Implausible

By Igwe Ejikeme

After years of family struggle, corrupt-free public service, Buchi was tempted by what he found on a crash scene. A consequence of which would lead to his dismissal from service, but he wasnt alone in the scheme. A conspiracy was hatched, and the deal struck for a corrupted report.

Just when they thought theyve made away with it, there came the ultimate threatone capable of sending them both to prison, losing their jobs, destroying stable family relationships, and at worse, ending their lives.

To survive the machinery set in motion by mean men and con men armed with forces of the law and people he trust, Buchi must deny his friends and lie to the woman he saw his future in her eyes but cant be with. Buchi must finally confront the machinery that could end his life and the terrifying conversation he had with his father on his dying bed if he must resolve his present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543484274

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

B EN JIDEOFOR, WAS strapped on his bed for much of his adult life. His eyes were growing dim as he struggles to breath. His body size filled the length of the bed. There was nothing to vaguely remind his wife of the handsome man she married. He was taken out of life support that morning because of the accumulated health bills. The room was quite, surrounded by a grieving wife and two lovely children. His son watched helplessly as his father slipped into oblivion. He could make out a slight grin on his face. Buchi couldn’t guess if it was forced there by pain or he was happy living his family to a cruel and helpless world. Ben held on to the sheet in a final struggle to stay alive for one more hour. He knew he hasn’t done enough, time was against him, his body was failing him and nobody was going to save him. He knew that he was beyond saving, not medical science, not his wife, not his helpless children and not the money he doesn’t have. Leave the room. He managed to say and coughed profusely.

They stared at the dying man. He blinked his eyes repeated and repeated himself slowly and a little close to whispering. Get going, leave the room. They all started to leave but he held his son by the hand. He turned to look at what it was. It was his father, the grip was so strong but the hand was dry, sick and white. As if blood was not flowing in them but he wasn’t cold, not really. He remembered the first time he held him like that. The look in his eyes was instructive, perhaps in that moment he felt scolded by him, his face has changed from dull to somewhat alive but it was blink.

The light from the Philip bulb didn’t hide anything in the room. The bed was at the center of the room with the curtains spread apart to allow fresh air and sun into the room. There was a table beside the bed, and two plastic chairs were facing the bed and touching the wall of the room. The tables and the chair have the fading name of the hospital written on it in blue. On the table were fruits, packet of sugar, bottle of Lucozade boost, Bournvita sachet, a can of peak milk and packs of drugs.

The only sound in the room apart from the panting of the sick man was the ticking of a malfunctioning wall clock. Everything seems different, still, for that sane moment, like their last with a father who did his bit on earth. Buchi Jr. pulled the side stool from the top side of the bed. Son, I need you to pay careful attention to what I’m about to tell you. The old and sick father hesitated, perhaps from trying to muster energy to speak from his dry, white cracked lips like a dry ground on a hot desert, comparable to the appearance of the soil in famine-east Africa. His eyes were inside with black patches circling it. His hands were weak, lean with the nerves looking as if its falling out of his wrinkled hands, the cheek bone protrudes like a gaze competing with the nose. Don’t ever die a poor man… He looked at his father; he was dying a poor man, a man without much thing to look forward to, who can’t afford medical help, or properly feed his family. A man who thinks that being a man was putting a woman in mother’s way as often as possible and not being able to take care of the products. He wanted to treat it with levity as he looked away starring at a distance sky from the open window.

The old and sickly man pulled his hands like a fray wind to bring his attention to what he was going to say. It was because he was close that he noticed his effort. The look on his father’s face warned him that this could be the only word that perhaps could change his life in the coming days. He started with a managed effort to emphasize each word, stress it important more than it’s necessary. He told him to do all within his power, within the law to make money. He told him how he could do that with providing services or by working for someone all his life. The later will get you were I’m today. He said and repeated himself as if doing that would make him a rich man tomorrow. He told him it could get him where he can’t pay his bills and can’t afford decent living place. As he coughed again Buchi imagined his home, where he was raised. The room he was dying in was better than the squalor he called home. The streams of unending noise from clusters of dirty neighbors; as if God brought the poorest of Nigerians in one place and labeled them.

He remembered his mother not being able to afford three meals, decent cloth was a luxury she rarely entertains. The man is now dying in a place he can’t afford, in a room better than where he slept, reared his children, ate his meal and called home.

He brought a glass of water to help him soften the cough. He motioned for him to keep it away with a finger that appeared bony, like that of a child. When he returned, he resumed with his speech. If you decide to go oversea, you’ll be confined to playing by rules and laws that were established for centuries. You can easily get rich and you can easily lose it. He reminded him that the west is more than a century ahead of Africa and there is no place as comfortable as home, a place where you can move around without police harassments to show your papers or a white woman looking down at the house where a black man comes out only at night.

He stopped talking, falling asleep in the middle of his talk. Buchi looked at his father, he wanted to let him sleep on, to let him suffer the pain alone. He wasn’t going to share it with him, it was his sickness, he contracted it so he might as well carry it alone but the thought that he would die made him tap him a bit. He needed him to finish his speech the same way school children listen to their teacher’s advice and turn back and do whatever they wanted.

He opened his eyes the way a toad does when it’s after something, breathed slowly and continued. He told him that Nigeria has some lacunas in it’s laws for him to make money without going to jail. Buchi taught sure and you’re born poor, dying poor. If it were true he would’ve become like one of the flamboyant politicians. What stopped him from been the Chekwas, the Alhajis and the Owa? He laughed inside his heart and said get it done old man. These blur lines are too many. The old man continued as he beat his tongues in the middle of his words as he waited, a grimace formed on his forehead. Blood didn’t come out but he could see it hurts. Why are you telling me all this? Buchi Jr. said in a way that means nothing to him. He wanted to tell him to be strong that he was going to make it, that he was going to be discharged soon but what kind of a man will that make him? Why telling a dying man that he will be alright, why give him false hope when he can just make it up and face his maker. He was sure it was coming, if not today, tomorrow, a day next, a week but this meeting, this inner family meeting was more of a hint that his life on earth was about over. It was the African way.

The old man struggled to clear his throat to begin his last speech on earth, his last word to a son, to the only thing that suggested to his maker and people of his village that he ever lived. A son, a wife that has endured him and a daughter that might soon be married off, nothing was predictable these days.

Buchi could see the pain as the words tried to form, his effort at it told him it means something to the man, whatever it is he wanted to say. To clear his mind and teach a son something that he should have done himself. When the words finally came it was like he stammered, then like an unlocked tap of water it started to come. Many, many… years ago, hmmm…I looked at my father and I said I’ll never end up like him….when I look back at my life. I did end up like him. I carried my head the way he did. I lived live on the edge just like him, married the same kind of woman and ended up worse than he did just because I didn’t carry through with my words. Exactly…it serves you right. Buchi said to himself as his eyes ran through him.

His father’s words re-echoed what was in his mind. It reminded Buchi of what his neighbor’s son said to his father when he told him to watch his footstep. The chap replied the man that he was following his footstep so he should be more careful. The same night the boy received a beaten that took three weeks to heal.

I’m not you, papa! Buchi said, more like a whisper than audible words, tending to mean it with their eyes locking together before the man closed it. Buchi dropped his head sideways, looking at his body, his legs that were reduced by the sickness to bones. He could even count them, most of the hairs on the legs were gone, some has fallen on the bed, few that were left appeared malnourished. He held his son on his hand, weakly, opened his eyes as if he was reading in the dark and the lettering was dim. It was the long pronounced pant that got his attention more than the weakly grip. You could be me if you don’t do what I say. He said, released his hand and died with his mouth wide open. The last word didn’t come out.

He was expecting the next word but it didn’t come out. He looked at his father, the gape then decided to touch him. He noticed that he was unusually cold not the type he felt when he grabbed him few minutes ago. This was terrifying cold and he noticed again something strange on his face. It was as if blood was flushed away from his face. He remembered being told that when people die their body becomes cold. Their spirit had left to a certain eternal place. Catechism called it hell or heaven. He wondered what his were. Everyone will like to think of their parents as nice and headed to heaven. He couldn’t say much. He shrugged his head and watched him closely. He felt his nostril and felt no air was coming out. His panting has stopped, his body was not rising and fallen so he wanted to panic, a sordid fever passed across his face.

He has always wondered why people cry when they lost someone. He has never lost anyone before now. When his friend lost his wife to cancer, he acted like the whole world had crumbled on him. He watched his friend lose himself and life seemed meaningless to him. All energy was sapped from his body. It took months before the man became his normal self. Will that happen to him? He wondered. This was his first and it was his father. They’ve not really gotten along. Most of his vague remembrance of the man was the spanking he received before he bundled him off to a boarding school. Since then, all his vacations, he preferred spending them in the village. The old man loved it. He thought what the trouble, one more trouble out of the way and a less mouth to feed.

As he sat there reminiscing on what life with the old man was and what it could be. It dawned on him, that even though the man was a symbol of discipline and self serving. He was his father. All those shit of advice on how to make money. On how to deny yourself of the pleasure of women and drinks…. will be by gone. It sounded academic and moral when he gives his rhetoric. Tomorrow, perhaps, even the next day, he was not going to see his face or hear those words again.

And he screamed in horror not because he was afraid but because they said it was the first thing a man do when he sees someone die. The sister and mother rushed into the room as hysteria took over. They saw Buchi not sobbing but his face was down with one hand on his father’s hand-the one that was in contact with him all this while. They didn’t enquire what it was. They knew the man was going to die. It was a matter of time. Buchi saw his mother and sister sobbing. She covered her mouth with her hand as tears rolled down her cheek. Those two were genuine in what they felt for the dead. The nurses came in and checked for vital signs. There was no sign of life, she shook her head, removed the drip and other things connected to his body.

His mother saw the look on the nurses’ face when she was checking her husband. The look on those nurses face said it all. It appeared hollow. She slumped on the floor and continued with the necessary sobbing-a respect for her dead. They covered him with a white sheet and escorted them out of the room with condolence words. None of them accepted her words, looked at her with any form of humanity in them. The brain was producing more tears than the eyes could shed. The nurses felt pity for them. As far as it goes it was their work. Once they’re out of the hospital she would forget about them. She would forget about the man they packed his excrements, and urine just like many before him. The female nurse with the condolence face knows their condition in the hospital.

Buchi Jr. froze and could barely walk. The hospital passage seems red, different from the usual off white coloring. The nurses and patients passing by seem to float on air. He couldn’t even hear their steps and yet tears refused to drop from his eyes but not from his nose. Each foot step he takes was a drag, like drawing water from a hundred feet well. His sister was leaning on the wall crying with his mother. None of them paid attention to each other, none of them comforted each other, it was their burden, and their death.

Many months after the burial, Buchi went back to the Enugu. The last word of a dying man was the least of his worries now. He had thought about helping Okoro settle his debt but his rent was due soon. He decided to hang out with couple of his friends at some inn close to the stadium at Obiagu layout.

The inn was on the ground floor of what seems like a one story brick house. Along the lane were chains of other small and medium scale businesses with customers hanging around. Two teenage girls were hawking and loud high life music, Osadebe song, was playing from one of the stores. The weather is not exactly favorable but the old and dirty ceiling fan was doing its best to cool the place with what is left of its life span. He glanced at his watch; it was exactly 4pm, when he walked into the inn. A soft Phil Collins song was playing on the back ground. The hall has eight or less tables with chairs on them. A counter was separating the section where food is served from the place where they were seated.

Buchi looked up and saw three of his friends, Okoro, Okoye and Dimma at the middle of the hall. Buchi walked close to them. They shook hands before he took his seat and sat down.

Why did you guys pick the center table? Buchi asked. They looked at one another. Ah! You’re just realizing it now? Buchi added with an unpleasant smile. The light skinned man called Dimma chuckled.

Nobody thought about that. Okoye said.

What’s going on? Buchi asked and waved for the bar tender to come for his orders then added, you know I’ve some businesses to attend to.

Okoye here is leaving town. He wants to spend his last day in Enugu with us before he leaves for Austria. Okoro said.

What? Buchi exclaimed excitedly.

Man! Am so happy for you. No!…No!…no! This calls for a much better celebration. Waiter gets each person whatever he is drinking and I’ll pay. I know you guys are concerned about my financial obligation but Okoye is my man and I’ve to drink to his success. Buchi stood up, shook him again. Congratulation. They watched as he expressed his surprise and warm affection for the good thing that happened to his friend.

Buchi sat down glanced at his friend that was about to say good bye to Nigeria and to a happy life somewhere in Europe. He wondered if it was that easy to get a visa, to live in another man’s country. Just few days back he heard this guy saying he was leaving the country, now he meant it. He showed them his passport with the Austrian visa stamped in one of the leaflet. They took turns to examine the papers, elated and wishing to be him. He heard his friend talk about Okoye sending him some money. He agreed to when he settled down. In his mind Buchi called him a fool and that he should better forget about him.

Buchi imagined, just like most Nigerians that as long as one is leaving the country it was regarded as good thing. And it was in some sense, for one he was living a failed society to another society where things are working, where Nigerians become civilized people, to a society where they make the money they sent home to their poor family and relatives who might not know the hard working ethics they had to cultivate to make the money they squander.

The second thing that occurred to him while they wished him well was no one is asking what he is going there to do. Where he was going to stay? Is he joining the other boys to push drugs, international fraud or is he going to school? All they seem to believe was that he was going and it’s well. Many believed that over there money is on the street, white men are dump and lazy to do hard work. Here in the country we don’t have jobs, people want to work and over there in Europe or America work is everywhere and they’re lazy to work. How funny he murmured, the white men is calling Africans lazy and African’s are calling the white men lazy. Before now they’re coming to Africa to take our job and we didn’t complain. Now Africans are going there to take their jobs and they’re complaining.

The music finished, just after the waiter served their brand and one of the waiters extended his hand to switch on a big box television hung on a metal protector with a padlock. On the news was a man saying, …Atlantis Bank is the fourth bank beside Savana Bank, Willy and Genesis Bank in Nigeria to have gone insolvent throwing doubt among investors in the banking sector on the future of financial market in the country. The Apex bank is planning on recapitalization with government worried that if nothing is done. The future of the country’s banking system was blink.

Okoro finished his drink, paid the cash, and shook his friends all over again before leaving the place. When he was gone, Dimma and Buchi settled to another discussion. They talked about the girl that refused to pay a visit to his house after eating his money, the rent he has to pay, the poor remuneration in civil service job and ended it with the way their class mates are ending up as a commercial bus driver. They mocked the government.

The next week, exactly 23rd July 2008, a fast moving car turned round the water work opposite the government house somewhere in independent layout. It speedily drove pass four vehicles before him and maintained the speed that many wondered if it was a sane man on the wheel. It had rained furiously the previous night and a mixture of dust and water hung in the air. Pedestrians were mindful where they place their feet to avoid messing around their shoes. Added to the insanity of the moment the driver drove quickly through a pool of water on the road causing it to splash on the passer-bys. They cursed the man furiously in the Nigerian way. Mad man! A man on caftan shouted and ran further abuses on the driver as if it would remove the dirt on his fancy cloth. Your papa! The youth said after he’d lost control of a white file on his hand filled with photocopied papers. Ihe na eme gi na sis. The woman standing with nylon bag shouted almost simultaneously.

The man didn’t stop and he didn’t even care what they’re furious about. He knew it has to do with the way he drove but that was the way it has to be until he finished with the business at hand. Fifteen minutes later the man was on the expressway heading to PH. The man was in haste, his face looking miles ahead and his right foot pressed down on the pedal. His phone was facing up, and was on the compartmentalized space between the two front chairs when it rang. He picked it, answered the call and dropped it away on the front sit next to him. Then it rang about five minutes later just after he has passed the last flyover on Enugu PH road, he looked at the screen. He saw the number, the last two digits was eight and seven. He knew who it was. He concentrated on the wheel again. The phone rang the third time. He removed the seat belt and stretched to pick the phone.

He didn’t notice a white van crossing the intersection. He rammed into it as the vehicle tumbled while the black SUV somersaulted twice hitting the frontage on ground on each count. The body squeezed on both sides. The windscreen shattered, blood oozed out from the window.

Bystanders screamed in horror, it was fast. The other white van has swerved and settled some distance away from the road. A man picked his phone immediately and dialed Federal Road Safety Corps’ emergency number. After what seems like informative jingle was finished. A female voice on the other side said, FRSC emergency service how may I help you?

The man was quick and compulsive, you can start by removing this shit of ‘informative message’ on who should be on this line. Second there’s been an accident.

Where please?

At four-corner along Enugu Express way… it’s serious. A car ran into a van….and I think is serious.

What types of cars were involved?

An SUV and a van.

Then came the series of questions, what kind of car? What is the color of the vehicle? What are the categories? Are the vehicles on obstructing the free flow of vehicles? Is it commercial or privates? How many people were involved? The man was furious at first he wanted to seriously warn the officer to send his people and stop beating him up with the questions. He controlled his temper because he thought the questions were important. When he supplied the answer, the officer could hear the noise of people, the scream on the back ground. "Alright thank you for calling FRSC emergency service,