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© 2018 Godwin Godson All Rights Reserved.


The Laborer

First of all, you have to understand how I came to be a laborer. The plan that year was to release my mixtape. I had composed a couple of great songs and all that remained was money for studio time. I was young, dumb, but ambitious. I didn't plan to be a labourer, no, it just happened. The hardship I was facing in sourcing the money threw me into manual labor, the most common job around and for which one didn't need a certificate. None at all! The only requirement I can say are just these two: tenacity and patience. Most outsiders(you 9-5 folks) assume you just have to be physically strong and that's all. I too used to until that fateful day when scarcity and my friend Sammy lured me to a site. I had no preparations for it. You just can't prepare as you don't even know what to imagine. The realm of laborers extended beyond my imagination and so I just got old clothes to be used as working clothes and showed up.
'If dey ask wether you don do the work before tell them say yes o!' Sammy said to me as we awaited the engineer. I nodded. I have always been a bookworm and not a particularly street-smart kind of guy and this my friend Sammy was helping me with that. He knew the streets and I was tagging along to learn from him. He's a funny dude, I tell you. This dude also cooks better than most women and in fact, I am not kidding, he can stay quite afar and will know what any given woman in the area is cooking and if she's cooking it well. He would raise his head up suddenly, nose going here and there like that of a rat and say 'who dey cook egusi, add oil because that oil no dey enough.' I used to think all these was just part of his showmanship until one day when he said a woman in a particular house was re-heating a three-day old soup. Just to prove him wrong and show the world our joblessness, we marched to that house and asked if it was true. The woman was jovial and confirmed it was. Her neighbours too were curious and each asked Sammy to work his trick on their food, which he did perfectly. Eveyone began hailing him and instantly, these people arranged plates of rice and stew with giant meat and akpu and egusi, okro and oha. Like they knew we had been hungry since that morning. God does work in mysterious ways.
Pee pee pee! Engineer arrived in a smooth Prado Jeep. He surveyed us as a general would do his army before war.
'You! Can you do this work?'
Was he talking to me? I looked left, and then right.
'Yes you! I am talking to you. Can you do this work?'
'Yes Sir, I can,' I said.
'Have you done it before?'
'Yes Sir, this is my work. All the houses in this area, I joined in building them.'
He walked away sternly, showing our conversation was over. As I looked around, I couldn't see why he had singled me out. I was taller than most and my chest was wider than most too. Infact, the person to my right was a short hausa boy that looked younger and smaller than my ten year old brother. I would later understand that these people can judge laborer-prowess from just a look. Just by how you stand, you can give away your true nature.
The Engineer chose nine of us by pointing with his index finger, like he was pointing at foodstuff at the market. The unfavored left and work began. It then hit me that I didn't know how much we were to be paid so I asked Sammy, 'O'boy na how much dey go give us?'
'Na one-five na!' Said Sammy.
My heart skipped a beat! One thousand and five hundred naira for just a day's work. I loved it! You have to understand that I had then not made any money in a long while and to be sure of such money everyday was just bliss for me. I began calculating. If I worked and saved one thousand everyday for one month, I will make thirty thousand or so. I could make my mixtape in just about two months' time. But I had to, first of all, prove to the engineer that I could do this job. Only then will I be sure of work everyday.
We were shared into groups. My group's job was to bring granite(stones) using buckets and pour it into the mixing machine. Easy job, I thought, no stress. 'Cement!' the head-mixer would shout. 'Stones!' 'Sand!' 'Water!' Then we would take the mixed product up a stairs to the masons who would pour it down a wooden construction. When it dries it would become a pillar. It was fun for me. I was learning new things and the commotion going around was amusing to me. The five cement bags I saw in the morning had been used so I thanked God that work would soon end.

Hello guys. I will need your support for this story. Please don't fail to share your thoughts about it. I will try very hard to be consistent with the posts. Happy Reading!

Hello, my name is Godwin Godson. This story was inspired by my childhoold in the ghetto. In the ghetto not every family could afford a tv so we, the children, honed in to the nearest tv to satisfy our tv-crave. Some of us did have tv in our homes. But there is this joy of watching kung fu and American-action films with your peers that is just priceless. Occasionally there would be a shout too loud, some boys too dirty or a deadly fart that would weary our host and relegate us to the windows, to watch from outside. This story is dedicated to those glorious years of boyhood.

© 2018 Godwin Godson All Rights Reserved.
Email: Godwinochaigodson@gmail.com


Bros
As a resident of this town, you just had to get used to their noise. From their position at my window they just wouldn’t let me watch my movie in peace. I pause the movie, tie my loose belt and head outside with all the trappings of a pouncing lion.
I find them alarmed, their stiff bodies mixed into one another (a moving mass) every single one of them trying not to be the most reachable. They awaited me in silent guilt.
“You guys have begun this your noise again,” I say to them. “Do you want me to stop you from coming to the window too?”
“No! … no! … brother, no!,” they cry.
“Bros, na Kennedy cause am,’’ says Paulo, the notorious bully.
‘Chai!,” screams Kennedy. “Brother na lie o! ask them na, every time wey Paulo come, e go wan take person chance.”
I ask the rest, ‘Is it Paulo that brought about the scuffle?’ They don’t seem to understand. I go again. ‘’Who, between them, caused the quarrel?”
You are just showing off for Ada and you know it, says the regulator in my head. Perhaps, that’s exactly what I am doing. She’s the beautiful new tenant next door. She’s classy and independent like I like them. We haven’t had time to talk much but our sporadic conversations, I estimate, have been very promising.
The children still don’t reply.
I catch Paulo eyeing one.
‘’Paulo, turn and face the wall.’’ He does so slowly.
‘’ Now tell me, who caused the quarrel?’’
I point slyly at Paulo and they nod nimbly.
‘’Paulo, you can turn back now. Tell me what happened?’’
Paulo draws in a breath. He bends his body askew in a stylish manner. This boy’s self-esteem is worth noting. All the children in the compound call me ‘brother’ in the customary way of showing respect. Bros, which Paulo called me would be expected of children way older than he.
‘’Bros’ Paulo begins,’’wetin cause the quarrel be say this small boy Kennedy wey I even know when dey pack come this compound, get mind tell me say your father.’’ The ‘small boy’ Kennedy celebrated his eigth birthday last two months, Paulo’s ninth, his mom told me, would be coming up next month.
Kennedy protested, ‘Brother e still dey lie o! ask them again na. Na Paulo insult me your father first before I insult am your father back.’’
‘Your father’ was one of the crudest insults on the streets. Naturally, ‘your mother’ carried the same venom if not more. Only the very self-controlled or very religious didn’t turn into a raging beast at the mention of these words. Retorts like ‘you can insult me but if you dare insult my father, we will both die here’ were common on the streets everyday.
It usually was accompanied with an open palm dramatically stretched to face the opponent’s face. And very regularly, this was the first step to a full blown fight. I too, in my younger days, had tumbled in the dust times plenty over these very words. But here I was, the twenty-four year old, recently-graduated and recently-employed. I felt I had to act like it.
‘’Em Paulo, even if he said your father to you, why does it bother you? Let me even ask you, how is ‘your father’ in any way an insult?’’
Paulo’s frowned face shows he is having none of this.
‘’Since you said you are older than Kennedy, you are expected to act more maturely than he’’
Paulo’s frowning face makes me feel this great dislike for him and I would have vented it but I do not because of Ada. I want her to think I’m good with kids.
‘You know something Paulo—‘’
‘Bros,’ he cuts me off. ‘so you wan mey all this small-small children they insult me now abi?
‘Paulo, this is what I am saying, ‘your father’ is not an insult so why are you offended by it?
‘’So Bros, na your judgement be this abi? no wahala . your father no be insult abi?’’ Says he with all the tenements we show when we are about to be vindictive. He elongated his right hand to reveal his palm to me just as he said to me in a self-assured manner, ‘’Bros, your father.’’

End