A. Barrett - Blackass

They were across the road from the buka before Furo recognised it as the place he had visited all that time ago, the roadside buka where he had eaten on the day of his Haba! interview. The same curtained shed where a fight had broken out between the food seller and her customer, the same food-is-ready spot where he hadn’t paid for his meal. Hadn’t yet paid, and hadn’t paid only because the fight had given him no chance, but now, at the first chance he got, he had come back to pay — that would be his story for the meat-gifting food seller with the red hair. In actual truth, if he had known beforehand that this would be where they were headed, he might have found a reason for not coming along, but now that he was here, it was the right place to be. Holding that thought in his mind, the karmic rightness of his unintended actions, he followed Tosin across the busy road and through the dusty curtains of the buka.

The buka was vacant except for the food seller, who now had blue hair. A bright blue hairpiece with silver highlights, it was glued along her hairline, smooth as crow feathers across her scalp, the ends gathered into pigtails that rode her shoulders. Dancehall queen-coloured, Swiss milkmaid-styled. Despite the new hair, it was the same woman who jumped up from her bar stool with an exclamation of recognition. Of course she remembered him. She was very sorry for what happened the last time, no mind that idiot. No, no, no worry, forget the money, forgive the past. These sentiments were gushed out after Furo approached her with banknotes clutched in his outstretched hand and said, ‘I was here some weeks back. I couldn’t pay that day because of the trouble with that man, the one who insulted you. I just remembered. Here’s your money.’

Tosin, too, wasn’t a stranger to Mercy’s buka. After her bewilderment was dispelled by Furo’s explanation, she greeted the food seller by name, then complimented her on her hairpiece, and asked after Patience, her eldest daughter, who sometimes assisted her mother in manning the establishment, but did so less these days as she had entered university, a fact her mother offered in a tone so full of pride that Furo even smiled. Pleasantries dispensed with, Tosin asked for oha soup with pounded yam, a meal which Furo, upon her recommendation, joined her in ordering, to Mercy’s expressed delight. And then, while the food seller busied herself in dishing out the food, Tosin leaned across the bench towards Furo, closer than they had been in three days of lunching together, near enough for her woman smell to tickle the hairs in his nostrils, and placing her hand on his knee, she said in a voice husky with admiration: ‘You’re so real. I like that. I like you.’

‘I like you too,’ Furo said.

On Friday morning, as Headstrong banged his fist against the car horn, Furo looked up from the book he was reading — The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — and stared out the windscreen at the closed gate. He saw at once what it was that angered Headstrong. The maiguard, Mallam Ahmed, was standing beside the gatehouse with his back turned to the gate. He was engaged in heated discussion with Obata and another man who sat in a battered wheelchair. The stranger wore a candy-green muscle shirt and the empty legs of his tracksuit trousers were knotted at the ends. His Popeye arms waved above his head in rage.

‘I’ll get the gate,’ Furo said to Headstrong, and alighted from the car, walked to the gate, and shouldered it open. After the car gunned through, he headed for the quarrelling men. He halted beside Obata, who fell silent and shot him a scowling look, then swung back his face and resumed his stream of insults.

Arinze, it turned out, was the ghost in the gathering. Though his name didn’t once pass Obata’s lips, Furo soon realised that Arinze was the person Obata was most angry at, the one he blamed for what had happened. Mallam Ahmed, out of deference for Arinze, only alluded to him in the most roundabout ways, but at no point in his stumbling defence of his own involvement did he fault Arinze for what had happened. The man missing his legs — the maiguard called him Solo — was the only one who said Arinze’s name aloud. And so Furo put his question to Solo.

‘Wetin happen?’

All three men raised astonished faces. It was Solo who voiced what they were thinking. ‘You sabe pidgin?’ he asked in a tone of disbelief, and at Furo’s nod, he grasped his wheels and rocked the chair forwards. He began to speak, his voice subdued at first, but it rose in passion as Furo responded, and then surged higher as Obata tried several times to interrupt. By the time he wove his story to an end, his wheelchair was rattling from the force of his emotion.

‘But why this oga go come dey threaten my life with police?’ These final words ejected from a mouth that remained open in a rictus of righteousness, Solo flung out his muscled arms and glared upwards at Obata, who saw a chance to get a word in.

‘You’re a liar!’ he yelled and shook a finger at Solo. ‘Just imagine, you tout, you handicapped criminal, telling me that cock-and-bull story! You’re a bloody idiot!’

‘See me see wahala,’ Solo said and swung his frantic gaze to Furo’s face. ‘Oga oyibo, I think you see as this man dey curse me?’

‘Only curse?’ Obata retched up a laugh. ‘I haven’t started with you. If you don’t produce your gang today,’ and here he sucked in air through his teeth, ‘you’ll see what I will do!’

‘So what will you do?’

Obata whirled to face Furo. ‘What?’

Furo maintained a civil tone. ‘Insulting this man is not getting us anywhere. You say he knows where the others are. Fair enough. So what’s your next step?’

‘And how is that your business — Furo Wariboko?’

Furo felt his ears grow hot. His chest burned with loathing. He opened his mouth to release the steam building in him, then closed it as he realised the risk that arose from squabbling over that name. He wouldn’t let Obata trigger him into ceding control. He had everything to hide and nothing to prove, so Obata was rigged to win that shouting match. Right from their first encounter, Obata hadn’t bothered to hide his hostility towards him, and though he was prepared to resist all salvos from that quarter, he couldn’t restrain his vexation at the steady sniping he had endured from Obata all week long. The suspicious glances Obata gave him in passing; the snide remarks Obata uttered within his earshot about the treacherousness of oyibo people; the refusal of Obata to speak his name in his presence; and now, in a marked escalation of their secret war, the broadcasting of that name that had the power to demolish everything that was Frank Whyte. Furo was maddened by Obata’s sneak attack, but he wasn’t mad enough to respond with shock and awe. When he spoke, his voice was cold as iron.

‘Abu gave you clear instructions about my name. Please follow them.’ He paused, marshalling his thoughts. ‘The language I’ve heard you use with these men is inexcusable for someone in your position, and in fact, your attitude regarding this matter is unprofessional.’ In the charged silence, Furo shook his head at Obata. ‘I’m an executive of this company. It is within my right to tell you when your actions reflect badly on us. You can’t go around insulting people. Do that in your house if you must, but not at Haba!’

‘Tell am o!’ Solo exclaimed. Even Mallam Ahmed appeared to have picked a side: he turned his face aside to hide the smirk ghosting across his po-faced demeanour.

For an instant Furo assumed his words had caused an effect opposite to what he wanted, but Obata was more dependable than sweating dynamite. His eyes got redder and rounder as his outrage grew; his throat worked silently as if from bitterness; and then his stillness shattered. His yells flew at Furo like bursting shrapnel.