In a country where the economy is in gradual decline, there is too much craziness going on. One such craziness happened to me today. Why would I even say one, it was multiples of it that happened to me. It all started when I woke up this morning and discovered that the pair of shoes I had so carefully cleaned the night before was nowhere to be found.

‘I would kill this boy today,’ I muttered under my breath.

I knew the culprit would be none other than my roommate, Gbenga. The boy didn’t know boundaries, neither did he seem to understand that we are roommates and not twins. He wore nearly all my stuff, not that he didn’t have his, it's simply because of his lack of contentment. Now because of his behavioral issues, I would have to look for another pair of footwear to wear to my interview.

I shook my head in pity for myself, it's really tough living with someone like Gbenga and my mental health had to pay for it. This boy stresses me out everyday I wake up in the same house as him. I walked to the corner of the room where we usually kept buckets, picked the medium sized one and headed out to the tap at the outer part of our compound.

“Good morning Alakowe,” everyone that passed by greeted me. Alakowe is the Yoruba word for an educated person and being the only university graduate in a compound mostly full of Yoruba people, I earned myself this title. Even the non-yorubas were not left out. I smiled in response and said good morning in reply to everyone.

Thankfully, the queue at the tap was not long this morning, I guess the gods had listened to my silent prayers as I cannot afford to be late for my interview. There were just four people in line ahead of me, and directly in my front was Ezinne, the daughter of the Igbo trader that lived in our compound. I have had a crush on her for a really long time now, but it had to remain a crush because her father had openly sworn to behead any man he ever caught with his daughter without his approval. As an Igbo man, his pride and that of his entire family was at stake if his daughter was not found virtuous by her future husband. And I took his threats very seriously. Papa Ezinne has a large head and an equally large body, without hearing his deep baritone voice, you would still almost shit yourself when you see him.

“Alakowe, good morning,” she turned back and greeted me.

“Ezinne, I have told you several times to call me by my name instead”

“Isn’t your name Alakowe?” she teased and we both laughed.

The laughter evaporated from my face as soon as I saw her father approaching us with an empty cup in hand and a chewing stick lodged between his lips. The line had moved quickly and it was his daughter fetching when he put his cup under the tap to collect some water. After I fetched some water and was going back into the compound, I sighed as I remembered it was yet another survival of the fittest battle again before it could be my turn to bathe.

Sitting in the middle of the compound is a building that housed twenty rooms in total, ten on each side of the long dim passage. Mine is the sixth room on the right side. Number 18, as our compound was called by everyone in the environs, is a large compound occupied by the different people life has brought together under one cloud of madness. I said this because what other logical explanation could I have for what was happening in front of the bathroom stall.

“What is going on here?” I enquired from no one in particular yet still watching the two men engaged in a fist fight that has managed to hold up the bathing queue.

“It’s Alabi and Daniel that are fighting,” a young girl whose name I was trying to remember said to me. I was running out of patience as I replied to her coldly, “I know it’s them. Why are they fighting?”

She rolled her eyes at me, clearly noting the tone of my voice. She went ahead to explain to me anyway. “Alabi claimed he was the first to enter the bathroom, but had forgotten to bring his soap case so he went back to his room to get it. On his return, he saw Daniel about to enter the bathroom, despite seeing Alabi’s bucket of water in there.”

I shook my head at this display of foolery by two grown up men. After watching them brawl in the sand. I knew I had to do something so I tried to separate their fight, which was a success given the level of respect people had for me in this compound.

Fuming and still in the mood to fight, Alabi went ahead to have his bath first. Then Daniel. I waited up to 45 minutes before I could finally have my bath. Immediately I walked into my room, I looked up at the wall clock with a cracked screen hung on the wall above my bed. I had only about two hours more to my interview time. I knew this should have been enough time but not in Lagos with its demonic traffic.

I dressed in my best white shirt and paired it with a pair of navy-blue trousers and black shoes that I had hurriedly cleaned. One last look in the mirror and I was set to go. The sun was going to be scorching today, I could tell by the heat it emanated at this early time of the day.

“Enter with your change oo!” The conductor kept warning each of us as we entered the bus. I always love sitting in the front seat of buses, it feels like the special cabinet of Lagos danfo buses. I didn’t like being lodged between market women and nursing mothers, especially not with my choice of outfit this morning.

After we’ve moved about a few meters, the conductor spoke again, “your money for front”. I dipped my hand into my pocket and brought out my wallet. Without looking back, I stretched a one thousand naira note to him and his sudden outburst made me turn my head.

“Shaybe all of una hear when I talk say enter with your change. I no get change to give anybody oo”

I laughed in my mind and decided not to take his words seriously. After living for years in Lagos, I was now used to conductors bluffing about having no change when they were just in fact hoarding it. I looked on to the road and occasionally glanced at my wrist watch. I still had plenty of time to get to the interview. If all goes well, I may even have to wait an hour before it reaches the time.

I believed all odds were in my favor as the roads were a bit free and when it was almost time to alight at my bus stop, I called out to the conductor to give me my change. “I no get change,” he said to me coldly. At this point, I knew it would only take a minute for me to unleash the ‘agbero’ in me. Maybe the gentleness of my face and my mode of dressing is what makes him think he can act this way with me.

I got down from the bus and held on to the hem of the shorts he was wearing, making him unwillingly jump out of the bus as the driver was about to move. “You dey craze!?” he spat at me. “Give me my change” I shouted back at him. He counted through the wad of cash in his hands, “you dey see? I  no get change” he claimed.

“Ask your driver,” I suggested.

“He no get change. Shaybe I warn you as you dey enter, I just dey come outside,” he shouted angrily.

I still had my grip on his shorts and this angered him more. He warned me to either leave him alone or get into the bus and follow them till he finds change. I was equally angry at his suggestions. The one-thousand-naira note was the only money I had on me, how do I leave it or offer him a lesser denomination. I was still in my thoughts when I felt a blow land on my shoulder.

The punch from the conductor weakened me. What do these people eat, I wondered. But I wasn’t a weakling so I dealt him a blow too and that was how a fight ensued between us. I totally forgot about my interview or how I was dressed what mattered in that moment of fury was to save my manhood and subsequently collect my change. 

“Werey leleyii oo” the conductor said as the driver managed to save him from my fists. He was fuming with anger and so was I, but he was the one with the bleeding mouth. He flung a one thousand naira note at me as he jumped on the bus while the driver zoomed off. 

I casted my eyes down at myself and realized I was a mess. Three buttons were missing from my shirt already. I glanced at my wrist watch, I had only an hour left. I had to go back home to change my shirt and repackage myself. I crossed to the other side of the road and entered a bus heading back to my house.

‘This is the devil, those stupid Alabi and Daniel and that God forsaken conductor are the instruments he decided to use against me, I won’t let them win,’ I muttered to myself as I walked from the bus stop to my house. Anyone who had seen me leave earlier this morning, and is witnessing my now return would have cared to ask what went wrong. I looked disheveled. 

When I entered the compound, most of the neighbors were gathered in front of the house. Papa Ezinne was backing the entrance and threatening to bring down the sky. Must there always be drama in this number 18, I thought to myself. On another day, I would have been interested in whatever drama was going on. Now I just looked over at them and was already at the entrance of the house when Papa Ezinne saw me and ran over. 

I was oblivious to his approach and only when he forcefully grabbed my shirt from behind, turned me and landed a punch on my eyes, did I know what was happening. “Na you this stupid Alokewe abi wetin dem dey call you give my pikin belle?”

“Pikin? Which pikin and what belle?” I asked. I was in pain and my palm was placed on my left eye. 

“You wan deny abi? You think I no see as you dey follow Ezinne laugh this morning. Now you don give am belle and you must marry am”

In my mind I was wondering how it is possible to impregnate a woman by laughing with her. Unknown to me, a lot had happened in my absence. Ezinne had been seen by her mother vomiting in the backyard. She had run the usual African mother pregnancy test on her daughter by checking her eyes and palms which were white and pale, and asking her if she had seen her period for this month, which Ezinne gave a negative response for. The conclusion was that her daughter is pregnant and her loud cry had alerted most of the neighbors and Papa Ezinne. 

After a lot of pressure and threats on Ezinne to reveal who had impregnated her, she did not speak. All she kept doing was pointing at my door. When asked if that is where the person who impregnated her stays, she simply nodded while crying. Her father, who had seen the little exchange between us this morning, assumed I had been the one to impregnate his daughter. 

Where was she anyways and why isn’t she here amongst the crowd? I thought whilst her father dragged me by the collar of my already torn shirt and said I should call my relatives because he wasn’t going to free me until they had come here and the wedding preparations had begun. “I’m not the one who impregnated your daughter” I kept saying. 

For every statement of denial from me, he dealt me with more punches. My eyes kept bleeding and I could hear someone in the crowd say I should be in the police station first. It was Daniel. I glared at him and he laughed at me. About four hours had passed, I had missed my interview and the crowd had fully dispersed until it was only I and Papa Ezinne left. Despite my denials and pleas, he had remained headstrong. I was writhing in pain when Ezinne walked into the compound.

“Where did you run off to?” her father bellowed. 

She was silent and she wondered what I was doing sitting on the floor in front of her father and in such a state. As if just reminded, she suddenly realized that her father must have mistaken me for the man that had impregnated her. 

“Papa it’s not him.” she burst out 

“Who is it then!?” he walked to the dimly lit passage and shouted at the top of his voice, “All of una come out oo”

Some of the unemployed neighbors that had been outside before thronged out again. Her father repeated his question and Ezinne sobbed while she said it wasn’t me but my roommate, Gbenga. Now it was my turn to be angry and guess what? I showed the extent of my fury. Papa Ezinne apologized and promised to take care of my hospital fees. He had caused me more than bodily damage and the neighbors joined in apologizing to me when they heard that I had missed an interview because he had wrongly accused me. 

‘Gbenga, that bastard. He will leave my room today. As if taking my clothes and shoes isn’t enough. He impregnated my crush also. And even worse, I had to suffer for it. I wonder where he has gone to, I thought to myself as the fine nurse who I had been trying to flirt with dressed my wounds.