Chapter 44 CULVERT

Among the boys seated on a plank supported with stones under the Pear tree was Osano. He had migrated to the University from Port Gareth, well over five years ago, in his search for admission into the University. Both his parents had died years ago when he was a boy, he was the last among five children. He was raised by the joint effort of his older siblings, who were now married and based in different locations. He had to stay around the University for lack of where to go. He frequently visited his siblings one after another from time to time. Fate had forced him into the life of untimely independence. Independence had come with its disadvantages, and in some cases, merits. He learned to care for himself with the help coming regularly from his siblings.

Osano lived in a popular notorious area surrounding the University. A place dominated by diversity of fraternity members who lived as one in the area, joining hands to fortify the area as a no nonsense zone. Motorcyclists in general refuses to take passengers to the area, because most times instead of getting paid, they got beaten and sent away.

There had been recorded a brutal killing of a student in the area. Which helped to spread fear in the mind of anyone who heard the name. The inhabitants were mostly rugged men, and most times the police visited in search of one rubber or another. It was a home for drug dealers and users.

The area was made up of five large privately owned hostels, situated outside the campus. One of the buildings was painted yellow, the others pink, red and two uncompleted even though they were occupied by young people.

There were shops selling snacks, drinks and general provision, located in the center of the vicinity. The area was surrounded by thick overgrowth of grass and trees, making it uneasy to be seen from the main road, and a huge open culvert caused by erosion ran through the side, demarcating it from the rest of the small village in which it was located.

Accommodation was cheap. Most of the inhabitants who were fifty percent students, thirty percent aspirants and twenty percent indigenes, gather on one of the shops every evening to socialize while smoking Marijuana, drinking or gambling.

The area was mostly dominated by men, due to the fact that ladies were generally afraid of living there.

It was here that Osano could afford to find solace, losing his innocence in the process. He met Cynthia - the daughter of one of the shop owners one evening at the joint. One thing led to the other and they began to date. She was short, dark, not very pretty and a teenager. Osano himself, an adult in his early twenties, tall, a little fair and handsome in a hard kind of way.

He kept sitting for and failing the entrance exam into the University every year. He wasn't very brilliant, but he was relentless. He had tried and failed for over five years by now.

Under the peer tree, Osano was smoking Marijuana with the men, it was just one out of the many negativity he had imbibed in the area. He was raised in a religious home, and so found a way to effectively mix his religious lifestyle with ruggedity. He was popular in his local church as an assistant to the chief usher. Hiding his secret lifestyle perfectly from unsuspecting eyes was very easy. He was a human chameleon.

* * *

Donald was orphaned at a very young age, an indigene of the city where the University of Science was located. His father had died during the period when his mother was pregnant with him, murdered by his brother - Donald's uncle, through diabolic means. The mother single handedly raised him and his elder brother. She was a business woman, she regularly traveled to the North to purchase her goods - mostly different species of beans.

She went to the market one day and a strange man requested she helped him change his five hundred note into smaller notes. She took the money and gave him the equivalent, she put the money in her pocket where she kept all her money. Few minutes later, when she was about to pay for something she had bought, she discovered all her money had disappeared.

She returned to the village few weeks later, empty handed and very ill.

She had developed a mysterious illness, her skin would suddenly develop abscesses - sores filled with pus - on regular basis. She could have picked up the illness during the weeks she had temporarily ran full-blown mad in the market at the North, before she returned to the village.

She began to treat the illness, but it was stubborn, it took all her life savings and finally killed her.

Donald - being very young - had contacted the illness from the mother before she died, she had tried to treat him and herself. Donald's brother became his only family, and when the burden became too much, he abandoned Donald. But Donald had managed to survive, he had found a way to live with the illness.

He lived behind the area where Osano lived. He was an executioner in the Black axe Fraternity. His involvement with the Fraternity was one of his secrets.

He did every sort of things to survive. He would steal, or kidnap when necessary. He was widely feared, and he controlled issues in the area.

Donald was friends with Osano, they were of different brotherhood but they got along just fine. They did all sorts of illegal businesses, smoked and ate together. They were seen from time to time in each other's company.

Donald's place behind the vicinity had more privacy than under the Pear tree, and the culvert was very close and accessible. Therefore, young men visited him from time to time to smoke around his house, with some hiding in the culvert.

Even though Donald was deadly, he was extremely kind, compassionate and accommodating.

He was also older than most of his friends - which was honored - including Osano. He was a highly religious catholic in the midst of all that he was.