TWO STUPID CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AUTHOR (2ND SET)

Read the previous stupid characters here.

He’s called Solomon, Solo for short. She’s Miriam, Mimi for short. They live together. Solo worked in an insurance company as a clerk or something. He made enough to afford to live with his girlfriend but not enough to enable him to see her people and make things formal. Mimi didn’t complain. Solo wasn’t under pressure, why bother? Mimi was still young, just 34; Solo wasn’t so old, just 41, why hurry?

Solo was fortunate to be one of those who, like in many establishments, did very little but who always appeared to be preoccupied to the point of almost being considered overworked. The truth was that he practically did nothing but had somehow managed to preside over a crowded desk and to keep some sort of correspondence with a superior or two which bore stamps of importance but were utterly useless. Solo himself was pure uselessness, and since he had little education for another employment would have laid low and continue to screw the company. But he plunged into trouble and was fired.

A somewhat pretty lady breezed into the reception one airless afternoon. He looked up from the mass of books and papers with tired eyes and noticed first her firm hips and then a large behind which infatuated him so much that, as she past him to the stairs, he stretched out and slapped it. The return slap was thunder, on his eye, followed in a rush by a cheek-buster. During the ensuing flay, her wig fell off. She was boyish, ugly, he noticed just before she reached for his eyeballs with claws. Before his colleagues tore him from her, the girl had already enjoyed a liberal smashing of his bald head with the sharp point of her shoe.

Solo was summoned into the manager’s office. Such an ugly brute, he cursed inwardly. He didn’t derive an oita of pleasure from the adventure, for her bottom was hard to the touch, so hard it felt as though she wore panties made of plywood. Yet for this, she had given him a black eye, a soft head and hundred tiny cuts on the face. Evil girl. But the manager didn’t see it this way. The assaulted girl was his niece. He fired Solo. Solo lived in the boys’ quarters of the staff quarters, he was given seven days quit notice.

Solo knelt down, then lay flat on the floor, then rolled on the floor, crying and pleading for forgiveness. The security man came in and carried him out. Solo wanted to fight the man but one look at his bloodshot eyes and the powerful biceps told him that this man could, if he wished, throw him out of Nigeria, so Solo maintained his peace and was carried like a new bride out of the facility.

Mimi was a house girlfriend and she looked it; she was so fat her skirt and blouse seemed like her containers and not something she wore. She was cooking when Solo returned with a crushed face and a spirit in a grinding machine. ‘I am finished.’ He buried his face on her tarpaulin skirt and wept his eyes out. Solo wasn’t exactly a midget but sometimes, like today, she was his benign Aunty. She shed one or two solidarity tears on his back. After crying to satisfaction, he told her about the sack, telling the truth but blaming it on the devil. ‘I swear, it’s the devil’s handwork.’

She accepted his excuse and told him that this was an attack from the spirit realm; they needed to regain the job spiritually. She took him to see their pastor. Her pastor actually as Solo hadn’t been to church in months. The pastor was a giant fellow in punk hairstyle with an oily smile. Mimi told him about the sack and he smiled ruefully.

‘I haven’t seen you in church for a long time Brother Solomon.’

‘I have been busy.’

‘What if I tell you God is too busy to help you.’

‘Ah, please pastor,’ Mimi interceded.

‘God is never busy,’ Solo said.

‘He is never busy. But if you don’t rub His back why should He rub yours?’

‘Please sir help us,’ Mimi said.

‘Your fiancé must resuscitate the glory of God in his life by sowing a very powerful seed. Something that will surprise God.’

Solo frowned. ‘God is omni-suprise. He’s insurpriseable.’

‘But you started the whole thing. You surprised Him with your behaviour today. You need to un-surprise him.’

‘With money?’

‘With seed.’

‘Stop being stubborn,’ Mimi was unhappy. ‘Solo, listen. Solo–‘ Solo stamped out of the office. ‘Excuse me,’ Mimi made an apologetic face to her spiritual leader and went out to her man. ‘What’s wrong with you, you walked out on a man of God.’

‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘We need to settle with God. Don’t you need your job back.’

‘I don’t have any kobo to sow seed. All I have in my account is money for our feeding and to rent a new apartment.’

‘How much?’

‘Forty-two thousand naira.’

Mimi went back to the man of God to find out if forty-two thousand naira would be enough to surprise God. No, it wouldn’t surprise God, the mouthpiece of Jireh replied, but if Solo and Mimi supported it with three days dry fasting it might surprise them. Mimi came out and reported to her man.

‘Tell him I can only afford to sow thirty thousand.’

Mimi went back to the Oracle to enquire. The Reverend said no problem. They could sow thirty thousand peanuts but were they ready to fast forty days and forty nights to support it? When Mimi reported this, Solo’s lip dropped. ‘That ugly girl’s iron buttock is really legendary. Government should collect it from her and put it in a museum.’

Mimi wasn’t listening. She grabbed his trousers and snatched his wallet. She snapped his ATM card out and he watched helplessly as it disappeared into the drawer on her chest.

‘Baby, what are you trying to do?’

‘Watch me.’

There was a small crowd before the ATM. Mimi was in the queue. Solo was leaning on a car a hissing distance from his girlfriend, sulking, sure he would be in the gutter in a week’s time but hoping for miracle. He knew his company, once they sack you you would never be un-sacked. But perhaps, God would be surprised…

A big police woman came to a stop beside him, her ATM card between her fingers like a cigarette, undecided weather to join the queue or not. One look at her face and he quickly looked away. Her face was crowded with pimples, so much it seemed someone started a weed farm on her face and hastily abandoned it. Her bloodshot eyes, her aggressive lips and wide nostrils complemented the chaos. She was dressed in the ill-fitting black uniform tocked into a skirt which held her bottom firm. As if on cue, she took two steps forward and Solo caught his breath. The officer had a great behind, he whistled. Forget the face, this was hot. He licked his lip, willing himself to forget that he was sacked and his account was being emptied because of similar assets. And it might be another iron affair. His heartbeat rattled on his chest.

‘So help me God,’ he suddenly mumbled, took a step forward and, with stoned boldness, slapped the police woman’s bottom.

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Read the next set of stupids here