by Uwem Akpan
“No, not at all.”
“By the way, I don’t think this guy has any secret solution anywhere! He said to tell you the plastic bedcover he bought only made the bed feel like a sack of bay leaves. He’d rather die of the bedbug reek!”
I asked if he could call the city back to say he mistakenly mentioned my name. I came to understudy publishing, not city hall bureaucracy. If the city punished Canepa, he was likely to react, either hitting me directly or taking it out on Lucci, who would still torture me. Then he swore the city was not going to come after me for not calling them. He said even Brad, Jeff, and Alejandra, whose names he also mentioned to the city, had refused to oblige. They told Keith they needed a week or two to see whether today’s extermination worked. I said it was an afid-ito hotline if their reaction time was a week, backlog or no backlog.
THOUGH I WAS HAPPY to make up with Keith, the following day, Father Kiobel and I cried for Tuesday, because we could only imagine the trauma that finally threw him into this abyss of whiteness. I thought of calling Tuesday, but I did not know what to say. I assured the Bronx I would be gentle with him if he himself called to accuse me of “exposing” him back home. Then I thought, perhaps, people like him would benefit from the theme of “Black Shame” in the manuscript Thumbtack in my Shoe.
CHAPTER 27
If she hears you quarrel with your BFF, she’ll be gloomy
YET, ON THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 20, I HAD NO DOUBT that I had finally come face-to-face with my executioners and sadists when I felt something burrowing in between my butt and the white sheets. It was a week after Keith had hired an expensive firm with sniffer dogs to solve his problem—and only God knew how they did it.
I leaped for the lights and straightened the sheets, to search. Searching my bed, I discovered a splatter of bright blood near a burst bug, the carcass the size of the smallest dark crushed grape. I believed I had popped it when I jumped. It had a wild pungent smell worse than that of the fireflies I caught as a child, and the amount of blood was far more than what six mosquitoes could have drawn. It seeped through to the mattress cover. I saw another fresh accident site with even more blood. I started feeling my buttocks, a blind, unconscious search. Nothing. When something moved on the mattress in the periphery of my sight, I smacked at it but missed. It leaped up like a ball on a trampoline and landed. It feigned death, before plodding off. It was dark brown, its flat, encrusted top bent by a swollen, distended tummy. There was no time to take a shoe to it, so I attacked it with the tip of my forefinger. It was soft, initially resisting like a balloon. It pushed back. I persisted till it burst. The dark heavy blood did not splash but stood like a dollop on my sheet, a mound over the carcass, some settling in the whorls of my fingerprint like dye. My suspicion was this guy had sucked me last night or the night before, hence the coagulated blood. The smell was worse.
I ripped off my sheets, only to see two flat hungry ones, apple seeds, scurrying in opposite directions as though they were paid to confuse me. I went after the one which climbed over my pillow, snatching it with my fingertips. But it was so flat I did not feel I had caught it, so when I opened my fingers it dropped and disappeared into the woodwork around my bed. The other had vanished, too. I was tempted to take a crowbar to the whole bedframe and heap the splinters by the sidewalk.
It was bizarre sitting there, staring at my bloody fingers. I was surprised at how calm I was, till I remembered the itch would come. I thought about the anesthesia they had injected into me, to take that amount of blood, at different places without my knowledge. Was it yellow? Was it white? Black? Red? Was it colorless? Now the delayed panic hit me, and I started searching my body as though I had a hundred hidden unfeeling bites. I went and opened the window for fresh air as the real stink of the bugs made me want to retch. The voices were back in my head, saying, In how many places were you bitten?
Three.
No, twenty.
And how many days before the itches?
Four days?
SOMETHING CLIMBED OVER MY FOOT. I bent down immediately, and against the dark wooden floor it was almost whitish and transparent, with a dark spot in its middle, like the intestines of a baby termite. Transfixed, I watched it carefully as it heaved up its head like in a push-up and twisted up its head to stare me down. It was a defiant confrontational pose. Then it moved its head from side to side and then began to work its mandibles in a show of force, moving its retractable proboscis in and out, a dragon warning me of the fire in its belly. I panicked and jumped and stamped the baby bug with both feet four times but regretted this immediately because the dogs sent up an unbelievable din. When three flushes only made the pets progressively more manic and the blood from my hands stained the handle, I tiptoed away, trembling like one lost in the Hammer House of Horror series we watched on Usen’s father’s TV as kids.
I could deal with the welts and wounds. I could deal with the itches and scratches. I could even deal with the flat, fast, hungry bugs or the lazy engorged creatures, little mobile beans. But experiencing that see-through baby of theirs freaked me out. But, above all, I brimmed over with the dread that they were going to suckle on me till they matured and darkened and burst. I went back into the restroom to use my two mirrors to inspect my naked butt. I could not see a thing. No blood idling around a needle’s prick, no little swelling, no enlarged sweat pore. These guys were clean, professional suckers! I was still trying to put my fear of the delayed itches into words when a rash of goose bumps began to pock my buttocks, small lighter mounds with a stiff strand of hair atop each, a Black soursop skin. When I touched my butt, it was cold and rubbery and numbed. How was I to know these were not the slow risings of the bites into visibility? I panicked and scrambled and dropped my little mirror.
It was time to abandon the apartment.
It was time to confide in Usen, no matter the cost. I put on my pajamas and came to stand in the middle of the living room, and on the fifth ring he answered his phone. “What’s up, da?” he said from sleep. “Ekong, nobody calls nobody at two-thirty a.m. in America!”
“I’m sorry, my brother, I get wahala.”
“Calm down, make it snappy. Ade weekday, for Christ’s sake.”
“Nnang ikuk.”
“What? Akwa Awasi, no!”
“It’s bad, it’s bad.”
He told me to take it easy and started to laugh, a dry disconnected distant dreamy thing, and told me an Annang man was not supposed to be that afraid. “Please, let me move in with you,” I said. “I know you’d never ask for it, but I shall pay you even more than I’m doing in Manhattan. Mbok, I’ve suffered silently for too long. And the bloodstains on my fingers right now smell worse than fireflies, and you knew how much I hated that smell as a kid. I shall be there by eight a.m.”
THERE WAS SILENCE before he erupted in an angry, fully awake whisper: “So you brought this shit then to my home!”
“No, I didn’t,” I said.
“Well, since you slept over, we’ve not had peace.”
“Ah no … iyo, but it wasn’t me.”
He became angrier as he told me Ujai was the worst hit. He said she started scratching after my visit. He blamed me for her cutting school, for their lying that the family had flu today, cold tomorrow, cough next week. He said Igwat now slept in a special plastic contraption they carpentered for him, to save his skin.
My night got worse.
Guilt sat on me like on Judas Iscariot. I felt like a man who had destroyed the only refuge he had. My grief reached another level altogether from the Monday my workplace knew of my infestation. Usen said I should pray he did not have to replace their furniture, threatening my family would have to return the piece of land his grandfather gave us before the war. He started telling me the number of New Yorkers who had fled from their homes because of bugs. I apologized again and again for visiting them. I explained I thought I had been itching because of a blood infection, which was why I bandaged my thumb heavily, to protect everyone.
; On the speakerphone, Ofonime reminded him it was ubiomikpe in our culture to shout at someone at night, and in the background Igwat began to squeal. She begged Usen to be sensitive to me and reminded him my grandpa took over her father’s cousin’s tuition after Biafran patrols disappeared her father. “Sensitive, my ass!” he stopped her, screaming louder than the child. “Let’s not becloud things with our Biafra bullshit and his coward grandpa. Ofonime, you sent me to comfort Ekong in the Australian restaurant. Knowing what we had here and feeling bad we didn’t warn him in New Jersey, I even refused to hug him, to protect him … Why didn’t he say he already had the shit? Ever since he started planning to visit America, he’s never been sensitive to us.
“Now that Ujai has not seen any new bites for days, why should I allow this Hell’s Kitchen super-carrier to relocate here? We must guard against re-infestation!”
Once it dawned on me my lodgings appeal was a direct danger to the children, I withdrew it and apologized and asked them to go back to bed. Ofonime ignored me and asked her husband how he knew they themselves did not give me the bugs during the visit or Mass or at the train station. “Please, perhaps Ekong could stay with us if he abandoned everything in Hell’s Kitchen and subjected himself to the crazy bath we’ve been talking about?” she said.
“Even if he abandoned his Black skin totally like Tuesday Ita, I cannot let him jeopardize my kids’ safety,” Usen shouted.
“If you don’t lower your voice, you’ll wake our daughter up,” she said. “And if she hears you quarrel with your BFF, she’ll be gloomy for a week.”
“I don’t care!” he insisted.
I apologized to Ofonime and hung up.
WHEN I HAD GATHERED my spirits, I texted to praise Usen for prioritizing the children’s safety. I begged them to share this crazy bath stuff with me. They thanked me for being understanding but ignored my request. When I pushed—like Jeff Wengui—they pointedly said it was not good for my health. They let me know they were no longer fighting, which gladdened my heart.
I washed my hands in warm water and soap, to banish the bedbug reek. I folded up my bed, like I would never sleep in it again. Then I sat on the recliner, my head filled with recollections of the two kids and mom in the Times article who were roasted for a year while the housing board ignored them. I was so angry I decided to risk everything to fight my infestation.
It was 3:14 a.m.
I called the landlord direct and left him a long stern voice mail, saying he should know he was also punishing the good tenants by avoiding my place. I also said I considered it cruel for one old man to torture another with a broken floor and bad windows. “Do you, Tony Canepa, live in such a rat hole with your family?” I sneered. “Have your grandchildren been bitten by bugs before? It’s beyond inhuman to bully Greg Lucci into using his tears to blackmail me daily. I’m not afraid of your mafia shit! Now, listen up and move your ass: if you know the secret of dealing with this bug shit, justice demands you share it with me, ASAP.” I left him my name, address, and phone numbers. And I told him in no uncertain terms I was Lucci’s illegal subletee.
Just as I was ready to fight alongside Molly even without understanding American publishing, I was ready to fight this stuff even though I did not understand NYC housing laws. I was ready for whatever the combined forces of Greg Lucci, his so-called nephew cop, and the landlord would throw at my foreign Black ass. After all, my Seven Corners insurance covered shipment of my corpse back home—strangled or poisoned or spray-bulleted, like Amadou Diallo was in 1999.
I went to sleep on the recliner because I could not trust my bed anymore. Though I was exhausted, I could not sleep immediately. The recliner was uncomfortable and angry thoughts about Canepa and Lucci and American police filled my mind. Why would Lucci keep throwing his nephew cop in my face? I pondered. I wished he knew that our people could also avenge American police brutality against Black people by going after white Americans in African countries. I wished he knew Father Kiobel had just miraculously stopped our people from certain reprisal violence from consuming our white parishioners.
CHAPTER 28
I Wish I’s in Heaven Sitting Down
AT NOON, USEN SAID HIS LANDLORD HAD ORDERED THE extermination of his entire building. In excitement, I buzzed into Molly’s office to declare I would meet with Liam Sanders alone. “How should I dress?” I asked. She said he did not care but that everyone loved my moss senator outfit at the prize ceremony, or I could wear a jacket. Then she said Jack had resigned to protest Emily’s humiliation and had taken up a job at the Chad Twiss Agency.
I was happy the ata-ufud ata-ufud of a man was gone.
It was like a needle had been pulled from my ass. I did not acknowledge his departure when Emily, who had heard of Molly’s summary version of New Jersey, called to sympathize. With her, I was able to share everything, including the happy reports of the Thanksgiving Mass.
After watching the video clips with Jack, she called to ask more questions about the sacristy, the masked cop tracking me through the coaches, how I coped that whole week, and what I thought of Usen’s refusal to allow Bishop Salomone to visit them. Finally, she said, “Well, since New Jersey has already unfortunately happened, please tell Father Kiobel that, I, too, am touched by his bravery and tears and inclusion of Caro’s family in the memorial. And, Ekong, take heart, too, for Father’s story must remind you of your dad’s.”
“Yes, it’s united us.”
“Hey, Jack and I think this war memorial may be the best time to visit Ikot Ituno-Ekanem.”
“Jack really thinks that? Unbelievable!”
“But I also want to thank you for the race chat with Molly, phobia or not. After her racist questions, she was crushed. I thought she’d quit her job. Telling her humans don’t need to be perfect to fight for others … you taught her the importance of self-acceptance. Without this kind of self-examination, we can never acknowledge the hidden slippery racism of supposedly woke liberal America. I’m heartbroken way too many of us are like this. Ekong, I can’t thank you enough for the enlightenment you’ve brought to me and your graciousness around Andrew & Thompson.
“This is also why your Bronx folks’ parting words to Ujai at that train station broke me down. They reminded me of Trails of Tuskegee’s characters’ hope in America even as their hell raged. It reminded me of my African American classmate’s faithfulness to her story of sharecroppers’ lynching no matter how much we bullied her. Listen, Usen and Ofonime’s ability to reach instinctively for love, to make that decision in such a hate-charged train station, will stay with me forever!
AS SHE BEGAN TO TALK about my visit to Jack’s office, I sat up, hoping he had confessed his racism and that perhaps she was going to pour out the grief of discovering her very lover was another Father Orrin. But she said Jack wanted us to pick a day for Broadway, because the dancing urchins in Newsies could remind me of the street children of northern Nigeria.
Finally, when I found my voice, I suggested mid-December for Broadway, to buy time to figure out how to publicly confront someone as slimy as Jack. When I hung up, I hated how he had conveniently swept his racism under our Nigerian shit. As the Annangs say, Jack was not the kind of bird to track on a rainy day. But my biggest worry was this could rupture my friendship with Emily. Could I handle the aftermath? Was it better to have a dear friend who could not spot the toxic racism in her lover or not to have a friend at all?
No, I must confront her! I swore silently to myself. Caro said I could not return home without this conversation with Emily. She said anybody who could forgive Molly for firing her deserved my honesty no matter what. She said I must confront Jack and Emily in mid-December during our Broadway outing. Father Kiobel said the trick was getting Emily to our memorial event without her boyfriend who called our food vomit.
I could not yet tell Emily that we were humiliated by Jack seeing our Thanksgiving clips. We could imagine him watching our people and silently cursing them while she wept. We could imagine him
siding with Father Orrin and his minions, the way he came around to backing Lagoon Drinker. “I can imagine his disdain at my mere suggestion that Mary and Mommy had anything in common!” Father lamented.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, I got two emails from the Bekwarra family. The first said the old man got his visa and would be in New York the following week. I immediately sent my congratulations and sympathized with all their stress. I called Ofonime three times to share the good news. My calls did not go through. My texts failed as well. I tried Usen. Same thing. “But I’m no longer asking for accommodation!” I gasped when I realized they had blocked my number. I sent an email. Ofonime replied that they would be in touch shortly.
Ominous.
The second Bekwarra email started off as a general thank-you to all “who prayed and supported our old infirm dad through his America visa ordeal.” But there was a special appreciation reserved for the big clerics of our area “for weeks of dry fasting during our struggle with the forces of Satan at the American embassy and for all your Visa Condolence Visits.”
But I sat up when the email went on to solicit even more prayers for all visa interview victims, especially a certain “Montana-bound student who was shipped back to Nigeria from Salt Lake City International Airport and banned from America for five years and is now in a makeshift refugee clinic in Makurdi. His right leg has been cut off, the stump heavily bandaged.” I googled the story quickly, for something would have to be seriously wrong for people across the country to know of this bleached embassy Tiv dancer guy—or was it another person altogether?
However, sadly his internet photos confirmed it was our beloved dancer. He had flunked his point-of-entry interview on his way to Montana; the news story said the Salt Lake City immigration officers had canceled his visa and deported him because he could not prove he would return to Nigeria after college; the boy insisted in the same article that in Utah he had not even been allowed to speak, as the immigration folks were shouting at him like exorcists. During the appeal in Lagos, according to the dancer, the consular lady kept saying, “Excellent, excellent!” but, in the end, denied him all the same.