Dyed Jeans Makes Me Run

The first thing my wife told me when I arrived our new apartment in Miami was that there is a Hugo Boss shop in the Dadeland Mall around the corner. Let me confess, I love Hugo Boss. Actually, I love Hugo Boss Jeans. An acquired obsession I guess. There is something about the regular fit 36/34 size, black or navy blue variety, it’s cut and smug fitness that gives me a transcendental sense of accomplishment. So it was not surprising that I had barely unpacked my stuff when I dashed down to the mall, bought two new pairs of the latest (limited edition) quite pricey Hugo Boss jeans (I already had four pairs…actually, that’s a lie, six pairs) and discarded the trousers I had on for one of the new pair. Something I could ill afford in my undergraduate days.
I recall a dissimilar shopping experience. Alighting the oven hot campus shuttle at Yaba and stepping into the scorching midday Lagos sun, I could barely keep my eyes open. Three non-stop days of demon inflicted sleep deprivation had led to rheumy and smarting eyes…extreme fatigue. What had started off as respite and territorial expansion had turned into a veritable nightmare.
It was shortly after one of those many “IBB Must Go” student demonstrations. The University of Lagos school authorities had shut down the Unilag University Campus indefinitely, ordering students to vacate their hostel accommodations with immediate effect. Not that vacating the hostel actually affected me for I did not manage to secure a bed-space, something that could set one back tens of thousands of naira, the type of funds I didn’t have at the time. On resumption, after spending almost six months at home doing nothing, the Non Academic Staff Union of Universities commenced an indefinite strike of their own, to press for better conditions they said. There was no one to handle clerical and administrative work, no one to ensure that the utilities worked, open and manage the hostels. Bad luck you will say, heaven sent for some of us, or so we thought.
I don’t know whose idea it was first to resort to self-help, it was definitely not mine. I think it was Daches that first advocated we ‘colonize’ one of the erstwhile locked hostel rooms. The idea wasn’t original as we where to find out later. By the time we arrived Makama Bida Hall, almost all the rooms had been ‘colonized’ by likeminded students, some, like us, had arrogated two or three matrasses to themselves, comfort hitherto unknown, even when students occupied the rooms legally.
What was supposed to be our first night of bliss and comfort became a night of paranormal activity and anguish. The room adjacent to ours had been ‘colonized’ by a bearded strange looking ‘Blue Beard-like’ middle-aged post-graduate student. Just as we were about to settle in to bed, after a ‘lavish’ Unilag undergraduate meal of fried egg and bread, washed down with a bottle of limca, what initially started as a rattling noise next door became a steady thumping, ‘Dum! Dum! Dum!
“Na wetin dey happen?” was Daches initial reaction. Strangely my first thought was ‘abi na poltergeist?’ and not being a very religious bloke, what came to my mind was Father Damien’s chant, “The Power of Christ Compels you! The Power of Christ compels you!” repeated under my breath, hoping not to alarm Daches. This seemed to work for a while until in a true life-like ‘Exorcist’ fashion ‘Blue Beard’ started chanting in part-gibberish;
Tokwi no!
Tokwi no!
Tokwi no!
Quickly followed by grunts
Humpkh! Humpkh! ẹjẹ Jesu!
Humpkh! Humpkh! ẹjẹ Jesu!
Humpkh! Humpkh! ẹjẹ Jesu!
In quick succession was the sound of crashing lockers and woodwork and what sounded like the banging of a human head on our common wall and this ‘Tokwi no! Tokwi no! Tokwi no! Humpkh! Humpkh! ẹjẹ Jesu!’ ran through the gamut of the night. Suffice it to say that sleep ‘cleared’ from our eyes. The spare matrasses where ultimately put to better use as ear and head plugs. The usually bold and confident Daches was clearly petrified and neither of us slept a wink that night, nor the three ensuing nights either. I can’t remember if it was Daches or I that suggested we go inspect the room the next morning, but ‘who will bell the cat?’ Such a brave mission was laudable but its reception was halfhearted. I had this strange feeling (which I suspect Daches shared as well) that the walls of ‘Blue Beard’s’ colonized room would be spattered with blood and brain matter. Mba nu! No! No human body could have endured such a barrage, unless he was not human, a thought we didn’t want to entertain. So we choose to endure, stoically.
On day three, it was bleary-eyed Daches and I that alighted at Yaba bus stop and made a beeline for the bustling Tejuosho market. Daches had a gig, writing and producing music, which earned him a relatively modest income by the side. He had managed to save enough money to buy a secondhand pair of moccasins and who best to accompany him on such a mission than a secondhand ‘bend-down-boutique’ expert like me. My pedigree was never in doubt having managed to remain a ‘guy’ by establishing contacts in all the bend-down-boutique Okirika markets in Lagos. Long before the advent of GPS navigation and Google Earth, my sources would furnish me with the location of the latest Grade-One ‘bale’ of Okirika even as it snaked its way down from Cotonou in Benin Republic, sometimes berthing at the then remote Alagbado Bend-Down-Boutique market before arriving Tejusho. My strategic importance increased several notches when it was known that I regularly escorted deserving friends shopping, helping them navigate the famous Badagry Bend-down-boutique market. That was my pedigree, but my specialty, my core competence, was shopping for jeans.
In case you don’t know, there is an art to buying secondhand “Bend-down-boutique” jeans. The trick is to discern durability, buy jeans that are sufficiently resilient such that no matter how much they fade, you can take it back to the market and for a token, dye it back to its original colour, or any colour of your choice for that matter. Errmm, okay, I lied, not exactly to its original colour, more like what could pass for its original colour as after a while (probably the third or fourth re-dye), the jeans takes on a variegated hue, some patches much darker than the rest of the fabric.
Shopping for Okirika without an experienced chaperone can be quite confusing, the cacophony of chants as traders compete for customers, “Fine gal we get correct painti here’, ‘Nna I choro Chinos ka obu Corduroy?’, ‘Do you need Chinos or Corduroy?’ The choices are infinite, sufficient to confuse even the most discerning…but not a veteran like me. 
Daches, being a novice almost stopped by the stall of a Grade Three Okirika merchant until I held him by the elbow and firmly steered him away (by the way, never, never, ever buy Grade 3 Okirika, you hear me?? They fall apart on the first wash, the deceptive layers of starch holding the fabric together dissolving to reveal a threadbare fabric. I don warn you oh!). Stall is actually dignifying the cellophane sheets with merchandise strewn all over, laid over the Nigerian Railway Corporation rail track. Traders will intermittently (almost in a choreographed manner), dart to the side like the parting of the Red Sea, on the approach of a train, only to fuse back in a mass of humanity, fabric and cellophane, as soon as the train leaves the station.
My friend’s love for music must have attracted him to this particular trader’s chant amidst the cacophony. Sweating profusely, and intermittently ringing a bell to the rhythm of his chant, he belted out a melodious tune; 
“Painti! 
Ten Ten Naira! 
Ten Ten Naira oh!
Na ya sizei! 
Ten Ten Naira oh! 
Ten Ten Naira!”
But then we were on a mission, so I coaxed Daches towards the secondhand shoes section, a completely different world. I was transfixed at the very first stall. I could swear that what was before my eyes was one of Michael Jackson’s shoes. You know the one he wore in the ‘Beat It’, no, ‘Billie Jean’ video? Yes the black tipped white one. I was further sold on the idea when I realized that the trader was chanting ‘Oga Tininini Tininini! Tininini Tininini’ while holding the pair aloft. I almost fell for it but the choice was not mine, Daches wanted a pair of moccasins, so moccasins we sought.
Oga Billie Jean showed us the left foot of a beautiful black and grey moccasin on display and Daches' eyes lit up. Chai! Error! Never, ever, ever let an Okirika trader know that you like a particular item, you hear me?? Never!! The modus operandi, after you have spotted the item you want, is to create a diversion. Concentrate on an item you don’t want, hum and haw, wear the trader down with haggling, reducing your bargaining price each time he acquiesces to your latest position. Only after you have done this four or five times should you reluctantly concede (with a shrug and a hiss preferably), “This ya market too cost, besides you no get am for pink colour? (or any other unavailable colour). This other wan nko? How mush?” There! You have a ready-made bargain!
Unfortunately ‘Blue Beard’s’ ‘Tokwi No! Humpkh! Humpkh! ẹjẹ Jesu!’ antics had taken its toll so neither Daches nor I were in the mood for extended haggling. Surprisingly we somehow managed a bargain price and the trader (almost too enthusiastically) carefully wrapped and shoved the pair of shoes into a nylon bag.
We trekked the short distance to the campus shuttle queue and had barely stood in line for a minute when the erstwhile bright and sunny sky erupted its bowels in scalding rain. Rain? Did I mention that the problem with dyed jeans is that it abhors rain? A minute under the slightest shower could lead to total embarrassment, a puddle of dyed water gathering around you, staining your underpants, your body and any article of clothing, in fact anything that makes contact with you. The only panacea is…well, to run. Run as fast as your legs can carry you until you get to the nearest shade and sanctuary. So I ran, ran as fast as I could. Poor bewildered Daches had no idea what was pursuing me, so he ran as well, at some point overtaking me. Huffing and puffing and in-between breaths asking, ‘Bros wetin dey happen? Who dey pursue us?’ It was only when we got to Oga Billie Jean’s shop that he stopped. The wrapped pair of moccasins had come undone and only then did we notice that the right foot of the shoe (which he never showed us) had a tear along its seams. His barefaced lie response of ‘You don go tear am!’ elicited a wildcat response from Daches. It took all my strength and that of traders in the neighboring stalls to keep him from tearing off Oga Billie Jean’s head. The ruffled Oga Billie Jean promptly and thankfully gave us a replacement, the ‘Tininini tininini’ exquisite Billie Jean’s shoes.
As I stepped out of the Hugo Boss shop in the Dadeland Mall, into the Miami midday sun, it began to drizzle and almost the same time my phone rang. It was Daches. The now very successful Daches (‘side gig’ eventually became ‘main gig’) had arrived Boston, the Harvard Kennedy School (via Davos) as a panelist discussant on Entrepreneurship in Nigeria, as well as to close a Record Label deal with a new foreign partner. I don’t know if it was the rain or his voice that triggered the irrational reaction but I began to run. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me.
Now I realize that maybe, just maybe it is the thought of being caught under the rain in dyed jeans that makes me run, run as fast as my legs can carry me. 
I am still running.



Jekwu Ozoemene