IT WAS NEVER STEVE

  

   Paulo finished the plate of yam and beans he ordered and he pushed it down with a bottle of chilled coke. He remembered the discussion the women in the Salon were having. He went to fix an electrical fault in the wiring of the salon and the duration of his work lasted long enough for him to hear their discussion and little gossips.

  The fat woman, next in line started the discussion about men who cheat on their wives and children. Another skinny woman who just entered said “it is not a new thing that men now cheat with small boys’.

The Igbo woman that was having her hair washed exclaimed “Eh! Chineke God! Boys!?”

      “Yes now. Mama Ejiro, the woman that sells firewood at my junction caught her husband red handed with her son’s friend” the woman said “they said she scarred him and threw his things out. It was the vigilante in the area that saved him that day”

      “Are you kidding me?” The hairdresser exclaimed in shock “I thought this only happened in yankee. Oh God! We are finished”

     “The sad thing is most of these boys look normal” the fat woman said “they are masculine with strong male traits, they even love women but it is all a cover for what is deep down”.

    “Is it now not better to drag your husband with a woman like you than to drag him with one small boy?” the Igbo woman said.

The hair dresser laughed lightly as she dried the Igbo woman’s hair with a towel. “ before my husband will go down with any boy, guy or man, I will make sure I bury a blade deep in his chest. It is not me he will disgrace in the society like that. What will people say? That my body is dry and I couldn’t give my husband love so he had to go look for it outside from a boy?” she said

     “but wait oo, are they born this way or they grow to learn it?” the fat woman asked

    “Born this way ke?” the Igbo woman said “ How can God create someone in his image and likeness and then make him like a man like him? He would have created Adam and Steve if he wanted it to be so. God forbid! If Andy my son mistakenly tries this, if he just compliments any guy’s dressing, I will kill him”

   “I heard they even have an international community that protects their rights” the fat woman said.

   “International abi? Make anybody try am for naija, na to thruway tire for him head, baff am with fuel put fire for him body. dis nonsense no fit work for naija” the Igbo woman who was agitated said in pidgin “na so we dey for dis country. We go copy something from yankee, come do am pass dem”

  “Oga Paulo” the hairdresser called “what do you have to say?”

Paulo was mute. With confusion, he replied “this is women’s talk, a man shouldn’t say anything”

   “Nah! Say something. We all want to hear what you have to say isn’t it?” the other women nodded in agreement.

   “ok, well…uhm… I believe it is wrong. How will I go to bed with a man like me? I mean, if God wanted it to be like that, he would have made it so. With the way breast take soft and how banku come sweet again?” They were mad with laughter.

  He continued “ In as much as I believe it is wrong, I don’t think we should judge them. God is the judge. We shouldn’t do God’s work now should we?” Paulo said as he picked up his tool box.

  “Wetin you talk na true but if everyman likes another man, what would happen to our eggs? The world would end. Like dinosaurs, man will be extinct” the Igbo woman said.

   Paulo got up, paid for the meal he had eaten, picked up his tool box and went out of the restaurant. He meditated on the discussion in the salon on his way back to his workshop. He began to look at every man on the street with suspicion.

                                Compiled by

                                          Ponyak Napbut