Sentenced

Chinedu Kizzito Uwalaka

           

A tree that was once struck by lightning is never

scared to see the sky darken with rain clouds.

An Infinity jeep with a personalised inscription on the number plate sliced through the suffusing air on the quiet street of a rescinding day. The tinted glasses conceal its occupants except with a careful study of the inscription on the number plate; NSG-C-Boss which meant ‘naira smells good with the Boss’.

Behind the Infinity Jeep, an escort Hilux car kept pace in the drove and together, they raced towards a building with a sky-high perimeter walls, weirdly barbed wires. The sensor active security gate opened to allow the vehicles drove in.

At the parking lot, the jeep pulled over and the escort car grinded to a halt. Two men jumped out with feet of alacrity, their hands firmly grasped AK 47 rifles and stood astride on the ground. Their eyes gleamed behind the dark glasses.

The boots on their feet clapped with sturdy weirdness. It meant no harm to the interlocking blocks that symmetrically filled the expanse of the compound’s floor. A crisscross of artistically patterned paints of red, yellow and green enchanted a unified fascination.

Clinically mowed grasses set the triangularly shaped lawns pheering at the flowers that stood above them. Flowers in the circular ring treasured the company of the fountains. At the fringes bordering the fence, the plants stood tall and flapped their comeliness gained from the grace of daily watering.

Continually, fragrance emitted from them to sweeten the senses of every guest. The white painted two-storey building had a central positioning as a damsel before the king for a final selection. A stain-free orange yellow colour gave a ribbon’s beauty at the baselines of the building.

                        Boss stepped out of the jeep dressed in a white toughly starched Italian silk. A stick of cigar stuck to his mouth and a gold walking stick supported his weight, stylishly. He really could walk without it. A macho looking man stepped out with him and walked into the building with Boss’ briefcase.

“Hello, come on,” said the Boss, bending to the door to signal the man seated on the front seat of the jeep.  

“Okay sir,” said Tochi and stepped out with difficulty because of the bruises on his right hand. He could not hide his fascination of what he saw. It did not look like hospital to him but if it was then his life was set to change, he thought. 

“Come with me, it’s my house…you’ll be okay,” said Boss, walking along into the building.

Tochi followed with deliberate strides, admiring the scenery that energized the zephyr. In the sitting room, the white leathered cushion chair complimented the classical layout design of the space. The chairs, arranged in a semi-circle stared at the resplendent centre table. Tochi felt rebuffed to sit on the chair.

“Don’t sit yet,” said Boss with a rustled voice. “Not in that condition,” he added.

“Yes sir,” said Tochi, looking at the stain of blood on him and confused that his thoughts revealed him.

Otti was one of Boss’ boys. He walked in at the whistle of Boss, dressed in black suit and stood metres away to get his orders.

“Take him to the guest room,” said Boss to Otti.  “Let him bath, change into decent attire and bring him back,” said Boss.

“Yes sir,” said Otti, turning to the new guest of the house. He beckoned on him to follow and together, they walked out and crossed the stripe that divided the main building from another smaller structure with integrated apartments. Otti led Tochi into a suite, “the bathroom…there…be fast,” he said and withdrew.

The bath was warm and the wound thoroughly massaged. When Tochi stepped out of the bathroom, he saw neatly ironed safari shirt and trousers on the bed, and a pair of slippers was on the floor. He wore them and thanked his god who led him in the path of Boss.

Otti returned and led Tochi back to the sitting room.  Boss was impressed with the new look of his guest.

“Sit down”, said Boss in a quiet tone. “The table will be set soon.” Boss got up from where he sat, walked through a door and disappeared.

Tochi moped at the giant size portrait of Boss placed near the self-supported TV set. He pulled his feet out of the slippers to have direct feeling of the enamelled ties succinctly laid. Tochi relished in his experience of a lifetime achievement. He considered Boss being barely two or three years older than he was with luck working for him.

Tochi did not know when he sat down in the chair overwhelmed by the feeling of been in heaven.  In his trance, he rode in opulence and was already a lord over many attendants.

“Tochi, can you hear me, I’m asking you…where do you live?” said Boss, sitting in the opposite direction with a cigar in his hand.

“Yes,” Tochi awaken from his trance. “Sorry, I live everywhere that the day meets me and the night leaves me,” said Tochi smiling.

“I mean your house?”

“I have no house, sir.”

“Your relations?” said Boss, puffing smoke out of his mouth. The smell mixed with the air fresher dispelled by the steaming air conditional.

“None, sir”, Tochi said.

“Where did you grow up then, who brought you up…your parents, I mean?” said Boss, breaking the ash of the cigar into the ashtray that sat on the glass stool beside the chair.

“I grew up as a mate in the abandoned baby’s home,” said Tochi.

“Oh, I see,” Boss dropped off some ashes on the tray and continued smoking.

“Yes,” said Tochi with excitement. He wanted ask Boss a question about the meal he promised. But he felt restrained.

“What do you do for a living?” said Boss.

“I’m a labourer and wonderer,” said Tochi.

“Labouring…for what and how long?”

“I labour for everything…eighteen years now…on the street.”

“Eighteen years, wow!” said Boss looking at him closely. “Does the experience bring hell closer?”

“Yes sir, I live in it everyday but today, I’m in the best part of heaven here,” said Tochi, thinking that the answer suited the looks he saw in Boss’ eyes. 

Boss stood up slowly from his seat and walked across the floor. He dragged from the cigar and swallowed so that the smoke emitted through the month, nose and ears.

“Well, Tochi,” said Boss, halting. “You’ll join me in my business…no hard works but you’ll work smart.”

“Yes sir,” said Tochi, thinking that any business that provided Boss so much comfort would be a good one.

“You will?”

“Yes sir.”

“That’s okay…” said Boss, turning his back on Tochi. He measured five feet and two inches in height and had chubby cheeks. “Come to table then, table is set.” He walked to the dinning table and sat at the head of it.  “We’d have killed you when you ran into my car. The doctor will be by the time you finished eating.”

            “What I do on the road is not strange, that’s what I see in this country.  Everybody is a beggar and the wicked beggars are thieves either with the lips, pen or the gun.  You see, I grew up on the street and will die there,” said Tochi, putting a spoonful of rice into his month.  “Your car is the fifth that has hit me.”

“You must be very strong then but that’s a bad way of dying,” said Boss calmly.  

“Somebody needs to kill me…it’s the only gift I have to offer. The police shot twice, leaving scars here,” said Tochi, standing up to pull up his clothes to reveal them.

“Not now, just eat, okay, life is a risk but not the way you’re taking it,” said Boss.

“Sometimes, I pray for pardon, but what is my crime. Only my mother knows why she wrapped me in the Indomie carton two days after I was born and dumped on the refuse heap near Ikanete junction.  My prison life started then.”

“You’ve live a free man…free,” said Boss.

“Not in my mother eyes, I’m so guilty to be deprived her love. So early, she sentenced me.”

“Eat some more,” said Boss, pouring some Camus wine into the cup. He sipped to soothe his feeling. He studied Tochi to know what class he fitted in the category of his workers. “It’s ok,” he added.

“Sir…can I join you right away?” said Tochi, with stuck of chicken meat in his month.

“Drugs, hard drugs,” said Boss, dissecting the lump of meat with the cutleries. “That’s what we do and you’d stop hanging on the streets to ask for arms. If you work for me, you’ll travel abroad often.”

“I like it, you’re kind. Of all those who had hit me on the road, you’re the only one so kind and generous,” said Tochi, scratching his bony cheek.

Tochi had heard of hard drugs and smoked some hemp. Now, he was going to work with a baron. He poured some wine into the cup and sipped. Enthralled by the feeling, he filled his and emptied it. He conjectured that soon, he would live in such opulence like Boss.

The Wall

Karen Jennings

At first, it was a novelty and wasn’t sure how to behave. For a time he stood in the centre of the room, then, stepping forward to the window, he looked out. Through it; a metre away, he saw the wall of the opposite building. In the days that followed, he stayed in the room, thinking of no other thing than looking out through the window.

In the mornings and evenings when the water boiled on the stove, steaming up the glass, he would wipe the pane carefully and noticed the way the bricks rippled and steadied before him. He did not know what he was looking for; there was nothing to see, really. The wall remained unchanged.

With time, he learnt the pattern of the bricks; the neat rows, and the lines of cement. He felt their shapes filling him up. By the end of the week, the bricks sat in his eyes so that when the window misted he no longer needed to wipe it clean. He found a newspaper and some tapes to cover the window. After that he began looking down when he was in the room.

***

In the early morning, cool air touched his cheeks and ears as he walked. From beyond the streets and buildings, there was a smell of salt and the sound of calling gulls. He walked with his hands in his pockets, taking small and slowed steps, careful to balance as he climbed off and onto pavements. Before him the sky was grey over a grey mountain, behind him the sun begins to show pink. To his left the flower sellers unpacked.

Cramping the pavement, buckets and buckets of flowers were unloaded from vans. There was nowhere to walk. He stood for a while and watched. After a night alone in the room, all the colours surprised him by the chattering of men and women, by the smell of flowers that weighed him down. By nightfall, he knew, they will be gone, the pavement scattered with the remains. Now the breath of flowers was heavy in the air.

It was uncertain where he came from and he had no memory of anything before; only of the place where they sold flowers. It was where he, once, chose to make a nest for himself and where he had continued to return night after night. It was there that he breathed all night of the damp smell of the pavement on which the content of the buckets emptied, where leaves and petals lay. 

He remembered the scent at dawn, when the trucks arrived, laden with their buckets of flowers, loud with the flower sellers calling out to each other. At this cue he would stretch and unstiffen, rising to earn a few coins by unloading the trucks. The names he never bothered to learn, but he knew, still knows, each flower by its scent. Come back at six, they’d say. We’ll pay you to help us pack away. But he never did. He could not risk having money on him after dark.

He continued to walk, passing shops now, keeping his eyes on the ground, watching where he stepped. His heart taught him the observance’s rule. He learnt it years ago; scanning pavements and gutters for coins with which he could buy single sweets, single cigarettes. He was yet to unlearn the habit, and often he would stoop for brown coins, despite the humiliation of manoeuvring his legs in such a way that made it possible.

Behind him, three women talked loudly, shouted at each other as they walked side by side. Their voices caught him; calling, they pass him, turned their heads slightly to look at him, greet him. He lowered his head further, did not acknowledge them. He waited for them to turn a corner before he continued walking up the street. At the traffic lights he stopped. That was where he would stand for the rest of the day.

 By noon, his knee locked. By three, he would be in pain but he could not sit. If he sat he was glared at, resentment. Therefore, he stood. It was still early, only a few cars passed, the drivers frowning. As he stood, he felt the wall before him. The rows of bricks were around him; he thought about them, tasted them. He rarely spoke and if he did, the wall was on his tongue. His words patterned into bricks and cement.

Standing there, he could see back down the long road. Towards the end of the road, he knew, in a circle of traffic, was an island with a fountain. He could not get to it nowadays; he was not agile enough to dart through the moving cars, but as a boy, he spent long afternoons there, cooling his feet in the water. He remembered the mulch of litter and bird droppings that lined the fountain, how they sucked at his toes, how they clouded and pooled around his feet.

With seagulls and pigeons sitting nearby, he longed for sunset, staring back up towards the city, watching as the light faded slowly behind the mountain. It was the Christmas lights he was waiting for, for that moment when the road before him would become a mass of shapes and shifting lights, everything colouring and moving, indistinguishable, alive, against a black sky.

The day was warmer. Around him, there was noise. Cars slow and speed up. Vendors called to each other as they set up their stalls on the pavements. Shop owners swept, washed windows, men and women walked to work, looked clean and tired.  Everywhere, people were on the move. Everything was moving.

All around him, the city seemed to grow taller. Buildings stretched above him. He felt drawn out; he felt his head pulled upwards, his face pulled towards the sky. He could not look down. His head was full of car fumes, of sea air, of flowers and coffee. His tongue felt bound; his eyes took in the sky and the tops of the buildings. In all of that, the noise and motion, the elongating and stretching, he stood still as the city lengthened around him and the scent of the morning filled his nostrils.

Thieving Chiefs

James Lisandro Jnr.

A spade is not a wood in the hands of villagers

Whose valleys have deep belly where

Mild or wild pigs do not live encaged with loneliness,

Let no pilferer gain from their folly,

The comfort on a bull is fierce warning

If a masquerade reveals his face at the square

The beat and pump dies like ineffective herbs on a wound,

Let no greedy chiefs walk away in chameleon’s garment

Shoot at the watchers that yearns outside the box

Where a prepaid solace will snap at the jury

Propelled fury gapping at their dark hearts

Let nemesis assures them of a fair share.

James Lisandro Jnr. is transformational writer who hails from the deep west of Nigeria. His works have been published on Moraks’ Blog, Palapala magazine, YNAIJA magazine and www.omojuwa.com. James is hopes that one day Africa will assume its greatness and be respected. www.facebook.com/lisadrojnr

Bereft Of Love

Chinedu Kizzito Uwalaka

                          When a man’s heart is eaten

     up by lust he loses his senses.

A handful of people gathered in front of Mr. Vitalis’ house. They were sympathisers and hardly confined to a permanent position. Some hung by the door while others walked about. Another group sort support on the scrapped car packed metres away from the building in the compound.

“Chai, so dis woman don take like that go!” said a female sympathiser in Pidgin English. 

Forlorn cast on every face and most of them folded their hands across their chests.

“Wetin dem say kill lam?” a man said.

“Nawa…nobodi no,” replied the woman who lived next-door to Mr. Vitalis.

They sighed and shrugged their shoulders. Sad news never pampered faces with smiles except the faces of pitched enemies whose fervent prayers attracted such answers.

“Where em husband dey now?” another neighbour said.

“Inside the house, poor man” said a sympathiser.

“What about his son Chike?” the neighbour said.

“Nobodi no, they say na playboy,” said the same woman.

Everybody’s attention pulled at the black 190E Mercedes Benz car that drove in. The door opened and Chike walked out. He stood a while, looked at the spattered crowd that collected in two’s, three’s and four’s in the compound. His mind went to it and he walked into the room, not talking to anybody. 

“Old boy,” said Chike to his father, “I didn’t know you were serious.” He sat on the mat with his father amidst friends and relations. 

“It’s now you think of returning?” said Mr. Vitalis.

“What did I do wrong?” Chike spread his arms in bewilderment.

“For one week now, you’ve be gone and ignored calls from me until this morning?” said Mr. Vitalis, sternly.

“Business…from one hotel to the other,” said Chike.

“It doesn’t stop you from checking back home to know how your mother, at least, was fairing.”

Chike remained silent.

“You know your mother was sick…she had your name on her lips in her dead,” Mr. Vitalis clipped his hands together across his chest.

The silence was smashed by mutters from sympathisers.  .

“But dad I . . .?” said Chike, with an emotion-ridden voice.

 “Shush…, but what? You’re a worthless son. I don’t know why you choose to come to this family. You would have come to this world through other parents,” Mr. Vitalis said.

Grin…. grin… Chike’s phone rang and he received the call smiling.

“Ah! B.J,” said Chike into the phone. “B.J what’s up, So how far, did you get the babes...oh yeah, the night is not going to be easy, you know...in the hotel, I’m right on my way.” Chike ended the call and looked at his father.

“Just imagine you…” said Mr. Vitalis.

“You’ve always told me how worthless I am. I thank you for training me through university but I can’t do things your way. We’ll bury mama next weekend…I shall come back tomorrow to talk with you as a son; a bad one,” Chike looked at the faces in the room and stood up. “It’ll be a gathering of who is who with all my political and business friends in attendance. Everything turns into an opportunity in life, you know?” Chike walked out, entered his car and revved off.

Vain Merriments

 James Lisandro Jnr.

Hear them chanting, singing and dancing

Their laughter lurked beneath mourning faces

Panting like leopards on the run

With legs shaking from the thighs

Because health was lost health from the sinew,

Their deceptive smiles were hideous imperfections

With retrogressive impartations as crazy partakers

Walking round modern and mundane shrines  

With intoning incantations like herbalists

Seeking healing for infections yet sowing ominous seeds

They watch the trees giving up its health and life

The recession unclipping their delight to see more dead;

They show off the joy of a slave with lie-infected tongue

Convincing his master that he speaks the truth to keep his life,

The end will not come like torrential rain

That lives in a room where hope remains as a relief material,

Doers and those who approve of ruthless offences will become

Seeds in the hand a farmer who plants in heat infested soil

And wait without hope for produces of gnashed teeth.

James Lisandro Jnr. is transformational writer who hails from the deep west of Nigeria. His works have been published on Moraks’ Blog, Palapala magazine, YNAIJA magazine and www.omojuwa.com. James is hopes that one day Africa will assume its greatness and respected.

www.facebook.com/lisadrojnr

Call For Submissions

Pitakwa Review seeks submissions for its forthcoming issue. Emerging and published writers are encouraged to submit their best and outstanding works to us. All genres of prose and poetry and their styles are considered. Send your best short stories of romance, science fiction, comics, and features writing, including metrical poetry or rhyme that are exceedingly contemporary/experimental.

Let’s also have your photography, digital art, reviews and essays.

You may, of course, explore varied themes in your writing.

Submission Guidelines

* All submissions must be previously unpublished in a book or anthology although they may have appeared in a journal or newsletter, so long as the writers own copyrights to the works.

* All submissions must be the entrant’s own original work.

* We accept simultaneous submissions, provided you inform us if your work is accepted elsewhere for publication.

* Each poem must not be more than one page or 33 lines in length.

* Each writer may submit up to 3 poems only.

*Each writing in prose and essay including book or film review must not be more than 2500 words.

* The entry should include a short biography of the writer in not more than 200 words.

*Each writer may also send his/her picture saved in .jpeg or .jpg format.

*All submissions must be in English.

*Submissions must be received by June 30, 2011, and should be sent by MS Word to:

pitakwareview@gmail.com.

The subject line of the email should read: Web Submissions-June.

Only shortlisted contributors will be contacted by our editors.



*Contact Information:

*For inquiries: pitakwareview@gmail.com

*For submissions: pitakwareview@gmail.com

*Website: http://www.pitakwareview.blogspot.com/

The Passion Of A Revolutionist

Book Title: The Twelve-Day Revolution

Author: Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Bori

Publisher: Idoko Umeh Publishers, Nigeria

Pp: 158.

By: Tamunobarabi Ibulubo

There is no pretension about it. Every word and page composition depicts that. And it is a commendable style of writing adopted by the author of the book, The Twelve-Day Revolution.

This subtle tint though compellingly forceful, keeps the reader curious to find the heroic traits of the chief character in the narration. The first person narration gives it that impetus, though limited of the account. And it is almost conversational where the narrative voice abruptly could stop either to digress or just refused to provide more information. But always it is done with an apology rendered to keep the reader-author’s contract on for the appreciation of the central issues of the revolution.  

The author reconstructs the heroic personality of Isaac Boro. He is the young Ijaw [Izon] son, most notable in Nigerian history as the person who wanted liberation at all costs, even to the point of death for the Ijaws. He turns down every attempt to bribe him to discard his dream for the Niger Delta people. It is just difficult for the reader to enjoy any room of liberty to resist, at the first instance, the biases in the narration of the issues. This is not to undermine the fact that the reader do have taste and time liberty to judge otherwise. And as the reader goes through the pages, he would be confronted with that magnitude of revolution talked about but may not succumb.

Although, rejected and vehemently opposed, the revolution still survives till this moment. Read the book to have your judgement if truly, such heroic personality could be deduced from the chief character of the book.

Isaac Boro was born in Oloibiri on 10^th September 1938. Oloibiri is the place where oil was first struck in commercial quantity located in the present Bayelsa State of Niger Delta Region in Nigeria. He grew up partly in Port Harcourt and in Kaiama, most of the time travelling with his father who was headmaster at the mission’s school.

He personally experienced gross injustice and monstrous corruption in the Nigerian system. He does not hide his anger against what he perceived as an unjust annexing of Niger Delta into the Nigeria in 1914. And he is uncomfortable with the refusal by the colonial masters to accord due consideration to the distinct characteristic of the people. So that it was obvious from the time of Nigeria political independence that Niger Delta would not always endure that unholy solemnisation. The only solace he has at the time was in Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa who gave kind consideration to Niger Delta.

So Isaac Boro started to team up with like minds. Together they find the path that leads to liberation of the region from the claws of a corrupt system. A system that is so frustrating that he said; “we are revolutionaries who want to save our people, the Ijaws, from slavery and cheating”. This is especially so because the Ijaws, the fourth largest ethnic group were denied the status enjoyed by the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbos. This is in spite of the face that lays the region lays the ‘golden egg’ that sustains Nigeria’s economy. You will read the book for yourself to get at the details. So this work will not recluse into such retelling of the story.

The book is an autobiographical rendition of the Isaac Boro’s reasons for staging the revolution which lasted for twelve days. And it was the first of such bold attempt to seek freedom from the injustice and corruption that had clogged the wheel of meaningful national growth.  Doing so, Isaac Boro with some of his faithful friends like Samuel Onwuru and Nothingham Dick who stuck with him from the beginning to the end, fought for liberation.

The first recruits were unemployed youths who had been charged to court for their inability to pay tax. They volunteered like other willing youths for the Isaac Boro-led Niger Delta Volunteer Service.

So on February 1966, the revolution started but by the 7^th March 1966, the Federal Forces had rounded them up and charged them with treason in the sixty days court trial. Isaac, Samuel and Nothingham were the “hens” before the judge, prosecutor and investigators who were “foxes”.

The book is written into sixteen chapters. There is an almost aloft nature given to the paragraphing style. If it is intentional, the effect intended is visible. They create the sequence of time, thought, plan and give a general direction to the movement felt in the narration. It does so with the most simple but expressive language that brings to the fore the import and the spirit of the story.

The book does not make any attempt at masking identity of geographical setting, characters and issues as it is common with most autobiographies. This Niger Delta son and his people feel and live in fetters. So he tries to retain his pride and live within the ambit of the law. This is evident in his dealings with the people as a school teacher at the rank of a second headmaster, a police man of a Divisional Inspector rank, a student union government leader at University of Nigeria and as a public servant with the University of Lagos as a Technical Officer. That liberation is the only option for the Ijaw people to live with pride, dignity and benefit from the resources endowed in the region is not lost in his commitment to the cause.

He is opposed by the entire system. And in response, he consults with reliable allies, a development that takes him to Togo and Ghana. But he is unable to muster the local people effectively to connect to his cause. Perhaps the time is ripe for the revolution and he is impatient with the people. He is propelled by the infamous military action of January 1966 in Nigeria that resulted in the death of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

Being privy to plans by the Igbos to take over the central government, he is apprehensive that the Ijaws might suffer further subjugation. His belief is stronger for the Niger Delta People Republic with sixteen Ijaw clans of Apoi, Tarakiri, Kabouowei, Mein, Gbaran, Okogba, Kolokuma, Ogboin, Debe, Atisa, Buseni, Kalabari, Okrika, Opubu, Opokuma and Ogbia to be free from exploitation, denigrations and daily insult. His ability to treat the most grievous circumstances with a light mind becomes his greatest asset. 

And with a hundred and fifty pounds, the total emolument he receives from the University of Lagos on request becomes the start-off fund for the revolution project. He returns home with his wife Georgeinia and his friends for the struggle.

The book does have presence of the printer’s devil. It indulges itself in engaging in an argument to debunk claims of the descent of the Ijaw people that the Igbos are their forebears. And there are a total of eight pictures clustered in chapter nine. The insert adds a reality touch to the account rendered.    

*Tamunobarabi Gogo Ibulubo, with training from FRCN/BBC and NTA College, is a journalist. He writes and some of his poems with prosaic sounds, interestingly communicate idea, vision or feeling with vivid imaginary and interplay of words.  His art is a display of an individual expression of artistic essence directed towards a popular audience.And some of them have appeared in anthologies. And his work ‘Touch the Sky’ was short listed for 2009 ANA/FUNTIME children book award. His is a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Administrators and Researchers. . He has certificates and degrees in Mass Communication, Public Relations, English Education and Business Management.

My August Guest

By: Humphrey Ogu

Phil, my American girlfriend, says she wants to come to Port Harcourt. That is where I live. And I should be happy about it. But from the moment she tells me of the plan, I have the feelings of putrefaction in my stomach and anxiety on my mind.

How do I communicate these feelings to her? She is the only serious girl friend I have and a good one in that matter. At least from the distance traits she has shown to me. This desire to see me, not through the web cam has been built through the time we have known each other. But now, as good as the intention is, it makes me feel sick. It is not the planned visit that worries me. The pain is in the time she has chosen for the visit. I think it is awkward and there’s nothing to make me see it differently.

My reasons are these: My finances are low at the time. The paint on the wall of my one-room apartment has faded, giving the room the looks of a tiresomely sweated face rubbed with cake-powder.  And my mattress has just been seized by one of my creditors with no hope of redeeming it soon. If you enter my room, the sight is disgusting with carton papers spread on the floor. The situation has never bordered me until now. And I fear that my creditors may confront Phil if they see her in my company. I cannot explain it away that I can host a white lady and have no money to clear my indebtedness to them. 

I have to persuade Phil against her plan. And I do the explanations. All I need is a change in her plan to allow me time to raise my finances. I want to demonstrate to her the rich hospitality we are noted for. And to give her the best treat a friend can give to a friend. But she surprises me. As I speak, she listens to my plea and politely declines my request. Imagine that. I am upset and I want to express myself to her. But I am just not able to do it. It is obvious that my pride is at stake as much as our relationship.

Why is she in a hurry anyway? I will still be here in any case. But she will not listen and it is difficult for me to be a good host in this condition.

In all the years I have known Phil, money has not been a source of worry or an issue. She never borders me with monetary requests. And I have been very comfortable with that, owing largely to the fact that she is located very far away from me. And she has never asked me to scratch a card or anything in that manner for her. But now, I feel tormented.

Whatever good thought Phil has about me was now a silent tormenting force. And nothing is abating it. I am also caught in the web of never wanting to disappoint her. The more I tried to implore the tactics I know that have worked in the past to dissuade her, the more she sticks to her conviction. And she never probes too hard to know why I am not divulging information to her or getting so worried that she is visiting me.

And like an oversize trousers’ hem on a wet day that scoops up sand and dirt, my mind worries the more. Other concerns are the poor electricity supply and the return of vehicular queues at the filling stations that frustrate transportation. These are situations she teases me about, having read stories about Nigeria in the papers.  But always, I tell her that those stories are told out of proportion. Now she is coming at a time the situations are a common feature.

In the heat of the worry, my phone rings. I have carefully refused to keep the regular communication with her. But now Phil’s call has come through and my heart skips. It is the first time her call doesn’t excite me. Some of the money I borrowed is for her sake. It is to pay for the bills of my communications with her. Now with my left hand padding my chest my right hand holds the phone to my ears.

“Hi Phil,” I manage to say, steadying my voice, finding appropriate words to dissuade her. That is uppermost on my mind.

“Hi” she says, the hum tells me she is talking on a loud speaker.

Suddenly I feel my face rumpled and the words come out like water gushing out of a tap from my lips.  “Look Phil, considering your planned trip, I suggest...in fact put it off...I mean... your coming to  my place this year,” I say.

“Why?” she asks, the humming gone at a click.  “Tell me, Sanim...I did the calling...listen...is it that you don’t want to see me or what?” she adds.

“Why...of course I want to see you. I’ve always longed to see you. It’s just that I’m concerned about your safety,” I say, trying to convince her in my own way. “With three plane crashes in two years, air transportation seems unsafe here. There’s also an upsurge in kidnap cases in the Niger Delta, where I live.”

“I see! It’s all about my safety. You’re so caring.”

“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”  I say

I have not been very successful with women, actually.  At least, the ones I meet seem to be obsessed with money. Their love for money overrides the value they place on themselves. And their love is for sale. I don’t have the purchasing power for the transaction. It is also against my belief to indulge in the commercialisation of love.

Before my relationship with Phil, Chika remains my focus. She fills the totality of being even before I start to court her.  But she berates me on the day I get her attention. The days that follow, she snubs me. It is always on the road that we meet. And it is obvious that she judges me from the perspective of how much money I can spend on her. She has more information on me than I seem to have on her.

When I mention it to my friend, Ben, he laughs. Then he calms down to say: “let me tell you, Sanim, a man that chases a fowl shouldn’t be afraid to fall to the ground.  You’ll take a dive and sometimes roll in the sand to catch the fowl. So far as you get what you wanted....”

“What if I don’t catch the hen, cock or the fowl?” I say, looking at him in amazement.

“It’s simple... stand up, dust yourself and move on. Or will you prefer to lie down there, instead?

Chinwe does show the extreme of Chika’s rudeness. She tells it to my face that I am a ‘pregnant man’, with a distasteful looks, whatever that means! A look in the mirror does not depict what she says about me. One’s gender notwithstanding, kwashiorkor has a way of making one look pregnant. I must confess. Maybe in my kwashiorkor-induced look, my stomach appears swollen. But that doesn’t call for an insult.

After these experiences, I extend my frontiers in the love-hunt to other shores. The adventure berths me at the shores of Phil at the World Wide Web. It is my poetry that captivates her, she says. With it she x-rays to see the beauty that resides in my heart. Never does she contaminate the voyage experience with focus on money. She is a lovely pal. And I like the society of the World Wide Web than the one Chika or Chinwe live in.

On the World Wide Web, I meet Phil on Skype, in the chat room, exchange emails regularly. We are often on phone, talking or exchanging text messages, she tells me one thing always--she likes my poetry.

On the planned visit by Phil, it is obvious that her mind is made up. I do not wait to end the phone conversation normally. I just punched off the line. But she calls again. It is to tell me that the next time I shall hear from her will be when she is in Port Harcourt. What a threat!

If Phil is truly coming to see me, then she should respect my convenience. It is important. That is what I have been told about Americans, that they respect others people’s convenience, but not in diplomatic business at all. But this love-driven Phil will not take any of my convenience into consideration. 

Night after night I imagine what to do with Phil’s threat. So it seems to me. First impression will matter. And the sight of my sordid one-room apartment will mar the friendship. So I try to keep things tidy. The side stool serves as my centre table, so I push it to the wall. The only upholstery chair has its cloth torn. It is at a corner. I try to polish it with groundnut oil and do some stitching of the cloth, even patching it.  The eight battery radio never hides its age.  It can blast with alluring beauty when powered. Two metal pots and a stove including a big drinking water container are carefully stationed behind the door. But the dishevel nature of the room is obvious. The curtains just now appear to me as first degree rags.

It is exactly one week after when I received her call.

“Hello, I’m at the airport!” she says, the excitement in her voice never sparks up anything than hatred for her.

“Which airport?” I ask as my heart skips a beat. Should I tell her that I am out of town? I contemplate.

“In your country’s airport...the Port Harcourt International Airport and I’m waiting for you to come to pick me up...I’m here...waiting!”

“You mean...?” I become dumbfounded and then stuttered: “Why didn’t you...?” 

“Okay, tell me if you don’t want to come then I’ll take a taxi to meet you at your place.”

“Alright, wait...I should be there...where do I meet you. But how come it’s your America number that you’re using to call me?”

“I’m on roaming...are you coming for me or not?”

“I will,” I reply as I dress up.

It is a long way from where I live to the airport by commercial means of transportation. But I get there just in time. Phil shows no sign of anger that suggests she waited too long. She beams smile at them from the distance. It is like the kind exhibited by a Nigerian who has been nominated for a political appointment. It is the first time we shall meet in this clime, physically too. And already what we feel for each other is strong to pull us closer.

 I walk up to her. And we locked ourselves in a warm embrace. I am surprise to have her rosy and luscious lips stuck on mine and she holds my head on. The shouts and laughter I hear from those who mill around the arrival lounge makes me shy. But believe me, a chief character in this pseudo American love movie on real ‘scene cinema’.

I feel excited to have Phil doing all that to me. Even if I am shy of such public outing I can imagine that it is with someone else. I feel pretty good to have Phil’s beauty wrapping round me.  I am happy she is my queen and no one dares share her with me. I allow my hands to caress the curvaceous, proportionate and velvety skin. I swear she is irresistible!

We walk out to the taxi stand and get one on a charter. All through the journey, she lies across my body and is curious at everything she sees. I love the warmth of her body and her chuckles. I am surprise that Phil has naira notes in her bag. She changes the dollars at the airport, she tells me. And with them she pays the fare.

The sight of her attracted my neighbours. Some hail, other murmured words I can conjecture. And I become the most important person, suddenly.

I look at her face as we enter my room and find no disgust. The Almanac on the wall attracts her. And she asks lots of questions. I know I have to offer her refreshment, at least a cup of water. But she turns it down and accepted a bottle of coke instead. Then I explain to her why she needs to stay in the hotel. She accepts on the condition that I will stay with her. The Hotel Presidential is her choice and we go there.

My neighbours think I have started a 419-business. That is the quickest way to deceive a pretty, well-cultured white lady like Phil. Or what will she have seen in a hopeless, jobless and indolent bachelor to be so attracted to him. That is no more my problem. It is difficult to ignore me.

Phil’s presence gives me a new aura of importance. There is this worm of lack of money eating me up like cankerworm. Is it the kind of feeling women have that set them always after money? Can the thought of money ever fizzle when love reigns supreme? In fact, it is difficult to think of her comfort without worrying about money. I mention it to her and she laughs. The distant laughter I used to hear on phone is here with me, so enthralling!

At the hotel, she books a single suite. And from the window she looks out to gain the view, looking down to the new GRA. I stand beside her and her hands curl into mine. Momentarily, she gives me a wink.

“You’re a nice man though very shy,” she says, as she sits beside me on the sofa.

There is protest bubbling in my mind but I try to hold my peace. It dawns on me that I am obligated to be nice to her.

“You’ll need some rest...I want to go...borrow some money from...and then tomorrow I’ll take you out...show you around,’’ I say, with a rustic grimace. The thought comes to me like a bout.

She bends over me and kisses me deeply. “Don’t worry about me,” she says, caressing my head. “Relax. I came not to obligate you but to proof my love to you...now I know you are real and many other things...just stay.”

“No...Okay,” I stammer. “But I’ll not sleep here today. Let me go...take care of some things and tomorrow, I’ll come.’’ I stand up a while, and hold her hand and confess. “I love you...trust me I really do.”

“I know,” she says and kisses me again. “Stay, please stay.”

“Tomorrow...I’ll stay.”

“Promise me you won’t borrow anything because of me.”

I hesitate but manage to give my words. Then she leads me to the door. And with the elevator, I descend the stairs and returns to my room.

My landlord and his wife can be predictable like most house owners. Any good thing they see in their tenants is a reason for the increment of rent. And I pray against those thoughts from flashing on his mind. Three more days and my rent will expire. The option is obvious. Either I am asked to quit or my rent is increased. Trying to be nice, I decide to introduce Phil to them. But with her consent that is, just as a ploy to postpone the evil day. 

I could hardly have a wink that night. My mind, all the time stays on Phil. I just sit up looking at the kerosene lamp as though I am watching it against theft. And before the brightness of the new day comes, I set out for the hotel. I am dressed in the best of clothes.

As if she knows I am coming. As soon as I knock, she opens the door. And standing by the door, she watches me walk in.

“Morning,” she says, and stands to lock the door as I enter.

“Good morning, I...hope you slept well?”

“Nay, watching Nigerian programmes on TV, putting up the list for today’s itinerary and other writings. Maybe you’ll watch over me as I sleep now.”

“No problems,’’ I say, and sit on the sofa to watch the television.

She sleeps in course of our conversation. But she knocks me out of sleep because I am not able to resist the comfort the air conditioner provides.

Together we bathe, have breakfast before setting out. In a chartered taxi we drive round parts of Port Harcourt. The tourist beach looks weary. The zoo looks like a bush bar for those who drink and play draft games.  The CANIRIV epitaph seems like a piece of metal abandoned by a goldsmith. The Hotel Olympia looks like a disused warehouse opened for destitute tourists. The only admirable Isaac Boro Park flyover dates back to 1981 and though older than the single lane flyovers politically-crafted, its beauty is unequalled.

And at each of those places, Phil chuckles as she makes her notes. Then at the new layout market, I take her to one of the alleys where steaming generating sets are filed, competing in a discordant orchestra of noise.

“They are the regular and reliable means of electricity supply,” I say.

“What about the gases flared away...the dams and the option of solar power? You guy are a rare species, and wonderful too,” she says as she holds my hands.

I feel so unsatisfied. I am not able to show to her the popular seaport Port Harcourt is noted for--the; one used by the slave traders and other merchandisers. They have been destroyed. And the taxi driver gets me angry. He asks me in Pidgin English if Phil is my wife.  I told him to mind his business.  But Phil senses the change in my tone and inquires. I tell her and she addresses the matter instantly.

While still in the taxi, she whispers in my ears. “Marry me.”

“You’re joking,’’ I say.

By the time we return to the hotel, it is settled. I shall henceforth look at her as my wife. Love is stronger. And money can easily build on it without the fear of being collapse. But I feel my ego in dire contest. I should fend for her and the new family, whether we live here or in her country.

“I’ll marry you... as long as...?”

“Don’t say it...we can go to the court to seal it up or any other way that suits you...you and I are one.”

Back at the hotel, we take launch together. And she starts to do some writings. By the evening, she insists that I should take her to the Apple of God’s Eye Mission. There, she concludes the plan with the priest for the marriage blessing.

I take her to my mother and some of my kinsmen. It is for the purposes of information. They know that they cannot dissuade me. I have a white lady whose greatest concern in the relationship is love. And we respect each other. We have mutual passion, above all.

                      --------------------------------------------------

v    Humphrey Ogu, a poet, fiction writer & journalist currently with the Information, Publications & Public Relations (IPPR) Unit of the University of Port Harcourt. A former Acting Secretary of Rivers State branch of   Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Ogu is the Founding Secretary of Seaview Poetry Club and an Editor of Pitakwa Review. He holds a degree in English & a Certificate in Creative Writing.