Saturday 3rd March, 2018

                    Eli winced when his father slapped him harshly on the back. The bar was noisy and loud with red and blue LED lights. They irritated him. Still he smiled with the older men that sat round the table.

                   "This boy? He try o."

                    "Boy?!" His father guffawed, alcohol staining his every breath. "Chibike he is a man! Not only did he help the police catch the gang, he saved his friends life too. Na man e be!"

                 "Na so o. I sha saw his face in the papers. Good boy Eli." Mr Chibike commended holding up a glass of liver rending beer. "Abi make we celebrate am Segun?"

                  His father chuckled and glanced at him. "What do you say Son? Hello to your first beer?"

                 He sniffed the thick air in the bar and felt his stomach squeeze in revolt.

                 What would your dad think if you say no? Don't show weakness idiot.

                  "Sure dad." He replied, his voice loopy. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

                    Mr Chibike who evidently was a butt kisser to his father laughed heartily. "See the way he said it sef. Na big school e dey go be that o."

                   "Yes o. And my money no dey waste. Just watch how he'll show them who the boss is during WAEC exams." Segun boasted and waved his hands at the bar attendant. "Hey! More beer. Bring Gulder o. It's for made men"

                   "I don't get this." Of all the six men that sat at the table, the man who just spoke up was the quietest. Eli had felt his foreboding stare burning holes ever since he'd stepped into the bar. "You're proud he joined a gang?"

                  "He worked with the police." Segun grunted, annoyance written evidently on his face.

                    "What gang?" The man pressed.

                     "Does it matter-"

                     "Let the boy talk Segun."

                    Who was this man, Eli wondered. Why did it seem like he knew something? Eli shifted uneasily, afraid that if; when ; he opened his mouth, bad things would happen. The bar attendant chose the perfect time to come in with seven bottles of I've cold beer. He watched in hypnotic fear as the man placed one before him, the shiny black bottle staring him straight faced.

                  I'm Seventeen. I shouldn't be drinking yet.

                 He obviously couldn't tell that to his father. Not with the crappy grin that graced the old man's face. The crappy proud smile. The beer made a shuish sound when the attendant pulled off it's cap with a bottle opener. Another rush of alcoholic gas joined the pungent smell in the room.

                  This is it. Just lean forward, grab the bottle and take a tiny sip. A tiny sip is all Eli.

                    "Come on Son. Welcome to being a man. You have made me proud." His father grinned wolfishly and Eli couldn't find it in him to dissapoint the man. No matter how overbearing he could be. He tossed the bottle up and took a bug gulp.

                       Shit.

                    The men cheered and laughed slapping each other's backs as if an inside joke had been passed around. Eli pressed his lips together to push back the rising nausea. Sweat gathered in beads on his forward heads and his hands went all clammy.

                     His father rose up then, tucking his phone in his pocket. "You wait here and talk to my men. Your fellow men. I'll be back soon."

                     He was certain his nodding had been too frantic but no one seemed to care.

                      "Are you okay?" Except the brooding man who sat opposite him.

                     No I am not.

                 He nodded awkwardly in response and slumped in his chair trying not to gasp for air. Where was the nearest exit? He craved fresh air. Gentle breeze that would wash the dirty nauseating alcoholic scent that seemed to cocoon him.

                  No caterpillar comes out of this cocoon, a butterfly.

                 And the worst part, He definitely wasn't a caterpillar. Caterpillars didn't have to prove to their fathers that they were men. They didn't struggle to make their father proud. Did they even know who their father was?

                     "So."

                       No no no. Please don't talk to me.

                     "What gang did you say it was?"

                    Arrrrrrghhhh!
  
                   As far as he could recall, he hadn't mentioned anything regarding the Skylars. With the way the man stared daggers at him, it was obvious the man wanted answers. Answers Eli couldn't give. It had been Betty's idea to fabricate the lie. He couldn't even recall how she had fapped it all. All he knew was eventually, his father had been convinced that he had been working with the police all along, and that the incident in school was staged.  Betty had tried to protect him from the drastic steps that their father could take against him. And it had worked.
Too well.

                     Aware of the man's intense eyes on him, he stood up abruptly drawing the attention of the men at the table. "I... I'm going to ease myself. Where's the toilet?"

                      Mr Chibike was kind enough to gesture to the doors at the far interior end of the bar and like a mad man chased by invisible forces, Eli dashed for one of the doors and heaved a huge sigh of relief when his nose came in contact with fresh breathable air. He smiled and leaned against a nearby wall, eyes closed until he heard a giggle.

                 His eyes flitted open in shock. He hadn't walked into a toilet. He had walked into the bar's backyard with dim blue lights and bluer things that burned his eyes.

                 Why isn't there a darn sign saying R 18 or something?!

                   He whipped around immediately, turning to leave but froze mid step.  Had he seen correctly? Slowly, he turned again and felt his stomach give way.

                  Of all the things he could've caught his father doing he thought as he retched, it had to be cheating.
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                 "Bring me my food yeye woman!" Segun Adebayo yelled shaking all over his seat. The man was so derilous, he couldn't sit still.

                   "We're bringing it!" His daughter snapped as she approached the dining table with a tray. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

                    "Is it me you're talking to like that?" He bellowed, struggling to his feet. "You're just like your mother. Tasteless.  Useless. Stupidless."

                  "Stupidless isn't a word." Betty sniped.

                  Shit. Shit. Shit. Eli knew from his father's trembling body that things could get ugly. Maybe if it did, his mother could get a divorce. That would rid them of the man who inflicted pain on their minds. He glanced at his mother who had stepped out of the kitchen watching the situation rather timidly. A soft pudgy woman with sad miserable eyes. She wore an overall that covered all her clumpy fat. He recalled sticking his fingers in those lines and lumps of her waist and stomach when he was younger. He would smile up at her with his missing dentures when she complained he was poking her. She had been beautiful then. Warm, the softest and only protective place from his father. Now she really just seemed like an over inflated balloon.

                   She won't survive a divorce.

                 The woman he had caught his father with was her polar opposite. She was slender and tall and lithe. He had looked long enough to know the start difference. Where his mother's hair was all long and drabby, the woman's locks had bounced in black long shoulder waves. Where his mother looked like a storage tank of fat, the woman seemed to not have a spare flesh. And where the biggest mark his mother had was a burn from the kitchen stove, the woman had the image of a sailing ship tattooed deeply onto one of her fair arms.

                He wanted to tear at his hair. Why did it feel like he was defending the man? His father had done something unspeakable. He should be punished.

                    Do something rash and get ready to sleep on the streets again. This is not your war Eli. Pick your battles.

                    "Will you shut up?!" He yelled silencing Betty's gibbering with their father. "Just give us food so we can sleep. And change that one, spit is all over it and it's definitely not on the menu."

                  His father grinned widely, evidently pleased and he ached to slap it off the man's face. Instead he kept his hands and eyes to himself, afraid that he would see how broken and mad Betty was. He didn't want to see her tears.
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                 In the still of the darkness, in the sound of silence, Eli crept out of his window in need of solace. It was Eleven in the night and while others had fallen deep in slumber he could barely close his eyes. Just like it had been ever since he cane home.

                  At first, it was fear. Fear kept him awake, by circling his thoughts like hawks to young chicks. He had been afraid that if he fell asleep, he would wake up a fugitive again. That Demi would come for him. For them. Because she was still out there. Now, Guilt sat like fat droplets, heavier than sleep. 

                  Tokunbo's window was opened wide. It had been since she had come home six days before. She had told him that whenever she tried to close it, she felt like she was in jail again. He heaved himself up the stairs that separated their flats and hoisted himself to her window.

                  She sat on her bed against the window reading through a book when his shadow fell across the room. It had been their ritual ever since she arrived.

                   At least her father hasn't caught us yet.

                 "Mahn is it me or have you gotten fat since you arrived?" He teased as he struggled to sit beside her. For some reason, her bed felt more cooler than his.

                Tokunbo rolled her eyes. "I'm sure it's you who has gained weight. With your dad treating you like some entitled queen."

                   He grabbed a pillow and wacked her, ignoring the way his stomach clenched. She noticed anyways. She always did.

                  She closed her book. "What happened this time? You and Betty fought again? You said you would try to make things right."

                    He sighed and shook his head. "It's sort of bigger than that."

                    "Yeesh! I do not envy your life at all."  She murmured and smacked her lips together.
        
                     "Like yours is some fairytale." He hissed and wanted to punch himself in the face. "Sorry."

                    "Would be great if you told that to your sister instead." She murmured.

                   "I did!" He defended. "She won't listen-"

                    "Will you stop shouting?" She whispered harshly. "You shouldn't be here anyways, so speak quietly. It's barely a week I've been home, I don't want any more problems."

                    He swallowed whatever retort he had and sighed, lying flat on the bed. After a long bout of silence, he spoke up quietly.

                    "My dad's cheating."

                    "Wow." She muttered and laid down beside him. Their bodies barely touching. "That's serious Eli."

                      "Yeah." He shifted so he could face her. Her lamp stand cast shadows across her face. "I don't want to tell my mom Skinnine."

                       "Why?"

                   He frowned puzzled by her question. "Why do you mean why?"

                   "Why do you not want to speak up?"

                  He shrugged and turned his eyes to the ceiling. "She won't survive a divorce."

                  Tokunbo chuckled darkly. "Right. That or you simply want to remain in your dad's good books."

                   He sucked in a breath and glared at her. "That's-"

                   "Not true?" She smiled sadly. "You're doing this for the attention-"

                    "Shut up Skinnine." He spat and watched as she slid off the bed and walked to her reading table. "I didn't come here for you to judge me."

                  "So what did you come for? Solace? Eli, I am burdened and ladened with guilt, fear and even madness. You think I can comfort you? Make you feel better about your wrong actions?"

                  He groaned tiredly and rubbed his face. Why was everything so wrong today? He looked at Skinnine as she poured water from a bottle. At her swollen eyes and sad lines. She did have bigger fish to fry.

                  "Is it so wrong?" He murmured.

                   "What is?"

                    " Is it so wrong that I thrive on the attention? I know he doesn't love me. But I don't want to believe it." He stated petulantly.

                       She set the cup down and stared at him. "I don't know. You asked the wrong person Eli."

                     "Well that helped. Thanks for nothing." He mumbled, closing his eyes.

                     "Eli?"

                      "What?"

                      "Have you seen Andrew Adigwe?"

                        He opened his eyes. "Why are you asking me this now? Yeah I saw him so?"

                     She sipped from her cup. "It's a week today."

                     "Ehn?"

                     "I saw him for the first time since the incident, last Saturday."

                      He chuckled. "Skinnine last Saturday was the the first time you saw anything since the incident."

                      A blank look from her informed him that he shouldn't have said that. "What is it Tokunbo?"

                   Her lamp light chased the shadows on her face when she looked down at her cup as if it held answers. "I should not have done that to him. It haunts me every time. If you make a bad choice like that, you'll hate yourself too."

                      Is it just me, or does her eyes look wild?

                      "I hurt him. He could barely breathe. I... I did that to him-" she looked up from the cup and frowned at him, blinking rapidly. "I could do that to you."

                      His queasy stomach returned. Somehow he could still smell the faint smell of cheap alcohol and his knees shook. "R... Right. You can't e-even lift my finger."

                   She set the cup down and cocked her head at him. "You don't get it do you? This rage, when it comes-"

                    "Look Skinnine calm down. Just finish your water and come here so we can sleep our worried off."

                    "Like a ... A monster. A monster that wants to rip everyone apart."

                He sat up. "I told you not to listen to those cronies in school."

                 "They're not wrong." She said eerily. "They should be terrified. You should be terrified. Are you terrified?"

                   He rolled his eyes and the next time they focused on her, she was before him. His heart almost lurched in his throat surprised at how fast her small body could move. He hadn't realized he had let out a distressed cry and reached for the window until she stepped back and burst into tears.

                    "Even you are afraid of me. Everyone is. My brother, everyone in school... I'm afraid of myself Eli."

                    Darn it. Look what you did.

                  He laughed nervously and settled back on the bed. "What? No. No I'm not. Skinnine."

                    "What I did to Andrew. I could do it to you. To anyone. My dad was right. Papa was right. I shouldn't have. None of this would've happened if I had just listened."

                   Eli held his hands in the air. "You know your father says a lot of crap. What did he-"

                   "Leave."

                    Wait what?

                     "Look Tokunbo, I'm sorry I ran away or flinched or whatever. I was just really surprised."

                      She laughed. Harshly. Her eyes like steely beads. "Lies. They tell me I will be fine. All lies. Self defense. Lies. It was murder. I killed Andrew."

.                   "He's not dead yet-"

                     "He might as well be. Leave Eli!"

                      "Stop this jor! I get it. You're sad and angry at yourself. I feel you. Let's just sleep it off and we'll be fine."

                       "Go away."

                        What the hell was happening? Why was she doing this? She knew darn well how he relied on her. "You're throwing me out? Well I'm not leavi-"

                      "Papa!" She screamed suddenly and his body froze, stunned. "Papa!"

                     "Tokunbo what are you doing?!" He whispered harshly willing himself to move out of the house, but his legs had other ideas.

                     "Papa!" She screamed louder and the door slammed open in seconds.

                    "Tokun-" Her father passed mid roar when his eyes settled on the male on the bed, and his hysterical daughter.

                  Eli had expected shit to happen. He just hadn't expected it in volumes.

Prettttttyyyy long isn't it?