Days Like These
Kamsi remembered his mother telling him that there would be days like these: when you put in your best and find that your best is not good enough; when you put in so much work only to be deflated like a balloon by the ungratefulness of those for whom you have laboured.
"Those are the days you have all the more reason to say 'Thank you' because no matter how bad things get, there are always more reasons to be thankful than you could count," Mrs Bundu Ohale would say. But this was no time to wax philosophical, Kamsi thought. It was beer time, and he hoped to figure out a way out of his office situation after he has had a couple of Budweisers. They did not call it King of Beer for nothing.
Kamsi Ohale had worked as a business development executive at Figo Trust Bank since he was twenty-three years old. Two years after, he was still doing the same job he was employed to do initially with no promotion and no raises, but he had no reason to complain because most of his classmates were still unemployed or studying for the Masters degree. He wished that he had the luxury of studying for a second degree, but he did not. His three younger siblings were in the university with nobody to pay their tuition but him and their sickly mother. Her health had deteriorated slowly since their father's death nine years before. The way his mother became a shadow of herself after their father's death made Kamsi wonder about love. He was beginning to think that the cost may outweigh the benefits. He was willing and able to take care of his younger ones. All he wished was for the life of his once beautiful mother to be preserved. But that night, Kamsi had an entirely different problem, a problem he had nicknamed office problem.
It was a problem that came in the shape of Mrs Allison Muson, the new regional manager for Lagos. She joined the bank from a competing bank six months before at the rank of Deputy General Manager. She was a very educated woman. Her father was a former military head of state in one of the states in the country during the military regime, and she married Senator Ali Muson, a long-sitting senator. If the bank was Mount Olympus, Mrs Allison was Aphrodite, so even her husband, the senator, was subject to her tricks. For reasons which were not yet clear to Kamsi, Allison did not like him very much. At the time, the bank performance appraisal system was subjective. That meant that Kamsi's boss could decide that his performance was below average and appraise him accordingly and there would be no authority to overturn the decision. When Allison insisted that Kamsi had not achieved his target, there was no way to prove her wrong since there was no objective performance management tool deployed in the bank. For two quarters in a row, Kamsi had received poor appraisals from his ultimate boss. Even when his immediate boss rated his high, Allison would refuse to approve the rating and insist that Kamsi's boss change it.
Nobody wanted to have problems with Allison, so everyone obeyed. According to the group policy of the bank, Kamsi has just one quarter to improve his performance, or the bank would have to let him go. The last appraisal was completed a week before and, Kamsi was filled with trepidation as he thought that no matter what he did, it was not up to him to decide if he would retain his job in less than three month's time. He felt like a man under water and he was running out of time. He knew that corporate drivers had privileged information so he asked Sammy, his branch driver if he knew why Allison hated him and what the solution could be.
"Oga, I think the madam like you. You cause the problem. Try and get closer to her," he said with an air of a man proclaiming that grasses are green.
But how could that be, Kamsi wondered. He had never spoken with the woman more than three times before and each time was during the monthly performance review. He could not imagine there was anything amorous about his office problem but he could not be very sure. Even if he was sure, Allison was a married woman, almost twice his age and she was a beautiful woman. No way. He would ask Bassey at Baba's Place when he comes to their Friday rendezvous. He walked for fifteen minutes to the bar, but it seemed like two minutes because even though his body was weak from the day's work, his mind was busy, wrestling with the problem. He looked up and realised he had arrived at the bar. He walked in and ordered a chilled bottle of Budweiser. As soon as the beer was uncorked, Bassey came.
"Hey, pally. Were you planning to start without me?" Bassey shouted from across the bar.
Bassey was Kamsi's friend and classmate since university days. He worked as a data analyst in an oil exploration company. He was the most carefree person Kamsi had ever met. In spite of his natural ability to treat everything with laxity, he seldom got into trouble. There was a time Kamsi thought he was not going to graduate, but Bassey proved him wrong and graduated with a second class upper degree. They drank their beers in silence. After two bottles, Bassey could not hold it in any longer.
"Bro, what's with the furrowed brows? Did Alex break your heart?" he asked, laughing. His eyes closed whenever he laughed. There were times Kamsi really liked it but not today.
Kamsi explained hiss office problem in as much detail as he could. Bassey's expression did not change. When Kamsi finished, Bassey stayed quiet for a minute, then he spoke.
"In other words, your ass is hers unless someone removes her from that position?"
"Precisely."
"Say no more. I know a guy that knows a guy," Bassey said, laughing.
"What nonsense are you talking? You cannot know someone who can do anything about that woman!"
"Don't worry. You'll see. It is not as if you have a choice. Call this number and say your name. He will understand," he said, scribbling a number on a napkin.
"I have to go, man. See you tomorrow." He patted Kamsi's shoulder and walked out of the bar.
After six bottles of beer, Kamsi was drunk when he left the bar an hour later. He did not intend to call the number Bassey gave to him, but he decided it could hurt nothing to try it. Someone answered from the other end.
"My name is Kamsi," he drawled.
"Okay, Bassey told me about your office problem. Consider it fixed. Find a pen and paper and write this down: 706-456-1421. Call that number now because it may not be available after tonight," the voice said.
Kamsi was about dropping onto the bed when he decided to do as Bassey advised. He dialled the number and listened to the dial tone. No one answered. He called again but still no answer. He dropped heavily on the bed and immediately, his phone rang. It was the number he just called, and he answered it.
"What do you want?" asked the hoarse voice.
Kamsi's mind was slow, so it took him a lot of effort to answer the question. "My name is ..."
"I don't care what your name is. What do you want?" he said impatiently.
"I erh... I want to get rid of a problem in the office," Kamsi stuttered.
"What problem?"
"My boss wants to get me sacked, and I have not done anything wrong, so I want my boss out of my life," Kamsi said.
"Do you have a name?"
"I thought you said... anyway, never mind. Kamsi Ohale"
The voice asked him the address, and Kamsi told him the address. That was the last part of the conversation he could recall by the next day. As soon as the call ended, he collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Kamsi woke up the next morning with a nasty headache. Suddenly, he remembered the events of the night before even though they were blurry but he remembered saying the address of his house. As he thought about it, he realised that might not have been the address the man wanted. And why did he need address in the first place, anyway? He picked up his phone and saw a payment notification. Apparently, he had paid fifty thousand Naira to one Samuel Jackson. He could not recall making the payment, but he must have done it the night before because the payment went through his mobile banking application on his android cell phone. He called back the number and as he expected, the phone was switched off. The number Bassey gave him was also unreachable. He was beginning to panic when he called Bassey. He answered on the first ring.
"Hey, man, shouldn't you be sleeping now after getting plastered last night?"
"Bro, I have not been able to reach that number you gave me last night and the other one is equally not available," Kamsi said.
"Which other number?"
Kamsi explained how he called the first number that Bassey gave him the night before and how someone answered and redirected him to call someone else. Bassey listened in silence until Kamsi finished his narration.
"Keep your pants on, man. What's the worst that could happen? You still want your office problem fixed, don't you?"
"That's the problem. How are they going to fix it and why did he need my address? I'm afraid I may have put out a contract on Mrs Mosun or worse, myself," Kamsi said, physically shaken.
"You've seen too many Hollywood mafia movies. Relax," Bassey tried to wave it aside, but he did not sound convincing, not even to himself.
"But where can we find that your friend whose number you gave me?"
"Oh, no he is not my friend. I don't even know his name. I met him in a strip club a fortnight ago. He said he was a fixer and his job description is providing solutions to problems and outsourcing the ones that are not within his area of expertise, on commission, of course," Bassey said with a grin.
"Jesus Christ! Bassey, you're unbelievable," Kamsi exclaimed.
They agreed that Kamsi should move into Bassey's apartment, at least until they could reach the man.
Three days after, the two phone numbers were still unreachable. Kamsi could not go home. His office problem did not seem like such a big problem compared to the fear he now felt every minute of the day. He could not decide which one scared him more: that the man he had hired would find Mrs Mosun and kill her or that he might go to his address and kill him. At that point, he was willing to give up his job and his next employment to have a means to call the man off. But there was no way to reach him.
After one month, he realised why they say that the mind is an amazing thing. He had lived with the fear so long that it became a part of his being. Soon after, he convinced himself that there was nothing of which to be afraid. On one Saturday evening, Bassey drove him back to his home after one month of absence. It felt great to be home.
Meanwhile, Mr Samuel Jackson had been spending the past sixteen days and nights in Kamsi's house, patiently waiting for his victim. His reputation was at stake. What would his clients think of him as a professional hitman if it ever came out that he took a job without completing it? Even though he prided himself on his patience, the long wait was beginning to get on his nerves, and he was willing to shoot anything that walked through the door in order to have it all over and done. It was dark, and he was seated on the only sofa in the living room which faced the entrance to the apartment and remained like he had waited for every day since the past sixteen days, his gun readied in his right hand. There were no words to describe the joy in his heart when he heard someone turn the key to the entrance.
As soon as Kamsi opened the door, he dropped his bag when he saw the silhouette of a man seated on his couch and raised his hand, but he could not out the word "wait" before the bullet tore through his raised left palm and passed through his left shoulder. Bassey was just a few steps behind him when he heard the shot, he dropped the bags and ran downstairs. The killer must have thought he saw what happened because he went after him. Bassey was across the road from Kamsi's apartment and behind the wheel before the killer came down the stairs. He looked down the lonely street and disappeared into the alley beside Kamsi's building. As Kamsi bled, he realized that the gift of life was all-sufficient.
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