THE MURDER WEAPON

I left my classes as usual at around 8:30pm so I walked to my stage and the queue having reduced, i boarded a bus home and having been so tired, I put on my headphones, pushed the window closed and tightly held on to my bag before dozing off only to be woken up minutes later by a phone call from one of my buddies. His name was Dukes and he wanted us to meet up since he had something to tell me. "Can't it wait till tomorrow?" I asked trying to imagine having to waste another minute talking when my body was badly demanding for a rest and my bed was the one place i wanted to drop on and sleep it off but he sounded worried more like there was something bothering him and since he assured me that it wasn't something he could share over the phone I agreed to meet him half way at the junction to both our places. The ride was a bit longer than usual due to traffic but eventually I alighted and headed to the direction we agreed to meet up and when I got there, Dukes was already waiting and after a pat on each other's backs we started talking. Dukes: am in deep s**t man, I don't know what to do.. Me: what's going on? Dukes: She's pregnant. He said then took a deep breath and this was the first time i had seen Duke really freaked out. Me: who? Dukes: Ash Me: who is Ash? I must have been so wrapped up in my work that I forgot to take note of the girls he had been dating but then again, Duke had a new girl every week so it wasn't really a big of a deal. Dukes: Ashley, the one night stand chick at the club. Me: so what's news there, these s**t happens all the time. Voice: well, well, well, look who we have here. It's finally nice to meet you in person. I quickly turned to see who and to my surprise he had a gun in his hand pointed to my face with the other hand stretching to greet me but I declined. I turned and looked at Dukes who didn't seem to be surprised as I was.. Me: what the hell? Dukes: am sorry man, he wanted a meeting with you too. Me: what kind of a meeting with a gun to my face? I asked almost sounding angry but knowing i had no back up, i decided to play cool.. The guy introduced himself as Faruk and he gold me be wanted us to do business and that came to me as a shock because I had no idea what he knew about me or why of all the people it's me he thought he could do business with. Me: faruk or whoever the hell you are man, am not interested in doing business with you because one I don't know you, and two, I don't know what business you are in but am not interested. I turned to Dukes and stared hard at him then started to walk away not saying another word. Dukes: Rahim wait! Me: I thought you were supposed to be my friend then you set me up with this dude, I told you I was out of the business and I don't want to do that s**t anymore. Weren't you there when we were trapped and narrowly escaped with bullet wounds, Jossy and Lefti got shot as we watched. You want to take me down that road again? I didn't wait for a response but walked a few steps then heard a gun c**k behind me with faruk's voice commanding me to stop but i didn't stop immediately knowing it had to be some kind of a joke. Faruk: one more step and I will blow off your head. I turned and looked at him and now that he had my attention he gave the gun to Dukes and ordered him to kill me. Dukes: I can't do that man, this is my hommie and you know that. Faruk: your hommy huh, I don't think he will still be your hommie if i told you it's either your life or his, do you want me to kill you?... Dukes did not respond to that.. he looked at Faruk quite surprised. Faruk: Do it! Dukes thought for a while and when the pressure from Faruk became too much, he raised the gun to my head and looked me in the eyes. I did not really know what the hell was going on or why Dukes had ended up with faruk but what I knew was that i counldnt fight back because I had no weapon with two guys with the same interest having a gun pointed to my face even though one of them was my friend. Faruk: you know if you do not kill him you are not leaving here alive right? Dukes: this was not part the deal man, you were just supposed to talk to him not threaten him. Faruk: you do not know anything about me, am Faruk and I change my mind like the chameleon changes it's colour now give me the damn gun. Dukes stopped pointing the gun at me and handed it to him immediately almost like it was a relief for him to have asked him that. Honestly I was a bit curious to know if he would pull the trigger on me so I would have wanted him to hold the gun a little longer. I shifted my eyes from the very angry Faruk back to Dukes and he couldn't dare raise his face and look at me and i knew it was because of the guilt he had for betraying me. The place was grave silent with a soft wind blowing across our faces. Me: you persuaded me to meet you up so that you could get me killed bro,...tell me something, was the pregnancy thing even real? I asked waiting for the obvious answer. He could have pulled that stupid prank to get my attention and he did.. Dukes: no. It was just a way of getting you to meet up because I knew you wouldn't show up had it been any other thing. Faruk: catch up time is over buddies. Faruk saod getting in between us then he wiped the gun and gave it to me but I hesitated to pick it from him. He chucked another gun from behind his jeans and pointed it at me and signaled me to take the gun he was handing over to me. i took the gun and looked at it then at him and a thought crossed my mind. i wanted to kill him because as much as Faruk had initiated that meeting, I still had some unfinished business with him. Faruk: now you have a chance to do what he could not do.... I looked at him like what he said was some sort of a joke Faruk: Kill him! Me: you must be kidding me. Faruk: no am not. I have a gun to your face and trust me I will pull the trigger. Me: what do you want? Faruk: I can only work with one of you so am answering your question after I see him down. Me: am not killing him. I thought he was calling bluffs until he c****d his gun and shot the ground next to where I was standing. Faruk: the next one will go in the chest just next to your heart. Do you want to die? Having thought of the worse that could have happened that night, I raised my gun and pointed it to Dukes face before moving it to his chest. Dukes: am sorry dude, I didn't mean to put you in a fix. He has something against me and he threatened to turn me in. At this point I was so mad at Dukes but he was like my brother. We had made a pact to protect each other and swore on our lives that we would wage war on whoever waged war on any of us so instead of shooting dukes, I turned to faruk and shot him in the arm but before I could finish him off I heard a gunshot and the next thing I saw was Dukes dropping on his knees before he landed down. Me: Duke's! I called rushing towards him and held his head in my arm trying to press the bullet in his chest with my finger to apply pressure on it but it was too late. Without a word he took his last breath and died just like that. I looked up and checked around but I didn't see anyone else around. who could have shot him? I got up very furious and went to where faruk was. I put the gun to his head and pressed it real hard. Me: who shot him? He swept my feet and I fell on the ground and the gun fell away from my hand. I tried finding my way towards it but he pointed the other gun at me again. Faruk: get up and move away from that gun. He commanded and having felt defeated I did exactly as he had said. Faruk: there are more bullets where that came from and now I have something against you. He said collecting the gun from the ground and tucking it in his trouser. Faruk: now I have the murder weapon and the only way you will be safe, is agreeing to work for me. You have until on Monday before I turn you in for murder. My mouth went dry and my heart beat so fast. I couldn't challenge faruk because he had all these planned as he even showed me a photo that was sent on his phone by whoever shot Dukes. The photo had me pointing the gun to Dukes and I couldn't convince anyone that I didn't do it. After showing me the photo faruk asked me to leave and warned me against doing anything stupid like going to the police station. I left the site in a hurry hoping no one saw me there. I wore my hoodie and disappeared along the corridors and soon after, I was opening the door to my bedsitter. I got in, threw my bag down and headed straight for the bottle of whiskey I had left on the table. I needed to calm my nerves. I quickly took a mouthful of it before vigorously shaking my head to shake off the bitterness caused by it. "Damn you dukes! What the hell did you get me into? I asked myself washing my face in the sink near the bathroom staring hard at the mirror. My face had traces of Dukes blood and my heart, my heart was beating so fast. I was in a state of confusion and my legs were shaking and not because I hadn't killed or seen a dead body before but because this was not just any dead body but Dukes body and he died right under my watch. I was very upset because I had fought so hard to get where I was and now I was not only scared of the damage faruk could do with the little evidence he had but I was also worried of what agreeing to do business with him meant. I washed Dukes blood of my hands and took off the hoodie and the T-shirt I was wearing then wiped my face walking bear chest to the bed and lying there as I reminisced on what had just happened a while back. Before I decided to be a decent person, I was living a very dangerous life. I was the connect between a famous drug trafficker who also happened to be a very prominent person in one of the industries. He was very influencial and when I was introduced to him the first time, he wasn't really sure that I could do what he wanted me to do until I proved myself by passing a test or two. With time, I became his most trusted man and with a few trainings on how to handle guns to protect myself and his money in the field, I had nothing to fear. Toffy was his nickname.. he made me who I was and at the age of 28 I already had a car, a house and alot of money and all I needed to do was look for clients, supply them with bhang and cocaine then at times take out people he considered threats in a manner that no one ever got to know. I feared no one and I feared nothing. No gun scared me as I was really swift in shots and very alert of everything happening in my environment. I not only had to watch out for myself but for my boss as well. Everything was good, the business was paying with more recruits coming in to help with the distribution after I was made the head of them all until one evening things went so wrong and we were cornered with bullets flying all over. I and Dukes were the only survivors with the rest of the team being carried out in stretchers with their bodies covered and the next thing they felt was their backs on the cold freezer at the morgue. One of them could have been me and from that day onwards I made a choice.... A choice to keep off the streets, a choice to be clean, a choice to find a decent job and live a normal life like men my age did. I made a choice that i wanted to live by untill this very day when I started second guessing if I had really made the right choice in the first place.... They call me Rahim and this is the story of my life...