Ннеди Окорафор - Lagos Noir

He sent N3,000 to his mother at the end of the five weeks and promised to send more as often as he could. He also began to keep an eye out for his own Lagos girlfriend, one like Ifeatu had. A beautiful girl he could not take home to his mother, but one who would open all the joys between the thighs of Lagos to him.

Emeka met Sikirat on a Friday afternoon. She had chosen him — out of all the other okada drivers clamoring for her attention — because she liked the way he looked. She told him this that very day, when Emeka dropped her off at her destination, a restaurant where she helped her aunt sell “the best jollof rice Lagos has ever seen.” She would like to see him again, could he come visit her the next day at around seven p.m? The forthrightness with which she admitted being attracted to him, the fact that she would even admit it, made Emeka fall immediately in love with her. Not a single woman he knew in Enugu would tell a man she was attracted to him — it was not done. Enugu girls were raised to be demure and shy, and to never make the first move. He was not surprised that when he tried to kiss her, she kissed him back with just as much fervor. There was none of the pulling back he’d experienced with girls he had dated in Enugu. Nwamaka, his last girlfriend before he left, made him wait for two weeks before she let him give her a French kiss, annoying him by giggling when his tongue snaked into her mouth, as if he were tickling her. But Sikirat took the lead. She had short-cropped hair, a low waist, a rounded neck — not necessarily things Emeka had thought he found sexy, but he discovered that he would not have her any other way. That such women existed! That one of them had chosen him!

Emeka was now eager for his own space. If he lived alone, Sikirat said, she might be persuaded to move in with him. Saving for a new home and buying the necessities for Sikirat (phone cards so she could call him whenever, a tight pair of jeans to bring out her curves), plus sending money home to his mother and taking care of Hope’s school fees, left Emeka with hardly anything after paying off Reverend.

It was Amos who told Emeka that the only way to double — even triple — his earnings was to do the shifts that many okada men, especially the family men, did not want to do. If Emeka worked from midnight to around seven a.m., he could charge passengers up to three times the going rate. At that hour, passengers were eager to get off the streets and go home. “You are a young man. You can do this shift.” The only problem, Amos warned, was that the policemen at that time of night also got greedy. They knew the okada men who worked late hours earned more, and so they doubled the bribes they asked for. “But if you make N20,000 in one night, you can easily pay a N3,000 bribe! And some men have been known to make that much.”

Emeka began doing the midnight shift. He found that he liked it, being out without the sun beating every inch of him. As Amos had promised, his earnings increased so that, even with the inflated bribes he paid out to the cops who dotted Lagos at that time of the night, he still had enough to put some away. The added bonus was that during the day, while Ifeatu went out to sell sachet water, Sikirat could spend a few hours with him before going to her own job.

Sikirat complained of having to make love to him in another man’s house. It was as if, she said, she was in a relationship with Ifeatu as well. Besides, she was tired of squatting in another man’s home. “I can’t relax here,” she said. Emeka promised her that he would find a flat. He was already saving for it, a one-bedroom she could decorate exactly how she wanted, somewhere she could relax. He called his mother and made promises with the reckless abandon of one for whom the world was exactly as it should be. And why not? If things continued the way they were, he would be able to pay off the motorbike and graduate to a taxi in under a year. He would be able to move Hope and his mother out of their flat — where there were pots and pans in the bedroom he had shared with Hope, and crockery under his mother’s bed, because they did not have their own personal kitchen — into a better place in Enugu. He would be able to set his mother up with another business. Perhaps she could open up her own Bend Down Boutique, or BDB, selling secondhand clothes and handbags in front of the house. Sikirat’s cousin had a stall in Lagos’ BDB paradise, Katangowa, and could introduce Emeka to his wholesaler (who shipped in directly from Cotonou via “Ah-may-reeka”).

Just three and a half months after starting the new shift, Emeka carried his first white passenger. The man’s car had broken down around Obalende and he had gotten out and hopped on the first okada he saw. Emeka could not believe his good fortune. It was a slow night, as if the entire city had decided to stay indoors, and he’d begun to worry that he would return with nothing to show for it. The man directed Emeka to an address in Victoria Island. It was a long way off, not the kind of distance Emeka was comfortable traveling after midnight, especially on a night as deserted as this, but it was an opportunity he would be foolish to blow. Emeka knew that after this one passenger he could close up shop for the night. Expats were known for being generous with naira; he could easily ask this man for N10,000 — and he ended up with N15,000. The extra five was: “To say thank you for saving me from a pretty rough situation.” Emeka stuffed the money into his wallet, the weight of it under his buttocks giving him a buoyancy that made him fly as he rode. He could spend the next day, Sunday, with Sikirat and not worry about working. He could get the first consignment for his mother’s BDB. He would take the day off, and why not? With these thoughts still running through his mind, he didn’t see the police van until it was almost in front of him, cutting him off. Emeka killed his engine and waited for the cops to step out.

“Anything for the boys?”

Emeka looked around — there was only one guy. If there were others, they would have come out by now. They were like wolves, Lagos policemen. They hunted in packs. One policeman required less money. Emeka did the math and pulled out a N50 note.

The policeman laughed. “You wan play? You tink na play we dey play here?” He sounded drunk.

Emeka doubled the amount. He knew the game: you told the policeman it had been a slow day, you had a family to look after, rent to pay, and then you came to a compromise agreeable to both parties and went on your way.

“Boss, I no get more. Please.”

“I fit keep you here twenty-four hours,” the policeman said.

Emeka was in no hurry tonight. He had all the time to haggle. He added another fifty. He decided that if the policeman rejected it, he would add another fifty but that was it. His mother always said that the person who holds another down to the ground must stay down too. There was no way the cop could hold him for a day. He would have to stay put as well. Emeka could play this game — he did not arrive in Lagos yesterday.

When it came, the slap blinded Emeka and threw him from his bike. “Empty dat ya wallet. You tink you can insult a whole policeman? N50, N100? You mad? Bloody civilian!” Lagos police and commercial drivers had an unwritten agreement: the latter were fair in the amount of bribes they gave, and the former never physically assaulted them. That the policeman was not playing by the rules riled Emeka. This man was not getting another kobo from him. He had been more than fair in his offer. Besides, whatever options Emeka had, emptying his wallet was not one of them. How could he give over everything he had earned that night? Fifteen thousand? He thought of the flat he had promised Sikirat they would go to next month to sign a one-year lease on. He thought of Hope’s school fees he still had to pay. He thought of his mother. He thought of the N7,000 he had to give Reverend the next morning. He thought of Leviticus 26:18. He could feel his wallet deep in his back pocket, the weight of it reassuring him.