by Chris Abani
Elvis would nod, inhaling Jagua’s strange incense smell, half scared, half amazed.
“But you were just on Venus a minute ago,” he would interject.
“Yes, but astral travel is not encumbered by time and space, you know. De arcane masters or cosmic mechanics who taught me dis were H. G. Wells and his brother, Orson.”
“Do aliens even speak our language?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Funny child. Of course not, but I speak deir language, just like I speak de language of angels. Anyway, where was I?”
“India.”
“Oh yes, India. Not to mention Australia. You know kangaroos carry de souls of dead aborigines in deir pouches …”
The myths and lies tumbled out and Elvis had believed everything, or at least wanted to. The sad thing was, Jagua did too. Now that he was older, Elvis realized there wasn’t much truth in Jagua’s fantasies.
Jagua yawned as he chomped on his chewing-stick and spat a fine spray of chewed fiber and spittle, scratched his belly and looked at Elvis.
“Good morning, Jagua,” Elvis said.
“Elvis. You go late for work, you know. A punctual man is a spiritual man,” he replied.
“I’m just leaving now,” Elvis said.
“Good.”
Elvis was about fifteen minutes late, and as soon as he got to work he sensed the tense atmosphere. It was the way nobody would meet his eyes. His feeling of unease grew as he walked through the large compound to his station. He had been late before, so what was the big deal now? As he bent to lift a freshly mixed pan of cement onto his head, the chief mason stopped him gently.
“De site manager want to see you,” he said, his calloused palm gently rubbing Elvis’s arm.
It didn’t sound good. It was bad enough when the foreman wanted to see you; but the site manager, well, that was a different matter altogether. Elvis had only seen the site manager from a distance, and there had been no reason for them to speak. Elvis set the head pan down and crossed the compound to the site manager’s caravan, tapping quietly on the door.
“Come in!” a voice barked.
Elvis opened the door and stepped into the cool air-conditioned interior. The floor was covered in plush carpeting and he instinctively took off his mud-splattered shoes, even though he did not step off the rough hemp doormat into the room. The site manager was a young man, in his early thirties. When Elvis came in he was reading a James Hadley Chase novel. He put it down and regarded Elvis through bored eyes.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You asked to see me,” Elvis replied.
“See you?”
“I am the laborer from section six, sir.”
“Oh yes, section six. So you are de habitual latecomer?” As he spoke, he flipped through some papers on his desk.
“Sir?”
“De habitual latecomer,” he repeated.
“No, sir. I have been late only once or twice before. I am sorry, sir. It will not happen again.”
The site manager stared at Elvis for a long time. He hated having to deal with these people. Firing and hiring laborers was not his department, but since he had fired the foreman that morning, he had to do this dirty work now. His father, who owned the construction company, had called and told him to lay off as many people as he could, starting with the foreman—something about being over budget.
“I am terminating your appointment. As from now.”
“Please, sir …”
“Don’t beg. Don’t waste my time. Just get out.”
“But my wages for—”
“Before I count five you should be gone, otherwise I will have some of de boys eject you forcibly. One, two, three …”
There really wasn’t a lot Elvis could do, so he shuffled out of the compound. None of the other workers looked at him, partly from shame, partly to avoid contagion from his bad luck. He didn’t blame them. He would have done the same in their place.
As he waited at the bus stop, he noticed that the traffic had come to a complete standstill and people were running, pursued by policemen, soldiers and local government officials in their dirty brown uniforms. A crowd gathered round a bonfire that was steadily growing in size.
“What happened here?” Elvis asked a groundnut-and-banana hawker who dashed past him.
“It is task force,” was the curt reply. It sounded ominous, connoting horror so strong that Elvis shivered and looked up quickly, half expecting to see some malevolent manifestation.
A man came running toward him, carrying some clothes on hangers, a policeman hot on his heels. Just before he got to where Elvis stood, the man tripped and fell. The policeman pounced on him and snatched the clothes away, carrying them to the raging bonfire and throwing them in. As they crinkled and burst into flame, Elvis, drawn to the fire, walked over and stood watching.
The heat slowly crumbled the fuel and the flames reflected off the face of the fallen man. Still prone from the policeman’s tackle, he watched the fire slowly turn his goods into a mass of hot ashes.
“But I get ten children,” he mumbled over and over. “How I go feed dem?”
Unsure why, Elvis put his arm around the man’s shoulders and helped him to his feet.
“Take heart, brother,” he said.
The man turned to him.
“I try to make money begging, but my spirit wan’ die. So I borrow money, begin to sell dese Okirika.”
Elvis nodded. He knew the man was referring to the secondhand clothes smuggled in from Cameroon through the port town of Okirika.
“Every day I go walk up and down, ringing one small bell make people see me,” the man continued, his voice breaking. He stared into the blaze and the flames ripped through his heart, the fire entering him. His mind reached back and, like a dead star, collapsed upon itself. He screamed. It was sudden. The sound startled Elvis, who let go of the man and jumped back. It also startled the crowd of strangers and other spectators gathered round the fire, and they turned to look. The man screamed again and tore his clothes off, dancing around the fire naked, emitting piercing calls, bloodcurdling in their intensity.
Before anyone could react, he jumped into the fire. As the flames licked around him, it seemed the fire smacked its lips in satisfaction. And in the fire, he continued to yell as he wrestled with it. The last thing Elvis heard before the man died was his terrible laugh. Its echo hung in the air. He never thought to ask the man’s name.
“Ah, madman,” someone sighed.
Elvis got off the bus and trudged past the buka where he normally ate. He lingered hungrily outside, but he couldn’t shake the smell of burning flesh or the sight of the man writhing in the flames. He wondered why he hadn’t helped. Instead, he had just stood rooted to the spot, staring.
A quick count of his money made it quite clear that he couldn’t afford to buy a meal even if he could face it.
He turned away and headed home. It wasn’t even noon yet, he noted. How was he going to spend the rest of his day? He had been fired from the building site, and his long absence from Iddoh Park and the beach had cost him his spot there. He needed money to buy a new spot, money he didn’t have. He felt a little ashamed at how quickly the practical pressures of living had usurped the image of the burning man.
“Elvis!”
He spun around. A man stood in the open door of the buka, dressed like Superfly. Elvis did not recognize him, and the man, noticing his confusion, explained.
“It’s me. Okon.”
It hit him. It was the man he had fed barely a week ago, at this same buka. Okon was the man who had scrabbled in the dirt for rice. How come he was so kitted out now? Had he taken to a life of crime? Elvis smiled at Okon, straining to mask his thoughts. He really wasn’t in the mood for company, but his hunger got the better of him, so he went back. They sat facing each other, caught in an awkward silence broken only by Okon’s occasional repetition of his name—“Yes. It’s me. Okon. Okon”—as if this mantra would bond them. Finally he of fered Elvis a drink and s
ome food.
“Take anything you want—extra meat, stout, anything.”
Elvis smiled uncomfortably and ordered some eba and egusi sauce.
“No big stout?” Okon asked sounding a little offended.
“No thanks. A Coke will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Elvis ate in silence as Okon studied him. The buka’s radio sounded like someone had drowned its speaker in muddy water; still, Elvis could clearly hear the Wings singing, “Please catch dat love dat is falling on you … Don’t let it drop, it is not made of wood …” Elvis sang along in his head, wondering if it would be rude to ask Okon how he got the money he was spending.
“So why are you home so early?” Okon asked.
“I was fired.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear dat. Why? You are a good person.”
“You hardly know me,” Elvis protested.
“I know you better dan you think.”
He went back to drinking his stout, which, Elvis noted, seemed milky and thick, unlike any stout he had seen before. Noticing his confused look, Okon explained:
“It is concoction.”
“Sorry?”
“Concoction; condensed milk and stout. Very good for your blood.”
Elvis nodded. It sounded disgusting, he thought.
“I know you dey wonder how I manage get all dis money,” Okon said.
Elvis shrugged, embarrassed.
“Dat’s okay. I don’t want you to think I am a tief, dat’s why I tell you.”
“That’s quite okay, really,” Elvis replied. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I don’t think poorly of you.”
“You are really a good man, but I’ll tell you anyway.”
Elvis was a little worried; he didn’t want to be an accessory to any crime.
“Blood.” Okon said simply.
Elvis was by now visibly agitated. Blood. Did that mean Okon was an assassin for hire? Lots of business rivals had turned to that as an effective system of beating competition. Could it be blood money? Elvis suddenly felt nauseous. Okon noted his expression with alarm and explained.
“Blood. De hospital, dey pay us to donate blood. One hundred naira per pint. If you eat well, you can give four pints in four different hospitals, all in one day. It’s illegal, of course, but it’s my blood, and it’s helping to save lives, including mine. Right?”
Elvis smiled in relief. Okon smiled too.
“You can come too, now dat you don’t have job,” he urged.
“No, I don’t think that’s for me.”
“But if you change your mind, let me know and I’ll connect you.”
Elvis finished the rest of his meal in silence and, getting up to leave, thanked Okon. As he began to walk home, he heard Okon call out: “Don’t forget. Okon, dat’s me.”
Back in his room, Elvis sat in the rust-crisp metal chair facing his desk. Flakes of rust, like red dandruff, fell to the floor. With a sigh he unlocked the metal box he had just placed on the desk. It used to be his school box, holding his books all through primary school. He ran his fingers along the top and down to the handle, remembering the groove it had cut in his hand. It was still there, a hard calloused line.
Opening the box, he adjusted the mirror he had taped to the inside cover. Then, methodically, with the air of ritual, he laid out the contents: a small plastic compact of hard, pressed face powder, a few tubes of lipstick in different colors, a plastic case with eye shadow in several shades of blue, a small bottle of mascara with a brush hardening in it, an eye pencil and a tin of Saturday Night talc. He held up the tin of talc, admiring the image printed on it—a white couple in evening dress dancing under a sky full of stars. That was the life, he thought. Also laid out next to the box and its contents were a wig and a pair of sunglasses with wide frames studded with rhinestones.
The old battery-powered record player scratched through “Heartbreak Hotel,” a stack of coins keeping the stylus from jumping through the worn grooves. Elvis nodded along, singing under his breath as he mixed the pressed powder with the talc. The lumpy powder crumbled in cakes of beige, reminding him of the henna cakes Oye ground to make the dye she used to paint designs all over her body. Satisfied with the mix, he began to apply it to his face with soft, almost sensual strokes of the sponge. As he concentrated on getting an even tone, his earlier worries slipped away. Finishing, he ran his fingertips along his cheek. Smooth, like the silk of Aunt Felicia’s stockings.
With the tip of his index finger, he applied a hint of blue to his eyes, barely noticeable, but enough to lift them off the white of his face. Admiring himself from many angles, he thought it was a shame he couldn’t wear makeup in public. That’s not true, he mentally corrected himself. He could, like the transvestites that haunted the car parks of hotels favored by rich locals and visiting whites. But like them, he would be a target of some insult, or worse, physical beatings, many of which were meted out by the police, who then took turns with their victims in the back of their vans. It was exasperating that he couldn’t appear in public looking as much like the real Elvis Presley as possible.
Drawing quickly and expertly with the black eye pencil, he outlined his eyes, the tip of the pencil dancing dangerously close to his cornea. Pulling the mascara brush free, he knocked the dried goop off before dragging it through his already dense lashes. Again he examined his hard work intently before selecting a deep red lipstick. Not satisfied with its shine, he rubbed some petroleum jelly over his lips and then smacked them. Much better, he thought.
He got up to change the record, which was dragging its stylus reluctantly and noisily across the label. He put it into its sleeve carefully and checked the sharpness of the needle by running a fingertip across it. This also cleaned the dust on the needle’s point. Selecting “Jailhouse Rock,” he blew imaginary dust off the record. He was careful as he put it on, knowing from experience that the thick, heavy vinyl would shatter like a china plate if he dropped it.
He walked back to the table and pulled the wig on, bending to look in the mirror. Elvis has entered the building, he thought, as he admired himself. This was the closest he had come so far to looking like the real Elvis, and he wished he had a camera.
Pushing back from the table, he began to dance around the room. By the time the record had come to an end, he was perspiring heavily. Not wanting the makeup to run, he sat on the bed and put on the table fan he had bought from Redemption, a recent acquisition made possible by his job at the construction site. He let his fingers linger over the buttons as the truth of this day returned to him. From the bed, he could see himself in the mirror on the desk, and he stared hard. What if he had been born white, or even just American? Would his life be any different? Stupid, he thought. If Redemption knew about this, he would say Elvis was suffering from colonial mentality. He smiled. It spread across his face in fine tendrils that grew wider as he laughed until his skin showed through. I look like a hairless panda, he thought. Without understanding why, he began to cry through the cracked face powder.
Elvis stepped out of his room onto the front veranda and looked around, rubbing his sleep-crusted eyes with a couple of knuckles. He wiped his hand down his face and realized he had slept with the makeup on. After that heavy lunch with Okon, he had napped for a couple of hours.
Across the street, in the weak shade cast by the odd tree or veranda canopy, a few women lounged like melting toffee on the stoops. They sat with bored eyes, fanning themselves with magazines, newspapers or raffia fans. One or two chewed on sugarcane stems, mandibles crunching slowly, pausing only to spit sucked-out husks into the street, peppering the black asphalt in yellow-white blobs like tired snowflakes. A couple sat plaiting hair and chatting brightly as though to dispel the heavy air. A few very young children chased a football halfheartedly across the street, upturned empty paint tins serving as goalposts.
Taking a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, Elvis shook one out and lit it, his
movements slow and deliberate. He scanned the street slowly from behind hands cupped around a flaming match, knowing he too was being watched, studied even. Smoking was a rediscovered pleasure for him, a way to make the day go faster. The smoke felt harsh against the back of his throat and he coughed discreetly. He had not smoked much since he was a kid watching old movies in the motor parks.
Pitching the still-smoldering stub into the street, he walked through the house and out into the backyard, which was walled in by the low building that housed the bathrooms, toilets and kitchens. To his left stood the iron staircase that led to the upper floors. Built in the fashion of an American fire escape, it looked rickety and unsafe and was covered in a rash of rust. Several stairs had been eaten away by the rust, giving the illusion of a gap-toothed mouth. The doors to the toilets stood open, aerating in the heat, walls adorned by drowsy bluebottle flies.
With a tired sigh, he sucked in his breath and slammed into one. As he squatted, he wondered how long he could hold his breath. On one wall of the toilet, the landlord, in an attempt to clean things up years ago, had painted a mural. Faded now from years of grime and heat, the river scene, with a mermaid holding a baby in one hand and a staff of power in the other and a python draped around her neck, was still discernible. A crown hovered over her black hair, and stars gleamed in the air around her blue body. Her face, however, was scratched out. He wondered who had done that, and how they could have endured the stench long enough to do it.
Grabbing a pail of water from the water drum, he headed into the bathroom to wash. He washed his face first, watching the makeupcolored water run onto the concrete floor. The water was pleasantly hot from the sun, and he felt refreshed when he got out. He returned to the veranda and waited for the sun to set while he flicked through his mother’s journal and listened to music on the radio, absently wondering if any of the herbal remedies in the book actually worked, and if they did, why Oye hadn’t used them to cure Beatrice’s cancer.
With nightfall, the veranda became busy, as was the routine most evenings. The men were draped on the veranda while the women huddled in the corners. They were all gathering: Jagua; Sergeant Okoro; Joshua Bandele-Thomas; Abigail, Okoro’s wife; Beauty, the single primary-school teacher whom Joshua had a crush on; and Comfort. The men played checkers or argued loudly, all the time munching on some snack and drinking beer or palm wine. The women sat like shadows behind the men and seemed to use the fact that they needed the light to darn, or shell melon seeds, to justify their presence. For the most part, the men ignored them. Those brave enough to call their husbands’ attention to something were rewarded with a gruff and impatient answer, as though they were keeping the men from some important philosophical breakthrough.