New York, My Village

by Uwem Akpan

  My spirit was brought down to earth when Tuesday Ita called to invite me and Usen’s family to Sunday Mass and lunch somewhere in New Jersey. I promptly accepted—a chance to meet him long before Thanksgiving and to encourage him to bluntly capture his war woes in the foreword he had promised me on the speakerphone when Usen brought his family to Hell’s Kitchen.

  I RAN INTO MY TWO NEIGHBORS standing by their closed doors. Of course, my approach had silenced them, like they knew the devil’s footsteps.

  “Please, could we talk with you for a sec?” Brad said as I was opening my door. “Hey, we’re talking to you, dude.”

  “Oh, me?” I said.

  “Yeah, it won’t take more than a minute, okay?” Jeff said.

  I stopped, put down my wine, and stepped forward with folded arms.

  They looked at each other awkwardly, before the white guy put on his glasses and introduced himself as Brad Parkes, adding that he was an unemployed engineer. The smaller man, Jeff Wengui, said he was an Iraq veteran and emphasized that he was an employed architect. The employment comments made all of us laugh, easing the tension, before I introduced myself and my fellowship. When they made no attempt to shake hands, I backed away to stand before my door, and folded my arms again.

  “Ekong, do you have bedbugs in your apartment?” Jeff asked fearfully.

  “Bedbugs?” I asked absentmindedly.

  “Yes, bedbugs,” he repeated.

  “Wait … what?” I said, shaking my head, because we had learned in school that things like bedbugs and polio had been eradicated from America. There was silence, and I searched their faces to see whether they were angling to insult my continent like the Humane Society people at the publishing house.

  Brad removed his glasses and said, “Yeah, the bugs, dude, the bugs. Hey, cut the crap. Do. You. Have. The. Shit. Or. Not?”

  “No,” I said ruefully, studying the ceiling’s dirty bulb like I was in the wrong country. I expected them to say it was a joke, an icebreaker. I expected them to burst out laughing.

  “No bites … itches?” Jeff said.

  AND IT CLICKED.

  “Folks, yes, yes, I have tons of nnang ikuk!” I exclaimed, dropping my hands. “Iya uwei, gentlemen, please, I’m sorry, I do have tons of bedbugs!”

  “DON’T PANIC, MAN, we’ve got your back, okay?” Brad said, moving in to touch my shoulder. “We’re full of the shit, too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ekong,” Jeff said, also coming closer. “And, please, keep your voice down. Brad’s girlfriend is asleep inside.”

  “So you’ve not fucking seen the eggs, the babies, the parents, the grannies, huh?” Brad joked. “Well, it’s the smell and the dead ones that gross me out.”

  Once he mentioned the smell, since I had not seen a single bug yet, all I could think of was the smells of my concoction. We laughed nervously and bared our arms to compare scabs and welts, as we were all hiding them in long sleeves. Of course, since they had lighter skin, their devastation looked worse. While Jeff was a worse scratcher than me and his skin was pitted, Brad said he did not have any bad itches yet, but his skin was like mottled pluots or dinosaur eggs. He was quite worried about Alejandra, a marine lawyer originally from Argentina. He bemoaned having to watch her scrape and fret. The whole thing simply sounded like tales from Nigerian prison yards. Though I was relieved to know what the actual problem was, the excitement over my test result had cushioned the impact. As our people say, an antelope that has just survived a lion cannot be rattled by a mouse.

  They said the landlord was sending exterminators to our places a week from today but advised me in the meantime not to be in bed between ten p.m. and five a.m., to avoid the bugs’ feeding hours. They praised me for not allowing bedbugs to derail “everything important” to me. When they glanced at each other, I asked them what they meant. They revealed that many a night they had seen me through the peepholes praying against the rails in “your solemn African religious ritual.”

  “Really touching devotion,” Brad said.

  I looked from one face to another.

  “Wait, I don’t understand you guys,” I said.

  “Oh no, we mean it in a good way,” Jeff said, stepping back, alarmed.

  “Tell me: Did you record my solemn African religious ritual session?”

  “No,” Brad said.

  “Ekong, we have the utmost respect for your worship,” Jeff said, like he wanted to cry, “which is why we never opened our doors, to avoid distracting you.”

  “What respect?” I said. “You’re ridiculing me! You can’t be talking respect when you hurt the feelings of my little niece in the stairwell late last month!”

  “What …?” Brad said.

  “This shit has been going on in your country forever with Black folks!” I screamed. “At Andrew & Thompson, I’m suffering the same shit. At your embassies and airports, the same shit. I’m tired. And you ugly Chinese man, don’t stand there looking all so innocent while China is shitting all over us back home … I think you in particular need to explain to me why you would break into tears just seeing Black people in this building. Why would the sight of a Black child break your heart?”

  Brad stepped forward.

  “Oh, Ekong, I think I remember the incident you’re angry about,” he said. “Parents and two kids? Keith filming them leaving? Look, we’re sorry, for I don’t even fucking know how I came across. Jeff was just bereaved …” He glanced at Jeff, who nodded permission to continue. “Yes, Jeff was crying because his brother had just died in a car accident. We’re sorry.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, too,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Jeff said.

  “I’m really sorry I misread the whole thing then!” I said. “Look, accept my deepest sympathy.”

  “I’ve no recollection of even meeting you guys then,” he said.

  I stepped forward and shook hands with them, because now I could understand how they came to hurt Ujai or misread my nightly back-scratching. And if they really avoided disrupting my prayers and now they voluntarily shared their ignorance, I thought I could drop my guard, too. They asked me to extend their apologies to Usen’s family. Then Jeff shared a bit about the accident, the burial, and how he was coping.

  “I’m sorry for accusing you of snooping on my prayers!” I said, and the kind of peace I had never enjoyed in Hell’s Kitchen since I arrived coursed through my body. I told them about all the things I loved about their fabulous city. I told them how much I enjoyed Times Square, how Starbucks was my personal shrine of leisure.

  But once I remembered my eavesdropping on Jack and Angela in the streets, the voices in my head urged caution and prudence. They reminded me that before Usen’s visit or Jeff’s bereavement, these same neighbors had never extended the least gesture of welcome such as would be expected when someone moves into your village anywhere in the world. Besides, I could not just discard Keith’s sentiments; he knew them better. He had lived with them for a long time.

  What to do?

  Let’s see how they relate with the African henceforth, I told myself. Everybody deserves a second chance. Who knows, I might need them in this bedbug shit.

  BRAD’S DOOR OPENED and Alejandra poked out her head to invite him inside. When she smiled and said hello to me, I just nodded. I was relieved she did not join us, because her smile reminded me of Santa Judessa, the embassy Latina.

  Yet her peek was enough for me to see that their apartment was completely different from mine. It was as stately as Usen’s place, though much smaller. The floor was marble, and the windows and blinds were new. The painting looked professional like our house back home, no cracks or peeling. No pipes on the walls. No taped wires. I even noticed, for the first time, that Jeff and Brad’s doors were different from mine. If I felt jealousy about the fact that Usen’s apartment was First World while mine was Fifth or Sixth World, perhaps I could bear it because these were two apartments in two different buildings in two different boroughs. But I really felt angry an
d cheated that—in the same building, same damn floor—these differences existed. It was like my apartment could serve as a dumpster for my neighbors.

  I was a strange victim of rent stabilization, though I loved the concept.

  Jeff and I exchanged numbers, and he also gave me Brad’s and the landlord’s. I was grateful to him for telling me what to do before the exterminators came in a week’s time. I was to put my beddings and all my clothes through the hottest of laundries; blast everything from bed to blinds to pots with anti-bedbug spray; and buy mattress and pillow covers from Rite Aid or Duane Reade. Finally, he warned me about furniture discarded on the streets, no matter how beautiful.

  I could not call Usen, my super friend, for advice. He would be mad that I had even talked with Brad and Jeff. I called up Lucci, thinking it would be impolite to call the landlord directly. He sympathized with me, saying he would call Canepa shortly, yet he warned that New York landlords were the filth of the earth, with vicious lawyers sticking out their asses. “But listen, buddy, the worst is, if the best and the brightest enter the fray, as a Black man you could be home in a body bag!” he said, his voice surprisingly strong and steady. “My nephew who’s a cop knows how horribly racist our NYPD is!”

  I did not like how he quickly brought in race and cops. I shrugged and said the cop in my Times Square selfie was nice. He said I was naïve.

  IN RITE AID, the Vietnamese American salesman said his neighbors used Hot Shot Bedbug & Flea Killer and showed it to me. On the can, there was a picture of an overturned and singed bedbug, helpless in the yellow flames of the spray. I grabbed five cans, like grenades. He said to pour liquid bleach all over the mattress, to drive them out of hiding, before spraying. I bought two bottles. They had run out of mattress covers, so he directed me to Bed Bath & Beyond by Columbus Circle, promising they would supply all my needs.

  It was the biggest and most beautiful housewares store I had ever seen. But I felt dirty, like I was a distributor of unbelievable ill luck. There were many people buying pillowcases and bedsheets and bedcovers, as they must be doing daily, but, in my mind I could only see bedbug victims. I was staring at them, at their clothes, at their arms and legs for possible bites.

  However, when a saleswoman smiled at me and I saw that there was no one around, I whispered my mission in her ear. She was an old African American lady. She nodded and simply led me to all the things I needed. I was relieved she did not even ask questions, for the shame of being infested did not leave me just because I thought the whole of America had bedbugs. I demanded anti-bedbug covers for the recliner, fridge, chandelier, bath, toilet, vacuum cleaner, etc. I needed to save my hide by all means. My heart sank when she quietly said those household items did not have covers. But I got white beddings to replace Lucci’s colorful ones, so I could see the bugs, that is, if they survived my coming onslaught.

  That evening, I overloaded my cart and laundry bag with dirty and clean clothes alike and went to coin laundry, as Jeff had advised. First, I stopped over at a dry cleaner’s to hand over my suit, explained the circumstances, and promised a good tip. Thankful for the information, they quickly stuck my suit in a special container and closed it with a snap. At Clothespin Laundromat, I did my laundry twice, using the hottest options even with colored clothes. I set the dryer so hot some of my clothes shrank.

  When I returned, I left everything outside my door and came in ready for battle. I doused my pillows and mattress in bleach, back and front and edges, before hitting them with spray. Next, I went after the woodwork around the bed. I pumped away excitedly, a cowboy firing from both hands. I folded the bed and sprayed the release holes. Then I mounted a thin straw on each nozzle, which allowed me to reach every spot. But I had forgotten about the pilot lights on the stove, so when I hit the stovetop, a huge red flame ballooned up, an enraged genie on four blue limbs reaching for the cans. I threw them away as I jumped back to save my face. The burned hairs on my arms drew a putrid odor. When I had been pummeled by a triple sneeze, I sprayed the chandelier, laptop case, and the three locks.

  To avoid inhaling all the fumes, I went outside with my laptop case, and, afraid the harried bugs might travel into the laundry I had left outside my door, I decided to take it all with me to Starbucks. I wanted to let my bleached mattress and pillows dry, believing the spray would have killed every bug by the time I returned.

  On the way, I called Caro: “Caro, baby, I have nnang ikuk.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, you don’t worry, for Ekong Baby has already nailed the little losers.”

  “Unfortunately for you, we all know Times Square, your neighborhood! Abeg, what would bedbugs be doing around that heaven? If the King Kong lady, as you said, could locate you, how would nnang ikuk survive such wizardry? My mother once used common camphor and aran-ikang to rid her home of bugs and then dried her whole bed in the sun. Are you saying there’s no sun in New York? Why not in DeWitt Clinton Park or Central Park? Just stick to the rashes stories, mbok. Why don’t you just say you’ve been drinking and fucking?”

  I parked the cart and told her I was vindicated by my test result. But she said if I were not drinking and fucking around, I would not have gone for a test. “Just come out with your hands raised and cut your losses,” Caro said. “First, just dey help me understand what you were doing in a place called Bed Bath & Beyond a moment ago, as our credit card says. After bedding Molly and bathing together, what’s left?”

  “Please, just google Bed Bath & Beyond. Just google bedbugs in New York.”

  She started to cry and hung up.

  I GOT A TEXT from Father Kiobel, telling me to keep away from booze. He informed me Caro also said I should not call her till further notice, though he himself had googled and understood what Bed Bath & Beyond was. He said ever since I told Caro of how Molly cried over my family war tragedy, she had not been the same.

  When I plodded into the café, the crowd stared at my cart like the homeless had invaded. I was ashamed, because even I knew I was exhausted and sweaty from trekking all over the city and weight lifting the cart up and down the stairwell. Were my eyes red from all the fumes? Did I smell like camphor—the stink of the fumes mixed in with that of burned arm hair?

  I asked for a slice of lemon cake and a venti Salted Caramel Mocha. I found some space to squat and prop up my laptop and cake. I googled bedbug and learned that Cimex lectularius, the species here, could survive for a year without food and that sometimes you may not feel the itch for several days, for they laced the bite with a numbing agent. This numbing business worried me.

  I was distracted by the saleslady bringing me my order and napkins and apologies, hanging her head like someone who might lose her job. Sipping my mocha, I was relieved to read that bedbugs did not transmit any diseases and could only infest Keith’s dogs if the levels of infestation are high. I nodded slowly when I saw that light-headedness, loss of balance, weight loss, high blood pressure, and fever were some of the complications that could worsen or result from infestations. But when I beheld the Wikipedia picture of a white man’s back ravaged by bugs like spray bullets or like Jeff’s arms, it nauseated me.

  I trashed my cake and went to the square. When I caught myself scratching my stomach, bathed in all these flashing lights, it was like I had been caught red-handed, outed—or as though Lady King Kong would beam my shame and everyone would go, yes, it must have been that crazy thermos food. I stormed home to dress my bed in the new sheets and bedcover. Yet everything still smelled like old urine because of the bleach.

  CHAPTER 12

  I’d give anything to participate in a Jewish liturgy

  I WOKE UP THRILLED TO ATTEND THE URAMODESE PRIZE ceremony. After breakfast, I got into a very special moss senator outfit Caro got her childhood friend, the fashion designer Ejiro Amos Tafiri, to craft for me. This would have been another great occasion to don my formal Annang attire. But the last time I had worn it to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the steep stairwell had made it impossi
ble. My morning got better when I received a text from Brad and Alejandra and Jeff asking to take me out to dinner. We chose Friday, though they sounded like they wanted to hang out right away.

  Full of energy and purpose, I threw on my winter jacket, scarf, and cap, and zipped downstairs, whistling folk songs like “Ikworo Ino” all the way to work. In the office, I toiled on the twentieth anthology story, “Divide and Rule Among the Minorities of Biafra.” I immediately hated this title because it sounded more like an essay than a piece of fiction. It was a story about a girl’s rape by a Biafran patrol. But it was not particularly well written.

  In an introductory note, the author, an Ibibio engineer in Dakar, Senegal, included the following important lines, which I considered priceless in any conversation about the war and minorities:

  Of course, most of us minorities have said General Philip Effiong—the Biafran leader’s No 2 and a minority of Ibibio stock—was a sell-out, a traitor, a quisling and so on … but we would never put Chinua Achebe in any of these categories. We insist Achebe truly and innocently believed in his Biafran cause, no matter how tribe-centric he’s come off in There Was a Country.

  I ground my teeth as I wondered if I should suggest that the author of this novella do some fictionalization to make General Effiong look like a saint—the way Achebe himself had deodorized Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, in his memoir. But I could not manage it. Then I became angry I had even considered this.

  Someone arrived at my cubicle with a box of books, gifts from Angela. But, unlike what Molly gave me, these were all books by Black authors. To play along, I gave the dude a quick side hug and asked him unfailingly to relay the same to her. After editing the novella title down to “Divide and Rule,” I fired Angela a thank-you email praising the book covers.