Before You Cross

"Look left, look right, look left again then you cross" chorused the pupils after Auntie Alice. The kids were frightened of Auntie Alice, the Primary School teacher. She wore her eyebrows thick and black, her lipstick heavy and red. This thin, tall, stern-faced teacher explained to the class how to cross the street. One of the pupils, Johny, raises his hand. "Yes?" said Auntie Alice in her usual stern contralto. "What if there are no cars on the street, do I..." 
"Of course", interrupts Auntie Alice, "a car can come out of nowhere anytime. You must look left, look right, look left again then you can cross."

Twenty years later, Johny is standing by the street. It looks like he wants to cross. He is frantically glancing left and right, like someone trying not to be caught stealing away with some cheap item. He is visibly sweating and uncomfortable. "What is the matter?" I ask
"I have been looking left, right and left again but every time there is an automobile roaring towards me."

"You have never crossed a busy street?" I ask, 
"Errhmm" stutters Johny. 
I smile politely. "Calm down."
"Let's go now", I yell. 

I do not want to grab his hand as it might seem inappropriate to hold a full grown man's hands while crossing the street. 

As we are about to move, he freaks out and hurries back to the edge of the street. I had already made it to the median strip. So I cross back to meet him. "Guy, you did not cross with me?" With terror in his eyes, "that car nearly jam me", he manages to say. 

"Okay, calm down let's try again". After I arrive at the median strip, Johny is still shivering at the other side of the road. 

I am getting frustrated. Walking back to him I say "Bros we have been standing here nearly 15 minutes, when are you going to do it?" 

"When I look left, look right, look left again and there is no vehicle coming, I will cross", replies Johny stoically.

 One hour later, I and Johny are still waiting. Like a miracle, the street is suddenly clear. Johny looks left, looks right, looks left again, then we cross together. I could hear in my mind an audience applauding us, Sitcom style.

By now my legs were hurting from standing. My shirt is soaked with perspiration due to the heat of the sun. I need a drink. I descry a hawker selling water in bottles. I signal him to come over. He hurries to us, waving his bottled water in my face.

"Give me one". Johny reaches to collect one from the hawker. 

"Oh, you are thirsty too? I thought you were the one who wanted it this way".

"Guy", says Johnny. "I have not seen this kind of traffic in my life".

We pay the hawker just before he runs off to sell to another thirsty person by the street. "Let us proceed to the market," I say to Johny.

Johny needs a laptop, so he came from his little town to my city to purchase it. He wants to start a business center: a shop where clients can type, scan and print out documents; and do some minor computer graphics.

I reckoned he would not really need a high-end laptop so I determined the specifications that would be suitable then decided to take him to the Electronics market in my city. 

As we are approaching the entrance to the electronics market, a young man comes over to us, shakes our hands, feigning familiarity, and tells us he has phones and accessories. I say "thanks but that is not what we are looking for." 

Then another fellow yells at the young man, "Leave them, They are coming to my shop!" 
Addressing us, "You want phone chargers right? You came to my shop last week, I know you". 

I have never seen him from Adam. I remember faces well. 

We ignore him and proceed. With the several catcalls from desperate traders, I am beginning to feel like an attractive woman with many street side admirers.

We take a turn into a dark alley in the market. After a few minutes walking in the dark through rickety stalls, we get to open air, it is bright once again. To the left, we sight a middle-aged man engrossed in his cell phone. 

"Good day," I greet.

He looks up at us from his game of Sugar Crush. “Sugar Crush? What does this old man see in this game?” 

I say beneath my breath. I do not like Sugar Crush. I consider it a very boring game. What good can come out of a Sugar Crusher's shop are my thoughts.

"We are looking for a laptop”.

“What specs?”

“Let us see what you have?" 

"Ok enter," the trader says. 

We walk into his musky little shop. There are various sizes of paper boxes, contraptions and electronic boards littering the shelves and floors. He begins to mention the brands he has.

"Give us this brand in this spec," I say.

“Ok”.

We negotiate, agree on the price, and, voila, we walk out with the laptop. Johny is really pleased. It took us nearly three hours to find the shop with the right laptop then agree on a price after haggling back and forth, here and there.

By now my feet ache. I am wearing leather slippers so my heels and foot are feeling the hardness of the hot pavements.

Johny was speechless through most of the ensuing at the electronics market. He knows how to operate computers but not how to buy them, and not in the big city too.

A little tired and in a rush to get back home as it is already dusk, I look at the street, do a quick mental computation of the differential equations that one unconsciously solves to determine if one can get to the other side of the street without being run over  by traffic, then I dash across.

I am now at the median feeling pleased with myself, only to look back and see Johny sweating again at the other side of the street. I almost yell out in frustration as I cross back to him.

 "What is the matter?"

"I looked left, looked right, looked left again but could not cross," Johny says with a shrug.

#AshortStory 

Omoy