Blackass: A Novel

by A. Igoni Barrett

  Approaching the glass facade of the cafe, Furo saw that a majority of the tables were occupied by oyibos. That was the reason he’d never set foot in the place: he assumed that any hangout that drew so many expats was too exclusive for someone unemployed. Which Igoni, going by appearances, was not. They had reached the entrance, and a private guard in visored cap and paramilitary uniform jumped up from his folding chair and eased the door open, then stamped his boot in greeting. Heads turned to watch them enter, and then turned back to pick up their conversations. The interior was lighted by shaded lamps pouring down soft yellow beams, and the floor tiles shone, the metal tables gleamed. From the walls hung flatscreen TVs showing news channels with the sound turned down. One half of the cafe was announced as non-smoking by wedge-shaped signs on the tables, and the other section was overhung by a haze, this fed by trails of smoke from all the hands clutching glowing cigarettes, smouldering cigarillos, sputtering cigars, and, here and there, hookah pipes. Igoni headed for the smoking section, Furo followed, and they settled into a red loveseat backed against the far wall.

  The prices were as Furo imagined. Too high for him, now especially, when every naira he spent felt like spurting blood. He read the menu with mounting indignation until a waitress arrived for their orders. ‘Cappuccino, please,’ Igoni said, and when Furo felt his hairs bristle at her attention, he chose, ‘Chocolate milkshake,’ then closed the menu, set it down on the table, and stole a glance at his host. The embarrassment he felt at the price tag of his order, the cost of six full meals in a roadside buka, was nowhere apparent in Igoni’s face. In that instant Furo felt the bump of an idea falling into place, and the tingle that announced it a good one.

  The waitress collected the menus and left before Furo spoke. ‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ he said to Igoni, ‘what do you do for a living?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Igoni said. ‘I’m a writer.’

  ‘Of books?’

  Igoni nodded yes, and reaching into his pocket, he drew out a Benson & Hedges packet. Furo waited till the cigarette was lit. ‘What kind of books do you write?’

  ‘Not business books,’ Igoni said with a quick sly grin, and then leaned back in the loveseat, crossed his legs, and blew out smoke. ‘Fiction, short stories, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I see,’ Furo muttered in distraction, as his attention was diverted by a passing angel, the sudden dip in the hum of conversation. The cafe door had opened to let in a woman alone. Long seconds ticked while she stood in front of the entrance, her head turning with imperial slowness as she searched through faces. Then she struck for the smoking section. She wore yellow high heels, carried a bright yellow handbag, and the balloon-skirt of her black gown, which bounced at each stride she took, showed off her long legs. To Furo it seemed every eye in the cafe was fixed on her, but she relished the attention, her eyes twinkled with awareness of it, and on her lips played a smile that grew bolder the closer she came. After she slipped into the loveseat beside Furo’s table, the chatter in the cafe picked up again.

  The waitress arrived bearing a tray, and after setting down Furo and Igoni’s drinks, she crossed over to the newcomer. Furo glanced around at the first sound of the woman’s voice, but it was her prettiness that kept him looking. He noticed the waitress closing her notebook, his cue to look away before he was caught staring, but he waited till the last moment, the tensing of the woman’s temple as she realised she was being watched, to swing his eyes away from her face to the TV above her head, which showed a crowd of Arabs chanting and waving placards written in English. His neck soon tired of straining upwards to no purpose, and abandoning this ruse, he turned forwards in his seat and reached for his drink.

  The first sip of the chocolate milkshake heightened Furo’s hunger. The second cloyed his tongue with sweetness. The third gave him gooseflesh. Each time he sucked on the straw he took care to hold the liquid in his cheeks, to swill it round his mouth, and only when his cheeks were stretched tight and his gullet throbbed from the effort of remaining closed, did he gulp down the drink. It left its sweetness in his mouth and spread its coolness through his skin, and this, added to the cosiness of the cafe, lulled him into a state approaching contentment. Until he glanced to the side, caught the stare of the woman, and felt a flush melting away the pleasure from his face. He dipped his head and sucked furiously on the straw.

  Igoni finished his cigarette in silence and picked up his cappuccino. As he drank, Furo watched him openly. Igoni seemed friendly enough, he also appeared to have some money, and he was Kalabari, almost family without the drawbacks. Furo decided it was now time to ask the favour of Igoni that he’d intended since he realised that fate was finally dealing him a good hand. And so he said Igoni’s name, and when Igoni looked at him, he spoke in a halting voice:

  ‘I know it’s a bit odd, but I want to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Igoni said.

  ‘I need a place to stay in Lagos. Only for a short time, about two weeks. I’m hoping, if it’s possible, if it’s not too much trouble, that I can stay with you.’

  ‘Oh,’ Igoni said in a surprised tone. ‘That’s a big one.’

  Furo jumped into the opening. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I don’t have anyone else to ask.’

  Igoni leaned forwards, rested his elbows on his knees, and cracked his knuckles. He stared at the ground between his feet until he raised his head. ‘I’ll be honest,’ he said, his eyes seeking out Furo’s, and then swinging away as he continued in a voice shaded with regret. ‘Any other time I would be happy to have you over, but I’m in the middle of some writing, so I really can’t, not now.’

  Furo’s voice was hoarse as he said, ‘I understand.’

  Igoni was about to speak again when his phone rang. After mumbling a few words, he hung up the call, and then reached for his wallet. ‘I have to rush off,’ he said as he flipped it open. ‘The person I was waiting for has arrived.’ He pulled out four crisp five hundreds and placed the notes by his saucer. ‘That will cover the bill.’ Rising to his feet, he slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. ‘It was nice meeting you, Furo. Bye now.’

  Furo watched Igoni until he disappeared into the milling throng outside the cafe’s glass front. Returning his gaze to the table, he noted that Igoni hadn’t finished his drink. He picked up the cup, and after swirling around the leftover cappuccino, he drank it down. As he clacked the cup on the saucer, the money caught his eye. Maybe he should have asked Igoni for money instead, he thought, and then heaved a coffee-scented sigh.

  ‘May I join you?’

  Furo whipped his head around. The woman in yellow heels had turned in her seat till her bared knees pointed at him. Her smile did not reach her eyes.

  ‘Is it OK to join you?’ she asked again.

  At his nod, she took up her handbag, rose to her feet and, with a waft of perfume, slid in beside him. Her knee bumped his under the table. ‘Oops,’ she said, and threw him a smile only just warmer than her last. ‘I’m Syreeta.’

  ‘Furo,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a Nigerian name.’

  ‘I’m Nigerian,’ Furo said. Some resentment escaped into his tone, and he met her gaze. Her brown irises were steady pools from which his face stared back. ‘You sound Nigerian for sure,’ she said at last. ‘But you’re the first Nigerian I’ve met who has green eyes.’

  Furo blinked in surprise, and to cover his confusion he raised his hand to his nape, where his fingers began to rub. When Syreeta asked, ‘Is your neck paining you?’ he nodded and rubbed harder. ‘Stop rubbing it like that, it won’t help, it will make it worse.’ After he dropped his hand, she said, her tone conversational: ‘What you need is a massage. I can give you one if you want.’ She held up her hands, showed her palms to him. ‘I’m good with my hands. And my house is not far from here.’ She took his silence for agreement. ‘We’ll go after my food comes.’

  Head reeling from the speed of things, Furo bent forwards and grabbed hold of his straw. As he slurpe
d the last of his milkshake, his eyes watched Syreeta’s hands, her scarlet fingernails drumming the tabletop. Her offer had caught him unawares, as he hadn’t expected it of someone as well-heeled as her. He understood what she wanted, the same as that other one, the runs girl who had accosted him by the mall’s toilet, had wanted. The white man’s money, that’s what. Appearances had deceived him and her, because he had misjudged her morals as completely as she his pocket. She was loose, he was broke, and the rules of this game were fixed. He had to set her straight. Despite the tinder of hope that her offer had sparked, he had to douse it before the flames overcame his common sense.

  Furo straightened up and found his voice. ‘Look, I don’t—’

  ‘Shush,’ Syreeta said, and Furo followed the direction of her look. The waitress was headed their way with a tray from which steam rose, and as she drew up to them, Syreeta said, ‘Sorry dear, I’ve changed my mind, I’m leaving now. Pack the food for me. And bring our bills.’

  Alone again, she said to Furo, ‘You wanted to say something?’

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ he blurted out.

  Her face hardened. ‘Did I ask you for money?’

  ‘But you want me to go home with you!’

  ‘And so what?’ she said in a flat voice.

  Furo stared wordless, aghast at her shamelessness.

  ‘Do you want to or not?’

  He closed his mouth and nodded yes.

  ‘Then stop talking plenty and come,’ Syreeta said with a toss of her braids.

  In the car park of The Palms, Syreeta beeped open a silver-coloured Honda CR-V. ‘Your belt,’ she said to Furo after he climbed into the passenger seat, and when he was buckled in: ‘I’ll make a quick stop before we go to my place.’ She switched on the ignition. The flash of dashboard lights, a blast of stereo music, streams of air from the vents, and the machine purr of an engine eager to go. The car cruised out of The Palms, and when Syreeta accelerated (even though he couldn’t drive, Furo could tell that she handled the wheel with panache, to which the Honda responded like a dance partner) towards the Lekki highway, the easy motion of the car pulled Furo into a sinkhole of comfort. Every breath he drew, every rub of his tired shoulders on the soft leather seat, every sensation contributed to his need to pee.

  Her quick stop was the five-star-looking Oriental Hotel. Furo realised this when the Honda swept through the gateway into a parking lot overflowing with millionaires’ toys, and by the time Syreeta found a spot and reversed into it, he’d convinced himself of the quickie reason for her stopover, the abysmal state of her morality, and the dangerous nature of her daring. She demolished his assumptions by asking him to follow her in. Together, side by side, they walked into the hotel’s lobby. To the right of the entrance was the reception counter, and Syreeta turned left. She clicked past a knot of men dressed in bankers’ suits, and pausing in their conversation, they stared after her, their eyes burning with the fever of acquisition. Furo skidded across the smooth stone floor in his efforts to keep pace with her, and when she halted in front of the elevator, he felt a vicious stab in his bladder. He couldn’t hold it in any more.

  ‘I need to ease myself,’ he whispered to Syreeta.

  ‘Let’s get upstairs first,’ she responded, but a quick look at his face changed her mind. ‘Go on, the loo is that way,’ and she pointed. ‘I’ll wait here.’

  Furo trotted towards the lavatory, and once he was through the door he hopped from foot to foot and fumbled with his fly before bounding to the nearest urinal. He panted at the first spurt, pungent and steaming, the colour of factory waste, a whole day’s worth topped with a cup of milkshake, which splashed into the glistening ceramic and rattled the coloured mothballs and foamed in the drain. His nerves calmed with his stream, and soon he glanced around to confirm he was alone, and then down at his trousers to ensure he had no reason to be self-conscious. He finished and gave a yawn, closed his zipper, and then, as his eyes caught the brand stamped on to the urinal, he barked with laughter. He hadn’t noticed he was peeing into a Toto – a vagina. Yes, a dirty joke, he thought as he strolled chuckling to the washbasin, but when he saw his face in the mirror, his mirth caught in his throat. A monstrous joke, a monster’s joke: that’s what this is.

  Syreeta was standing where Furo had left her but she was no longer alone. A portly Chinese man wearing rumpled cargo shorts and a crocodile-patterned shirt was speaking to her (her face was averted from his fixed, unctuous smile) and indicating with his hands that she follow him. When Furo arrived at the elevator, the man dropped his arms to his sides and fell silent. ‘Done?’ Syreeta asked, and when Furo answered yes, the man veered his face towards him, his smile wiped off. Syreeta poked the elevator button, the doors slid open, and the man backed away.

  They rode up in silence, all the while looking down at the spread of the city through the elevator’s glass wall. Reaching the second floor, they emerged into a corridor, and Syreeta led the way across its deep carpet. In the last few feet to the corridor’s end, as Furo saw that the door ahead was inscribed ‘African Bar’, he hastened around her and held the door open. With a quick look at his face, she brushed past him into a dimly lit hall. Spinning disco lights, their gaudy pinpoints ricocheting off swaying silhouettes, showed a path across the dance floor. The moody melody of Bobby Benson’s ‘Taxi Driver’ boomed from speakers in the ceiling. Arranged along the walls were widely spaced tables, many occupied and shimmering with drinks. Near the entrance, a man and woman danced with their arms around each other’s waists, their heads on each other’s shoulders, and their feet scraping the floor in a sleepy harmony that paid no heed to the music.

  Syreeta headed straight for the bar, whose long wooden counter was decorated with a pair of imitation elephant tusks stuck upright in pedestals, one at each end. Behind the counter stood a drinks cabinet stacked full of liquor bottles, their cognac browns and campari reds and curaçao blues highlighted by narrow beams of halogen light. As Syreeta climbed on to a bar stool, the barman came forwards with a happy-to-see-you smile and greeted her by name.

  ‘Evening o, Clement,’ she responded. ‘How work today?’

  ‘Work dey, my sister. I no fit complain.’ To Furo he said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and after Furo returned the greeting, he reverted to Syreeta. ‘Make I bring the usual?’

  ‘No, I’m not staying,’ Syreeta said. ‘I just want you to do something quick-quick for me.’ She opened her handbag, drew out her BlackBerry, and fiddled with the keypad. ‘Abeg take a picture of me and my friend. Come to this side – I want the bar to show behind us.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the barman as he accepted the phone from Syreeta’s outstretched hand. He walked to the end of the counter, lifted the flap door and passed through, then stopped a yard away from their stools and, holding up the phone, said, ‘Tell me when you ready.’ Syreeta turned to Furo. ‘Put your arm around my shoulder.’ He hesitated, mystified about where she was going with all of this, but spurred on by her stare, he obeyed. She leaned into his embrace before saying: ‘Don’t face the camera, look at me.’ He locked his gaze on the clear skin of her forehead and pulled a tense smile, and when she called out, ‘Ready,’ the camera flashed.

  Back in the car, after switching on the engine and adjusting the blow of the vents, Syreeta held her phone two-handed against the steering wheel and tapped the keypad for several minutes. ‘Rubbish!’ she muttered at last. With a hiss of annoyance, she tossed the phone along with her handbag on to the back seat. Then she said to Furo in a composed tone: ‘Time to go home.’

  Home was just around the corner from The Palms. The car turned off the highway and sped through a succession of side streets that threw off Furo’s bearings, and then cruised down a stretch of blacktop which ran from end to end of a housing estate. On the left side of the road stood a high fence, beyond which was the rest of the world. On the right, arranged in a barrack sprawl of identical roofs, was Oniru Estate. Syreeta parked by the side of the road, metres away f
rom the second gate and, after climbing down barefooted from the car, she opened the back door and took out her red-blinking phone, her handbag, the plastic bag containing her packed meal, and a pair of rubber slippers, which she slipped her feet into before beeping the car locked. Furo followed her across the road to a plank footbridge balanced over the roadside gully, and then through a pedestrian gate into the residential area. White sand, a deep layer of it, covered the pathways between houses. They trudged through this seabed, her slippers flinging grains back at him, his feet sinking with every step. Sand slipped into his shoes and chafed his ankles, and by the time they arrived at her apartment, there was sand gritting between his teeth.

  Like most houses in Oniru Estate, Syreeta’s was as down-to-earth as a concrete bunker. The slapdash architecture only allowed for one design flourish, which was the whitewash on the walls. The front door opened on to the kitchen. Syreeta had switched on the kitchen light when her phone, which had kept ringing during the drive from the hotel, started up again. She didn’t take the call until she led Furo to the parlour and sank down beside him on the settee.

  ‘What do you want?’ The phone pressed to her ear with her right hand, she inspected the fingernails of her left. Almost a minute passed before she spoke again. ‘I’m not your property. Tell that to your wife.’ As she listened, she dropped her hand in her lap, tugged up her skirt, and scratched the inside of her thigh. Catching Furo’s eye, she stuck out her tongue at him. ‘I met him at The Palms. I was bored and he asked me out. Did you think I would sit there and wait for you all night?’ A pause, and then she yelled, ‘Don’t shout at me!’