by Okey Ndibe
Having made that promise, Ike pushed himself at Amherst College as hard as he could. And when he earned a cum laude in economics, he trusted that he’d made himself an attractive hire for any Fortune 500 company. He had hardly anticipated any of the adversities that stood in his way, up to and including the moment the judge in his divorce case allowed Queen Bee to cart away his little savings and any of his possessions she fancied.
There were times when he regretted failing to confide his woes in his mother or sister. He had tried once or twice, alternating between anger at his situation and a tenderness for his mother, fed by memories of the nights during childhood when he could not sleep unless cuddled up against her body, which reeked of smoky wood, warm like sun-baked clay. But what end would confiding have served? Would the knowledge that he too had suffered reduce their own pain and hunger?
He read Nkiru’s latest e-mail again. This time, he felt not the old indignation, but a sense of mellowness. He smiled. His plan had been to surprise his mother by showing up in Utonki, unannounced. He took another long gulp, emptying the bottle. Then he composed a reply to his sister: Dear Nkiru, Tell Mama that I will come home within a week. Love, Ikechukwu.
As he poured from another bottle, squeals broke into his reverie. He placed the bottle and half-filled glass on a small side table and dashed toward the window. He glared down at the youngsters hard at their nettlesome game right in front of Cadilla’s store. As he cupped his mouth to scream at them, he heard three sharp knocks on his door.
“Who’s that?” he barked.
“Is me, Big Ed,” came the response in a familiar Jamaican lilt. “You didn’t see my text, man? Janet finished cooking, you know. You come quick, you still find some curry goat. You come late, I’m eating fast.”
Ike gathered two bottles of Guinness and headed out to Big Ed’s apartment, 2C. As usual, the two huge color posters that dominated the left wall of Big Ed’s living room caught his eyes. One was of Bob Marley chasing down a soccer ball, the locks of his Rastafarian hair stretched backward as if in flight. The other was of Jimmy Cliff, arms spread out, head raised to an endless, blue sky, mouth wide open, seduced by a song.
As they settled to their drinks, Ike spoke about being mad at a passenger who had ignored his greetings.
Big Ed stared at him as one might a puzzling object. He had this way of fixing his face into a blank plasticity, so that his restless, roving eyes seemed hyper-animated.
Disquieted, Ike spoke again. “I was tempted to stop the car and order the man out. That’s how angry I was.”
Big Ed perked up, threw his head back, upended a bottle, and drained its contents. Ike was riveted by the push and pull of the man’s Adam’s apple, the gurgling sounds emitted by his throat. Putting down the bottle, Big Ed broke into his signature laughter, a carefree boom accompanied by stamping of feet and clapping. Ike wore an expectant smile, for he knew that Big Ed’s eruption was a prelude to some captivating anecdote.
After a moment, Big Ed’s laughter ceased. Sharp, inquisitive eyes fixed on Ike, he asked, “Why you even worry about that, man? What you seeking the passenger face for?” His face took on an expression of avuncular patience as he awaited Ike’s explanation.
“I just think—” Ike began.
“You think?” Big Ed interrupted. “What you think?” His eyes roved, now settling on Ike, now on his wife Janet, who sat on a wooden chair near the living room door, a bemused grin on her face. “Listen, man, you ever seen a one-legged man winning an arse-kicking match? I turn gray doing cab. I loss half my hair doing it. I send two daughters and a son to college, and I bury my first wife, Martha, and marry this puppy of a gal here who don’t know half the time whether she’s my daughter or my wife.” Janet laughed, and Big Ed paused and fixed her with an endearing gaze. She was petite, with a youngster’s tight, defined arms, hair done up in tiny, shoulder-length braids, their tips decorated with beads of different colors. The first time Ike met her, he mistook her for Big Ed’s daughter. Even now, he found it hard to believe she had given birth to two girls, eight and five. Big Ed waited until she quieted down, then he addressed Ike. “I have done low and mighty things, my brother, driving cab. So, therefore, I can tell you this one truth: It’s not how many dogs you have in the fight; it’s how much fight your dogs have in them. So, tell me now, what you say you thinking?”
Silent, Ike followed the darting dance of Big Ed’s eyes. Then he said, “In my culture, people always exchange greetings—”
Big Ed cut him off again. “Your culture got nothing to do with it. This ain’t your culture. It’s NYC. Let me tell you some’in, bro.” He lifted another bottle to his lips and drained its content. He turned to his wife. “I loss me leg, Janet. Look in the fridge and grab me another beer.” He took a sip from the new bottle, then took up the thread of his talk. “Whether a passenger says hi or no hi to me don’t bother me none. Listen now: so long as the passenger pay, I could care less.” He paused, delivered himself of a quick guffaw, and used a finger to pry a strip of meat caught between his teeth. He slurped more beer. Ike knew that as Big Ed became tipsy, his speech was apt to drift deeper and deeper into Jamaican cadence.
“Cabdrivers, we are two kinds, you know,” Big Ed continued. “One kind likes to grovel and search for the passenger’s face. But why do I have to look the passenger face for? Is the same mother born both of we? A cabdriver looking for passenger face is hoping for a big, big tip. Then it’s another kind of driver, my kind. I tell you, bro, my kind don’t give a shit about tips and all that. My job is to do my job, which is to get the passenger from point A to point B—end of matter.” He permitted himself another interlude, to accommodate his wife’s laughter. Then, after a quick sip, he said, “Is the same two kinds of people in the world. There’s the lawyer who is holding you by the shoulder and squeezing like he’s your best buddy. But he’s billing you merciless by the hour all the same. And he is expecting you to pay every last cent. You don’t pay, he is dragging you out to magistrate to be judged. Or the doctor who is smiling and making jokes when it’s you lying and dying in his hospital bed. Lying and dying and still yet paying that bill. Look man, some people trying to tell you it’s a sunny day, have a great day, even though life got you down in the dirt and thrashing the hell out of you. Why you wanna dabble in converse with a passenger, like he is a friend of you? A man doesn’t stop your cab ’cause he wanna jump into friendship with you. Passengers don’t care whether you say good afternoon or bad afternoon, so long as you getting them to their destination. Me, it’s my friends I do the saluting shit with. As for my passengers, they wanna greet, fine; they start and it’s I who answer. They don’t wanna greet, fine with me, too. I ain’t fussing. I ain’t even expecting no shitty tips. Just pay me what the bloody meter say, go your bloody way.”
Big Ed shrugged and grabbed his beer.
“Anyway,” Ike said, “today’s my last day.”
Big Ed laughed. “You’re fixing to die, my friend?”
“Last day as a cabdriver. No more insults from passengers.”
“You’ve finally got a big man’s office job?” Big Ed’s tone was excited.
“I’m traveling to Nigeria.”
“You’re going to the continent! When?”
“In two days.”
“Two days! And you’re just telling? You’re taking a job there?”
“No.”
“So how you going to do to pay the white man’s bills?”
“I’m going into business.”
“Oh, business?” Surprise and disappointment rang through in the words. “What kind of business you fixing to do?”
“Buying and selling.” Ike lifted a bottle to his lips. As he drank, he thought, Snatching and selling.
Big Ed belched. His wife sneered at him.
“You not going to bed, little gal?” he teased. Then he looked at Ike with dulled eyes. “This thing you’re buying and selling—it have a name or not?”
“Anything that people w
ould pay me good money for,” Ike said, letting out a nervous laugh.
“Fine with me—so long you’re not selling people for make the money.”
“No!”
“And so long you’re not selling the ancestors.”
“No,” Ike said in a subdued, tired voice. Then he announced that he had to leave to get started with packing.
“Take two Red Stripe for drink in your pad,” Big Ed offered. “When you fixing to return from Africa?”
“Less than two weeks.”
“Get me a danshiki from the continent. Janet see me wear the danshiki, she learn to respect me.”
Janet walked up to him, stuck her tongue out, and playfully smacked his arm. She fled, shrieking, as Big Ed pretended to rise from his seat.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Ike walked into his apartment, the phone began to ring. He paused, poised between irritation and curiosity. His voice came alive on the answering message, inviting the caller to leave a message. Then he heard: “Ike, Usman Wai here. Long time. Well, nothing important as such, just touching base. Give me a call tonight when you get in—however late. Actually, I’m going to be up till midnight or twelve thirty. If I don’t hear from you today—”
Ike lurched and snatched up the handset.
“Hello, Usman!” he shouted into the phone.
“You little rascal,” Usman teased. “You’re now screening calls?”
“Actually I was in the middle of something.”
“Oh yeah?” Usman said, chuckling. “You just got divorced, and you’re already getting into another middle.”
“Dirty mind! Who told you I was in that line of activity?”
“I don’t trust you Nigerians with middle affairs.”
“Oh, so you little Sierra Leoneans have now picked up the habit of insulting your Nigerian masters?”
Usman roared in his shuddering laughter. “You Nigerians always confuse size with seniority.”
They had not spoken for close to three years. Usman was the first African Ike met after moving to New York. They used to exchange visits and hold long telephone conversations, at least twice a week. Then Usman had called one day when Ike wasn’t at home. Ike and Bernita had had one of their incessant, senseless fights. He had stormed off to the quietude of Saint Stephen’s and from there to a bar. Bernita had answered the call. As Usman expressed pleasantries, she cut him short.
“I ain’t interested in none of your Zulu greetings,” she screamed. Usman laughed nervously, thinking she was joking. He froze when Bernita huffed, “And I ain’t laughing with your Zulu ass needa.” Stunned silent, he listened as she outlined his offenses. In essence, he was accused of procuring “wide-ass Zulu bitches” for Ike.
Ike had apologized profusely to Usman, but the wound was hard to heal. Their friendship had seemed to cease. And now came Usman’s surprise call.
Usman was in his late sixties but had stern eyes that belied a genial nature. He spoke with a broadcaster’s baritone. And he had enjoyed a bright career as a young broadcaster with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. The coup that ended Kwame Nkrumah’s reign also swept away a corps of idealistic professionals who’d meandered their way to Ghana, drawn by Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision.
“What a surprise, Usman. You just cut off and went underground,” Ike said.
“Your bee stung me,” Usman teased. “I had to run for cover.”
“And you left me to battle the bee all alone.” Ike snickered. “Some brother you are!”
“My mother didn’t raise a man who would stand up to a bee. I know when to run four forty.”
Again, the sound of deafening commotion outside Cadilla’s store flooded Ike’s apartment. As Usman spoke, Ike’s antennae were tuned to the irksome racket.
“Hello?” Usman shouted. “Are you upset I called?”
“Why would you even think it?” Ike asked.
“You just sighed.”
“I did? Well, there’s this bunch of kids down at the store …”
“What about them?” Usman asked.
“Well, day or night, they gather outside the store. They’re there, rapping and screaming. I’m going to shout down and tell them to go home and sleep.”
“You’re out of your mind, you funny fellow,” Usman said between spasms of laughter. “Who do you fancy yourself to be, a village headmaster?”
“I’m tired of their rowdiness.”
“My friend, don’t mess with these American kids. You’re looking at the freest kids in the whole world. They can curse you out real bad. And they have the law on their side, too.”
“It’s not funny,” Ike said severely.
“You think I was testing out some comedy sketch here? I’ve lived in this country long enough to know that you leave kids alone. They could kick your ass, too.”
Ike stayed silent, seething.
“So, tell me about Queen,” Usman demanded.
“It’s over. We’re divorced.”
“What kind of divorce did you have?”
“Are there varieties? A menu list?”
“I mean, was it contentious and protracted?”
“Short and bitter.”
“Acrimonious?”
“You’re just in love with big words, Usman. You know Queen. Do you think she would care for an amicable way of doing anything? For her, even sex was like waging a war!”
“Leave out the pornographic asides,” Usman teased. “I’m not interested in those.”
“Instruction taken. So, Bee hired an attack dog for an attorney. Her attorney was this short woman with a quiet face. But when she opened her mouth—phew! It was fire, Usman! The way she came after me, you would think I was a Manhattan millionaire.”
“How was your own lawyer?”
“Terrible! A wimp! She behaved as if her job was to worship Queen Bee’s lawyer. And I was paying her!”
“Did Bernita gun for money?”
“Gun?” Ike echoed as sadness descended on his mood. “She gunned and got! I think the judge found her lawyer intimidating. Basically, the judge ruled that Bee should walk away with my savings.”
“Listen,” Usman said, “you’ll rise again.”
Ike thought, Rise again? Had he, he wondered, really risen before? The idea perplexed him. But his mind soon fastened on the coming trip. His spirits rose. He looked about the room until he caught his image in the mirror. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He leaned close to the mirror and peered at the mild devastation his face had become. Then, recalling Usman’s words, he smiled at the mirror.
“I will rise,” he said, fondling a bottle of Red Stripe. Quite unexpectedly, Bernita scooted into his mind. For how could his rise be complete or confirmed if she did not stalk him again, as on the day of their meeting at that wedding in Baltimore? Buoyed by the vision, he raised the bottle to his lips, sucked, and rinsed his mouth with the swill. Then, slowly, he swallowed.
“The good thing is, you’re a talented young man. America offers great opportunities.”
“I used to think so, too,” Ike said wearily. “But now I know better.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve become one of those who bash this country. I’ve lived here twice as long as you. There’s no place in the world where people like us have it better.”
“You could be an American Methuselah, if you wish. But I also know what I know. With a cum laude in economics, I have been driving taxis for thirteen years. Do you know why?”
“You told me before.”
“Yes, it’s all about my accent! So the talk about opportunities—it’s ridiculous.”
“You hate it here? My friend, try Europe. Or Asia.”
“Well, I’m here for now, not in Europe. We’re supposed to be living in this new global setting—a village, many call it. In college, I took classes where the buzzwords were ‘synergy,’ ‘hybridity,’ ‘affinities,’ ‘multivalency,’ ‘borderlessness,’ ‘transnationality,’ whatnot. My sister lives in Onitsha, near my village, but she has Internet acc
ess. A gallery somewhere in this city buys and sells deities from Africa and other parts of the world. Many American companies are selling stuff to people in my village. They’re certainly selling stuff to me, to lots of people who speak the way I do. But I apply for a job and I’m excluded because of ‘my accent,’ quote, unquote. It’s worse than telling me outright I’m a foreigner, I don’t belong. Then academics rush in to theorize me into an exile. That’s why I refuse to wear that tag.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. You feel quarantined because of your accent, and you’re a bitter kid. I would be, too, if employers treated the way I speak as a terrible disease. I’d be hopping mad, as a matter of fact. But why am I even discussing accents with you? I called to see how you were doing.”
“After the human hurricane swept over me?”
“Exactly! So, what are your immediate plans?”
“Up in the air, literally.”
“Why don’t we plan to meet next week, for lunch or something? My treat.”
“I will be in Nigeria next week. In my village, in fact.”
“Is everything okay?”
“My mother summoned me home ASAP. My sister has cluttered my in-box with e-mails demanding I come home to take care of some business. She writes on my mother’s behalf. I wish they had just sent me the ticket.”
“You really have to go, it sounds like.”
“Sounds like? I’ve booked a solid seat on KLM. I’ve also found a great business opportunity.”