It was a hot June afternoon, and I was really tired. It was almost 4 P.M., and I was walking back from school with a group of friends. I was eleven years old.
Like any other student living in the Staff Quarters at the time, the idea was to spend as much time on the road chatting, each person trying to get his fair share of words in before getting to his designated branch-off.
We got to this major junction where three of us were to branch off, so we stopped to rest (and to at least complete our present line of conversation before having to leave).
I had just dropped my bag on the grassy roadside and sat on it when he pulled up beside us. Wangy. He staggered out of his blue Golf, smelling like weed, cigarettes, alcohol and whatnot. He glared at us through bloodshot eyes for what seemed like a whole minute, then walked past us. Needless to say, all conversation ground to a halt.
I don't think I have to mention that he was one of the most (in)famous yahoo boys living in the Staff Quarters at the time, the Golf was enough to tell you that: it was their trademark car at the time.
Wangy stepped into the nearby store, and came out a few minutes later, trying to balance several satchets of dry gin, an equal number of packets of both cigarettes and condoms, and two bottles of wine in the cradle of one arm, while struggling to hold his sagging trousers in place with the other hand.
He got to his car, opened it and made to enter it, then suddenly stopped and turned to face us. After some more awkward(ly quiet) glaring, he suddenly burst into loud laughter. He kept laughing and laughing till his eyes teared up, and he must have realised no-one else got the joke, because he sputtered to a sudden stop.
“Una sabi wetin wank be?”
We kept quiet.
“Una no fit talk?”
“Sorry sah,” one of my friends managed.
Again, “Una sabi wetin wank be?”
“No sah.”
Again, he burst into that awful(ly loud) laughter. Suddenly, Mr Wangy started making loud groaning noises, and with his trouser hand, started making the jerk-off motion. Do you know what this means? This means his trousers dropped to the ground in the process, revealing his boxer-briefs. Till this day, the memory scars me.
Suddenly, as if jolted into 'consciousness', he comported himself. Lifting his trousers into place, he suddenly switched to clear Queen's English and left us these words which I'll never forget: “You'll find out soon enough.”
I didn't find out till seven years later.
