Night Runs – chapter 2 – crazy

Chapter 2

Crazy

Adio’s passenger for the night was starting to irritate him. He had picked him up in front of a popular nightclub in Victoria Island but soon regretted it the moment the young man eased himself into his car.

The young man’s glazed eyes suggested he was stoned to high heavens. He wore a writhing mass of locked hair that gave him a medusa-like appearance. His grotesque visage was accentuated by an oversized gap-tooth or missing teeth.

Adio could have sworn that three pencils would fit snuggly into that gap in his mouth.

“God! This dude has no atom of handsomeness in him. You don carry Medusa.” Don mocked in pidgin English.

Adio could do nothing but shake his head slowly. He had a torrid day earlier that afternoon diagnosing his overheating engine with his regular roadside auto-mechanic, who ended up patching several small holes in his single-cell radiator that had seen more days with generations of cars before Adio purchased it as “fairly used”.

He would have to work longer into the night to make up for the lost time. While he waited, he had prayed fervently to God to bring him some luck for the rest of the day. He prayed for decent passengers and longer trips, maybe even with a good measure of kind tips.

“It’s never too much to ask for luck.” He shrugged.

“Now this! You are stuck with a stupefied drunk and wannabe Medusa” Don laughed.

“Please you can start the trip. And turn on the AC.” His voice was of the most polished Queen’s English accent.

“Right there, buddy. That is the hook; his accent.”

The mechanic had advised Adio not to burden the engine by running the Air-condition throughout the rest of the day, in hope that the patchwork on the radiator would have plugged all the leaks effectively.

He wondered whether to heed the warning.

In defiance, he turned the knob that was  just above his gear stick, and cool air filtered into the cabin. He justified his action by agreeing that the ambient temperature outside the car at 1am was much lower than in the hot afternoon after the repairs. He was confident he could manage to use the air condition for the trip.

A few moments later he heard the unmistakable buzz of chainsaws heralding the noisiest snore he ever heard.

“Bro, this na bad market.”

When he fiddled with the radio to tune in the FM stereo in hope that some music perhaps would drown the snore coming from his back seat, his passenger stirred.

“Please increase the AC and keep the volume of that thing down.” The way he mouthed “thing” bellied his intolerance. His tongue slipped between his disproportionate teeth as he pronounced the word.

“That accent again. If I was a lady, I would marry him for his accent. How can a man look this ugly?” The voice was Don’s, but the thought was Adio’s.

Adios fingers were starting to freeze from the AC fin closest to his left wrist. His engine protested slightly as it purred in labor the moment he turned the knob towards the cooler temperature.

“Perhaps his innards are boiling.”

After scanning through several FM stations, Adio opted to turn off the stereo. It was of no use anyway. None of the music playing could soothe his mood.

“I wonder how his girlfriend would kiss this fellow, even if he wooed her with the most impeccable English accent.”

“It won’t be a French kiss, I promise.” Adio chuckled.

Faint laughter echoed through his ear canals.

“He would have to wear a face mask to kiss her.“

Another round of laughter.

That was when he heard the sound.

“Wait what was that?” Don asked, alarmed. ”Surely that can’t be what I am thinking.”

Adio turned his head to look into the rear mirror as though to scold his passenger who was still in a deep sleep.

His nostrils widened in anticipation of the inevitable, just as the stench finally wafted in strongly.

“Jesus!”

It was sulfur, grainy, pungent, horrible, and choking, all at the same time, in the confined space of the cabin.

“Oga, did you fart?” Adio barked.

No response.

He stepped on the brake pedal violently to jerk his passenger awake.

“Oga, why now? What is this?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

If Don had a face, it would be stunned and in utter disgust!!

“Oga, but you farted now. Why would you do such a thing?” gobsmacked, Adio turned to face the dreadlocked man at the backseat. He was unperturbed.

Adio attempted to wind down the car windows on all sides at the same time.

“Do not open the window!” The man scolded.

“What!!”

“Leave the windows up. Do you not comprehend English?”

“You have got to be kidding sir!” Adio wheeled the car to a stop by the road shoulder, kicking the driver’s door open.

“Please come down from the car, I am no longer completing this trip.”

“Hey mister driver, I am feeling unwell, and you must take me to my destination as quickly as possible. You cannot just stop in the middle of nowhere. Every minute counts.”

“This one is still speaking English.” Don chimed in.

“Oga, please come down from my car joor.” Adio raised his voice in anger. “You sit and fart in a car after you asked that the AC be turned to its coldest. What a joke! Come down please.”

The man remained unmoved and in the same position as though daring him to do his worst.

Adio assessed his options.

He sniffed the air and immediately regretted it as he shook his head. It was obvious that the remnant of the fart hung in the air like a dry joke.

While his mind explored his next move, his passenger suddenly leaned forward clutching his lower abdomen before retching violently, spewing the most putrid bile-colored remnant of chicken soup into Adio’s face. It came in three short bursts, spraying the disgusting puke as a snake would spit venom.

“What the hell!”

Shocked and in a daze, Adio watched, through the slithering vomit on his face, his passenger slump into the back seat almost lifelessly. 

He soon realized that some of the disgusting vomit may have slipped into his open mouth.

But the object of his anger had just passed out in his backseat.

“This wan don die today.”

Who is Adio’s next rider? click here to find out.