Thirty

It is fight night.

Rupert is driving and Ira is sitting by his side. Chris is in the back seat.

Rupert is wearing an excellently-tailored black suit, white shirt and maroon tie. Ira is in a dark green dress that shows off her stunning beauty. Chris is making do with one of the black jeans Ira has bought for him and a sky-blue Polo T-Shirt.

The Ghana International GojuFist Arena, GIGA, is filled to capacity when they arrive. The brutal mixed martial arts called GojuFist has come to stay in the country. It provides more excitement, blood and violence than boxing, and so it has become very popular on the continent, and in the country.

Chris marvels at how the sport has become so huge now. Eight years ago, Chris was a GojuFist fighter, winning all his ten professional fights and the topmost belt: GojuFist Grandmaster. Effe, however, wasn't comfortable with him being a fighter, and so Chris established FINE GOJU DOJO, a GojuFist-promoting company. Later, he brought in his friend Jonathan Afful as a partner. Jonathan was in charge of administration whilst Chris, who didn't care much about business luncheons and official bureaucracies, concerned himself with finding GojuFist talents and training them.

Their fighters turned out to be the best bunch in the country, winning belts in the country and beyond. And then, of course, tragedy struck, and Chris found himself in prison.

The busy and deafening cacophony around him brings Chris out of his reveries as Rupert enters the VVIP Car Park. He picks a billing ticket from the automated ticket dispenser at the entrance, drives in, and parks his car.

He gets down and quickly goes round to open Ira's door for her. Chris gets out and stands surveying his surroundings calmly. They walk to the elevator banks, get into one, and rides to the Arena Area. They pass through glass booths, get their fight tickets punched, and then they enter the fully air-conditioned VVIP stand which is taken up by the most popular and wealthy personalities in the country, all of them dressed in striking suits and expensive dresses.

Chris hesitates as Rupert leads them to front row seats, and Ira looks at him with raised eyebrows.

"Aren't you sitting down, Chris?" Ira asks.

Chris shakes his head and smiles wanly. Down in the ring a GojuFist Purple Master tournament is going on. It is on the undercard before the main event of the night.

"I'll be with you shortly, Ira. Something I need to check out," Chris replies.

"Please don't keep too long," she says with concern.

Chris nods, turns and quickly goes back to the exit. Ira stares after him, and then Rupert tentatively touches her arm, and she comes back to the present with a start.

"Hey, beautiful lady, let's sit!" Rupert says.

He leads her to the seat and sits down beside her.

"Thank you, Rupe," she answers.

"Welcome, my dear," Rupert says uncertainly. "Listen, can I ask you an awkward question?"

Ira turns to him.

"Of course, Rupe. What is it?"

He looks into her eyes earnestly.

"Well, it's no secret that I've admired you for a long time, Ira, and of course you know just how much I adore you. I've made my honorable intentions known to you, and my wish to marry you. You told me to wait a little bit, and of course I did. I've never had occasion to worry, because you've never looked at another man twice. However, with the arrival of your brother-in-law, I've been getting some strange vibes from you. Do I have to get worried about you and Mr. Chris Bawa?"

She forces out a laugh and reaches out and touches his right cheek tenderly. It is his directness, more than anything else, that she finds so endearing about him. His question throws her, but she smiles in a way she hopes is uncaring enough and which will reassure him. It is a question she has been afraid to ask herself, and the only sane way to answer it is to tread it underfoot.

"Oh, Rupe! Don't be silly! Of course not! He was married to my twin sister, for crissakes! We Africans are different. Our culture frowns on such relationships, and it would never cross my mind. He's been through a lot, and I just feel pity for him, nothing else. Get that silliness out of your head, please."

He smiles broadly, and she sees the relief in the depths of his eyes.

"Thank you, Ira. You don't know just how happy that answer makes me. I was beginning to sweat a little."

She smiles reassuringly at him, and even leans forward and brushes his lips with hers, but inwardly she trembles, because she knows she has just avoided a question she must face head-on.

Meanwhile, Chris finds himself on the restricted Warriors' Wing. It is where the GojuFist fighters and their trainers wait and get ready for their fights. There are two huge Security Enforcers at the entrance. One moves to bar his way, but the other holds his friend's arm and drag him back, saying something to him. They now regard Chris with huge grins.

"Wow! Just been told you're Chris Bawa, former undefeated Grandmaster!" the bouncer nearest him says, and the other bouncer extends his hand.

"I watched your fight with that Brazilian, Sam Breeze!" he says with an awed smile. "Finest skills I ever saw, Mr. Bawa! You were in a class of your own!"

Chris smiles and shakes their hands.

"Coming back to the ring, Mr. Bawa?" the first bouncer asks.

Chris shakes his head with a smile.

"No. Retired permanently. Listen guys, is Mr. Jonathan Afful in there? Wanted a word with him."

They stand aside and usher him in.

"Go right ahead, Mr. Bawa."

Chris murmurs his thanks and passes through the door. He finds himself on a luxurious corridor. Glass doors open to executive loungers on each side, all of them labelled. He continues down the corridor until he comes to an L-shaped bend, and arrows indicating DRESSING ROOMS.

He turns right and find himself facing a row of closed glass doors, and just as he is debating where to go, one of them at the far end opens, and a group of men come out. There are about six of them, and leading them is the short muscular Jonathan Afful, and just behind him is Steve Hollison. They see Chris, and Afful stops, and raises a tall tumbler to his mouth and drinks. He smirks, and then he walks jauntily towards Chris.

"Well, well, well, well! Look what the cat dragged in... a stinking piece of shit! Look, guys, here's the beast!" Afful says nastily.

"That's quite a welcome, Jon, considering…" Chris says calmly.

Afful drains his glass and hands it to one of the men. He is impeccably dressed, and the budget on his clothing alone could have fed an entire village. He is that rich.

"Considering what, Chris, my boy? Are we talking about paybacks and calling in favors here? I am going to assume you're not here looking for me," Afful says with a contemptuous curl to his lips.

Chris takes a deep breath, but remains unfazed otherwise.

"Actually, I am," he says. "I'm back, and I'm broke, and I need a job. GojuFist is my passion, and I'm here to re-join the company."

Steve is in an excellent tuxedo, and he looks extremely well-groomed. He snorts and gives a bark of a laugh.

"Dear goodness, Chris!" he utters with disdain. "I can't believe this! Assuming you have no shame, have you no pride too, man?"

"Re-join the company? Did I hear re-join?" Afful says, sounding affronted. "Goddamn it, man! Hey, fellas, look at this man. Now, if you want a picture of a failure, he is this man! Look at him, go on, look at him!"

Some of the other men chuckle. Those who do not know Chris are laughing, but a couple of them used to be associates of Chris, and they look on stonily, almost embarrassed by the childish antics of Afful.

"Now, don't think I'm bragging. This man here started FINE GOJU DOJO. He was a Grandmaster Goju title holder. But what did he do? He stopped fighting and gave it all away because of a pussy!"

The other men laugh. Steve chuckles.

"Watch it, Jon, motherfucker!" Steve says with a chuckle. "That woman is going to be my wife!"

"Yeah, yeah, fine piece of ass, I must admit. Now, where was I?" Afful continues, waving his hands expressively. "Yes, this man brought me in as his partner, and just as the business was taking off, he sold it! For no reason at all he sold it! I went to the bank, raised a loan, and bought the Company. And what did he do with all that money? He took it to prison!"

Now everybody is laughing.

"And this man now has the audacity to come here, stand in front of me, after I have built up the Company from scratch, to ask for a job?" Afful says nastily. "And oh, I forgot, this bastard raped my wife! Well, at that time she was not my wife, just a girlfriend, but I was fucking her anyway!"

There is more laughter. Steve glances at a giant television screen on the wall.

"Leave this loser, Jon. We're on. Time for Mikey to earn some money," Steve says, looking at Chris scornfully.