You can call me baby
Nku was in the kitchen, piling out bottles of champagne and microwaving the fried laps of guinea fowl when Sen. Madu shuffled through the door.
“Yes, Nk, oh, forget about the champagne,” he protested, rubbing his palms together. “Let’s do it local this time around. You see that your Green Monster juice; it hit my taste spot yesterday. I want them to have a taste of it.”
Nk shook his head “Ok, sir.”
Sen. Madu grinned briefly. “Em, Nk, whenever my wife isn’t around. You can call me baby. I mean it doesn’t take you nine months pregnancy to learn that,” he said and Nku shook his head. “Now as for the Green Monster Juice, I think each of us should have, at least, six glasses.”
Nku turned around with a bewildered look on his face. “Six glasses?” he asked. “Is it holy communion?” he asked again and Sen. Madu chuckled.
With smiles hugely held he said, “I want to promote your art. If it hits their taste spot they can appreciate you with cash or even invite you to teach their wives.”
Nku quickly piled out the laps of guinea fowl in a tray and said, “Ok, sir,” he saw the look of warning on his face and then he intoned correctly. “Ok, baby.”
“Good,” Sen. Madu said and shared a smile with him. “I love you so much.”
“And you,” Nku said as ear-ringing silence was pushing Sen. Madu’s face to his. He threw away his face. “I am busy,” he said and started selecting the fruits for the juice.
Only one of them was sipping at his flute of Red label when Nku walked in with a large tray of ten laps of fried guinea fowl and six jars of the Green Monster.
“Good evening sirs,” Nku said his greeting and dropped the dish on the table.
“Nk, Nk, my friend – I know you’re good at it,” one of them said. That was Sen. Tolu, the only Yoruba in their midst. Nku liked his generosity and friendliness. On the weekends that he came around, he gave Nku ten minty, perfume smelling one thousand naira notes for recharge card and in quiet frisson Nku usually wondered if he was indirectly advising him to start up a recharge card businessbecause with his aspiration of going back to Enugu in the most expensive car, he would not risk ten thousand naira only on recharge card. Before he left their presence, first class bickering ensued and laps of guinea fowl bulged out in their chicks.
“Insecurity is now a child of circumstance and I can see myself and my family living in the mouths of our security personnel,” Sen Tolu said.
Nku was right behind the door, trying to peep and listen with his ears at the same time. He could see the look of sweetness on Sen Tolu’s face as he drank his Green Monster.
“My oh, my! What is the name of this one? This must be a new one,” he said, looking at the jar if he could see any label.
“That is the handiwork of my gorgeous cook. He calls it Green Monster Juice,” Sen Madu smacked his lips and gulped down the rest in his glass.
“I hope I won’t fly at night after drinking this,” one of the senators said. He was Sen Haruna, strict and flirtatious Muslim.
“This tastes good. My new wife should learn this,” the other, Sen Ogofure said. He was a spendthrift, travel freak and had a disgusting divorce record. Sen. Madu told Nku he had divorced seven times and married eight times. His good, spend thrift attitude always pulled the girls.
The last he over-heard them bicker over was likening politics to athletics, how every politician should be a Usain Bolt, who had been storing up gold medals for his generation unborn.
The horn hooted right into Nku’s ears and he ran to the window to see Mrs. Aku driving into the parking lot. The ash colour, seven passengers Audi Q7 was among the cars, Sen. Madu said was custom made from Japan.He smiled briefly. A thought struck in his head; if only he would allow Sen. Madu to coach through his body and be the determiner of his feelings then one of those brand new could be his in just a matter of request. Nku shook his head and said to himself, “Sen. Madu, my baby.” But he knew with Mrs. Aku being around, he would have to switch his tongue from ‘baby’ to Sen. Madu and would really want to know what Mrs. Aku meant when she walked up to him this morning in the kitchen, saying “You ‘re lovable, Nk.”