The Hustle Is Real

It is a nice cool evening so I take a stroll to Tejuosho market to buy novels from the booksellers close to the Surulere-Masha buses, near the Ajiggy Shopping Complex. One man startles me by walking into my path, and then starts walking with me. ‘Aunty I get fine tops, fitted jeans, your size’, he says to me. I don’t look at him, I keep walking. He waves a white shirt on a hanger in my face; he has more clothes on hangers in his other hand. ‘Aunty follow me go my shop, I get fine fine stuff, good wears’. I keep walking, still not saying a word. I am getting close to the booksellers. I want to sit down; my feet ache as I walked quite a distance. He holds my hand; this man has no idea how much I hate this. I look at him, I look at my arm, I look at him again and he gets the message; he takes his hand off. He is still walking with me. ‘No be you I dey talk to? Abi you be deaf and dumb?’ He taunts me.

By now, I have reached the booksellers. I stop at the first stand and the seller offers me a stool. I often buy from him and he had on some occasions offered me the option of exchanging novels for a token amount. I am there to take him up on the offer. ‘Welcome, welcome’, he says, ‘Which one you want? I get everything. John Grisham’s latest, Stephen King, Danielle Steele, make I show you’.

The clothes guy shakes the same shirt on the hanger in front of my face but this time the shirt touches my arm, I can tell it is intentional.

‘Na wetin nau??’

‘Oh, so you no be deaf and dumb?’

Idiot

‘I no wan buy, na by force?’

‘I just dey follow you since you no talk anything, you for say you no wan buy’.

The bookseller tells him to leave me alone. I start to laugh. This is ridiculous. This annoys him and he goes off on me. ‘See you, no be say you fine sef wey you dey do shakara. You think say you be oyibo person? Na only yellow you yellow. I never sell since morning you leave me make I follow you dey waka. Wicked girl. All these small small girls, no be say una get money sef’.

This guy is insane.

He hisses and walks away and I see him grab another young girl. I chuckle to myself. Wicked girl. I turn and scan through the selection of books the seller gives me. He is trying to convince me to buy the latest John Grisham’s ‘The King of Torts’ in hardcover rather than paperback. I hear a commotion a few meters from me and I see it’s the same clothes seller. A woman is dragging him by his trousers. I can hear them. While he was zealously convincing the girl to buy from him, he had bumped into the woman as she alighted from an Okada. The woman accused him of grabbing her bottom in the process, something he denied. ‘This man dey find who go slap am this evening’, the bookseller says. The small crowd quickly disperses when some people apologize to the woman on his behalf. He dusts himself up and looks in my direction, I quickly look away but from the corner of my eye I see him walking towards me.

Not again! 

‘You this girl, you know say na your bad head dey follow me’, he accuses me. The bookseller offers to buy me a bottle of Fanta from the woman selling nearby. ‘Me too, bring malt for me’, he interjects.

Very annoyinggggg

I spend 10 or so more minutes at the novel stand; the cloth seller seems less interested in looking for clients and more interested in just getting under my skin. ‘You be student? Why you dey buy all these books? I don’t respond. ‘E be like say this your deaf and dumb na only for me’. I pay for my novels and make to leave; he gathers up his clothes and starts to follow me again.

This man is relentless.

I do not want to walk home so I head to the Okada stand, the cloth seller in tow. I am about to get on a bike when the cloth seller holds my bag. ‘Haba Aunty, wetin I do you nau? OK, OK just follow me buy this small top, e go fit you, na only N200. He holds up the top. I pull out a N100 note from my pocket and I hand it to him. ‘Haba, oya take am N150 abeg’. ‘Don’t worry, I dash you; for malt’, I tell him. He doesn’t believe it. He plasters the money on his forehead and does a little dance. ‘Thank you, Aunty, thank you. You do well. I know say you be good person, I just know’.

I laugh as I get on a bike. ‘God bless you’ he says and waves as the Okada man rides off.

Kech

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