On the Grey

Still excited about the new directions my life is taking. A new blog, summer skul done with, new minor and hopefully a major coming together of stuff Ive been working on for several months now. (yall will hear about it if it works out).

But thats not the main gist. People, I went to Atlanta last weekend! Whats so special about that, right? Well it was my first time there. And the city impressed the hell outta me, I had mega fun, have a lot of pics and stories. But thats still not the reason for this post. The reason? I went on "the Grey". Yea, I took that most evil of contraptions, the Greyhound.

Kevin talked me into it. There were six of us, bored as fuck in the dorm with nothing to do. "Lets go to Atlanta in Kevin's car" Anna, the Colombian girl we roomed with said. We all agreed, except that Kevin's car was broken. It was our last weekend at school tho so no one wanted to pass up the trip. So when Kevin raised the idea of taking "the Grey", we all, after some protest, agreed. It was only a four hour journey, and despite greyhounds rather unhealthy reputation, it couldnt be so bad, could it? Besides, the other two Americans kept harping on how it was going to be an 'adventure'. In my head I was like "oyinbo no get sense at all, adventure ko greyhound ni". I took enuf "Chisco" back home to know that it wasnt my thing at all.

But it was either go with the flow or sit around ALONE at the apartment that weekend. So I said, fuck it, lets go. So we did. And greyhound lived up to its reputation. Dirty ass station, slow ticket lady, grumpy looking customers. I could have sworn some of them were psycho serial killers or something worse. But I decided to dwell on the good side. It was rather cheap. :)) The problem came when we got on the bus tho. One black dude (with the smelliest dreads Ive ever had the misfortune to come across) sitting across the aisle from me kept asking me and my seatmate, another naija boy, about Africa. Then he declared to us that he was descended from the lineage of Chaka, the great Zulu king. I nodded, yea sure. And Im the grandson of Frank Roosevelt. We shaa laffed it all off. Next thing, the guy started talking about dick. Asking questions like "you ever seen another guy's dick? U ever seen a horses dick? I heard that thing is huge. I wanna see horses doing it." The guy sitting next to him was a white guy (who we later learnt had just got out of prison). The white guy said he grew up and in a farm and had seen horses doing 'it' a lot. For the next five minutes, they talked a lot of trash. Me was already whispering to my friend that "Chaka" here might be gay. But my friend was like hell na, cos chaka was big, well built and masculine to the bone. Besides, he was too dirty to be gay. So I tried to pocket my own opinion and keep my suspicions to urs truly. But after a while, chaka changed stories and started telling everyone in earshot about how he was raped by a gang of dudes a long time ago. He started saying that he thinks hes gay. By this time, the aisle wasnt wide enuf cos I wanted to put as much distance between me and the dude as possible(im not homophobic but this one looked like trouble.). As I was still contemplating this I heard him say that if it turned out that he was really gay, that I would be his first girlfriend. As he said it, he reached across the aisle to land one rather heavy arm on my shoulder. That was it!

I went off on him like fireworks on July 4. For a moment, I forgot I was on the bus as I stood over him, cussing in english and ibo, making sure he knew that the next time he touched me, amputation would be a blessing. I rained all kinds of expletives, added a whole lot of amadiohas and shit i dint even know I knew they existed. It was when I noticed evrryone on the bus was watching that I quieted down and let him be. Then it began to sink in on me. I had just cussed out this nigga who looked like he ate steel chippings 4 breakfast. I dint pause to think what would have happend if he had taken me up on my offer to break his arm off. I for die. I eyed him carefully, tense for the rest of the journey and was relieved when we got to ATL and left the bus. Now we laugh about it and shyt, but really, I was kinda scared. If it came to a fight, I would be sporting some cracked ribs b4 any of my friends even got out of their seats. That said, I eventually went on to have a fun weekend. As for 'the Grey' adventure or not, Im not getting on that stuff ever again, so help me God. Nothin in naija prepared me for that, and in this life, a nigga gotta be prepared. No use being taken by surprise. Thats dangerous.