"Mama bought me shoes yesterday, it is blue"
"O cool, mama didn't buy any for us, she said that she is impecunious, that she has no money and papa too is not saying anything yet," Chimezie replied to me in that deprived tone of his. Chimezie, 7, was a friend of mine, and a neighbor, we shared things and most times complete each other sentences. With is oily skin and large head you can easily tell where he hails from, Anambra, the commercial center of Eastern Nigeria. He has never been worried and perplexed like the yuletide season, he has now inculcated that habit of withdrawing from me, now that I needed him most so wheel can ride bicycle wheels and pay seek and hide with other compound mates.
In the evening of of Christmas eve, we went our desperate ways, he went to his mother to help her fry the chin-chin she was baking, whilst I went to my mum to help her in frying the chicken-the best part of it is when my mum will be talking to Nessi so that I will sharply cut a large chunk of meat and stuff it in my mouth, even if she found out she can't tell me to vomit it.
Me and Nessi will start fathoming and creating images of how the next day will be, waking up in the wee hours of Christmas, sweeping the compound, taking bath and putting on our newly acquired clothes. That night always seem like a long night ever, out of desperation I would force my self to sleep, woke up every 30 minutes hoping that it's already dawn. I would seat at the edge if the bed, mumbling and lamenting for the next day to come, later I would recline to my bed, writhing in frustration of the night. Immediately I heard the cock squeak I would jolt out of my bed and sneek peek through the window to see the sun rise, Nessi, wake up it is Christmas, I would shout in exhilaration. Yay, Christ is born, happy christmas, Chimezie would say immediately he knocks at the door.
We would go to Chimezie's house to greet their parents, the kids were all wearing long faces and folded arms while their parent's eye were fixated on their telly. "Good afternoon sir and ma," I said, "Good afternoon Zech and Nessi, how are you," Chimezie's father would ask, instead of Nessi to reply the question she would bursh it off, "Aunty, gbara m Christmas, aunty give us Christmas present," Nessi said. They ushered us to their table and serve us rice, meats, chin-chin and other hors d'oeuvre but we won't eat the food instead we would eat the meats and little chin-chin because we still have other places to go to, so we would rather accept meats than foods so that our stomach won't burst. After eating Chimezie would follow us to other rendezvous to see friends, I gave him my plastic rimmed eye glass and fez cap so he could add to his last year outfit in order for him to look like a 'niggar, 2pac or even P square.'
Christmas is always delectable when you are a teenager, when you become old it will kind of bore you because it might run down your account trying to shop for the kids so they won't feel inferior like Chimezie.
