GraceLand
Page 32
He sucked on his cigarette, blowing meditative smoke rings. Wiping his brow, he silently cursed the broken-down air-conditioning system. Soldiers, armed for battle, crawled everywhere like an ant infestation, and Elvis watched them nervously, still haunted by the specter of the Colonel. Putting as much distance as he could between him and them, Elvis found a row of seats in a corner. They were flush against the wall and offered a view of the entire departure lounge. The ashtray next to him was stained with tobacco-colored spit; and gum, half melted from the heat, dripped down the side like wax. He stubbed out his cigarette delicately, trying not to make contact with the ashtray.
Efua. He had tried not to think about her. Tried to pretend that the things Redemption had said to him that day when he thought he had spotted her with the Maharaji’s devotees weren’t true. But Redemption had been right. Elvis was selfish, or self-centered, or self-obsessed. Efua had been as much his victim as she was Uncle Joseph’s, even if he hadn’t raped her. Elvis had never known her, at least no more than he wanted to. Perhaps that was what Redemption had meant.
Not wanting to think about it anymore, he reached into his bag and pulled out a book, one of the only luxuries he’d allowed himself before leaving. All the naira he had left after buying three hundred dollars on the black market, and his ticket, he had given to Blessing. Thirty pieces of silver, Redemption had called it. He touched the shiny paperback cover: James Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man. Opening it at the turned-down page that marked his place, he began to read. Jesse had just come on the lynching scene with his father. As he read, Elvis began to see a lot of parallels between himself and the description of a dying black man slowly being engulfed by flame. The man’s hands using the chains that bound him as leverage to pull himself up and out of the torture. He flinched at the part where the unnamed white man in the story cut off the lynched black man’s genitalia. He closed the book and imagined what kind of scar that would leave. It would be a thing alive that reached up to the sky in supplication, descending to root itself in the lowest chakra, our basest nature. Until the dead man became the sky, the tree, the earth and the full immeasurable sorrow of it all. He knew that scar, that pain, that shame, that degradation that no metaphor could contain, inscribing it on his body. And yet beyond that, he was that scar, carved by hate and smallness and fear onto the world’s face. He and everyone like him, until the earth was aflame with scarred black men dying in trees of fire.
A soldier came up to him. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for my plane,” Elvis said.
“Ticket?”
Elvis handed it over, even though this soldier had no legal right to do this, to demand anything of a man sitting by himself in a corner reading.
“Passport?”
Elvis obliged. The soldier inspected both documents for a long time. He passed them back to Elvis. Everything was in order, but he was clearly not satisfied.
“Staying here is suspicious,” the soldier said. “Move.”
“To where?”
“I don’t bloody care! Just move,” he insisted, poking Elvis in the chest with the ugly snout of his rifle’s barrel.
Elvis shoved the passport and ticket into his bag and got up. Under the soldier’s supervising gaze, he sauntered over to the café in the middle of the departure lounge. He bought a Coke and found an empty table. The match he dragged across the raspy box edge to light another cigarette illuminated his face as he watched the soldier move on to other victims. Reaching instinctively for the Fulani pouch around his neck, Elvis felt a momentary panic when he realized it wasn’t there. Remembering that Redemption had made him take it off, he relaxed. It was bound to attract unwelcome attention in both Nigerian and American customs. It was good advice, and he had ditched it, after transferring his mother’s Bible and journal to his bag. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out the journal and flipped through it. It had never revealed his mother to him. Never helped him understand her, or his life, or why anything had happened the way it had. What was the point? Nothing is ever resolved, he thought. It just changes.
In the manner of all garbled airport announcements, he heard his flight called and, finishing his Coke, he got up and walked toward the boarding gate. He stood in the line of passengers waiting for his name to be called. He thought about his father and felt guilt wash over him. Nearly every night, in his dreams, he saw Sunday’s ghost wandering aimlessly, searching for his house and Madam Caro’s buka, long gone under the tyrannical wheels of the bulldozers. He mused at how the King, with all his imperfections, had become the icon for freedom and spiritual truth.
“Redemption,” the airline clerk called.
Elvis, still unfamiliar with his new name, did not respond.
“Redemption!” the clerk called louder.
Elvis stepped forward and spoke.
“Yes, this is Redemption.”
These are the words of lovers, of dancers, of dynamite singers. These are songs if you have the music.
—AMIRI BARAKA, BLUES PEOPLE
Delphine, Stella and Daphne
whenever, wherever, whatever
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Percival Everett, who read every draft and without whom this novel would still be a vague idea. Ron Gottesman, Carol Muske-Dukes, T. C. Boyle, Steve Isoardi, Jeanette Lindsey, Viet Nguyen and PB Rippey for reading, feedback, support, friendship and satsang. Sandy Dijkstra for believing and for brokering the best deals, and everyone at The Agency. My family always—Daphne, Mark, Charles, Greg, Stella, Nnenna, Simone, Philomena, Bruno and Delphine. Friends every writer needs—Titi Osu, Helena Igwebuike, Jennifer Dobbs, Wendy Belcher, Elias Wondimu, Amy Schroeder, Ava Chin, Sholeh Wolpe, Kim Burwick, Sylvester Ogbechie, Musa Farhi, Tanya Heflin and Bridget Hoida. Ayesha Pande—my friend and a wonderful editor. Stacey Barney, Cary Goldstein, Jeff Seroy and everyone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
R. C. Agoha’s book Medicinal Plants of Nigeria was an invaluable resource, as were:
Beware of Harlots and Many Friends, J. Nnadozie (Onitsha: J.C. Brothers Bookshop, rev. ed., 1965).
Mabel the Sweet Honey That Poured Away, Speedy Eric (Onitsha: A. Onwudiwe & Sons, 1960).
If your name isn’t here, it’s not because I don’t love you or that your kindness has been forgotten.
Thank you all.
Copyright © 2004 by Christopher Abani
All rights reserved
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003
www.fsgbooks.com
Designed by Patrice Sheridan
eISBN 9781429929820
First eBook Edition : June 2011
First edition, 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abani, Christopher.
GraceLand / Chris Abani.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Elvis Presley impersonators—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction.
3. Lagos (Nigeria)—Fiction. 4. Teenage boys—Fiction. 1. Title.
PR9387 .9 .A23G73 2004
813’.6—dc21
2003012705