Minding the Neighbour’s Business

Paul raised his eyes from the book he was reading to look around the sitting room as the neighbour’s generating set came on. The standing fan still rotated. And the indicator on the extension box for the TV and decoder plugs still glowed red. There was still power being supplied.

“Why won’t this man just pay his electricity bill like everyone and at least save some of the fuel money for other things?” he thought to himself. Adding, “And allow us some peace during the day?”

“Is that from ‘Iron Man’s’ house?” Paul’s mum asked from the kitchen.

“Yes,” answered Paul, smiling at his mum’s use of the popular street alias of their neighbour. He sold iron rods at the biggest retail market in the area.

As she entered the dining section of the sitting room with a bowl in hand, she voiced Paul’s thoughts. “Does that mean they cut his light yesterday when they came around again? All the money for fuel could’ve been enough to pay for more electricity than he uses in three months. And he could’ve used the change to pay that his cleaner who’s always complaining of not being paid. Ah ah!”

“I tire oh!” Paul agreed. The generator seemed to be in agreement as it fluttered. It sounded as if the machine was coughing.

“Will they even pity that gen and fuel it, sef?” another voice added.

Paul turned around to see Cali, his mum’s driver enter the dining room.

“Is that the reason for the sputtering?” Paul questioned him, and noticing the lost look, rephrased, “…that’s the…ermm, change in sound?” his eyebrows going up quizzically.

“Yes na!” Cali responded. “When the fuel is almost finished, that is how the gen tries to tell everyone that the tank is almost empty na!”

“Hmmm,” Paul sighed.

“As rich as he is, he can’t fuel his gen, he can pay NEPA and he can’t pay the people that work for him,” Cali went on, vigorously shaking his head. “Na wa ooh! And na so dem go dey shange car up and down, dey travel everywhere, all around the world. No contri dem neva reash! No bi money dem dey take travel? Abi na ‘san-san’?”

Paul’s laughter stuck in his throat when he noticed that it was his mother’s icy stare that stopped the driver from continuing his tirade. Cali quickly zipped it, picked up her bags and food flask and scurried away to go get the car prepped.

Paul hid his smile with his book when his mother’s lips turned up in disgust.

“That’s how this Cali runs his mouth oo! You see his small mouth, and you think he can’t make a complete sentence,” his mother said.

“But even in things that don’t concern him, he must talk. You should see how many times I have to stop him from talking about everything and anything he sees on the road while driving. If not for my prayers and God’s guidance, I’m not sure how safe we’d be on the road.” His mother clapped her hands in the vertical manner typical of sarcastic reactions, her lips still turned up.

Paul, now really laughing, noted, “But he was right sha! No bi ‘san-san’ dem dey use fuel gen na! Talkless of travelling abroad or even buying cars.”

His mum shot him one of her ‘looks’. “Ehen?” she countered, “Is it your business?”

“But it disturbs our peace na?” Paul lamented.

And right then, as if on cue, the generating set was switched off. The silence could be touched.

“Well, that’s your peace, right there,” his mum enthused as she reached for the door. “Enjoy it,” she said and as she closed the door, finished, “while it lasts.”

It was his turn this time to ‘yimu’.

On the other side of the fence, however, the generator technician, after trying the generating set for a while to test the quality of the job he’d just finished doing on the set had just turned it off. He was satisfied. As was ‘Iron Man’. As the technician left ‘Iron Man’s’ gate, he stopped to allow Paul mum’s car go by. The driver eyed him with some maleficience.

Cali was already talking about him by the time the technician crossed the street behind the leaving vehicle.