I sit in my small cell. There's still blood in my fingers, blood on my shirt and splashed across my face. There's commotion in the station but I am far away, my mind has strayed and all business without my small cell is oblivious to me. I hear one of the officers scream "Bastard" while referring to me but I don't care. My anger isn't sated yet.
I still see her in my mind. She had called me a week ago, asking me when I was coming home for the Christmas. She had missed me and wished she would have me for this one Christmas. It's not that I have a job, I am as much a hustler as every other graduate. I did what I could to survive and this year, I was getting somewhere. After working as a guard for the most of two years, I was finally getting somewhere, my 2'1 result was going to profit both of us and I was going to move her to the city.
"It's just one holiday Raymond, you don't even have to stay past the 26th." She'd said. I told her I was going to try my best, and she said she knew I wasn't going to come, but I had changed my mind three days ago, even before I got the call from her neighbor to come home. Her neighbour's voice was frantic even though she tried to sound calm and tell me my mother was well.
I got in the first vehicle going to the village. My coming was meant to have been a surprise but now, it was forced. It was forced and I had fear in my heart that my mother was in trouble, that my mother called me to come home not just because she missed me; she called because she needed me. I felt like a negligent son. I had taken time to see her but it had been over two years since the last time I had spent a night with her.
"Na you be the Raymond?" Someone pulls me out of my wandering thoughts. The policeman leans on the bar and looks in at me. I nod. I stink, and I have spent just one night in this cell. The commotion has died down and I hear a few voices in the waiting room. He looks like a hard man but I see something that looks like sympathy cross his face as he chews his groundnuts.
"When them bring you?" He asks.
"Yesterday." I reply. My voice is hoarse and I try to clear my dry throat. He nods.
"You don chop?" He asks. I shake my head and look down on my fingers, I have absently piled off most of the dried blood and I pick at some of my nails. He looks on for a moment then turns to talk to a police officer that said something about fuel price. I look at my fingers and pick dead skin from it. I let myself think of what I met when I got home to my mother.
I had gotten home by 3pm. The door was open when I got there. My mother is a very cautious woman. When I was nine, we got robbed and my father was killed. Seventeen years later and she still locks the place like the house is for sale. So the door being open piqued at my nerves.
"Mama?" I called. It took a moment before I heard someone sob from within. I quickly walked towards the direction of the sobs and it led me to her room. I opened the door and walked in. My mum was on the bed and lay away from me. She shook.
"Mama, are you okay?" She turned to me and I saw her bruised face. She was battered and her fair skin that was out in the open was purple and dark blue like ivy had been poured on her. Her left eye was swollen and closed and her bottom lip was split in two. I was in total shock at the state she was in.
She quickly rose to her feet, staggering and smiled. "Raymond. I didn't know you were coming."
I asked her what had happened and she wouldn't tell me. My fear and nerves wrecked and they became anger, pure anger. I made a call and told my friend Philip to come over, I would owe him but I needed his help. He got over by four and took my mother to the hospital. I went to her neighbour's house, the neighbor who had called me and asked her what happened. She had been reluctant to talk, reluctant to tell me what was going on until I threatened to beat her first son.
"It's been going on for three months now. She owes him and hasn't been able to pay back. He usually comes over whenever he feel like it. We don't know what usually happens." She lied.
"Who is 'him'?" I asked patiently. She excused herself to get a cup of water as a diversion but I didn't let her divert.
"Who is 'him'?" I repeated my question. She sighed before answering.
"Jonathan." She answered.
"Jonathan? He's back to the village?" Jonathan was the State Governor's younger brother. She nodded.
"What does she owe him?"
"50 Thousand."
"50 Thousand?" I tested the words in my mouth. "She goes through this for 50 thousand?" I asked calmly. Her neighbor was quiet and seeped from her cup.
"She didn't want you to know..." She began.
"So she should die? 50 thousand should be the cause of her death then?" I asked unable to hide my anger. She didn't answer. "What does he do to her?"
"I don't..."
"Don't lie to me!" I yelled. She looked at me and began to cry. Realization hit me. I knew what he did to my mother. I left the house and went to the hospital to meet my mother and Philip. She was in the intensive care and he prodded for information, he wanted to know what was going on. I couldn't tell him yet, I just told him she got beaten by some boys. He offered to stay with her while I sorted whatever it was I had to do. He was more than my friend, he was my brother.
So I made out that night to Jonathan's house with 50 thousand naira and a knife in my pocket. It was 10pm when I left my mother's and went to look for Jonathan. I had known him while growing up and known his brother. Mark was a better man and Jonathan was always going to be trouble. He was in trouble now.
His house was a thirty minute walk, a candle was lit in his house and I walked in leaving the door open, like he had left the door to my mother's open.
"So you stabbed him?" The police officer says to me again. I look at him and nod.
"I was going to kill him." I say. He chuckles.
"You don't say that to police here, you'll get yourself in trouble." He cautions. I say nothing and lean my back on the wall and watch him.
"You know you're in trouble don't you?" He asks me. I nod. "That's the governor's brother." He adds.
"He raped my mother, he brutalized my mother."
"His brother would brutalize you." He says simply. He tosses me the leather bag of groundnuts and I catch it.
"Chop, them go beat you later." He says and walks away. I look into the leather bag.
I know this is a tough spot. I know this would work against me either ways. If it blows out, the government might try to buy their way or try to cover their asses by silencing me forever. This might be over for them but it's not over for me. It's not over for me yet.
