Retired Criminal Goes After The Newest
Many have made the cursed mistake of skipping stage one for stage two. Eyes unblinking, they dumped or jumped what one should have done first to concentrate on another. Very ridiculous! Also, a bit irksome. As a rule, I take very seriously miscalculations from the patiently suckled during infancy: men and women whom their mothers for nine full months had pumped the natural wisdom from milk into their tender faculties. Sometimes, it had had to be the indefensible anger of addressing them in Insolent terms, The Bile from My Liver proclaiming them The Crazy! The Lousy! Freaks! Nincompoops! Ragamuffins! Scallywags!
A friend I had who was not the reading type but kept a steadfast eye on Excellent Grades: one Shallow Mind like that I happened to have been getting along with in The Late Eighties of The Last Millennium. Calistus (that was his name) openly distasted Industry, even as a post-primary school child, alternatively preferring, after exams, to be snooping around their school’s Staff Room for the innocent purpose of finding out how the marking of their scripts had been progressing. Simple and short, Calistus was convinced that such routine appearances in their Teachers’ Quarters were bound to impress on them his healthy anxiety to sail through in all his subjects. Consequently, Our Man, whose surname I wish I have not forgotten, stuck to a practice of surfacing at their School’s Staff Room after a crucial exam with eye-catching gifts for his teachers; from one academic calendar to another stubbornly maintaining this. True, Calistus was not flunked in any of his subjects but in each earned grades that fell far short of the expenses he had been making on their account. Disappointingly enough!
But he was Incorrigible Calistus! When the pitying, concerned voices of his brilliant classmates sang him a reminder that one first does one’s best and then to God leaves the rest, Calistus would rather one left one’s best and the rest faced and tackled like though he were God.
Then, came the final promotional exams, whose passing meant gaining everything. True to type, Calistus Adventurer doubled his cash gifts for teachers immediately after the exams while trimming down the hours he devoted to Studious Hard Work.
Guess The Next. Perhaps, you cannot. A blow of The Tragically Ironic followed. The exams concluded, marked and Results released, Calistus’ Name topped The List of those who were to repeat their Fifth Grade!
An exclaimed “Wha-at!” by Calistus followed by several “I can’t believe it!”
Maybe, Calistus would have, continued his agitated paces around their School’s Press Board Stand, where they had pasted The Results, if a firm believer in one first taking care of The Pence (Not The Pound) had not walked into the scene to tell him ‘What’s What’ with a warning against further cold treatment of a Hot Wisdom.
In effect, A Monster had been created and let loose by Calistus who himself was The Monster. The Frankenstein! With his dropping out of school, he became in a matter of three frustrated years A Half Criminal but before The Fourth Year ‘A Full Criminal.’ At first, Calistus, in a display of perceived fairness, limited his thefts to the valuables of his former teachers, so as to justly recover the small fortune he had spent on them for “Sought Good Grades” he could not in the end receive. Later, he was convinced he should extend it to all items of worth which he had the chance to disappear with unobserved.
In essence, Calistus had begun to channel his time and attention to the robbing of his immediate and distant neighbors. From this, he made quite a fortune but got fittingly stigmatized as Disguised Bandit… And for remaining ‘Elusive’ it seemed Calistus had sworn that The Nabbing Hands of The Security would never make it close to the fringes of his clothes! Oftener than not, he could ascertain when a pocket had been stashed with money by owner as well as owned the nerve to empty them within few seconds of their owners’ trifling with alertness. As was his custom, he would quickly memorize the numbers of the stolen currency notes for the purpose of enforcing his claims to them.
At one point, it became A Big Question: “Will Mr. Calistus ever be caught pants down; ever brought to book… Shamed?
One Mr. Prince Aka was perfectly confident he could do it: could entangle Calistus in a tight web of a carefully hatched plot. During his ungovernable years at Aba, he had a handful bags and pockets picked and at Lagos people as tall as him and as sensible mugged besides sometimes swimming in the company of Dare-Devil Gangsters. The result was an in-depth understanding of their lives and first-hand knowledge of their pranks. Importantly, he knew that whoever wishes to hunt down a smart rogue or A Hiding One smoke out must go the extra mile of weaving a Labyrinthine Web for him!
That’s right, Prince Aka knew that he had all it takes to track Calistus down, having himself once led a roguish life, implying of course his knowledge, as well, that Problems are best solved by Insider, not Aliens; The Experienced, not The Green Horn.
For a nailing of Calistus, Challenged Prince, on a certain day, got a perfume from a boutique and secretly sprayed it on some N200, N500 and N1000. Denominations totaling N35000:00. In the open, while pretending not being watched by Calistus from a distance, he stuffed them in the pockets of one of the pairs of trousers he was drying in the sun, intending to leave with the clothing. Next, a sudden dramatic reaction to some heard noise in a nearby busy that made him carelessly leave the same trousers for an ascertainment of The Genesis of the Noise… Exactly what unsuspecting Calistus had been dreaming of!
The crucial moment had finally arrived! From his thirty yard distance, Calistus made for the bulging-with-money pockets of Prince’s corduroy Jeans trousers to turn them inside-out – and Satan help him – acquire their contents! Reach, touch and collect Prince’s Trousers Mister Calistus did to quickly note the denominations of the naira notes from their two pockets. Just that he could not walk more than twenty yards with them before a calm smiling figure from behind intercepted him: Mr. Prince Aka’s!
With the appropriate red face, Prince Aka confronted Calistus about the money! Easy Calistus feigned an air of having been falsely accused of trying to steal what otherwise were his hard-earned naira notes. Thereupon, Prince challenged him to prove that the notes were, indeed, his. In reply, Calistus mentioned the money’s total amount, denominations, besides the numbers of some of them.
“So, that’s all you can say to prove ownership,” Prince queried pointing to the rustled naira notes in Calistus’ hands.
“But what else should an owner of cash say by way of proof?” Calistus retorted in an unfriendly voice.
Meanwhile, a crowd had begun to form at the venue, making the atmosphere a bit tense. Prince was excited about this. The big dream of disgracing Calistus before a crowd of size had sparked off lights in his heart. He did not know when he had begun to speak in a compelling voice “Press those money of yours against your nostrils.”
Reluctantly, Calistus obeyed.
“But why am I doing this? Surely, some fragrant-smelling cream had touched them.”
“No. Not Cream, Calistus. Perfume! And I’d bet you don’t by any means know the name of the perfume.”
“No, I don’t,” answered a trembling Calistus “But shou-should I be worrying my head over the smell of my naira notes?” Calistus queried.
“Hush! Filthy thief…” Prince flung at Calistus.” “You’d just picked the entire thing from my trousers”
“What! I beg your pardon?”
From his shirt, Prince brought out fresh naira notes of the same denominations and crispness as the ones he had sprayed Manes Perfume. Not losing any moment, he invited some of the bystanders to confirm his claims by sniffing at the notes in Calistus’ hands and at the ones he had just fished out from his breast pocket. The reaction from the sniffs was singular and judgmental! Each Nose Participant was sure the smell of the one and the other was same! With that shouts of “Thief and Bloody Liar!” from The Lips at the venue rent the air while Calistus was made to receive the cruelest blows of his life. As the punches kept descending on him, Prince was griming and muttering “To catch a thief set a thief.”
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