Homecoming of the gods

by Frank Achebe

  ‘I still can’t quite tell till this very day what happened. But he was gone in a flash. Words were said about it. Some believed he had run away with another woman, as is popular with men of our time. Some said he died…. I had no idea. All I know is that he took a part of me with him. And for that I am grateful.’

  ‘But you waited for him?’

  She wouldn’t answer.

  ‘You waited for him, you did. You wouldn’t marry another man.’ Zach pressed. He almost added ‘until you passed your prime.’

  ‘Yes, not that there were not enough men who were asking for my hand. He loved me all too deeply. Wherever he went, I know he took a part of me with him. I am consoled by that. I am grateful for that.’

  ‘You still are hopeful.’ Zach said almost apprehensively. He knew she, like Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, was concealing an incorruptible dream, one which she feared had become a nightmare.

  She wouldn’t answer. She fell into silence as she stood and headed to the door. She opened it and Zach got the message. It was already late.

  ‘Do you believe in the raising of Lazarus?’ was her question as he made his way out of the door.

  ‘I do,’ was Zach’s answer.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Poster Boy

  Mwāi, an eleven-year old bespectacled boy was one of those children who had been raised to believe in their ‘specialty’. It bloated his ego. It made him haughty. But at the same time, he found in it a reason to succeed in life, a reason that was greater than his hunger for success. He was indeed intelligent and was revered for it and rewarded for it by being made the subject of such abundant hopes. It was not that he came from a destitute family, to whom he would mean everything for the future. On the contrary, his family were respectable on some level. It just happened that he had showed exceptionally abilities at his schoolwork. ‘You would be this. You would be that, someday. You’ll make us proud…’ was the ring of it all. They gave him the sense that he ‘belonged to the universe’ and that his life would have implication for everybody.

  He wholeheartedly accepted those hopes and tried to exist in them. He hoped as they did that one day the world would crowd and bow to him. His growing vision of the world had him at its centre. Like Joseph, one day, the moon, the sun, and the stars would bow at his feet. He grew in this expectation as it grew with him.

  He had become the leader of those other eight boys, partly because his parents lived in Noiā and he went to a more prestigious school there and partly because he had come to get them to believe in his specialty. He was spending the holidays with his grandmother in Nānti as he did every long holiday. He had many city-stories to tell, all of them mostly exaggerated to produce a feeling of sensationalism and profoundness on his ever-eager audience. His stories about the characters in Cartoon Network, the wrestling matches and his visits to the zoo were the most impressive.

  He did have some qualities that made him a true leader among the boy. One of such qualities was his assertiveness. Another was his profoundness. Most of the other boys wavered in their own decisions but he was always going at it. In the face of his resoluteness appeared their own weak-mindedness, for which they let him make their decisions for them. They had given up on the raven riddle but he was only started. He was determined to prove that he was indeed the best as prophesied.

  First, he had managed to have his mother post him a photo of a raven cut out from a science magazine. He would spend every evening observing it and trying to make out the relationship it had with a writing desk, apart from its legs. He would try rearranging the words as if looking for a patter in them that would answer the riddle. He was certain that Alright was not lying to them. In any case, he was blinded by his desire to prove himself. His grandmother also fuelled this passion, perhaps more than anyone else.

  # # #

  He had known all about the vegetable boy. He was the one boy that the other boys were told to keep away from. When he had the chance, he’d joined the other boys to poke fun at the vegetable boy. One of those was throwing stones at the boy’s shack. They would drop off on their way back to throw pebbles at the boy’s shack. Sometimes the boy would come and chase them off and they would turn it into a sport seeing that he could not chase all nine boys at the same time.

  Seeing the Volvo car, the beautiful lady inside it and that man with the thick beard in Pûjó’s shack had made an impression on him. On his arrival that midday, he had set out to interview his grandmother.

  ‘Grand ma, what makes people mad?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know exactly my boy. You see I’m not a doctor for mad people.’

  ‘It’s called a ‘psychiatrist’.’

  ‘I didn’t get that, my boy. You said ‘psy….’

  Mwāi had repeated himself with a smile. He loved showing off his knowledge and his grandmother loved him showing off his knowledge.

  ‘What about Pûjó? Why is he mad?’

  ‘Well, Pûjó is not exactly mad.’

  ‘What then is wrong with him?’

  ‘Why do you want to know, my boy?’

  ‘I just want to know, grandma.’

  ‘You know, when you go to school, they might have more to say about people who are like Pûjó. Scientists are now explaining things that we’ve long taken for granted. I used to think I knew the world. You know, when I was your age, we believed that there were spirits that stole salt left in the open. But now, all of that has changed. It was your father that told me what really happens to salt when it is placed in damp air. They have explained it all. I really don’t know but I think their own explanation works better. Is it not you who told me that the earth is not flat?’

  ‘Yes, grand ma.’ He’d also given her proofs.

  ‘You showed me photos of people landing on the moon?’

  He’d showed her photos cut from magazines. She had a curios personality herself and a lot of respect for her grandson, which made it easy for her to learn.

  ‘You see. Things are changing. I think those psy…’

  Mwāi helped her out again.

  ‘Whatever they are called. I think they should be able to explain Pûjó’s case. But left for me, I’d see him as a victim of one of our many superstitious beliefs. And there have been one too many of them. Think of all the twins that were drowned in the River. Your generation is a blessed one.’

  It was as if in that moment he became determined to know more about the world. More than that, the discussion had softened his feelings towards the vegetable boy. His thought went to the twins who had died because of the ignorance of their age.

  # # #

  The next morning as they returned from Alright’s classes, they had stopped at a fresh obituary poster. The poster was announcing the death of a middle-aged man. His face covered half of the poster. They had read the announcements underneath the photo in turn.

  One of the boys, Damian, a burly one, then took out a marker from his bag and started adding features to the face. The boys looked on some giving suggestions, others hailing him. First he added a beard, a thin one. Then he proceeded to add a pair of fake spectacles to the face. Then he patched up the face in places with thin lines. He was indeed talented.

  ‘Who is this?’ he asked when he was done and they all roared: MWĀI!

  Damian was now the centre of attention. Mwāi didn’t seem to have any problems with that. He joined them to hail the painter.

  They found another poster and did the same thing. Now they were about to get into real trouble because they were determined to do it till the last poster.

  Their next stop was a building on the road at the junction. It was a low building that had its back facing the road. The boy’s jumped on it and it was suggested that the face that was to be styled on the poster would be Pûjó’s.

  ‘Make vegetables grow from his nostrils.’

  Damian had gone to work on the face with his quick hands and black marker.

  Mwai stood behind him, a look of displeasure appearing on his face.

&
nbsp; # # #

  Zach had returned from his morning river ritual to find the boy wringing painfully on the bed. He had not seen him for two days now. He still wouldn’t take his drugs. In no time, he slept off. Zach had gone back to the valley to pick garden eggs. He would chew on them while reflecting and waiting for his hand-rubbed coat to dry in the sun. As he returned after two hours later, the boy was now vomiting blood. He was shivering violently and the heat radiating from his body could boil a jug of water.

  Zach was alarmed. He had no doctor instinct. He would have to take the boy to the health centre. He heaved the boy onto his back and turned into the road. The boy for his sickness was not any lighter. He was just as heavy as he’d been the last time.

  He hit the road…

  # # #

  The boys stopped at their prank when Zach came into full view with the boy on his back. The expressions on their faces were more profound than the last time. They were shocked.

  After the bearded man walked onto the road, they all stood and looked on in silence at the man. Mwāi took the first step towards the man and the rest followed now in silence at a distance. Zach continued the walk with the boy on his back with the boys coming behind him. Eyes would turn at the sight of a man carrying a ‘mad’ boy, a vegetable. Fingers pointed. But Zach’s feet shuffled on with frantic steps. He had very little time to waste.

  Twenty minutes later, they were back in the wardroom. Nurse Blessing put the boy on a drip and he slept off. She was not a doctor but she was positive as before that it was a case of pneumonia. It was popular among the people especially during rainy seasons.

  # # #

  The boys stood outside the door of the hospital for a short while. One after the other, they began to slip away until only Mwāi was left standing. In time, he too slipped away but the impression had been made. The image of a man carrying a vegetable boy on his back had forever transformed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Blackout

  Zach slept with the boy in the wardroom. He had the nightmare again. The voices were getting clearer as were the faces but he could not yet make anything helpful to his curiosity of them.

  He was woken partly by the stinging of the full dawn in his eyes and partly by the sound of two women conversing in low tones. He woke to the voices of Kuniā and Nurse Blessing.

  ‘Hey,’ Kuniā greeted. ‘You need a haircut and a shave.’

  ‘Good morning, can’t afford one.’

  ‘Some clothes too,’ added the nurse.

  ‘How about the boy?’ Zach switched the conversation.

  ‘He’s good. You have seen that we do not have a resident doctor. However, I still think its pneumonia. He’s going to be fine after all.’

  ‘She’s already told me about Hééb.’ Kuniā observed. ‘I want to go and speak with his mother.’

  ‘No,’ Zach protested. ‘I’ll go see her myself. Stay with your father.’

  She agreed. ‘So what about the shave?’

  ‘Can’t afford one now.’

  She opened her purse and took out a bundle of very crisp notes. Zach was rich again. ‘Don’t bother about the boy, it’s on me. If it persists, I can get him a doctor. As soon as you can, you can move into the house.’

  Zach was not sure he wanted to. However, he was thankful though.

  With that, the two women left him. The boy slept on peacefully. An IV was hanging from his arm. Everything seemed to be in order.

  Zach took the bundle of notes, and headed out of the wardroom. The river had become a ritual and he felt like going to it one more time. He would have preferred a warm bath in that great mansion and one meal as he’d had last Sunday. But he knew to be still for a while longer. Now he contemplated going to the barber’s shop or going to the river. He didn’t know any barber shop in town and so he chose the river. However, just as he had crossed the wide gutter that led up to the health centre and was onto the road, he heard a voice calling out his name from the other side of the road. It was the hunter.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you all over town. What happened to the boy?’

  ‘He had an attack. Took him to the hospital.’

  ‘Alright, so where are you headed now?’

  ‘To the river.’

  ‘Phew, you need a haircut and a shave too.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t know any barber shop around town.’

  ‘Oh, Black.’ And with that being suggested, the hunter led the way again to Black’s shop. Zach followed wondering why everyone were now into haircuts and shaves. He must have been looking that bad.

  # # #

  ‘That girl is the bomb. Phew… I could have been a pornstar. She let me have it any way I wanted.’ Rush said with a proud grin.

  ‘With a body like that, who wouldn’t?’

  ‘She’s still sixteen, can’t you tell? You couldn’t get with the older ones, now, you’re defiling teenagers. You idiot!’

  ‘I didn’t force her. She let me have it!’

  ‘Pray her father doesn’t catch you.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to bother, does he? Heard that she gets her to blow him too?’

  ‘How about that?’

  ‘Wonder why he has not married since his wife died? He’s a pervert himself.’

  ‘So it’s you that has been inflating her hips? Huh?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been me. I am the new guy. Ask him…’

  ‘Me? I did my homework well. I’m done with her though, you can have her all you want and all you can.’

  ‘You put that thing on her chest. Look at how big those breasts are already. She’s just sixteen. Both of you are wicked punks.’

  ‘Not exactly, she pads them sometimes with tissue.’

  ‘What about you? You can’t get with girls. That’s why you are a wanker. One day you’ll wake to find your balls missing.’

  ‘You know I can. I’ve got plans niggers. I’m not going to spend my life in this town. So I’m good with wanking it off for now.’

  ‘Ha ha ha. Look at this fool. Who doesn’t have plans, nigger?’

  ‘And what does having plans have to do with laying chicks?’

  ‘It makes you focused.’

  ‘Fool, I think I know what the nigger is scared of?’

  ‘AIDS.’

  ‘You’ve been really taking your mother’s advice, boy.’

  ‘You have no mother, you punk.’

  ‘Well, do you fear death?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Tell me you don’t use condoms; tell me you still believe that AIDS is a ‘myth’. Tell me you still eat your food raw and without cooking it. Since you have no mother to advice you, I’ll give mine free. Nigger, AIDS is real.’

  # # #

  It was a few minutes to eight o’clock when they arrived the small off-road building that was Black’s shop. Behind it was an extension that had a band of boys gyming, smoking and talking about last night’s sex. It was a morning routine for them.

  By the time Zach and the hunter arrived, it was ‘OPEN’. The workaholic barber had just put up the sign. They stepped in and were directed to a bench where there were other two customers were waiting. The barber was very well in a bad mood that morning. But he looked professional as he went about preparing for the day’s job. The shop was cleaned up, as was the mirror and every other thing on the work desk.

  The barber indeed had a good work ethic. He was on his radio in no time, cleaning out the Tupac tapes, blowing dust from them and stacking them in the order for the day. He normally started with the latest (All Eyes On Me) and end with the oldest (2pacalypse Now). As the day progressed though, he would preselect according to mood.

  The walls abounded with Tupac quotes. ‘Military mind mean money.’ ‘Only God can judge me.’ ‘Keep your eyes on your riches.’ ‘THUG LIFE: The Hate U Gave Lil Infants Fuck Everybody’. ‘The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.’ ‘A coward dies a thousand deaths, a soldier dies but once.’ Others were memes associated with the rapper. ‘Outlaw
Immortals.’ ‘Fuck B.I.G.’ ‘Black Power’, ‘Fuck Bad Boy’. N.ig.g.a: Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished. ‘Five shots….’

  Three large posters of the rapper covered prominent parts of the wall. What remained of the wall was filled with photos of the rapper cut from newspapers and magazines and album pack covers.

  Zach and the hunter sat and watched the muscled barber. He looked late into his twenties. His hair was plaited backwards. He was wearing a blue tank top. He was in a bad mood.

  From behind the door that led to the extension, an unlikely conversation filtered in. It went from the sixteen-year old girl to the wanker to AIDS to the Olympics to Black himself.

  # # #

  ‘Black has been in a bad mood lately.’

  ‘There’s been a blackout.’

  ‘I can’t quite tell.’

  ‘He has been keeping to himself.’

  ‘He hasn’t been on these bells for a minute. He hasn’t been gyming. He has been quiet for a while now.’

  ‘Shit is real.’

  There was silence on Zach’s side of the door. On the other side, the discussion petered off into low whispers.

  ‘It’s that chick.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Borûn. That whore.’

  ‘Damn Black.’

  ‘He’s got something on her.’

  ‘That whore—’

  The word ‘whore’ was still hanging in the air when the door bust open and Black bounded in. There were hard and deathly blows, made with murderous intent to kill. There were painful screams and sounds of people holding Black back. He was still silent.

  ‘You hit me because of that piece of toilet tissue?’ was heard outside, as the victim of the blows was led away cursing aloud as he struggled to say something before they took him too far. ‘You have no honour to be slithering on that shit. I have fucked that bitch once and now, you’ve given me the chance to it over and over again now. Any position I want for free. That is all she’s worth. That is the only thing she’s good at. When next I see her, I will tell her that someone is dreaming of getting HIV from her. Idiot. Fool! Bag of dirt! I’d rather have you love me than love that piece of shit.’