“Golden Man,” we all know him as. Osama, a colleague of mine, gave him that name; Osama, whom I met at a gaming plaza where I worked while hustling years ago.
Although there were fifteen of us working there, ten people worked as attendants daily, while others rotated off days at the betting plaza.
Everyone knew the famous man as one of the favorite customers who staked daily due to his heavy staking and staked from morning till closing hour.
He used to leave twice to eat something, and if he wasn't leaving, he would eat his breakfast and lunch in the plaza.
Sometimes, I used to think of him as a reckless gambler, watching him from a distance because he played almost anything he could find on the monitor screen, from virtual soccer to dog racing and horse racing, from soccer bets to colors and the like.
All we knew about him was that he owned an electronics shop in a famous market twenty minutes away from our plaza, and his apprentice and salespersons were the ones who stayed back in the shop while he ventured into his bad habit.
“That is a golden man,” Osama said, nodding his head towards him during my first day at work.
“ Why do you call him the golden man?” I asked, looking at this man who was in a cross-bag. He was a man in his early forties with a bald head.
“ Don't worry, you will soon know,” Osama said, smiling sheepishly.
I looked at the man, who was dressed casually as he looked at all of the attendants, targeting the one he wanted to patronize for the day.
“Guy, that man dey lose like pawpaw,” Osama said, giving me a body check, which he likes doing.
“What do you mean by losing like Paw paw?” I asked, looking confused.
“Have you seen a very ripe pawpaw fallen from a tree before?” he inquired with a glare that made his bulging eyes show.
“Yes, I have,” I answered.
“ What do you observe?” he asked, giving me an impromptu shake.
“It scattered all over the ground,” I answered, and he laughed uncontrollably.
“ When people lose too much, and it is unbearable, their eyes and forehead tell the story,” he said after the laughter outburst.
“ What did you mean by that?” I replied optimistically.
“Their eyes looked like dimmed, touched light while their forehead dripped sweat like drizzling rain,” Osama explained with a smirk that showed he had experienced it.
He further explained the do's and don'ts of the plaza and what would help me as a newbie, and I learned well from him, and I mastered the act of playing fast as an attendant, which was the key.
One fateful day, it looked like a dream as I looked up, reacting to the familiar voice that greeted me, to see who was standing facing the monitor that was opposite me.
“Good day, friend,” the person said sharply, and I glanced sideways to see the person.
“ Good day, sir,” I replied, stuttering, looking at my customer.
“Yes, it is him,” I ruminated.
“The legendary Golden Man,” I concluded in my mind, and sat straight to start playing to his calls.
Luckily for him, he kept on winning that day as if it were his luck.
I was so happy for him because he kept on giving me tips as he was winning.
“ Can you please take out your funds?” I asked silently so that the Golden Man could leave with the huge funds before things turned upside down.
“ This plaza owes me a lot, and I will make sure I collect everything today,” he replied with a nudge, letting me know that he would not leave anytime soon.
Just as he said, Golden Man won a fortune that day, and I couldn't believe that luck could be someone's best friend.
The most disappointing thing I heard that day was when the Golden Man uttered a statement.
“ I will keep the funds here and continue tomorrow,” he said without fidgeting, and I was like.
“Is Gaming Plaza a bank?” I reckoned, because I had never seen someone so adamant to the extent of keeping his wins in the plaza’s account to continue staking the second day.
Very early on the second day, I was so surprised to see him wearing confidence and elegance.
“ Good morning, friend,” he greeted again, and I answered, “Morning, and welcome, sir”
“ I think your hands intertwine with mine as winning is considered,” he said.
“ I will want you to stake it out for me today too,” he concluded.
I was not that happy nor sad, as my instincts were telling me that today would yield odd results, but the Golden Man was full of confidence and optimism.
I shrugged the feeling off so that it would not look like I was wishing him to lose, and I started staking for him, but as a native says, “the rain as wetted the masquerade so the outing was bad,” so it struck with the Golden Man, who lost like a pawpaw. This was the first time I saw a person losing in such a manner.
At first, hunger would fly away, and you wouldn't eat anything. Secondly, his eyes looked as if he wanted to sleep; then his forehead said it all as he kept wiping it with his handkerchief every time.
At one point, he left my monitor and stake with other attendants, but still, whenever a plastic hand fan was tossed up in the sky, it always landed sideways.
He lost to the fact that when we wanted to close and had switched off the generator, he was still standing with his hands on his waist, looking at the gigantic screen as if it was displaying something.
“ Hello, sir,” I called, tapped him, and he snapped back to reality, saying, “Have you closed?”
“Yes,” I answered and concluded with, Better luck next time”
He looked at me with a dim smile, then left, and that was the last time we saw the Golden Man. Some said he had lost everything and went back to the village; others said he had traveled, but who knew what had happened if the person who owned the story was not around.