Chuks Don Blend?

I get really emotional when it rains and I'm sitting in the library. It's hard to explain, but it brings back memories from when I found out that Chukwuemeka was now a fine boy.

You see, Chuks, just like other medical students of our set was very brilliant. He took the junior classes extra tutorials on Friday evenings, and that's how I met him.

Chukwuemeka was not the usual 'big boy' on campus. He was very handsome, to say the least, but was very quiet, too quiet even; such that if he didn't take those evening tutorials, you might never know he was a student in your class.

His crisp fashion sense did very little to hide him from the preying eyes of campus girls and boys, but Chuks was terribly shy–the only time you'd catch him interacting with people other than YK and James, was during his evening tutorials.

Chuks was a darling. When we first started talking, I asked why the short form of his name was 'Chuks' and not 'Emeka', and he said he preferred Chuks, because they called him Emeka at home and he was sick of it. We laughed(well, I laughed) about it.

Just like some other young chaps on campus in the 90s, what Chuks hated the most was when the rugged confra boys walked around trying to 'woo' you into their group. Once, when he was approached on on of our evening strolls back to my hostel, he lamented about how he was always embarrassed and disgusted that those "riff raffs" even thought of approaching him in the first place.

He was a different person when he talked about these guys. He hated the topic, but when it was on, he could talk for hours about how University confras was a "waste of time and absolute nonsense", and we would all just laugh about it and move on with whatever came up next.

After the party YK's cousin, Tola invited them for in May 1994, Chuks became someone else. He no longer said anything about Confra being "nonsense" and how he wished they'd just keep their business secret like how it was "supposed to be". He always had places to be and people to see, so our evening strolls was suspended. He still took the evening tutorials on Fridays, though.

Nothing seemed serious until mid July of the same year when Kemi rushed to me in the library to tell me that the boys had gotten into a big fight. By 'the boys', she meant YK and Chuks and this seemed awkward. It was raining heavily that day, and by the time we got to their room, we were drenched.

If we had gotten there just 1 minute later, maybe this story would have been a little different.

YK kept shouting: "Chukwuemeka, You! You! Chuks!" Before walking out. He returned almost immediately, and looked me straight in the eye: "your Bobo don tell you say he don blend?"

I became light headed. What did YK mean by 'blend', Chuks?!

Turns out Tola(YKs cousin) was part of the new group of sharp confra boys. These ones didn't do cutlasses and dirty business, they operated on a scarier level–they were quiet and kept their business a secret as it was “supposed to be”.

Tola wanted to know where YK knew their don from, and since YK acted confused at the question, his cousin assumed he wasn't aware, so he brushed the conversation off. It took him this long to confront Chuks, and there's your answer:

My lover was now a Confra boy... scratch that, he was the Don of the scariest confra on campus.