Suicide Riders By: Jude Ifeme

The youngster slouched in a battered old wheelbarrow at the corner would instantly clinch your attention. Head tilted forward, he snored noisily, and flies buzzed in and out of his wide open mouth, like air planes refilling for a hectic war.

There was a frothy spittle line drawn from the corner of his lips to a repulsive whitish pool on his dirty, soaked collar. His eyeballs twitched nervously underneath the lids, and occasionally he would mutter unintelligibly, lapping out with his tongue, but too limp to move a limb – he was in paradise.

The rest drank on, oblivious of their stupefied friend. A few yards away, their row of motor bikes queued up waiting for passengers. Meanwhile, the bikers fended off the sun under a zinc shack and drugged their brains to seizure.

“I feel like flying,” a skinny slob, not more than seventeen, slurred as he puffed a purl of marijuana smoke into the hot afternoon air.

“I too,” returned another in a hushed guttural snarl, “I can touch that rope.” He peered out, pointing at a live power line overhead. Everything far seemed near, and all things near seem so far away. The skinny slob, Rinin, gaped at his friend, Dajji, as he spoke and wondered how he could still hear him from such a far distance. The other issue his mind never bothered to spare a moment to was how they still shared the same wrap marijuana and passed solution.

A third young man, Lukwan, cackled, “I swear to the God almighty who made me - and you. I swear you can’t! You cannot try it, I – said it. I, Lukwan,” he dared Bada, beating his chest rather belligerently, “I have touched that many times.” He boasted and blinked convulsively and imagined himself swinging from the wire  as he spoke. He had eye balls so red you could dye a cloth scarlet with them and still have enough to paint a street.

Bada, feeling insulted, staggered to his feet and stepped outside, “God punish me if I don’t - ,” he pointed at the power lines like they were just a yard away, “is it not this rope?” He jumped to reach it and failed.

The rest laughed and jeered as they filed out after him. And the laugh he found even more infuriating. He groped for the bottle drink he’d been slurping earlier, found it where he didn’t remember he’d left it, slurped another mouthful, and began a frantic search for a way to reach the power lines. He jumped again and failed. Hugged the first pole in futility.

Earlier he’d partook in rounds of marijuana sharing, though that hadn’t lost its efficacy but the drink in the Coca-Cola bottle was reinforced with some nondescript pills and cough syrup over fifty times the prescription dose, their collective grip had further awarded him a sense of invincibility.

He trotted aimlessly for a while, taunted by his friends and onlookers attracted by the drama. Soon he found a second electric pole meters away, only then did he seem to realize the wires were scores of feet over him. But undeterred, he began an ineffectual clamber, adding to his friends’ amusement and his frustration.

“Bada, you are next!” A skinny elderly man who’d seen enough silly things take place after the young men got intoxicated called out disinterestedly.

It was Bada's turn to ride a passenger, he un-embraced the electric pole disappointedly and strolled over to his bike, cursing and swearing and vowing he would return to complete the feat. His friends jeered, the crowd of onlookers dispersed disappointingly.

Rinin let out a mocking howl. “I told Bada, you-don’t-try-me! I am commando! I am rambo! I am -” his mind was suddenly blank, his eyelids twitched, his mouth flapped nervously and ceased. Suddenly as if a switch was turned back on, "I am commando!"  He proclaimed gleefully. Suddenly, his attention was switched to off the chanting like it never happened. “Aka give me another bottle.”
Another very dirty young man inside the shack responded positively, which gave him a cause to smile. Rinin did not like it when the effects wore out on him.

Bada mounted the bike without looking at his passenger, all he needed was the money - eight to Yadi the bike owner, two for his next fix. He didn’t always look at them when he was high, besides he still felt like flying though a little upset too. He just needed to make that money so he could get another wrap of marijuana and a bottle of SOLU, as they called the soft drink adulterated with cough syrup and pills.

As he throttled, the bike forcefully leaped forward, he pulled at the crush and rammed his foot on the gear the third time in half ten seconds. The engine protested and then charged out wildly, he rammed his foot again and nodded with satisfaction. Yeah, this is it, he thought.

He faintly heard a voice shouting at him. What is it? He thought. He didn’t like the man or woman he was carrying. Why anyone would let their stomach grow so fat totally beat him. He saw himself dashing through the narrow tarred road, everything swiftly getting behind. That was what it meant to fly.

The voice behind him got louder, he felt hurried taps on his shoulders but that was really offending, he yanked the throttle further backward, forcing the bike into a sharper forward lurch and just then a car jumped into the road. The rest happened so fast.

As the rescue crowd pulled the mangled corpse of the dead pregnant woman and the Bada from the tangle of metals underneath the car, an irate, disheveled rabble of bikers rapidly descended on the scene like vultures harkened to the call of fresh carcass, in solidarity of brotherhood.

A few minutes later they dispersed – jubilant, vindicated. In their drug-warped minds, justice had been delivered, quick and fair. A silly driver had killed one of their own, and they rightly killed him and burnt the car for full measure.




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