Are you using the rest of that beer?
Sorry?
The remaining beer in your bottle. You look like a weight-watcher
— and me, I don’t mind the pot-belly.
Ah... I can buy you a fresh bottle, if that
is what you want...
God bless you!
Waiter!
Call him Sule and the beer comes faster.
' Scuse the embarrassment, that’s
just me.
That’s okay; I get broke myself, now
and again,
As for! Me, I'm broke again and again. Don’t work anymore
you see, I pay for my drinks with stories. Now where shall I start?
Actually... I don’t... have that much time; I just wanted
to…
I know the feeling exactly: you enter a bar like this and
the music is twenty years old, not so? The girls are twice as old,
besides which they’re all either too short or too tall, barely
worth the chatting up, really. Not so? So you quench a bottle or
four, and you turn around to sneer some more — and suddenly...
they're looking ... barely teenage... aren't they? Not all that
tall or all that short, come to look at them, eh?
Ah... that’s not really what I had
in mind at all...
Stop me if I’m getting rude, but you’re the quiet type,
aren’t you. I know your type very well. You nurse your one
bottle of beer and all around you everybody is getting drunk and
stupid. Come, drink five bottles with me today! And we’ll
see what is really going on inside that quiet head of yours!
No, thanks. I never cross the two bottle limit,
myself. I was just thinking...
I know what you’re really thinking — thanks Sule,
mortuary-cold as usual! — You’re thinking: another burnt-out
tramp looking to stub out another evening of his life on your beer
and your time...
Not really that, but actually, yes, I just
came for a quiet drink... I had a busy day... and tomorrow is...
Exactly, so what’s wrong with a tale or two while you’re
having a quiet drink? You’re a stranger to Abuja, I can tell
from the handbag you‘re carrying like a woman; — please
stop me if I’m rude — men don’t carry handbags
here anymore, not after what happened to poor Alkali. Oh, I can
stretch you some useful yarns. — The things I’ve seen...
I didn’t just get drunk overnight and end up here, you know,
a fifty-six year old tramp with no fixed address. Ha! It took many
bottles, my brother. It was a long and difficult road, really hard
and painful work. At this very bar alone, I’ve put in four
or five years' overtime with my green bottle here... ‘scuse
me...
Wha...what happened to Alkali?
Ah, brilliant beer. in one Benin bar like that...
About Alkali...
That idiot? He had a handbag like yours, only it was black. Black
and really, really bulging. There were fifteen men in this very
room and thirty eyes followed him like flies following a sore. Then
he flashed his money when he bought his beer. Within ten minutes
it was all over.
They stole the bag?
Stole the bag? I said the reverend died in a fire and you’re
asking if his beard was burnt! The man that broke Alkali’s
head with a bottle of Double Three and the man that snatched
the bag were from different gangs entirely. In ten minutes there
was such a fight in here… but no, things have cooled down
since then; you really don’t need to sit on your handbag,
really.
Actually, I... like to sit on my bag. It’s
just the way I like it...
I see. By the way, ‘scuse the embarrassment, but can you pass
me that ashtray?
...But they are…
...only stubs? I know. As for me, I believe in recycling;
it’s good for the environment.
Ah... I can buy you a fresh pack... if you
want...
God bless you. I didn’t use to smoke at all, you know,
till I broke my metatarsal.
Is that not the bone those footballers are
always breaking?
Exactly. You guessed I was a footballer didn’t you?
Remove my potbelly and my limp and the physique is still there,
isn‘t it?
Which division did you play?
Division one of course. Oh yes! Stationery Stores FC. Mark you,
that was in those days when Stationery Stores was Stationery Stores.
Ah... what’s that your name again?
Felele. That was what they used to call me back in those
days.
Felele... never heard of you… and I
used to watch....
You’re a young man, this was way before your time.
Player of the year, twice in a row, that was me. Then I broke my
leg the week before the cup finals. This very leg! Worst day of
my life, oh yes. I watched the cup finals from my hospital bed.
My substitute scored a hat trick, imagine that. That very week he
was scouted by Real Madrid. That would have been me, of course.
The story of my life! That was the day I started smoking. It was
my metatarsal that did it...
...Excuse me;
I need to use the toilet.
*
What sort of life is this? Do they read
a sign on my forehead or what? I’ve grown a beard my children
hate and it doesn’t change a thing. Let there be five hundred
people on the street, I’m the one the beggar with the sad
story will pick! I’m the one who will miss his plane while
listening to the man who lost his bus fare and needed a bail-out.
Why can’t I kill an hour at the bar without the club drunk
harrassing me? Look at this slob! Stationery Stores indeed! What
sort of life is this? A thirty-year old chartered accountant, and
I don't even have the guts to tell a tramp to piss off and leave
me alone. There's nothing more to it. I’ll just have to try
another bar. This is ridiculous. The sort of inconvenience I suffer
for want of a small bottle of spunk! This is just ridiculous!
*
Next |
|
|
|
|
.
Accounting for Drunks is short fiction from the
series Tales by Conversation.