ONCE UPON A FRIENDSHIP

 

It was a beautiful day and another opportunity to make money, I work in a lounge and earned little. I’m an hustler and a business man to the core, I would wake up as early as 4am in the morning, set out by 5am just to beat Lagos traffic and get to work by 7:30am, it wasn’t easy for me at first but I got used to it. Even though getting to work early doesn’t mean you would close early cause I usually don’t get home until 11pm or 11:30pm, such is life in Lagos, Nigeria.

There’s this man whose patronage I find suspicious at my place of work, the man looks weird with long, thick dreadlocks that reaches his waist, some part of it looks grey due to ageing. He would sit at a corner and order five bottles of drinks he never takes except one, he alone occupies a table and pays extra for this, he comes during weekends only. Many of us has talked about his weird attitude and tried to guess the reason for his behavior but we couldn’t, so we all concluded he has a mental problem. We could have just approached and asked him what the problem is, but this is Lagos, we don’t really care, so far he doesn’t cause any trouble and pays his bills, we’re cool.

It was my turn to close up the lounge this week so I waited for customers to leave, they all left except this man. I waited an extra hour, sales wasn’t much today because it’s midweek, only few people have time to spare, I was happy I would be going home early today but this man isn’t making things easy for me. I looked at him again but he didn’t look like someone who would be leaving anytime soon, ‘oh! Why today?’ I complained inwardly, my guys had already started calling me to bring any left over snacks for them as usual cause we were having a football match.

‘Good evening sir’ I said walking up to him, ‘evening son’ he replied, ‘sir I want to close up time has gone’  I said,‘oh sorry about that, I didn’t know I was taking your time, I got carried away’ he answered while putting his hand in his pocket he brought out his wallet to pay his bills. Being a curious person I wanted to use the opportunity to ask about him and why he buys and pays for drinks he never touches, I was still thinking of a constructive manner to put this without being nosy when he said ‘any thing else?’, ‘no sir I was just wondering why you don’t drink most of the drinks you buy’, ‘well, that’s a long story, unless you want to hear it’ he answered. “Did someone just say I have amebo? because I don’t care I will listen to this one”

‘I grew up in the village’ he began ‘poverty was something that ran in my blood, I had five other friends, we grew up together in this same poverty state, we took an oath to become rich in life and did everything we could, we were three males and two females. We all helped one another in time of needs and our wish came true. Olakunle, Lukmon, Sewa and Bisi were their names while I’m Jide. we do gather at this particular spot to talk, laugh and pray because this place was formerly a very beautiful garden’. Really?! I asked in disbelieve. Yes, he answered, ‘so, what happened? I asked already intrigued ‘civilization took over all the place and everything changed’. Our relationship turned sour; pride set in, greed, contempt, grudge, and selfishness which tore our relationship apart till we turned enemies.

Olakunle died out of greed, Lukmon had three failed marriages which led to his last wife poisoning him, even though he was the most ambitious amongst us, he still didn’t achieve quarter of what he dreamt of, I also had a failed marriage. Bisi got involved in a huge debt that made her a drug addict and later went missing but she is still not found. Sewa has her own business right now through illegal means but acts like she doesn’t know me. Look son we have a lot of dreams when we are young which some of us achieved and some of us end up not, but in all, never lose your humanity and never forget God. I’m not so sure all my dead friends can make heaven because what they had turned themselves into monsters. Here I am, a rich man but I’m already bored of it all. Because I buy a lot of things I don’t really need or use. What’s the point eh?,

 Many of us work for money and we forget the real essence of life which is to serve others with what we have. I come here every day to remind myself that life is too short so as not to lose my humanity again’. I hope you learn from us son, money is supposed to be used to transact or purchase things not to transact or purchase other people’s lives’ he said, putting his bill on the table he stood up and bid me good night tapping my shoulders. When I asked ‘what of Sewa? what are you doing to make her realize this?’ She’s your boss, I hope you can help her to, she will never give me an audience he replied, I was surprised, then I connected the dots, Mrs Sewa Olaleye.

It’s been a month now that I spoke to Mr. Jide but I haven’t seen him come again, I tried looking for him on social media but still can’t. Then I remembered my mother’s words ‘some people appear in your life once to make impact’, people like the stature of Mr. Jide, wherever he may be now.