The people would always vote a handsome candidate, Imagwe thought. He was pleased to fleetingly see three different campaign posters of good looking men taking over every wall and poll in his imminent city. The Governor of his own state, he would never like. He often told his brother Junior that their state Governor has the ugliness of a bush rat.

Intentionally, he stretched his average hairy legs to reach his father who was focused on driving them through the crammed metropolis to their new building.

“Oshok, what problem do you have now?” His father asked absent mindedly.

Imagwe frowned and shot an eye on every other person in the car before piercing his eyes through the wound down glass. He mouthed Celestine Omehia and stroke three times on his arriving moustache. If Uncle Stephen was sitting close to him in that car, he would have hailed him Big Boy and offered him a knuckle to chop. This city was exactly where he wanted to be and for once, he had appreciated the decision of his passive-looking father. Busy humans in one area, living life, digging it hard and not faking it. Some of the street roads were moldy but the express way was fine, if he was driving, he will hoot shortly and go ahead to hit a girl’s buttocks so that he can rub it urgently and say, “I’m deeply sorry miss.” But he doubt if his father would ever let him drive again after what he had done to his Peugeot. Motorcycles maneuvered through every corner of the city he could sight. One almost crawled over a young man’s leg making him let out a shrill curse, “You dey craze? Fire burn you there.” Imagwe smiled and remembered Uncle Stephen again. The young man was neatly dressed and was holding unto an envelope as a certified job seeker, like his Uncle used to do.

“Honey, is this the Mile III you told me about?” Mrs Oshoke asked her husband.

“Yes.” He replied curtly and focused.

“We will come and buy things here tomorrow, Adesua.”

“Yes Mummy.” Adesua answered and pinched Junior who occupied the middle of the back seat. Junior retaliated and they soon began to play roughly. Imagwe hauled for them to drift from him addressing them as little children. Later, Mr Oshoke drove into a street named Anozie which Adesua read out loud as if everyone demanded her I-am-here attitude.

On the bold and heavy Nokia phone which Imagwe quickly grabbed from his father’s waist, his voice delivered, “Hello, do I have a communication partner? Over! This is Golden Imagwe Oshoke aka zero-is-something speaking from the oil state of Nigeria right in the heart of the city, the streets of the city. I live in the street Uncle Stephen that means I live in the hood. Haha! I’m hoodie mehn! Arrival time, 5pm. Take note! Copy and paste that sah!”

“Golden no one is on the phone with you, we know that.” Adesua jeered and jumped down from the car that had just crawled into a black gate. The house was a storey building painted with brown all through. Inside the gate, the large space before the building was well cemented and neat from too much sweeping. The house keeper who opened the gate greeted them and helped their mother with a big box that Imagwe actually wanted to take from her. He loved occupying the brave first child and first son position for his mother all the time. From the age of ten after his parents had a colossal squabble over him, he had sworn to always live for his mother. He had been too overwhelmed by mothers’ supreme love, watching her from the bedroom, yelling and professing a bright future of him that his father should see despite his unscrupulousness.

They did not move from their own state with anything but for seven boxes of clothes of which four belonged to the two females of the house. After they had walked into the warm, furnished and flower decorated parlour and Mr Oshoke had finished talking with the house keeper outside, they heard, “Adesua you have a room upstairs, Golden share a room with your brother, the other room will be for visitors. I and your mother prefer to occupy this room downstairs.” He pointed at a door beside the stairs and adjacent to the kitchen door.” Imagwe could see the well utilized land crafted into a building, he could also see how his parents wants to make sure that they catch him sneaking out and in.

“Excuse me Sir? Why should I share a room with children, they are puppies and I am their older brother. I get one room. Thank you and you should have been the Governor over there for us to have more rooms even for Mummy’s brothers. You were the SSG of the state why didn’t you poison the Governor and take over. How cowardly.” Imagwe jabbed and ran upstairs with his overladen luggage, jumped into one of the rooms and shut the door loudly. The rest of his family downstairs heard the turn of the key in the knob and realized that that was it. Adesua and Junior went upstairs silently.

Mrs Oshoke cried, “Honey, he is ok, our boy is ok. Amen. Amen”

“Look at him short like me just like that but having the thoughts of a mafia. Gloria, look at our son in a reduced trouser, big clothes and boots yelling at us.” Mr Oshoke added tiredly.

“Noah maybe it is our fault, maybe God is punishing us that we had him out of wedlock, oh!”

Noah went back to himself as a young man, shagging his sister...
continue
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Follow up

Imagwe only opened his new room’s door at about 8pm when he threw out some things that his father had set up in the room to belong to Junior his younger brother. Poster colours, pencils, a collection of colour pen, some painting brushes, one other stupid carton and comic books. He did not hate drawing but he found it stark petulant. Mrs Oshoke soon knocked and left him a plate of spaghetti before his threshold and immediately she left, he opened the door, welcoming the plate into his arms and thanking God for such a doting mother.


Mr Noah Oshoke needed more than anything to sing praises and thank heaven for their lives, when he had assembled everyone but Imagwe, he went into his room and came back with a beautiful whip. Adesua and Junior squinted in fear but their mother served as a tether. She pulled at him not to go upstairs and pleaded that she will go and knock again for the seventh time.


“I will raise my son, he is my son Gloria and I will do everything to bend him to order.” Mr Oshoke bellowed.

“So he is not my son? Allow me try again please Honey.”

Mr Oshoke tore his way back to his seat, filliping and shaking his head simultaneously. Imagwe opened the door and ran back to his bed when his mother knocked again. She sauntered to him pleading, “My handsome boy, let us go and sing and dance for God please.”

“Or what? Or what?” Imagwe retorted foolishly and that exasperated his mother.

“Or we use a whip, I have been knocking and do we look like we deserve this?”

“No! A whip on me Muummi? I am not leaving this room again, let the rain fall. Shuuuu!”

He has gone loco again. She whispered and hurried away. She forgot to close the door and Imagwe also mysteriously forgot to lock it. Relaxed in that moment, he smiled, thinking of his victory over his father again and he will not go and pray for anything, he had CDs he needed to listen to. Once his hand reached into a cabinet to get his fat headphone, he heard some noise, as if to remember that he did not lock the door. It was too late, his father was already inside. Imagwe and his father stared at each for what was long into the past when he used to flog, hit and damage his body but he will never behave. His soul possessed an enormous power over his flesh.

Mrs Oshoke, Junior and Adesua walked in, each with a bible in hand. Everyone sat around Imagwe when his father said casually, “If the mountain refuses to go to Mohammed then Mohammed must journey right into the mountain.”

He winced when he realized that his father did not even come to him with a whip, he rather, had two bibles in his hand. He tossed one at him, a small bible and Imagwe caught well. No matter the anger, he would never miss a catch. Catching an object well was masculine to him. He glanced at the bible, the red portable one he often preferred. He would forever hate unnecessarily fat bibles especially the ones with zip that most people used and clapped on when they sing rollicking songs during evangelism. Again Imagwe reclined to the wall nesting his bed, recalcitrant to participate but when his father started releasing soul-reaching choruses, those ones he loved dancing after Sunday School in their church back in Benin, Imagwe followed up. He even took up the singing from him. Noah smiled on his wisdom. It is only when a fly perches on a man’s scrotum that he will realize that not all matters are settled violently. He thought of his days as the Choir Master, swaying and directing the choristers through melodies, yet plugging into clubs at nights and dancing to Edo traditional solos. All songs moved him whether people condemned it or not. His son Imagwe resembled him physically but only the love for songs made their souls similar.

The next day got Mrs Oshoke and Adesua to Mile III market where they bought few things that Imagwe did not see, he was in his room all day and also refused to let his brother in. He did not want to share thoughts with him yet. Sunday was next and Imagwe refused to follow them to a new church. When they were gone, he played songs all through and gorged down a loaf of sliced breads that was in the fridge. He ate happily and sang aloud, at last, the whole building seemed to belong to him and he had enough space to practice break-dance.

“Go! Go! Go shawrey…..it’s your birthday…..ah wanna parry like it’s your birthday…ooooh..” He sang into his parents’ room, went into his mother’s box in the closet, right by the side where he knew she dropped her cash and counted out five thousand naira boldly as if all the money in the world answered to him.


Chapter three here
http://egbechofaith.com/big-boys-story-chapter-three/