WHAT BILLIONAIRES TASTE LIKE

When they got a call from Nku about his arrival, Azuaka Jnr. stayed back at home while Agu went to the airport by taxi. Earlier, Agu did not see Azuaka Jnr. staying back, keeping to himself while Nku arrived at Long Beach Airport. But he wished Azuaka Jnr. would understand he allowed it on sufferance and not his reason – his allergy to cold. Before Agu left for airport that evening, exactly at the estimated time of arrival, Azuaka Jnr. had his face suffused with smoke from his cigarette; body cloaked in hoody and eyes clamored for the chilled champagne on the table. Agu shot his warning about Azuaka Jnr. not drinking from the champagne because they would toast with it upon the arrival of the computer genius himself, Nku..

“It is about to begin,” Azuaka Jnr. reminded himself inwardly. He stared at his T-shirt, which had ‘My Money Grows Like Grass’ blazoned across it and he blinked out of it. He had always worn that T-shirt and kept it until the day it would happen; when his ice cube would melt the sun; when money would choke his bank account and his spending spree would be in the direction of keeping problems at bay. He had endured a beggarly life; trodden upon by job hunt; ignored by dashing girls he admired and reproached by the lavished lifestyle of the rich. Regrettably, even in the fantasy world he could not be found; poverty had recreated him invisible, something less than stones, somewhere out of the underworld. He had only endeared as one of the 1 billion Azuaka Juniors that stood breathing; reviled by wealth because of a long stay in the uterus of poverty. And he could not wait to be born; only Monkeys’ software would deliver him and breathe life into his world.

“I will make it,” he assured himself.

Azuaka Jnr. snapped out of his thought as he sniffed and sneezed like a goat. He rubbed his nostrils and smeared the catarrh streaming through. His phlegm was much now and he sneezed into his handkerchief to collect it.

“Fear or what,” he thought.

The jug on the shelf came in sight and he reached to it; shook it, poured himself a cupful of hot coffee, since he had been warned by Agu not to touch the champagne. He lit a fresh cigar and sat to it. His thought turned on; “I need money, whatever Monkeys’ software would bring to the table. I just need to be made before I turn 26 years. Agu might have seen it since he was born with the egg of a dragon, Nku might have counted cool money in New York but what has the son of a police officer got to offer?”

And he earnestly needed to see and count his first one million naira and beaucoup more. He stole his father’s gratuity on the off-chance of making it through Monkeys’ software. Back on the surface of Texas Tech University, in their final year, when they seized the vision, he did not see himself in the plan. Nku had travelled to New York, leaving him brooding over plans of making ten million dollars to secure his place in the project. It was less off-chance when he realized endless job hunt could not save him the bill and then he relaxed at home, rubbed his stomach and waited for his father’s retirement. Azuaka Jnr. snorted and shook his head. “I will make it. It is possible,” he whispered and glugged down the now warm coffee. “I would return to see my father, kneel before him and beg him with thirty million dollars; that is more than triple of his gratuity. He would not dare do anything funny; the police in him would contend that I did well. And then the rest of my life would be dead set on getting richer through Monkeys’ software,” he said thoughtfully.

There was a stormy noise at the outside and his thought blanked. There were around. He adjusted himself to put on a bodacious look. A car buzzed into the compound, doors opened and slammed furiously before the thwacking of shoes on the veranda. The door creaked open and three people walked in. Azuaka Jnr. looked queerly at the white man in the door – his frown gathered around his eyes.

Nku gave Azuaka Jnr. a hug that seemed to last forever. “Hello, bad boy! I am back,” he said and Azuaka Jnr. was still staring at the white man; something in him was already spiking Azuaka Jnr. He remained in the door, his enviable smile held and his luggage in front. Agu came and took the luggage from him and then he started strutting forward.

At night the boys sat in the sitting room, round a tray of cigarettes, a laptop, and a bottle of champagne.

Azuaka Jnr. was smoking heavily and studying the white man who had been bringing out his cigarette from the pocket and smoking gently all this while.

Nku had been going through some documents while Agu tried to peep into the documents. The quiet mood hung over them for a while until Azuaka Jnr. said, “Who is he?” he asked, pointing at the white man. “I mean we haven’t known one another up till this time.” Azuaka Jnr. blurted, his eyes gathering bullets. I wonder what he is doing here,” he said in his head.

“Oh, yeah, introduction isn’t late,” said Nku, drawing from his cigarette and puffing a narrow smoke. “Guys, meet Ferguson, my friend and big gun in this project, Ferguson,” he said, throwing his toned, hairy hand across Agu and Azuaka Jnr., “Meet Agu, the graduate taxi driver.”

They burst out laughing ecstatically except Azuaka Jnr. he was thinking; so if he is the big gun we should twist our necks and kiss our buttocks.

Agu cursed, “Your father! Your stroke-eaten father!” They laughed.

“Yeah, this is Azuaka Jnr. the son to one of the men in black we often call cops. I think the last time I rang him he was jobless.”

Agu thought it laughable but smiled. Nku and Ferguson laughed out loud. Azuaka Jnr. thought it scornful because Ferguson laughed at a joke directed to him. He should have scowled like a dog migrated into a strange cage.

When he walked to Ferguson he said, “I am Azuaka Jnr.,” His disgusting voice, he thought, would be best appreciated if Ferguson perceived the hatred it gathered. He shook hands with Ferguson, his eyes scanning through his white sleeves and blue waist coat to his jeans and black boot. With his long hair, goatee and chiseled face, Azuaka Jnr. saw nothing than a desperate Ojubwa possessed with his American dream. He wanted to tell him to his face that he didn’t like his presence; ask him who made him part of the project; and where he was the day they strategized to render the world broke. He had never hated anyone at first sight. Maybe it was because of something more than Monkeys’ software, something clustering into the pocket of mystery. He would have to ask himself why he hated Ferguson, some white stranger he just met. As he withdrew his palm from Ferguson’s he wanted to tell him that his presence irritated him so much but he reserved his comment. “Hey, Mr. Man, please, have a haircut, this project is for clean guys with clean asses,” he said and that was the only broadside he could shoot.

Nku and Agu smiled and took it for a joke.

Ferguson forced a smile and knew he had an enemy in this project already, and the days ahead were going to be tough and dark, with blood, sweat and survival being their battle ground.