Foreign Gods, Inc.

by Okey Ndibe

  Ike recalled Tony Iba’s famous falling-out with a history teacher. One day, the teacher had asked the class to enumerate the factors that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Tony had answered, “They fell, sir, consequent from their carelessness.” The teacher had stared at him for a full minute, then said: “You, Tony Iba, are bound to be a failure in life.” Tony was not one to concede the last word to anybody. He sat up, dwarfing the short teacher. “Sir,” he said in his mock-reverential manner, a smile hovering over his face, “what you have just perorated is your personal ideology. Since you’re not God, your case is appealable. I plan to elongate my life into fantabulous success.”

  Even in those days, most people had an instinctive sense that Tony Iba, alias Tony Curtis, would wangle his way into a measure of success. Ike was not surprised when, a year or so ago, his sister, Nkiru, wrote an e-mail with the news that Tony had struck it rich—nobody knew how—and had built a big house that was the talk of Utonki. And then, at Osuakwu’s, Ike had heard that Iba was Utonki’s political colossus, a man called (with an odd mixture of aspersion and affection) onu na elili ora, “the mouth that eats for the community.”

  “Yes,” Alice confirmed, barely able to conceal her excitement. “He said if you didn’t remember him by his real name, I should tell you it’s—”

  “Curtis. Tony Curtis?”

  “Yes, sah. He said he just arrived from Enugu and heard you’re in town. He’ll be in Utonki for two or three days. He said I should tell you to come to his house this night. Or tomorrow—or anytime you want.”

  Ike’s excursion to Uvunu had restored his nerves. A soft breeze had taken the edge off the evening heat. He decided to go directly to see Tony Iba.

  FROM THE OUTSIDE, IBA’S house was as impressive as Nkiru’s letter had suggested. It was a white three-story structure that towered over the trees and seemed to peer, with a sneer, at the rusted zinc and thatch roofs of surrounding buildings. A high wall rimmed with steely spikes ringed the house, obscuring its grounds from view. Ike banged on the wrought-iron gate. A shirtless young man of squat physique looked through a peephole.

  “I’d like to see Tony,” Ike announced.

  “You mean Chair,” the gateman corrected.

  “Is Tony in?” Ike persisted.

  “Chief went out,” said the gateman. He regarded Ike with a quizzical squint, doubtless curious about this man who addressed a big man without the appellation of chief.

  “When is he coming back?”

  “I don’t know. He went to see his friend who came back from America.”

  “I’m the one.”

  “You’re the person from America?”

  “Yes. I was away when he called at my house.”

  “Ah, welcome, sir,” the gateman fussed, drawing the gate open. “God bless you, sir. Forgive me, sir. Sometimes I can be foolish. I didn’t know you were Chief’s friend, sir. You can go and wait for Chief. I’m sure that now, now—soon, sir—he’ll be back.”

  Iba’s house was set at the right-hand corner of the walled sprawl. To the left was an open six-car garage with a greenish canopy. Three cars were parked in the port, all of them covered with a tarpaulin. A fourth car, a black Mercedes sedan, was parked just outside the entrance to the house.

  Ike buzzed the doorbell and was let in by a man dressed in a bow tie, white shirt, and black jacket—like a faux butler.

  “This way, please,” the man said.

  From within, the house was even huger than Ike had imagined it. They walked past a mini-courtyard adorned with a dry water fountain and seraphic totems wrought in concrete. Ike’s eyes darted into a room where a boisterous audience was huddled around a TV set. Something about their spiritedness suggested the program was a sports event.

  “A moment,” Ike said, drawing his escort’s attention. “Let me see what’s on TV.”

  “It’s basketball,” the escort explained. “There’s a bigger TV in the living room. I can turn it on for you.”

  “Let me peek in quickly,” Ike said. He stepped into the room. On the TV screen was a 1991 NBA championship game between the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. The game had been played two years before Ike’s arrival in the United States, but he had seen a tape of it at the apartment of a college friend who was from Chicago and fanatical about the Bulls.

  Five young boys, two girls, and four adults sat in a semicircle on the carpeted floor, most of them absorbed by the game. One of the boys wore a T-shirt with TOMMY HILFIGER scrawled on it in large letters. Another sported an oversize T-shirt with the letters FUBU running down the length of its back. One of the girls faced the TV but directed her attention to a dust-brown teddy bear splotched with palm oil. The other girl was equally occupied with ministrations to a sheared twiggy Barbie.

  Enrapt in the game, the watchers hardly paid attention to Ike. They hooted at a dunk and then hissed at a missed layup. They sighed and cursed when the referee made a call they disliked. When a player executed a crossover dribble, they hailed the maneuver. When another player fumbled, they chided.

  Michael Jordan got a pass, dribbled past three defenders, then levitated for a dunk. Another Laker defender lifted up, the weight of his body deployed to stop the airborne Bulls star. The impact stunned Jordan and sent him reeling, earthbound, like a meteor. The ball, released awkwardly, bounced on the rim twice and then fell in just as the umpire’s whistle blew for a foul. The Bulls called a time-out. Jordan got up and glared at the man who’d hit him hard. Then he stormed off to his team’s huddle. The action faded to a commercial break.

  “Jordan is angry,” announced the Hilfiger boy with the authority of a mind reader. He added: “Jordan will kill them today.” “He can’t do anything,” said one of the older men. “He’s not a god.” “He’s the god of basketball,” said the Hilfiger youngster, punching the air. “Well, we’re seeing a god who has been tied up today.”

  Ike was astounded by their fervor. Before he left for America, Nigerian TV stations never showed a basketball game. It was in America that he saw his first live professional basketball game. Jonathan Falla’s parents had invited him to Boston Garden to see a play-off game between the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. He remembered it as an ugly, physical game, replete with grunts and knuckles that came close, twice, to degenerating into an all-out brawl. The sheer spectacle of it had intrigued him, but it was not exactly the game to convert a reluctant watcher. He remained a dabbler, neither indifferent nor an avid fan. There was one exception: he’d become a devoted fan of Michael Jordan. In equal measure, he admired Jordan’s breathtaking flights and his business savvy.

  “You all like this game?” He broke his silence in Igbo, marveling at their concentration.

  They all looked at him at once. Eyes, old and young, locked on him as if he were an irksome interloper.

  The Hilfiger youngster spoke first. “I want to be like them.” He spread his arms in an expression of largeness. “They’re paid bags and bags of dollars. Just for throwing that ball through a hole.”

  “I know,” Ike said. “I live in America.” He saw their eyes widen. “I’ve actually seen them play.”

  “With your two eyes?” one of the older men asked.

  Ike was amused. “Yes, with my two eyes. I was there, just like the people you see on TV. I could have shouted the name of one of the players, and he would have heard me.”

  The FUBU, silent for a while, asked, “Do you have to be as tall as two men joined together to play?”

  Ike laughed. “Most of them are very tall, but not all of them. There’s one man who used to play; his name is Muggsy Bogues. He’s shorter than I am.”

  “Shorter than you?” one of the adults echoed, his tone skeptical.

  “He’s so short I can use my chin to give him a knock on the head.”

  “Then why don’t you play?” the same man asked. “Does money taste bitter to you?”

  “It’s not a game that everybody can play,” the Hilfiger boy explained.


  “It’s true,” Ike said.

  “If I ever go to America, I’ll play,” said another man, running a hand over his head covered with knots of gray hair. “If they pay me bags of money, I’ll play.”

  “Nobody will pay you even shishi,” another teased. “It’s not a game for gray-haired weaklings.”

  “Send your wife over tonight, and I’ll show her what a man with gray hair can do. Only don’t blame me if she drops twins on you in nine months.”

  Laughter swept the room, drowning out the other man’s retort.

  “Tell me,” asked another man. “Is it really true about the money they’re paid?”

  Ike nodded his assent.

  “I hear it’s enough money to fill a large room like this one,” said the gray-haired man, his arm defining an arc.

  Ike nodded again.

  “And all they have to do is drop a ball in a hole?” the man asked, his tone wistful.

  Ike chuckled. “It looks easy, but it’s not.”

  “What’s so difficult in it?” asked one of the boys. “I can do it.”

  The gray-haired man let out a dreamy gasp. “If I find my way to that America,” he said, “no more trouble. I know a dibia or two who can arm me with the right charm. Everything I throw up will go in that hole. Even with my eyes shut, the ball falls in. After they’ve seen me in one game, nobody will talk anymore about that bald boy.”

  “Jordan,” Ike said.

  “He misses half his shots,” the man said, his face screwed up in disdain. “Do you have his phone number?” he asked Ike.

  “No, why?”

  “I can take him to the best dibia in these parts. Then everything he throws will find the hole.”

  Ike bent over with laughter.

  “He must have a dibia,” suggested one of the men. “A man with so much wealth in his hand can’t be without one.”

  “True,” conceded the gray-haired man. “But his dibia must not know his work.” Glancing up at Ike, he said, “If you bring him to see me, I will take him to a good dibia.”

  “Jordan is retired,” Ike explained. “You’re watching a game he played in nineteen ninety-one. He got tired of playing—so he’s in his house resting. He used to be the king; the new king is a young man called Kobe Bryant.”

  “Eh-eh,” exclaimed the man in vindication. “If he had a good dibia, why would he get tired? Does a living king hand his throne to another king?”

  “Jordan and his team had conquered other teams six times. He decided it was enough. He wanted to rest.”

  “Are you telling me he got tired of making money?”

  “He already has a lot of money,” Ike explained. “A lot.”

  “Does a man ever get tired of money? Does he have as much money as Chief?”

  “More,” Ike said.

  “How can?” one of the men said. “There’s no way a man who throws a ball through a hole will have more money than Chief.”

  “Jordan does.”

  “Impossi-can’t!” shouted one of the men. “Chief is a politician. You can’t compare a common player with a politician.”

  “All I know is, I’ll never get tired of money,” crowed the youngster in the fake FUBU shirt. “Let my money fill a huge basket, I’ll still look for more.”

  “Only a man with no sense runs away from money,” the gray-haired man ruled.

  Ike suspected that they were not moved by the spectacle of nimble men slicing, gliding, feinting, flying. They hardly cared for the dunks, the pump fakes, the cross-over dribbles, the fade-away jump shots dropped from impossible angles. It was not the grunts and hard fouls or the fluidity of movement that astonished them. These fans in faraway Utonki seemed enthralled by the basketball players’ storied wealth.

  Of course, it’s always about money. When Jordan peeled his feet off gravity’s earth and levitated, it was about money. When millions of Jordan’s fans around the world became light with him, lithe and almost free, suspended with him in sheer air, able to soar with him all the way to the big, bigger, biggest mall, there to enter the kingdom of the Jordan Shoes, it was about money. Jordan, like his fans, was buoyed by the dollar. Money generated his élan, birthed his appeal, fueled his flights, consecrated him the archangel of the green-colored god. An American columnist had written about Japanese men, women, and children weeping on the streets of Tokyo when MJ announced his retirement. Nobody had forewarned them that the flights would ever stop, that patient gravity would someday triumph over their identifiable flying object. A grounded, flapless angel is a despairing, depressing sight. For all his dexterity with the ball, Jordan was a more sagacious moneymaker, money spinner, money gobbler. Best ever, in the spectacular dunk, in buzzer beating, but also in buzz generation, in turning a buck, in spinning a dream, in dream bursting. Wanna be like Mike?

  Ike fixed on the two girls. They were entranced by their toys, indifferent to the conversation.

  Ike asked the men what they would do if they had as much money as Jordan.

  Their excitement became palpable, as if their millions were in Ike’s hands, waiting to be released once they gave the right answer.

  “First, I’ll never use water to wash my hands,” said the gray-haired man. He saw the look of surprise on Ike’s face. “If I have that kind of money, why should water still touch my hands? I’ll wash my hands in beer. Or whiskey, like Chief.”

  Ike let out a burst of laughter. “Don’t tell me Tony Curtis uses whiskey to wash hands.”

  “He’s now Chief Iba. If God blesses you as Chief has been blessed, would you still wash hands with common water?”

  Ike’s smile prodded the man to continue.

  “If I become a rich man, nkwu and ngwo will never touch my lips. I’ll only drink Coors Light and Heineken.” He ran his tongue over his lips. “I’ll never wear knickers, only trousers. I will even wear trousers to play the game.”

  “It’s against the rules,” Ike said. “The rule is that they must wear shorts to play.”

  The man snickered. “Who made that rule?”

  “The game has a commissioner. He makes the rules.”

  “The commissioner must have a lot more money than Jordan.”

  “No,” Ike answered. “In fact, Jordan has enough money to buy the man many times over.”

  A confounded expression clouded the gray-haired man’s face. “There’s falsehood in your talk,” he said accusingly. “How can a man command another who is richer? Can I go and tell Chief what to do? If I’m as wealthy as Jordan, nobody will stop me from wearing trousers.”

  The others echoed the sentiment, casting suspicious eyes at Ike.

  “I’m not lying,” he assured them.

  “I’ll still wear trousers to play,” insisted the gray-haired man. “Nobody can stop me.”

  “Okay,” Ike conceded. “What else do you plan to do?”

  “I won’t drink water anymore. If I become thirsty, my servant must bring me a Coke or Fanta. And I’ll eat fried eggs each morning.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And each afternoon and night.”

  “Me too,” exclaimed the Hilfiger boy. “I like fried eggs and plantain.”

  “Shut up!” one of the men chided. “Have you ever eaten fried eggs in your life?”

  “I have, to God!” swore the youngster. “Chief’s cook has given me fried eggs.”

  “Then he’s teaching you to steal,” griped the man. “Wait till I tell your father about it. He should know where to look when his money begins to disappear. Women and children are not to eat eggs. It teaches them to steal.”

  “Children eat eggs in America,” Ike said. “And eggs are very cheap.”

  “That your America is good,” said one of the men. “So you eat eggs every day?”

  “I don’t,” Ike said.

  Their eyes registered disappointment and pity. “Don’t you have enough money?”

  “I just told you that eggs are cheap. But they’re not good for you. They sicken the heart.”


  They laughed doubtfully. One said, “Give me fried eggs every day. I don’t care what it does to my heart.”

  “Fried egg is all you talk about,” Ike teased. “A wealthy man must have other plans.”

  “My feet will never touch the ground again. Wherever I go, I’ll drive. Even to visit my neighbor, I’ll go in my car. Of course, I’ll not drive. I’ll be driven by my driver.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ike pointed at the boy in a Hilfiger shirt. “So you, tell me how you’ll spend your millions.”

  A wide smile stretched the youngster’s cheeks. “I’ll eat only foreign food.”

  “Foreign food? Like what?”

  “I’ll start with eggs.”

  “Eggs?” one of the adults interjected. “Next, you’ll start stealing. Eggs, you said? Your father must hear this.”

  “Go on,” Ike urged the youngster.

  “I’ll also eat ice cream every day.”

  “And what else?”

  He tugged at his shirt. “I’ll buy lots of shirts like this one. Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU, Calvin Klein. Then I’ll buy four—no, ten—big cars. Hummer, Navigator, Bentley, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce—”

  “Have you seen any of those cars?” Ike asked.

  “Chief Iba has a Rolls-Royce,” said one of the men.

  Incredulous, Ike looked over his shoulder at the man who’d opened the door for him. “Is it true?”

  “Chief is not a small man,” the escort said.

  Ike pointed at the carport. “Is one of those covered cars a Rolls-Royce?”

  “No way!” the man cried. “His big cars are in Enugu. The village is dusty. Chief can’t leave his expensive cars in the dust.”

  “Okay, you get your Rolls-Royce,” Ike addressed the youngster. “What else?”