Graceland (10 page)
BRYOPHYLLUM PINNATUM
S. KURZ
(Crassulaceae)
The common name for this herb is “Never Die.” It has opposite trifoliate leaves, which are almost rounded, but are larger towards the apex. The flowers are greenish yellow, with a purplish tint at the base. Their arrangement is loose and sometimes drooping on the common stalk.
This plant has several medicinal uses, which are not to be confused with its ritualistic applications. These medicinal uses include compresses for abscesses or swellings. In this case the leaves are crushed and mixed with shea butter or palm oil before being applied. It can also be used on ulcers and burns. It is used as a cure-all for young children when they are ill, and is believed to draw out bad humors when rubbed all over the body.
When the star is early on the King’s head, the number is two. This is the number of most people. The lobes split between their heart and mind, the constant struggle.
Just like the kola nut, people have distinct lobes of energy. These determine their life plan. Four is the highest number, the King nut. The sorcerer. Three is the seer, the singer, and the shaper. Two is, for most, the struggle to learn love.
Elvis shaved hurriedly. He hated shaving, which was odd, considering that as a child he used to drench his chin in alcohol and mentholated spirit because he had been told it would help his facial hair grow. Having heard it worked on pubic hair too, he began to drench his crotch in it. He only stopped when the teacher reported him to his father for smelling of alcohol in school, the report coinciding with his father’s discovery of an empty bottle of White Horse whiskey—one of his best bottles. Naturally he was severely caned. At least he hadn’t had to live with the constant teasing his cousin Obed got. Not realizing exactly how pubic hair grew, Obed had taken the skin from a squirrel’s tail and stuck it, fur side out, along the length of his penis.
Now here Elvis was, struggling with razors and bumps, trying to beat the clock. He was joined in the backyard by Jagua Rigogo. (Everyone knew that Jagua Rigogo wasn’t his real name, yet no one bothered to find out what it really was.)
Jagua used to regale Elvis with stories of his astral projections to different planes of existence or, within this one, to different countries. He even claimed he had met with aliens on Venus who planned and controlled the future of the earth. His stories were peppered with mentions of arcane masters of wisdom who showed him the hidden truths of the universe. Cosmic mechanics, he called them. Then, just as swiftly, the stories would veer away from the cosmic and you would be back on earth, the story continuing seamlessly.
“India! Dat is a wonderful country. Streets paved in gold … almost as lovely as America,” he would say.
Elvis would nod, inhaling Jagua’s strange incense smell, half scared, half amazed.
“But you were just on Venus a minute ago,” he would interject.
“Yes, but astral travel is not encumbered by time and space, you know. De arcane masters or cosmic mechanics who taught me dis were H. G. Wells and his brother, Orson.”
“Do aliens even speak our language?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Funny child. Of course not, but I speak deir language, just like I speak de language of angels. Anyway, where was I?”
“India.”
“Oh yes, India. Not to mention Australia. You know kangaroos carry de souls of dead aborigines in deir pouches …”
The myths and lies tumbled out and Elvis had believed everything, or at least wanted to. The sad thing was, Jagua did too. Now that he was older, Elvis realized there wasn’t much truth in Jagua’s fantasies.
Jagua yawned as he chomped on his chewing-stick and spat a fine spray of chewed fiber and spittle, scratched his belly and looked at Elvis.
“Good morning, Jagua,” Elvis said.
“Elvis. You go late for work, you know. A punctual man is a spiritual man,” he replied.
“I’m just leaving now,” Elvis said.
“Good.”
Elvis was about fifteen minutes late, and as soon as he got to work he sensed the tense atmosphere. It was the way nobody would meet his eyes. His feeling of unease grew as he walked through the large compound to his station. He had been late before, so what was the big deal now? As he bent to lift a freshly mixed pan of cement onto his head, the chief mason stopped him gently.
“De site manager want to see you,” he said, his calloused palm gently rubbing Elvis’s arm.
It didn’t sound good. It was bad enough when the foreman wanted to see you; but the site manager, well, that was a different matter altogether. Elvis had only seen the site manager from a distance, and there had been no reason for them to speak. Elvis set the head pan down and crossed the compound to the site manager’s caravan, tapping quietly on the door.
“Come in!” a voice barked.
Elvis opened the door and stepped into the cool air-conditioned interior. The floor was covered in plush carpeting and he instinctively took off his mud-splattered shoes, even though he did not step off the rough hemp doormat into the room. The site manager was a young man, in his early thirties. When Elvis came in he was reading a James Hadley Chase novel. He put it down and regarded Elvis through bored eyes.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You asked to see me,” Elvis replied.
“See you?”
“I am the laborer from section six, sir.”
“Oh yes, section six. So you are de habitual latecomer?” As he spoke, he flipped through some papers on his desk.
“Sir?”
“De habitual latecomer,” he repeated.
“No, sir. I have been late only once or twice before. I am sorry, sir. It will not happen again.”
The site manager stared at Elvis for a long time. He hated having to deal with these people. Firing and hiring laborers was not his department, but since he had fired the foreman that morning, he had to do this dirty work now. His father, who owned the construction company, had called and told him to lay off as many people as he could, starting with the foreman—something about being over budget.
“I am terminating your appointment. As from now.”
“Please, sir …”
“Don’t beg. Don’t waste my time. Just get out.”
“But my wages for—”
“Before I count five you should be gone, otherwise I will have some of de boys eject you forcibly. One, two, three …”
There really wasn’t a lot Elvis could do, so he shuffled out of the compound. None of the other workers looked at him, partly from shame, partly to avoid contagion from his bad luck. He didn’t blame them. He would have done the same in their place.
As he waited at the bus stop, he noticed that the traffic had come to a complete standstill and people were running, pursued by policemen, soldiers and local government officials in their dirty brown uniforms. A crowd gathered round a bonfire that was steadily growing in size.
“What happened here?” Elvis asked a groundnut-and-banana hawker who dashed past him.
“It is task force,” was the curt reply. It sounded ominous, connoting horror so strong that Elvis shivered and looked up quickly, half expecting to see some malevolent manifestation.
A man came running toward him, carrying some clothes on hangers, a policeman hot on his heels. Just before he got to where Elvis stood, the man tripped and fell. The policeman pounced on him and snatched the clothes away, carrying them to the raging bonfire and throwing them in. As they crinkled and burst into flame, Elvis, drawn to the fire, walked over and stood watching.
The heat slowly crumbled the fuel and the flames reflected off the face of the fallen man. Still prone from the policeman’s tackle, he watched the fire slowly turn his goods into a mass of hot ashes.
“But I get ten children,” he mumbled over and over. “How I go feed dem?”
Unsure why, Elvis put his arm around the man’s shoulders and helped him to his feet.
“Take heart, brother,” he said.
The man turned to him.
“I try to make money begging, but my spirit wan’ die. So I borrow money, begin to sell dese Okirika.”
Elvis nodded. He knew the man was referring to the secondhand clothes smuggled in from Cameroon through the port town of Okirika.
“Every day I go walk up and down, ringing one small bell make people see me,” the man continued, his voice breaking. He stared into the blaze and the flames ripped through his heart, the fire entering him. His mind reached back and, like a dead star, collapsed upon itself. He screamed. It was sudden. The sound startled Elvis, who let go of the man and jumped back. It also startled the crowd of strangers and other spectators gathered round the fire, and they turned to look. The man screamed again and tore his clothes off, dancing around the fire naked, emitting piercing calls, bloodcurdling in their intensity.
Before anyone could react, he jumped into the fire. As the flames licked around him, it seemed the fire smacked its lips in satisfaction. And in the fire, he continued to yell as he wrestled with it. The last thing Elvis heard before the man died was his terrible laugh. Its echo hung in the air. He never thought to ask the man’s name.
“Ah, madman,” someone sighed.
Elvis got off the bus and trudged past the buka where he normally ate. He lingered hungrily outside, but he couldn’t shake the smell of burning flesh or the sight of the man writhing in the flames. He wondered why he hadn’t helped. Instead, he had just stood rooted to the spot, staring.
A quick count of his money made it quite clear that he couldn’t afford to buy a meal even if he could face it.
He turned away and headed home. It wasn’t even noon yet, he noted. How was he going to spend the rest of his day? He had been fired from the building site, and his long absence from Iddoh Park and the beach had cost him his spot there. He needed money to buy a new spot, money he didn’t have. He felt a little ashamed at how quickly the practical pressures of living had usurped the image of the burning man.
“Elvis!”
He spun around. A man stood in the open door of the buka, dressed like Superfly. Elvis did not recognize him, and the man, noticing his confusion, explained.
“It’s me. Okon.”
It hit him. It was the man he had fed barely a week ago, at this same buka. Okon was the man who had scrabbled in the dirt for rice. How come he was so kitted out now? Had he taken to a life of crime? Elvis smiled at Okon, straining to mask his thoughts. He really wasn’t in the mood for company, but his hunger got the better of him, so he went back. They sat facing each other, caught in an awkward silence broken only by Okon’s occasional repetition of his name—“Yes. It’s me. Okon. Okon”—as if this mantra would bond them. Finally he of fered Elvis a drink and some food.
“Take anything you want—extra meat, stout, anything.”
Elvis smiled uncomfortably and ordered some eba and egusi sauce.
“No big stout?” Okon asked sounding a little offended.
“No thanks. A Coke will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Elvis ate in silence as Okon studied him. The buka’s radio sounded like someone had drowned its speaker in muddy water; still, Elvis could clearly hear the Wings singing, “Please catch dat love dat is falling on you … Don’t let it drop, it is not made of wood …” Elvis sang along in his head, wondering if it would be rude to ask Okon how he got the money he was spending.
“So why are you home so early?” Okon asked.
“I was fired.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear dat. Why? You are a good person.”
“You hardly know me,” Elvis protested.
“I know you better dan you think.”
He went back to drinking his stout, which, Elvis noted, seemed milky and thick, unlike any stout he had seen before. Noticing his confused look, Okon explained:
“It is concoction.”
“Sorry?”
“Concoction; condensed milk and stout. Very good for your blood.”
Elvis nodded. It sounded disgusting, he thought.
“I know you dey wonder how I manage get all dis money,” Okon said.
Elvis shrugged, embarrassed.
“Dat’s okay. I don’t want you to think I am a tief, dat’s why I tell you.”
“That’s quite okay, really,” Elvis replied. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I don’t think poorly of you.”
“You are really a good man, but I’ll tell you anyway.”
Elvis was a little worried; he didn’t want to be an accessory to any crime.
“Blood.” Okon said simply.
Elvis was by now visibly agitated. Blood. Did that mean Okon was an assassin for hire? Lots of business rivals had turned to that as an effective system of beating competition. Could it be blood money? Elvis suddenly felt nauseous. Okon noted his expression with alarm and explained.
“Blood. De hospital, dey pay us to donate blood. One hundred naira per pint. If you eat well, you can give four pints in four different hospitals, all in one day. It’s illegal, of course, but it’s my blood, and it’s helping to save lives, including mine. Right?”
Elvis smiled in relief. Okon smiled too.
“You can come too, now dat you don’t have job,” he urged.
“No, I don’t think that’s for me.”
“But if you change your mind, let me know and I’ll connect you.”
Elvis finished the rest of his meal in silence and, getting up to leave, thanked Okon. As he began to walk home, he heard Okon call out: “Don’t forget. Okon, dat’s me.”
Back in his room, Elvis sat in the rust-crisp metal chair facing his desk. Flakes of rust, like red dandruff, fell to the floor. With a sigh he unlocked the metal box he had just placed on the desk. It used to be his school box, holding his books all through primary school. He ran his fingers along the top and down to the handle, remembering the groove it had cut in his hand. It was still there, a hard calloused line.
Opening the box, he adjusted the mirror he had taped to the inside cover. Then, methodically, with the air of ritual, he laid out the contents: a small plastic compact of hard, pressed face powder, a few tubes of lipstick in different colors, a plastic case with eye shadow in several shades of blue, a small bottle of mascara with a brush hardening in it, an eye pencil and a tin of Saturday Night talc. He held up the tin of talc, admiring the image printed on it—a white couple in evening dress dancing under a sky full of stars. That was the life, he thought. Also laid out next to the box and its contents were a wig and a pair of sunglasses with wide frames studded with rhinestones.