LITERATURE TUESDAY: EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL, The Goat BY EMMANUEL IFEDIATA

  One day, Strauss took Wesley to a bush bar called Street where he introduced the latter to some adventurers in the hood. They welcomed him warmly unlike the Black Axe frat who emphasized cultism over friendship. In the spirit of the times, members of the Black Axe were the chief nemesis of the Vikings. They led a secluded existence and loathed non-initiates with exclusivist arrogance. They wanted all Jewman to fade and, therefore, would have absolutely nothing to do with non-Sevens. The pioneers of campus fraternities initiated the organizations with the intention of fostering brotherhood with a demonstrable commitment to the pursuit of noble ideals. However, sometime even before the grand conception could realize a full birth, the plan suffered a miscarriage of sorts, leaving behind its trail a harvest of blood and gore.

     It was at the bar called Street that Wesley first encountered Nappa the Red, a bloodied, colossal guy of about six and twenty. While he drank a beer sitting next to Strauss, who had told his family that he, Wesley was a Noron, Nappa the Red was sighted from a distance. A drunken bagger darted out of the hut beer parlour shouting “make way! Make way!” as Nappa approached. He was looking into the sky as he advanced; he wasn’t looking at anybody. When he was close, the others hailed him noisily. One of them released a gunshot salute and Nappa the Red, Strike chief of the Vikings, jazzed into the Bush bar like a big masqueraded. Nappa was a little pot-bellied from binge drinking and intimidatingly massive in build. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was neatly barbed and his jaw was scantily bearded which made it look more like whiskers than beards. He pinned all the nautical points at the bar called Street in greeting. He came across Wesley and they shook hands but not in the manner of fist locking and pinning of thumbs. It was a rough slapping of palms and a snapping of the third finger.

     Yes. The bar called Street was the kind of place where cultists gathered to while away time and make merry. This was where they smoked, drank, rubbed minds together, argued incisively and often disagreed with one another and sometimes, out of being too possessed with ruggedity and rum, shot and threw one another overboard. Remember, it was called Street. And in street, anything goes. Everyone had to be on guard at all times, not only against a rival cult group but also against a fellow adventurer.