EVERYTHING NA DOUBLE-DOUBLE

He told himself he was leaving home to feed home; maybe he was trying to escape his own reality through a means his heart couldn't hold.

The first time I got a call from home, it was Dede. Almost a month since I left home and not a single person had called in that time. He said he just wanted to know how I was doing.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes, yes, everything is fine. Everything is going well.” I wanted to ask him if he was alright too, if everything was fine at home, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked for his account number and he had barely gotten the “okay” out of his tongue before the phone beeped three times into my ear. I did not hear from him again for one month, that was the day I finally sent money into the account.

**

We were ten in the family, four boys and four girls. Papa owned a bamboo shop down our street were he sold bamboo sticks in bulk. He made a lot of money, I presumed, but we, his children, never got a bite of it. Instead, we were always hungry. Instead, we relied on the many jobs Mama did to make sure we never went a day without tasting red oil. She would cultivate okra in the small farm behind the house, she would work in the rice mill helping strangers so that they’d give her some rice or some money, she would hawk boiled groundnuts or pork or both on the main roads. That was who my mother was; she was always sweating, always walking, and I hated Papa for that. The eldest child, Patrick, grew up to take over Papa’s business. I think part of the returns still went to Papa because that was the only reasonable explanation as to where he got the money to drink alcohol and smoke cigar at that kiosk in the junction from. I hated Papa for that too. My four sisters: Judith was already married, Nene was already married, Vivian was already married, even the last of them Beneatha was married too. By “married” it doesn’t mean that one day a man and his family came to our home to request for any of their hands in marriage, no; it means that the four of them were living with men in their various houses and bearing children for them for free. Occasionally, they still came home to eat or pack some of the food and foodstuff Mama kept at home to their various houses. Mama never complained. Even when Patrick took in one girl, Ivie, and said she was his fiancé, and started giving her all the attention and support that he took from us, Mama didn’t complain. But Mama was getting tired, I could see it, and soon, food became a real problem in the house, and I hated Papa for that as well.

Dede, my immediate older brother, was the smartest person I knew, and like every other art student in the country his dreams was to go to a federal university and study law. Dede had weak hands, a sickness that didn’t allow him to do much hand-works, but what he lacked in sheer power, he more than made up for with his brains. He was religious too. Before I left home, Dede would spend days on the mountains across the river, praying and fasting to god. Then he would come home looking like a whisper could blow him far into the deserts of Sokoto. This was why people who didn’t know him called him pastor, because of his physique and addiction to god things. Things changed after he wrote his jamb and entry exams, which he smashed. We were certain that when the admission list would be out, his name would have been in the top five at the very least. But no one knew my father; or more accurately, my father knew no one, so that morning that the first list was published and Dede’s name wasn’t on it, all he excitement immediately became rage. The gentle Dede, that was one of the few times I ever saw him angry. One of the few times I heard him raise his voice.

“What more do I have to do?!” He'd yelled, “Eehn?! What more do I have to do?!!”

“Dede, please calm down,” I said, “There are still like three more lists to come, your name will definitely follow.” I looked at him but he didn’t want to look at me. He just stormed out of the house and went to the mountains to pray.

“But Osas,” it was Pelemo, the last born, “Papa said there is no money to pay for Dede’s school fees.” He said. His eyes asked the questions that his tongue couldn’t muster.

“Don’t worry, when the admission comes, we’ll think about school fees.” I said and watched him nod very slowly.

 The admission never came. Three more lists came and went and Dede’s name was not on any of them. He didn’t yell or frown when the last list came out, and he didn’t go to the mountains to pray. That night was the night I decided enough was enough. I was going to make money, for me, for Dede, for Pelemo and for Mama. I was going to do whatever it took, and I was not going to tell anyone. But as I stuffed my clothes into my bag in the sitting room that night, I saw Dede staring at me from Mama’s door. He didn’t come to hug me, he didn’t say or wave goodbye. He just gave me a single nod, and I stood for a moment before I returned it to him. Then I picked up my bag and ran out of the house. Forever.

**

My chairman was into every type of yahoo work. He personally taught me how to chat my clients and scam them of their hard earned money, how to hack emails and facebooks and how to extract bank account details. This was how I was able to survive that first month, and then I hit a relatively good paying client from the United States, just after my first call with Dede, and things gradually improved for me. Each payout was divided into four, one for me, one for Dede, one for Pelemo and one for Mama. Then I would call them to let them know.

“Thank you, brother Osas.” Pelemo would say.

“Thank you. Mama says thank you.” Dede would say, his words immediately accompanied by the three beeps. Six months before, he wouldn’t have have accepted yahoo money, but we have come to realize that life was not a straight line; it wasn’t even a line at all. It was a mirror, a very huge mirror resting on a wall with dust gathered at the bottom of it. And it remained that way for those who were born short, like Papa, and except one found something to stand on, they would never see the clear tops of the mirror. Everything was moving pretty well until the night my client died. The same night that Dede called again.

**

His voice was as cool as breeze, as always, but the cracks were beginning to appear.

“Papa beat Mama.” He said.

“What?!”

“Papa beat Mama. She has packed her things and gone to her mother’s house. She said she’s never coming back home. Osas, this has never happened before. And Papa does not care.” I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. “I’m going there later, I’ll stay with her…”

“Did Pelemo see?” I finally asked.

“No, he wasn’t around.” I nodded as though he could see me from the other end, and then I lost him. I still hadn’t had a second to consider the fact that my client was dead, to listen to the voice notes he sent me before I got the messages from his relatives that he’d passed away. I sat, frozen, for an eternity, Papa beat Mama ringing in my brains like a broken record. It’d only happened twice before, never between Mama and Papa but Patrick and Ivie. The first time it did, Dede and I were sitting in front of the house when we heard the shattering sound of ceramic plates. But we didn’t own any ceramics in the house, which was the more reason we had to run inside, only to find Ivie clutching her face. Her left chin was what had been shattered by a thunderous slap from Patrick. Papa didn’t see. Mama said we had to make sure he didn’t see because he was still fighting his own family over a piece of land, and that he was still upset. So Ivie had worn makeups to disguise her swollen chin. Then it happened again. That time, we’d returned from the farm to find Ivie on the kitchen floor, hair disheveled. Patrick had turned her into a punching bag, and every inch of her face was a spring of red water. She said it was a direct result of her confrontation of Patrick’s infidelity, and there was no hiding it from Papa who went ballistic that night. I could still see his figure pacing up and down the front of the house like a lightbulb swinging on a pendulum, waiting for Patrick who refused to come home.

“36 years of marriage and not once have I ever laid my hands on his mother. He has to come home and tell me where he learned it from!!!” He thundered. Now, Papa was the one doing the beating, and as much as I tried, my head couldn’t form an image of Mama lying on the kitchen floor, hair disheveled like Ivie. I couldn’t sleep that night, but I tried to get my mind of the news from home with work, which only made things worse.

“You’re a scammer!! You’ve taken everything I’ve worked my life to get, and it shall never be well with you! You’ll never know happiness! You’ll never…” I had to pause the voice note. That was the second of the three voice notes my client left for me. And then, the messages from his people. My Chairman said these kind of things happened every now and then, and that I just had to move on. He even gave me a lighter and a well wrapped weed; but smoking only made me more inquisitive. So I went and started from the beginning.

“I can’t believe it. I honestly can’t believe it. You told me you were were coming! You said you were coming to me!” Johnson’s voice was fierce, and exhausted, and broken. I still didn’t know how he found out I wasn’t real, but the fact that he believed he could find a handsome soldier like me to love him as obese as he was, was heart wrenching to me. My chairman found it funny, said those kind of people made the best clients, but I’d never spoken to anyone as emotional and as faithful as Johnson. He didn’t stop:

“You promised. Every day. Every. Single. Day. You promised me, oh what am I going to do with my life! You’ve taken everything from me. God will find you in whatever shithole in India you’re at, and he will bring you to justice!!” My heart sank into my stomach, what have I just done? Taken people’s money was just a normal thing, but taking someone’s life? “You said you loved me!” The second voice note continued, “You lied to me! You’re not real!” I zoned out as the rest of the messages played , and only when heard, “I hope this makes you happy. I hope having my life is worth it,” did I realize I had tears streaming down my face. Then another message from his sister popped in, “We’re going to involve the FBI and you’ll surely pay for this!!” I turned off my phone.

By morning, my head was a little bit clear. So, I stepped out of the house to meet Taiye and Keyinde, the twins who lived across the street trying to pluck a guava from the tree in the yard. They were seven or thereabout, and very identical. I always had to wait for them to speak to know who was who. Taiye was the witted one, Keyinde the fast talker.

“Uncle Osas!” They both screamed as they saw me and ran to hug my waist. “Uncle Osas please come and help us and pluck guava.” They said. I took the stick from them, but then, we heard the ice cream truck’s bell.

“Buy me ice cream.” I told them. Managing a smile. They both exchanged glances.

“We only have hundred naira.” One of them said and I frowned.

“Don’t worry, we’ll buy you ice cream.” The other said and gave me the hundred naira.

“Uncle Osas, do you know my mother said you’re good people?”

“She did?”

“Yes. She said Calabar people are good.” I smiled again, I remembered how I’d helped their mother roll her wheelbarrow of provisions to her shop the other day, that must have been why. But why anyone would think I was from Cross River was beyond me.

“Anyone can be good people.” I replied. I didn’t want them to think Calabar people weren’t good, and I wanted to remain good people at the same time. The ice cream truck arrived, and I returned their money and gave them five hundred naira to buy ice cream instead. They shouted and jumped in excitement.

“Thank you Uncle Osas!” they kept singing. Then the cap-man rode by and one of them stopped to point.

“Taiye look at that blue cap I was telling you about. Once I get money I will buy it.”

“You like it?” I asked. They both nodded. “I will buy it for you when the cap-man passes here again. Okay?” And the jumping and singing resumed.

“Uncle Osas is good people!” They sang as they went home, ice cream cones reciprocating in their hands, and a different kind of tears were beginning to form in my eyes. We didn’t pluck the guava that day.

Dede called again two days later. I was sitting under the guava tree, still caught up in deep thoughts on the things I couldn’t understand. How anyone could be at peace with being the reason why someone else was dead. How they could laugh it off as a regularity. Something was scratching into my mind, eating deep inside me. I couldn’t shake off the thought of having murdered someone, and was plunged into nightmares after nightmares. And then, there was the little trouble of my parents…

“He beat her again.” There was nothing cool about Dede’s voice this time.

“Why?! What the fuck?! I thought you said Mama was never coming back!”

“She came back the morning after we spoke.” Pause. A long pause. “Osas, Mama is in critical condition. She’s refused to let me take her to the hospital.” He said after. I could hear, in Dede’s voice, fear that had never been there. He’d never panicked, not even after everything he had been through, but it seemed this was one stroke too many.

“Give the phone to Mama.” I immediately heard a scramble, and a muffle, and Mama grumbling.

“I said I don’t want to speak with anyone.” Tun tun tun, and the call ended. Something needed to be done, I thought, not just about Mama, but about me too. I couldn’t just fold my hands and pretend as if I didn’t know the reason why Papa was beating her up, as if the reason wasn’t dead, hadn’t been murdered. By me. Dede called again.

“Mama was the one who ended the call.” He said. I nodded, and waited for him to ask if I knew why Papa kept beating her; I didn’t want to hear it out loud, because it would sound like the reason was justifiable. Instead, Dede said, “We need to do something about this. This can’t continue. No one here even cares if Mama dies besides us, we need to do something, Osas.”

“Yes. We need to do something.” Of course we had to something, that was a no-brainer, and that was when I figured it out.

“Will you come back?” Dede said. A pause. “Will you come back, Osas.” Another long pause. I wanted to tell him that my return was still a ways down the road, and that it wouldn’t fix anything. I wanted to say that I had figured it all out, instead, I ended the call. The same moment I squeezed the phone into my left pocket, was when the guava fell right in front of me.

**

The next call I received from home was not from Dede; no, his hands were to weak to pick up the phone. It was from Pelemo, and it was a stranger who answered the call.

**

I felt the generator ogu in my pocket before I walked out the gate that morning. I had loosened it with a screwdriver after I turned off the generator. I knew that within an hour, someone would be shouting my name. As I stepped out into the street, I saw one of the twins standing by their fence, smiling and waving at me. I didn’t wave back because I had my phone in one hand and the ogu in the other. So I said, “How are you?!”

“Fine.” The boy said. And I kept walking, my face buried into the earth, fear enclosing my shoulders. I should have turned around then, I should have made sure I bought them those caps, but I didn’t. That was the moment everything went blank. Nothing else happened for a full twenty four hours, at least none that I saw, then the stranger walked in, his cell phone in his hand, music blasting through its speakers.

“Eeeh eeh, my lord is good oo!! Everything nah double double!!” He sang along as he navigated the pathway close to where I was. I watched him as he turned of his music to concentrate, as he unbuckled his belt and stripped his trousers; I watched him as he squatted in the only clear part of the bush he could find, I watched as he raised his head and his eyes fell on me. He gasped, and his jaw remained frozen. He stared at me with shock and empathy, I stared back into his eyes with a full grin, and we both said nothing. It took a whole moment before he got back up, his bowl suddenly swallowing back the residues it had been desperate to spill a minute before then. He got dressed and started to walk towards me. I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I watched unblinkingly as he shook his head and spat. He was hiccupping now, I thought he was going to throw up. It was at this moment that my phone rang. It rang and rang and rang. I watched the man contemplate answering it and walking away, then he ultimately chose the former. Pelemo was very impatient on the other end, evident in the fact that he couldn’t wait for the stranger to utter a word before he broke the news to him.

“Brother Osas!” He said. “Brother Osas, it’s Papa. Papa is dying...” there was a brief interception in the network but it came back instantly, and it sounded like the phone’s speaker was being held at the other end. “Brother Osas, Papa was beating Mama,” Pelemo cried, “And then… and then brother Dede hit him in the head with a shovel. Papa is not breathing.” I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t understand what he was saying even though I could hear him loud and clear. The stranger shook his head very, very slowly. “Brother Osas, please say something, brother Dede is about to kill himself! Help! Somebody help me!!” There was a very brief pause, I think that was when he came to terms with the fact that no one had replied him all along. “Brother Osas, brother Osas are you there? Broth..”

“Hello.” The stranger said, very softly.

“Hello, who’s this? Where’s brother Osas?”

“Osas is dead.”

“What?!!” Pelemo’s voice didn’t sound broken then.

“He hung himself.” The stranger said.

If I strained my ears a little bit, I could still hear the footsteps of the endless question marks running down the back of Pelemo’s next words.