Fifty-One

Effe closes the back door of her car after making sure Junior is strapped in and goes around to the driver's seat. School is over and she has come to pick up her son. Normally either her Mom or Dad picked him up, and when Effe closes from work she passes through and take Junior home.

Today, however, she has finished her court case early.

It had been a corporate case involving an insurance company that fraudulently took premiums and refused to pay claims. Effe had represented one of the victims, a mother whose son suffered from cancer and needed surgery. It had dragged for almost a year, and at some point, in time Effe had feared she was going to lose the case.

The insurance company is powerful with the best-paid lawyers representing them, but finally the breakthrough came when Effe had a secret witness who had given her pertinent in-house documents that proved the company had as its core policy, a first-time decline of all claims.

The jury had found the company guilty, and awarded a handsome case settlement fee. Effe had brought a giant to its knees.

It is a first!

No one had believed it possible! Aside the financial gain on the case, with her firm obtaining a third of the settlement, the case has brought with it great prestige and it has made her very happy. It is all over the news, and natural inclination is to celebrate with the first man in her life... Junior, well and of course Chris.

Steve had called to congratulate her, but it hasn't brought with it the great pleasure that bubbled in her breast when she received the WhatsApp message from Chris:

That brilliant lawyer is mine... Congrats, Angel. I love you. Always have, always will.

She had read it over and again, and it is engraved in her heart, and she knows that it is time to cross the bridge.

Yes, Chris had beaten up his uncle savagely.

Yes, Chris had raped Elaine.

Yes, Chris had been drunk, and high on drugs

Yes, Chris had knocked down a girl and she had lost a leg.

Yes, Chris had not apologized to the girl.

Yes, Chris had punched out a police man's eye.

Yes, Chris had been found with cocaine in his car!

He is not a perfect man. He has always been a bad boy, a traumatized boy ever since his older brother died in a fire. He has served five years in jail, and ever since he came out he has been a different man.

He is a man who has put all the badness behind him and is working for himself, and to keep his son happy.

He is a man who has lost it all, and who is on the road to redemption. He is a man who needs love.

He loves her. And she loves him back.

She just needs his commitment, his promise, his love. If he can give her that, then the time has come for them to live their love again.

"Mommy, you seem really, really, really happy!" Junior observes with a smile.

His words break her reveries, and she looks briefly at him in the back seat.

"I'm really excited, my Prince. Say, how would you like us to pass through Daddy's place?" Effe says, and she sounds happy for a fact.

"Yappity yappity yipppeeee!" Junior shouts.

They both laugh, and Effe breathes deeply. There is an uneasy prayer in her heart:

Dear Lord, this time round, I beg of you, sustain this love between me and this man I love so much!

It is rush hour.

There is no empty seat in the restaurant.

Orders keep flooding in from the take-away desks. The Drive-Through is choked. Chris moves through the kitchen, increasingly getting frustrated, unable to catch any breath. But he looks at the over-worked Victor and the other staff, and he marvels. Victor is smiling constantly, enjoying the moment, the pressure, and the demand.

"You think this is fun?" Chris asks as he puts seasoning in a simmering dish.

Victor grins from ear to ear as he takes a basket of crispy-fried chicken and upends it into a drainer.

"This is the happiest day of my life, sir! Thank you, oh thank you!" Victor says proudly and happily.

Chris cannot believe his ears. He shakes his head and laughs. Three hours later, the pressure begins to reduce a bit, and the kitchen intercom rings.

Victor picks up, listens, and then looks over at Chris who has just finished packing up a giant order of banku and okra soup.

"For me?"

"Yes, sir. They say a Mr. Darlett Thompson is at the reception looking for you."

He watches as a look of sheer delight crosses Chris' face, and then he turns and dashes out of the kitchen. Victor replaces the receiver and, out of curiosity, he walks out and down the corridor and peers into the reception.

He sees that a medium-built man wearing black jeans and a batakari has gotten to his feet. The man has grey hair cropped very close to his skull, and he seems to be middle-aged.

The man and Chris approach each other, and then they embrace tightly.

Intrigued, Victor watches as Chris leads the man out of the back door of the reception into the private little garden behind the reception which Chris loves so much.

Meanwhile, Effe drives into the staff parking lot of JUNIOR'S and parks. She sees Chris' bike under one of the sheds and she smiles tenderly, imagining his surprise when he sees them. She gets down, and finds that Junior has already unbuckled his seat-belt, opened his door, and is running towards the entrance of the restaurant.

"Junior! Wait up, Junior!" Effe shouts.

She races after him, and when she turns the corner she suddenly stops.

A black Hummer is parked across the street, and she recognizes it immediately.

Across its side are the words:

CRANK-BOSS.

"Oh, no! Oh, no! Chris!" Effe cries in alarm.

It belongs to Mike Crankson, and a moment later she sees the GojuFist Grandmaster Champion approaching the entrance of the restaurant in the company of his trainer and bodyguard. Behind him are some journalists' and television crew.

Effe recognizes the HEARTBEAT TELEVISION news van parked at the Customer Parking Lot. The television cameras are rolling.

Mike Crankson is dressed in all white, as usual, and he is walking arrogantly with a swagger and a rude look on his face. Effe sees, much to her horror, that Junior is suddenly standing in front of the entrance defiantly, barring the way.

"Oh, dear Lord, no!" Effe says, horrified.

She knows why Crankson has come. He just wants to bait Chris into taking a fight with him. Crankson suddenly sees Junior barring the door, and his lips open into a great grin of victory. He remembers what Steve had said. Here is his answer for a fight at long last.

"See what I see, Bobo? That's Chris' boy over there. Heaven must be real!" Crankboss says with a nasty chuckle.

Bobo Black, who is Crankson's bodyguard, is a huge man, muscle-bound and as solid as a tree. He is very strong, and sometimes the level of his strength awed even Mike Crankson.

"Easy, Master. I don't think you should mess with the kid."

Crankson's trainer, Nana Bosomtwum, is a vicious man who never smiles. He has a skeletal frame, and is also as tough as nails.

"Relax, Bobo. Nothing hard. Just a little push is all it'll take to make Chris angry enough to take the fight," Bosomtwum says carefully.

As Effe begins to run towards her son, Crankson reaches Junior. Junior stares defiantly at them.

"Go away! My Daddy doesn't want to fight!" he says in a serious kind of voice.

"Your Dada is a coward! A puny, stinking little coward, boy!" Crankson says with a snicker. "Let me in. Just want to have a talk with him."

"No! He doesn't want to talk to you! Go away!" Junior cries, agitated.

The television cameras are rolling! The journalists are taking pictures.

Effe is still running forward.

"Junior!" Effe screams with fear. "Step aside, Junior!"

Crankson tries to step around Junior, but the boy bars his way, and pushes Crankson back.

"I said go away! Daddy won't fight!"

Sudden anger crosses Crankson's face when Junior pushes him.

"Why, you little shitty weasel!" Crankson says angrily.

He sweeps his arm, catching Junior on the shoulder.

Junior is thrown sideways. Bobo tries to catch him before he falls, but he misses, and then the boy falls on the hard concrete hard, hitting the back of his head on the floor.

Junior goes limp! There is a shocked silence. Everybody freezes for a second, and as a trickle of blood seeps from Junior's scalp, Effe begins to scream.

"Juniorrrrr!" she wails.

Bobo looks fiercely at Bosomtwum.

"This is bad. Get Mike out of here! Fast!" Bobo says.

There is confusion everywhere! The cameras are rolling, people are screaming, Bosomtwum has taken Crankson's arm and is propelling him towards the Hummer. Effe sits on the ground and reaches for her son.

In the private garden Chris hears the screams, and he recognizes Effe's scream. It cuts through him, searing his heart. He stands up with fear on his face, causing Darlett to get to his feet too.

"What's wrong, son?" Darlett asks with concern.

"My son. Junior! Something must be wrong with him. That scream was Effe," Chris says, and his voice is dangerously soft, and then he is suddenly moving in action.

Chris is a whirlwind that runs through the reception, down the spaces of the restaurant and blasts through the entrance. He sees Effe on the ground, cradling a very still Junior. The boy's eyes are closed, and there is blood on Effe's hands. There are a lot of people, photographers, cameras, noise, and for a moment Chris is confused, thinking that maybe the boy fell down, or worse a car has knocked him down.

That is when he sees the huge Bobo Black, recognizes him as one of the men he has seen in the corridor at the GIGA when he tried to speak to Afful. Chris' eyes dashes across the street, and he sees Nana Bosomtwum urging a grinning Mike Crankson towards the Hummer. Effe looks up and sees Chris, and her heart beats with fear at the expression on his face. She knows that if he is not stopped he would enter that murderous rage that had always been his Nemesis.

"Chris, Chris, CHRIS! Look at me Chris, please, LOOK AT ME!" she screams desperately. "Junior needs you! I need you! Chris, let it go! CHRIS!"

"Crankson did this?" Chris Bawa asks with cold, simmering fury.

A reporter from URBAN GOSSIP, a newspaper dedicated to the sensational, speaks up quickly.

"Yes, Mr. Bawa. He struck your son!" the reporter cries with something approaching orgasmic ecstasy. In all his years of physical contact, Bobo Black has never seen any human moving from calm docility into total destruct mode as he sees in Chris Bawa that day. He sees the veins of fury standing out all over Chris' face and arms. He sees the veins on his neck, and the murderous fury in his eyes.

He knows that if he does not stop Chris, something awful will happen. Mike Crankson has seen that Chris has come out, and has seen that he has noticed them. Crankson stops in the middle of the road and turns to walk back to face Chris.

"No, no, no! Mike, not here! Get into the car! He will take the fight now! Get into the car!" Bosomstwum cries desperately, almost with a hint of fear.

But Crankson, never one to walk away from a fight, pushes his trainer aside and begins to walk towards Chris. Chris rushes forward, and Bobo moves from the side to stop him.

Chris pivots without breaking stride and hammers a fist with such force into Bobo's ribs that the huge man gasps as a terrible pain racks through his body, and blood spills from his lips, and he knows that some of his ribs are broken. Chris spins away from the falling body, and crashes a fist into Bobo's face, breaking his nose, and Bobo sprawls to the floor like a broken doll.

Chris looks across at Crankson who has come to a complete stop, stunned. Nana Bosomtwum stops dead, and he speaks slowly under his breath.

"Mike, that man is mad right now, and no longer human! If you don't get into the car he's going to kill you!"

Crankson cannot believe what he has just seen. No, it can't be possible. No man can do what Chris has just done to Bobo. Bobo Black is an expert, a power freak who also doubles as Mike's sparring partner. He is strong, he is fast, and he is an expert in many forms of martial arts. But his destruction had been within the blink of an eye.

Mike knows, quite too late, that he has bitten off more than he can chew. He is not a coward, and never had been, but he knows a bully when he sees one, and he knows that Chris Bawa is a bully, and he knows deep down that he has been terribly wrong about this Bawa dude.

He is no match for that furious maddened man coming for him. Chris steps across Bobo's sprawled body and rushes forward, but Darlett holds on to him tightly.

"Son, son, son! Take it easy, son! You will kill him! They'll send you back to prison!" he says with fear.

But Chris is beyond listening to reason. Seeing Junior lying so still, so hurt, with blood on his head has just taken all reason out of his head. He pushes Darlett aside easily.

"Stop him! Oh, please, somebody stop him, please!" Effe cries as her fear turns to sheer panic, quite certain that Chris would kill Crankson should he get to him.

Many men rush on Chris, holding him trying to bring him down. He is like an eel, knocking them off one after the other with such rage that when six men fall to the ground moaning with pain, no one dares to hold him again. By that time, though, Bosomtwum and Crankson are in the Hummer, and the driver has started up and the car is moving down the street.

Chris is like a robot! He can't see beyond the red haze of his anger, his hurt, his bitterness! He begins to run after the Hummer, pumping his legs, his arms, running, chasing it! Bosomtwum and Crankson turn and watch him through the back windshield.

Chris is oblivious of the horns of cars behind him. He chases the Hummer with such one-track anger, his eyes seeming to cast glows of hatred after the huge black car. But the car is fast, and is gathering speed, and soon the distance between them widens, and still Chris will not stop running after it, even when his heart begins to tear apart with lack of oxygen.

When the Hummer is safely away, Bosomtwum turns away and sits down, but Crankson is riveted to the windshield, still looking out at that dot in the distant that signifies that Chris Bawa is still chasing the car.

"You can't fight that man, Mike. The fight is off," Bosomtwum says warily.

Crankson finally sits down and looks at his trainer.

"He'll force me to fight now, Nana. I'll have no choice," Crankson says with resignation.

Bosomtwum turns and looks at the young man with hard eyes.

"There should be a choice, Mike. I saw a beast out there. It is personal for him now. I don't know if his boy is going to be alright. You pushed him too hard. Whatever we do, we're not fighting him."

"I ain't scared of that old man! I'll tear him apart!" Crankson says stubbornly. "From what I saw, if you fight that man, you'll never fight again. He'll kill you!" Bosomtwum says coldly.

Chris is still running until Effe's car suddenly crosses him. He looks at her desperately.

"Chris. Get in the car!" Effe cries, and she has tears in her eyes.

The backdoor opens. Darlett is there, cradling the still form of Junior. Chris, fatigued out, climbs in.

Effe begins to drive with her horn blaring. Chris takes his son in his arms and holds him gently as his whole body continue to vibrate with rage. A moment later, he feels pressure on his middle finger, and looks down, and Junior is gripping his hand hard.

His eyes open slowly and he smiles weakly at his father.

And, much against his will, tears of love and relief flood Chris' eyes.

"Champ! Oh, Champ!" he cries in agony.