The Adventures of Fast Joe (7)
The connection was bad, and Bra Kwame had to shout, “Hello, hello, hello, Asamoah, is that you?”
Asamoah was currently located at Nkawie in the same region. He had been on night duty, and he was irritated by the call. He had been told to expect a call from an unknown person at the Post Office. He had therefore been forced to stay awake to expect the call, forcing him past his seven a.m. bed time. To make matters worse, the voice was faint.
“Yes, who is this? Please talk louder,” he shouted.
So both men were forced to shout at each end of the call.
Bra Kwame began, “Corporal, why have you abandoned us at Wenchi, eh?”
“Yes, yes, who is this… Oh, Wenchi, who am I talking to in Wenchi?”
“Yes, Wenchi, why, have you forgotten all your friends at Wenchi?”
The name of Wenchi was an unpleasant reminder to Corporal Asamoah, who was busy forgetting the young wife and even younger children he had left in that town. He wondered who was calling.
“Ahh, how are the folk at Wenchi?” the police officer shouted, “Who am I talking to, please?”
“This is your friend Bra Kwame, your co-tenant, have you forgotten me?”
Corporal Asamoah racked his brain for a few seconds before he recalled Kwame. He remembered him faintly, as a fellow tenant from the compound house he lived in with his wife Ama and children. He also recalled that once in a while, they shared a walk to the office.
“Ah, Bra Kwame, how are you? It has been long!”
“Yes,” Kwame shouted, irritating people within hearing range. “When are you coming back to Wenchi? You must really come back to Wenchi to attend to your farm.”
Farm? Did the man say farm? Corporal Asamoah was at a loss. What was the person at the other end talking about? Asamoah did not recall leaving a farm at Wenchi. He only left a wife and two children, so what was the person talking about?
“I can’t hear you. Are you saying farm? What farm?”
“Why have you left your farm here for people to weed for you like that?” the voice was repeating.
“Weed my farm? What are you…” then the import of what the person was saying hit him like a rock. Was he talking about Ama his wife? Was Ama sleeping around?
“Kwame, are you saying somebody is weeding my farm! What, I will kill that person,” Corporal Asamoah swore.
Kwame replied happily, “Yes, your farm is being tendered to by some small boy. If you don’t come to take that farm away, it will catch fire soon.”
“What, what, what!!!” stammered the police officer, trying to ask for explanation but knowing that people were already looking at him askance because he was shouting at the top of his voice.
Furiously, he banged down the phone and strode away. He knew that he was going to kill somebody soon.
Back at the Post Office at Wenchi, Bra Kwame put the receiver on the cradle happily, pushed up his old spectacles higher up the bridge of his nose, and headed for his desk, noting that a lot of his fellow workers were looking at him in anger.
Indeed Millicent, a corpulent matron, was looking at him oddly. As he sat down, she asked, “What was that? Were you telling tales about someone to someone? Where is your own ‘farm’? People like you are always causing trouble for others. Instead of finding your own piece of land to weed into a farm, you are busy informing on other people. You are not even married. Instead of finding a woman of your own, you are busy informing on someone else. What character is that?”
Bra Kwame did not even acknowledge that Millicent was speaking to him. He slinked to his chair and sat behind it, trying not to look at anybody else in the office.
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