Graceland (25 page)
“Dis food sweet, man. My girlfriend cook it,” Kansas said.
“Thank you, but I am fine,” Elvis insisted. “What are you guys watching?”
“Dirty Harry
. Dat man is too bad. Real Actor.”
Elvis nodded and sipped at his beer. He really wanted to talk to Redemption alone.
“Hey, that’s John Wayne!” he said, excitedly pointing to Clint Eastwood. He knew fully well it wasn’t, but he wanted to be part of the conversation, defaulting to the ignorance he expected of the other two.
“John Wayne? You dey mad. Dat is Actor. John Wayne is not in movies anymore,” Kansas said.
“But … what?” Elvis said, sounding confused.
“Is okay, Elvis,” Redemption explained. “Things change, you know. Now dere is only Bad Guy and Actor. No more John Wayne.”
“Why?”
“Because de type of movies done change. Dat’s all. Now let us watch de movie in peace.”
Elvis lapsed into silence, drinking several bottles of beer as he watched images flicker across the screen. The color needed adjusting, and everything had a garish red tint to it that made him nauseous after a while.
“Do you have ciga?” he asked Redemption.
Redemption passed a packet of Marlboros to him.
“This is not my brand,” Elvis said, looking disdainfully at the pack.
“Okay, give my ciga back.”
“You don’t have any Benson & Hedges?”
“Give me my ciga back,” Redemption repeated.
“Easy,” Elvis said, taking one and lighting it before passing it back.
“Take it easy. Gulder is strong beer, don’t drink too much.”
“Humph.”
Elvis had no recollection of falling asleep, but woke groggily as Redemption shook him roughly.
“Wake up. Dis is not your house. I told you to easy on de beer. Wake up, we have to go.”
Elvis yawned and stretched. He sat up and wiped drool from his mouth.
“Where is Kansas?”
“He go pick his girlfriend. Come on, we have to go before he return.”
Standing up, Elvis noted that the place had been tidied since he fell asleep. The empty beer bottles were gone, as were the remnants of the meal. Kansas had even changed the sheets.
“Boy, you guys work fast,” he said.
Redemption smiled.
“It is Kansas, my broder! De tings a woman can make you do is wonderful.”
Elvis laughed. They staggered out of the room, the latch locking home behind them. Elvis felt a moment of panic and checked under his shirt for his Fulani pouch. It was still there, he noted, opening it. As were his mother’s journal and a copy of
The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran, one of his favorite books.
“I hope he has not forgotten his keys,” Elvis said.
Something about the comment struck them both as funny and they fell about laughing.
“Dat will be one angry broder if dat is so,” Redemption gasped.
“Am I still drunk?” Elvis asked, swaying dangerously.
“No. It’s de ground dat is moving,” Redemption said, laughing.
“So how are we getting home?” Elvis asked.
“I bring machine. I go ride.”
“Which kind of machine? Ha, Redemption! Are you in any condition to ride?”
“How you go know de difference, drunk as you be?”
Elvis giggled. “I guess you are right.”
They approached a burly black motorcycle. Redemption straddled it and kicked the stand up. He swayed for a moment, then found his balance.
“Okay, Elvis, climb aboard. Maroko straight,” he said.
“Are you sure you can operate this?” Elvis slurred, as he settled into the passenger seat, arms firmly wrapped around Redemption’s midsection.
“Hey, Elvis, are you homo? Release me small,” Redemption said.
Elvis relaxed his grip.
“Sorry, I am holding on for my life,” he said.
“Ha! Elvis. Relax, you know I am Easy Rider,” Redemption said, revving up and releasing the clutch. The bike shot off at an incredible speed, swaying from side to side.
“Easy!” Elvis shouted.
“One-way trip to heaven!” Redemption shouted back.
They roared down the Isolo freeway, weaving between cars like a bobbin threading yarn, barely managing to stay upright.
“Whose bike is this?” Elvis yelled over the roar of wind and traffic.
“Dis machine? It belongs to de new people I am doing business with,” Redemption yelled back.
“Hey, slow down. That is a police checkpoint ahead. You don’t want them to open fire,” Elvis said, pointing ahead to the makeshift barricade of oil drums and car tires that sat in the middle of the freeway like a pimple. Redemption ignored him, clutched down, revved up and cut across four lanes of traffic to an exit.
“Redemption!”
“Easy, Elvis. Dis is not States. Dey have no car to chase us.”
“Just don’t kill us.”
“Relax, you fear more dan woman. Listen, punk, do you feel lucky?”
“What?”
“Well, do you?”
“Stop speaking in riddles. Just stop, it will only cost us a couple of bucks in bribes to get past.”
“Number one, we no wear helmet. Number two, I don’t have de papers for dis machine. Number three, I no get license. Plus I hold gun in my pocket. Dat is too much bribe dan I can afford. I no fit to pay!” Redemption shouted as they gunned up the exit ramp and made a sharp right.
“Gun?! Gun!?”
“No dey shout ‘gun’ like dat. People can hear.”
They made a left and were soon traveling down a dirt road skirting the lagoon.
“Where are we?”
“Near Mile 2. One more left and we go dey back on de freeway.”
As they bumped over the road at high speed, a tall column of dust kicked up by the tires chased after them. To their right, the water was a black presence, reflecting the moon. In the distance, Elvis could make out small fishing canoes bobbing on the swell, the lanterns burning in their prows dancing like fireflies.
“Yeee!”
Redemption’s shout was the last thing Elvis heard before the bike skidded out from under them and they were free-falling. They came to a stop about twenty feet down the road. Behind them, the motorcycle’s engine roared for a while, the tires spinning in the air, before spluttering to a stop. The single headlight burned through the silent dark.
“Elvis?”
Silence.
“Elvis?”
“Shit, I think I am dead.”
“No, my friend. Wounded, but not dead. Are you okay? Complete?”
Elvis got into a sitting position. Redemption was already standing up. He lit two cigarettes and passed one to Elvis. Elvis accepted the cigarette and took a deep drag; then, pulling himself slowly to his feet, he checked for broken bones. He was fine aside from a few bruises and a torn shirt.
“How are you?” Redemption asked.
“Apart from some bruises, I am fine. You?”
“Man no die, man no rotten.”
Elvis laughed. It felt good.
“What happened?”
“Who knows? Too much drink, bad road, witchcraft. Choose one.”
“Do you realize we could have died?”
“But we didn’t. So dis is an omen dat we will both live long,” Redemption said, walking back to the prone bike. As he righted it, Elvis called out:
“Be careful of spilled fuel with that cigarette.”
“Shut up, my friend. Dis is not a movie,” Redemption said, climbing back onto the bike and kicking the throttle. After a few abortive attempts, the bike came alive.
“Excellent. Not even a scratch. Dis is good omen. Okay, Elvis, all aboard.”
Elvis hesitated.
“You want to spend de night here?”
“Shit,” Elvis muttered, climbing on the back.
As they left, he was glad to notice that Redemption had cut back on the speed.
“So why did you come to see me? You must have been upset to forget I moved.”
“Is that deal you offered me still open?” Elvis asked.
“Yes. And after dis accident, I am confident for both of us. It will go well. Trust me.”
Elvis’s reply was swallowed up by the wind as they gained the freeway and Redemption opened the throttle.
SPIGELIA ANTHELMIA
L.
(Yoruba: Ewe Aran)
As in most herbs, this is common to abandoned farmlands and clearings in the forest. It is a small erect herb with a rounded smooth stem. Its leaves are oval and broad at the base, tapering to a fine point at the apex. It has pale pink flowers with dark stripes and its fruits are small, round, warty and two-lobed.
The plant is boiled and drunk to expel worms. Its fresh leaves are considered especially poisonous to domestic animals and can cause their death in two to three hours. An overdose of the extract of the leaves is capable of killing a human. In the past witches used it to exact revenge on their enemies either by mixing it in with the feed of domestic animals or by pouring a large dose of the decoction into a soup or drink.
This is the first step. This is the way it is done.
The protocol is followed strictly.
Invariably the talk turned to sex. Obed and Titus had seen blue movies, and although they didn’t understand much, they tried to convey what they had seen to the others.
Titus, in hallowed silence, told of how a woman took a man’s penis in her mouth and sucked out his soul while he yelled in pain. The others were not convinced at first, but he insisted he had seen it, white and lacy, dripping from her mouth. Elvis, in Obiechena’s
Biology for Beginners,
had read differently, but he knew better than to be a nerd by arguing. Besides, Obed was suggesting that they experiment on each other. Elvis wasn’t sure why, but this was something that he wanted to do, so he wasn’t as vocal as the others in his protests.
“Dat is evil, Obed!” Titus shouted.
“Yes, we will surely go to hell for dat,” Hezekiah agreed.
“Dat is homo. It is taboo, forbidden,” Elvis interjected weakly.
“But I saw it in de movies,” Obed insisted.
That one stumped everyone. They sat in the Anglican chapel, a simple bungalow in white at the bottom of the hill, where the cashew groves ended abruptly in a pant of hot white sand. It was nothing like the elaborate Catholic church they attended, and it had less of a religious impact on them. They often came here to gorge on the fruit they had picked from the grove. In the daytime, the chapel was a cool sanctuary from the sweltering afternoon and was always empty except for the bats that infested the roof by the hundreds, and whose dank smell hung in the air just below the musk of angels. At dusk they streamed out in a dense black squeaking cloud to feast on the cashews.
But to Elvis there was an unspoken thing, an air of sacredness that tugged at him. He often lay on one of the pews inside, waiting for an angel to reveal itself to him. The air here was light, unlike in the Catholic church, where the air was oppressive with taboos, guilt, incense, prayers and portents of magic. There were no crucifixes here, no statues, only an oil painting of a brilliant sunrise over the altar. An uncomplicated relationship that he would not dare admit.
“Was it John Wayne doing it?”
“Or Actor?”
“No. Dese were two men I do not know, but dey were doing it and it must be all right because dey do it in de movies,” Obed insisted.
“But we might get caught. You know grown-ups are always dropping in here to pray,” Elvis said.
“Not by dis time. Dey are at work.”
They paired off, alternately lying on top of each other, humping through their clothing. As the afternoon wore on, they became a little more adventurous and were soon down to their underwear, then nothing. Lost in effort, they did not notice an adult appear at the door of the chapel.
Titus saw him first. Though the man did not speak, they knew he had been there a while. Leaping up, they made a run for it, but Elvis had been underneath the heavier Obed, and as he struggled to his feet, fumbling with his shorts, he felt a slap connect with his face. His head jerked back and he fell.
Elvis opened his mouth to speak, but the man put his finger to his lips. He couldn’t focus on any details—what the man looked like or what he was wearing. All he was aware of was the man’s sweaty, hot smell, choking him.
He opened his fly and Elvis saw his huge erect penis pop out. He was petrified.
“Come here,” the man said gruffly.
Zombielike, Elvis went to him. The man placed his hands roughly on his shoulders and forced him down on his knees. His penis was level with Elvis’s face, a twitching cobra ready to strike.
“Suck it,” the man hissed.
With a shudder, Elvis remembered Titus’s story about the woman who sucked the man’s soul out. That would make him a vampire, Elvis thought, and that was for some inane reason more frightening.
“Suck it,” the man hissed again, thrusting his hips forward so that his penis brushed Elvis’s mouth. Reluctantly he let the tip in, sucking on it slowly, as though eating a stick of sugarcane. The man trembled, making guttural noises in the back of his throat. Elvis stopped, afraid the man’s soul had already started to leave his body.
The man did not speak, just pulled Elvis’s head back into his crotch, ramming his penis down his throat so hard he gagged. Tiring of this, he dragged him up. Thinking it was over, Elvis started to turn to run, but the man slapped him hard again, stunning him. Elvis could taste the warm rust of his blood mixing with the man’s musk. Without speaking, the man spun Elvis around, forcing him over the edge of a pew. Holding Elvis’s squirming body down with one hand, the man yanked Elvis’s shorts down with the other. For a second everything seemed to stop. Elvis felt the man hard against his buttocks, and then a burst of fire ripped him into two. The man tore into him, again and again. The pain was so intense, Elvis passed out. When he opened his eyes, he was on the ceiling looking down on their bodies spooned together. The man had stopped moving and lay sweating and heaving like a farm laborer on break. Elvis closed his eyes and drifted into darkness.
When he came to, he was alone. As he pulled up his shorts, he felt the wetness on his buttocks. Fearing it was the dreaded juice of the soul, he tried to wipe it away. An examination of his hand revealed blood. Dazed, he stumbled to the front of the altar and sat on the floor for hours, staring up at the picture of a sunrise.