There Was A Musician, There Was An Engineer (1) By Ekanpou Enewaridideke
Ayebe the notorious drunkard in Ekpama village was fearless and frank in his derogatory outburst. Ebiowei had just been told by Ayebe that his entire bloodline was tainted with slavery. This outburst could be a product of his drunkenness but he neither lurched nor slobbered which usually signalled that he had once again been drenched in the rain of Ogogoro gin like a fisherman got bedraggled by heavy nightly precipitation. That he was not drunk today as he was wonted to, was borne out by the fact that the outburst walked out straight from his mouth without prompting and provocation. The badge of slavery was like a suffocating rain upon him and every now and then he felt an irrepressible urge to search for IT.
Just when he had searched for it with full force he was confronted with something before which the tag of slavery paled into insignificance. In one woman there was a congruent combination of nymphomania, smoking, lesbianism, pathological lying and conflicting years of graduation from two different universities. A beautiful woman with theories built around assuming perpetually commanding position over men. A flawless and narcissistic creature she considered herself, she would never admit and say sorry to a man even where she was radiantly at fault. This could be her arcane version or theory of feminism known only to her.
Seemingly in a drunken mood or stupor but full of excitement like a self-powered drug addict, room 200 in Borodu Hotel was swelling with thick smokes; Besides the swirling smokes, a straight line of smokes spiralled from her mouth, a burning cigarette confidently held, puffed at and stubbed out in the ashtray when the burning cigarette light could not progress beyond the filter.The ashtray strategically kept on the bed was full of stubs and ashes, and the smoking-and-stubbing motion was a continuous exercise that would not tolerate interruption from any corner however the morality preached. Ebiowei gave out a loud crack of his voice and sighed noticeably to awaken them to his presence but nobody seemed to care about his sudden appearance in the room. The burning sensation of the slavery tag he was full of plans to investigate and fight back to the fullest died momentarily.
Ebiowei lived his entire life in Ekpama village. He only left for the city when he gained admission into the University of Timiebi to study Music. Even before he went to university, traditional highlife music was his passion. His reputation as a musician had already grown wide and far before he went to study Music and graduated as the best graduating student at the University of Timiebi. He sought to know anything historically relevant from anyone around. He was always interested in the history of his own family and this had made him highly inquisitive and investigative. It was his wish to know everything about his family but he knew nothing more than what his father’s surviving brother, David, had told him. From the history told him by David there was no taint of slavery in his bloodline; yet Ayebe had derogated him without provocation that the entire Izon family was tainted with slavery. Historically, is Ayebe of more worth and depth than David? Could Ayebe have lied to derogate me? What would profit Ayebe to call me a slave? Varying questions would storm his mind from time to time concerning the authenticity of the two historical account associated with his family.
Occasional forgetfulness of something can never be ruled out in the life of a man however the capaciousness of one’s brain. Even if one could be associated with occasional forgetfulness, Ebiowei held the view that he would never forget the historical account of Izon family given to him by David even if his entire memory failed. Onosiughu was a very hardworking, wealthy and principled man from Otor-Udu who came to settle in Ovwian village with his two sons, the elder of whose was named Emegi and the younger, Ogbaame. Ogbaame gave birth to Akpotuwe, Okah, Jaman, and Otota while Emegi gave birth to Ewe-aworha. It was Ewe-aworha who gave birth to Mr. Sokoh. Mr. Sokoh married many wives and gave birth to many children. Emuakere and Munugeren were two sisters who were the children of Sokoh. Fully grown, Emuakere married Mr. Izon from Ayama and Akpama villages and gave birth to Ogiren, Ododo, Ekan and Ekregbain as male children. It was Ekan who gave birth to Michael and Michael gave birth to Ebiowei the famous musician. This was the account of Izon family availed him by David. He saw no taint of slavery in it. Yet, Ayebe was very bold in calling him a slave in public without altercation. Immediately he left his performance stage on a day everybody conceded he was musically at his best on the stage, thoughts of the unprovoked verbal attack from Ayebe stormed his mind. May he have been termed a slave out of envy that day because of his widely accepted acclaimed stage performance?
Ebiowei was always bothered however he looked at the abuse thrust at him by Ayebe. For further inquiry and authentication of his known account he had to engage David again in his house where he met him enjoying his afternoon meal of bitter leaf soup garnished with silver catfish and butterfish. He was called on by David to join him at his meal table but he declined politely and waited for him until his meal was over.
No girl could be bolder than Ebiere. She was bold, frank and beautiful, carrying beautifully fixed eyelashes highly tempting though Ebiowei did not betray how he had been tempted by her eyelashes and her reddishly coated lips. Short, fair-complexioned and beautiful with a boldness and courage that threw Ebiowei off balance, she had her own vision of life she would not allow anyone to fault. Some distance away from the stage where he had just played at a traditional marriage feast, probably thoughtful and restful, he was suddenly engaged conversationally with candour by a woman.
‘Hi, our great and startling highlife musician, your stage performance just now was startlingly remarkable! King Ebiowei, that your musical panegyric on Otuaro’s current governorship vision and Pondi’s vision to go back to the House of Representatives which bear resemblance to Barrister Smooth’s musical panegyric on Asupa’s representational vision for the people was as lyrically and instrumentally striking as your dirge on late Timiebi Maika which you played two days ago during the social wake of late Patrick Ogiren and late Egbabile Governor Ogiren. My name is Ebiere. I am all yours for your wonderful stage performance today. I respect, value and like exceptionally talented people like you.’
Ebiowei was speechless. He did not know exactly how to respond. In silence his mind journeyed round her physique as generously thrust at him without his demand though there was no remonstration on his part because it was an offering no sane man would resist. In dressing Ebiere was not the bejewelled type. Her passion for looking good and sophisticated with a dose of superiority complex carried showily on her shoulders did not include or extend to jewelleries. With her aversion to jewelleries in dressing she could be cast as being simple in dressing though very showy in the use of expensive fabrics. There was a measure of ambivalence on the part of God on her creation day. God must have been both provoked and excited. In her one could see an admixture of good and bad physical attributes in construction as an artwork for sale in the public market of eyes. Beyond her make-up-adorned look, she was short and plump, yet with a promising plumpness likely to grow rapidly like Lakuwa water-weeds in Oyangbene River. She was fair-complexioned with a glowing fair skin that enjoyed deliberate enhancement with the right body lotion to create a semblance of her God-given glowing fair skin. No doubt God was generous in giving her fair complexion but she had reinforced it with daily cream-enhancement though she would not agree that part of her glowing skin had the cream of deliberate ornamentation from body lotions that lightened and moisturised the skin on daily basis. Above her oval facial architecture, always dotted with disarming smiles whether she was right or wrong, sat a beautifully carved nose that did not enjoy qualification as either pointed or snub-nosed but it was a nose equipped with seductive vibrational power whenever it was spotted by any man. She had a round face that walked freely and agreeably with every make-up let loose on it but God appeared highly provoked when it was time to create the buttock, legs and breasts. Her buttock did not protrude beautifully as a female creature should be; it was as flat as a slate on which pupils wrote in class. God was not as well generous in the deposition of flesh on her legs. Her legs were as thin as broomsticks.
A beautiful nose indeed Ebiere had but somewhat disfigured by sagging breasts artificially enhanced with foams to look refreshingly succulent, bouncy, bouncing, pointed and sexually stimulating and inviting like the crest of waves crashing into the river and rising again to crash and rise again in response to the turbulence in the river. Dry, sagging and flabby, the breasts told their true story during the commissioning ceremony in the room where all seeming barricades were removed for full scrutiny and admission. The breasts had lost all hopes of resuscitation however the effort exerted to package them alluringly. They would always be the best breasts of the century prior to the commissioning ceremony but when the commissioning ceremony was over, the initial allure and stimulating invitation ended up as deliberate window-dressing and grandstanding to upstage fellow women in a gathering of men and women! Ebiere’s breasts fell into the category of breasts devoid of that seductive charisma whenever they were at work in any public space where people would not be charged a fee for engaging their eyes.
In her gait Ebiere was like a snipe, the Arorobileigha bird that habitually walked on Aroro waterweeds without a ripple in the body of waters in the river. God was both kind and unkind on her creation day. Probably, she was created on a day God was gripped by emotional rollercoaster or see-saw. Yet, she was a narcissistic person who saw nothing flawed in her physical and intellectual attributes. She saw herself as a sophisticated, classy, intelligent, hardworking, confident and highly educated beautiful woman whose beauty would be irresistible to every man. Majorly she considered it her own duty to choose her own men and once chosen, they had a duty to work according to her own dictates and ethics. She struck Ebiowei as a woman very conscious of not only her charmed beauty but also conscious of the power of her charmed beauty deployed to achieve any goal she had set for herself. In a flash he could define the psychological compositions of Ebiere hidden behind his silence and momentary speechlessness.
Ebiowei’s momentary silence and speechlessness became handy tools for him to penetrate Ebiere’s psychological world and compositions. As he would on stage moving from one song to another in his repertoire of songs, depending on the psychological disposition of the dancers on the stage, Ebiere was similarly viewed and surveyed psychologically by Ebiowei while silence and speechlessness ruled the space between them.
‘Are you shy?’ Ebiere broke the predominant silence. ‘Don’t worry. I know how to manage shy people like you. Give me a loving embrace, Mr. Ebiowei. I am sorry. You are not Mr. Ebiowei. You are King Ebiowei the talented musician!’ Arms outstretched she lovingly thrust herself at him; Ebiowei’s chest became the speechless recipient of Ebiowei's dramatically projected chest that carried her two alluring protrusions. After the embrace which he shyly gave Ebiere, she lowered her right hand to his sacred forest and sized the king up so that she could be authoritative on the measured radius of the sacred forest where the king actually dwelled. A bulging king danced into her hand – an old hand exceptionally good at massaging a bulging king to its maximum erectile protrusion.
A bulging king in hand Ebiere felt an overflow in the bank of river that got her Kolukapa underwear soaked with a gushing drip to the ground. ‘King Ebiowei, You should be proud today to have at your command the brand ambassador of the River Voice newspaper and Otobodo Motors – a rare beauty men daily salivate over the social media to possess and devour – a woman so bombarded with amatory friendship requests from men and women that I choose men and women to be blessed with my rare beauty in bed. King Ebiowei, please quickly take me to your world. I am all yours. Can’t you see my roof has begun to cave in. I am fainting now and should be resuscitated by you with the right manipulation of your stick and fingers. And even where you are too incapacitated to devour me, sex toys would do the magic I need from you. In amatory matters I am very democratic.’ Ebiowei saw the altitude of her emotional intoxication and obliged her with a pragmatic response that carried readiness to be initiated into Ebiere’s solicited world of emotional intoxication.
‘My hotel room is not far from here, my queen. Let us walk down!’ Ebiowei found his voice for the first time and began to lead the woman into his hotel room, too shy to hold her waist though she had forced his arms around her waist while they walked towards the room.
‘My lovely king, see my white Kolukapa underwear!' With amatory smiles calculated to instigate him emotionally, she shook the Kolukapa underwear at him. 'It is damned wet, fluid- soaked from the rain of my river! There is no time to waste. I am full like full tide, come on. Devour me now. I am your sacrificial land today. I have sized up your king and it suits my mathematical calculation – long, fat, and strong with a prolonged erectile projection. Please, devour me. I wish to be devoured today from the east, west, north and south of any axis conjured by you...'
Clearly there was no time to waste because Ebiere had temporarily arrested both her clothes and his . ‘My king I enjoy being devoured from behind’. She thrust her back at him immediately while she went on four legs like a ruminant. Twenty minutes on the journey she moaned: ‘Baby my king, you are ploughing my farm. Babe, fuck me harder, it has begun to cum. Do it, it is here! Oh baby, you are good! Baby, massage my clitoris, throw your finger into my anus, put it in and out, make it fast and massage the clitoris slowly. Baby, you are killing me! I am dead! I am dying; you are good, as good as your startling stage performance!’
With the passage of every twenty minutes, she would moan and say, ‘babe, fuck me, it has begun to cum.’ After two hours she moaned and said, ‘babe, you are fucking me, I have cum 12 twelve times already. Nobody – man or woman – has ever made me cum twelve times in my entire life. Babe, you are good. I wish I had you every day. You are so sweet, baby! But baby, you must please grant my very last request to you now’.
‘What could that very last request from you be?’ Ebiowei responded to her with a measure of surprise and perturbation. Ebiere quickly communicated to Ebiowei her prized very last request in amatory tone of seduction.
‘Could you please run your mouth-controller over my sacred river as if you were in search of crayfish there and send me stimulatingly to heaven – that much talked about heaven…’ Clouds of infuriation and objection began to take over the face of Ebiowei much like the sudden arrival of storm.
‘No! I won’t grant your request because I am an apostle of Egbesu. Apostles of Egbesu are traditionally prohibited to fish in the sacred river of women and this matter must not be pursued further’, Ebiowei fired back with an infuriated air of authority and unshakable determination. Ebiere sensed his sudden somersault from the amatory zone of pleasure to that of a principled zone centred on the sacred codes of Egbesu. She no longer saw the need to pursue the subject matter further however the height of her amatory imagination.
Ebiowei's relationship with Ebiere began fully after the dramatic encounter. At their first meeting he knew nothing about her because there was no time for that. After repeated encounters he began to know her more closely. Told she was a mechanical engineer and an economist, he became enthused and asked some verifying questions directed at Ebiere.
‘Educate me on the fiscal policy and monetary policy of this current government in this our country called Gbaraun’. Before she could respond he had changed direction. ‘What are your challenges as a mechanical engineer in Gbaraun? Which are the two universities from which you got mechanical engineering and economics? At what year? When was your NYSC? Your convocation?’
‘You ask too many questions at the same time. I became a mechanical engineer in 2018 and an economist in 2022 from two different universities.’
‘Your graduation years are at war. They are inaccurate? When was your convocation? Your NYSC?’ Ebiowei asked again with more emphasis.
‘What is your business if my graduation years are faulty? I don’t have time for convocation and NYSC. Of what use will all these certificates be if I am into my private business? Will somebody demand my credentials in my private business? You can find fault in my certificates, but I don’t care because I will only go into business which does not require certificates. Don’t ask me questions again. I am not interested. It is my life whether I went to school or not.’ With a measure of surprise and pity he engaged her again.
‘You mean you are merely packaging yourself as both a mechanical engineer and an economist on the social media without credentials? Are you a scammer? A deadly slay queen? I fear you oh, woman!’ Rather shamelessly she fired back again. ‘Na you get your mouth oh!’
Ebiowei suddenly became quiet and journeyed to different parts of the world but chiefly on Ebiere and her unverified stories of greatness, exaggerated high status and class. With some suddenness he sought her verifying responses again. ‘Dear Ebiere, did you actually write your project yourself in your graduation days? What were your project topics in both your two degrees?’
‘Call me any name you like. I can’t remember my project topics because they were all written by mercenaries. I was too busy at work to write my own projects at school.’
Ebiowei's eyes showed total surprise – a total surprise no word would be willing to carry. It was clear he had a lot to say but the words had no idea of the route to take. Only totally surprised look because Ebiere had no shame telling her own great stories… He simply chose not to follow the trajectory of his thoughts which may end up in the deployment of words bound to create verbal monsters between lovebirds.
At the age of 19 Ebiere was raped by seven armed robbers at home. They found themselves invaded by armed robbers in the middle of the night. The armed robbers took nothing from her parents’ home but raped her at gunpoint right in the face of her parents and siblings. When the armed robbers saw that she was exhausted and near death, they left her. Her parents rushed her to the hospital where she lay unconscious for two days before she was revived. Discharged from hospital she was not taken back home immediately to avoid the psychological pangs her home where she was raped may give her. It was psychologically okay or therapeutic for her to be away from the scene of the rape. It was to the home of her auntie she was taken. After three days stay there she was again raped by her auntie’s husband who would not resist the beauty of a 19-year-old girl. Because he wanted to fuck her, he added sleeping pills to her medication. He raped her while she was sleeping. Even when she woke up, she did not know she had been raped until some blood flowed from her vagina. She noticed the flow and alerted her auntie. They took her to the hospital where the doctor confirmed again that she had been raped again. It was Ebiere who had been mercilessly raped twice at 19. Ebiowei shed tears the day Ebiere told him how she was raped twice at 19. Now with Ebiere’s story of graduation from two universities he did not know if she should still be believed. Could the rape story have been concocted to get underserved sympathies just like another story of hers that, in her unrepentant days of nymphomania, she was always looking for men with giant kings in their sacred forests. It was her habit to size up men by touching their kings and give instant judgement; and immediately she would fall for any man with a bulging giant king. No matter how horny she was, she would never fall for a man with a miniature king.
Ebiowei could as well recall the day Ebiere’s gargantuan thirst for giant kings made her fall for a man whose king was so gigantic he could not sail in her river no matter how hard he tried. Ebiere had to run away when she saw that the man’s forceful sail in the river would earn her death warrant. In confessionally telling Ebiowei of how far and how many times men had sailed in her river, this was the only man she ran away from because of fear of the man’s giant king. It was perhaps for giant kings like this found in the sacred forest of men that late highlife musician, King Robert Ebizimor, imagistically cast as ‘Gigidigi’. For King Robert Ebizimor, married women sometimes chose divorce when the King resident in the sacred forests of men became too big for the woman. This was the type Ebiere met and ran away to live another day and enjoy uninterrupted kings.
Convinced that the meal was over and David had eaten his own fill of it, Ebiowei awakened him to salient aspects of the history of Izon family, which seemed lost beyond retrieval.
‘Mr. David, how can I reconnect with my Urhobo kinsmen in Ovwian village now that I am theoretically familiar with the history?’
‘I am 90 years old and can no longer find the location of Ovwian village which is now a city. However, when you go to Ovwian village, look for Chief T.J. Sokoh. If you are able to reach him, your reconnection would be complete.’
Ebiowei’s journey of historical reconnection began a day after David had furnished him with the name Chief T.J. Sokoh. He first took his search to the lodge of Holy Men Order in Warri. Ebiowei was a member of the Holy Men Order, a socio-cultural, educational, philosophical and mystical organization devoted to the search for truth and direct contact in the service of God. He met Sakparakan, a fellow frater, who said he could take him to Chief T.J. Sokoh. Sakparakan took Ebiowei to the chairman of Sokoh family in Ovwian village after the closure of lodge activities that day. Right before Mr. Happy the chairman of Sokoh family, Sakparakan told Happy that Ebiowei was his blood brother from Ekpama village. Before Ebiowei could talk, Happy had begun to tell him the full story of how Emuakere, an Urhobo woman, got married to Izon, an Ijaw man from Ekpama village and gave birth to four children. Ebiowei was intrigued by the fluency and effortlessness with which Mr. Happy told the story of their kinship. In the twinkle of an eye Happy had sent messages to his people to come welcome the lost lineage of Emuakere. Ebiowei was proudly welcomed into the Sokoh family. Happy said Chief T.J. Sokoh had died, only his children and grandchildren were alive. He introduced the children of Chief T.J. Sokoh to Ebiowei and enjoined him to come back again for reunion with the whole Emuakere family in Ovwian village.
Pride and joy refreshingly gripped Ebiowei’s heart after he had discovered the Sokoh family himself. It was time to file a suit of defamation of character against Ayebe for telling a derogatory story about a people he had no thorough knowledge of. Ayebe would have have to be bombarded with suits right and left until he realized that he erred when he said the Izon family was tainted with slavery even when the family could trace their historical origin maternally and paternally. Maternal linkage with Ovwian village did not suggest slavery. The whole story was a deliberate creation to dent and taint Izon family. The unrevealed plan of Ebiowei revolved around getting a lawyer to file a suit against Ayebe for character assassination. That he had been labelled a slave by Ayebe was a matter he was determined to pursue to its logical conclusion.
The love journey of Ebiowei and Ebiere was a dramatic one. Since their relationship began after the first encounter, Ebiowei had come to love Ebiere so much that his plan was to watch out for her marriageability based on the degree of responsiveness of her character-architecture. He was willing to take her as long as her character was worthy. He believed that there was no one who could not be reformed or transformed if the will was there. In his mind Ebiere would be moulded into a remarkable personality even if there were some momentary ugly protrusions bordering on her personal history. It was not his wont to lie to women about marriage as he would not want to be found wanting by any woman on marital matters. About Ebiere it was a watching movie he had created for himself. Turning known Devils into Saints was Ebiowei’s valued philosophy and it was against the backdrop of this philosophy he had decided to overlook the shortcomings of Ebiere and wait patiently for attitudinal change with the passage of time. He often saw himself immersed in a healthy and promising relationship, not a situationship, and so the centrality should be attitudinal change even where behavioural transgressions had been detected.
Because he saw himself as someone immersed in a promisingly healthy relationship, not a situationship, Ebiowei and Ebiere had been in room 200 in Borodu Hotel in Warri for three days. Planned togetherness, even if occasional and temporary, had the power to fertilise a relationship. On the fourth day in the hotel Ebiowei had a cause to journey away in search of his historical link to Ovwian village. This preoccupation with his search for his true historical roots had even gnawed at his stage performances as he had to turn down many offers for live performances. Ebiowei told Ebiere he would be away for three days in search of his true historical roots in Ovwian and its environs. For the three days he would be away, he detailed her to remain in the hotel. She agreed. He left very early in the morning…
Through many places Ebiowei eventually found his true roots in Ovwian. On the evening of the same day he travelled he felt a sudden intuitive urge to come back to the hotel. At 7pm he was already back at the door of room 200. From where he stood he was confronted with a smell of cigarettes smoked. He wondered where the offensive smell was coming from. The door was left ajar and the room seemed filled with smokes. Then with accustomed ease and confidence possessed only by the owner of room 200, Ebiowei opened the door and found three nude persons on the bed. Ebiere lay on the bed, legs parted, nude, with a cigarette masterly held between her forefinger and ring finger, smokes blown in a straight time into the room, eyes dim and misted like someone with a hangover of drugs, some white powdery substances on both nostrils, a nude 20-year-old heavy-breasted girl stood fondling Ebiere’s two breasts in a systematically slow pace; between her parted legs a nude man crouched over her, his black giant king thrust into the sacred river in a slow systematic sail. Seemingly, the nude man’s duty was to sail slowly in the river, the nude girl to fondle and suck Ebiere’s breasts, and Ebiere’s to puff at the cigarette slowly and blow the smokes slowly into the room in a straight line, eyes slowly opened and closed like a see-saw, indicating that she was gripped and imprisoned in the twosome sexual stimulation. The nude girl and man at work Ebiere only moaned ‘O yes, do it slowly! O yes, you are there! O yes, oh heaven, take it slowly!’ She was puffing at her cigarette and moaning, still dead to the arrival of Ebiowei. When he noticed nobody knew he was already in the room even after two minutes, he shouted angrily at Ebiere.
‘Ebiere, what are you doing? What rubbish is this?’
Correspondingly responsive she was in a drawl like one in drunken stupor. ‘What is it, Ebiowei? Please, allow me enjoy myself. I don’t belong to anybody. I am not attached to anybody. Nobody owns me. If you love me so much, pay my things and take me to your home. Go away, Ebiowei. My lovely lovers, please forget about Ebiowei and continue to indulge my pleasures. Give a slow sail in the river and give me a slow suck on my breast but sucked so deeply that the entire breast is drawn fully into the mouth and then slowly retreating and advancing like soldiers determined to win a war on the battlefield. Oh God! Please suck my breasts deeply and slowly as I would on my piano at church for the enjoyment of the entire church on every Sunday...'
Ebiowei forgot the pangs of the slavery taint Ayebe had abusively thrust on him in rare display of historical ignorance. Rather pitiably he gave multiple nods of his head and left room 200 in Borodu Hotel, but not without remembered thoughts voyaging around the tempting vertical growth of grasses on the bank of Ebiere’s perpetually weeded or cleared sacred river. The vertical line of grasses on the bank extended straight or moved linearly, without twists and turns, into the perpetually cleared sacred river. Even that alluring vertically lined growing grasses on the bank of the sacred river had become a plaything for any man and woman she chose whimsically to shower her body on, depending on her current burning amatory desire and nymphomaniac inclinations.Could Ebiere’s narcissistic perception of her beauty and nymphomaniac inclinations be her bane, her amatory pliability, footlooseness, elasticity, resourcefulness and restlessness? Ebiowei thoughtfully asked himself repeatedly in his bout of puzzlement while he was on the way away from the aches of room 200 where Ebiere lay nude on the bed, progressively comforted by a 20-year-old girl and a man.
Rather memorably, carrying stinging, burning, sensations, Ebiowei had been emotionally sniped at by Ebiere the only self-styled mechanical engineer and economist, and his hotel room cuckooed. Banging drunkenly in room 200, always with a big bang Ebiere would go down in the chronicles of Ebiowei as the only deadly emotional sniper in this unpredictable country called Gbaraun…
BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE
Writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State.
