Title: The Many Men

Jerry Gana's mother, Mrs Temitayo, at fifty, has finally decided to settle down. She is in love with Quincy, the retired aeronautical engineer who moved into their neighbourhood two years ago. Quincy, or Mr Quincy, as Jerry calls him, is a tall athletic man well into his sixties. He drives a Beetle, waters his front lawn every morning, and uses the word 'Youngblood' when referring to Jerry. He's been married twice and has two daughters.

Watching them stride down the pavement, hand-in-hand, through the double-hung window, Jerry smiles broadly, remembering the many men who'd passed through his mother's life. He remembers Sheriff Yakhong, two years younger than his mother but older by appearance. Mrs Temitayo had loved him dearly. He worked at a gas station, didn't earn as much as her, who is the brand manager of Daviva, a reputable textile company, but loved her enormously. At first, Jerry was surprised when she brought him home, saying her heart had found shelter in him. How could she descend so low, he'd thought. But as the months progressed, he grew to fancy him, began to see why his mother loved him.

Yakhong loved to cook. He wore his apron proudly, defying the myth that the kitchen is a woman's haven. Every time in the kitchen, when he cooked, he whistled beautiful melodies, and Jerry knew his heart, at that moment, was in its resting place.

They'd planned on getting married when six months into their relationship Yakhong died of avian flu. Mrs Temitayo, for two months, stayed indoors weeping.

"Oh...! Oh...! Oh...!" she sobbed, her hands knit together in bed as she wailed to the ceiling inconsolably. "My Yakhong, you left without a word, no goodbye." And Jerry, seated by her bedside, would comfort her.

Sadness is the cost of being able to smile once in a while. And that New Year's eve, five months since Yakhong passed on, Mrs Temitayo met Brigadier General Ikhilor Williams, who'd assured her her tears will forever be flitting.

Ikhilor was a typically plethoric Nigerian man, braggadocious in public spaces but piquant in private. Mrs Temitayo loved that only she could see his weaknesses. Even though he was married, he'd assured her many times he would leave his wife to be with her. 'Someday,' he'd said, 'someday it'd be just you and me.'

He'd told her his wife was domineering and ambitious, traits he detested in a lady, and despite being all of these things herself, Mrs Temitayo, desperate for love, couldn't see past her desire for emotional security.

While on transfer to Liberia a year after the affair began, on a peacekeeping operation, Ikhilor was shot dead.

Mrs Temitayo didn't mourn his death as much as she mourned the loss she imagined his wife and two toddlers suffered.

"I'm such a fool," she cried. "How could I have been so wicked, taking another woman's husband, when his last moments could have been spent with her and their children. Those children would never see their father again, they never will..." And Jerry comforted her still, never leaving her side.

Shoes shuffling on the doormat outside, Jerry springs to awareness, fiddling with his phone as his mother enters the house with Mr Quincy.

"Youngblood, what are you up to?" Mr Quincy says.

"Welcome, sir. Nothing o. Just surfing the internet."

"Your mother doesn't like to take long walks eh, she doesn't like to walk. All that time during the week, spent sitting in one place at the office can do a lot of harm if you don't stretch your legs once in a while."

"I agree, sir."

"Please, be telling her. We're not like you young people who can afford to sit in one place and blood will be circulating just fine," he says. "Please, be encouraging her to exercise. Small walk that we just did, see how she's panting."

"Quincy, I have heard o. It's enough. I'll start exercising," Mrs Temitayo says, walking with a cup to the water dispenser in the living room. "Jerry, have you had something to eat?"

"Yes, Mom. Made spaghetti."

"And I was rushing home to whip something fast for you," she says. "You're a grown man sha. You can handle yourself."

Spotting a card game on the centre table, Mr Quincy says:

"Ah-ah, Jerry, you know how to play WHOT?"

"Very well, sir."

"I'll trash you. In my time I was a champion."

"We'll see about that. Let's play."

Mr Quincy shuffles the deck of cards, serves them one after the other, and they start to play.

-Triangle three.

-Square three.

-Circle three.

-Circle four; Circle, pick two.

Mr Quincy draws two cards from the stock.

-Square, pick two.

He draws two cards from the stock, again.

-Cross fourteen, general market.

He draws a card.

-Cross four, continue.

A sharp, sudden pain in Mr Quincy's chest, he jolts, breaking into a coughing fit.

"Are you okay, sir?" Jerry says.

"Are you fine?" Mrs Temitayo hurries from the dinner table with a cup of water.

He drinks it, clears his throat, and says, "Let's continue."

As they continue, Jerry notices that Mr Quincy has hair growing on the palm of his hands. He stares, wide-eyed, at the red spots his coughing fit has left on his fingers, and forgets it's his turn to drop a card.

"Youngblood, it's your turn," Mr Quincy says, waiting. "Jerry! what's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."

But Jerry remains airheaded.

"It's the hair, isn't it?"

"Oh...N-nothing, sir," he says, emerging from a trance.

"I get that a lot."

"Get what a lot, sir?"

"The stares," he says. "Still don't know what it's called, though."

"I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, sir."

"No, no, no. It's fine."

"It's just that I've seen it before..." he lies

"Really! On who...? I thought I was the only one with it."

"A friend of mine had it."

"Had it? How did he get rid of it?"

"He didn't. He's dead, sir."

"I'm so sorry...You know, the funny thing is, your mom, she pretends not to see it so I won't feel bad. Every time, when she plays with my hands, I tell her, 'Look, it's right there,' but she can't see anything. Anyway, let's continue."

-Cross eight, suspension; Star eight, suspension; Twenty WHOT. "I need uh...uhm... Give me circle," Mr Jerry says.

-Circle, pick two; Cross, pick two; Cross fourteen, general market; Cross three. "Last card...! And check!" Cross one, hold on.

Later tonight, lying beneath the covers on the tray of his mother's ute in the parking lot, wandering at the constellation of the stars while the moisture-laden air whirls, Jerry reads Mr Quincy's horoscope--his eyes, two distant stars between which a sculpted sword glistens.

"Jerry, what are you doing outside," his mother says.

Startled, he kicks the covers off. "Nothing," he says. "I was admiring the sky."

"Look at the time... Go an' sleep. Oya, oya,"--she beckons, with a calling hand--"Let's go and sleep."

Standing at the door, Jerry takes one final glance at the cauliflower puffs in the night sky--two distant stars between which a sculpted bed lies--and sees himself seated at his mother's bedside, stroking her hair while she grieves over the loss of yet another one.