Illustration by Sheed Sorple Cecil / THE REPUBLIC.
the ministry of ARTS / fiction DEPT.
Illustration by Sheed Sorple Cecil / THE REPUBLIC.
the ministry of ARTS / FICTION DEPT.
Africans are sometimes like ships that pass by each other at night. We barely know much about other Africans. It is often interesting when you tell an American that you are from Nigeria, and he says to you that he went to college with a guy from Eritrea. Like him, you may not be able to identify the location of Eritrea on a map.
When I boarded the Uber, my driver immediately identified me as African—specifically Nigerian.
‘You know, we know ourselves. We can tell when we see each other that we are from the same Africa,’ he said.
‘I am not too sure of that, unless there’s something in your vehicle that announces it, like a flag,’ I said.
‘You are just messing with me. You know immediately you see someone from Africa here in this country you can tell. You Nigerians are even easier to pick out.’
I know that a common conversation thread among Africans on social media is the fact that they can tell if someone is Nigerian before the person opens their mouth. According to them, Nigerians tended to walk with a certain swagger and when they opened their mouths, they had a tendency to be loud. I did not see anything in my sartorial choice, walk or carriage that may have marked me as Nigerian to the driver—but as they say in America—you never can tell.
I took the initiative and asked him where he was from.
‘I am from Guinea,’ he said.
He could not have given a more confusing response. There are a lot of Guineas. In my mind I tried to untangle them. I remembered something from my high school geography class on how to distinguish one Guinea from the other. The rule of thumb was to use the capital city of each country. There was Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea. The Guineas in Africa had been severally colonized by the French, the Spanish and the Portuguese—this added more to the confusion.
‘Ahmadou Diallo,’ I said.
‘Ah that’s my brother,’ he said.
I was African enough to know what he meant by this. Diallo could not have been his literal brother, but the notion of fictive kinship is universally African. It did strike me once that there were only two words in my native language Igbo for kinship—brother or sister. There were no words for cousin, uncle, nephews. Everyone who was related to one was either a brother or a sister.
I recalled following the story of Diallo as it unspooled on television. He was only reaching for his wallet when the cops shot him again and again until they ran out of bullets. What was in his wallet? Not much. Among the contents was a protective prayer talisman. It failed to protect him.
He had merely been getting by on odd jobs as he waited for his asylum application to go through. In the application he had claimed to be from Mauritania—this was a lie—but that was not why the cops shot him. In America people are not likely to get shot for lying in their asylum application. Their chances of being shot were higher if they reached for an innocuous wallet.
‘How long have you been living in this state?’ he asked.
I told him. This was the first time someone was asking me this—usually, it was about how long I’d been living in America.
‘I like it here. This state is very peaceful,’ he said.
‘Yes. It is generally quiet here,’ I said.
‘The state where I lived before I moved here was not peaceful at all. Shootings and robbery and violence all the time,’ he said.
‘Even this driving job is so dangerous over there.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘This state well, you may be right. I have never heard that a taxi driver was robbed here. It may happen but I have not heard of it. It is a small state anyway,’ I said.
‘There was this old man—we all called him Baba. He always wore African clothes. He would say to us that he’s been driving a cab in America before all of us were born. Do you know why he was shot in his own taxi? This Baba that had been driving a taxi before I was born. Even when everyone was changing to the rideshare app, Baba refused to get the app. He said it was just a passing thing that soon people would return to traditional taxis.’
‘He was wrong about that,’ I said.
‘Yes, but he would have changed his mind if he was still alive now,’ he said.
‘Oh, he passed away?’
‘No, he did not pass away. He was shot.’
‘Oh dear. How did it happen? Why did he get shot?’
‘His passenger was trying to pay before getting off his taxi. The fare was sixty dollars. For some reason his machine needed to be swiped twice to charge sixty dollars. The passenger got impatient and cursed him out for wasting his time then shot him.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It is more than crazy. That state was a crazy place,’ he said.
‘I am beginning to believe you,’ I said.
‘Ah, you didn’t believe me before?’
‘I did but I believe you even more now,’ I said.
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I had moved here to take up a teaching position in a small liberal arts college a few years back. The summer I moved here, a major story in the news was about a man who had shot his neighbour because the neighbour’s basketball fell into his yard. I was so shaken by this incident that for a long time I hid my basketball and hoops in my garage and refused to set them up. I was beginning to realize that violence in America is equal opportunity and leaves no one behind.
‘But tell me, how come you Nigerians are all very rich?’ he asked.
I started laughing. Startled by the sudden switch of subjects from the rampant ubiquity of violence in America to wealth. I got it though—he was trying to either put me at ease or lighten the atmosphere.
‘Who told you that?’ I asked.
This question was a Nigerian tactic of answering a question with another question. It buys one time and lets the other party talk some more.
‘Ok let me tell you something that happened recently.’
‘Go for it,’ I said.
‘Go for what?’ he asked.
‘Sorry, please go ahead with your story.’
‘Aha, it is about you Nigerians. I was invited to a wedding by one of my friends in the summer. The girl’s father is from Africa, but she was getting married to this white guy from Kansas. The girl’s family all wore African clothes for the traditional wedding. The food was good. When it was time to dance, we all got up to dance with the couple. You know how they always announce dancing time at African weddings.’
‘The DJ says Dance, Dance, Dance!’ I said.
‘Exactly. So, we all got up to dance with the couple. The family of the husband, I told you they’re white people from Kansas. They too got up to dance. They were dancing to African music in their African clothes. Everybody was clapping for them. You won’t believe what happened next.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Nigerians jumped on the dance floor and began to scatter money on the dancing couple and their family. They were pouring dollar bills on the dance floor. For over twenty minutes they were just throwing money at the couple.’
‘It is called spraying money,’ I said.
‘Exactly, they were spraying dollars like water.’
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I sat thinking about this event, how it reminded me of a birthday party for an African American friend in Syracuse I attended in my early years in the country. One of the highlights of the party was when the celebrant got up to dance and people pinned dollar notes on his shirt. It left me open-mouthed. I would later find out that the practice of pinning dollar bills to celebrants on their birthday originated in New Orleans among African Americans and Cajuns and was called a—money shower. It was believed to bring good luck and prosperity.
‘Everybody at the party was just saying that these Nigerians have come again with their plenty money.’
‘Oh, is this why you said Nigerians have money?’ I said.
‘Not only that. You Nigerian people are different. The way you spend dollars like it is nothing. Even Nigerians in this our business, you see them always driving big cars.’
‘You are making me feel proud to be Nigerian,’ I said.
‘I am telling you the truth,’ he said.
‘But I am sure you were busier in the state where you used to live. This state is small. I am sure there are more rides than riders. Too many chiefs and too few Indians,’ I said.
‘Indians?’
‘I mean that there are not too many riders here because the state is small.’
‘Money is not everything. Small money but peace of mind is better than plenty money and no peace,’ he said.
‘Peace is good. Money is equally good. In Nigeria we say that if you remove money from the problems confronting a person, half of the problem is solved.’
‘Ah, I think I have to disagree with you Nigerian people on that one. Money is very important to you Nigerians because you need plenty of it to spray in your parties,’ he said.
‘You are absolutely correct about that,’ I said and laughed.
‘But one needs to have life to enjoy the money,’ he said.
‘Very true.’
‘Let me tell you something that happened in the state where I used to live. My wife works in the hospital or was working in the hospital there. When she gets off work she would wait for me at the bus stop, and I will go and pick her up. I used to tell her to wait inside the hospital building, but she will say they didn’t pay her enough to hang around after closing.’
‘She has a point. Your wife is correct.’
I have been married long enough to instinctively agree that wives were inevitably right.
‘One day she called me. I was dropping off a rider and was going to get to her in about twenty minutes. So, she was waiting for me at the bus stop, as usual. Three young boys came to meet her there. She had no reason to be worried or afraid. The bus shelter always had strangers, sometimes even the homeless.’
‘True. Bus stops are generally safe,’ I said.
‘This bus stop was not safe. One of the boys turned to her and said to her to hand over her purse.’
‘Her purse?’
‘Yes. Here in America, they call it purse. I mean the bag she carries to work. She was on the phone and asked the boy to repeat what he just said. One of the boys snatched her purse forcefully from her and slapped her. Their leader said they should stomp her. They began to kick and hit her.’
‘What? That is horrible,’ I said.
‘They really hurt her. For no reason. They ransacked her purse. Took the little money in the purse was less than fifty dollars. Then they ran from the bus stop.’
‘Oh my God,’ I said.
He’d told the story in an emotionless voice but the pain in his voice was so raw I could almost smell it.
‘My wife had almost lost consciousness, but she managed to call 911.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘They came and took her to the same hospital where she works and where she just closed.’
‘I hope the criminals were caught and are in prison?’
‘I have not finished. Prison, you say?’
He laughed. I wondered what I had said that made him laugh.
‘What prison? Let me tell you what happened. At some point while they were kicking her, my wife, remember she was on the phone. She accidentally turned on her phone camera. So, her phone camera actually captured a video of the leader of the boys attacking her.’
‘Wonderful. That’s good.’
‘Wait. The cops said it was a good thing. They were happy. I was happy. Even my wife who was in pain was happy. The boy was arrested. The leader of the gang. His face appeared on my wife’s phone camera.’
‘Thank goodness.’
‘No thank goodness. After he was arrested, he was told to give the names of the other members of his gang, but he refused. He said he was not a snitch. A criminal who nearly killed my wife said he wasn’t a snitch. Being a snitch is bad but killing a person’s wife is not bad. I don’t understand this country.’
‘Was he not charged to court.’
‘He was charged to court. But guess what?’
‘What?’
‘He came to court with his father, his mother, his uncles and cousins and his pregnant girlfriend.’
This sounded like a scene out of a movie. The Godfather was the obvious one, but I was thinking of an older vigilante movie starring Charles Bronson. In the movie he played a character named Paul Kersey, but the movie title was escaping my recall at that moment. In the movie some punks had assaulted his wife and terrorized his daughter. He had bought a gun and gone after them vigilante-style while working as this really calm Architect in the daytime. This was something I could look up on my phone real quick but I didn’t think it appropriate.
‘At first my wife was too terrified to want to go to court to testify. I called people to talk to her to be strong and testify.’
‘She went to court and testified?’
‘Yes, but in court they made her feel like she is the one that did something bad.’
‘How?’
‘People were looking at her like she needs to show compassion on this boy that refused to snitch. I don’t understand. Maybe you can help me understand this.’
‘Who?’
‘Like all the people in court. Every day they crowd around the pregnant girlfriend in the court premises.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh yes, they would go ooh, aah, do you know what you’re having? Ah so cute. Your baby is gonna be so cute. Your baby this, your baby that. They made it look like my wife who nearly died that her life means nothing.’
‘Sad,’ I said.
‘Very sad. No pity for my wife. All they were saying is that everybody makes mistakes in this life. That young people have a brain that is still forming that their brain has not finished forming and that is why they made wrong decisions.’
‘What?’
‘Even we ourselves were getting confused by this time. We were now asking ourselves if we were the ones on trial.’
‘What about the cops that made the arrest?’
‘The cops? Don’t get me wrong, they showed a lot of sympathy when they took my wife to the hospital. But they too were telling us that the justice system works in a different way. One said to us that even if you catch a thief stealing in your house that the journey from when you caught the thief and actually putting the thief in prison is a long journey.’
‘Scary.’
I was wondering if I had ever had any dealings with the American justice system. I did not really drive, as such, I have never had a single speeding ticket. Even though I watched the courtroom show—Caught in Providence—a real-life traffic court featuring the avuncular Judge Caprio, I still did not think I wanted to appear before any kind of judge—not even the kind-hearted Judge Caprio.
The justice system in every country is different. I remember hearing about a case of an American boy who was sentenced to be whipped with a cane for vandalism in Singapore. While in the American media, the punishment was considered unusual and somewhat cruel, in Nigeria, every schoolboy knows that tardiness was punished with lashes of the cane. It was such a common and expected punishment that kids padded their shorts to cushion the inevitable. My mind was wandering, and I needed to return to the present. My ride was coming to an end, and I was curious to know how this judicial saga ended.
‘What was the sentence?’ I asked.
‘Ah, at the end of the day and after twenty-two months of pregnancy, the elephant gave birth to a mouse.’
I thought the analogy was funny and started laughing uncontrollably. I tried to stop because my laughter seemed unseemly.
‘I am so sorry,’ I said.
‘Please you are free to laugh.’
‘Seriously, I am sorry,’ I said.
‘No need to be sorry. As we say in Guinea, sometimes bad things make us laugh. Something can be so terrible that it somehow ends up becoming funny,’ he said.
‘What was the verdict?’ I asked again.
‘Here in America the lawyers have something they call—plea deal—have you heard of it before?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I said.
‘The boy got a plea deal. He did not go to prison. He walked.’
‘What was his punishment?’
‘I don’t know, honestly. Maybe to attend some classes and do community work.’
‘That is a slap on the wrist,’ I said.
‘A slap? What slap?’
‘I mean that the sentence does not fit the crime.’
‘Oh yes. But let me tell you something. I would not have been angry if only he had mentioned the names of his other gang members. He refused to mention their names. I suspected some of them even came to court with him.’
‘That is sad,’ I said.
‘More than sad. It was after the whole thing that my brother-in-law said we should move here to this state. He said it is more peaceful here.’
‘Yes, I am happy you have found it peaceful here,’ I said.
My ride had come to an end.
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For years it had been on my mind to move away from this state. I considered it to be somewhat small and stifling. Thinking about my conversation with the driver, I recalled a story from a folksong about a town where people were always complaining to the king about their problems. One day the king told the subjects to put their problems in a basket and bring it to the town square. On the day in question, when all had assembled with their problems displayed in their baskets, the king asked his subjects look around and pick any problem they’d rather have than the one they brought with them. After looking around, each person preferred to go back home with the problem they originally brought with them.
I was suddenly glad to be alive in this small and stifling state⎈
