Uwem Akpan 3 page

To lock the front door, Fofo pulled out a plank of wood from under our bed and placed it snugly on the metal latches. Tonight, he tested the lock’s strength, putting his left shoulder on the bar and carefully applying his weight. He sighed and nodded, beaming contentedly at the bike.

“We must buy new doors for de house,” Fofo Kpee said.

“Windows also,” Yewa blurted out, her attention still wrapped around the Nanfang as if the windows were part of it.

“Yeah, pas du problem,” he said, and started locking up the two little square wooden windows on either side of the door. “We go change les choses loÙpa loÙpa, many tings, I tell you.”

There were two six-spring beds on either side of the room and a low wooden table in between. I slept with Yewa in one bed, while Fofo had the other bed to himself. Our clothes were in cartons under the beds, but Fofo’s important clothes hung at one corner of the room, from a bambu pole suspended from the rafters by two ropes. Because the room was small, the bike stood, poking its handlebars and front tire into the wardrobe, like a cow whose head is lost in the tall grass it’s eating. In the evenings, when we gazed into the roof, its rusty texture looked like stagnant brown clouds, no matter the brilliance of our lantern. On very hot days we could hear the roof expand with little knocking sounds.

Now we drew closer and gawked, and smelled and felt the Nanfang’s body. Fofo had to shout at me twice to warn me about bringing the lantern too close to the machine. The smell of newness overpowered the stuffiness of the room. Yewa pulled at the clear plastic that covered the seats and lights and mudguards, until Fofo warned her not to remove them.

“I get someting for vous,” Fofo Kpee said to calm us down. He sank into his bed and dug into the portmanteau and offered us little cones of peanuts and half-melted toffees from his pocket, which we chewed in the wrappers. That night Fofo didn’t tell us stories about which he laughed louder than we did. He brought out a bottle of Niyya guava juice and poured us a drink. “Hey, temps de celebration,” Fofo Kpee said. “We tank God!”

“We bless his name!” we responded.

He raised his cup. “Ah, we no create poverty. . . . Cheers à la Nanfang!”

“Cheers!” we responded, tipping our cups.

It had been a long time since we had fruit juice. Yewa drank hers immediately, in one long endless gulp, tilting the cup so quickly that the juice poured from both sides of her face and dribbled onto her belly, thick red teardrops. I took one gulp and stopped, thinking it would be better to save the juice until dinner, and went to set my cup down on a safe spot between the lantern stand and the wall.

The excitement of that night was such that when we finally descended on the Abakaliki rice and stew of onions, kpomo, and palm oil, we didn’t mind if we found little pebbles in the rice. No matter how thoroughly you picked the rice for stones, you couldn’t get rid of all of them. Now, occasionally, we cracked a pebble, held our jaws, and washed down the half-chewed food with juice. Though Fofo Kpee used to scold me each time he bit into a pebble, because it was my job to pick the rice, that night he didn’t. We were celebrating our Nanfang. And with my stingy sips of juice, I could stand any amount of sand in the rice that night.

When I got down to the last gulp, I stopped and saved it. I had water instead and ate and drank until my stomach filled up, the palm oil in the stew yellowing my lips. Then I downed the rest of the juice so the taste would remain in my mouth until I went to bed.

* * *

“KOTCHIKPA, MY BOY, QUICK quick, go prepare de inner room for de Nanfang!” Fofo Kpee told me after dinner.

“Yes, Fofo Kpee,” I said.

“Let the Nanfang stay here!” Yewa appealed to him. She was still jumping up and down, celebrating.

“Ah non, my gal,” Fofo said. “Next room for Nanfang.”

“I shall sleep inside, then,” my sister said, bowing her head to her chest and looking sad. “With Nanfang.”

“Je dis non, Yewa,” Fofo insisted, and tried to change the subject: “I go buy tree new book for you. Your teacher go dey happy well well for you now, yes?”

“I don’t want books,” Yewa said.

“Hmmm, you no want book?” he asked. “D’accord, new crayons? Pencils?”

She shook her head. “I want to sleep avec Nanfang . . .”

“Haba!” Fofo Kpee shut her up.

Yewa sat down on the floor in protest, facing the machine, her back to us. Fofo went over and squatted behind her and caressed her shoulders, while she shrugged and tried to push him off.

“Ah, mon Yewa, mon Yewa,” he sweet-talked her, “you go learn how to write. You be future professor!”

“No,” Yewa said, shaking her head vigorously, as if a bug had just entered her nostril. Yewa was like that when she set her mind on something, stubborn and saying little.

“Ah non, you no want be agbero like me, oui?”

“Leave me alone.”

Fofo leaned over to pour more juice into her cup, but she refused.

“Why you no want be good gal today?” he said. “Well, Kotchikpa no go write for you. Everyone must learn to write. Education est one person, one vote.”

Yewa was silent.

“Yewa, tu es toujours un bébé!” I said, trying to coax her out of her stubbornness. “Crybaby!”

“Leave me alone.”

“Oya, I go buy you sandal for school” Fofo Kpee begged her. She still didn’t get up, so Fofo stood, shrugged, and came and sat on his bed and faced me. “Kotchikpa, je t’acheterai two textbook plus an exercise book, d’accord?”

“Books for me?” I said, excited. “When?”

“Tomorrow. You no go borrow book again for school. Since you like to read, you go dey read every night.”

“Thanks, Fofo Kpee,” I said, and glanced at the new bike, as if to acknowledge that without it coming into our lives I wouldn’t have had what I needed for school.

“Witout education, you children, comme moi, go just rot for dis town, where danger full everywhere. No, I go try make sure say una go dey rich. I go even make sure say una go come be like de children of our politicians and leaders. Una go go school sef for abroad.” He paused, then turned sharply to Yewa. “Hey, mon bébé, no problem if you no want be professor. Abi, you want become international businesswoman, yes? Anyway, you go dey cross dis ocean to Gabon, go come, go come, as if you dey go toilet,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing in the direction of the ocean.

“Give us a ride on the Nanfang,” Yewa said suddenly, in a petulant voice. I felt she wanted to be granted this, since she couldn’t sleep in the same room with the Nanfang.

“Easy, pourquoi pas?” our uncle said, going over to pour her more juice. “C’est tout?”

“Yes, take us out, Fofo, please,” said Yewa, turning around. She was struggling not to smile, trying to remain angry, as if she still had all the power.

“Oh no, me I be responsible man,” Fofo Kpee said in a cooing voice, and smiled a large smile. His face creased and lessened the tension on his left eye, making the scar on his cheek look artificial. “How me go come risk una life when I never sabi how to drive de zokeÙkeÙ yet? Gimme time . . . I go carry you go anywhere. . . . Bois . . . bois. Drink . . . drink.”

“Allons Braffe! To see Papa and Mama!” I said.

My sister quickly unstuck her mouth from the cup, swallowed, and said breathlessly, “Yes, yes, to Braffe . . . to Braffe!”

“Absolutement,” Fofo said.

“Tomorrow,” Yewa said.

“No . . . impossible.”

“Mr. Big Guy will ride us,” I said.

Fofo shook his head. “Ah non, you want shame me, mes enfants? How me go arrive for Braffe village when I never fit drive my zokeÙkeÙ? No, make we wait small. I go learn fast. . . . Even sef, I never get enough money to visit Braffe now.”

“Papa and Mama will be happy to see us and the Nanfang,” Yewa said, and got up and came to sit on the bed with me.

“Grandpapa will give you many handshakes. Grandmama will dance,” I said. “Hey, let’s go on Monday.”

“Kotchikpa, Monday?” Fofo Kpee said incredulously. “No, I go first come your school to pay school fees on Monday. . . . School before pleasure, right, mon peuple, right?”

“Yes, Fofo,” I said. When I looked at my sister, happiness had taken over her face. She started babbling about our family in the village.

We hadn’t seen them for one and a half years, since Fofo came to the village to take us to live with him. Papa, a short chubby man with a stern face, was bedridden, tended by our dutiful and teary grandmother. Mama, a mountain of a woman, with an everlasting smile and restless energy, had already lost her bulk, become emaciated, and couldn’t walk to the farm without resting two or three times under the ore trees by the roadside. No matter how many times we asked, nobody volunteered any information about our parents’ sickness. Our relatives talked in hushed voices about it, a big family secret. However, by eavesdropping, I learned that my parents had AIDS, though I didn’t know what it meant then.

Before we left home, our relatives gathered in our parents’ living room, and Papa and Mama told us to be obedient to Fofo Kpee, not to disgrace them by being ungrateful to him at the border town to which he was taking us. They said he would henceforth be our father and mother and that I was to show a good example to Yewa and to protect the name of our family at all costs. I promised everyone I would be good. Fofo said he was happy to take care of his brother’s children and said he would bring us back to the village to visit our parents and our older siblings, Ezin and Esse and Idossou, whenever time and resources allowed. My grandpapa, the gentle patriarch of our extended family, prayed over us that morning before we left on the Glazoué Cotonou Road. Grandmama sobbed silently beside Papa, who had turned his face to the wall to cry. I remember our siblings and a host of relatives waving to us until our bus turned the corner, heading south.

Now, whenever we asked Fofo about our parents, he always said that they were recovering. He said they were eager to see us and we would soon go back to visit, but it was more important that we got used to our new home and studied hard in school. That Nanfang night, in my excitement, I was already thinking of the celebration that would sweep through our family when we rode in on the motorcycle, and everyone saw that one of theirs had brought home something better than a Raleigh bicycle. I figured once we got off the machine, Ezin and Esse and Idossou would be the first to get a ride. I could imagine Mama and our aunties cooking up pots of obe aossin, melon soup; iketi, cornmeal; and mounds of egun, pounded yam; and Papa and his brothers making sure there was plenty of chapalo, local beer. I looked forward to seeing all our friends and cousins, telling them about the beauty of the ocean and all the border hassles. We might even arrange a soccer match between all the boys in our extended family and another family in the village.

* * *

FOFO KPEE PULLED OUT a bag from under his bed and rested it on his lap like a baby, feeling for something inside without looking, until he grabbed and pulled out an old green four-angle schnapps bottle. It was half filled with payó. He shook it and opened it, the local gin’s pungency briefly overpowering the scent of the new bike. He sipped slowly from the bottle, his eyes glittering in the heat of the drink, his left eye shining more because it was bigger, the scar looking like a large tear flowing down his cheek.

“S’il vous plaît,” Yewa whined again, gawking at the drink, “I want to sleep with my Nanfang tonight. Just tonight.” Her little bony face was upturned, the yellow lantern light washing over one side like a half moon. Tears shone from the lighted part of her face.

“If you want small payó, say it,” Fofo Kpee said. But Yewa pretended not to hear what he said. “Gal, you go be big-time businesswoman for Gabon. You be hard bargainer!”

“Please,” Yewa said.

Fofo Kpee gave up and poured some gin into the silver top of the bottle and then into Yewa’s mouth. Yewa swallowed, cleared her throat, and smacked her lips contentedly. She didn’t say anything else, but just stroked the spokes of the motorcycle gently as if they were the strings of some beloved musical instrument.

“Finish de room for de zokeÙkeÙ, den I go give you your drink,” Fofo told me. “Payó head no good for Nanfang!”

I entered the inner room, which was smaller than the first, and began to move things around to make space for the machine. The room had become our treasure store and had been filling up recently, with the sudden change in our lifestyle. I picked up packets of roof nails and gaskets and placed them on the pile of secondhand corrugated roofing sheets by the far wall, near the back door. There were two huge black plastic water vats, neither of which needed to be moved, in opposite corners of the room, and five bags of Dangote cement, stacked by the near wall below the window, that kept shedding a fine gray dust. After I began to move things, a stuffy thickness filled the air. My nostrils felt itchy, and I sneezed three times. If we swept the room, even with the two windows open, the dust whirled up and beclouded everything like the harmattan haze. I began to work the bolt on one window to let in the humid ocean air.

“No open de window o!” Fofo said from the parlor, his voice raspy from the gin. “You want expose my zokeÙkeÙ to tieves, huh? A yón cost of Nanfang?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You better be—nulunoÙ!”

I went on to rearrange the corner of the room where our food and utensils were. On a big upturned wooden mortar, I put a wicker basket of plates and cutlery. The long black pestle was leaning in the corner, its head white and cracked by use. I stacked up three empty pots, careful not to touch their soot, careful not to touch our pot of egusi soup, which I had already warmed for the night. Stirring it would make it sour before morning. Soon, Fofo, in a solemn procession, brought in the machine and stood it at the center of the room, like a giant bearing down on everything, an athlete poised at the starting line.

That night, the bike followed me into the land of my dreams. I rejected Suzuki, Honda, and Kawasaki and chose a Nanfang and became rich forever. I used it to climb the coconut trees, learned to park on the palms, and used coconut milk for gas. I rode it across the ocean, creating a huge wake behind me. I flew it like a helicopter to distant places and landed it many times in my father’s compound in Braffe. At school, all my classmates had Nanfangs, and we played soccer riding them, like in polo. I rode my Nanfang until I grew old, but the Nanfang neither aged nor needed repairs. At the end of my life, my people buried me atop it, and I rode that Nanfang straight to heaven’s gate, where Saint Peter gave me an automatic pass.

* * *

FOR FOUR DAYS, WE watched Big Guy teach Fofo Kpee how to ride along the strips of grass in the coconut plantation. From our house, we could see Fofo perched on the bike, his face split in two by his trademark laugh. He looked like a pantomime because we couldn’t hear him or the bike over the sound of the ocean. Big Guy’s shaven head was so oiled that it reflected the sun. Both of them seemed to be having fun, and on the horizon, a ship heading to or leaving Porto Novo dragged a black funnel of smoke across the sky.

The next Sunday, we got ready for church. Fofo had informed the pastor that we were going to have our first Family Thanks-giving, which was what some well-to-do families did every Sunday.

At dawn, Fofo Kpee woke up and took the Nanfang behind the house and propped it on our bathing stone. He undressed it of its plastic covers as gingerly as one would remove stitches from a wound. He poured Omo detergent into a bucket of water and swirled and rattled the water until it foamed. Gently, he sponged the frame and scrubbed the tires, as if they would never touch the ground again. After rinsing the Nanfang, he wiped it with the towel the three of us shared. During our own bath, he squatted and soaked our feet and scrubbed them with a new kankan, a native sponge, for the big occasion. He held the kankan like a shoe brush and worked on our soles until their natural color returned, until the fissures disappeared.

Later, Fofo Kpee rode us to church, wearing a new agbada and huge sunglasses, which gave him a bug-eyed look. The wind pumped up the flanks of his agbada like malformed wings. It was our first ride: Yewa was on the gas tank, clutching our family Bible, sporting her flowery dress and new baseball cap. In a pair a of corduroys and a green T-shirt, I was crushed in between Fofo and two acquaintances of his. The woman behind me was dangling a big squawking red rooster by its tied legs on one side of the machine. She was a large woman and her big headgear hovered over me like a multicolored umbrella. The man at the end of the bike carried on his head a basket with three yams, pineapples, oranges, a bag of amala flour, and five rolls of toilet paper.

A triumphant midmorning sun filled the day, and a clear blue sky beckoned us. The road was crowded with churchgoers. Fofo Kpee sped off, tooting his horn nonstop, flashing the lights to clear the road ahead of us. The crowd parted before us like the Red Sea before Moses’s rod. Some people waved and cheered us on. My chest swelled with pride, and my eyes welled up with tears, which the wind swept onto my earlobes.

When we got to Our Redeemer Pentecostal Church, Big Guy was waiting by the entrance, smiling at us like an usher. He had shaved his beard, and in his gray suit and loafers, he looked even taller and more intimidating. He stood as straight as one of the thin pillars that adorned the church’s entrance. The church was a big, uncompleted rectangular structure. The new roof shone in the bright sun, but the church had no doors or windows yet, and the walls hadn’t been plastered. You could hear hundreds of shoes shuffling on what we called the “German floor” as worshippers walked in and found their places among the pews, which, for now, were planks set on blocks.

Fofo parked the bike under a guava tree, although not before he had felt the ground around the stand with his right foot to see whether it was safe to do so. He unfolded a big tarp and covered the Nanfang, in case it rained, however unlikely that was.

“Ah, mon ami, good morning o!” Fofo greeted Big Guy, grabbing his hand when we got to the door.

“I tell you say I no go miss dis one,” Big Guy said, and pulled us aside, away from the doorway. “Somehow, I been tink say you go bring de oder children to church.”

Fofo Kpee froze. “Wetin? Which children, Big Guy?” he said.

Big Guy looked away. “You know wetin I dey talk, Smiley Kpee, you know.”

Big Guy wasn’t as agitated or angry as he had been when he brought the Nanfang and said he expected to see five children. Now, there was an uneasy silence between the two men. The four of us looked like an island in the river of people entering the church.

“OK, God bless you,” Fofo Kpee said, and nudged him on the side. “Make we talk about dis matter osoÙ.”

“Tomorrow never come,” Big Guy said, his voice rising in seriousness.

“You loser! Who send you come spoil my Family Tanksgiving?”

Because of the way Fofo sounded, some people turned and stared at Big Guy. Two ushers started wading through the crowd toward us, as if they anticipated a quarrel.

“Just joking,” Big Guy said, and let out a nervous laugh.

“I hope you dey joke,” Fofo said, chuckling, and people went back to minding their business.

Big Guy turned to us immediately and squatted before Yewa, touching her cap and holding our hands. In spite of his bad nails, his palms were soft and gentle. “Oh, our children are so beautiful!” he said.

“Thank you, monsieur,” we said.

“Wow, Fofo dey treat you well o.”

“Yes, he does, monsieur.”

“Abeg o. Appellez-moi Big Guy. Just Big Guy, deal?”

“Yes, Big Guy,” my sister said, nodding.

“And you?” Big Guy said, turning to me.

“Yes, Big Guy . . . monsieur,” I said.

“Oh, no, no,” he said, clucking his tongue disapprovingly. “N’est pas difficult. Big Guy, just Big Guy. Your kid sister done master de ting.” He turned again to Yewa: “You must be smart for school, abi?”

“Yes, Big Guy,” Yewa said, licking her lips excitedly.

“No worry, Kotchikpa go master de name too,” Fofo said, coming to my defense as Big Guy rose to his feet. “Give de boy time, man . . . right Kotchikpa?”

“Yes, Fofo,” I said.

“Dere you are,” Fofo Kpee said to Big Guy, and shook his hand again, while folding the wings of his agbada onto his shoulders. His smile was so wide that the tension between his lip and left eyelid eased, and his eyes looked the same size. “EteÙ n’gan doÙ? Na our family turn for Tanksgiving. Abeg, join us in peace.”

“Pourquoi pas?” Big Guy said, shrugging. “You know say our God no be poor God. . . . He bring me and you togeder for better ting.”

“Yeah, you know, as our people say, man be God to man,” Fofo said. “Hunger o, disease o, bad luck o, empty pockets o—our heavenly baba go banish all of dem from us today. God done already shame Satan.”

“If you dey poor, know dat because you be sinner. Someting dey wrong wid you. And God dey punish you,” Big Guy said.

* * *

IN CHURCH, THE FOUR of us sat in the front pew. When it was time for Thanksgiving proper, we went to the back. Fofo went outside and rolled the Nanfang up to the church. Two ushers helped him lift it over the three stairs at the front.

Like two acolytes, Yewa and I stood at the head of the procession, our dance steps at once shy and excited, not completely in sync with the heavy drums and singing. Then came Fofo and Nanfang. He held the bike majestically, like a bride. Still, from time to time Fofo Kpee managed to stoop low and gyrate and flap and gather his agbada. The trumpets were so loud that even if the rooster we brought, which was held by someone deep in the procession, was still squawking, nobody heard.

When there was a lull in the trumpeting, someone behind us filled the church with a loud yodeling. When I turned around, I saw it was Big Guy. He loomed behind us like a pillar of cloud. His dance was elegant and unique: he didn’t bend down like Fofo but was very erect, as if his suit refused him permission to stoop or spread out his long legs. Instead, he simply shook and threw his legs and arms gingerly, like a daddy longlegs.

Behind him, the crowd of well-wishers swelled the aisle with dancing, bringing up the gifts of yam, fruit, amala flour, and toilet paper we had brought from home. In this flux, the ushers stood like statues, holding out baskets into which we tossed naira and cefa bills. When we had gathered in front of the sanctuary, Pastor Concord Adeyemi, short, thin, and bearded, came before us. His suit was charcoal black, and a sizable cross dangled from a chain around his neck over his tie. He wore jheri curls.

“Now, bring out your offering and raise it to the Lord to be blessed . . . Amen!” he thundered into the microphone.

“Amen!” the church responded.

People began digging in their pockets for money. Yewa and I brought out our twenty-naira bills, which Fofo Kpee had given to us solely for this purpose. Fofo had said it was important today we held up N20 bills instead of the N1 coins we had held during other people’s Thanksgivings. Today wasn’t the day for us to be ashamed, he had said. Now, when I looked behind, Fofo was holding up a N100 bill. The roof of the church looked littered with naira and cefa bills, suspended in the air by hundreds of hands.

“Raise it higher to the Lord,” the pastor said. “And be blessed in Jesus’ name!”

“Amen.”

“Higher, I say. . . . You get from the Lord what you give. We need to finish building this church, Amen?”

“Amen.”

“Don’t curse yourself today. . . . Add more to the Lord. This is your salvation Sunday, your breakthrough Sunday. You, that man, don’t spoil it for the Lord by offering so little.” He pointed somewhere in the back and everybody turned to look in that direction. “If you change your ways, tomorrow the Lord could bless you too, with a Nanfang. Poverty is a curse from Satan. . . . The Lord is ready to break that curse. Do you believe?”

“Yes, we believe.”

Some people substituted their bills for a higher denomination.

“And do not spoil it for Smiley Kpee either. He has been a faithful Christian over the years, OK. Don’t bring bad luck to his Nanfang.”

“God forbid, God forbid!” the church hollered.

“Don’t spoil it for these two children of his!” He reached out and touched Yewa and then me. “May the Lord bless you with infinite goodness. May you always be lucky, Amen?”

“Amen.”

“And you can bless your neighbor too,” he said to the church. “What is your neighbor holding up?” There was a low murmur as people spoke to their neighbors, some teasing others to bring out more money. Big Guy whispered something into Fofo Kpee’s ear, gave him a CFA10,000 bill and took away the N100 bill, and both men smiled. Fofo was so happy, there were tears in his eyes. “Our God is a rich God, not a pauper,” the pastor said.

“Amen.”

“And make sure your neighbor is not tempted to put back in his pocket what has been shown to the Lord. Amen?”

“Amen.”

He signaled to the choir, which intoned “The Lord Will Bless Someone Today.”

The Lord will bless someone today
The Lord will bless someone today
The Lord will bless someone today
The Lord will bless someone today

It could be me
It could be you
It could be someone by your side

The Lord will bless someone today
The Lord will bless someone today

As we sang along, our gift baskets were passed over the sanctuary rails to the assisting pastors, two wives of Pastor Adeyemi. After the wives had finished putting the gifts behind the sanctuary, they came out and joined in the blessing—two tall, elegant figures making their way through the praying crowd, placing their hands on the abdomens of the pregnant, whispering, “Omo ni iyin oluwa, . . . Children are the greatness of God.”

Then, as the pastor came down to bless the Nanfang, he asked us again to lift our money higher. He prayed that God should bless our household forever and that He should protect Fofo from Satan. Then his composure disintegrated as he bent down and grabbed the handlebars of the machine and launched into the “Holy Spirit, Fire!” benediction. His jheri curls flew everywhere, his cross jangled against the gas tank. He shook the Nanfang hard, to banish ill luck, until the faces of Fofo Kpee and Big Guy became clouded with fear. Eager to protect the bike, they reached out and held on to it with all their might while the pastor rained blessings on it. Soon the pastor placed his hands on our heads, and then people dropped their money into a collection basket, watching one another to keep cheats from substituting lower denominations or stuffing it back into their pockets.

* * *

THAT AFTERNOON, BACK AT our house, Fofo had rented white plastic chairs and a multicolored tarpaulin canopy for a party. Women, whom Fofo had hired to cook, brought the food in coolas and ladled it out to our guests. Though it wasn’t a big crowd, Fofo had gotten the dirt road in front of our house blocked, to give the impression of a large, overflowing party. In our part of the world, if a party didn’t disrupt traffic, it wasn’t a party.

Fofo Kpee stood up when he got a chance and said in his comedian voice, “My people, my neighbors, honton se lé, family se, dis de day de Lord has made . . .”

“Make we rejoice and be glad!” we all replied, laughing.

He cleared his throat and shouted, “Alleluuu . . .”

“Alleluuuia!” screamed the crowd.

“You see my broda and his wife who live abroad send me dis zokeÙkeÙ!” He pointed to the Nanfang, which was standing under the mango tree, alone, as if on exhibition. “You see, I no go die poor man,” he continued. “I can’t be agberoing all my life. I must do someting to get rich. Like carrying una good people on my zokeÙkeÙ and making money. You must patronize me o. You no go just come here to eat my rice for notting o.”

“You go carry us till you tire!” someone said. “Smiley Kpee, na true talk!”

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 739