Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash
One night, I heard loud screaming, shouting voices coming from outside.
As I sat on my bed, I tried to decipher what was being said. Eventually I got up, turned off the light and opened my window to get a better look and understanding.
From my upstairs window I had a vantage view of the quarrel which was happening across the street. Very intense, it went on for an hour plus with the crowd around them swelling, dispersing, and swelling even bigger as passersby became curious and hung around, taking sides. It seemed to involve a woman and a man. She appeared young, was slim and light-complexioned, with falling tight curls. A wig or weave-on. I thought, “Ha! To be fighting with wig?…na wa O. This one is ready for disgrace.”
She was clearly the aggressor – very loud, riotous, mobile, hopping around with people trying to hold her back from the man. Him trying to put some distance between himself and the woman by going behind others. He didn’t seem to be afraid of her, just cautious and not wanting to engage her in a full-on fist fight.
I struggled to hear and understand what was happening. Everybody there was talking at the same time, making it difficult to hear the cause of the brawl. The only clear things I heard were a few slaps when her hands managed to locate his face and repeated heart-felt declarations of “I swear!” with the woman plunging her finger to touch the earth and pointing it high into the sky, then clapping same palm on the side of her thigh. In the midst of it all, I heard the man also shout, “I swear too”.
If it hadn’t been so serious, it would have been funny.
I had to move on.
After doing Ms. June Holmes, I still don’t know what the fight was about. Sorry.
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