Me and the Ninny Folk...the last tear I shed

I did everything but what I was supposed to do today. I don't know why. Perhaps something in the air...or my mood...or the incredibly annoying client I was dealing with. I don't know. I tried to write a proper update but there never could have been a blogger as afflicted with the block as I was today. I don't know if it was from the week-long flurry of interest in my pecker or some unwitting affront to my muse but whatever it was, Life took a veritable interest in my dreaminess today, setting up several inviting nests for my fluttering mind to perch on from time to time. Sure enough, it nestled briefly on another 'bubbly young lady' while we sat telling silly old war stories and grinning idiotically at each other. It's positively infuriating the way some girls do that to you. Robert Jordan put it quite aptly:

Anyway, just as I saw the young lady off, a friend called on me asking for a favour. It was terribly bothersome I must admit, but I hold myself a debtor to this friend of mine (unbeknownst to him) for many a time having done me an uncommonly noble service in time past. In one of such, we were arbitrarily arrested a few streets away from home one evening on account of being suspects in a fallacious robbery purported to have taken place a few minutes before we strolled by. I remember catching a glimpse, in the corner of my eye, of the grubby looking ninnyhammer closing in on my friend and I from the rear, and closely accompanied by a searching stench of cheap liquor.

Ist Uniformed Ninny: 'Heyssss! May we know you' came the signature bark right as his partner completed his sprint to our other side and cocked their single rusty weapon.

2^nd Uniformed Ninny: 'I'm Sergeant Oseni' he said, flashing his ID card several times faster than the supposed frame-rate of the average eye.

Me: 'I'm sorry, I didn't get a good view of the card bef...'

Click click 'You still dey talk!!!? Take them away! They fit de description. They will be identified at the station. My friend move! You bloody criminal'

I should pause here to note that at the period in question I was the epitome of dorkiness. It was many years before I got my dreadlocks done and ditched my glasses for contacts. I was several years younger (remember this when you're dropping your comment), kept an afro...no actually I had a scraggly mass of untended hair on my head (I went to the barbers once or at most twice a year...yeah I know, so put a sock in it!) and wore rather large round glasses with my trademark red lips and babyface...and they called me a criminal.

A third Uniformed Ninny presently joined the charade.

3^rd Uniformed Ninny: 'Are these the criminals? You're in trouble today. WHERE IS YOUR GUN??!!! WHERE DID YOU HIDE YOUR GUN??!!!'

Did he say GUN? Did I mention that at this point my mind was in a blur as I keenly inspected each twitch of their facial muscles for the slightest trace of a snigger, in the hope that I was being pranked? Did I mention that my breath was under tight control and discharged in quick terse gasps from hard-heaving lungs and that little dull aches were poking at my palms with increasing frequency from the tensile strain of fingers locking the thin air in an unyielding vice-grip? In short I was in a terrible panic. Was I to be whisked off to Kiri-kiri and locked up for twenty odd years without a trial? Or perhaps just shot somewhere on the way there? Breathe doug...breathe.

Well we were whisked off to the rundown station and shoved behind the counter where there was a single bench nailed to the ground at both ends. The closest cell was within view of where I sat and while I waited to be attended to, I played audience to a young Ibo man being stripped and shoved into the welcoming fists of its occupants.

Thud! Thud!! Whack!!! Twangggg!!!

'Eyy! Why you dey beat me na? Wetin I do you na' enquired the young man of his faceless assailants.

[silence and more methodical and curiously rhythmic thumping]

'Eyyy! W-w-why n-na? Eyy! Eyy! W-w-w...' I should have bequeathed him much credit had the young man been able to repeat his sentence in the reciept of such a frightful and resounding pummeling.

[silence as the rhythm faded smoothly, broken only by a few brutal spikes]

More silence. 'Omo hinna oshi' [Stupid omo nna – Stupid Ibo boy]

I was suddenly acutely sensible of my being from across the Niger - or at least somewhere in the middle of it.

Gulp! 'Officer, please I'm asthmatic' Frigging shameless lie. My mother has a chronic case of it, but that's as much history as I have with that horrible ailment.

4^th Uniformed Ninny: 'Off ya cloth my friend'

5^th Uniformed Ninny: 'Bo igo oju e' [Take off your glasses]

'E jo! E jo! Yeee...!' 'Thump! Thud!! Whack!!! Smack!!!' The Occupants were playing the gracious and grateful hosts of another guest.

'Officer, but...officer wait...hold on a second...' I was stuttering, and my clouded eyes were glistening with the earliest heralds of a downpour.

Wunmi: 'Ok Officer, put me in the same cell as my friend' I had almost forgotten he was there. Wunmi is one of the friends I have as a direct consequence of being my older brothers brother. They're goodfellas in the 'Goodfellas' sense of the word. Not Mafioso of course, but just tough guys – unlike my whimpy self of those days. His master plan was to step in ahead of me and at least throw a few punches, briefly exhibiting our guts before they were subsequently splattered about the filthy cell. He matched the Officer slang for slang, bark for bark, glare for glare, until they agreed to his terms.

I was yet mulling over what profit this was that was being presented to me - being pulverized in the company of a friend in preference to bearing it myself - when I heard a commanding voice call out to someone in my direction.

Boss of the Uniformed Ninny Folk: 'Hey! What offence did that young man commit?'

4^th Uniformed Ninny: 'He's one of the criminals waiting to be identified sir' Who the frig was I that they'd care to address me by name?

Boss of the Uniformed Ninny Folk: 'This one? With his glasses? Did he...'

Me: Perceiving the dimmest glimmer of hope 'Sir, I didn't do it. I live at xyz tgf. I was doing blah blah blah' I assaulted the Boss with my story.

Boss of the Uniformed Ninny Folk: 'Don't put him in the cell. Chain him to the bench behind the counter. But if he tries to escape, gun him down!'

And thus I spent that night. Chained to a creaky wooden bench in Ninnyville, wondering what my family was wondering was the reason doug was wandering about so late. I gravely observed as the slow-flowing sea of heads all round the surrounding streets ebbed to a trickle. I observed the chirping birds hopping and fluttering up in the tree above my window, my chains and their freedom poignant reminders of the things I routinely failed to show gratitude for. I listened to the Officer on night patrol remarking while stretching out for the night, after arresting another batch of boys:

'Ki lo ku ju ki a bere idariji lowo olorun' [what else is left but for us to ask for God's forgiveness]

'Friggin he-goat!' I whispered to Wunmi who sat silently beside me through it all, till we were bailed the following day. Our intimacy was significantly advanced by his deportment that night.

It was bothersome doing him the favour he asked of me this morning, but he's done a tonne of bothersome things for me in the progress of our strange relationship.

I still have no idea what I'm going to blog about today.