The Adventures of Fast Joe
They walked slowly. Joe knew it was late, well past seven in the evening. Soon, it will be too dark for anybody to be walking alone. He stopped and turned to her.
“I will walk on from here. You can go back.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Mummy says that I should pick something from the town for her, so I will go with you to town.”
Joe was shocked, “But can you come back? Very soon, it will be very dark and late.”
“Don’t worry,” she laughed. “I walk to town and back often after dark. It is perfectly safe.”
“If you say so,” he said, and they resumed walking. Minutes later, he found his fingers taken again by her fingers. Her touch was light, the fingers intertwining with his own. They were not quite holding hands, and they were not quite touching hands. It was something in between. As they walked, Joe also felt that her fingers were playing games with his fingers. The fingers were kind of wriggling, and kind of grabbing his finders. The activity sent an amazing feeling up his arm, through his shoulders, and into his brain. And that also set off a chain reaction through the rest of his body. He wondered where this was going, what game the mother and daughter were playing.
They walked on. And they chatted. She asked him about himself. Joe talked. About his mother, other brother and four sisters. He spoke about his father that he had not seen in years, and the poverty at home. He spoke about coming to his uncle Somuah’s place in Wenchi and how good the uncle was to him. She asked him questions about his uncle, innocently enough, about his farms, whether the cocoa was doing well. And also about food. He told her that he had never seen a day the family went to sleep without food. Often, there was too much to eat, so that much had to be thrown away. She was quiet when he said that.
She asked him about his plans, and Joe told her that he intended to move to a bigger town in future, learn more about tailoring, and have a bigger shop. She listened.
He asked her about herself, and she laughed, saying that there was nothing much to tell. He knew her parents, and how poor they were. She told him that she intended to learn a trade, but her parents were finding it difficult to raise the money. Maybe she would get married, she said carelessly, and Joe took the hint.
He studied her covertly. She was not bad looking, being as tall and as willowy as her mother. Indeed, she was almost as tall as he was, reaching well past his shoulder. He was about six feet tall himself, which made her very tall by local standards.
She was also not fat, but she had all the bumps in the right place. She enthralled him.
By now, they were entering the gasoline lighted streets, and Joe asked her which part of town she was going on the errand for the mother.
She waved her hand carelessly, “She is my mother’s friend. I will come to the shop with you and go there later. I often sleep at her place. In fact, I will sleep at her place tonight.”
“Okay,” Joe breathed, almost gasping and forcing his voice to be clear. What was she coming to do at the shop? He had his sleeping mat on the floor after pushing the two Singer machines aside. The room was warm, and often he has to sit at the back of the store till late, so that it would be cooler inside the store before he went in.
The thought brought an idea to his mind, “Okay, we can sit at the back and talk until you go later to your mother’s friend. Would you like an orange or a fruit before we sit down at the back?”
She nodded happily, and they headed for an orange seller. Joe bought several, and they turned back towards the shop.
