Gumbo
Page 90
With the coming of dawn, he could see how dark and dismal the morning would be. It was not long before a strong wind whipped down the narrow corridors of the town, accompanied by forks of lightning and sheets of driving rain. Still, he heard the sound of military helicopters circling overhead, searching the streets for any odd activity. After breakfast, he decided to go for a walk to see what was happening in the town. To hell with the authorities. Maybe his press pass would carry some weight this time. Soldiers, tanks, and jeeps with mounted machine guns were parked on every corner and checkpoints were set up at all of the key points of the areas where the trouble had broke out for the past four nights. Twice he was stopped by police, questioned, and checked for identification. The fact that he was an American journalist brought scowls from the armed military men, but little else happened and he was allowed to go on his way.
Still, none of it was cool. He looked at his watch. He was screwed. It was well after three. If it wasn't for bad luck, he wouldn't have any luck at all.
The Bulging Bag
BY UNOMA N. AZUAH
The harsh Lagos sun came down on the motley crowd of traders, civil servants, market women, mad people, children, hawkers, and beggars. Presently, a rickety bus called a molue appeared, quaking and shuddering in an attempt to stop. People jumped out, others in the same manner jumped in. When the bus eventually came to a stop, the press of people from the inside and the outside created a temporary dam. Seeing this, the driver adroitly jerked the bus a few meters forward; the dam burst, spilling its contents.
Mr. Akpan broke into a run, panting toward the moving molue. He had almost missed the bus while selling some tablets to his customers. There was no sitting space in the bus when he hopped in, so he stood holding on to a rail above him. Six baskets of chickens were on top of the molue supported by four rails. His raised hand sent the chickens flapping their wings in an attempt to fly out. Their eyes were bright as they croaked, lifting each of their legs, theirs claws clutched.
Mr. Akpan looked down, as they began to calm. His eyes rested on a crying baby. His mother was coaxing him to stop, making a clicking sound with her tongue, shaking her lips, but he yelled the more only pausing to lick his running nose. His mother sucked the mucus, and spat it out of the window. The baby gasped in relief but continued crying. His mother pulled out her left breast and thrust it into his mouth. He stopped crying. Behind the woman, a middle-aged man was snoring, his head swinging to and fro. The woman sitting next to him sighed incessantly because once in a while, his swinging head rested on her shoulder, but only shook him awake when a trail of slimy saliva crept down his faded coat. The coat was green with different buttons and threads. The button in the middle of the coat had slipped off, the buttonhole too big for it. The collar of the coat was patched with a red piece of cloth. Waking, he mumbled an apology opened his bloodshot eyes. And he wiped the saliva with a brown handkerchief. His hands were swollen, his fingers coarse. His nails were long and dirty. He had deep grooves of wrinkles on his brow, and a few gray hairs were sprinkled on his head. When he coughed, his whole body shook.
The molue swayed. In a bid to make himself comfortable, Akpan stepped on a woman's foot.
“Aaih!” the woman cried with a grimace, soothing her foot. “Craze man, you no dey see, abi . . .”
“Sorry, madam, na mistake,” Mr. Akpan pleaded.
“Which kin mistake!” she spat out. “You no get eye for face? You fit mistake for other people leg, no bi ma own, a beg!” she concluded.
Mr. Akpan had hardly heaved a sigh of relief when close to him, another woman yelled out to a chic, well-dressed lady.
“Sidon well now, abi you tin say na your boyfriend car you dey . . .”
All heads turned toward them, but the lady ignored her.
“If you won do sisi, you no for enter molue,” continued the woman.
Mr. Akpan recognized the offender as one of his customers.
“Oh, Rose, na you, wetin happen?”
Rose, who couldn't repress herself anymore, blurted out, “Can you imagine, the bus swerved and we went along with it. I was only trying to adjust myself when she yelled out like the market woman she is!”
Some market women gave a murmur of protest. One boldly spoke up in her Yoruba accent, “Oko ri, sisi eko, you no bi market woman, you bi Miss Nigeria!”
“So you even sabi blow gramma,” insisted the first woman. “I bin think say you dey deaf and dumb, nonsense!”
Mr. Akpan gave Rose a sign to keep calm, and that ended the quarrel.
“Who took my wallet? Who took my wallet?!” a voice rang out. It was a young man sitting behind the driver. “It was here in my pocket!” he screamed, springing up from his seat and stretching his hands in appeal. When nobody responded, he insisted on searching everybody on the bus.
He scrambled up to his neighbor, who stared hard and said, “If you search me finish an you no see anything, I go so beat you ehh, your people go prepare ya funeral service today!”
The young man looked closely at the man. He had a red piece of cloth tied round his head. His eyes were deep in their sockets. Lumps of pimples concentrated on his cheeks. His lips were swollen and he had gaps in his upper teeth. His red shirt, which had no buttons, exposed a hairy chest. He was wearing a dirty pair of jeans and rubber slippers. His feet were clumpy with dust. The young man's eyes settled on his muscles. He changed his mind and sat down with clenched fists, tears glittering in his eyes.
“Ye ye, man!” his neighbor breathed down at him, then sat down.
Eventually, feeling at ease, Mr. Akpan cleared his throat and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have something very important here. Content Super Tablets, manufactured by W and C Pharmaceutical Industries, Limited, for headache, fever, pain, dysentery, and for any other bodily discomfort. Content Super Tablet go kill am one time. If you buy dis medicine, and no show, arrest me anywhere you see me. Obuda na ma town. I come Lagos for 1977, follow my mates begin business, I start with cleaning, no work. I enter for iron melting no way, I begin sell newspaper, sell newspaper tire, enter for iron bending, so tay all my fingers bend finish.” He displayed his crooked fingers and people roared in laughter. Some started for his tablets, mostly traders and market women. A few did so in appreciation of his sense of humor.
“How much . . . ?” asked one of the buyers.
“Na one naira fifty kobo, but take am for one naira,” Mr. Akpan answered.
He did not finish his story and did not see the need to, since he had sold out most of the tablets. This invented story had proved most effective for the past six months, and it cost him only fifty kobo for each bus trip.
He waited for what seemed an age for people to leave the bus, so that he could have a little privacy to count his money. There were just a handful of people. He looked around and smiled to himself, then noticed a promisingly bulging bag at an obscure corner of the bus. He fought with the urge to go see its contents and the urge to wait; he did not want anyone to see the supposed treasure. He decided to remain in the bus till it became empty.
“Na here we de stop for fifty kobo, if we pass here na one naira you go pay oh!” announced the conductor.
“Na small thing . . .” two hefty men replied from behind. “We pass one naira!”
Mr. Akpan left his seat and sat near the bag with a feigned air of ownership. It was when the two men moved toward him that he realized he shared a common interest with them. An idea struck him. He did not stop to think, but grabbed the bag, threw it out of the window, and followed suit through the door. The men went after him. Seeing his hopeless state, he ran toward a policeman standing by.
“Na wetin?” the policeman asked.
“See dem, dem be tifs, na from molue dem begin follow me, make dem carry my property!” panted Mr. Akpan.
“Na lie!” said one of the men who had caught up with him. A stifled odor of cigarette and beer oozed out of his mouth. The policeman took a step backward to avoid the reek from both men.
“God na my witness!” Mr. Akpan shouted. He went down on his knees, took some dust and licked it. “I swear na me get the bag!” And he pointed his finger to the sky. The policeman gave the suspicious-looking men a stern stare.
“Wetin de inside?” the policeman asked the men.
“Na some moni with small clothe!” they answered.
“You, wetin dey am?” referring to Akpan.
“Na-na . . . moni wey I pack from bank,” he fumbled.
The policeman took the bag from Mr. Akpan and began to unwrap it. Plantin leaves fell out.
“Yes! Dis na di leaves wey I take wrap am!” Mr. Akpan interrupted.
The policeman continued unwrapping, His hands froze as a human head bounced out of the bag. He recovered in time to grab Mr. Akpan, who was about to escape. The two men took to their heels.
FROM Sap Rising
BY CHRISTINE LINCOLN
“LIKE DOVE WINGS”
I remember when she come back home, carryin' her blues in a faded pink blanket, edges frayed. I was the first to see her. Half stumblin' down the road. In the darkness. My own restlessness makin' it so I couldn't sleep. Even from where I sat, I could see a bone-weariness all over that poor child, the way her arms held on to that baby only because they been used to doin' so. I thought about how we all be holdin' on, even if what we holdin' on to is a whole lot of nuthin'. How we go through life pretendin' to be full up on emptiness.
I used to believe the only thing worse than leaving this place was having to come back in need. But life has a way of making your worst fears greater than the point it brings you to, until nothing else matters except putting one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in order to find your way back home. Even still, I come back to Grandville at night, a shame that is not my own keeping me from treading the street in broad daylight and under the eyes of those who once created the me I used to be.
She wouldn't come out for the first three months she was home. Didn't want nobody to know about a baby with no father and a young girl whose dreams amounted to a faded blanket and a half-mile trek back down a dust-covered road. But I knew. Just like I'd known she would leave in the first place. Could tell she was the runnin' kind.
When she finally decided to show herself, it was at church, of all places. That baby on her hip. Struttin' down the aisle to the pew her sister, Loretta, usually took every Sunday. The sight of Ebbie, her citified self, caused a heat to rise in the already warm room. Womenfolk fanned themselves, ashamed for a girl who didn't have sense enough to be ashamed of herself.
As soon as I knocked on the door, as soon as Loretta answered, I knew what I was in for. Her eyes, tight at the corners, accusing, greeted me in silence. When she helped me into a chair so I could rest my feet, and took Pontella from my arms, it was with an unforgiving face. And if my own sister, my flesh and blood, could look at me as if she didn't know who or what I was, I could only imagine how the rest of the town folks must feel about me.
So I stayed close to the house. Never left except at night, when Pontella was down for the evening and the only thing looking at me as if I had some explaining to do was the frogs and crickets, creatures whose world I had disturbed when they thought they were free to sing.
She ain't come back to church after that first time, though we see her around town every now and again. Time passes, and I can't explain it, but I find myself lookin' for her. Thinkin' about her, wonderin'. While Dorothy, Irma, and Zeta chitter like a bunch of squirrels, gossipin', I stare off into the distance, tryin' to wrap my mind around what this woman was and not what they say she is. They say she some kind of a witch. Say they men been actin' real funny ever since she come back. Folks arguin' more'n usual. The chirrun carryin' on like they don't have a lick a sense. And it's been near 'bout a whole year and ain't nobody got pregnant. Whispers say she done somethin' to dry up our wombs. Done stole our seed.
I can't go back to that place. The way everyone's eyes read my life from the rips in my clothes and the baby who slept in my arms. It was as if they all thought they knew everything they needed to know about a woman like me. And when the coldness filmed each gaze and hardened every familiar face, I knew I would never find in them what it was I needed.
Funny, but me sitting in church, in the house of the Lord, was just like that woman in the Bible, the adulteress, and every single one of those God-fearing church folk were ready with stones. Except Jesus didn't come and gather me up. He didn't shield me with his body or stoop down and write something in the dirt at my feet. I knew that if I were to continue to go there, all I would do was keep them from taking the planks out of their own eyes, because they'd be so busy tending to the stick in mine.
Yesterday the weather broke. There is a hint of prefrost in the wind, causin' my cheeks to redden when I'm outdoors too long. Folks will be stayin' in more. Ebbie, too. Though she ain't out much anyways. Gone are the days of watermelon chillin' in the icy creek until one of the men strikes it against a rock to split it open. The sweet flesh explodin' on the tongue.
But the hog'll be delivered soon, and it'll be slaughterin' time. A season for killin'. It will come innocent, unawares of its fate. Squealin' in its pen in the back of Mr. Kenton's truck. And after a few days, Leonard will slit its throat from ear to ear. String it up by its back legs to drain the blood. It will become cuts of meat: a ham shank, slabs of bacon, its bladder a balloon to be tossed about. And me and Leonard will feed on it all winter long, forgettin' the day it come to us in the back of Kenton's truck. Whole.
Fall comes quickly, bringing with it cool days and even cooler nights. I watch as the earth and the things of the earth prepare to bed down for winter, hoping that I, too, will be able to settle in. Like Pontella has done. How she runs from room to room like they all belong to her. The way she tastes and touches everything that catches her eye and that's just within her reach, as if by feasting on balls of dust that scurry across the floor and dead spiders hidden in corners, she'll become one with this world.
For a squirrel, say, or a two-year-old without memory, finding a place in the world is an easy thing to do. But for one who has never known her place, a woman's place, it is nearly impossible. So I stumble through green kitchen, into white bedroom, and back through blue parlor, trying to catch sight of something—anything—that resembles me, just to keep from falling away.
Somethin's been pullin' me from sleep almost every night lately. We got the Indian summer and the nights are warm, even though the leaves have already started to change in their eagerness for somethin' different. I go to sit on the back porch, my mama's shawl wrapped tight around me like arms tryin' to hold me together, and even there I feel the pull to go down to the Pinder place, just to see if she's still there. Just to get a look at her.
Everybody sittin' around talkin' about her like she a dog, when all she did was what half of us have wanted to do at one time or another but was too damned sorry or scared to try. Too busy worryin' about what everybody else'd think. But nobody'd admit it. Then they'd have to say that maybe somethin' was wrong with all of us, too. Instead, me and the others make like Ebbie's the one need fixin'. At least that's what we say out loud.
If not for my baby girl and the night, I would die here. Each day I play with Pontella little games I've made up. I contort my face into silly pictures that make even me giggle. Or chase her around the yard until we both fall exhausted, laughing, on beds of grass. The smell of her skin and hair after I have given her a bath, me nibbling at the layers of pudge on her legs and arms, around her neck—I drown in the scent of all that innocence. But that's what keeps me during the day.
At night I creep outside to sit beneath the moonlit sky. It's there I get what I couldn't get in church that Sunday. At those moments I know I still belong to this world, this universe. Just like the trees and the earth and the stars. I find something out here that even Pontella can't giv
e me. Out here I don't have to be a child's mother, Loretta's sister, or that Pinder girl who ran away. Out here, with God looking down on me, where their shame can't follow me, I'm just like His other creations. Only I'm a tree whose roots have pulled free, a sunflower that no longer follows the movements of the sun.
And when I couldn't stand it no longer, I went down there. To the Pinder place. I saw her sittin' in the backyard under a cluster of trees a little ways from the house. She held her face to the moon like she was at church. I wanted to go over to her and hold her like I would a child, amazed by how small she looked under the largeness of the sooty sky. I expected her to be six foot tall by now. Like she should have grown from all the signifyin'. How big we had been makin' her with our words. In our own minds. But she was small. I wondered how we all must look when we got to stand alone. How I must look on the other side of the road, hidden in darkness.
I saw that woman Leonard married standing across the street, watching me. At first I was angry. I figured she must have heard I was the one he'd once loved, though we loved in secret. A woman knows. She can always tell when there has been another, can feel the presence of another like a shadow that hovers just out of reach, blocking out the fullness of the sun, causing a chill that goes down to the bones. And then I felt sorry for her: the one who comes to see the one who loved a man she can never know. A man who strolled among whispering trees and still dreamed dreams. As if by seeing me she might somehow discover what it is she wants to see in him.