25 Go-Slow Blues (2/2)

'Do you have any change?' she asked her driver, hesitantly.

He produced a dying N50 from his pocket.

She wound the window down a crack and held the limp note out to the waif with the tips of her index finger and thumb. He glanced up at her glossy pink fingernails and returned his eyes to her face.

She wound the window down further; the hot air blew in heavily, wafting the boy's smell into the car, along with the stench of smoking and rotting fish from the lagoon, and the general clamour of the morning.

The putrid note was now directly under the boy's nose; he

olubunmi familoni

took it gingerly and regarded it as he would a dead rat. He squeezed it in his small palm, and threw it back into the car. It fell on Teme's mini-skirted lap. She looked down at the crumpled note in puzzlement.

When she looked up the boy was hiding an evil look in his hooded eyes. Suddenly, he stepped back and spat into the car. The thick saliva landed on Teme's cheek, just missing her right eye, and began trickling down, like a tear . . .

She sat there, frozen stiff, feeling the spit crawl down her clean, smooth face. The boy kept staring at her, as he had been earlier.

Maybe it was the heat of his malicious gaze, she was not sure, but her heart suddenly melted into tears. They streamed down her face silently, slowly, trailing her make-up along.

She wasn't sure if she was crying for him – or for herself. The boy turned his back on her black tears and moved on to the next car – 'Oga, dash me . . .'

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