The Capstone Saga: The First Shall Be the Last and the Last Shall Be the First.

By Walter Efe Tete

Drama and adventure absorbingly intertwine as author Walter Efe Tete stirs the publishing world with his literary prowess. In his newly released novel, The Capstone Saga, he immerses readers into the life of one man who battles to stay strong amid adversities, relying solely on the power of hope, determination, and compassion for others.
Being the son of a powerful chief of an entire community, Scotty Stone was born and introduced to a polygamous family in Africa. Chief Eyikemi had seven wives at a time, one of whom was Scottys mom, Victoria, who died early in life. Now alone with his siblings, Scotty and his siblings are, by default, taken in by their stepmothers. In the villa, he is confronted with a life of misery. His only option is to survive everything that is thrown at him. This leads him to have a tougher personality and a more principled life, making him a strong force to reckon with in society, both at home and abroad.
With the hope of making it big, Scotty migrates to the United States of America. Not long after, he sees himself living his dream, with no knowledge that it wouldnt last long. How far will this young man go to truly find himself? Readers will unravel as Scottys powerful survival skills come face-to-face with dreadful challenges in the engrossing pages of The Capstone Saga. (Note: This novel is a work of fiction).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426971426

Walter Efe Tete

Professor Walter Tete holds a Bsc. in Professional Writing, and a Master Degree in Technical Communication from the University of Houston-Downtown in Texas. He also studied for a PhD in Leadership Skills at Our Lady of the Lakes University in San Antonio, Texas - U.S.A. He taught English and Communication Studies in several Colleges across the state of Texas. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor of English at Lone Star College - Kingwood, Texas. He is a talented writer and speaker often sought after by various professional organizations around the world.

Book preview

Chapter One

The Arrival

A glorious day welcomed the arrival of Scotty Stone. It was indeed glorious with clear blue sky, cool wind blew across the horizon, and there was peace on earth, which was nothing but a momentary calm after the storm. Scotty’s mother, Victoria, had a hard time delivering this boy of seven pounds, six ounces. Not a typical oversized baby, but it was almost impossible to push him out of the womb. Scotty seemed to have had a sense of what was ahead of him, as he struggled not to show up on time for his own delivery. The assistance of an African voodoo priest had to be sought in a remote village of Kokori to help deliver this troubled child. He did his thing, and forcefully, Scotty was delivered on that fateful spring day to Chief Eyikemi, a powerful chief in the entire clan of the Urhoborian community.

Scotty was raised in a large family of over sixteen children, mainly females, some of whom were his half sisters and a couple of half brothers, and a maternal little brother. Chief Eyikemi was in charge of his household, dealing squarely with any child of his who disobeyed any of his strict rules and regulations. He had seven wives at one time, owned many businesses, properties, and cars, which was typical of great chiefs of his status at that time. Scotty came out kicking, crying, and screaming at the very top of his lungs, while showing great signs of hesitation, not wanting to come into this world, or spend one extra minute in it.

However, he did not have a say on the matter that was decided between his mom and dad some nine months ago. He had been delivered to a semi loving family of the chief and his many wives and children. From the very dawn of his rather complex life it was quite obvious, even to Scotty at that stage of infancy, that life made no promises. It wasn’t going to be a kindergarten. It appeared that he was aware of the fact that life for him was going to be an endless struggle for survival. At birth, he seemed to have realized that life itself does not hold answers to its many problems and various mind-boggling questions.

For one thing, Scotty did not know why he was brought into this harsh, loveless, and less cozy world where capitalism reigned supreme. It was impossible to console him with pacifiers or baby food, or even breast milk, his favorite as he cried constantly. He seemed to have murmured aloud as to why he wasn’t consulted on whether or not he’d wanted to visit a place called the Earth. No one asked him to vote on the matter, as it appeared that the breath of life was imposed upon him unsolicited.

Scotty wasn’t in any mood to become a permanent residence on Earth; if anything, he wanted to return to wherever he came from because the current atmosphere surrounding his very being seemed to choke the life out of him. But there he was, with no input whatsoever on a major decision that was made earlier by his parents to have him delivered into a family where it seemed that everyone was waiting to crucify him. In the spring, however, his mom’s protruding stomach was ready to pop as it gave way forcefully to the arrival of an innocent child. The journey had begun, as the plot thickened for Scotty.

He continued to blame the laws of nature in his mind, it seemed, for cooperating with his mom in that remote village known as Erho, by way of Kokori, in the midwestern part of Nigeria, West Africa, on that fateful day, in spite of his vigorous attempts at protesting, and obvious hesitations. Very quickly, and going by his intuition even at the tender age of three weeks old, his mind was already working around the clock with a view to avoiding the impending hazards that life was bound to throw his way. He knew that he had to make the best of the volatile situation that he found himself in. Scotty grew up faster than boys his age and even looked older as well. His physical appearance was such that the storms and turmoil going on inside of this little kid were decidedly hidden from everyone, including his own mom and dad.

The bare fact was quite clear. Scotty hated it here on Earth from the very beginning of his young life. He’d much rather go back to where he came from, somewhere up there in the skies, somewhere in mid-heaven, or tucked back cozily inside his mom as it were. The only way to put an end to all of these internal conflicts was to commit suicide, but Scotty wasn’t suicidal, and that recurring fatal thought was out of the question. He decided with a little glimmer of hope to fight the demons head-on, because he appeared stuck here on planet Earth in a long journey called life, where there seemed to be no happy endings. Hitchhiking to the next destination was to no avail; thus, Scotty became a wanderer in a vast and barren land with no clear-cut direction to follow.

Life was moving very fast even for someone like Scotty. He breezed through both his elementary and secondary schools with relative ease at the top of his class. During this period, he moved from the midwest to the southwestern part of Nigeria with little or no excitement along the way. He continued on this fast-paced migration up to the time that he began to make some money for himself.

Perhaps, when I start making some money, life will be much more tolerable, he often murmured to himself. But life was not even close to being tolerable for him. He secured a job with one of the radio stations in the city of Lagos upon his graduation from a privately owned broadcast institute in Lagos, Nigeria. It appeared that things were beginning to look up for him, but even the fun at the job couldn’t quench the enduring sadness and depression that often accompanied him wherever he went. Restlessness as well as peradventure led Scotty even farther into the hinterlands of the northern region where he joined yet another team of broadcasters in a predominantly Moslem society.

At the radio station known as Radio Nigeria 2–Kaduna, the press was highly censored. Scotty couldn’t really speak his mind on air on the many issues that often bugged him. There was no freedom of speech in this great country . . . the so-called Giant of Africa. Violators of the so-called press rules were usually declared missing by the military dictators, never to be seen again by their family members. Worst still, letter bombs were militarily dispatched to any culprit who dared to question the system of government, or the way things were being run in the country. Scotty was choking up inside with thoughts and words that he wanted to say openly on the radio, but he knew the implications of such brave acts in a corrupt society. There was no outlet for Scotty to express his feelings on his family and national issues. He badly wanted to lash out at the military dictators ruling the country in the ’80s and ’90s for leading the country into an abyss of no return.

Corruption of the highest order existed among the top echelons of the military brass that was ruling the country where billions upon billions of the country’s wealth were siphoned out of the country on a daily basis. Scotty’s desire was to tell the country’s chief of police to simply go to hell, because he and his men were incapable of protecting the citizens of the country. Corruption had eaten into the bones of the men and women in police and military uniforms across the country. Scotty was mad with the world around him. He even imagined a situation where he was in charge of a radio station with free hands to operate without any fear or favor. Head would roll and corrupt individuals in the system would be dealt with according to the laws of the land, which have been hard to enforce due to the massive corruption in high places.

Those were his wishes that were not practicable due to the rhetorical situation in the country where corruption reigned in abundance. He got fed up with the order of things as they were in the country. His restless nature once again took control of him, as he secretly desired to check out of the country once and for all to yet another destination unknown. For young Scotty peradventure was always around the corner. He made it to God’s own country called America in the early ’90s. It was yet another decision of his that was ill-advised and untimely. His real struggles in life began in America where he knew no soul or relative to take him in upon arrival. It was a cold night when he arrived at the former Houston Intercontinental Airport. He had arrived at a twilight zone away from his comfort zone back in Nigeria. As luck would have it, Scotty had a few phone numbers that he collected from his friends in Nigeria who knew one or two friends in the States.

He got on the phone and called several of the numbers before he got in touch with a true brother who was kind enough to pick him up from the airport in the middle of the night. Mr. Rick was a kindhearted individual who took care of Scotty for the first few weeks of his arrival in Houston, but his Nigerian wife was another issue. She saw him as an unnecessary burden on the family, which was quite understandable. After all, they knew nothing of Scotty until that fateful phone call in the wee hours of the night.

Back in Nigeria, Scotty, like most young people who were seeking greener pastures abroad, thought that money grew on trees in America and that you don’t have to work hard to achieve the American dream. America was known around the world as God’s own country for a reason. The images of happy couples on Soul Train, coupled with the illusion that life was great in America, prompted many a youth to seek the glitters of life in America. But let the truth be told: America is not what it is cracked up to be. You have to work twice as hard in a foreign land than in your own land. Just ask any immigrant about his or her experiences in America and be overwhelmed with tales of woes. Scotty would much rather reside in the devil’s paradise than suffer immensely in the so-called God’s own country. Internal conflicts tormented Scotty, as he murmured to himself, Life must go on.

He pondered the scenario of living a stress-free life without the ever-mounting credit card debts, tight budgets, as well as the many strains and stresses of the everyday life in America. For the record, Scotty longed to be of service to his compatriots back in Nigeria, with a view to convincing the young ones that there was nowhere in America that produced the magical money-spilling trees of any denomination, contrary to what they’d been told. One must be hardworking as well as be law-abiding to acquire anything tangible and stay out of trouble. Anything short of that survival recipe could get you lost in the shuffle of the American lifestyles and into the slammer for a long time.

The realization came to Scotty rather late. But in America, getting in debt and staying in debt was a way of life unbeknownst to the outside world. Many Americans were in debt up to their eyebrows, but no one knew about it, because it was usually masked in the façade of the make-believe world. However, America was known as the greatest country in the world because of its wonderful system of government where no one was above the law. As mentioned, hard work along with persistency could earn anyone the American dream. However, the dream, to some people, had become an illusion, especially to the African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and some Caucasians, in that order. There was no free lunch in America, because you get what you paid for. Scotty’s crusade was to inform his people back home as to the certainty of the gospel truth.

In wondering and terror, Scotty looked at the present system of things around the world and wondered if there was really an omnipotent and almighty being up there, somewhere in the horizon. For all he knew, God is an all-good and all-powerful being living somewhere among the galaxy of stars up there in the sky. He wasn’t a crying baby by any means. He knew right from time that to live was to experience anguish, but what explanation was there to justify the so many evils in the world? Why do the children of God suffer so many things in vain? Where was the heavenly father, and what did he do about the lot of humanity that seemed destined to self-destruct? Some philosophers have posited that the many evils in the world were in response to man. God was really not the cause of evil, man was.

Remember the story of Adam and Eve? According to the great author Leman, We have the best possible world. One cannot enjoy the pleasures of life without some degrees of evil to contrast the good. His ideology was a subject for debate because the reasoning behind it was faulty. Does it mean that poor Scotty would continue to suffer the blizzards of life in order to enjoy a small glimmer of light, or appreciate a bright and sunny day? He wondered!

As far as Scotty was concerned, evil is a relative term classified into different categories. For instance, man’s inhumanity to man such as the case in Iraq, India, Nigeria, Croatia, just to mention a few, was a moral evil. Capitalism belonged in this elitist group as well, being a system governed by man with God’s permission. On the other hand, God controlled the so-called Mother Nature—the natural evils that often befell man from time to time, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. More absurd in these unexplainable human calamities was the evil known as Sard evil. It didn’t make any sense to Scotty, nor did it serve any purpose. Innocent children at birth with deformed bodies, or brain dead, as well as stillborn babies were just a few of the examples of Sard evil.

There was no denying the fact that so many evil things existed in the lives of humans like fungus among us, yet there was an all-good and all-powerful God who could have changed man’s miserable destiny at the snap of his fingers, but he sometimes chose to ignore this sacred duty for reasons best known to him. Why? Don’t bother asking Scotty these pressing questions because he had more than his fair share of the miseries of life. You’d be talking to the wrong person. God is infinite and perfect, according to biblical teachings. However, modern-day philosophers have argued, You cannot reasonably, logically accept the notion that God is all-good and all-powerful, and yet serious evil exists in the world.

Most people interviewed by Scotty in the course of his broadcasting career revealed that more evil things happen to mankind than good. The what, when, where, why, and how questions immediately followed in a typical journalistic fashion. Where was the almighty, what was he doing about human sufferings, did he even care? Every so often, Scotty wondered aloud. To him, as far as one human being suffered either physically, mentally, financially, or otherwise right here on planet Earth proved that what is really out there on the other side of the galaxy is just an open space. That was his thought before the light came upon him on his biblical road to Damascus like the famous apostle, Paul. But how else can one explain the absence of an equal opportunity God at serious times of need around the world? Scotty’s confusion on this matter continued.

Being an Aries, the first zodiac symbol, Scotty was a natural-born leader with the accustomed restlessness. He’d always tried to occupy his time with extracurricular activities in his spare time. He often read the astrology guide for some divine direction in life. After all, God made the moon and the stars, and he gave people the talent to read and interpret the signs of the time. Scotty claimed that the guide told him what to do each day with a view to avoiding any major calamity of the day. Sometimes, the guide had told Scotty that his luck was about to change for the better and that he was at a point of a major breakthrough in life. In this case, he usually ended up with more troubles than he ever bargained for. Other times, the guide promised that it was going to be a bright and sunny day for Scotty, but the day usually turned out a gully wash all day. Those were the kinds of predictions that astrology was made of in God’s own country.

Scotty had more than his share of the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of life. His main motto was: If one is ready to live, he should be ready to die. If you want to succeed in life, you should also be ready to fail numerous times. It was one of the biggest oxymoron known to man. According to Murphy’s law, whatever can go wrong in life will go wrong, regardless of how hard you tried to prevent the inevitable from happening. It was an attempt to hazard an explanation as to why bad things happen to good people and vice versa. Scotty had no direct control of his destiny. It appeared that his life had been predetermined even before that fateful day of his birth. Thus, Scotty became a firm believer in the term Determinism, a doctrine that said whatever is happening to a man had been preplanned well ahead of his birth. Man is just a character playing a role in the drama called life. This notion then queried the issue of free will and the human existence. Do humans have free will to do whatever they want with their lives? Scotty often wondered and he was terrified. Sometimes. He engaged himself with mundane things, such as daydreaming of better days to come and reminiscing on his troubled upbringing in that villa located in Erho Village with the chief and his nuclear family.

He recalled the almost dilapidated two-story building, which stood right in the middle of the tiny village. The bright yellow color with black stripes to match had the inscription of its main occupant at the top of the building, the honorable Chief Eyikemi. The villa was a main attraction to the villagers and visitors to the village. The compound stood out in the entire village with one other sorry-looking two-story building as its neighbor. The villa housed more than Scotty’s brothers and sisters, half here, half there. They included over sixteen children; four wives as at last count, and many other long-distant relatives residing in this one property. The Eyikemi family was doomed from the very start to be forever divided. Hideous jealousy among the wives carried over to the children, who simply tolerated each other in the name of being a one big happy family. Chief Eyikemi claimed to be in control of the household, but he often looked the other way when injustices were perpetrated from wives to children, especially on the stepchildren like Scotty and his little brother.

The most notorious of the chief’s wives was the one called Wanda, a name that was quite synonymous with oppression. She happened to be one of the step moms of the children whose mothers have either passed away mysteriously, or divorced from the chief, thanks to her many manipulations. Scotty often wished that she’d drop dead and left him alone because of her insurmountable and decided wickedness. Ironically, Wanda was the chief’s favorite of all the remaining wives namely: Wanda . . . the favorite one; Alexis . . . the senior one; Mary the not-so-favored one, and in fact, the one who had invited Wanda to baby-sit for her being one of her relatives. Instead, Wanda did more than just baby-sit; she shamelessly seduced the chief into marrying her in a hurry before anyone knew what was going on. Then, there was Victoria, Scotty’s mom, who was the youngest of them and the most hated by the other wives. The stage was thus set for a climax to a horrible marriage circle engineered by the chief himself.

Victoria, being the youngest of the chief’s wives, was often left behind on numerous occasions in the decision-making sessions involving this nuclear family. She was often passed over on the benefits, if any, of being a part of the family. When it