by Chris Abani
“Evening, sir,” he said.
“Evening.”
“Can I speak to you about something?” Elvis asked.
“If it is about my drinking, dis is medicinal.”
Elvis smiled.
“No, it’s about something else.”
“What?”
“You remember when Godfrey disappeared?”
“Uhuh.”
“Well, Efua came to see me saying she overheard her father and Innocent talking about money.”
“You remember dis?”
“Yes.”
“Never mind. What is your point?” Sunday asked.
Elvis noticed that his father’s eyes had hardened, but Elvis cleared his throat and pressed on.
“She said Uncle Joseph was discussing paying Innocent for killing and burying Godfrey in the forest somewhere.”
“Was I dere at de time?”
“In the room with them? No.”
“So why are you asking me? Go and ask Joseph, good-for-nothing brother dat he is. Here I am suffering while he is rich, but he cannot offer to help, eh? After I put him through school, gave him de money to start his business, made him de man he is today.”
“Why don’t you just ask him for help?”
“You know nothing, eh? I am de senior brother. No, he should know what to do. After all, did he ask me to help him? No! I knew what I had to do as his brother and I did it.”
Elvis considered the logic for a while, then realized that if he tried to explore it, he would be led away from what he wanted to talk about.
“Efua said that Uncle Joseph and you paid Innocent one thousand naira each to kill Godfrey. You paid the first installment and Uncle Joseph was to pay when the job was done.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Do you know what happened to Godfrey?”
“How should I know? Dat boy was a criminal, a disgrace to de family. Maybe he got killed stealing from somebody. For all I know, he is in prison in Katsina-Ala!”
“So Efua was lying?”
“Is it not de same Efua dat said Joseph raped her?”
“He did.”
“What are you talking about? Are you mad? I thought we had dis conversation years ago?” Sunday was yelling now.
“Easy—we don’t want the neighborhood to know,” Elvis cautioned.
Sunday swallowed a glassful of kaikai and shuddered. The alcohol cut the edge off his anger.
“If not dat I have been drinking, I would beat you to an inch of your life, you bastard!” Sunday hissed.
“Listen, I am grown now. I am no longer afraid of you,” Elvis said, unhooking his feet from the wall in case he needed to get up in a hurry.
“How can you say dese things about your own family?” Sunday asked.
“I saw Uncle Joseph raping Efua. I saw him.”
“So does dat make us murderers?”
“That is why I am asking you if you had anything to do with it.”
“And I said no.”
Elvis rubbed a hand across his face and looked out into the street. They lived in one of the few places where Maroko made contact with the ground. Halfway along, the street sloped up into a plank walkway. But outside their house, the street was muddy and full of potholes. In the abandoned uncompleted building across the street, the makeshift buka was turning a good trade in fried yam and dodo. He watched the crowd coming and going and absently made a note to get some before it closed.
In the middle of the street a taxi idled, the driver’s door open. The interior light was on and Elvis could see the driver talking to a young woman in the passenger seat. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but everything about the man’s manner indicated that she was his lover. Soft highlife music from the car radio leaked into the night.
“I don’t believe you,” Elvis said, turning back to his father.
“Who are you to believe or disbelieve me? Look at dis mad child, dis world has spoiled!”
“Innocent came to my room a few nights after the murder,” Elvis said, pausing at the word “murder.” That was something, to call it that, but what else was it? he thought.
“I gave him food and he seemed very afraid. He mentioned Godfrey, then fled in terror,” he continued.
“So you harbored a known criminal in my house?”
“What do you mean, ‘a known criminal’?”
“Well, you said Efua told you dat Innocent killed Godfrey. So you knew he was a criminal and yet you harbored him in my house.”
Elvis stared at his father, mouth open. This could not be happening, he thought.
“Shut your mouth before a fly enters it,” Sunday said. “All your life, you have been like dis, eh? Never having a grip on de real world. You are just like your dead mother. Touched.”
“Leave my mother out of this!”
Sunday stood up threateningly.
“Are you shouting at me? Are you crazy? I will—”
“Sit down, old man, before you fall down,” Elvis said, rising to his feet.
They stood staring each other down for a few minutes; then, unexpectedly, Sunday folded, his rage gone, replaced by a look Elvis took to be shame.
“Dis world has spoiled,” Sunday muttered under his breath as he sat down.
“Dad.”
Sunday looked up. It sounded strange to hear his son call him Dad, but he liked it.
“Dad,” Elvis repeated.
“What?”
“Did you pay Innocent to kill Godfrey?”
“You don’t understand de difficulty of trying to be a man in dis society. So many expectations, so much pressure. You will see.”
“So he is dead.”
“I never said dat.”
“You didn’t have to. Dad, did you have anything to do with it?”
“Do you know what people ask you when dey meet you as a young man? Who is your father? First, dey want to know your father’s name, de stock you come from, before dey decide whether to bother talking to you.”
Elvis was silent. He reached for the kaikai. With trembling hands he put the bottle to his mouth and took a deep drink. The liquor burned through him in a series of hacking coughs.
“Easy,” Sunday said.
“So what does that mean?” Elvis asked. His was voice tight and his eyes were tearing from the harsh liquor.
“In dis place, it used to be dat all you had was your name—before dis new madness with money started. De measure of a man was his name. It will be again. It took me years of pain, suffering and hard work to build a name people could respect. My father was a houseboy to de white priests. We were nobody. To de whites we were their servant’s children, mini-servants. To de traditional world, we were white people’s slaves, a curse, so we were disinherited of land, clan, everything. I built our name up with honor until it became a force to be reckoned with. I have never had much money, but I had a name dat opened doors. A name people spoke with respect.”
“He was killed for a name?”
“No! He was killed because he was a threat to all we had. De only inheritance I had to give you was a name of honor. His actions were muddying de only thing of value we had to give you.”
“So he was killed for a name.”
“No! He was killed for honor.”
“What kind of honor does that? Kills its own?”
“Can’t you understand? I did dis out of love for you.”
“So now you did this for me?” Elvis asked.
Sunday took a deep breath and a gulp of the gin almost simultaneously. He didn’t respond.
“That is why your backers pulled out of your campaign. That’s why you drink, to drown your conscience. I used to think that it was my mother’s death that pushed you over the edge. But this was part of it too. I’m sorry for you,” Elvis said.
Sunday put down the gin bottle.
“Don’t be sorry for me, be sorry for yourself. Do you know why we have a lot of deformed children begging? Because their paren
ts know dey have no future. So at birth, before de child knows pain, dey deform it because it increases its earning power as a beggar. Do you see de love? All dey have to give de child is its deformity. All I have to give you is my name, your name, Elvis Oke. And when I die, it will continue to help you build something for your children. Dat’s why I don’t want you to be a dancer. It will spoil your name.”
“What are you talking about? Your name is associated with failure. Where is the honor in that? How can I carry this name knowing that it belongs to murderers and rapists?”
“Dis was not murder! Dis was a mercy killing. It was only a matter of time before de police caught Godfrey in some crime and executed him publicly. Dat would have killed all of us.”
“I could forgive you if I tried, you know. But Uncle Joseph? This was his son. First he rapes his daughter, then he has his son murdered?”
“Why do you insist on dis rape story?”
“You think I made that up? That Efua made it up?”
“She is a harlot, you know. Here in Lagos. I have seen her.”
“Liar!”
“And you can’t know for sure dat what you think you saw dat time was Joseph raping his daughter. Maybe you were confused.”
Elvis finally had to accept that his father would never believe that Joseph was capable of rape. Or maybe he didn’t want to. He had somehow deluded himself into believing that murdering Godfrey was an act of honor. He had not even considered the effect it would have on Innocent, who had to carry out the crime. This was all shit, all shit. Isn’t that what Redemption always said?
“He raped her.”
“You can’t know for sure, unless it happened to you,” Sunday said. His tone was conciliatory, as though he was subconsciously begging Elvis for it not to be true.
“He raped me too,” Elvis said, surprised at how calm he sounded as the memory of that day in the chapel came rushing back with a pain so fresh, he instinctively clenched his buttocks against it. But whatever had held him up all this time collapsed in the face of his admission, and his tears were followed by body-shaking sobs. He cried, loud and hard, mouth open, snot running down his nose. Sunday stared at Elvis, mouth open, searching for the possibility of a lie. But there was none. The sound, when it came from him, was nothing Elvis recognized. It was a howl. All animal, all death. It propelled Elvis off the veranda. This was not the comfort he wanted, needed. He could deal with all his father’s anger, but not this. He stumbled down the street to the bus stop, ignoring the curious stares of passersby, wiping furiously at his face with his sleeve. As he walked, he realized, the only way out of this life was Redemption.
“Redemption! Redemption!” Elvis called, banging wildly on Redemption’s door. The room was dark and there was no answer.
“He done move,” one of the neighbors said, opening a door. “Now stop de knocking, eh? I cannot hear myself thinking.”
Shit, Elvis thought. Of course Redemption had moved, to Maroko, where he had just come from. In the confusion of the confrontation with his father, he had fled by instinct to this place where he had always felt safe.
“Elvis?”
He spun around. Redemption was standing in the doorway to Kansas’s room. “Why you dey find me here? You know I moved.”
“I forgot.”
“What is it?”
“Can we talk?”
“Is dat Elvis? Elvis, come and join us, we are eating,” Kansas called from inside the room.
Elvis crossed the courtyard in seconds. Redemption stood aside to let him in.
“Dere is beer in de fridge. Help yourself, den wash your hands and join us,” Kansas said.
Elvis opened the miniature fridge and helped himself to a Gulder.
“Isn’t this the stuff that blows up in your face if you smoke while drinking it?” he asked, popping the top.
“Dat is plain rumor,” Kansas said.
Elvis sat down on one corner of the love seat. Redemption occupied the other. Kansas sat on the bed facing them. On the coffee table between them was a meal of fufu and egusi sauce. Redemption and Kansas were working up a sweat eating. To their left, too big for the compact room, was a television set. They were watching a video on it.
“Ah, Elvis. Wash your hand, de food is going fast,” Redemption said.
“Thanks, but I am not hungry.”
“Dis food sweet, man. My girlfriend cook it,” Kansas said.
“Thank you, but I am fine,” Elvis insisted. “What are you guys watching?”
“Dirty Harry. Dat man is too bad. Real Actor.”
Elvis nodded and sipped at his beer. He really wanted to talk to Redemption alone.
“Hey, that’s John Wayne!” he said, excitedly pointing to Clint Eastwood. He knew fully well it wasn’t, but he wanted to be part of the conversation, defaulting to the ignorance he expected of the other two.
“John Wayne? You dey mad. Dat is Actor. John Wayne is not in movies anymore,” Kansas said.
“But … what?” Elvis said, sounding confused.
“Is okay, Elvis,” Redemption explained. “Things change, you know. Now dere is only Bad Guy and Actor. No more John Wayne.”
“Why?”
“Because de type of movies done change. Dat’s all. Now let us watch de movie in peace.”
Elvis lapsed into silence, drinking several bottles of beer as he watched images flicker across the screen. The color needed adjusting, and everything had a garish red tint to it that made him nauseous after a while.
“Do you have ciga?” he asked Redemption.
Redemption passed a packet of Marlboros to him.
“This is not my brand,” Elvis said, looking disdainfully at the pack.
“Okay, give my ciga back.”
“You don’t have any Benson & Hedges?”
“Give me my ciga back,” Redemption repeated.
“Easy,” Elvis said, taking one and lighting it before passing it back.
“Take it easy. Gulder is strong beer, don’t drink too much.”
“Humph.”
Elvis had no recollection of falling asleep, but woke groggily as Redemption shook him roughly.
“Wake up. Dis is not your house. I told you to easy on de beer. Wake up, we have to go.”
Elvis yawned and stretched. He sat up and wiped drool from his mouth.
“Where is Kansas?”
“He go pick his girlfriend. Come on, we have to go before he return.”
Standing up, Elvis noted that the place had been tidied since he fell asleep. The empty beer bottles were gone, as were the remnants of the meal. Kansas had even changed the sheets.
“Boy, you guys work fast,” he said.
Redemption smiled.
“It is Kansas, my broder! De tings a woman can make you do is wonderful.”
Elvis laughed. They staggered out of the room, the latch locking home behind them. Elvis felt a moment of panic and checked under his shirt for his Fulani pouch. It was still there, he noted, opening it. As were his mother’s journal and a copy of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, one of his favorite books.
“I hope he has not forgotten his keys,” Elvis said.
Something about the comment struck them both as funny and they fell about laughing.
“Dat will be one angry broder if dat is so,” Redemption gasped.
“Am I still drunk?” Elvis asked, swaying dangerously.
“No. It’s de ground dat is moving,” Redemption said, laughing.
“So how are we getting home?” Elvis asked.
“I bring machine. I go ride.”
“Which kind of machine? Ha, Redemption! Are you in any condition to ride?”
“How you go know de difference, drunk as you be?”
Elvis giggled. “I guess you are right.”
They approached a burly black motorcycle. Redemption straddled it and kicked the stand up. He swayed for a moment, then found his balance.
“Okay, Elvis, climb aboard. Maroko straight,” he said.
> “Are you sure you can operate this?” Elvis slurred, as he settled into the passenger seat, arms firmly wrapped around Redemption’s midsection.
“Hey, Elvis, are you homo? Release me small,” Redemption said.
Elvis relaxed his grip.
“Sorry, I am holding on for my life,” he said.
“Ha! Elvis. Relax, you know I am Easy Rider,” Redemption said, revving up and releasing the clutch. The bike shot off at an incredible speed, swaying from side to side.
“Easy!” Elvis shouted.
“One-way trip to heaven!” Redemption shouted back.
They roared down the Isolo freeway, weaving between cars like a bobbin threading yarn, barely managing to stay upright.
“Whose bike is this?” Elvis yelled over the roar of wind and traffic.
“Dis machine? It belongs to de new people I am doing business with,” Redemption yelled back.
“Hey, slow down. That is a police checkpoint ahead. You don’t want them to open fire,” Elvis said, pointing ahead to the makeshift barricade of oil drums and car tires that sat in the middle of the freeway like a pimple. Redemption ignored him, clutched down, revved up and cut across four lanes of traffic to an exit.
“Redemption!”
“Easy, Elvis. Dis is not States. Dey have no car to chase us.”
“Just don’t kill us.”
“Relax, you fear more dan woman. Listen, punk, do you feel lucky?”
“What?”
“Well, do you?”
“Stop speaking in riddles. Just stop, it will only cost us a couple of bucks in bribes to get past.”
“Number one, we no wear helmet. Number two, I don’t have de papers for dis machine. Number three, I no get license. Plus I hold gun in my pocket. Dat is too much bribe dan I can afford. I no fit to pay!” Redemption shouted as they gunned up the exit ramp and made a sharp right.
“Gun?! Gun!?”
“No dey shout ‘gun’ like dat. People can hear.”
They made a left and were soon traveling down a dirt road skirting the lagoon.
“Where are we?”
“Near Mile 2. One more left and we go dey back on de freeway.”
