Foreign Gods, Inc.

by Okey Ndibe

  He had made the mistake of telling her about the executive who commented on his accent. Thereafter, whenever she had a grouse or bore a grudge, she drew out the word “accent” like a sword from its scabbard. She did merciless mimicries of his speech. He dreaded her flair for fashioning otherwise-innocent words into swords. One day, just after making love, they lay in bed watching a documentary on South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. The presenter said something about a Zulu chief. She suddenly hoisted herself on her elbow and scanned his face, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “That’s who you are, a Zulu chief, right?” she asked. In her singsong accent, she made the word sound like Zoo-loo. “That costume you was wearing in Baltimore, it gotta be Zulu.”

  “Zulus live in South Africa,” he said, hardly hiding his vexation.

  He had inadvertently handed her another sword. Thenceforth, whenever she worked herself into a rage, she’d use that sword to slash him. Your Zulu dick be running around, looking for some white ho, she’d accuse. Fuck you and fuck your Zulu shit, she’d curse. Or she’d berate: Why you always speak English with that Zulu accent?

  But it was her affair with Cadilla that delivered the deepest, most merciless cut of all. He had walked the seven blocks to Saint Stephen’s Church the day he’d found out and sat in a pew, helpless against the tears that rolled down his face.

  It was the same pew that Ike was sitting in today, though he wasn’t crying now. He wasn’t sure how he felt. A part of him wondered where Bernita was but without figuring out how such knowledge would serve him. Staring at the crucifix, he wondered if Gruels and his crowd of collectors ever saw fit to poach a god from a church like Saint Stephen’s.

  He thumbed to a random page of the missal. Then he began to read from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun? One generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays … All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going.”

  IT WAS 6:27 P.M. when Ike pulled up outside 99 Flatbush Avenue. It was rather early for him. Since the marriage ended, he had taken to working until 11:00 P.M., often till midnight or even later. There was a parking spot right in front of Cadilla’s store. He exhaled through gritted teeth and cut off the ignition but remained in the car. His shattered nerves would need to be pepped up. Curry goat at Big Ed’s apartment would help. But he’d need a few bottles of Guinness before that.

  He considered driving out to the package store on Avenue U, but he was in no mood to spend more time in traffic. And he was pressed for time.

  Outside Cadilla’s was the usual rowdy scene. The store was directly underneath Ike’s second-floor one-bedroom space. Still, he rarely shopped there. In fact, once he sold Ngene, one of his first priorities would be to relocate.

  It wasn’t just Bernita’s confession to two flings with the man she called Cad that made him hate the place, though that aggravation was there, a constant pain. He also detested the store owner’s brand of gregariousness. Cad’s idea of a handshake was to raise his hand high and then bring it smashing down with full force. And the man loved long, loud conversations.

  Bernita had sworn that her trysts with Cad happened only twice, once before Ike moved to New York and once after. She had volunteered the confession, with no prodding. Even so, he suspected at the time that this was not the whole truth.

  Ike walked past a haphazard circle of spectators gathered around two men who hunched over a game of chess. Both the players and many of their observers held bottles wrapped in small wrinkled brown bags. Beyond the circle of spectators, other men and a few women milled about. This hubbub had kept Ike awake through much of the night.

  Six or seven youngsters, boys and girls, rollicked around the store’s swinging door.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  They ignored him.

  “I said, excuse me!” he said in a raised voice.

  They snickered and then slowly parted.

  He padded to a back aisle and grabbed a six-pack of Guinness. Then he took his place behind six customers.

  Cadilla was as high-spirited as ever. A stodgy, middle-aged man stepped up to the counter. His red hair was dirty, tousled and gray, his hardy skin tanned a tarnished red. Ike recognized him. He was a fixture in the neighborhood. He often held court at street corners, an aficionado of baseball, movies, and international affairs. Ike had overheard snippets of neighborhood gossip—about the man’s roots in southern Virginia, his stint in the navy, and his arrival in the city on the trail of a capricious Creole woman named Lady Matilda, a woman who shattered his spirits when she took off with another man and left him, for some years, a yarn-spinning wreck.

  Red Ray bought eighty-eight Mega Millions lottery tickets for the jackpot of $88 million. He said his pastor—a well-known former jailbird—had prayed over each dollar. He was sure of winning: heaven had decreed it, and he had claimed it. When he won, he said, he would get himself a Hollywood lady, buy a Cadillac with leather upholstery, purchase a grand mansion some place super nice—“and then leave town, fast as I can.”

  Cadilla asked which Hollywood ladies he had his eyes on.

  Red Ray said, “If I fancy, I take me Julia. Julia Roberts. Or Halle Berry. Depends on who I like better.”

  Everybody laughed, except Ike. His irritation grew with each second.

  “My man!” Cadilla exulted when Ike stood before the counter. He raised his hand for his usual hard slap. Ike plumped down the six-pack on the counter and extended a hand. “Haven’t seen you in like three months or something.”

  “Two weeks.”

  Cadilla grabbed Ike’s outstretched hand, tightened his grip, then pushed and pulled in a sawing motion. “What you been up to?”

  “Nothing,” Ike said.

  “I saw your former lady last week. Went to see my Mets rip the Marlins. Me and her ran into each other at Shea.”

  “You and who?”

  Cadilla frowned up a little. “You know who I’m talking about. Your old lady, Queen.”

  Ike wished he had driven to Avenue U after all.

  “Queen was looking good,” Cadilla said. A sly smile spread on his face. “She asked about you and all.”

  “Good.” Ike put down a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

  Cadilla ignored the cash. “She’s an amazing lady, Queen. She’s good people—real!” He stamped his feet to express enthusiasm.

  “Good,” Ike said again.

  “I thought y’all was gonna hit it off big time. But marriage is like that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t.”

  “I must go,” Ike said. “I have an important call to make.”

  “A’right, man.” Cadilla raised his hand for another handshake. Ike grabbed the six-pack with two hands. For a moment, Cadilla seemed offended. Then he said, “You go on. The drink’s on the house.”

  “I will pay,” Ike said agitatedly.

  “No, Queen said to be nice to you. It’s on me.”

  Ike slapped the ten-dollar bill on the counter, turned swiftly, and walked toward the exit. His path was blocked. A boy clasped a girl in an embrace, and she playfully clawed at him, threatening to bite his arm. Other youngsters egged them on, laughing.

  “Make way!” Ike barked.

  They maintained their wall.

  “Heh!” he said, so angry he was stumped for words.

  He felt Cadilla’s hand slip into the pocket of his pants. Then the storekeeper’s voice: “Man, you gotta let me treat. Me and you are supposed to be tight.”

  Ike froze, filled with rage. He heard Cadilla’s footsteps retreating to the counter. Two customers asked why Cadilla never treated them to drinks.

  “Can assure you I ain’t about to say no if you offer,” said a male voice.

  “Me neither,” said the other, a woman. “Matter of fact, I ain’t got no nowhere on my lip.”

/>   “You don’t, that’s for sure,” Cadilla retorted, laughing.

  “You the only man I ever said no to. Don’t never forget that.” The woman took her turn laughing.

  “That ‘no’ cost you. You both want beer, you paying for your damn selves.”

  Without looking back, Ike pulled the money out of his pocket and flung it down.

  As Ike pushed out the door, he heard Cadilla scream at the youngsters to get the hell out, or they’d get their behinds whopped by their sorry mamas. They streamed out past Ike, one of them slamming into him.

  Ike cursed in Igbo.

  “Zulu!” the young man riposted, without looking back.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ike was so livid that he bounded up the first flight of stairs before he remembered the mailbox. He had, by design, not checked it for more than a week. What mail he received was—almost without exception—bills. Bills he had little cash to pay. So, in the eleven months since his divorce was finalized, he had taken to picking up his mail only once a week. He’d figured out that a week and a half into a new month was when creditors sent out all the disconcerting mail: late-payment reminders, disconnection warnings, cancellation threats, repossession notices, eviction slips.

  Ike descended to the landing where tenants’ mailboxes were located. Though unable to read his name in the pale light, he instinctively knew where the box for 2F was. The box was fuller than usual, just as he expected. He retrieved the mail and then began to climb the dank, poorly lit stairway. There was an ever-present frowsy smell. It was a commingling of spilled liquor, urine, cigarette smoke, perfumes, and the rich, leafy scent of marijuana. He stepped carefully to avoid the chewing gum stuck here and there on the stairs.

  His living room sizzled with heat. He kicked off his shoes and flicked on the light. Instantly, a fly began to buzz about as if startled. He put the six-pack in the fridge. As he passed to the leather couch that Bernita had left behind when she carted away the rest of the furniture, he stopped and put on a CD. Brenda Fassie’s plangent voice filled the room, singing “Vulindlela.” He lowered himself onto the couch. Its caving softness reminded him of the time when he and Bernita had nightly bouts of turbulent sex. Fassie’s song had often served as the raunchy anthem, goading his body and Bernita’s to higher plateaus of pleasure.

  HIS EX-WIFE HAD CRAVED sex with a voraciousness that at first flattered him. Her breasts seemed wired with some hypersensitive antennae. He had only to give her a long, tight hug, and her nipples would harden, her body quaking uncontrollably. If he cupped a hand over her breasts, or bit her nipples with chattering teeth, she went wild, croaked, groaned, and writhed. She dug her nails into his flesh, crooning, I’m your queen, Queen B, your Queen Bernita.

  At the time of their marriage, he had not had any steady relationship for close to two years. His sexual appetite high, he welcomed their nightly romps. Each night, as he walked into the apartment, his heart quickened with anticipation of some amorous surprise. Bernita’s favorite maneuver was to sally to the door the instant she heard him fiddling with the key from outside. She’d then jump into his arms, her breasts positioned near his lips. When he took the bait and sucked at the swollen nipple, she’d let out a choked cry and fling her body back, forcing him to hold tight or risk both of them tumbling to the floor. Then, holding tight, he’d carry her to the couch.

  Their first serious fight came the third week after his relocation to New York. It was triggered by his plea that he had a headache and was in no shape to make love.

  “You been hanging with some bitch?” she railed.

  “I’m just coming back from work. I wasn’t running around looking for—” He paused, the word “bitch” too heavy to pass his lips. She glowered at him, her lips twitching. “I’ve not been looking for women,” he said.

  “You was, too!” she bickered. She stood akimbo, her breasts swelling and falling, her eyes fierce. “What kind of Zulu shit is you’re tired, Zulu?”

  It was the first time she called him Zulu. That day, it dawned on him that she regarded the word as a pejorative in its verb, adjective, and noun forms. Her favorite curse—and the one that stung most—was “Don’t Zulu me your Zulu shit, Zulu!”

  In retaliation, he began to call her Queen Bee.

  IKE NEEDED SOME TRANQUILLITY to plan the next day’s errands, but the touch of the sunken couch scraped a raw sore. He’d long suspected that the same couch had hosted Cadilla and Queen Bee’s trysts.

  As he lay on the couch, face up, he became impatient for the bottles of Guinness to turn cold. His thoughts roamed to Foreign Gods, Inc. He envisaged his next meeting with Mark Gruels. It would be a different encounter. He would have Ngene in his hand, and his voice would be strong and confident—even a bit commanding. He pictured Gruels gazing at the statue, sniffing it, fawning over it. Thoroughly fascinated, the man would make a solid first bid. He, Ike, would balk. And then Gruels would go higher and higher, jacking up his offer. And then, once they agreed on a price, Gruels would reach for his checkbook and Ike—overcome with euphoria—would faint dead away.

  He even imagined the shape of Gruels’s handwriting on the check: strong lines, straight and prim like soldiers at a parade, smooth and unbroken, devoid of squiggles. He pulled back only when his mind sought to snoop around Gruels’s imaginary shoulder to peek at the amount scribbled on the check. He was content to savor the eerie joy yielded by expectancy and sweet, lingering mystery.

  He sprang up and fetched a bottle of stout and a glass. With his teeth, he pried off the cap of the bottle. As he poured, a fly zipped past, barely missing the glass. Years ago, there was a drunkard in Utonki who was fond of saying, “A fly in beer is meat for the mouth.” Ike once saw the man throw his head back and down a glass of beer with two dead, bloated flies.

  Fly that craves beer, know that you court death!

  The thought of flies in beer disgusted Ike.

  After several swigs, he found the heat oppressive. He unbuttoned his shirt and then raised the latch of the window that overlooked the street. Clamorous sounds flooded in.

  He switched on the standing fan and turned on the computer, his shirt fluttering from the steady breeze.

  He had not checked his e-mail for three days. His Internet service was disconnected, but he poached somebody’s open wireless connection. As the Internet loaded, he went to the fridge for another bottle. This time he drank straight from the bottle. Flapping his shirt, he bared his chest to the gush of warmish air.

  There were eleven new messages in his in-box. Five of them were from his sister, Nkiru—and each had the subject line, “Mama’s Message.”

  He clicked open the most recent one.

  Mama asked me to remind you, that you’re your late father’s only son, that your sister has gone away to her husband, and Mama doesn’t know when the good Lord might call her to His glorious kingdom. Mama is sad that, at your age, you have no wife and no son to take your place if anything should happen (God forbid!). Since you don’t seem to be concerned, Mama is looking into it for you (a wife). So make arrangements to come home soon, unless you don’t care what happens to your father’s compound and to the poor woman who gave birth to you. For a few years now you haven’t sent Mama (or me, your only sister) any money. Mama wonders if you want us to eat sand. Also, Mama says she has been telling you that there’s an important spiritual matter she must discuss with you in person, face-to-face. It’s about satanic Uncle Osuakwu. After killing Papa, he is now making diabolical plans against all of us, but especially you. Mama says it’s urgent that you come home as soon as possible. Then you will be fully informed of this demonic plot, and how to cancel it in the mighty name of Jesus. Every day I go to a cyber café to check for your reply, but you don’t write. Please don’t fail to respond this time. Mama’s prayer is that you may be covered by the blood of our Lord and Savior. Your sister, Nkiru.

  He opened his older sister’s other e-mails. They were variations on the same message. Each ended with a plea for
his reply in order to put their mother at ease.

  Suddenly, an ache flared up on the right side of his head. With one thumb he pressed hard at the spot where the pain was sharpest. It hurt to read the e-mails. He didn’t reply because he couldn’t say a thing that would make sense to them. How could he explain that the “food money” he once sent each month had dried up because a woman named Queen Bee, whom he had married in order to get something called a green card, had developed an ever-insatiable appetite for shopping? And how to explain his gambling to them?

  A year after arriving in the city, he’d taken to gambling. He had wanted quick cash to replenish some of the money Queen Bee lavished on expensive clothes and jewelry. And he had wanted extra cash to send to his mother and sister, to keep them quiet. But gambling brought him nothing but sorrow. No, his mother would never understand why her messages, sent in e-mails his sister wrote, went unanswered. He regretted having ever given his e-mail address to Nkiru, his only sibling, three years older than him. Over the last year, her e-mails came, by his rough calculation, at the rate of six or more per week. Some days, as if in the grip of malarial urgency, she sent two or three at once. Each one belabored the same point: Mama’s demand that he visit home “as soon as possible,” “without further ado,” “without any further unnecessary delay,” “in due haste.” And the come-home entreaties often addressed the need for him to take a wife and begin the race to produce an heir. Or they had to do with some “urgent spiritual matter,” to neutralize nameless persons plotting diabolical mayhem or combat others scheming to steal his inheritance. The specificities of the plots and the alleged schemers’ names remained stubbornly cloaked in secrecy. It was only the latest batch of e-mails that finally linked it all to Uncle Osuakwu.

  His mother and sister could never know how their barrage of e-mails tormented him. They accused him of shirking his duty to provide for his widowed mother. Yet, he had spelled out his acceptance of that responsibility in a long, earnest letter to his mother after his father’s sudden death a month into his sophomore year at Amherst. He had beseeched her to harbor no fears but to remain confident that he would secure a good job after graduation. And that having done so, he would take care of all her needs. It was perhaps the hardest letter he’d ever written. The words poured out of him through spasms and tears. As he wrote, he was haunted by the image of his father, gaunt and inert in a coffin, and of his mother gazing at what remained of her husband, too stunned to wail her grief, her eyes drained of life, forlorn.