I knew a lady who operated a bar right behind my window.

“If you make a complaint at the police station, they will shut it down. It’s against the law to set up a noisy business where people live.” a friend told me one day when he came to visit.

The landlord overheard him but said nothing.

I thought about it for days, finally deciding to ignore the nuisance. I was new in the area and didn’t want to stir any trouble.

After work, I could hardly sleep  because of the noise. Sometimes, the bar closed as late as 2am. At some point, I began to regret my decision of letting sleeping dogs lie, dogs which were now wide awake, and wouldn’t let anyone sleep with their incessant savage barking.

Friend after friend who came to visit said the same thing. “You pay your rent, they didn’t take you off the streets to shelter you here. You have the right to some peace of mind.”

It made me look like a weakling. So, I decided to speak up.

I went to see the lady who operated the bar and tried to reason with her. I understood she was there to make a living. I had no problem with that. I just wanted the noise down because I had a lot of work to do at home that required silence and solitude.

She said nothing. She just stood there staring at me like a curved African god that is believed to see everything but actually sees nothing. I left when I realized I was only talking to myself.

After she became aware that I found the noise disturbing, she deliberately turned up the speakers louder than usual, watching my window every now and then with the clowns at her circus to see how I was stewing in the provocation.

She  was a close friend of the landlord, so my complaints to him were met with vague responses. He said the bar was there to spice the boring neighborhood since our house was on the outskirts and was usually quiet at night except for the croaking of frogs.

When he realized I didn’t find his excuse funny, he said he didn’t force anyone to stay in his house. If I don’t like the place, I can move. I wasn’t a tree.

The landlord had a very big head. For a long time, I thought it was wisdom that filled it. How mistaken I was.

Some of the tenants complained about the noise but once some hit song was blurring from the speakers, they rushed to the bar to twerk and cheer. And at some point, I began wondering which side they belonged.

Sometimes when I felt bored at night, I came to stand by my window to peep  through a crack at the bartender and her rowdy customers. Smoke filled the air as they drank and partied all night. What annoyed me most was the cigarette smoke that filtered into the room.

The parties happened every night, and sometimes during the day, some of the clients sat there for the hangover to wear off. I wondered where they had the money and energy to feast 30 days a month whereas everyone else in the country was complaining of economic hardships.

On weekends, I heard the same set of songs over and over. They hardly made changes and I found it traumatizing. Week days, same lame set. I wondered what happened to “variety” in their dictionary.

Her customers appeared so loyal. Over time, I didn’t have to look further to see what she used to keep her customers. Sex.

There were talks in the hood that that was what every lady who worked in a bar did to keep the business booming. I remember when she first started working, she insisted hardwork and discipline were her principles, that her boyfriend didn’t want her to work in a bar because of the bad name associated with the role but she convinced him that she was different.

Now I could see how different she was.

But how long can a girl keep her legs open? Occasionally, those legs have to be closed in order to attend to other businesses. And when legs are closed, bars become boring. That was how her customers left one by one. I knew from the beginning that their cake of sugar will soon dissolve.

One day, she had a heated argument with the landlord. Turned out the landlord was a better crook than she was. That was when I discovered the bar actually belonged to the landlord and she was just a caretaker.

Before coming to work for him, she had heard rumors of the landlord’s greed always hidden behind his false smiles.  Many workers had come and gone. None were  able to stay.

She was confident she was the One. To tame his greed. And pluck the false smiles off his lips.

She lived in his house and when they couldn’t see eyeball to eyeball, she moved out. At a time she wasn’t prepared financially to be on her own.

Occasionally I  bumped into her in the hood. I saw the humiliation in her face as she tried to force a smile. I am obliged to return the favor by grining like a polite fox. We greet each other and move on.

She didn’t have the courage to narrate her plight to me. But I heard her version, from reliable gossip in the vicinity.

She made rude remarks about my complaints of the noise and she never cared that her bar made it impossible for me to sleep or study at night. But I wasn’t happy to see her fall. She was young. Perhaps foolish, perhaps naive. A rather hard lesson for a soft girl of her age. But she took it well, like the brave girl that she promised herself she’ll be.

Soon, she was pregnant. Seemed whoever was housing her and footing the bills wasn’t into charity. She was no friend or sister of mine. But I had no joy seeing her in those conditions. Things were tough for her, I could see it in her face, and now, a baby was coming.

I remember the surprise on her face when I gave her money after she delivered her baby. I wished I could do more, but things were tough for me too.

People make mistakes. People learn. People grow. We need to keep our arms open to people who offend us and down the road, turn around and apologize for their immaturity.

Sometimes, they may not say it with their mouth, but their actions show that they’re too ashamed of their past behavior. Nobody has finished growing.