Dr Fixit (161 - 170)

 161

if any, that was hidden by consulting 

their device which could be a wooden carving 

of any image representing a god that would squeak 

its coded message which they would speak 

clearly the interpretation to the audience 

seeking intervention in any case. The ambience 

of the ahbiah hediong did differ 

from the ahbiah hebuck for the later 

would administer solutions 

to maladies of any dimensions,

162

physical or spiritual, while the former 

played the role of a sleuth that could uncover 

hidden events in the past, present

and future. The second took in patients,

the first did not. We looked left and right 

and then left (as we were taught) and did stride 

across the road to the opposite side 

and followed the crescent on the side 

of the leisure park as opposite was the wall 

of the prison and adjoining was the hall 

163

of the Prison Staff Club hosting thespians

from time to time. It was the same span

from where we stood at the end 

of the crescent to cross to a small lane

to the cart-park crossroads at our right 

and the church crossroads. The church sat tight 

at the corner of Dancers and Snailwatchers Roads

and the cart-park (famous for ferrying loads

to and from distant nooks across our clans)

sat at the far corner (but within our glance 

164

and both at the other side of the highway)

of Bush Mango Road and Cart-park Way.

The bank was opposite the church tower with a wind vane.

The cart-park opposite the hospital. The lane

took us back to our neighbourhoods.

But just a street before grandma's, we stood 

to watch a drama unfold. A tenant

and his landlord exchanged words being pregnant 

with anger. 'I say, take your property out 

and free my room. You're fond of loitering about 

165

'thinking you have no problem as you refuse 

to pay the rent. Do you think if I didn't use

my common sense while working I would've built 

this house? You're here chasing everything on stilts ...'

'My big brother, please,' the tenant pled.

'Like I told you, I lost my job. My daily bread 

is hard to come by as I sweat as a labourer 

in building sites to eat. Before this week is over,

I'd find you a little something. Hopefully ...'

'Don't tell me about hope when you load your belly 

166

'and then want me and my family to sleep 

with empty stomachs. You can only keep

this room if you go in and bring the cash to clear 

all of your debt which totals a year

and two months.  You've being crying: 

no money, no money. Yet you're frying 

your food, smoking and drinking beer.

You have no intention and conscience to clear 

even a small portion of your outstanding rent.

So I too have no intention further to bend 

167

'to accommodate you. Vacate the room

if you love yourself or what might meet you soon 

won't be palatable. In fact, danger looms.

Don't wait to be dragged out by the goons.'

'Sir, I'd pay you soon. Just be patient,'

the tenant further begged. But being lenient 

seemed not to be in the lexicon 

of the now irate landlord. He did run 

to the door of the young man's room 

and banged it several times, his voice a boom,

168

telling the tenant to pack his things 

as any further delay would force him to bring 

every item inside out by his own hands.

'Sir, sort things out peacefully,' another tenant, 

an elderly man, all along watching from his threshold 

intervened. 'Don't break the law. Take control 

of your temper.' The landlord went loon.

'Oh, I'm now the one, not this idiot in my room 

who won't pay his rent for a year and ...

that breaks the law. My friend, you're grand.

169

'It seems you too would join him and quit.

Once I'm done with him, we'd squarely meet.'

The elderly tenant laughed and said:

'Sir, I'm misunderstood. There are ways laid 

out by the law for matters like this 

to be settled. He owes you, we know. But don't miss 

the point that for long he's been jobless ...'

'Mr Whatever,' the landlord said, 'you're utterly mindless.

Someone is jobless, he's owing and yet daily 

he fries this and that. Let him dilly-dally 

170

'a moment again and I would filing out 

his property with my own hands.'  With a shout

of, 'Leave! Leave!' the landlord jumped inside 

the young man's room. The fellow was beside.

A struggle ensued. The crowd raised the curtain 

and peeped in. The landlord grabbed a basin,

the tenant dragged it with him.

Then, he looked further, dropped the basin 

and leaped for the gramophone

but somehow, he somersaulted alone.