Maria Memory Lane by El Osas Iyalekhue

  

Maria .

There’s something about the name Maria that transports me into the nostalgic realm of exhuming buried images from my brain yard. The feeling is exhausting. The walking of miles in memory lanes paved with uncommon antecedents. I’m walking in my own shoes and I know exactly where it pinches. I first met Maria when I was six years old. It was when a huge black ugly vehicle parked outside my neighbor’s house, a team of determined policemen dragging a handcuffed Tijani’s father into the huge black vehicle. Tijani’s mother was weeping as my mum and wives of other neighbors tried to console her. Tijani was crying too. I was amazed, not by the scene before me, but by the huge black vehicle whose doors were like that of a cage. The vehicle had no windows. It was nothing like my school bus or the vehicles my eyes were accustomed to. The huge black vehicle was artless. My childish state of amazement soon morphed into confusion when one adult called the huge black vehicle a Black Maria. Why was the huge black vehicle called a Black Maria? I wondered. I battered my mum with questions about Black Maria until I got a hard smack on my head. I kept mum about Black Maria, but I never forgot her. 

At six I got a hard smack over Maria, but at sixteen, I got a kiss from Maria. Those were in the days when adolescence was fading into maturity. Maria was my neighbor and the hottest girl on the block. She was so dark that the boys in the hood nicknamed her Black Maria.  Maria and I took evening strolls together; we went on errands together and exchanged cards on merry days. We were both an innocent smile. Soon, our unguided innocence led us into sneaking into secret places. It was in such secret places that we discovered the warmth of the alternative use of our lips. We craved for more secret places, discovering new things. Everything we discovered was warm. It didn’t take long before we exchanged our innocence. Something I never came to regret but lost forever.

Maria has a place in my family history. She was my mother’s worst nightmare. Whenever my grandmother, Maria, visited, she would assault my mother with all sorts of verbal lash. She called my mother the City Woman. For my mother, there was nothing to be said. Lashing back at mother-in-laws was a crime against the holy order of African values. So for my mum, like me at six, mum was the word. Now that I’m grown up, I really wonder what it was like for my father, caught between the devil of Maria his mother and the deep sea of affection he had for my mother. Something I should have asked him in our father slash son moments. Well, I never got to ask. Maria passed away and my mother’s Maria days were over. But mine had just begun. I met my third Maria during my undergrad days at University of Jos. She was a mixture of honey and steel. It was easy for her to steal my heart away, for her smile beheld a dazzle and her dress sense was sensitive. She helped me sow my wild oaths. She taught me a lot of things, but most importantly, she taught me that love is a twin lane divided by a thin grey line. Once she left me on the other divide of the thin grey line, I quickly learnt that what makes a man laugh could also make him cry. When my Maria days ended, I carried my Maria lessons everywhere I went. I took every other girl I met to the twin lane of love where Maria took me. They too, soon learnt that what makes a girl laugh could also make her cry.

My Maria world view epitomized itself when Josh my bosom friend was shot dead by trigger-happy frat boys. Josh was in his final year in University of Benin. The night he was shot, he was rushed to a hospital. He was still alive and ready to fight the cold fists of death, but he was denied medical attention in absence of a police report. Such is the practice in Nigeria. That night was a silent night. He gave up the ghost. The hospital, however, did not need a police report to dump his stone dead body in their damned morgue. Such is life! It is a painful story, and the bitterness still lingers. And whenever I travel that memory lane, I remember the sign post of the hospital as we went to fetch Josh’s remains. It was boldly written in blue paint, MARIA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.

We all have our dark stories, but I still wonder why mine is tied with a Maria knot. Over the years, I have tried purging myself of Marianess. I avoid meeting a Maria. I never smile at little girls named Maria. I don’t visit your house if your wife is a Maria. Plus when I get acquainted to people, I check for Maria pointers. Simply put, I’m Mariphobic! 

THE DILEMMA

The essence of all this epic narration is not for the sheer love of penning down my Maria issues. It is simply because last week Friday came with an omen. I’m sitting in my office when my boss walks in with this magazine-cover-dazzling beauty and then introduce her to me as Maria. While I’m still trying to muster my Maria defenses, she informs me that Maria is a new employee of Tholakele Productions.

 According to her, Maria has been employed to ease my work load which I have been complaining was too much for one fellow. Surprisingly, my boss also mentions that Maria and I will be sharing my beloved office, and then she left smiling. In my most calm demeanor, I fill her in on the brief for the month, while I performed a strength sapping mental frog jump over what new intrigues this new Maria held. I wondered what new experience this Maria would add to my Maria Memory Lane. A man is running away from something in Sokoto only to find it in his sokoto.

JUST TO LEAVE A CLUE, SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN TO ME.

·                     This Maria asked me after work hours to go clubbing with her.

·                     I didn’t say no, I was being curious.

·                     She eyeballed every girl that looked at me in the club.

·                     She gave me an elbow when I gave a girl I knew a hug.

·                     She was all over me in an embarrassing way.

·                     She waited for me outside the men’s when I went to take a leak.

·                She insisted we drank from one glass shortly after two girls who said they saw my play came over to pay me compliments.

·                     When we danced she kissed me for everyone’s benefit.

·           After clubbing hours, she insisted my neighborhood was too far, and then seduced me into sleeping over at her place “winks”.

·             After we had breakfast the next morning, she gave me a gist of how her ex narrowly escaped death by poisoning for cheating on her.

·                     Opps!