University has a way of teaching you things that are nowhere in your course outline.
It was a Thursday night and the weather was unusually cool, which in Lagos simply means you could sweat a little less than normal.
Our room sat at the very end of the hostel corridor. Most rooms accommodated four students, ours accommodated two. This is not because we were special, the architects had simply run out of space by the time they got to our corner of the building.
So it was just Musa and me, well… officially. Unofficially, Efe might as well have paid rent. He spent so much time in our room that I was beginning to suspect he knew our room better than his own.
That night I was lying on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. There is something about the ceiling of a hostel room, if you stare at it long enough, you begin to question every decision that brought you there. Below me, Musa and Efe were in the middle of another video game battle.
“I scored!”
“You cheated.”
“I didn’t.”
“You pressed pause!”
“I was scratching my nose.”
“You scratch your nose with the pause button?”
“You sound like somebody who’s losing.”
“You are lucky this controller still works.”
“You are lucky I’m merciful.”
I laughed from above, mostly because they argued over every game as though millions of naira depended on the outcome.
Then, in the middle of the match, Musa suddenly dropped the controller. His face changed, whenever Musa looked like that, it meant one thing…Money had entered his thoughts.
“Listen.”
Nobody answered.
“I’m serious.”
Efe kept playing.
“I said listen.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Musa sat upright, “I’ve just thought of something.”
Efe sighed dramatically, “Another business?”
“This one is different.”
“They’re always different.”
“No. This one will make us rich.”
I climbed down halfway from the bunk, “I want to hear this.”
Musa folded his arms like a man about to address shareholders.
“Students are lazy.”
We nodded.
“They’re hungry.”
Another nod.
“They’re always broke.”
We nodded again.
“So imagine if…”
He spent the next fifteen minutes explaining an elaborate business idea involving bulk-buying snacks, creating loyalty cards, recruiting departmental ambassadors, offering delivery services and somehow expanding nationwide before graduation.
By the time he finished, I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
“Musa,” I said between laughs, “how did you even think of this?”
“Because there’s money everywhere.”
“There is,” Efe agreed, “but I’m too hungry to hear about it.”
Musa frowned, “You’ve been playing games for almost two hours.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t hungry then.”
“I wasn’t.”
“So why are you hungry now?”
“Because you’ve been talking.”
I burst into laughter again, “You mean business ideas make you hungry?”
“They do.”
Musa nodded thoughtfully, “To be fair…” I looked at him, “…I’m hungry too.”
I threw my hands into the air, “Unbelievable.”
Five minutes later we were outside the hostel gate. There was one place every student around our hostel knew…The risky burger stand.
Calling it a burger was generous. It was really Agege bread sliced open with freshly fried eggs tucked inside, sometimes with sausage if your wallet was smiling that day. Simple…Hot…Messy…Perfect. The smell alone could make you forgive your lecturers.
There were already several students waiting. While we stood in line, Musa somehow returned to his business proposal.
“I still think if we scale it properly…”
“You’ve not even started it,” I interrupted.
“You don’t kill vision.”
“I’m killing hunger first.”
The woman frying eggs cracked another one onto the sizzling pan. The sound alone made my stomach clap, that was when headlights swept across the road.
A sleek black SUV slowed down and stopped directly opposite us in front of the female hostel. A young lady climbed out from the passenger seat. She couldn’t have been much older than us. She adjusted her handbag and smiled at the man behind the steering wheel.
I smiled too, “Some people are lucky sha.”
Musa looked at me, “What do you mean?”
“The girl’s father still drops her at the hostel.”
Silence. I noticed Musa and Efe looking at each other and then they both exploded. The kind of laughter where people bend over and hold their stomachs. Efe actually slapped Musa’s shoulder with Musa nearly dropping to a squat.
I looked from one to the other, “What?”
Neither of them answered, they just laughed harder.
“I’m serious.”
“You think…” Efe gasped between laughs, “…that’s…”
He couldn’t even finish. I frowned, “What is funny?”
Before either of them could answer, the man reached into the centre console and brought out a thick bundle of cash, not one or two notes, a proper bundle. He handed it to the girl and she accepted it casually. She then counted it, right there and under the hostel light.
I blinked, “Why is he giving her money?”
That question sent my two friends into another round of laughter. The girl smiled, leaned into the car and kissed the man on the lips, a proper kiss.
“Oh.”
Everything suddenly made sense, that wasn’t her father.
Musa wiped tears from his eyes, “My innocent brother.”
Efe shook his head, “You really thought that was her dad?”
“I did.”
“You sweet summer child.”
“I’ve only been here for a few weeks!”
“Exactly.”
They laughed all the way back to the hostel. Every few minutes one of them would look at me and start laughing again.
“I still can’t believe you said her father.”
“I honestly thought…”
“We know!”
“And you people couldn’t just tell me?”
“It was funnier watching you discover it yourself.”
Back in our room we unwrapped our risky burgers. Mine was still hot enough to burn my fingers. The bread was soft and the eggs were fresh off the frying pan.
I took one bite and then another…I closed my eyes…For a brief moment, every mystery of university disappeared, the strange car, the mysterious bundle of cash, the kiss and the laughter…All of it faded behind hot eggs and soft Agege bread.
Musa was already talking again, “So imagine we register the business properly…”
“I’ll handle marketing,” Efe said through a mouthful of bread.
“I’ll handle strategy.”
I looked at both of them. One was planning another business and the other was offering marketing services to a company that didn’t exist.
I took another bite. Maybe university wasn’t about understanding everything. Maybe it was about accepting that every day would introduce you to something new.
Some lessons would stay with you, while others would disappear the moment someone handed you a hot risky burger.
That night, the burger won.