A. Barrett - Blackass

Furo looked at the rear-view mirror. This was the first time Headstrong had spoken his name since their falling-out. And yet, though the question was offered in a genial tone, the topic was the same that had started the trouble on Monday. Furo had no desire to go down that route again. And so he said, ‘It’s not that simple. But no, you’re not lying.’

‘Aha!’ said Headstrong, and raising a finger, he wagged it in triumph.

With a laugh Tosin said, ‘I give up.’ She turned to Furo. ‘Has Headstrong told you of his plans to migrate to Bulgaria?’

‘Poland! Poland!’ Headstrong corrected, slapping the steering wheel in emphasis.

‘Sorry o,’ Tosin said in tone that showed that she wasn’t, and as Furo said with a grin, ‘He has,’ she smiled back at him. Furo deepened his voice in imitation of Headstrong:

‘My elder brother lives in Poland—’

‘And he’s married to a white woman,’ Tosin completed.

‘Two of una no serious,’ Headstrong said. But he laughed too.

And then Tosin said, ‘And you, Frank,’ but her voice trailed off. After some thought, she reached over the seat back and tapped Headstrong’s shoulder. ‘Before he bites off my head, abeg, Victor, ask him where he’s from.’

‘Even you?’ Headstrong said with amazement. ‘He has shown you his bad temper too?’

‘Yes o,’ Tosin replied. ‘And just because I asked him one small question.’

‘What of me? He threatened to make MD sack me!’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not, I swear to God. The dude dey vex like full Nigerian.’

The smile Furo maintained during this exchange was beginning to droop at the edges. Tosin and Headstrong’s tones had remained good-natured, but the facts they traded pointed to the opposite in Furo. In the pause that followed Headstrong’s last statement, Furo felt he had to speak up to defend himself from the guilt his silence signified. ‘Come on guys, I’m not that bad,’ he said, his tone conciliatory, and then closed his mouth as Tosin whirled on him and demanded, ‘What are you saying? So you mean Nigerians are bad?’

Even as Furo was occupied in weighing what was heavier in Tosin’s tone, the mock or the serious, Headstrong decided. He gave a grunt of amusement, looked over his shoulder, and then burst out, ‘Fire on, Tosin!’ For the first time in days, with a pleasure he had never thought he would feel at the sight, Furo saw spittle flying from Headstrong’s lips. And then he felt it on his face, sprinkling his cheeks — as it also did Tosin’s face. After Headstrong turned back around, Tosin widened her eyes in pretend horror and wrinkled her nose in real disgust. Acting on a feeling that had been building since Tosin entered the car, Furo reached out, took her hand in his, and squeezed. When she looked at him, he mouthed, I’m sorry. She returned the pressure of his fingers. Releasing her hand, he settled back in his seat and said in a chatty tone:

‘Actually, I think Nigerians are great people—’

‘Let me hear better thing abeg,’ Headstrong interjected. ‘Just tell us where you’re from.’

With a glance at Tosin, Furo said, ‘I’m American.’

‘Barack Obama!’ Headstrong yelled, and punched the car horn with both hands.

Approaching the Ikoyi end of Awolowo Road, turn into the last street before Falomo Bridge, then take the first right and keep looking left, keep going until you see a shrine. Seventies Lagos in its architecture, the facade of the two-storey building was neo-rustic. Set in the front fence, which was streaked with creeper plants and daubed with protest graffiti, was a wrought-iron pedestrian gate. From the gate a stone-paved walkway cut through a grass patch populated with scrap-metal sculptures, cracked clay pots and wooden wind chimes. More wood inside, from the ceiling beams to the stocky unvarnished armchairs to the slabs of mahogany trunk that served as tables in the restaurant-cum-bar. Hanging from the walls of the dimly lit chamber were pencil drawings of Fela and canvases of Ehikhamenor iconography and framed photos of Lagos street scenes captured in monochrome. A widescreen TV rested on brackets beside the bar, and from a concealed stereo the voice of Fela bemoaned the lot of the common man. The place was packed with dapper folks engaged in one or more of four activities: talking, drinking, dining, and surfing the web on their pricey gadgets. The scent of incense commingled in the air with tobacco smoke.

Furo walked into this scene, the destination for the book delivery, and after halting underneath the entrance archway to take his bearings, he headed towards the barmaid who welcomed him with a gap-toothed smile. He smiled back before saying, ‘I’m here to see Mr Kasumu,’ and after the barmaid placed a call on the intercom, she told him that Kasumu wasn’t in but he’d left a message that his visitor should wait. Picking up a menu from the stack on the bar counter, Furo turned and approached a nearby table. Headstrong was waiting in the vestibule with the delivery package, and now, in response to a hand signal, he came forwards and placed the carton by the table, and then left to fetch Tosin from the car. Furo passed time by reading the menu, and when Tosin arrived with Headstrong, he offered the menu to her, but she shook her head no. Handing the menu to Headstrong, he asked if he wanted a drink, to which Headstrong replied he wouldn’t mind a cold Harp. Then Headstrong opened the menu, and his expression darkened until, bending towards Furo, he said in a scandalised whisper, ‘Their beer nah four times normal price! I can’t drink here o, the beer won’t taste sweet in my mouth. If you give me half the money I will go outside and buy something to eat. That one is better than wasting money in this rich man juju house.’ Chuckling at the truth of Headstrong’s words, Furo reached into his wallet, then passed across five hundred naira, and as Headstrong stood up with a thank you, he said to him, ‘Don’t go far. We won’t be here long.’ But now, for the time being, he was alone with Tosin in a setting that lent itself to romance, and since neither had ordered drinks, they soon discovered they had nothing to do but avoid each other’s eyes and eavesdrop on the chatter from other tables, some occupied by couples, none of whom seemed as awkward as Tosin looked and Furo felt. A lull in the room’s conversation threw into sharp relief a phrase from the song that was playing at low volume. Bend your yansh like black man , Fela chanted angrily, and Furo, with a frisson of apprehension at the prophetic force of those words, shifted his buttocks in his chair, and then glanced towards the clomping footsteps on the wooden staircase at the front of the room, from where emerged a heavyset man with skin so pale it looked bluish. He carried a tripod in one hand, a video camera in the other, and he was dressed like a journalist, in khaki shorts, canvas boots, and sun-faded face cap, with a backpack riding his shoulders. His T-shirt gave him away as an old Nigeria hand. It was plain white except for the large green lettering inscribed across the chest, which read, OYIBO PEPE. Marching past the table, he caught the direction of Furo’s eye, and winked at him from a deadpan face.

‘That’s a man who’s sure of himself,’ Tosin quipped as she watched the man over Furo’s shoulder. Her gaze soon changed direction, a guarded look entered her face, and leaning closer to Furo, she spoke in a whisper. ‘I think someone knows you. She’s coming this way.’

Syreeta , Furo thought with a sinking feeling, but when he raised his eyes to the woman who halted beside him, the stone loosened from around his neck. The first thing he noticed was that she wasn’t Syreeta. The second was that on all ten fingers she wore silver rings in designs that ranged from animal motifs to adinkra symbols. She was slender, bosomy, her dark skin glistened with lotion, and her henna-dyed dreadlocks fell to her neck. Her unpainted lips, now curved in a smile of greeting, were cigarette-blackened. On closer inspection, her air of melancholy was an effect of her large, deep-set eyes.