009

Minutes later, I felt my throat suddenly become dry like a desert. I realised I was thirsty and needed water to quench my thirst. With my hands, I searched under the car seat for the malt drink Alex had bought me the previous night.

Alex had bought the malt when he realised I had become drunk from the alcohol I consumed. Alex said it was going to help douse the effect of the alcohol I had drank, and also reduce the headaches I felt.

I was so drunk to an extent, I felt Alex was giving me another alcohol to drink. I didn't even wait to listen to him, neither did I bother looking at the can of malt he held in his hands. I tossed his hands away and shook my head. Heaven noticed I was not interested in drinking the can of malt, Alex placed the malt under the drivers chair. before driving me home that night.

I felt relieved when I found the malt lying under the chair. I picked it up and like a fish, I galloped its smooth content down my throat.

I leaned my back on the chair, and with my head raised towards the roof of the car, I tried to recall how I had found myself in Alex house, instead of being taken to my own house.

Yesterday was Friday, it was clubbing day. Alex was someone who loved to club on a Friday. He had always insisted that I followed him to the club. But for some reasons, clubbing was just not my thing. I always turned down his offer claiming to be busy. This was one of the reasons Temi always teased me.

Whenever she invites me to club with her on a Friday, I had one excuse or the other to give her. She called me a church girl. Most times, she said I behaved like a reverend sister and was pretending to be the holy person.

"Na only you wan go heaven? (are you the only one who wants to go to heaven?) Shey me wey the club go enter hell fire na?" ( I, that do club would go to hell fire then?) Temi will hiss and walk away. But that wasn't actually the reason for refusing to club on a Friday. As a matter of fact, I had grown up in an area where clubs and bars were the most lucrative businesses. I have watched people visit clubs and bars to drink. My mother owned a bar where she sold drinks too. I grew up working in my mother's bar during my teenage days. It was there I met different kind of men. I saw the good, the bad and the ugly. I saw those married men with pot bellies that looked like that of a clay pot. I saw the bad guys whose lips had turned black from years of smoking weed and cigarette, and whose hair looked rough and unkempt like that of a mad man on the street. I have seen those sexually starved men, who came to pick up ladies who will spend the night with them. Most of these men where married men with children and might even have a beautiful wife at home. I have seen fights break out in my mothers bar severally. I have watched an angry man smash a green bottle on the head of another angry man. I have seen people being stabbed with a knife because of a little disagreement. It was in my mother's bar I learnt the act of being rude to men who wouldn't respect themselves. Men who would spank my buttocks when I turned to walk away after serving them their drinks.