Can’t find a better man!

I used to be the cliché single man-parry, parry, parry all night. And then I got married and that’s the reason I am sitting here all alone drinking. Nope, I aint no alcoholic and nope I am not contemplating suicide. My wife though, probably don’t believe it that I am all by myself-we don’t talk much anymore. I have tried many different things before I got here – to drinking all by myself - and believe me, this by far is the least complicated. If this new style is come to stay? Only time will tell! 

Yesterday, I watched (more like listened involuntarily) a documentary on TV about mid-life crisis and it got me thinking. Maybe that is where I am at. Nothing seems to appeal to me. Not work, not even the wife of my youth, definitely not the twins that I sired and that, as far as I am concerned stopped growing 4 months back. Going to church is a distant memory, ever-fading. Life seems to pass by in a blur and neither news of the international or national state of affairs interests me in the least. That'd explain my impatience with all the guys at the office who insist on discussing football or politics or just the news generally. Thankfully, I have my own office and nowadays I make it a point to leave the door close - forget the open-door policy the company is advocating.

I ventured seeking help in the early days, when I visited my family doctor. He left a bad taste in my mouth-presumptuousness et al. It was obvious wifey had had a recent discussion with him. It was all I could do to keep the poker face on and pretend he was communicating with me. I tuned out the first 5 minutes after I stepped into his office. I gave up totally on seeking help but have since considered going to see a real shrink - some anonymous psychologist. 

Maybe I should go on a vacation. Just that in this real life I live in, a vacation is a luxury. So what is bothering me? I have analyzed the matter severally but still I hit a wall and am back to the same spot.
I'm obviously burned out at work. I used to love what I was doing and as a result I did well. I received commensurate appreciation - in promotions and monetarily- within the company. Now I feel unchallenged at the job and unmotivated to do anything about it. It'd seem everything happened at the same time... I woke up one morning to realize I'd be way past the half of the average years man is purportedly allotted to live (70yrs) and that I had spent the last 9 stagnating at work. It'd seem that that was when the still birth of my daughter, 6 months ago at the time, hit me squarely in the stomach. I lost appetite for everything - food and non-food. All I seemed to be able to do well was sleep. And sleep I did. My wife was disgusted at me and my new found sloppiness. At first she tried to reach out to me- she used to stir up a conversation then, out of some sort of desperation. She thought she was losing me to another woman - and then she gave up. After she gave up on me, I felt more forlorn than I'd felt initially and from then onward, things went spiraling down and out of my control. All i could do was siddon look.

Wifey called on my best friend- my mom. That in itself was a miracle as my mom and my wife fit perfectly the popular script of 'mother-in-law and wife antagonism'. My mom, who had been forced to get used to not interfering, had no clue how to start intervening. She called a few times and then gave up I guess. Today is wifey's birthday and all day I was hoping I could do all I was supposed to do-buy her a gift, take her out to dinner like i did last year (only last year?), at least get home early and maybe cook her a dinner...even as I sit here, all these things I could and should do come back to me. But I know better now not to rouse this sleeping dog. I know now that I'd sit here like I always do and drink the regular shots of straight vodka sitting beside my customary spot near the window - not like I cared much for the scenery, just so I get less chance of being bothered. At midnight, I know I'd walk back to my car, just a little tipsy and drive home. I know I'd let myself in and that wifey would have my meal put up nicely in a warmer on the dinning. I know I'd go by the table and open the warmer to the smell of a nicely prepared meal and that's the closest I'd get to eating. I know I'd walk to the visitor's room, where I have since put up shop and sink into the mattress fully dressed - waiting for the 7am alarm to go off heralding the dawn of a new day-same, same... just different day. All I want is for wifey to sleep through the night and not weep in her her muffled, heart wrenching way. She cries on some nights and when it wakes me up, it is all I can do not to go and hug her. It breaks my heart each time and I am sure she doesn't know that I know.

Believe me, if i could, I'd have done everything I should do. But I am tired. Very tired-physically and in that other place. I guess this is what it feels like being dead. I guess I'd have to wait it all out, my only consolation being that 'everything that has a beginning has an end'. 

when i say 'I do' then 'I don't'

It'd seem I was sleeping all through life and woke up the day I said "I do". At least that's how it appears to me. The guy had stood across from me at the altar, beaming a self-assured smile, possibly mirroring my 100watt smile. That guy must have been a stranger, or is it this one I now live with that is the stranger? Or maybe I am the stranger! I dunno. Sometimes, when I replay that day, I wish I had taken off like Julia Roberts in the movie Runaway Bride-maybe I'd be happier now.....maybe.

Their marriage had lasted all of 5 years and now it all seemed pointless-getting married in the first place. What was I thinking? My instinct had always been of marriage-phobia, commitment-phobia generally. Then that year the marriage bug must have bitten me, the friends were getting married and dropping more babies per second it'd seem, the biological clock seemed to tick louder and louder too and everything else happened quickly. I met ez (Easy) and we fit like a pair of socks. He was easy (lol) going and seemed to tolerate my every idiosyncrasy - and I know I had one too many a quirk.

So what happened? How did our happy ever after turn to this?

I'm sure I'd exhaust you, if you indulge me, with a litany of good reasons why I had to go back on my word. I like to think that I made the best decision when I decided to say "I do", how come I am as sure now that it is best to leave-leave with any iota of dignity or self respect I have left in me, for me? I can't even begin to explain it...But I realize that if I could turn back the hands of time, I might still make the same mistake! It shakes me right through my foundation-the turn of things these last years...how far I'd come-I barely recognize me. But right now and regardless of what anyone thinks, I am done with this here! I'd even go all the way through the motions to unsay 'I do' or better still say 'I don't'.

siesta was a mix of the good and the bad for me while growing up-mostly bad, because it was mandatory and our house help knew how to enforce that mandate - "close your eyes and sleep, i dont want to see those eyes open....." sadly we had to do this every school day except Wednesday when she had to go for her secretarial classes. Bad also, because she always had to wake me up from the siesta and all the time it seemed i was less-than-ready to be woken up. She'd shake me roughly "wake up joor, or you want me to beg you to come and eat". It'd take me a while to fully wake up and the only other thing that spurred me on was the fact that i was hungry. I'd wake up utterly confused, partly still in my world of dreams and probably sweating a little. Sometimes, if i'd wet the bed then my sorrows seem to multiply cataclysmic-ally.... My brother seemed to handle waking up better than i did (just like he handled a lot of other things better, but maybe because he was treated differently-in a more gentle manner).

Lunch, as I remember it, was mostly a combination of sorts : rice and beans, beans and yam, beans and plantain, beans and corn... I remember especially one of those days I was rudely woken up and i sleep-walked to the dining area where the food had been dished out for all three of us -my 'aunty', my brother and I - we were made to eat together and I think it was especially because she was trying to reduce the amount of plates she had to wash. As i sat on the mat that had been laid out, i remember taking about two spoonfuls before I realized I had meat in my mouth! In the same instance, it'd seem, Aunty Faith realized the same thing and without asking any question, just gave me a hot slap. If nothing else, that slap woke me up fully and made me pee right there on myself.... After that, i was dished my food separately as punishment and made to wash up.

i didnt like Aunty Faith at all, especially because she always thrived on bullying me when my parents where not around -which was like 80% of the time. So in revenge, i did her in everytime I could when they were around. Aunty Faith was a distant relation of my Dad's from the village who had come into Lagos specifically as a help. Her more direct relative already had a house help and decided to loan her to us for as long as we needed. So technically, she was family! Dont get me wrong, we were not always at logger heads and the child i was, i forgot many of her misdeeds within minutes of them happening. Plus my brother and i were tight buddies at the time so if she wanted to play with him, she'd have me to contend with too.

So my favourite day of the week was on Sunday. Surprisingly, i dealt with mornings much better than i did the afternoon siesta. My mom would wake us up with the smell of fried plantains and egg stew - imagine, there was a time i hated plantain! how weird....anyways, i loved the smell of fried plantain and egg stew. My dad would take a bath for us-that was part of the sunday specials. we'd get dressed up really cute with some record or the other playing off the turn table. I remember one of them skipping when it got to ..."in this world, i this world" -my brother and i would sing along until mom or dad lifted the arm up and let the record roll on. the first time it happened, i was in the sitting room running around and i was worried i'd done sth to upset the record. When mom came in and i hastily said "i didnt go there o!" she reassured me that it wasn't me after which she explained what could have happened " that the people singing got stuck singing in that place ...lol"

dunno, dont care:unfinished

you know we could look for a job while we are home.

Every 'wanted' Advertisement called to me. But it was mostly for sales girls and receptionists. I was intrigued at the idea of working and I thought doing front job/hospitality business was a good place to start. alas, my father would hear nothing of it. Then a friend tried to get us into doing some sort of cleaning up business at her Mother's. another perfect job and the pay looked good...i dared not mention it to my dad so i broached the topic with my mom and she told me to forget about it. I could hear my dreams of shopping being squished.

We went into fashion designing - I half-heartedly - so it was no surprised that i didnt last in it. I was really restless because until i found something that seemed constructive to my parents, i was stuck with going to the market-the market i hated!

mini-incest:unfinished

in the days before the tale of the markets, i had a few years of growing up at my Aunty's - My dad's younger sister. It was all kinda contrived by my Dad after he found out he'd be taking the job in Saudi. I was ceremoniously shipped off to a boarding house in Enugu in the then Anambra State. It was initially an adventure to look forward to for me until I realized it was really a mis-adventure. It was bad enough that I was a misfit, I was joining the school in the middle of the academic year as a Senior student. Still i couldn't stay on as a boarder because the school facilities had been signed and sealed for the academic year. I had to commute everyday to school with the rest of the less popular day students. I hated it! I'd always been a boarder, this adjustment was a hell of a trial.

The darned merry-go-round shuttle bus was running late again. It was the cheaper means of getting to school, not really the only means. I'd be double damned if i'd take the taxi after making the 20mins walk from new haven b/stop to the main junction this early morning - it was almost 7:20am. The only reason i was running later than usual today-asides the obvious conspiracy by the bus drivers- was because we had a something different for breakfast this morning - all because Aunty had an emergency call last night and was not back yet. My Aunt was a matron and in every sense of the word too. Anyways, Ebi psyched me to make fries for breakfast instead of the usual beans we had everyday. I obliged happily because I was not much of a beans fan either, and it cost me! At last, there was the bus heading towards me. One thing was for sure, I was late for school today. It takes the bus a full 40mins to make the rounds, that is why it was nick-named merry-go-round- I'd have to use the 'apian' way. I just hope today is not my unlucky day! Enugu was still a quiet city, lovely scenery with  natural landscape - landscape that was also our undoing. The gullys here were second to none-huge, huge gullys caused by erosion and (you took it right out of my moutn!) bad drainage. Unfortunately, since i was late, chioma had gone on without me so i was really on my own. Chioma lived about 10mins away from the main busstop. Another reason i liked going on the merry-go-round was that it gave me time to day dream and generally contemplate. Today's musing was for my mom - today was her birthday and i was generally feeling home sick.

Mushin Market:unfinished

Mushin Market:

It seemed lately that my life was all about going to market and i deeply resented it. I didn't really mind going to market but having to do that everyday (even if for different reasons) will be the undoing of any averagely sane person- or so i strongly believe. For goodness' sake there are a thousand other things to do - like go to the beach, go to birthday parties (or just parties), go to .... not movies, cinemas were still a rarity. Anyways, one of the consolations i got from keeping at it was that i hated to see my mom coming home from the market with her stuffed bags - one on her head and one on her hand ( i sometimes can't help but think she does it intentionally just to rub it in my face that i am a less-than-well-trained daughter), but nothing beats me accompanying my mom to the market in my rank of utter dislike. Moreover, it is time-out for me, my only excuse to do as i will - as long as i don't overdo it and as long as i come home with the said items i went to purchase - don't get me wrong, i wasn't overly into truancy, just the average. It takes me about 8mins to get to the market using the public bus transportation that plies that route. My usual routine is to get off a stop before the final bus stop and take a short cut through the market, start at that end of the market so that by the time i walk all the way to the other end, i'd have been closer to the final bus stop and on my jolly way home, having hopefully bought all i need. First major stop is usually at the meat seller's. These days i even have fun haranguing prices with them unlike the first few times when i had to go to the market unaccompanied by my mom; then I'd have to go to her 'customer' who sells dried fish and give her the list of things to buy - especially meat, or better still when i got bolder I'd go to her 'meat customer' and tell him how much meat i wanted to buy and he'd (in my mind, generously) cut me a sizable portion. Sadly, whenever i got home my mother was hardly ever impressed with my bargaining power, plus the meat seemed to have shrunk in size somewhere between the trip back from the market.

Well on the bright side, this market was somewhat better than Idiaraba. Even when it rained, I didn't feel so yucky. However, both markets have something in common-they are notoriously volatile and one has to be very careful, watchful (and prayerful) on each trip there because a seeming normalcy could turn into a scene from a horror movie within a split second - no joke here, no exaggeration either. I remember once it took my mom an unusually long time to return from the market and we didn't think much of it until she came back with an almost unbelievable story but also a scar to show for it - thankfully she wasn't mortally wounded because it was that serious, she sustained the injury while struggling with a thousand and one other people to get on the last few buses, and the buses were on their part had substantial excuse to drive as reckless as they dared to (and they do reckless on a good day).

Even if i wanted to, I couldn't dilly-dally for long at the Market once i start my purchases because of the increasing weightiness i almost always harbour.

No name for the book yet

Idiaraba Market:

Yucks, I hate this place when it rains. Especially because the futility of all of the struggle is made more prominent. Even now, there is no need to shout "buy o!" because the market is enveloped in stillness - mostly store owners use the opportunity to sleep. The splatter of dark grey mud is everywhere now and woe betide it if your ware falls to the ground, there'd probably be less to salvage of it and even less tendency to convince any customer that it is brand new. My mom was squatting in a store with a friend who attended the same church like we did. Aunty Evelyn was into wholesale/retail sale of flour and other baking ingredients and had made a huge sacrifice of displaying her wares on only about a third of her store. Well, i have to call it a store but in all honesty it stored nothing -at least not with any form of security. It was more a contraption of ill-fitted layers of wooden surfaces and lockers and tables with an obviously less-than-carefully thought out addition here and there-additions that came about out of necessity. Anyways, thanks to the graciousness of Aunty Evelyn, we had a third of this congestion to share. My mom, not only out of consideration but also because common sense demanded that she didn't compete with her benefactor was petty trading household essentials - matches, candles, soap and more soap, detergents, sugar and stuff like that. We had to pack most of the wares into a locker after the day's sale and lock it with 2 padlocks (for good measure) and also push the locker to the wall - padlocked side against the wall.

It was rainy season and so we didn't expect much from daily sales (much, on a good sunny day totals less than 1000 naira i.e after paying for security fees and ajo-thrift savings). Anyways, i'd soon head up home. Today is thursday so my mom had left earlier than usual to make dinner for my Dad before going for her Sacred Heart Meeting. So I was the boss of myself today. But first i need to eat (again). The food that calabar woman sells is so little but tasty - i hope she hasn't jazzed me o! "Ng, Mama calabar still de?". Ngozi is Aunty Evelyn's daughter and we are of the same age. A deceptively quiet-looking girl, Ngozi was as stubborn and opinionated as they come. I liked her enough and we got along quite well, making 'surprisingly' meaningful discourse in the market place in the plenty spare time we had in our hands. "Yes o!. You wan go buy rice again? No be you just chop finish now?" I smiled, "My dear, na the rain de make me hungry like this. Plus na bread i chop for morning" "Mama calabar, abeg sell rice 20 for me. And as per second time todaya you go put jara and fisi join o!". Madam Calabar hollered right back at me "Customer you no get problem. I go fisi well well, you sef go know say i do you well". Salivating I just kept my snide remark to myself - i knew she was giving me a better deal because her customer base had dwindled for the day.

I stayed on long enough to finish my meal - and stay a few long minutes to justify my feasting - before i started the dreary job of stowing away the goods we had left which in all honesty was more or less all we started off the day with. We may have had a little more stock if today was Tuesday or a little less if today was Monday. Tuesday was the day we usually planned a stock reeplenishment and Monday was market day for the Hausa/Fulani women who mostly patronized the market-Aunty Evelyn never ceased to coerce them into patronizing us, as our client-base was non existent. This usually caused a rift between her and her neighbour who was a flourishing, and needless-to-say, established wholesaler/retailer of all what my mom sold (except soaps i think) and some of what Aunty Evelyn sold. Ironically, we all attended the same church- for whatever that is worth.

I was done packing and stowing away. Book keeping done. On my jolly way home before the rain started again. It'd be another 30 minutes walk home. I didn't mind the walk especially in this cool weather and thankfully the rain had subsided a few hours again so the streets and walkways were not flooded or that annoyingly wet. "Onyi, princess!" O no! Not today. I looked back just in time to avoid Perpetual "pepe" bumping full hug into me. She is my nemesis and one of the few people that liked me on this earth for no apparent reason. "Pepe, how u de? I no see you at all, at all today. Shey no wahala sha?" I said in one long breath before she started bombarding me with her own kind of gist, namely what she like i was wearing etc etc. She made me uncomfortable with all the adulation and conversation that she insisted on that i couldn't sustain. Pepe was Aunty Evelyn's neighbor's daughter and i guess she was a little younger than I am or maybe not. "Me I go market for momsie o! she say make i follow her customer go Ladipo. We no quick come back because of the rain". "You don de go house? When you go carry me go Yaba now? I don tell you say I wan buy shirts and jeans-introduce me the people wen u de follow buy market from" Argh, there she goes again. I only tag along to Yaba market with my sisters and girlfriends who have more patience than I do, to wander the mostly dirty and confusing maze of the market -not to talk of all the harassment ladies get just by going to Yaba from all the Igbo traders there; verbal and physical. "No worry, we go arrange am. Shey you go come market tomorrow? We go talk more tomorrow you hear?" "Okay, no whala, fine girl. Make me sef run before momsie come meet me here - na my ear i go take explain wetin i de do for here". "Bai, bai then", I said and turned to walk away, heaving a small sigh of relief - I couldn't help myself. Pepe was an okay girl but had her head in the clouds and what's more, we had little to talk about of interest to me at least. She was the kind of girl that would petty thief from her mom just to buy clothes (that she'd hide and wear by the way) just to impress some riff raffs who she denied having any dealings with -at least that's what she said to their faces when we were watching, but she unwittingly let it slip now and again.

My mind ever dynamic rolled by the next item on it "what to eat this night" Yes, you might have guessed right, I like food alot! In the next heartbeat I'd tell you that i am sadly not a good cook. But i think it is all due to years of being the helping hand in the kitchen at home, the accepted third hand in the kitchen. O! well, i haven't had any reason to believe i won't get by with my less than impressive culinary skills. I don't want to eat eba tonight ( i am not a big fan of 'swallow') and my excuse tonight is that it is cold....and i already ate rice twice today. I guess I'd just buy fry-fry from Edeyi on my way home-that way i don't have to come out again. Cool, that done. Tomorrow is my day off from the market - well, i have to go to another market (Mushin) to buy stuff we need at home for the weekend. But after that, i pretty have the rest of the day to myself. I have a few letters to write and post; and maybe go and visit a few friends. We'd see about that! 'Nedu said he'd be coming by my house tomorrow after 'lesson' so i have to make a mental note to be at home then.

"Who dey house now?" I had been home for a few seconds and done the routine identification bangs on the windows and the mosquito netting barrier all to no avail. I was annoyed because I know my cousin was home, he was blaring music from the radio too loudly he possibly didn't hear. "Ugooooooooooooooo". The door just opened and he profusely apologized before I could start venting my anger on him. "Welcome, I'm sorry I didn't hear you knock. Babes". "Whatever", i said and walked in to my room. At least the guy had a way to wriggle from my ever-ventful self. I just mumbled a few words under my breath, loudly enough to register my still dissipating anger.