DRIVING WITH CRAZY Episode 7

                              HEAVEN TO THE RESCUE.                                             

 *For previous episodes, go here         

       I drove in the company of the GPS. She, as Alex liked to describe it, wasn't much help at keeping me entertained or awake. We were too far from any city to get radio signals and so I was stuck with the rap songs Alex had in his car. Even with the songs blaring from the Speakers Alex didn't move from his slumber. Whatever sedative that hunter had given him would probably have given anaesthesia a run for it’s money. I had slapped him across the face enough times to leave the area slightly reddish hoping he would wake up but he would only turn and continue sleeping. At a point, I began to envy him. The things I would have done to have a good, soft bed to crash on right then. He had stopped bleeding, at least the hunter had done one thing right by applying some pressure to the injury to stop the bleeding but I still felt he should have it checked out. The bullet might have been laced with something. Poison? Maybe that was what was making him sleep so long? Or maybe it would make him hallucinate and start to act out his hallucinations! I had to take a deep breath to stop my mind from overreacting. Hopefully, he was just enjoying what had become an over two hour nap under the influence of a sedative. That was normal. Right?

  

                                                              ***

   I had been driving for almost three hours with my mind constantly reminding me that i could be going in the driving myself to Jos without knowing it. My mum always chided me for not knowing how to drive myself to Kaduna or the cities that led to it. I would always tell her that if I ever needed to drive, I would get a driver and so I never learned the route. See why you should listen to your parents! The GPS had gotten me this far; hopefully it would take me the rest of the way. It was nearing 9am. The sun looking nice and bright, perfect weather for a wedding. It was my best friend’s wedding day. The day we’d dreamed about since we recognized the importance of boys. Nena must have tried my number at least a thousand times by now. I tried to find comfort in the fact that it could have been a lot worse. I could have been married off to some old chief by now or be stranded because I couldn't drive and Alex was sleeping like he was half dead. So in comparison, I was having a good day.

    I took my eyes off the road long enough to see that according to the GPS, we were about an hour and some minutes  away from Kaduna. A smile slowly tattooed itself across my face when I saw that. If that was anything to go by,  I would make it in time for the wedding and the last forty-eight hours of horror would not be in vain. While turning to look at the side mirror two things caught my attention. Firstly, the blinding stench that was emanating from my armpit! I smelled like fish and coffee mixed together. After not taking a bath for almost two days and running and sweating ever so often, I suppose it was to be expected. The terrible smell coming from my body almost made me forget the second thing I had noticed while looking at the side mirror. A car seemed to have been following me for a while. I was on an express-way, wide enough for a person to overtake if they felt it necessary and a few cars had zoomed past so it was puzzling that this white car had been a few metres behind me for almost thirty minutes. I had noticed it earlier but thought nothing of it till I looked out again and saw the same car. I could tell it was a man driving but I was too far to recognize the features. I tried to convince myself that it was paranoia and hunger making me over-assess the situation. I put my foot to the gas pedal and sped on ahead thinking i would probably lose after the bend that was up ahead; but still he followed me. Why would someone be following me in the middle of nowhere unless they knew me or wanted to rob me. I looked around the car, there was nothing to steal. Pastor had made sure to take care of that as I was naïve enough to let him. So what did this guy want?

     My heart started to beat very fast again as I thought of what to do. I looked at Alex, looking oh-so-peaceful in his sleep that was nearing three hours now. Still looking at the road, I went at his face with a slap. Thwack! “Alex, will you wake up already! Haba! Someone is following us!” There was no stir, no sound; he just continued with his soft snores. It looked like I would have to face this one alone. Wasn't I just saying some minutes ago that I was having a good day?

       I thought about speeding until I got to Kaduna, it was just about fifty  minutes away at that point but then it occurred to me that this could also be someone going for the wedding that recognized Alex’s car and was trying to get my attention. But then, I had been making all kinds of wrong choices throughout this journey and I was too hungry to endure another situation arising before getting to that wedding. But I also had to consider Alex’s arm; I needed to get him to the hospital before getting to the wedding and I didn’t even know the way to any hospitals in the city. The only gadgets I knew how to handle were my phone and laptop so configuring this GPS to direct me to a hospital was not an option; but if I knew this person, they could probably help me take Alex to the hospital while I hustled my way to Nena. All these options and things to consider just to make the decision to either speed up or park the car. I said a silent prayer as I slowed the car to a stop by the side of the road.

    As was expected, the person in the car caught up to me and parked his car in front of mine. He got out of the car revealing his almost six feet figure with muscles bulging from his tight T-shirt. As he stood locking the door, I peered through the windscreen to see if I could recognize him. He looked like…..Taye? What was Taye doing here? But when did Taye get so muscular? And he couldn't possibly be on the road when his wedding was in about an hour. It was then he turned towards me and I noticed the birthmark just about his right eyebrow. I heaved a huge sigh of relief . Kehinde!

                                                          ***

“Aishatu!" No one else felt the need to call out my full name but Kehinde. "Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get your attention. I expected to see Alex driving though.” He said locking me in a huge embrace. For once, I had made the right call.

“Kehinde, you can’t begin to understand how happy I am to see you. I thought you were  Taye for a second there.”

“It’s good to see you too. You look exhausted Aisha and where is Alex? Taye told me the both of you were coming together. It sounded like a recipe for disaster. I hope you haven’t dumped my friend’s body somewhere oh.” He said chuckling.

“Not yet oh. Look at him sleeping in there.” I said tilting my head in the direction of the passenger’s seat. Kehinde went around and tried to wake him up. Alex didn’t budge.

“What’s wrong with him? Which kind sleep be dis?”

“Long story oh. You wouldn’t believe if I told you. Your brother and sister-in-law have put me through what has to be the craziest journey of my life, but don’t worry he’s alive. He’s injured though. I actually stopped hoping it was someone I knew so they could take him to the hospital for me.”

It was then he noticed the blood on his shirt. Clearly alarmed he asked “ Ahah, Aisha what happened to him?” Then I proceeded to recount the happenings of  the entire journey and all it’s craziness to him. I had not realized how good a story it was until I retold it to him. By the time I was done he was so shocked all he could do was laugh.

“And all that happened between yesterday and today? After all that, the both of you have to get married and make Aisha and Taye do this for your own wedding.” I laughed like I hadn’t been secretly imagining the same outcome while driving.

“You don’t even know. I’m waiting to find out which is a longer journey by road- Lagos to Ghana or Lagos to Kaduna. If Lagos to Kaduna is longer, I’ll find another place. They must experience the ‘thrills’ of a road trip.” I said as we both burst into laughter.

   Finally, we agreed that Kehinde would take Alex to the hospital while I made my way to the wedding. We carried Alex into Kehinde’s car and laid him in the back to continue sleeping. Now it was 10:03 and I had forty-five minutes to get home to resume my chief-bridesmaid duties. I knew Nena wouldn’t let anyone else take my place until I got there but I didn’t want my lateness spoiling her big day. I got the exact directions to the house from Kehinde. We agreed that he would drop Alex off at the hospital and make sure he would be well taken care of before he ran off to assume his role as the best man.  As I bid him goodbye, I was careful enough to go for a handshake instead of a hug. There was no need to pass the ‘fish+coffee stench’ around. I got back into the car determined to make the journey of approximately one hour it should take to get to the house in forty-five minutes so I would have some time to get ready. I pulled on the seatbelt, adjusted my seat as I prepared to go all ‘formula one’ on the rest of the journey.

DRIVING WITH CRAZY Episode 6

                ONE DAY, LOTS OF TROUBLE.

"Alex, you're bleeding!”
He looked down at his arm and saw the blood that had stained the part of his shirt that covered his upper arm. He gently lifted the cloth off his arm to reveal a bloody cut on his arm. I looked around and saw no one with a gun. Where did a bullet come from then. My mind was already processing the worst possible scenario.

 "Aisha oh, Spiritual bullets are after you!" 
Very interesting, that imagination of mine. I stepped closer to Alex to inspect the injury. 

“Oh, thank God. The bullet didn't pierce your arm. It just tore past your skin."
I stylishly turned away to wipe the tear that was about to drop from my eyes.

“Well, it tore enough to get the blood flowing.”
He must have seen the terror in my eyes because just then he said, “It’s not that bad Aisha. I’ll be fine.” His attempt at reassurance didn't help much though. I was visibly shaken and my eyes kept darting from left to right.

“Who could be shooting around here?” He asked, surveying the forest. The universe decided to answer his question. We started to hear footsteps, approaching quickly. Like that of a man running. We headed quickly for the car. We couldn't let this guy perfect his aim on our bodies.

He saw us. We couldn't get out of sight before he saw us.
"Wait! Wait! You with the blood.  Wait nah! I sorry. I no want to shoot you!"
I jumped when I heard the voice. It was slightly high-pitched and strangely loud. I definitely was not about to trust any words formed with that high-pitched voice. He could have been a hungry cannibal for all I knew. How had I managed to amass so much bad luck in just 24 hours?

He peered into the car through the windscreen and saw the blood on Alex’s arm and all of a sudden, he started to talk even louder.  Then he jumped on the bonnet of the car and continued begging Alex to come out and let him atone for his mistake. When that didn't work, he got off the bonnet and got a log large enough to block the road. All this happened while we sat tight in the car wondering what exactly was playing out before us. After this obviously Hausa man blocked the road, he came around to Alex’s window and continued begging us to come out so he could clean Alex’s wound. I was so tired.  There had been so much activity in the past few hours and I thought being a Chief Bridesmaid was stressful. I swore to myself that when I got married all my close friends would have to drive down to the wedding, even if it was a destination wedding!

When the pleading at the window didn't work, he went back to the bonnet and camped there.  Which kind life? We couldn't move forward and kill the man or reverse and throw him on the ground so we stayed put. After pleading and rolling up and down on the bonnet, he sat up, still on the bonnet and started to talk through the windscreen. " Ayam a hunter. I saw moving, trees moving and something sounding. I think it was animal. And I shoot. I sorry. I very sorry. Please let me clean it. I have leaf to clean your hand." He said pointing at Alex through the slightly tinted glass. It was then I took a good look at him. He was slim, almost gaunt and dark with a very apologetic look in his eyes.  Apparently, Alex's voice bore some similarities to that of an animal. Intriguing.

   
 I took some tissue from the car and cleaned the blood around his injury. He looked up at me as I dutifully cleaned the blood. “Thank you Aisha. "

“It’s nothing. "

“Not just for this.

“I’m sure this is the craziest trip you've ever been on too. And it would have been a lot harder if you weren't with me.”

I smiled coyly. “That’s not entirely true. If I didn’t come on this journey with you, we wouldn't have stopped for the meat or picked up the pastor and then we wouldn't have lost our money and had to gamble at the village and be on the verge of missing the wedding.”  He threw his head backwards and laughed. “So you really are the cause of the bad luck we've had on this trip. Who is chasing you from your village eh, Aisha?”

“Please jor, even with all my bad luck; you’re the one who managed to sound like an animal and get yourself shot.” We both laughed at that.

“You’re wicked oh. You don’t know I could be dying.”

“You sure don’t sound like someone who is dying oh” I said giggling. “We can’t stay cooked up in this car forever though. And it’s getting very stuffy.”

“So we should come out and listen to what the man has to say? I don’t think that’s wise.”

“No, definitely not.  We can wind the glass down a bit so we can hear what he has to say.”

 So we did just that.  We called the man and let him explain yet again how he saw Alex from afar and thought it was an animal as he had been out hunting without being able to catch anything for the past few days. After he teased me so much about the Old man wanting me because he thought of me as fresh meat, he was turning out to be the one with the coveted meat on his bones but I didn’t have time to share my joke because the man had moved on to begging Alex to let him apply his herb that would stop the pain instantly.  It was the verge of daybreak and we didn’t even know how far from Kaduna we were and as if that wasn’t bad enough; Alex as if he was brainwashed, opened the door and followed the money to get this ‘cure’. Hadn’t we just had a mental agreement not to pay any attention to the man and he had just followed him so God knows what could be applied on the injury. After the man had mixed the herb with some seed and pounded them together into a greenish-brown paste; he rubbed it on the affected area and told Alex to sit still.

“Alex, come. Does this thing even look normal to you? I mean with all your Harvard Education, you’re just as primitive as this man. How can a herb be a pain reliever for an open wound?”

“Where do you think drugs originated from?  Most came from leaves and the man knew what he was doing. It’s easy to talk when you’re not the one feeling the pain.” When I heard that, I let it go. It would have been insensitive of me not to so I let him have his way.  Alex sat on the stump for a few more minutes before he started to yawn.

“Why are we still waiting for the man?” I said taking in the view.

“I don’t know. He said to sit still.”

“Please let’s go. We’ve gone through too much to miss this wedding now. Does it feel better now?”

     “I really can’t tell, but I’ll rather not take the chance of driving. The GPS would help you though; it’s already programmed to get us to the house.”

“OK, but why do you sound like you won’t be beside me the entire way?”

     “I feel really drowsy all of a sudden. I might have to crash in the back seat after a while.”  I went around to move the log that had been blocking the car and came back into the Driver’s seat to get going. “OK, no more stops this time and no more incidents till we-“ I looked at who I was supposed to be talking to and Alex was sound asleep in the chair.

      “Alex, wake up,” I said tapping his arm. After repeating this with more intensity each time for a few minutes and waving my hand back and forth under his nose to double check that he was alive; It dawned on me that I was going to have to make the rest of the drive alone. I laid my head on the steering wheel in utter frustration.  “God, please I don’t think I can take another surprise today. Please just help me get to this wedding once and for all.”

      And so I drove down the bush path with Alex passed out beside me.

DRIVING WITH CRAZY episode 2

                                           DRIVING WITH CRAZY. 

 The second part of the series. For those just joining us, See the first part here

      I didn't even know how to react. I didn't even have the opportunity to. Other late boarders pushed me aside so they could show their own boarding passes. Then Nena called, I managed to explain to her how I had fought my way and made it in the nick of time just to find out I didn't have my boarding pass with me. She was too stunned to react. Taye immediately took the phone and calmed her down just to prevent a serious bridezilla moment from taking place. “Aisha, I'm so sorry for all the stress. Don’t worry; we’ll name one of our kids after you.” I figured that was good payment for my labour of love. It must have been at this moment that the terrible idea entered his head because the next thing I heard was “I don’t really know any transport companies that would have buses going to Kaduna at this time but……. Alex just told me he was going to drive down.”

            Before I could even reply, my mind had gone from “This Taye boy must be mad. He wants to put you in the same car with that psycho for thirteen hours! ” to “But even though Alex is probably not well; you’ve always had a crush on him. Doesn't that make you slightly insane as well?” Luckily, the sensible part of me got to speak first. “Taye, not in a million years, not when pigs fly, not even when Mama Joy learns to sweep. Never!” I could hear him laughing now; I hoped for his sake that it was a joke. How could he even ask me to survive a thirteen hour journey with Alex! The same person that glued the clothes on his back to the building of his secondary school with super glue to prevent the bulldozers from tearing it down. Nenadi and I had already established that he must have left a sizeable part of his common sense at Customs when he was coming back into Nigeria after getting his University education in Manchester.  We had been classmates since Secondary School and we always had this crush on each other but no kind of crush would make me overlook the fact that he sometimes acted like things were controlling him. Nena took the phone back and started to plead and promise the heavens and the earth if I would just drive down with Alex. “Aisha, please now. You know I would never allow this but I beg you. I feel guilty for making you miss the flight. You don’t even have to talk to him, but you know he’s not always psycho. Taye even said he’s a lot cooler now and he’s always been funny so it might even be fun”. How could these people be telling me he was cooler. The fact that he hadn’t even started his half a day journey said otherwise; but I knew I couldn’t say no. “Tell Taye that for this, I would name your first two children and you know I have a thing for the name Boniface”. She laughed and said Taye would call Alex and have him pick me up. They were about to take off and so they promised to call immediately they landed.

        It was amazing how my day had just taken a turn I would never have seen coming. I had driven through Lagos like a bat out of hell and still missed my flight and now I was about to embark on the longest road trip of my life with my longtime crush/psycho. I took a cab home and waited for Alex to come by so we could get going. It was about 1:00pm before I heard a horn at the gate. My luggage had already gone with Nena and Taye so all I really needed to get to Kano with where the shoes and my sanity.

    I got outside and saw Alex in the car. He’d gotten himself a nice looking Mercedes. What was it he did again? I really had no idea. He looked good. He always had. He was the image that came to mind whenever someone said “tall, dark and handsome”. If I could explain why I had a crush on him that would probably be at the top of the list. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be advocating for any insane causes or exhibiting insane characteristics at the moment. He came out of the car and reached for a hug. ”Hey Aisha, it’s definitely been a while.” It was going well so far but my heels were still prepared for any sudden manifestations. “Yeah, Alex. It has. How have you been? And why exactly are you driving to a wedding that’s thirteen hours away?” He let out a little laugh and he opened the passenger door for me. “Get in. We’ll talk on the way.” And thus the most unbelievable road trip began.

    We had driven for about two hours and I was starving. You know that level of starvation when your stomach begins to make incomprehensible noises and you begin to feel the hunger abs forming…. I had passed that level an hour ago. I had told Alex I was hungry and we needed to stop for food. He said we had barely started the journey and any stop would slow us down. This only calmed me down for about twenty minutes after which I was complaining again. It may be important at this point to mention that I am not the most pleasant person to be around when I’m hungry. I complain and whine and nag like a baby on breast milk.  And believe me I’ve tried but it really can’t be helped. So I gave Alex a little taste of this. Before long, he was miserable “Look Aisha, there are no restaurants around here. You’re distracting me with all your whining.” I complained until I slept. I woke up after what felt like thirty minutes of sleep. Alex had packed the car and was talking to someone outside. I was still too asleep to know where I was but I saw that there were a lot of trees and shrubs around the car. I saw Alex standing a few feet away talking to someone tying a wrapper and there were some funny looking things lying around. A blood stained cutlass, a couple of calabashes, a reddish cloth, an animal? Was this what I thought it was? Was this Alex’s first manifestation of the journey?