The Jailbird Episode 3 and 4

by Aaron Ansah-Agyeman

The taxi stops in front of a very beautiful two-story building.

It is located in a beautiful neighbourhood. The streets are well-demarcated and the addresses, precise. The houses are neat and well-arranged, testifying to the affluence of the rich people living in the neighbourhood. The lawns and hedges are beautiful and have lush green luxuries.

The men and women here are well-dressed, and the children look neat, prim and proper like showcase mannequins. Once in a while, the wail of a police siren sounds as the cruisers drift silently along, providing a safe haven in this area of the African city.

This is an atmosphere reserved for the rich in society.

They are different, and they love showing it.

 

Chris Bawa, sitting in the front passenger seat of the taxi, notices that there are a lot of cars parked in front of the building he has come to. The gates of the house are splendid gold and silver with sliding reinforced metal, making them almost impossible to breach. Next to the main gates is a smaller gate that is being manned by two uniformed security men.

Music and laughter filter out from the house. Chris can see some adult guests and a lot of children moving around the yard, and he can hear excited voices coming from the pool area which he knows is located in the western wing of the house.

The taxi driver looks at Chris and speaks lazily.

“We’re here, boss. Twenty cedis, please.”

Chris absentmindedly reaches into his breast pocket and pays the taxi driver with a crisp twenty-cedi note. He gets out of the car and remains standing as the taxi reverses, executes a U-turn and speeds away.

Chris takes deep breaths, and then he crosses the street and heads for the gates where the security men are.

They regard him warily, and one of them holds out a hand as if trying to stop him.

“Hold up, sir!” he says, and his voice is unfriendly. “What can we do for you, please?”

 

Chris’ jaws work angrily, but he fights for control. Already his fury is tearing through him, and he knows it will not serve him in any positive capacity. However, if he does not control his fury, it just might blow up all his resolve to remain calm.

“Visiting,” Chris says.

“You can’t go in, sir, please,” the Security guard says. “Not without an invitation card, sir. The birthday party is strictly by invitation, please.”

“I want to see the owner, Effe Bawa,” Chris says.

“She’s not a Bawa, sir,” the man said, looking confused. “This is Madam Effe Kedem’s house.”

The small gate slides open just then, and a group of excited people come out.

There is a man leading the group, and he is holding an expensive-looking camera. He is wearing white trousers and a shirt that are fashionably designed, and fit him well. Medium-sized and compact, with closely-cropped hair, he looks dapper, trim and attractive.

He is laughing as he tries to focus the camera on the boy directly behind him. The boy, about ten years, is flanked by some of his friends. He is wearing black jeans and a beautiful white Polo shirt, and he is laughing happily as he reaches out to take the hand of his mother.

The boy’s mother…

Chris stares at the woman.

Effe!

His Effe!

The pain is a sharp explosion that tears through his whole frame and makes his mouth dry as he stares at her.

She is a very beautiful woman, breathtakingly beautiful…an angel!

She has classic curves and skin so perfect it seems to radiate its own inner glow. She is wearing an amazing white dress, and she looks absolutely happy as she bends and kisses the boy on the cheek.

And that is about the time she finds out that her son is no longer laughing. He is not even looking at his mother and trying to get her attention anymore. His eyes are gaping wide with a shock so profound that for a moment it appears to be carved from marble.

The woman stares at her son with incomprehension, suddenly appalled by his stillness, and then her eyes follow his gaze. She also sees Chris for the first time.

The boy steps past his mother and walks unsteadily towards Chris. He stops and gazes up at the tall handsome man with eyes bulging with shock and disbelief as he fights with the turmoil evidently raging through him.

 

They bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, a sort of incredible ‘young and old’ versions of the same physical make-up. It is evident that this is a man and his son.

The boy reaches out blindly, and his hands shake rather badly as his eyes fill up with unshed tears. His lips tremble, and a single word comes out, hoarse and filed with tight passion.

“Daddy?” Chris Bawa Junior whispers.

For a moment Chris cannot speak.

He has not seen his son for five years, and the agony burns through his heart with its intense passion. His son had just been seven years old when Chris was locked up.

That the boy recognizes him, after all these years, after all those painful years when he has still been not more than a baby, hits Chris very hard, and it robs him of speech momentarily. He looks down at his son, and he is totally overcome by emotions so strong that it threatens to tear his heart apart. Slowly, Chris Bawa gets down on one knee, and when he speaks his voice is an unstable whisper.

“Champ!”

The boy cannot take it anymore. His chest heaves as if he can barely breathe, and he ejects sudden tears with the force of a waterfall. He is overwhelmed, and his body vibrates. He takes faltering steps with his arms still stretched out. His gait, for a split second, looks uncannily like a zombie, and then he falls into his father’s arms. The two become enveloped in, perhaps, the tightest embrace two human beings had ever shared. Chris buries his face in the side of his son’s neck and holds on hard, his huge frame shaking with the explosive power of his emotions.

Stunned, Effe walks toward them slowly, her face a map of conflicting emotions and shocked incredulity. The man with the camera also steps forward on unsteady legs, and his face is even more shocked than Effe’s. He reaches out blindly and puts an arm across Effe’s shoulders.

“Chris?” Effe tries to say, but it comes out like a harsh whisper because her throat is so dry. “Is that you, Chris?”

 

Chris Bawa slowly looks up at his wife, the woman he has loved with all his heart and all his soul, the one woman who affects him and has power over him like no other human being has. He gets to his feet slowly, and his eyes do not leave her stunned face. His face hardens perceptively when he sees the other man’s arm across the shoulders of his wife.

That man is Steve Hollison, thirty-five years old, once Chris’ best friend, more like a brother. This man has been his best man at his wedding to Effe, and has been as close as Chris’ shadow. But now, he has put claims on Effe, the only woman Chris loves.

“Effe,” Chris says softly.

At the sound of his voice, she recoils a little, and it seems to break the cocoon of shock that had shrouded her. Her confusion and static incredulity ebb away fast, and he sees the familiar glow in her eyes and the change in her facial expression as her anger soars fast.

“What the hell are you doing here, Chris?” she asks, and her voice is a tight, controlled energy of fury. “Did you escape from prison? Is that it? You dared to escape prison simply because today is Junior’s birthday?”

The boy, still panting with pent-up emotions, stares at his mother with horror and reaches out blindly to take hold of his father’s hand.

“Stop it, Mommy!” he cries out in anguish. “Please, Mommy, stop it! It is really, really, really Daddy, my Daddy!”

Steve smiles, trying hard to shake off his shock, but it lurks in the depths of his eyes as he looks at the giant standing in front of him.

“Jeez, Chris, man!” he says with as disdainful a tone as he can muster. “You were sentenced to what…ten years? And how many years have you done now…five, yes? Don’t tell me you escaped from prison. That would be a really stupid little act, big man!”

Chris turns his eyes on Steve, and on his face is such a latent expression of disgust, fury and violent tendencies that quickly shrivels up Steve, and makes him take an almost involuntary step back as he drops his arm from Effe’s shoulders.

 

“You’ve wanted her all along, haven’t you, Stevie?” Chris hisses dangerously, his eyes blazing with fury. “All along when you slithered around like the poisonous little snake you are, you were indeed having the hots for her, weren’t you?”

It is not so much his words that shock everyone present into momentary silence, but his voice. It is the sound of raw pain, of misery, of a shattered man’s inner horror.

Steve gives a shaky laugh and points the camera at Chris, and when he speaks his voice sounds oddly defensive.

“C’mon, man! Don’t blame anybody for your shit. You had your chance with Effe, and you messed up her life. And from the look of things you’ve just messed up really badly again, man. You hear the sirens? Here come the cops, probably to drag your ass back to prison, no doubt, with more years probably slammed down on you. Damn, Chris! Don’t you ever learn?”

Chris turns his head slightly and sees a black police sedan with flashing lights and a wailing siren cruising toward them at relatively top speed. He feels his son’s fingers curling around his rather tightly, and feels the tremor that rips through his son.

 

“Come, Daddy, please!” the little boy says fearfully, trying unsuccessfully to stop his tears. “I’ll hide you. Please don’t let them take you away again, please, Daddy!”

 

Chris notices that more people have come out of the house, and across the streets and all around him people had come out of their houses to witness what is happening.

A tall, dark, sultry woman in tight white jeans and a tight pink blouse pushes her way forward and comes to stand beside Effe. Her eyes are mean, and her lips are pressed together so angrily that they look like a dash of red line on her face.

She is Elaine Boateng, Effe’s best friend and maid of honour at their wedding. She is a famous television presenter in the country.

It is quite evident that she hates Chris Bawa with a passion.

“You never learn, do you, Chris?” she hisses like a trapped mamba. “You chose today, of all days, to break out of prison? You decided to come and mess up your son’s birthday? Did you even pause for a moment to consider the fact that you’re now going to leave the poor boy distraught and heartbroken? You’ll always be a pig, Chris!”

 

She is quite unprepared for the roar of fury from Junior.

“Stop it, Aunt Elaine!” the boy lends vent to a screaming retort. “Don’t you call my Daddy a pig! What’s the matter with you, Aunt Elaine? I really, really, really, don’t like that!”

That shakes Elaine up, and she looks at the distraught boy with a contrite expression.

“Oh, Junior, I’m sorry, precious, but –”

The boy is acutely agitated, and his plaintiff voice cuts her off with brimming anger.

“Shut up, Aunty, please! Shut up, shut up, shutupshutupshutup!”

The boy’s agitation tears into Effe, and with a muted cry she rushes to his side, drops to her knees and gathers him into her arms. He will not have it that way, and he struggles, his young heart going into a frenzy for the welfare of his father. He is evidently spooked by the sight of the police sedan.

“It’s okay, my precious,” Effe whispers, holding him tight and curling one hand at the back of his head. “It’s okay, take it easy, darling. Don’t stress yourself up this way, please!”

And across her son’s shoulder, Effe’s eyes drive into Chris like hot daggers.

 

The police sedan slows down and performs a perfect U-turn, and then it comes to a stop. The front doors open, and two uniformed burly cops come out with drawn guns which they aim instantly at Chris Bawa.

“Alright, Mr. Chris Bawa, you’re coming with us,” one says in a sharp voice. “Lemme see your hands up.”

Junior is struggling furiously in his mother’s arms now, his face acutely distressed.

“No, no, no!” he screams. “Don’t take my daddy away! Please don’t take my daddy away!”

Chris holds out a hand toward his son, but his hard eyes never leave the faces of the cops. When he speaks, his voice is calm enough, but it is laced with an undercurrent of fury.

“It’s okay, Champ, it’s okay,” he says. “Calm down, son.”

 

Junior stops struggling immediately at the sound of his father’s voice and gazes from his father to the cops with huge, frightened eyes. Already people are moving back quickly at the sight of the guns in the hands of the policemen.

The second policeman is flanking Chris on the right, and he speaks curtly.

“You heard the sergeant, Mr. Bawa! Get those hands up! Don’t let this turn nasty!”

“You see kids all around and you come out with drawn guns?” Chris hisses furiously, his body tensed as he fights to keep himself under control. “For what, huh? It’s my boy’s birthday and I came to give him a present. Since when did that become a crime?”

“That is not a crime, mister,” the first cop says with a smirk. “But your presence here is a crime. You just broke the law.”

“Any law says I can’t visit my son?” Chris asks, and again the fury is palpable in his voice.

He is finding it really hard keeping himself in check, trying to restrain himself from tearing the two fools apart for terrifying Junior that badly.

The second policeman speaks.

“Yes, Mr. Bawa. Your wife took a restraining order against you. You can’t come within one thousand meters of her and her son. I’m not a very good judge of distances, but it seems to me you’re pretty much breaking the law because I do believe you’re less than ten meters away from them.”

That shakes Chris Bawa.

It shakes him really hard.

He turns stunned eyes to Effe, and his eyes narrow with the sudden pain. When he speaks it is as if his big heart is breaking, and the devastation spills out of his voice.

“You took a restraining order against me? Why would you do a thing like that? I’ve never hit you, or ever put your life in any danger, Effe. Why in God’s name will you do something dastardly as that?”

They stare at each other.

Effe has a haunted look in her eyes now. She can feel her son’s petrified eyes on her, and a tortured look washes across her beautiful face. Twice she tries to speak, and twice her voice fails her. She sees the raw pain on Chris’ face, and she notices how he suddenly seems to deflate a mite, his proud shoulders losing just a little height.

 

The twinge of guilt she feels suddenly makes her angry, and her gaze assumes a defiance she does not try to mask as she stares unwaveringly back at him.

The first cop gestures with his gun.

“Get those hands up, Mr. Chris Bawa,” he says tersely. “I’m losing my patience here.”

With an effort, Chris tears his eyes off his wife and looks at the policemen.

“You got here pretty fast,” he says softly. “She called you?”

That is when Elaine speaks again, and her voice is bitingly savage, filled with unbridled hatred and everything putrid.

“I called the police, Chris! You’re a lawbreaker, and you broke jail! You’re going back to prison where you belong, you bastard!”

Junior looks at Elaine, and then he begins to struggle in his mother’s arms again.

“I really, really, really don’t like you so much anymore, Aunt Elaine!” he screams, making Elaine shut up again with a little groan of remorse. “I really, really, really don’t!”

“C’mon, Mr. Bawa!” the second cop says impatiently. “We ain’t got the whole day!”

“Yeah, I’m coming with you,” Chris says softly in a defeated voice. “But you don’t put cuffs on me in front of my boy. I’m not taking that.”

“Unbelievable!” Steve says scornfully. “Shouldn’t you have thought of that before breaking jail, Chris?”

“You don’t make any demands here, buddy,” the first cop says rather rudely, evidently piqued by Chris’ cold voice. “Slap the cuffs on him, Joe.”

 

The second policeman holsters his gun and takes out a pair of shiny handcuffs.

He sees the way Chris’ jaw tightens, and the evil glint that enters the huge man’s eyes.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Chris said, and his voice is now ice-cold, sinister and absolutely venomous, making the cops exchange sudden looks of unease. “I’m going with you, but you’ll have to kill me before you put the cuffs on me.”

There is a momentary silence filled with palpable menace, and then the second cop gives a shaky laugh and clips the handcuffs back to his belt.

“Come on then, Mr. Bawa,” he says coldly. “We don’t have the whole day.”

Without another word, Chris walks toward the police sedan. With a grunt of despair, Junior breaks free from his mother’s protective embrace and races to his father. He clamps his arms around Chris’ legs and holds on tightly.

Chris fights the wave of passionate love that threatens to break his heart, and he drops to one knee and holds his son in his arms.

“Let me go with you, Daddy,” Junior whispers, and his voice is a broken chord of agony. “Let me go to prison with you, please!”

And that is what finally breaks Chris Bawa.

His son’s words cut him deeply, and they break his spirit. He cannot stop the tears that glimmer in his eyes this time, and he swallows painfully, forcing the bitter lump down.

“I’m not going to prison again, Champ,” he says softly. “I do promise you that.”

He reaches into his top pocket and brings out the small gift-wrapped box and holds it out to Junior.

 

The first policeman steps forward with a grunt of impatience, but his partner holds him back and shakes his head gently.

Junior is weeping silently as he unwraps the gift his father has brought him. Inside the box is a beautiful BEN 10 wristwatch. Without a word, Junior pulls off the golden wristwatch around his wrist – given to him earlier by Steve – and drops it on the ground.

With tears streaming down his face, he extends his arm toward his father.

Chris gently fixes the watch around Junior’s wrist, and then he stands up again.

He turns from his son without speaking because he cannot trust his voice anymore.

“Daddy!” he hears Junior’s broken cry from behind him, but he does not turn.

“Daddy, don’t go again, please!” the boy says tremulously. “I really, really, really, want you to stay!”

The tears shimmer wildly in Chris Bawa’s eyes, but he does not stop or turn around. He opens the back door of the police sedan and gets in. The windows are lightly tinted, and he is grateful for that. No one will see his tears from the outside.

 

The policemen holster their guns and get into the car, and a second later the sedan moves away with its lights blinking. Thankfully for Chris, the siren is not wailing this time around, making him feel less of a criminal.

[insert-comment-form]

FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Aaron.Ansah.A/

JOIN US ON WHATSAPP: https://chat.whatsapp.com/F3PeBtycHsVLX8705Fgi0U