A Squatter's Tale, page 2
Once, when I was about thirteen, there was a great flurry around the house. Well-dressed young women came and went in large numbers; my mother wrote addresses, made phone calls, collected photographs. It turned out that she was searching for a wife for my Uncle Happiness. With time a candidate was chosen, and my mother began to wait for some papers from America to apply for a visa for the chosen one, impatiently tearing envelopes from our mailbox to shreds even though they had only Nigerian postmarks, but the papers did not come. And then Uncle Happiness was to come himself and have a look at his would-be bride. This time he gave a date, airline and flight number, and new curtains were quickly installed in our house and new bedsheets in the guest room, and the house was swept and scrubbed every day till all the hair on the plain blue living room carpet was almost gone, but Uncle Happiness did not come and did not give any reason for not coming. And that excitement finally died, like an abnormal pregnancy that appears and disappears, begins to grow rapidly and then slowly and painfully miscarries.
*
Eighteen years after his miraculous appearance in our house on a rainy Lagos evening, I sat benumbed in the living room of Uncle Happiness’s two-bedroom apartment off Martin Luther King Jr. Street in Oakland, CA, a few blocks away from a BART rail line, reflecting that no matter how well you prepare yourself for disappointment, you are never prepared enough because a little shred of hope will continue to straggle along, ducking in the corners of your mind, and when disappointment comes it will seek out that straggling hope and crush it ruthlessly.
The brown sofa on which I sat was a massive semi-circle; it took up more than two-thirds of the living room, but each thread on it sagged as though someone had painstakingly pulled on every one of them. The sofa faced a huge cabinet that rose nearly to the ceiling. Someone had taken a sharp object and made marks all over the cabinet. Rusted cassette decks, amplifiers and turntables were piled on it in no particular order, like junk. In the centre was an ancient 26-inch TV which surprisingly showed bright pictures, but you couldn’t hear what was being said because of a constant vicious hiss that came from the back of it. The walls of the living room, originally painted white, suffered from a spreading spotted grey eczema. On the floor was a carpet long trampled to a dusty-milk death; its farthest edges showed that, while alive, it had had green and yellow designs. A fierce smell, an oppressive compound of cigarette smoke and frying oil, sweat and damp, decay and despair ruled the room.
And there were these big, taciturn men, four of them. Each came in noiselessly, grunted greetings all round, gave me a quick second look and went into the kitchen, loaded a plate with rice and beans and chicken stew and came and sat on the sofa, facing the hissing TV. Then they fell on the rice and beans with a vengeance and never looked up till their plates were clean. I tried to be friendly as my uncle was not there. When I called from the airport, after the initial shrieks of excitement that I had finally arrived and how he had been looking forward to my coming and how everything would be taken care of soon, he said he had to go for a very, very important business appointment. He gave me the address, which I already had, told me to take a cab, that he would refund the fare later, and told me I’d find the key under the doormat if no one answered the bell, and then he hung up before I could ask any questions. So I ended up in that incredible decayed room of big, diseased furniture and big men who materialised without warning, and I said to the men: ‘I’m Happiness’s elder sister’s son. I just came in from Nigeria this afternoon,’ and managed to take their attention away from the hissing TV.
‘Oh, welcome, hope it was a good trip, how are things at home?’ etc. etc.
I know that for those who have gone away bad news of home is in a sense good news, for each time they hear of worsening economic desperation, armed robberies and assassinations and political crises they are reassured that they were right to leave, that whatever frustrations and humiliations they have to face in the strange land are well worth it. If home is such a terrible place, you may even manage to hold homesickness at bay a little. So I obliged them with the necessary horror stories. There was hardly any need to make up anything, for the country I had left the day before was a pretty rotten place. The second chapter of the protests against the military government which had annulled presidential elections held the year before was heating up; demonstrators had been killed in scores; petroleum workers were on strike again and there were long queues and fist-and-club-fights at fuel stations; the police had not been paid for months and rumours said most of them had taken to armed robbery; cars were snatched at gunpoint every hour, houses raided every day, sometimes at midday; one of the few boom areas in the economy was paid assassination; husbands woke up and walked away from their homes forever, leaving their wives to feed eight or nine ravenous mouths. My listeners shook their heads in amazement and duly exclaimed their horror; one was so grateful he went and bought a six-pack of Heineken for me from a store down the road.
And then it was time to sleep. Uncle Happiness was not yet back so one of them helped me put my suitcase and bag away into one of the bedrooms among tall stacks of bags, packing cases and dirty clothes. He pulled out a mattress for me from a pile of worn ones and set it in a corner of the room; he threw a sheet over it and gave me a worn comforter as it was getting cold, at least it was for me. And he knelt down on his own mattress, which he set beside mine, prayed for about five minutes and then quickly filled the room with snores. And I lay awake listening to him all night.
I hadn’t planned to stay with Uncle Happiness even though, on the two occasions I’d spoken to him from Nigeria, he had shouted his enthusiasm about my coming to America and had told me everything would be taken care of soon. I knew that a man who hadn’t come home in eighteen years, who had set my mother searching the length and breadth of Nigeria for a wife and then lost his nerve when one was found couldn’t be doing too well. My mother had a neat way of burying disturbing things deep inside her and for the last few years she had buried Uncle Happiness and smoothed his grave over. When I began discussing my American trip with her she hadn’t mentioned her brother once.
I’d planned to stay with Kurubo, the Hook to his friends (a tribute to his woman-chasing prowess), a friend through secondary school and university who’d left for America five years before. I’d spoken to the Hook a number of times by phone, calls that cut quite a hole in my pocket, and he had said he would gladly put me up until I found my feet. He had always sounded encouraging.
‘Man, you’ll be fine. A few problems at the beginning like in anything else, but you’ll find you’ve made the best decision of your life, and, of course, I’ll be there to ease things for you. You’ll really be com-for-table. I just moved to a new place, three massive bedrooms, lotta room, lovely beds, excellent for balling. We are going to have a swell time. You need to see da black American chicks, you need to see them. You’ll lose your mind. I guarantee you, your mind will burst. Just give me a call when you sort out the visa and flight arrangements and all that crap, and I’ll lay on some welcoming pussy for you. Can’t wait to see you, my man.’
That was my kind of talk, and though from previous experience I’d learnt to be extremely cautious about people’s promises, I’d hoped that, even if I didn’t get any welcoming pussy, I’d at least get a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in for a couple of months. And what happened? I finally got the visa and called the Hook’s number: I can’t come to the phone right now but if you leave your name, number and a message after the beep blah blah blah. So I left a message after the beep. I called again the next day at three o’clock in the afternoon so that it would be about six a.m. California time when the Hook wouldn’t have gone out, and what did I get? I can’t come to the phone and so on. So I left a message again, and I said to myself that maybe the Hook was out of town, and I said in the message that I’d call again in two days at about the same time, that is one day before my flight was to leave, and I called again, and of course it was I can’t come to the phone … So I left yet another message, flight number, time of arrival, all the details I could think of, and I said them twice, as clearly as possible, so that nothing would be missed. As I walked out of the business centre I began preparing for disappointment, but that little bit of hope continued to hide in the corner of my mind: the roomy new place, the beds excellent for balling, even the welcoming pussy.
And of course the bastard wasn’t even at Oakland airport. And I was tired and sick—I’d been flying for the last twenty hours: Lagos—London—New York—Oakland. Construction work was going on at Oakland airport and the indifferent streams of brisk passengers of all colours surging through narrow lanes marked by yellow tape and demarcation boards with crude arrows, bumping into cement-covered workmen while struggling to control their trolleys and children, the general air of chaos and desperation in the airport, aggravated my disorientation, and above all else, I wanted to sit on my suitcase and weep.
I had, being a prudent man, called Uncle Happiness twice from Nigeria as insurance after I started hearing I can’t come to the phone … from the Hook’s answering machine. However, Uncle Happiness was to be the very last resort. I had the number of a family friend from Nigeria, Ego, who had married well—to a wealthy Nigerian doctor—and I’d been told they lived somewhere nearby. My mother had told her mother I was leaving for America and her mother had promised to call and tell her and her doctor husband. Ego’s family had been transformed by her marriage; her father now had a Mercedes Benz 230 from Belgium, ten years old but well painted. Before his son-in-law in America gave him the Mercedes, he had only a smoking, wrecked Toyota Crown from the early 1970s, which could no longer climb the slightest incline, so that if he wanted to go anywhere he would first have to rack his old head to determine if there was a flyover or slope on the road between where he was and where he wanted to get to, and if there was he would take his walking stick and walk to the nearest bus stop, grumbling all the way about what had happened to the country.
Our families had been friends for as far back as I could remember, but I’d never had time for Ego; she was so well behaved, so proper it was nauseating. She stooped very low to greet older people, her eyes respectfully averted, rushed to pick up any baby in the room and to make all the appropriate noises about how nice it looked, or how well it was growing, and kissed and fondled it; she was always dressed properly, frocks and skirt suits in the right colours, her hair set in the same proper perm she’s worn all her adult life. She was what people call marriage material, not even one little scandal I can remember, only one or two boyfriends before the wealthy doctor came and carried her off, boyfriends who were all as well behaved as she was, who bowed and scraped before her parents and also fondled and kissed babies, insipid assholes. So I wasn’t full of enthusiasm about calling Ego, but my only other option was Uncle Happiness so I called Ego.
‘Who are you staying with?’ was the first thing she wanted to know.
‘Well, I’ve sort of just—em—just got in, sort of, and I’m going to be staying with Kurubo, maybe you know him, tall, slim guy. We were at school together, but he is out of town and I need—’
‘Obi, I’m sorry, our place is too far away, and I didn’t mention to my husband that you were coming. But when you settle down properly, give us a call. I have to see someone and I’m already late. Nice talking to you. Take care.’
Bitch! Back in Lagos she would have been grateful if I had asked any favour of her, but as I was to learn again and again, America turns your world upside down. That’s how I came to be stuck with Uncle Happiness and the house that smelt of stale sweat and hopelessness.
*
I moved out after three days, by which time I was close to committing suicide. I’d called the Hook’s number ten times in two days and I’d heard (you guessed it) I can’t come to the phone right now—and I’d left abject message after abject message. I’d begun to wonder if coming to Oakland had been such a good idea: I had cousins on my father’s side in Houston—we hadn’t heard much from them in years, but it was unlikely they’d be worse off than Uncle Happiness. I’d chosen Oakland because everyone I’d spoken to, and the Hook in particular, said California was wonderful for a new immigrant even with Governor Pete Wilson and the imminence of Proposition 187. It had excellent weather and a huge economy that offered many opportunities. I was looking through the window of Uncle Happiness’s living room at the empty street below, tossing Oakland and Houston and the mocking announcement on the Hook’s answering machine about in my mind, when I remembered that Andrew lived in Oakland too, and I had his number.
Andrew had been on the same floor with me in my final year in university, a few doors away from my room. He was a short, nervous, nerdy, apologetic fellow with a square face and a bad right leg, which he broke the first day he tried, as a kid, to play football and which he dragged along painfully as he walked. He was doing medicine, but even for a medical student he was terribly studious. Some days he went to the classrooms at the crack of dawn and studied till after midnight, taking only one break to eat a snack in a nearby shop. He was a born-again Christian who had the misfortune to live in the same row of rooms as the most committed sinners in the university.
Two rooms away from him was Ilya, who liked to boast that he’d killed a man in a fight and got all his sex from rape. The only time he was ever reported, he spent only two days in a police station and then returned to the university in triumph, surrounded by a singing, cheering band of hangers-on, members of the secret fraternity he led. The girl he raped quickly transferred to another university and after that his victims kept their humiliation to themselves. The Hook, one of the randiest men ever created, lived at the end of the corridor. I shared a room with Bronzo, another sex-crazed monster, who screamed piercingly when he came, the wild death-welcoming cry of a prisoner being released from his pain. (I realise now with hindsight that Bronzo’s screams while coming probably had less to do with sexual pleasure than with the need to advertise to all of us that he was having good sex. For among our bunch of teenage undergrads, the awe and envy of your friends was a lot more important than the most thundering orgasm.) Commando ran a gambling den in the room next to Andrew’s; the card games often ended in fights when someone just back from a visit home lost his entire pocket money in the blink of an eye and refused to accept defeat gracefully. It was among these and other evil people that Andrew was condemned to spend his final year in medicine.
Bronzo would stop him in the corridor after a long night of studying and shake his penis at Andrew and bleat, ‘Andy boy, can you lend me one of your succulent sisters in Christ just for a night; you know I’m not greedy, just for one night. I guarantee top quality of service.’ Andrew would smile nervously and say, ‘Bronzo, as soon as you accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, you’ll find that the things of the flesh are not as important as you think,’ and he would walk past to his room while Bronzo continued bleating behind him, ‘Just for one night, Andy my boy. Let me teach her a thing or two. And you too, you can watch. I’ll give you full video rights. Your life will never be the same afterwards.’
Andrew took all the insults and provocations like a saint. He hoped perhaps to convert us with the example of his grace and was always willing to share the word of God. When anyone was broke he would listen politely to Andrew, knowing that if you seemed close enough to conversion, he would buy you a meal or two, or invite you to a retreat or other church get-together where the food was always abundant and given freely.
Midway through our final year he seemed to score a big coup—the Hook suddenly became a born-again Christian. Every Sunday, for several weeks, the Hook would turn out in a dark blazer, white shirt, pretty tie, khaki trousers and black leather shoes and go with Andrew to church, a little Bible tucked under his arm. We made fun of his new piety for a while and then gave up, astounded by the change that had come over him, and also a little worried: if this could happen to the Hook it could probably happen to any of us. Then a scandal broke—the Hook had made one of the sisters in Christ, Franca, pregnant. Franca was gorgeous: a smooth face as fresh as a mint currency note and the kind of body you see in a swimsuit and you nearly go bonkers. Every time she walked past a group of guys someone would cry: oh, how could such a lovely creature follow those born-again crazies? Franca left the university and never returned; the Hook, mission accomplished, went back to being one of the boys. Andrew forgave him even that and continued trying to take him back to the narrow path.
Inside my wallet I found Andrew’s number on the back of a crumpled business card. I had scribbled it there out of politeness, the day one of his sisters in Christ from university saw me on Broad Street, about two weeks before I left Lagos, and told me he was now in Oakland and made me promise to give him a call to tell him they were all fine and praying for him. I’d wondered at the time how a man like Andrew got to America: he’d seemed the sort that would be content with any job as a doctor in any part of Nigeria for the near-starvation wages doctors are paid. And then I’d forgotten about Andrew—he wasn’t the type of person I planned to have anything to do with in the States. But after three days in Uncle Happiness’s house I would have considered becoming a born-again Christian to get away from that place. Andrew was out the first two times I called, but he answered the third time, and when I told him I was in Oakland and needed a place to stay, he started shouting praises to the Lord into the phone in his nervous way.
