It seemed that anytime Biram answered a question, a whole set of questions popped into her head. Haddy Jobe was a lawyer who’d been hired to represent Biram, a gentleman Rastafarian who claimed to have been arrested during an armed robbery. He claimed to be completely innocent and that it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Biram was a truly gentleman despite the fact that he’d dreadlocks. He was a teetotaler and didn’t even smoke wee or even cigarettes. He was just in love with the rasterfarian culture and that explained dreadlocks. Initially, he did not intend to go out on that day, but when his girlfriend insisted that he buy her a phone, he acquiesced.
Biram had gone to the Lebanese shop to buy a phone for his girlfriend. He was in the middle of the transaction when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man he used to work with. He owed this man a lot of money and therefore was afraid that if he saw him he’d ask him to pay. That he could not let happen. He pulled down his cap to disguise his appearance. When he had paid and received his brand new Nokia phone and was just about to depart, he heard the commotion and turned to see armed men pushing and shoving customers around in the shop.
“All of you get down on the floor,” he heard a voice command them.
He stood still and refused to obey because he knew that his problems could not be any worse. He watched them harass and jostle the salespersons in the shop. He looked around and saw a backdoor which was slightly ajar. He pushed his way through and was in the toilet area where he sat down to wait it out. He was there for almost a quarter of an hour, or so it seemed to him. Then he heard the police siren wafting louder by the second.
It must be safe to go out now, he thought. Unfortunately, when he came out, he was arrested along with the armed robbers. He tried as much as possible to tell them that he was not a part of it but to no avail. It didn’t help that he was wearing his cap in a way that hid his features. He was frisked along with all the others and haplessly for him; his gun was found in the jacket, more salt to the injury.
They were all charged with armed robbery and disturbance of the peace. A day later, his problem exacerbated when the salesperson that was shot in the incident died of his gunshot wounds. How on earth will Haddy Jobe, good lawyer as she was, exonerate Biram from this quagmire!
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