Two-Way Streets

I. En plein air

Makoko at dawn. Overlooking from the bridge. I traverse this path infrequently, but in the rare

instances that my ambulatory experiments bring me to this moment, I stop and look. Filter out the

traffic, the mechanical carbuncles. If you can ignore the sickly-sweet miasma of fish and dross, you

will see the silver-dime sun splintered across the waterface. And you will find the fishermen and

ferrymen drifting out, having undone the ropes that fasten their boats and canoes to wooden posts

on the floating docks, poised with oars and fishnets in hand, their silhouettes against the horizon.

Their houses (on stilts which are rooted in the water) standing behind them. And if you look

closely, you might glimpse their little children; naked brown bodies at play, unworried and blissful,

sometimes diving into the dark water, among the garbage.

II. Useful gadgets but profane

On the patches of dirt beside the main roads one always, essentially, stands inches from death. My

declaration is not ornamental. From where I stood on the pitiable excuse for a sidewalk, the call of

the abyss, the hell-gates creaking open briefly, was for me akin to what I imagine a stuttering

bushbaby might sound like. The culprit of this sonic atrocity was the engine of an okada which went

racing past me. I stepped back and avoided certain death (or at least violent disorientation) by the

breadth of a broomstick. The rider, a simioid fellow, was crouched impudently over the handlebars,

thighs taut against the leather seat. His jacket, a bottle-green nylon, was distended behind him,

rippling in the rapid breeze. On the inflated back, in bold white letters, it read in uppercase:

“TYNEDALE GIRLS FC’’. Out of place, surely.

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I reached out and flagged down a taxi. The car pulled over with some difficulty which was

doubtless related to the visibility of dents and hints of metallic grey where the yellow and black

paint had been battered off. I leaned in through the front window, supporting my weight on the

door.

“Clay Bus Stop.”

The driver, a fat, swarthy man, with a bald patch and sweat stains around his armpits, retorted

without blinking.

“Five thousand.”

“Lai lai. Clay Bus Stop here. One-five ni, o jare.”

I pointed vaguely and tried to appear scandalised. The price he had proposed was, of course, absurd.

It was a way of picking out the johnnies-just-come, a hazing ritual. He grunted and looked

stubbornly ahead, refusing to meet my eyes. I nodded curtly and began to walk away, hand on

brow, as if searching for a more willing cabman, but in fact I was waiting for him to hoot in

acquiescence and slowly drive in reverse to me.

I climbed into the passenger seat beside him and tried to fasten the seatbelt, which I was surprised

to find was absent. He noticed my discomfort and smirked.

“No need now.”

I offered no response. He spoke again after a few minutes.

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“Do you need radio?”

I shook my head and picked up my phone.

“Hello? Ariyo. I couldn’t get an Uber. No, no. The network was bad. But I’ve gotten a regular taxi.”

I turned to the driver when the line was dead, feeling slightly guilty.

“Do you know Uber?”

He frowned and shook his head.

“They are also taxis. You call them on phone and they come and pick you.”

“Ah.” He took a moment to reflect on what I had just told him. “That one dey dangerous o.”

“Eh’en?” I drew the lilting, inquisitive sound from the back of my throat and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes o. In fact they are usually kidnappers. As you call them so, they will just save your number.

Some of them can track it, even to your house. I t’ink you know. That’s what they do. Infact there

was one commissioner that they did it for. They went to his house and stole a whole five hundred

thousand. Killed the gateman and landed the oga in the emergency ward. The man was in a coma.

He still dey there. This one I’m doing is better. At least you can see my face. And you know I can’t

deceive you. Mo ni license ati registration number. Official one.”

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III. Nighthawks

I met Ariyo at Clay Bus Stop, then we went to Opebi where we took money from an ATM, and then

to a dingy bar in Ikeja and we watched football and drank beer and talked for two hours. An

approximation of our conversation:

MYSELF: It’s worrisome, isn’t it? This neo-imperialist invasion of our country by ‘foreign

investors’. And the authorities are complicit. I.T.T. You already know this. We all do. And we

pretend all the same that it isn’t all going to dogs. We just carry on with life as usual. It’s positively

depressing. You get me?

ARIYO: Iwọ lo mo. Please let me imbibe in peace.

I generally talked more than Ariyo did, that pithy fountainhead of wit.

It was a small space, about fifteen feet across, tucked in the corner of one of the crowded, hidden

two-way streets that twist like vines of red earth into the city, off the expressways and main roads.

There are many bars like that one, beer parlors, with cheap plastic tables and plastic chairs, and fan

blades that swing slowly below dull, blue light bulbs. So much clean and well-lit.

We drank until it was dark and the streetlights came on, above in the distance, where their yellow

lights would glance off the cars dashing off home for the weekend. I drank less than Ariyo did. We

drank slowly. Three boys sat adjacent to us, their faces hidden behind tall brown bottles of Gulder.

The matron of the establishment didn’t mind that they were in their school uniforms and even less

that they must have been about three years below the drinking age. She did take umbrage, however

at the fact that when the hour had gotten late and the nocturnal people, red-eyed and red-lipped,

began to tramp into the bar, the boys tried to sneak out the back without paying for their drinks. She

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was a broad woman, as people in that line of business often are, and had rolls of fat beneath her

chin. The skin under her arms flapped loosely as she gesticulated (which she did often and

hysterically), and she had a way of careening, swaying to-and-fro, on the balls of her feet. By doing

that, she thought she was making herself appear taller than her five-or-so feet, but it really made her

look as if she was going to go toppling over, and one couldn’t help but draw backwards for fear of

her large body crashing down heavily and flattening the ill-fortuned soul who wasn’t wise enough

to keep his distance. She spoke rapidly and incessantly, and when she was challenged, she would

place her hands on her hips, stretch her neck forward, eyes bulging, and draw her tongue back

against her teeth, drawing air sharply through a pronounced diastema. It produced a sound that was

almost like clucking.

IV. Pied beauty

The roadside is most delightful at night when the yellow streetlights that dance off the cars merge

with the soft glow from coal-fires underneath aromatic strips of pepper-coated beef, or yam, or pats

of beancake batter.

V. Ata

There used to be scarlet tomatoes piled up in pyramids near the edge of the table which was slightly

tilted. It had been cobbled together from left-over timber (a local carpenter had done it as a favour

for the shopkeeper). She was an old woman who barely had any English but was quick to laughter,

a throaty sound accompanied by the expansion of tribal-marked cheeks. It was marvelous to witness

the fruits in such a precarious composition and yet withstand gravity. They were gone now. The

scarcity, the blockages, the looting. The peppers too: where they had been been fat and red, they

were now underripe and withered. The shopkeeper had grown thinner and I hadn’t seen her son in

some time.

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VI. Eucharia

“Awọn onibara melo lẹ ti ri?

“Ikan pere lo wa.”

“Ọsẹ to’nbọ l’an reti.”

“Aje a wa o.”

“Awọn ọmọ nkọ?”

“Wọn ti lọ si’le iwe. Njẹ o mọ pe Kola ti gba ẹkọ ọfẹ?”

“Mo ṣẹṣẹ ngbọ ni o. Ẹ ku orire. A dupẹ lọwọ Ọlọrun.”

“Ki ni Ọlọrun ṣe t’an dupẹ? Ṣe o ri onibara fun mi ni? Abi iwọ lo ba omọọ mi ṣe idanwo to fi gba

ẹkọ ọfẹ?”

“Ma sọrọ bẹ yẹn. Ninu ohun gbogbo ka sa maa dupẹ lọwọ Ọlọrun.”

“Emi o ni igbagbọ ninu adura. Emi ko ba Ọlọrun ja. Fi mi silẹ, bi mo ṣe wa. Oluwa lo gbọn. Oluwa

lo mọ ohun ti yo ṣe. Mo ro pe alayee mi ti kun rẹrẹ. Ki lo fe ra, o jare?”

Roughly:

“Have you had much luck with business?” (Feigned concern. Polite.)

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“Not much.”

“No worries. Better fortune next week.”

“One hopes.” (Sighs and raises eyebrows while shaking downcast head. Arms folded, meanwhile.)

“And the children?”

“They’ve gone off to school. (Bored intonation. Accompanied by dismissive wiggling of the

sinistral fingers.) Pray, did you get the news about Kola winning the scholarship?”

“Really? Only just! That’s great news indeed! Well done and many thanks to God Almighty.”

(Hastily concealed envy. Honest surprise. Reaches forward in an attempt to embrace.)

(Pulls away in mild irritation.) “What did ‘God Almighty’ (sarcastic emphasis) do that’s so

deserving of gratitude? Did he bring customers my way, or was it he who wrote the scholarship

exam for my son?” (Arms folded again. Now, however, as a belligerent gesture.)

“Ah! Don’t speak in that horrid way. You know that we should give thanks to God in all things.”

(Snaps fingers then bites on dextral index. Meanwhile, the left arm is held akimbo.)

“I personally don’t believe much in prayer. Look...(pauses and establishes eye contact) I have no

quarrel with God. The Lord is all-powerful, all knowing, right? He knows what his business is

about. I know my own business and I am content to mind it too. It’s my life, afterall and not anyone

else’s. But that’s all beside the point (shifts gaze to wares)- what’s it you want to buy?”

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VII. N equals C over V

Sometimes I feel invisible. I wonder if they recognise me. I mean, that is the people who reappear

in my various haunts. Perhaps I barely register an impression. The cripple underneath the Coca Cola

billboard, the traffic warden in his box at the intersection, the jump-suited woman who sweeps the

street. A man approached me one day. He stood in front of me and turned his palm towards me and

spoke, wiping his eyes sadly as he addressed me.

“Please, my brother. Just spare something small. I have not eaten since yesterday. God bless you.” I

emptied my pockets and gave him all the money I had left. He was very grateful.

I saw him again a few weeks later and smiled and waved at him. He looked at me strangely for a

moment, hesitantly. Then he fell into the routine of performance, as he rearranged his features and

spoke softly, his hand trailing across his eyes, even I as reached for my wallet.

“Please, my brother. Just something small. I have not eaten since yesterday. God bless you.”

VIII. Katabasis, (body no be) firewood

The concrete-cluttered skies darkened quickly. The power had gone out early in the evening. Some

of the neighbours had gotten hold of petrol somehow and so their generators rattled on throughout

the night. I’d tried to put on my own generator, but there seemed to be a problem with the spark

plug, and besides the fuel tank must have flooded from all my futile pulling. I’d tried to change the

oil and failed and got my hands soiled for my efforts. Following a few slippery attempts, I gave up

and regained the vertical, rubbing off the sweat now dripping down my brow with the back of a

blackened hand. I then returned to my room and threw myself upon the bed, in half-hopes that the

impact would knock me unconscious.

I found it difficult to sleep. The fall did not concuss me, and so I lay supine on the mattress, eyes

closed and trying to focus my vision on the elusive shapes behind my eyelids. The smell of the oil

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and sweat and the general stickiness of the situation aggravated my restlessness. I could not wash

the grime off because without electricity, I couldn’t use the water pump, and the taps had run dry.

IX. C.B.B.

A schoolboy had been run over by a car. He had run blindly, ahead of his sister and friends who still

stood shocked on the side of the road, vehicles obstructing their view at intervals as his body littered

the ground - a mangled, twisted heap of fragmented bone, flesh, and the rose-pink mixture of blood

and brains. The tires rolled backwards, frantically, vainly, whipping up the waste that now stained

the white stripes of paint on the asphalt.

X. Relative obscurity

A ritual: bodies gathered round in a semi-circle, with necks craning and legs braced for balance. A

motley congregation straining for the morning news. The papers were pinned to the floor by small

rocks on four corners, (laid together side by side by side) to form a composite light-grey rectangle

defaced by inane headers, technicolor photographs and flimsy prose. The proprietor sat a few

meters away, on a wooden stool with uneven legs, slightly off balance, legs apart and elbows on

knees, regarding the scene. He was not an old man, but his dark face was wrinkled and tired, and his

back was irremediably crooked. He had a small beard, a goatee of sorts, which was sparse and

speckled with white hairs. His eyes twinkled behind a silver-rimmed pair of glasses which bestrode

the bridge of his nose. He was alliterate and preferred the radio for his news.

I was among this crowd, mindlessly looking for the nothing new, and finding it, and exchanging

stale opinions. The president, perambulator, was out of the country and ill again. Perhaps he would

die in absentia. The matter remained subject to much speculation.