Just Arrived: A Different World

By Bona Udeze

Emeka is an immigrant who has just arrived in America, landing at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. He quickly realizes that he is now in a new world, far from the life he lived in Africa. He’s not the only one facing challenges.

The values decreed in Chief Agu’s household are threatened by his Americanized son, and the chief rethinks sending his son away to study. Prince Ichie, a man whose wealth seemed undeserved, dies unexpectedly. Okon struggles with universal minority stature, and Nene is incarcerated by her in-laws due to her husband’s death. Aunty Elizabeth is forced to fling her baby into a fast-moving stream to save her own life during civil war.

Finally, Emeka seeks love on foreign soil and might find it in Nicole, but a miscarriage of justice and Emeka’s arrest for crimes he didn’t commit throws his future into chaos.

Just Arrived is a vivid portrait of several individuals struggling to acclimate to new cultures and new lives. The challenges they face are all too real in a world both cruel and kind, loving and filled with hate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663214140

Bona Udeze

Bona Udeze was born in Nigeria and now lives in the United States in Illinois. His background is in urban and regional planning. He is also the author of Why Africa? A Continent in a Dilemma of Unanswered Questions. He enjoys drawing, watching soccer and documentaries.www.bonaudeze.com

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Copyright © 2021 Bona Udeze.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-1415-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1414-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021903306

iUniverse rev. date: 06/23/2021

CONTENTS

Dedication

In Memories

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Acknowledgements

DEDICATION

This book is for immigrants around the world who made

their new-found homeland a new motherland and the

citizens who welcomed them wholeheartedly.

IN MEMORIES

Of my parents, Udeze Ipere and Florence Udeze Ipere

.....their wisdom is my wealth.

1

C OMING TO LAGOS from the eastern part of Nigeria during the statewide strike by NUPENG and PENGASSAN, mixed feelings engulfed me. I stayed with my friend, Kenneth, in Ebute-Metta, part of Lagos, during all these uncertainties. The ongoing strike was on its third day. Many shops closed in fear of looting, and people stayed home, in fear for their lives. Similar strikes in the past had claimed many lives, and properties were lost, which ran into billions of naira.

Each day I repeatedly counted the number of days that remained on my fingertips, such that one wondered if I were a child in kindergarten learning how to count—one, two, and three. I was excited as the days went by. My confidence swelled like an inflated balloon. I hoped the world would not end abruptly and that I would be able to brace the trial of going to America.

The eve of my departure was remarkable in all ways. With all the hype and enthusiasm hovering on the horizon, I was like an embodiment of hallucinations that walked on two legs. If I had divine powers, I would have moved the days faster, making them fly. I would have turned hours to minutes and minutes to seconds so the sluggish time would not obscure the reality of my accomplishment.

Before dusk that day, I had wisely advised myself to behave well, to stop thinking like a child, and to keep calm until the day of my travel, which was around the corner, matured.

I, Emeka Mmadunebo, am not the first person who will travel to America and will not be the last person either. I agreed with myself to keep my excitement down.

When I remembered Amaeze, my eight-year-old cousin, I cautioned myself again so that people would not laugh at me for being too excited for going to America the way they had laughed at him. Amaeze had been sick the other day, and his mother took him to the hospital for a diagnosis. He had a chest x-ray. Two days later, the x-ray result came out. He had a mild case of pneumonia.

"Nwam, my son, you have pneumonia." Amaeze’s mother was concerned. She felt guilty for what she had done to her son the day before.

Amaeze told lies. He would not admit he had stolen meat from the soup pot the other day, which had attracted a heavy penalty. His mother had flogged him mercilessly. As if the flogging were not enough, she had dragged him like a sack of rice inside their parlor and almost pulled his left ear off his body. She did not want her son to end up on the street stealing or becoming an armed robber when he grew up.

Amaeze cried and cried until he had no strength left to beg for forgiveness. He looked up at his father’s photo on the wall and watched the way his father’s eyes stared at him, wishing the photo could intervene on his behalf.

Don’t worry. You will be fine, my son. His mother consoled Amaeze and apologized for the flogging in her mind.

Amaeze saw the worries on his mother’s face and wanted some clarification to find out what pneumonia was all about. Mama, let me see the picture, Amaeze said, reaching for the radiographic image of his x-ray.

She obliged. My son, here is the picture showing your lungs and your heart. She handed the radiographic image to him carefully, like a delicate ornament.

With a cursory look, Amaeze scanned through, looking for details on the image. He paid more attention to the location of his heart. He saw nothing except a black background with gray-and-white stripes all over. It made no sense to him. Unfortunately, he did not find what he was looking for. He was utterly disappointed that his chest x-ray did not show the image of Jesus near his heart. Amaeze had learned in his catechism classes in his church that Jesus was in everyone’s heart. His pastor had lied, he concluded.

Amaeze had many things up his sleeve. He surprised everyone one day when the heavens let loose with a heavy downpour. Most kids stayed back in school for fear of lightning. They waited for the rain to subside, but not Amaeze. His father saw him come back from school in his drenched school uniform. Amaeze smiled and looked up to the sky intermittently, enjoying the endless strikes of lightning. Its loud sounds intimidated the horizon. His father ran out and grabbed Amaeze. He was frightened.

My son, why didn’t you stay back at school until the rain stopped? Why are you smiling, looking up to the sky? Amaeze’s father asked before he dried his son’s clothes that seemed abused on his body.

God is in the sky. He is taking my pictures, and I need to look good. Amaeze was fulfilled.

Each time I remembered what Ifeoma, my schoolmate in elementary school, had achieved in America in a short period, my excitement became too high to control. Ifeoma was the dark, tall-framed young girl whose cheeks were so flat that she was ashamed of her looks.

Now everything had changed. Ifeoma, in less than six years in America, was spotted and drafted for screening for modeling. She pulled through the rigorous screening process and became one of the top models in the college. She appeared on Vogue once and on billboards regularly for advertising companies. Her new career made her too thin, like an electric pole.

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"We will leave the house at about nine o’clock in the morning after having akara and akamu for breakfast. We will drive to my friend’s house first. His name is Osagie. He lives in Ikoyi. From there, we will go to Tejuosho Market in Yaba before we drive straight to the airport," Kenneth said, making sure that I understood how busy our schedule would be to beat the unpredictable Lagos traffic.

"Ken, you’re already so well-connected that you have a friend living in Ikoyi of all places. You don arrive o. You’re a big boy. I always called Kenneth Ken" from our school years.

Not really. Osagie has not even secured a job yet since he graduated. He is still perching, a parasite. He is crisscrossing the whole of Lagos, applying for jobs. Kenneth laughed.

Osagie had been unlucky with his job search. He had applied for over thirty jobs, including NNPC, Shell BP, and Central Bank. He repeated the same process: he made phone calls, went back and forth, and followed up, yet with no success. One day Osagie went back to NNPC corporate headquarters in Marina, one of the numerous companies he had submitted his job application to, to see if there was any progress. He was jolted. The secretary in HR told him point-blank that his application was missing; thus he was not short-listed. Osagie’s face fell with all hopelessness, like fired clay.

On Awolowo Road, after Falomo Roundabout headed to Obalende, toward Lagos Island, Kenneth was forced to slow down. He drove at a snail’s speed. There was a big traffic hold-up ahead. The road was so congested that everything—cars, motorcycles, and even bystanders—overlapped each other. They fought for the small space available.

The situation was even worse than what I had seen from a distance. I watched, unimpressed, as people carried all sorts of containers and moved around. They were desperate to buy petrol. The congestion was caused by the ongoing scarcity of fuel, a problem that held everyone at its mercy. It had terrorized the entirety of Lagos and its environs over the last three days.

Motorists and okada riders had spent the last three nights queued at the filling stations, trying to fill empty tanks in their cars and motorcycles. Scarcity of petrol was not new in Lagos anymore. People were used to it. But this one was heartless. It brought all commercial and human activities to a standstill because of the ongoing strike by NUPENG and PENGASSAN.

"How long will this thing last, this fuel wahala? When will fuel problems disappear in our country?" I asked.

I assessed the unfolding scenario, chaos at the AGIP petrol station. No one would blame me for my frustrations; scarcity of fuel and its hardships were like one’s shadow. It stood by one wherever one went, appearing and disappearing at random.

One of the most interesting things about Lagos was its unpredictability, like weather. One day there was petrol, and attendants dispensed petrol to consumers unrestrictedly. The next day, there was no petrol. Time was against us. Kenneth then decided to use the Third Mainland Bridge as an alternative. He did not want to turn to Idumagbon Street. The area was always crowded with street traders. A sea of heads blocked the streets with wooden tables. They sold vegetables, fruits, and meat. He had avoided the Third Mainland Bridge earlier because of the dreaded Alaye Boys. This group of street urchins menaced people at bus stops, bullying them when nothing was given to them.

Hopes were high when we made it to the Third Mainland Bridge. Kenneth drove cautiously. When we passed the dreaded Herbert Macaulay Way exit, one of the popular spots where the Alaye Boys usually tormented motorists, before we got to Oworonshoki Expressway Junction, we heaved a sigh of relief. Everything seemed well until we approached Anthony bus stop.

We saw heavy traffic ahead. Cars, lorries, and buses screeched to a halt. From a distance, those cars were like big logs of woods. I wondered where all the cars, lorries, and buses had come from and where they had bought petrol. There was long traffic during the scarcity of petrol. I had expected the opposite, to see a few cars, a free road.

Rain drizzled a little. It made unusual pata-pata sounds on the top of our car before it stopped, almost with precision. That the rain stopped abruptly was another savior. Lagos was a total mess. It floated once it rained. Most roads were impassable. Flooding was everywhere, as though Bar Beach nearby had relocated on the land.

I hope this traffic does not form all the way from Oshodi bus stop. If so, you will likely miss your flight, Kenneth said.

Kenneth sounded like an alarm. He talked very quickly; his lips moved freely. He posed more questions because he did not give me the opportunity to think about his comment or his alarm. I was more confused. I was not sure if his comment helped or hurt. I snapped. I argued and downplayed his actions.

God forbid me missing my flight. I prayed. It was emphatic. I almost dropped the words on the car floor mat.

Kenneth changed the way he drove all the way from Ebute-Metta because of the uncertainty of making my flight. He was more cautious but hasty. He meandered from one lane to another. He fought for space with other drivers and returned as many insults from them as possible. Tension had set in. He hoped I got to the airport on time to avoid missing my flight.

Make your mama and papa die too, Kenneth responded to one tanker driver who had cursed him that his mother and father should die for cutting lanes in front of him.

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Cars on Oshodi-Oworonshoki Expressway were at bumper to bumper, screeching to a halt. Tanker drivers blared horns too loudly and continuously. It was so loud that it could easily deafen one by force. Some of the drivers even screamed, especially molue drivers. They also pounded their hands on top of other smaller cars that fought for space with them. Fumes oozed out from all directions, which did not help the heightened atmosphere either. Kenneth and I suffered from the rampaging fumes. Our eyes turned red. One would think we drank kai-kai or smoked marijuana all day.

I don’t think so. I don’t think this traffic is long from Oshodi. Even if it is, I have time. My flight is in the evening, hours ahead. I wiped away dots of sweat on my face. Sweat had discolored the collar of my new white shirt I had bought solely for the American trip. It had become a once-upon-a-time white shirt.

Unlike Kenneth, I dreaded molue and their drivers, a bus that had sent a lot of commuters to their early graves. That we spent more than two hours already on the road because of traffic did not amuse me, a journey of less than twenty-five miles. We were tired from the shouting and yelling from road hawkers.

Please buy orange. My orange and pineapple sweet, one young girl, a street hawker, shouted.

She was too young to be on a busy road like Oshodi-Oworonshoki Expressway, unguided, let alone hawking on the streets just to make a living. She sold oranges and pineapple.

"Oga, please buy better bread, e good, na Agege bread," another girl, a street hawker, said.

The girl ran in between the two lanes. Her right hand gripped the car window for support while her left hand held a tray full of bread on her head. The tray sat precariously as she ran along. It almost fell off her head.

Another person, this time a boy, approached us. He pushed a wheelbarrow.

Please help me my brother. Help me in Jesus’s name. I hungry. I no get food. I be homeless, a voice came from the wheelbarrow, begging. He raised his hand and gently tapped on the window on the passenger side where I sat.

The beggar curled himself in a wheelbarrow like a python with his head barely out of his body. He was crippled. A young boy of about twelve years old pushed him along in between cars. He was soaked in the sun and inhaled all the fumes. I later found out that the boy was the son of the man who had curled himself in the wheelbarrow. He carried and pushed his father. The only way you could tell the man was even a human being was the hand he raised periodically.

It was on a closer look that you would know that he was not a kid. His face, an adult face, had a highly unkempt mustache and scanty beard. I could not help giving the boy and his crippled father some money out of pity.

A group of policemen and soldiers stood by the handrails of Oshodi Bridge, armed to the teeth. They had been there since morning, waiting for the arrival of the head of state who was expected from the OAU meeting in Addis Ababa. They displayed their loaded guns as though the live bullets in them were ordinary stones. The scene was like a novelty display of ignorance. Police and soldiers tried to outwit each other. They wanted to impress the public to win favor on their sides.

Traffic moved a little before it came to a complete halt. Every car remained in one spot for more than ten minutes before they made the next move. I was nervous while Kenneth was the opposite. He was calm, unlike before. Things had changed.

Man, cool down. This is a simple traffic jam. We will get to the airport soon. You’ll never experience traffic jams again in your life as long as you live in America, Kenneth said.

It was a mixture of hope and prayer. Kenneth held the steering tightly with two hands. His eyes were well-focused, as though the steering would develop wings and fly away if he took off his eyes for one second. From his voice, it was like a taunt, not an encouragement, and I took his words with a pinch of hope.

"It’s a matter of hours, and I will leave this ye ye country, this unnecessary traffic, and check out," I said triumphantly.

I remembered the popular TV ad, the Nigerian government-sponsored campaign against brain drain. The Nigerian government did not want her citizens to migrate to other countries, and yet infrastructure broke down, and employment opportunities shrunk. It got tougher and tougher. So Andrew, the guy in the ad, wanted to leave Nigeria to check out. I too wanted to check out like Andrew.

My visit to Lagos was the second time; the first was the time I came for my visa interview. I could have avoided Lagos entirely, if going to America on the road were possible. I detested Lagos so much that I would run for my dear life if I saw the city in my dream.

2

W HEN WE GOT to Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Kenneth pulled his car to one lane, the far right. He stopped as carefully as he could. He was frightened because of the prying eyes of people in different uniforms. They stood at sentry. They wore police and army uniforms and wielded their loaded guns as though they were at a battle front.

Kenneth had heard so many negative things about the airport, how individuals with dubious characters menace the place and how touts and local government officials extorted money from the public. The local government officials were known to impound cars at the slightest chance. They demanded the unthinkable even when the victims did nothing wrong.

Emeka, I’ll stop here. I do not want to get into trouble. I want to be very careful in this airport before my car is impounded, Kenneth said.

That’s fine. You can drop me anywhere here. I could walk back to the main entrance, I said.

The other day, a man was detained, and his car was impounded for almost a whole day, Kenneth recalled. His crime was the color of his Toyota Land Cruiser, green, a color like the Nigerian Army color. The man paid a lot of money to his captors before he regained his car and himself. And yet there was no place in the constitution or any state law that forbade people from driving green-colored cars, in army color.

At a closer look, I saw that some of those people who stood outside were genuine soldiers, police officers, and airport security officers. They were mixed up by Mallams, who were eager to offer good deals on the exchange rate to travelers in the black market. I wondered if the airport had become a war zone or crime scene. Soldiers and police officers should have no business to stand all day by the entrance of the airport.

Dalla! Dalla! American dalla. You wan changi dalla, or you wan buy American dalla or Britis poun? I get am flenty, money exchange hawkers, locally called Mallams, called out. They almost closed my eardrums with their shouting.

The Mallams called out for money exchange in a near-croak, as though they needed to vomit out words to attract my attention. They made brisk business at the black market exchange rate. They changed American dollars and British pound sterling to naira and vice versa. You begin to wonder why the government allowed such, as parallel exchange rates existed in the country all these decades.

When I alighted from the car gallantly, like a soldier, I looked around desperately to see the main entrance for tickets, and checking in I was fulfilled. On sighting the sign Departure Hall, which showed a picture of an airplane taking off, I concluded it was the right place.

Meanwhile, Kenneth remained in his car about a hundred feet away. I went closer to the building to make sure it was the right place, the entrance to the airport. Kenneth turned on the hazard lights. With the car engine on, he held the steering tightly with his two hands and looked around suspiciously, as though his car was up for grabs. There were too many people around with unfriendly faces. They looked at him strangely, as though he was from another planet.

I walked back hurriedly toward where Kenneth parked his car. When I got there, I tried to open the booth. When it did not open, I tried to force it with all my strength. It still did not open. It was locked.

Open the booth. Kenneth, booth please fast.

Easy! Easy! Emeka, wait. I’ll open it from here, Kenneth said, although he was barely audible.

I did not hear him. Quickly Kenneth pulled a lever from the inside, and the booth opened halfway. He dashed out with his engine still running. By the time he tried to open his car booth all the way, I had already done so. Without wasting time, he went back to his car like lightning. One would think somebody pursued him. Everything happened so fast, like a movie.

I pulled out my two luggage and closed the booth. It slammed with the help of the wind. I dragged my luggage toward the main entrance where I had seen the Departure Hall sign. I could not even say the last word or hug Kenneth for the last time. When I realized, I stopped and looked back at him with emotions. I raised my head gently like a male lizard, said a few words, turned, and continued to walk. Kenneth understood me. I said goodbye and thank you. We adopted sign language.

I looked like a pantomime because Kenneth did not hear me. I talked from far away, and the loud sound emitted from the public address system of flight schedules, and the noise from the crowd outside did not help matters.

Bye-bye, Emeka. Safe flight. Please do not forget to write me when you get to America, Kenneth called out, even though he knew I did not hear him well.

I figured it out that he might have said that as he did repeatedly while we drove to the airport. He raised his left hand over the top of his car, waved, and looked from the rear mirror. I had disappeared into the crowd.

Kenneth drove off immediately, intending to stop at the Shell BP in Mafoluku, the nearest petrol station from the airport, and join the queue. He had told me he would go and queue for petrol at that Shell BP after dropping me off. The petrol in his car was not enough to get him back to his house in Ebute-Metta.

The main entrance to the ticketing hall was congested. Too many people were everywhere. They looked strangely, some in all sorts of uniforms I could not recognize. One wondered if their job were to stand and watch people go by. Inside the ticketing hall was the same. Too many people milled around. Some people sat on the few chairs available, while others moved around fast and headed to different directions like a disoriented ants’ colony.

Even the busiest airport in the world would not have had that many people inside the departure hall. It was like an enclosed stadium, noisy. It was not long before I found out that a majority of the people outside by the entrance and the crowd inside were a mixture of passengers, airport staff, touts, relatives, and friends of travelers. And of course, those who did not have any business being at the airport in the first place were part of the crowd.

I walked straight to one man I thought I knew. He looked like my father’s friend back in the East. I greeted him respectfully, as I would my own father. The man spoke Igbo, which made me think he must be my father’s friend. He was bald, like my father’s friend. His head was oiled so much that one could see himself on it like a mirror.

Each time the standing fan rotated toward the direction where the man stood, it blew up the flanks of his agbada, the oversized native wear. It was only when I greeted him and shook hands with him that I realized he was a total stranger. When I later found out that the man I exchanged greetings with was the former chief justice of a state in the East, I decided I would not wash my hands for days. It was a testimony and feel of greatness, a handshake with a very important person in the society.

A brisk business went on inside the ticketing hall. A handful of people in the queue asked around quietly if anyone were interested in taking their spaces in front and exchanging the space with money. They were not travelers; they were airport touts. Passengers who did not want their offer stayed and waited until their time came. It was a dangling carrot. Whereas those who were interested, those who did not want to waste their time, queued and patronized them, therefore bypassing the long queue. I did not have money to give to those touts to expedite my checking-in process. I was ready to wait until it was my turn.

Each time somebody came close to me, I deliberately opened the page on my Nigerian international passport, where the American visa was stamped, and held it in front of me. It was a way to show that I was traveling to God’s own country.

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The long wait continued. Although the time for departure was hours ahead, it shrunk with every minute gone. I did not plan for such a long wait. Hunger had begun to establish its presence in my stomach; every part of my body revolted. When I remembered the long delays, right from Ikoyi to the airport through Idumota due to traffic and what I was going through at the airport, hunger did not matter anymore. And yet hunger tormented me.

I wanted to sleep when I secured a seat after I stood for too long, but the noisy atmosphere, especially the crying babies around, kept me awake, coupled with my empty stomach. That I tried to sleep in that atmosphere was not different from one taking a nap inside a stadium, packed with spectators in a football match.

Are you the one traveling, or are you escorting someone? one man in uniform asked. The man looked at me right in the eye. His cheekbones jumped up as he smiled. He was so emaciated that his collarbones jutted out sharply, almost like a blunt eku, the type of wooden spoon used by my grandmother. The man was airport staff.

Yes. I’m traveling to America. I had always preferred to say America to US or United States because the former was endowed with more prestige in my opinion. I spoke with