoulders droop. We got to the park fifteen minutes later. There were so many people standing around, mostly market women with baskets of tomatoes, pepper, and onions. They were taking these commodities to the city for sales. Like Mama will always say, “the city had most facilities we lacked in our agrestic environs except for the fresh foods we cultivated here; these they lacked over there”
I had never been to the city before. I was close to it when I was barely eight. Papa’s younger brother; a miser incarnate had just returned from outside the country and had requested to see me, being my father’s first son. But while I prepared to go to the city, he sent a message asking me not to come again. According to him, duty called and he had to respond as quickly as someone who needed to empty a near-bursting bladder.
As usual, the noise at the park was deafening. There were so many buses with their respective conductors shouting and hoarding for customers. A conductor grabbed Mama’s hand but she pulled off, bathing him with curses. Mama had a better bus in mind. Her friend Nne-Eti had suggested the bus service to Mama few days ago. She trudged through the overwhelming crowd while I tried to follow closely. A lady turned off from beside me and put a large basket of pepper in my way almost immediately. I crossed over and moved on.
“That is the bus” Mama said as we got to a blue bus parked by a corner of the park. An inscription was well woven on its slightly rusty body. It read ‘To the promised land”.
The conductor was screaming passionately, urging passengers to board the bus. Just as we were about to enter, another bus drove in majestically. It looked new, was longer and seemed more comfortable. Its white color radiated immensely and the sound of its engine was soft. All the other buses suddenly seemed defunct in its presence. There was also an inscription crested on its body. ‘The good friend’ the words were curly and bold. For a while, most passengers stood and wondered what its mission was. Then a smart conductor stepped out and began to clamor for passengers.
“The good friend is here! It will take you to your destination safely!” he bellowed compulsively. A passenger walked towards the bus and entered. After a while, he shouted from inside
“A comfortable bus it is! All of you should come immediately!” he pronounced the efficacy of the bus loudly.
There was a great rush. Mama and I were already standing close to the bus, so we got in quickly and sat by the window. The seats were covered with black leather and were spaced centimeters apart to accommodate bags and other personal effects one could be travelling with. The bus was comfortable indeed. I looked out from the window; the other conductors were looking dejected. They were still trying to convince some old women not to join the good friend but these women were not willing to listen to them. As far as they were concerned, the good friend was their savior and it was all they needed to get to the city safely and as quickly as possible; so they scampered in, almost quarreling amongst themselves
“Let me pass, I was here before you!” a corpulent old lady accommodating a brown cat beneath her arms sounded pettish.
“Calm down, the good friend will contain us all!” another shouted.
Soon, the bus was filled up. The driver, a man who seemed to be in his mid-forties and whose jaw had been all that while working frantically on a gum stood up to address us.
“Good morning, my esteemed passengers. I want to assure you all that this journey is going to be a very smooth one unlike the rough drive these other motorists deliver to you. I want you to relax, sit tight for you will get to your destination in good condition. Thank you all” he concluded and was warmly applauded.
“What a bus” the blowsy woman sitting next to me intoned.
“The good friend is God sent. I was wondering how I would squeeze myself and this large basket inside that stuffy bus out there” another woman said from behind me.
The driver started the engine and at once, a popular music from one of the highlife stars pilfered the ambience melodically, making the short bald man sitting directly in front of me to shake his head in tune with the music. I looked around and studied the much faces I could study, there was this expression that portrayed satisfaction, hope, and happiness that for once, travelling to the city was not going to be a tiresome event again as long as the good friend was around. I wasn’t sure anybody in the bus asked the question that played in my mind, which intertwined with seemingly plausible answers… Where did the good friend suddenly materialize from this morning? Where had it been all these while?
The journey started out smooth as we all expected, the sweet songs still satisfying our already pacified soul.
“Aunt Uka would be very surprised we arrived on time” Mama said to me.
“All thanks to the good friend” I said.
We waited for the conductor to start asking for money but it was not forthcoming. Like he was sensing our expectation, he raised his voice and told us to keep our money ready, that he would collect them the very moment we got to the city.
We had journeyed for almost an hour when we got to a checkpoint. The police officer, in his black uniform waved at the bus to stop. He held a gun on his left hand at ease and strolled towards us. He looked at the back of the bus and then requested to see the driver’s particulars. The driver dug his hands into his pigeon hole and produced some papers which he handed over to the police officer.
“Here it is”
The officer took the papers and studied them closely, then he narrowed his eyelids and looked at the driver warily
“Your particulars are expired. Do you realize that?”
The driver didn’t say anything.
“Come down and follow me” the officer thundered his instruction and made way for the driver to open the door. They walked to a police van parked a small distance in front of us. The police officer that had accosted us handed the papers to another officer who squeezed his face and began to shout at the driver. Then he signaled another officer who was displaying loaves of bread on the thick concrete slabs used to demarcate the road. He walked up to them and collected the paper. Then a kind of light argument arose. The bread selling officer began to strike his palm with his fingers, an impish glint rolled across his face and the driver laughed. He dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out some money which he handed to them. They smiled at him and waved him off.
We resumed our journey. The thick jungles that flanked both sides of the road seemed to be running and I wondered for a while if they animals that gained habitat from the thick bushes were running alongside with them.
The bus began to jerk badly and the driver began cursing a mechanic who didn’t do his work well.
“I will never take my vehicle to Ubah for repairs again. He doesn’t know what he’s doing” he cursed and the bus came to an abrupt halt. For moments, the driver sat still in his seat obviously pondering on how to absolve his bus from that mess. Finally, he got down with his conductor who went to cut some stems which he would put in front and behind the bus, a sign to place other road users in the awareness that the bus had broken down. Then after he had done that, the driver told us to file out of the car.
‘What are we doing sef” a man asked to no one in particular “The good friend has broken down and we are being asked to alight from the car”
The conductor tried to apologize but we were not in for all that.
“Just get us back on the bus and going, and we will be fine” another man opined.
The driver and his conductor got to work immediately. They removed their shirts and while the conductor touched few electrical effects in the car, the driver was at the wheel to keep track of the engine picking up. It later did and we got into the bus again. But this time around, the smoke from the exhaust permeated into the bus and filled our nostrils, its choking odour saturating our lungs, displacing the aerated ambience. It became so much that a girl somewhere behind began to cough and tap her chest vigorously. Her mother searched her bag intensely for what could have given her relief but it seemed she could not see what she had intended to see.
“Please who has an inhaler here or my daughter will die!” she screamed. Someone threw it for her and she was grateful there was something at least to allay the condition.
“Hmm… this is really a good friend indeed” a lady shouted in disgust. She had besmirched the good friend as far as she was concerned.
“If I had known, I wouldn’t have boarded this bus” another screamed “What a disappointment!!”
After a drive of five minutes, the bus broke down again. The driver tried to restart the car but the engine seemed completely dead. He got down and opened the bonnet where he touched some parts.
“Start the car!” he looked up and shouted to the conductor. He looked dejected and addled now. He had never anticipated this incubus. In fact, the whole situation seemed incredulous.
The conductor turned on the ignition and there came a great blast of smoke from the exhaust into the bus. The asthmatic girl screamed loudly and fell to the ground. People rushed from their seats to her.
“Open the door and take her out!” a man shouted.
The conductor jumped down swiftly and opened the door. We all rushed out from the smoke filled bus. The asthmatic girl was laid still by the roadside; her mother knelt besides her crying.
“I thought I was doing my daughter a good thing by not boarding those other stuffy buses” she cried out “the last time we boarded them, she had this crisis. Now the good friend came and I thought boarding it would save us from the stuffiness those other buses rendered to us, but I regret it now!” the tears flowed.
“Is she still breathing?” Mama asked.
A man bent and placed his palm over her chest and nodded.
“We must take her to the hospital immediately” he suggested.
We spotted a taxi coming in the distance and it was flagged down. The man, the asthmatic girl and her mother got into the taxi and it rolled past speedily. While the driver and his conductor abandoned us to repair their vehicle, most of the passengers were already boarding other commercial vehicles that rolled by. Mama and I got into a rickety bus that drove well. The conductor hedged himself behind the front passenger seat trying to squeeze his legs in front of mine. He collected our money as soon as we entered the vehicle. There were other passengers there, mostly fat women with dark, oily and stern faces.
As we drove past, I glanced at the bus we all had thought our savior; the bus everyone had rushed, even quarreled to board. The driver was lodged inside the bonnet while the conductor was lying on a mat under the bus, his long legs sticking out.
“Aunt Uka would be worried we haven’t arrived yet” Mama said sadly. She was sweating now, her aging face placing a frown.
I nodded. All thanks to the good friend that delayed us.