You dey Mad ?! Part 1
YOU DEY MAD
Mayowa Ojo
6/10/20263 min read
“No mind dem. Na so dem go dey do like say dem be good people but wetin dey their heart ehn...evil."
Larry's anger had been threatening to burst at its seams and he was doing his best to keep it in check but at the mention of evil, he felt the first rip in his soul. There were many things he could stand and an association with evil of any kind was not one of them.
Tasha stood a few feet away, weeping uncontrollably and it was so theatrical that if Larry didn't know she was lying he would have laughed at the sheer incredulity of it all.
"Where you say him pick you?"
"On top that costain bridge," Tasha managed to get out in the midst of all her crying. "Na when him begin touch me with that red cloth I know say I don enter am. Thank God say I quick see una," she said pointing to a red handkerchief on the passenger seat of the SUV.
"Red cloth?" Two of the four officers screamed as though for emphasis in a stage play, for the benefit of those in the back; complete with hand gestures.
Larry more or less lost it at that point. He had never seen the red cloth and was certain that she planted it.
"You dey mad?" He asked Tasha.
She shot a questioning look at him, as if in doubt of his own sanity or to ask what rights he had to ask such a question.
"Na your mama for village dey..." She started to say and then she paused, looked jaded for a second or two and then dropped the purse she'd been clinging to for dear life to the floor.
She removed her high heels, clapping theatrically.
Larry was puzzled. Although he did not know what her reaction would be, but one thing was certain: the drama was supposed to accompany her rebuttal not come after it.
Next she removed her wig and tucked it under her left armpit, followed by an unsolicited laughter, more hand-clapping as though in awe of the scene before her while looking for something only she seemed to know was lost or needed to be found.
By this time, all 5 men - Larry and the four officers - were looking at her in shock.
Officer one nudged the other as though to ask if she was okay but he too was clueless.
Without prompting, she started dancing and reciting a popular secular song.
Clearly Tasha was losing it and all of them seemed spellbound staring at her and at a loss for what next to do.
"Guy, which kyn rough play be dis na? Wetin you do am?" one of the officers said angrily.
Larry shot him a look that questioned his sanity for even thinking that he had anything to do with it.
“No give me bad eye. I be Benin boy oh. Your jazz no fit do me anytin,” the officer said, never mind it sounded more self-consoling than defensive.
"Be like say na yahoo plus boy true true," another officer said. "The jazz wey dey the red cloth don dey work!" He said authoritatively as though it was a science he was skilled at interpreting.
Larry would have been upset and possibly, turned to him in defense of such an accusation but he couldn't care less for the men. He kept looking at Tasha in shock.
"She's really going mad," he muttered to himself.
"No oh, she dey act feem. Mumu. You no know before say she go craze abi na the first time wey you go use this jazz?"
Again, Larry ignored the side comments.
Tasha's theatrics were starting to draw attention around even though it was just past 7pm and so a little dark. For reasons beyond him, she did not run off into the distance the way ‘newly-mad’ people do in Nollywood movies. It seemed like there was a small perimeter within which she was only permitted to move by an unseen guard.
Maybe na because d craze just dey start, he thought.
No sooner had he thought those words than the sound of a police siren pulled him into reality.
His initial reaction was fear because, no one likes police palava anywhere in the world, especially with Lagos policemen. Then he remembered that he already had 4 of them on his case and around him.
Great. They’ve called for backup. Can’t get any worse.
He noticed that the four men around him were fidgety and it puzzled him. In ways he could not explain and in what felt like a minute, he found out that the four cops were fake cops and they all, including him, were officially under arrest.
It can get worse after all.