Gbum!

Yeepah!

Bolting upright, I looked across the room at Benji. In the dim light of dawn, Benji’s form lay still in his twin bed across from mine. Eighty percent deaf, he probably hadn’t heard the noise that had woken me. I looked around the room, nothing was out of place. The air smelled of dissipated insecticide. I swiped at the mosquito that zinged past my ear.

Gbam!

Yeh!

The noise was coming from the other room in the boy’s quarters – the one Patrick lived with his new wife. The same wife he’d gone to the village to marry last month. Upon return, we’d toasted the newly weds at Mummy Ayo’s buka next door. And stingy Patrick had paid. Usually, the guy used our detergent, bath soap, ate our food, and took whatever we left in the common kitchen or bathroom with abandon. When asked, he’d claim no knowledge.

But since his wife arrived, he’d bought his own detergent and food items. He put them in a locked cupboard. While he was at work, his wife cooked mouth-watering dishes. When he returned, they retired into their room. Benji and I were never invited over for dinner.

Were they being robbed? I didn’t think armed robbers robbed poor people, but then, you never know. I shook Benji. “Wake up! There’s noise coming from next door.”

“I heard,” Benji signed. Like my baby sister, Benji used sign language to communicate. “I think Patrick is beating his wife.”

His new wife? Why would he beat a woman who cooks such delish dishes? I stared at Benji. “Do you think they’re fighting?”

“Do you hear a fight or someone getting beat up?” Benji turned unto his side, a look of unconcern on his face.

“Bu… they just got married.” It just wasn’t right. Nobody has the right to beat a woman just because he’s her husband.

“Gbosa!” This time, there was no corresponding “Yeh.” I couldn’t take it anymore. I stepped out to our shared veranda. There was no one there. Patrick’s door was locked. So he thought he’d kill her in his room, did he?

I banged on the door. Sounds of scuffling came from inside. Had he already killed her? Was he stuffing her body under the bed? “Police!” I barked in my most commanding voice. “Open up!” I used to love police drama as a kid until I grew up and realized that things weren’t as clean cut as they appeared on screen.

“Which kain police dey come pesin house for night?” Patrick knew Lagos police would not come around in daylight talk less of the middle of the night.

“When I kick down your door, you go know the kain police.” I improvised with the pidgin to sound authentic.

“Americana, wetin you dey find?” Patrick stepped out and closed the door behind him. Arms akimbo, he challenged me. His heaving, shirtless torso oozed sweat. He smelled like stock fish soup and eba. “Wetin concern you?”

He was shorter than me, of medium build, and not even muscular. At six feet, four inches, I looked down at the domestic villain. If I made a tight fist, I could pound him to the ground.

“Stop beating your wife. I mean, you just married her, man.” I looked him in the eye. His jaw dropped open. He probably hadn’t expected me to talk about such a personal issue. Benji had cautioned, “don’t get between husband and wife because when they make up, they’ll come after you.”

But, if I didn’t get involved, who would defend the poor woman? She might already be dead while I reasoned with a lunatic. “Erm… where’s your wife?”

Suddenly, my ear rang like a church bell. My vision blurred. Patrick followed the first with another dirty slap. He began to pound me like he’d done his wife. Gbam!

“Help!” I tried to land some blows of my own. I’d taken karate classes throughout elementary school but, Patrick didn’t give me enough space to land a chop. He held me in a headlock. I gave up finding my father on this earth after all.

Then an eerie, gravelly and other-worldly voice cut through the scuffle, “Omo eniyan!” Patrick froze. Eyes and mouth agape, he looked up to the asbestos roof like there was a hole there from where God was calling “Son of man.”

I panicked. If God was looking for someone to punish, I didn’t want to be mistaken for Patrick.  I swung my hands up and connected with his head, twisted around and head-butted him. I kicked him in the shins as I scrambled back to our room.

I locked the door and leaned against it, Patrick’s horror mirrored in my face. Outside, Patrick had fallen on his knees, weeping. “Sorry, Sir! I no wan beat her, Sir. I no wan fight o. Na devil o. Na devil. I beg no kill me now now. I sorry Sir.”

Benji was laughing, his shoulders shaking with the  effort of staying quiet. When he’d got himself under control, he signed, “I gave Patrick the message from God.”

Peace reigned in the boys’ quarters for several months.