BARON Of BROAD STREET

By EL NUKOYA

Baron of Broad Street chronicles the polarized worlds of the Lagos impoverished and the affluent, living side-by-side, yet a world apart. Disun and Ige are young boys growing up within the squeeze and squalor of Makoko. As they sit on the banks of the Lagos Lagoon, they contemplate life on the other side of town, the exclusive district of the Metropolis covering Ikoyi, Victoria Island, and, Broad Street that mysterious area, so distant, yet so close. Disun is the optimistic of the duo, resolute in his faith in a fair chance at success in Lagos, his ordinary background notwithstanding. Ige, on the other hand held by a vibrant, radical mind, entrenches himself in the firm belief that the only reliable choices open to them were illicit. The road to realizing this ambition is lined with real dangers. Would they prevail? And if indeed they would, what prices are there to be paid... and, perhaps, more importantly, of what texture would their residual soul be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365271038

Book preview

1980S

CHAPTER 1

The noise cut through the air with sharp, persistent crunches; rather like the screeching brakes of a halting train; or any one of a thousand odd sounds that could be conceived in the vilest depths of a torturer’s mind. It came continuously – five every second or so – and it carried a jarring sting down Disun’s entire torso, shuddering him out of his distant world of dreams and delight, into the here and now. The angry grunts that emanated from beneath his breath were instant, unrehearsed. The Makoko rats had a penchant for bringing out the worst in people.

Fat, feisty and downright fearless, the ghetto rat was a unique breed. Every morning, the streets were littered with the carrion of those among them that had been vanquished during the trampling of the previous night, succumbed to the ubiquitous mouse trap, or the extra-potent poison fomented in the cruellest corners of a frustrated ghetto mind. Still, many more surrendered to the ill-intended bucket of water, or the nimble old man’s foot. Yet, the following night, in spite of the casualties, they would re-emerge from their crevices, and those that made it through the night would live to feed and fight again. Procreate, even. Thus, the cycle of life and death would continue, and Disun would live to bear the brunt.

The rodent must have played an intricate part in the culture of the Yoruba people, judging by the breadth of proverbs and folklore dedicated to it. Disun’s inadvertent lesson in history bore tales of legendary rodents through which the vermin had left their indelible mark. The common house rat, the ekute’le, for instance, was of scant prominence, but the treacherous okete was loathed to have turned around and betrayed its covenant with the Ifa oracle – the custodian of society’s moral fabric. It is ironic, however, that in modern times the same okete could be found on fringe menus, joining the acclaimed mother-of-all-rodents – the Oya – in contention for the ultimate gastronomic treat. Yet, an ancient fable endures of the nut-pilfering ikun’s ultimate demise after continuously failing to heed the farmer’s warnings. Indeed, many mischievous children have been reminded not to behave like the eku-eda, with its controversial and inciting ways, and, somehow, the Ologbojo, in spite of its reputation as the king of all rodents, remained elusive and unidentifiable within Disun’s encyclopaedia.

Somehow, the ghetto rat seemed to have broken away from these historical paradigms, and to the mortification of its victims, forged a brand new reputation for itself. This contemporary rodent had evolved into something never before known to man – something extraordinary.  A hybrid, perhaps, of all the other species combined, and, by all accounts, a freak mutation, given that only the horrid genes of its ancestors were randomly selected. Whatever strange evolution brought about these mutants, Disun hated them from the core, not least because they had the sole prerogative of waking him up every blessed morning with their agonising crunch.

Somehow, the rats had built a myriad of tunnels in the walls of Disun’s room; indeed, in every concrete block wall in the ghetto, wherever you could find them and once the rats crept out at night to forage on the snippets of the day’s activities, they often returned to find out – to their chagrin – that their chain of tunnels had been altered. This incessant modification was an obsession of Disun’s father’s, who would set out just before midnight, just about every night, dutifully blocking as many holes as he could with stones, cans, blocks of wood and any makeshift material he could lay his dexterous hands on. Disun would often hear his father swearing along as he went about his rat-track-disruption business.

Nonsense, Baba Disun would curse as he forced a myriad of dissimilar objects into the tunnels, one after the other. "Jagbajantus!"

The rats would like to get back on track afterwards – naturally – hence their eternal crunching at the man-made stumbling blocks in the way of their progress. Disun, however, remained at the receiving end of the unearthly noises that resulted from this perpetual struggle between good and evil, as his father – Baba Disun – had always been inclined to term his quest. 

In the hierarchy of pain, the sheer agony of that crunching was comparable only to the racket that Mama Disun made whenever she ground her Carnation milk cans back and forth on the pavement, wearing off their lids to fashion out the little tin cups within which her moin-moin paste would be steamed. Now, that was pure torture also, only then, unlike with the crunching rats, there was sufficient break in-between the deafening bouts to grant a human being some respite – Mama Disun’s grinding featured merely once or twice in a year. Over the years, the ubiquitous Carnation tin had become indispensable across the generations of Makoko dwellers prized and despised equally among them.

Disun opened his eyes halfway, and allowed a few sprinkles of the morning light to shine through. Then he closed them again, knowing that he had a few more minutes to snooze before his father would show up at the door, yelling as though to bring the entire roof down in a disproportionate effort to get him out of bed and prepared for whatever the morning held, be it the routine yard cleaning before school, the occasional mass at the Cathedral down the road whenever Baba Disun was in a light-enough mood to let his wife have her way and take the kids with her to church, or an early set-out to Baba Disun’s work on the random weekend or during the holidays.

Today, it was May Day – Workers’ Day – but, of course, Baba Disun was working. When he showed up at the children’s bedroom door, his voice was classically loud, urgent.

Disun, it’s morning. You had better get your lazy back off the mattress right now or I might have to help you with a sprinkle of water.

Disun grumbled, eyes still closed, Yes, Daddy. Good morning, Sir.

Good morning. Get up and get set. We have work to do this morning.

As always, Disun awakened to the thick smell of mosquito coils, camphor and the faint, but distinct, whiff of ammonia from the cocktail of domestic wastewater and bodily fluids streaming past his window from adjourning households. Invariably, Disun bore the full brunt of this stench, since his bedroom window oversaw the communal gutter serving as the fortuitous sewage disposal system for that area. This tingling musk represented the preternatural third step in his wakening regime, after the chipping of the rats and the bellowing of his father. 

Disun got out of his bed, an old naked mattress, lain on a weathered mat that resembled a piece of brown Swiss cheese, with holes gaping from every other square foot, corners bitten off and liquid-stain maps telling a chronological tale of human accidents that had occurred in the depth of the night, or, perhaps in glaring daytime, over the years, equally in slumber as they might have in the state of reckoning. Disun gazed at his now vacant section of the mattress, tracing the indentation left behind by his departure with tired lustful eyes – if only he had a few more minutes! Next to his bodily landscape, lay his little brother, Olumide, stark naked, snoring away quietly, peacefully. 

The envy on Disun’s face was manifest. That moment, life seemed unfair. While his younger brother got all the sleep that he wanted, he had lost all such privileges. At sixteen, he was already a man by his father’s calculation and had to earn his living. He had to work alongside his father and contribute towards the family upkeep. This, his father had been drumming into his head since he was nine. Theirs was not a regular family and for them to survive they must pool their resources. All hands had to be on deck, his father would say, including the innocent, yet untainted pair of Disun’s.

Disun threw a worn Ankara wrapper round his body, crossed its corners at the back of his neck and tied the knot. Then, he stepped into the courtyard that he and his family – by virtue of their two-room face-me-I-face-you accommodation – shared with the other tenants in the one-level, rental complex, or compound, as the residents preferred to describe their small community. Once outside, he was met with the usual flurry of people from within the compound who, just like the Faloduns, were artisans and tradespeople, and, therefore, cared little, if at all, about the May Day holiday. It was, indeed, a frenzy, and if you still had any illusions about what was planned for the day and if you harboured any notions about going back to the mattress to huddle up under the sheets all day long, the flurry of activities in the compound would help you to focus.

Disun went to their locker among the row in the shared outdoor kitchen and retrieved his toothbrush and a tube of Pepsodent. He laced his toothbrush with some of the paste, lined up with a group of adults by the communal gutter – the same one that ran by his window – and began to brush his teeth. In line with him was Baba Afe, a middle-aged taxi driver from Ogbomoso, chomping fervently at his chewing-stick, spitting here and there, and Wenu, a young bachelor carpenter from Badagry, who was making a guttural, offensive sound, as he dislodged what seemed like a reluctant toad from the pit of his throat. Disun’s mother was leaving the line as her son was joining it, and they had their ritual, quick morning chit-chat.

Akanni, how are you? His mother said.

Fine, Mummy. Good morning, Ma.

Hope the mosquitoes were lenient last night.

They weren’t too bad, but the rats were annoying. I have been up since five, thanks to their chomping.

"Pele, oko mi. Not to worry, your father’s found a new remedy. He got a really potent poison from one of his friends. Those who have used it say it works like magic."

I hope it does, Disun said, knowing that even if the poison was as potent as its reputation proclaimed, it wouldn’t wipe out the entire rat population in the neighbourhood. The damned ghetto rats had no territory, no boundaries – once some succumbed, a new colony instantly took their place.

"I will go and get some akara for you and your father. Once I am back, your pap will take a few minutes, so you had better hurry up so that you don’t keep your father waiting."

Yes, Ma.

Disun was intrigued by his mother’s plans for breakfast. That, at least, was one upside to the way that morning was playing out. He relished ogi and akara, especially as Mama Disun only prepared the recipe on special occasions; either the mornings after Baba Disun had brought in a fat wad of money the previous night, or on the rare occasions when important relatives from faraway places had arrived to spend time with them. Once in a while, it was difficult to make out her motivation for the meal and Disun enjoyed these pleasant surprises the most. In Disun’s private little world, ogi and akara was a delicacy. The akara was the highlight of the meal, its dry, crunchy crust fried glowing amber in red oil, an occasional dry shrimp sticking out here and there and the unforgiving chilli poised to singe the tongue. The sideshows were two rare cubes of St Louis sugar which took a little sourness out of the ogi and the occasional splash of evaporated milk from a freshly poked tin of Carnation or Peak or Coast or any of the dozen imported brands that the big multinational trading companies threw at the masses. Disun wondered what ogi would have been like without milk and sugar – pap bereft of these two ingredients, was a culinary crime.

Come to think of it, what was life without milk and sugar, anyway? Really, what was life without these? Disun and his neighbourhood friends were without toys, for example, until empty boxes of St Louis and empty Carnation tins provided the much needed medium, with which they engineered cabins and tires and brought their visions of an automobile to life. And what a commotion the Carnation wheels caused as they rolled down the streets of Makoko, spinning diligently at the base of the St Louis cabin, conquering sand, stones and the occasional cadaver of a vanquished rat. As a visitor once said, nothing pleased the heart more than the sight of a barely clad Makoko kid, tugging along at the end of an owu-ikorun – the thin black hair-plaiting thread – with which he summoned torque and traction to the virtual engine of his toy, achieving motion and manoeuvrability with each tug, and delighting in the merits of his sweat and senses. 

Owu-ikorun had its own multiple uses, including summoning torque and traction to yet another inventive ghetto-boy toy – the paper or polyethylene-bag kite. Disun, like many of his co-travellers, partook in the competitive sport of kite flying, each wanting to out-design and out-fly the other by crafting the fanciest and farthest flying kite. It was either a race to the top or bottom – which is subjective, depending on whether you were a partaker or an onlooker – and the informal kite-flying competitions had been rumoured to have triggered off many a neighbourhood feud, with the kids from one street sabotaging and stealing the kites of the kids from another, usually out of envy. Sabotage was achieved by climbing to the topmost balcony of the tallest building on the path of an alien kite and launching a stringed stone over the kite thread. A tangling of threads would summarily ensue, crashing the infringing kite on hostile territory. The array of multicoloured polyethylene sheets from kite casualties swaying from every metre of the neighbourhoods’ electricity transmission lines bore stark witness to this unspoken battle and the Makoko skyline paid the price. Yet the effervescent kids were unperturbed, their budding ghetto spirits insurmountable. The Makoko kid was bereft of glittering battery-powered toys from China or anywhere else, but with a fair share of inquisitiveness, wits and brilliance, they were self-sufficient in their play. 

Compared to the silence of the kites, however, nothing pleased the ear more than the rhythm of the Carnation wheels as they spun dependably along the contoured Makoko landscape. Somehow, Disun could not help but wonder why his father and many Makoko elders, who ordinarily would yell and curse at the sounds emanating from the product of an offspring’s ingenuity, never got it! What better testament to the worthiness of one’s seeds than the genius of the generations that it sires? He wished that he could one day pose that question to the elders.

With breakfast barely finished, Disun found himself scurrying after his father, the bubbly cocktail of pap and bean balls rumbling in his stomach like magma and rocks beneath the earth. As he jostled after his father, he prayed that this self-induced volcano would fail to erupt. 

The first streaks of sunshine were just gracing the young Makoko morning and the azan from the mosque mixed with the fervent prayers and occasional clanging of bells from the neighbourhood churches. In the same vane, fresh offerings to the old deities sat in calabashes and earthen pots at the street intersections. In Makoko, all religions were in harmony, all peoples found a fragile peace. Disun and his father meandered expertly through the dark alleys and as they progressed, Disun took account of the now familiar sights, sounds and scents of their ghetto world. 

"E gudu mor’ing o!" Came the throaty greeting from a fat bare-chested woman flopped on a stout wooden stool, stirring away at a bowl of the little something that she was always cooking about that time of the morning when Disun and his father walked by. She had her side to the alley and she didn’t turn to look at them. But through some extrasensory perception of hers, she always knew when they walked by.

Good morning, Iya Abe. Disun’s father replied. How are the children?

"Alaafia, Iya Abe said. E maa ya’se o."

Thank you. Till dusk.

Disun wondered for a minute why Iya Abe would never put her clothes on.

Next door to Iya Abe, Caroline, the lanky young daughter of the neighbourhood thrift master was sweeping the fallen leaves of a Dogonyaro tree, and a few yards away from her, an old woman splintered wood. Alhaji – the neighbourhood butcher – nodded an offbeat response to Baba Disun’s greetings, looking away briefly from his ablutions as father and son trotted by; and, just then, Disun was quick to duck a paper missile whizzing past his ear, courtesy of Bajo, his schoolsmate and a little neighbourhood rogue. Disun smiled, looked over his shoulders and snapped his fingers in an encrypted threat that foretold great reprisal. Bajo smirked in defiance, returning a retaliatory finger snap. With their coded bartering of threats, a mini-friendly-feud had thus ensued. 

Finally, Disun and his father emerged in a wider alley at the end of the thoroughfare, into the semi-openness of the Makoko Main Road – essentially, the only proper street in the entire area, and, by far, the widest and longest of them all. Arguably, Makoko Main Road was the only street in the area, period. The others were narrow alleys at best, terminating abruptly at the feet of a compound gateway, or in submission to the boundaries of one of the many accidental foodstuff markets that blighted the area. One way or the other, these timid fake streets never prevailed, their journeys suffering a humiliating end at the instance of a more formidable form, be it an obdurate yard, or a mushrooming pseudo-market. This architectural race to the bottom was in essence a perpetual war game, some sort of a construction jigsaw epidemic, consuming all relics of nature in its path, and, having exhausted the generosity of nature, turning eventually upon itself. With the unexpected rush of light and the sudden sense of orientation, bursting into the main road resembled an entry into a clearing in a jungle. In any event, that could explain the jungle sobriquet with which the ghetto was often described – the other being the predatory food chain that these unnatural habitats fostered.

Father and son meandered through the storm of people, animals and vehicles, struggling, as they would inevitably have to do, to hear their own voices through the barrage of deafening noise. Then, suddenly, it hit them like a ewe’s bellow to its lamb.

 "Obalende! Obalende, ten naira!"

If a typical man’s voice could be compared to the sound of a brand new saloon car, cruising down an avenue on a fine Sunday morning, at its peak, the bus conductor’s – coarse, gritty and downright belligerent – mimicked a gravel-laden thirty-tonne truck, grinding up a steeply incline. His raspy bawl resembled the sound of a thousand frogs, croaking in unison, his pitch alone bore forensic evidence to a weed-smoking, paraga-sipping, bitter-kola chewing decade, coupled with a culture of shouting oneself hoarse on a day-to-day basis. 

"Obalende! Obalende, ten naira!" Each bellow sprang forth with the volume of molten lead, coloured with a burnt-orange tinge of rusty steel. A thousand decibels, or so it seemed, or felt, since you could actually feel its vibration on your skin if you happened to be in close proximity.

But, as offensive as it might have seemed, that was the sound they were waiting for. Disun and his father scampered through a frantic crowd into the molue and made themselves comfortable at the front, right behind the driver and next to a pile of vegetable leaves squatted splat on the spluttering lorry engine and heading for the market.

Disun leaned away from the dirty, wet sacks of steaming vegetable beside him and settled against the mass of a middle-aged market woman to his right. Though only a few miles, the journey to Victoria Island through CMS in the shimmering early-morning sun and blaring car horns would take an hour. A coalescence of obnoxious scents reeked through the sweltering cabin of the molue, jarring up Disun’s senses and, as it always did, unsettling him. The soft body of the benign market woman and the faint fragrance of her mentholatum gave much needed succour from the hot, bumpy, fusty hour ahead.

CHAPTER 2

Nature’s sounds, smells and scenery could be benevolent. Disun, more than anyone, knew that. Having grown up in its rollicking rustiness, he should – and by Jove, he loved it! But nature exudes even more exemplary nuances when it is confronted in the most unusual places – places where it wouldn’t ordinarily have dwelt. It must be this combined sense of scarcity and surprise that exacerbates the splendour. That conclusion Disun had reached after several years of visiting Deroju’s house.

Deroju was the young daughter of Mr & Mrs Rogers, Baba Disun’s most important customers and, by a clear margin, the source of most of his income. Every time he set foot into Deroju’s garden, Disun was enveloped by an unusual mix of emotions. Certainly, Deroju owned no gardens – the magnificent mansion and its lofty greens belonged to her father – but in his world, it still remained Deroju’s. And despite her conscientious effort to make him feel at home every time he was there, he couldn’t help but feel that he was literally crossing someone else’s turf. His humble garb just couldn’t contrast more starkly against the opulent background. His demeanour couldn’t scream any more vividly: stranger! Then, all of a sudden, Deroju’s beautiful face would appear, as it always did, and she would smile, and everything else would seem to disappear into the background. Then he would muster the courage to come out of his shell. And he would breathe again. For the moment, Deroju was fast becoming the centre of his universe. Perhaps, the very reason that he was.

Disun sat at his favourite spot beneath the shade of his beloved flamboyant tree and watched as his father paced the lawn, pushing jerkily at the ancient lawn mower, brushing off steaming beads of sweat from his forehead and swearing intermittently at the stinging sand-flies. The sun was scorching hot. Everybody else was tucked away in their air-conditioned homes and offices, and he could see a few of Deroju’s neighbours glancing cynically at his father from the comfort of their living rooms; peeking from behind their tinted-out windows – wondering, perhaps, if he were worshiping the sun, or, even still, if he himself were indeed the sun god. He also knew from experience that his father saw them not. All he saw were errant blades of stubborn-grass that he had only just tamed two weeks earlier, now waving their taunting fingers at him, reminding him that he should rather be grateful to them for guaranteeing him a livelihood – reminding him that whatever he did, they’d be back in a week or two, and earn him yet another pay cheque. Perhaps, in the real sense, they weren’t waving their blades – what they were waving, in every sense, could rightly be their proverbial double-edged sword.

"Egbirin ote, his father used to say, back then in the village as he tugged away at the rash of ravishing weed at the base of his cocoyam crop. B’aa se n ge’kan, ni’ikan n ruwe."

The old gardener harboured a love-hate feeling towards the blades; that feeling was of epoch proportions. But judging by the rage with which he mowed them, Disun had to conclude that this feeling leaned more towards hate. Something told him that his father would rather be peeking at another someone mowing his own lawn, while he sat within the comforts of a tinted-out air-conditioned loft, sipping at a chilled glass of orange juice. Disun had often wondered what led his father to trade the comforts of the village for a mere existence here in the city. He had always wondered what mental calculations had led the older man to that resolve.

But then again, had his father not moved to the city when he did, how would he have learnt that there were two disparate worlds; two disparate kinds of lives? Ika o dogba, his father would say, using the inequality of fingers as an analogy for the inequality of men and applying this metaphor, with a bit of pensiveness, in justifying his condition. This often happened as they stepped into the Rogerses’ sprawling compound. However, as Disun was inclined to see it, his father’s relocation to the city had presented him with the opportunity to compare the relative bliss of the village with the unforgiving conditions of city life. He had spent many quiet moments by the swamps at Makoko, contemplating the soundness of his father’s decision; but then, that was until he set foot on Deroju’s sprawling mansion. That was when he had recognised the nobler of the two worlds – picked his side of the ideological prism, found his seat and set his rear firmly.

Deroju was the most beautiful thing in the world; there was absolutely no question about that. Several times in the past, Disun had found himself playing a subconscious game at that same spot underneath the flamboyant tree, keeping Deroju’s beautiful face in one corner of his mind, randomly summoning the image of a potential-equal from his memory of all the beautiful women he had encountered in his young life, and finally shaking his head with finality. No beauty matched Deroju’s. Indeed, no beauty could. Perhaps, no human being indeed: man or woman, young or old. No woman could be as beautiful, not even his mother, he thought. His mother, of course, had the most beautiful heart of all women. Deroju’s heart was yet to be discovered; yet untested. But that was not of significance for the moment. For now, the fact remained that Deroju’s was the most beautiful human face that there was. Deroju’s, perhaps, was the most beautiful of all faces that the All-knowing had made. 

Just then, Deroju showed up through the kitchen door and walked with steady, unhurried steps into the yard. Angel that she was, fragile, elegant and flawless in all ways. She already knew that Disun came to the house with his father as he often did and was glancing around for him as she trod into the yard with her characteristic delicate steps. Disun rattled the leaves beside him and drew her attention. She came over to him and settled alongside on the turf. 

Hello.

Hello, Deroju.

When did you get here?

Not too long ago.

I heard the lawn mower and thought you should be here with your dad.

Um-hunn.

Are you going to be here for long today?

Depends.

On what?

Depends on how much work my daddy has to do.

I see.

Silence came swiftly and decisively. 

As usual, their conversations lacked momentum. An exchange on Makoko’s incessant kite wars, for instance, or seasonal crabbing at the swamps, would have been fluid, perhaps effervescent; but Disun had never found the courage to introduce the topics of his expertise; the topics of his pride. Introducing her to his world, especially prematurely, was fraught with nascent risks. Deroju was lost in those worlds, and likewise he in hers. He could sense that she was just as challenged in their dialogue as he was; or, perhaps, not. In the end, she asked most of the questions and his answers came in promptly, jerkily. Disun often felt a need to answer her questions quickly, instantaneously, perhaps to demonstrate his intellectual depth, in spite of everything else, and continue to earn her attention, and, with a bit of optimism, her respect. Yet, in his attempt, he often sounded rehearsed, mechanical, and even nervous. He would have been more spontaneous in his natural dialect, a unique strain of pidgin with the random insertion of his mother tongue. In thought and in speech, Broken-English – or Broken, for short – amplified his vision, jarred his mind and spiced his tongue. The challenge, every time he was in Deroju’s company, was mastering the unnatural process of converting thoughts that had sprung forth in Broken to words spoken in her kind of English. That tension, simply, crippled him. 

As their conversation progressed, Disun’s heart would pound, his head would swell and threaten to explode all over the green turf. He would be engulfed in an alien grip that shook and jolted him at will, and he would want the conversation to continue, just as much as he would want it to end. Often, at that point, Deroju’s Aunty Margaret would provide much welcome succour, her head popping out through the kitchen door, summoning Deroju to lunch, or piano lessons or whatever it was that Deroju’s mother’s mind had conceived at that particular instance as a tenable reason to get her back into the house, away from the ghetto-boy’s unsettling gimmicks. On many occasions after their rendezvous had been prematurely or welcomingly suspended, Disun found himself evaluating the familiar sequence. First, Deroju was let loose to explore the boy in the yard, engage with him for a few moments and gain a peripheral appreciation of the other side, sufficient to engender curiosity and gen, but sparse enough to curtail familiarity or – God forbid – fondness. Disun fully understood the context; he was Deroju’s personal experiment in sociology, thanks to her parents’ little plot. He resented not the game, and played along willingly. They were as much his guinea pig as he was theirs.  So long as no obvious slight was tossed at him, he was a willing subject.

In all the times that Disun had accompanied his father to Deroju’s mansion, he only saw her parents few times. The Rogers were sworn aristocrats, mixing with ordinary people only as and when necessary. Mr Rogers seemed to have some regard for Disun’s father, as Disun had observed him engage with his father on a few occasions and even though he watched from a distance – and could neither hear nor comprehend the crux of their discourse – Mr Rogers’ poise and countenance had always seemed friendly; even approving. Mrs Rogers, on the other hand, took little notice of Disun and his father, and she was only seen to lighten up and be cheerful whenever another of her numerous friends drove into the compound in a Mercedes or BMW, after which, they would all explode into spontaneous fanfare. Deroju’s mansion was, nonetheless, Disun’s window into the world; or, better still, his vision of how the world should be. To that end, he cherished every fleeting moment when – every now and then – the window was open. 

CHAPTER 3

The human body thrives on protein, especially in the younger childhood years of vivacity and growth. The human brain’s demand for protein is insatiable, what with the pressure to contend with the daily struggle for survival and activity. And while for most, survival is the ultimate aim, for an eminent few, the brain-game transcends the quest to merely stay alive. For these, the goal expands into the search for physical and mental discovery, and, at the very echelon of the pyramid, some strive to actualise. Disun often ranked himself within this echelon. For a mere child, born of uneducated dwellers of the slum, Disun’s flogging of his brain was unusual. It was within his daily routine to ponder the nature of things, the ways of the world, life in the ghettos and, in general, life. It was normal for Disun to escape to a quiet spot by the lagoon, and, sitting in solitude, and in quiet reflection, wonder about the great forces that shaped things. This perpetual need for reflection forged a very early foundation of his unique concept of love, lust, ambition and the relationship between these needs. 

Disun would contemplate his place in all of these, knowing there were no easy, ready answers, and knowing also that he would probably never find one; especially in the grammatical epistle of his teachers at school; nor – rather to his disquiet  – by listening to his parents at home. Disun knew for certain that therein in the world, somewhere, lay the answers to some of the most obstinate questions lurking in the deepest corners of his mind and he always knew, in the final analysis, that at the appointed time, he would have to take a plunge into the world and venture far and wide to figure things out for himself. In his moments of reflection, Disun would struggle to shut out the noise, the smell, the heat and humidity in the atmosphere, hoping and aspiring, that someday, he would be on the other side, contemplating still, the nature of life on the inside, and how any one of the million odd insiders, at that time, might be dealing with the tough hand that life had dealt him.

Today, as it had been many days in the past, Disun finally pulled himself out of his reverie. The reflection had worn him out and his brain now yearned for protein. At the same time, the bowl of eba that his mother had served for lunch lacked its fair share of meat or fish – or whichever of the many flora and fauna in whose fibres God had encapsulated the molecules of protein – to satiate his yearnings. Many a time, Disun would sneak into the outdoor kitchen, quickly, quietly, unnoticed by the snitching eyes of the neighbourhood loafers, and steal into his mother’s cupboard to pinch a piece of fish from the soup pot where it rested. Better still, as he had often done in the past, he would nick his pick right out of the boiling pot of soup as it sat on the wild rainbow fire, burning from the kerosene stove, hoping that his mother had forgotten to count the pieces of meat in her soup as she always did. On other days, he would nibble a tiny bite out of every piece of meat in his mother’s cooking pot, one after the other, deftly, conscientiously, and then disguise the gawping evidence of his crime with burnt-out grease from the walls of the battered pot. Today, there was no such opportunity. There was no quintessential pot of soup in the cockroach-infested cupboard: neither was there a sizzler on the fire. Mr Falodun was yet to provide his wife with the week’s vital measure of soup money. Yet, Disun’s brain yearned for protein. What was a boy to do? He would have to take his nutritional destiny into his own hands, as it seemed. Throwing an old vest over his shoulders, he stepped out of their house, into the bright sunny glow of the Makoko afternoon.

The sun was scorching hot and the air was thick with humidity. Nothing summons a recollection of the neighbourhood’s swampy heritage faster than the heat of the sun on a windless day, two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and, as always, Makoko was alive. As it was customary for that time of the day, the orchestra was out. Makoko was a market-city of some sort, or a city-market – depending on which of its qualities you thought took precedence. What was not in doubt, however, was the unusual fusion of trade, toil and tenement in some form of coordinated chaos. The majority of Makoko’s dwellers lived where they worked and worked where they lived and, in this unique blend of work and play, had created for themselves the ultimate work-life balance. An inadvertent mass of mixed development, Makoko was bereft of the intricate planning that modern municipalities compelled. But Makoko was nonetheless an egalitarian society, and, for many, one of chaotic bliss. With this anarchic formation came an avalanche of domestic and commercial noises; noises that coalesced into the Makoko Orchestra which, every Saturday afternoon, reached its peak.

Disun heard a familiar shuffling behind him and turned around. It was Olumide, his younger brother. The little boy had snuck after him as he often did, but unlike previous times, he had managed to follow stealthily for several turns and corners before the older brother realised.

Olumide, are you out of your mind? Disun said, his tone a peculiar blend of reprimanding and approval. You should know it’s dangerous sneaking around on these streets? How many times do I have to tell you that?

Olumide smiled, half-nervous, half-defiant. He didn’t utter a word; he just followed his brother quietly.

Disun shook his head in resignation. You never listen.

In many ways, Disun was proud of his brother’s behaviour. Though his natural protective instincts were always present, his mentoring impulse often kicked in and took precedence. In a world adjudged from his ghetto-tainted lenses, survival was priority. He knew that Olumide was already exhibiting strong survival attributes through his bravery and quest for adventure – attributes that would not only help him to survive the ghettos, but also equip him to fight in the bigger world.

Disun and his brother meandered through the shimmering heat of the afternoon, dodging a myriad of commodity-laden market women, okada motorcycles and cart pushers, playing little pranks with the neighbourhood kids as they went along.

After about a half-hour trek in the scorching sun, they arrived at a small house at the fringes of the Makoko community. The house was a little amorphous