STORY-BRA Guy Guy

“Where are you?!” called out the fat
woman again from inside the changing
cubicle.
“I will be there in a moment ma!” followed
my reply, as I pulled shut the glass sliding
front door to my elder brother’s lingerie
shop! It was already past 9pm and from
what I could see around, virtually all shops
on the road had closed down for the day
despite the festivities. Unfortunately, I had
to delay a bit hoping this seemingly last
customer, will quickly purchase a wear and
leave; but she hadn’t and was still
endlessly needing my attention.
“And please bring me a larger mirror o, this
one can’t let me see a thing!” she suddenly
yelled again from the cubicle! Her English
was just too good for how she looked. A
common trait with the average Lagos
resident – you can never tell the learned
from how they appeared.
“Okay ma.” was my own reply as I finally
shut the door, leaving both of us locked in.
We were going to leave from the service
door behind anyways. After picking up the
larger mirror from where it was hung on a
high shelf, I began walking down the hall to
go meet the customer.
My brother, Chime’s shop was that big. It
was actually six shops collapsed into one!
The largest in the vicinity. He was so lucky
to have been told of the availability of all
six of them, and as soon as he got the
information, he quickly bought them up at
once! Talk of the average Ibo man’s
business acumen. And it paid off
handsomely! He became an instant rival to
all the lingerie shop owners along that road
and more like chased them out of business.
He soon became the only dealer of
brassieres, p@nties, undies and anything
female lingerie! And many customers came
from far and wide. His success was
unprecedented and soon he began doing
wonders back home at Onitsha, our
hometown.
I was still there as at then, and it was just
after he bought his fifth landed property
that he asked me come over to Lagos to
join him. Not as a trader though, but to
come school. I was always the brilliant one
among us – we were three boys. And did
continue with academics. It wasn’t really
easy getting through Jamb initially, but I
was quite surprised even though fortunate
to eventually secure an admission finally at
Lagos State University. So this was how I
moved to Lagos for study, even though I
had to occasionally assist him at his shop,
where he now had over 8 sales girls and
boys.
This very day was one such days and I had
moved straight from lectures to come assist
in the trading for the day. It was a very
busy day, basically because of the Xmas
season, and despite his presence and mine
alongside the 8 additional sales persons,
we were continually overwhelmed by visiting
costumers! It was just overtly hectic and we
had to repeatedly ask some people to
momentarily wait outside.
That was how difficult it was for everyone.
Yet it continued that way until sometime
around 7pm, before we began having some
respite.
Chime dismissed the sales girls and boys
earlier than normal just to allow them
return home to rest. He also left me with
some instructions and drove off with his
car. He was obviously not done with the
day as he needed to go pick up some of his
wears that were moved to a nearby cloth
factory for a bit of stitching here and there
– they were shipped in with a few tears and
needed amending. As for me, I was to close
the shop by 9pm after attending to any
other costumers that may still call in. It was
just a few minutes to the said 9pm, when
this very lady costumer walked in.
To be continued
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