The Tale of the Cow Tail & Other Stories from the African Diaspora

by Lanre Ogundimu

  The aroma of savory food and coffee trickled to my nose. The warm fragrance of tomato sauce wafted from the Two Boots Pizza stall; the sticky smell of sauerkraut and mustard billowed from the Mendy’s Kosher Delicatessen booth, and the strong odor of garlic saturated the air around the Hale & Healey Soup stand.

  I queued with other patrons at the Café Spice for potato samosas—a fried and soft cuisine filled with seasoned vegetables. Next, I collected a steak sandwich from the Central Market Grill and glided to the T’s Louisiana and to a restaurant called Geaux for some seafood gumbo and red rice with beef. I sat at Zaro’s Bread Basket booth and ate some of the samples in my tray. I even packed more in a plastic bag for home.

  Later, I encountered another food sampler— Bob Alpert, a gray-haired, tall man with a stomach that was round like a barrel. As he stood on the corner, munching on fried chicken, he told me the treat was a pleasure, but he couldn’t care less about the terminal.

  “When the Grand Central turns 100, come let’s talk about my opinion or history of this place because I will be 74 then,” said Alpert, a retired construction worker from the Bronx. Nevertheless, he said he enjoyed the meals and hoped to come the next day for the closing ceremony.

  Then I remembered why I came for the celebration.

  I climbed the stairs to the west balcony. At Michael Jordan’s, I got a palm-size sliced strip steak with creamed spinach on a garlic crouton. I sat down, bit a little and sipped some Michigan apple cider. And I said to myself: Happy 90th birthday, Grand Central.

  For me, finally eating at Michael Jordan’s was a victory of philosophical significance. It reinforced my belief that whatever your heart intently desires, your spirit shall restlessly seek until it gets it for you. Even if it’s a mere craving for a slice of mutton, the building of a magnificent edifice like the Grand Central Terminal or an enduring business empire like Vanderbilt’s—all that is required is an unflinching hope, followed by action. Life is hope. Hope is life.

  My New York Experience:

  The Subway Minstrel

  Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.- Maya Angelou

  Stephen John Dunckley plays a soundless music. Or so it seems in the busy and noisy setting of the Grand Central shuttle line in New York. On this day in March 2003, the 59-year-old Dunckley plays on a keyboard which sits on his lap, as he blows a trumpet, and swings his head at the same time. The white songster sports a clean, yellow T-shirt, grey pants, and silver-rimmed eyeglasses. He becomes serious with his performance as commuters step onto the platform. But his tune is drowned out by the roaring train.

  Momentarily, another train approaches the station from 5th Avenue. Now, the trains flank the platform, while the musician is in the center. He is about six feet away from the coaches on both sides. As the trains throttle out of the station, jazz music fills the tunnel.

  A motley crowd now gathers around the crooner as he performs “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. A petite, Asian woman snaps Dunckley’s photograph. Slowly, a young couple, holding hands, inches a little closer. The man disengages from his partner and puts a dollar bill in a dark-grey bag that Dunckley has placed on the floor. The man goes back to his companion, wraps his hands around her waist and kisses her on the lips. Meanwhile, trains continue to speed past, adding a background rumble to Dunckley’s music.

  Dunckley is one of the more than 100 musicians who play in about 25 locations throughout the New York subway system. The music genres range from bluegrass to classical, Cajun, jazz, African, and South American. There are two groups of performers in the transit network—the Music Under New York (MUNY) members and the freelancers. There is a major difference between the groups. The Metropolitan Transportation Arts for Transit program, which coordinates the activities of artists in the subway, gives permits to MUNY members to use amplifiers and perform at designated spots. The freelancers do not have such privileges.

  Dunckley stops playing as the train departs the station. He picks up the bills from the bag and counts nine dollars. He has performed for twenty minutes and still has uncounted coins in the bag.

  “This is a good day,” Dunckley tells a fan who has just stepped off of an escalator. The musician picks up a dollar coin, moves to a store about 30 feet away and purchases a bottle of Poland Spring water. He takes one large gulp.

  Dunckley first played in the subway in 1984. Then, there was no rule on who played, where they played or how much they had to control their volume. Later, the transportation authority decided to inject sanity into the chaos by banning musicians from singing, jamming and rocking their instruments amid the hustle-bustle of the subway crowds. The performers challenged the move in courts, arguing that it was their constitutional right to play in the underground. They won in several rulings.

  In 1985, the transportation authority introduced the MUNY as an organized group to control the situation. The rule requires musicians to audition before becoming a member. However, membership is not automatic; a panel of professionals decides who qualifies. Despite the regulation, non-MUNY members are free to perform in the subway.

  Although Dunckley was a pioneer member of MUNY, he no longer belongs to the group because he feels the audition process has become far too political. Besides, he is not interested in playing in areas designated only for MUNY members.

  Instead, he chose the tunnel, hoping to brighten the underground by sharing his unique, eclectic style of music with everyday commuters. For him, the greatest challenge is getting the audience’s attention within a short span of time. Trains arrive at the station almost every ten minutes.

  Dunckley grew up in Queens, New York, but now lives in Manhattan. His interest in music started when he was 12 years old. By the time he entered middle school, he already was playing with a Dixie music group. But when he started college, his priorities shifted. Studies and other school-related activities prevented him from spending a lot of time with the band. Eventually, they stopped calling him for engagements.

  “It was a sad story,” he says. “I had an electric keyboard that time. Alone, I was playing sad music on a sad keyboard.”

  Then he found an escape hatch.

  Dunckley’s younger brother advised him to combine playing the trumpet and keyboard simultaneously to gain more attention. He tried it and it worked. Dunckley remembers the day both of them went out to the Central Park to exhibit his new skills. While he was blowing the trumpet and playing the keyboard to a popular jazz tune, his younger brother jovially flashed a one dollar bill. He dropped it in front of Dunckley, picked it up, then dropped it, again and again.

  “You know what my brother told me? Dunckley asks with a smile. “He said, ‘You are a genius.’”

  He became a master of a one-man band.

  Dunckley prefers playing on the platform because he can make more money at that site than at MTA-designated locations. On a good day, he actually takes in between $150 to $200. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of competition. Other musicians don’t like playing on the platform because of the roaring trains and the whirring air conditioners.

  There’s also another drawback. Dunckley cannot use an amplifier. He whips out a New York City Transit leaflet containing the rules governing the conduct and safety of the public. Dunckley reads aloud the section that states that in no event will the use of amplification devices of any kind, electronic or otherwise, be permitted on subway platforms.

  But the MTA allows some artists to use the amplifier in designated locations.

  Peter Joseph Paul, a one-man rock band, can be found on the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. He has two advantages in this location: an acoustic hall and an amplifier. The MTA permits the use of a loudspeaker in this area. With his long dark hair clipped at the back, the artist is singing a sentimental ballad and strumming an electric guitar, while using his feet to hit four drum-like devices.

  “That’s Too Far Gone by Mick Jagger; it’s from his solo album
,” Paul tells the audience when he ends the track.

  Meanwhile, Dunckley is thrilling passersby with a medley of smooth jazz. A fan, who wants to invite him to perform at a private party, asks him where he gets his energy for performing. Dunckley spins around and points at the motley crowd as if to say, the subway commuters give him the energy to carry on.

  His abundant “energy” and undeniable talent have led to an impressive CD collection of twelve songs—composed by him and other artists. Besides his gig in the subway, he plays in restaurants in New York and at private events. He says he enjoys performing at classy venues and dreams of one day moving to Miami, Florida, to form a big band and compose songs.

  But, for now, his life revolves around his subway performances. Whenever he gets a free moment, he spends it with the loves of his life, his children. He’s divorced but has two beautiful girls, ages 24 and 12, from his two marriages.

  Dunckley takes a short break and pulls out photos of his daughters and, for a while, seems to drift off. Then, the crowds begin to fill the subway again, and he gets back into his music groove. Tenderly, he glides his fingers across the keyboard as his lips caress the trumpet.

  A train whizzes past, but he doesn’t see it. He is lost in the beat of a song.

  Part Two

  Beauty and the Bully

  A happy man marries the girl he loves,

  but a happier man loves the girl he marries. - African Proverb

  Bashiru Obelawo was a small child, gifted with the wise soul of an oracle. At six years old, he thought and spoke like a 12-year-old boy. He understood death, cherished friendship and worshipped love. Most of these qualities were gained from the films he watched at the cinemas. Others were learned when he occasionally followed his father, a Bolekaja bus driver whose route included the regions of Yaba and Jankara. The Bolekaja bus, a transit vehicle made of iron, steel and wood, was pretty popular in Lagos up to the early 1980s. It had two swing doors and four long seats, two in the middle in which passengers sat in, back-to-back.

  Obelawo had a hardened, almost unpleasant façade—sort of a steely look that made strangers regard him with fear. He had big eyes that roved like an owl searching through a dark, rain-drenched forest. He had a heart-shaped head, a big round nose, and a thick, drooping lower lip. His peculiar appearance made him a spectacle, causing touts, (individuals who hung around motor parks) to call him “Alaye,” (a thug). And Obelawo had the biggest navel I had ever seen. It was round, soft and large as a ripe tomato. Often, the navel peeped out of his undersized shirt, no matter how well he tucked it in.

  Obelawo was my best friend at the United African Methodist Church School, Eleja, Ebute Meta. We sat together on a two-seater wooden chair while he told exciting tales about life and the intrigues among his father’s three wives, especially the youngest, Fali, also known as the scorpion. He amused me with stories of the films he had watched at Shiela or Glover Cinemas, and Sunny Ade’s end of year music show at the Railway Recreation Centre at Ebute Meta. And he once told me that men don’t cry, only boys do. He added that big boys don’t even cry. He said that Amitabh Bachchan, an Indian movie actor, said so. Nothing made Obelawo cry, not even when our teacher, Mr. Ladega created a funny name for him -“Bonkolo.”

  Often, Mr. Ladega teased Obelawo and ridiculed him in a song that referred to his big navel. He would sing:

  Bonkolo yi fuke fuke

  Idodo e ri bolojo

  Boya lo le gbe dodo mi

  Ifuke, Ifuke, Ifuke

  This Bonkolo is so comfy

  And his navel looks lavish

  But I doubt if it can swallow a fried plantain

  So comfy, comfy, comfy

  And the class would roar in laughter.

  We never knew why Mr. Teacher Ladega enjoyed verbally bullying Obelawo. Maybe it was his cruel idea of humor or simply a way of engaging the class and making us laugh. But Obelawo and I didn’t think it was funny. At lunch time, Obelawo ambushed any of our classmates who had laughed about his navel. At the cul-de-sac near the toilet, he knocked the head of such classmates with his knuckles.

  It was also at the cul-de-sac that Obelawo sought revenge against anyone who taunted me. I was small in stature then, the smallest boy in my class. Because of this, some classmates called me “Yanko.” And it was Shittu, alias Ireke Obo (the Monkey Sugarcane) who gave me that pet name. We called him Ireke Obo because he was lanky, skinny and shapeless. Whenever he called me Yanko, I always cried.

  One day, Obelawo ambushed him at the cul-de-sac by the toilet.

  “Why did you call my best friend an ugly name,” Obelawo asked the terrified Shittu.

  “I, I, didn’t call him so,” Shittu answered. “It was Bakare who called him something. I only laughed.”

  “So, you laughed when Bakare called him Yanko,” Obelawo said.

  “I only laughed,” Shittu said, quivering.

  “Okay, tell my best friend, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’” Obelawo said.

  Shittu hesitated.

  “Tell him, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ or I’ll Yanko your head with my knuckles,” said Obelawo as he clinched his right fist.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Shittu said in tears.

  “Say it loud,” Obelawo shouted.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Shittu said again, his voice quivering.

  Many boys thought that Obelawo was a bully, but I didn’t think so. They avoided him during play at lunch time when we gathered at the long jump pitch, and fell on one another in the saw dust. The boys deftly avoided Obelawo when it was his turn to jump. He once fell on Sule (alias Borokini). Sule broke an ankle and was taken to the Igbobi Orthopedic Hospital. When he returned to school after four weeks, he compared the impact of Obelawo’s fall on him to being hit by a sack of beans. From then on, another sobriquet was added to Obelawo’s many monikers—Apo Ewa (the beans sack). And the more students who called him that, the more who had him “chop more knuckles” on their heads.

  But everything changed the day Suki came to our school.

  Suki was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was an elegant Benin bronze who stood out in a crowd, even though she was only four feet tall. Suki had a stately step, a luminous smile, a body too shapely for her age and spotless skin. Always, she smelled as fresh as a new born baby (because of the baby lotion she used). Her most prominent feature was an aquiline nose. Because of her pointed nose, we called her Fulani Eko (the Fulani of Lagos). And the nickname was apt because her mother was from the Fulani tribe of Northern Nigeria, while her father was Yoruba. Her father was a train driver who had traveled great distances across the country. In 1972, he was transferred to Lagos, and that’s how Suki came to our school.

  Suki liked me, but I didn’t like her or, at least, I was ashamed to let the boys know that I liked her. The more I avoided her, the closer she wanted to be with me. She persisted, and we became closer–just childish closeness.

  When we talked, she would tell me about her life in Jebba, a town surrounded by “big, endless water” in the middle part of Nigeria. She told me that fish were everywhere and that an Oyinbo man (a white man) named Mungo Park was buried there.

  “Do you know that Dr. Nnandi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, was born in Zungeru?” Suki asked me one day. “Dr. Azikiwe’s father had worked there as a railway man.”

  “At Lokoja, the rivers Niger and Benue meet,” Suki explained, adding that another area, Kaduna, was called the “city of crocodiles.”

  “Why is it so?” I asked, eyeing her nervously.

  “I don’t know, but I can ask my father,” Suki replied softly. “And Jos is very cold. I’ve been there. And my father told me it’s cold like London.”

  “Has your father been to London?” I asked.

  “No. Is there a railway to London?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know. You may ask your father. He seems to know everything,” I said.

  Many of the places Suki told me about sounded like exotic lands. As we sat on the green grass
under the breadfruit tree near the southern fence of the school, I liked how the cool breeze fanned our cheeks gently, and the way the sun shone on her thick, black hair.