I sighted him from the bus window just
as the LAGBUS approached my stop on the outer Marina. Before I could see the
face I prayed and wished he was just another mad man sleeping on the wide
culvert that divided the double lane highway. A needless prayer that turned out
because even as I saw the brown liquid seeping under him, I knew he was dead.
At what point can one say they have
become immune to the sight of corpses? Is it at the solemn moment when you
cradle a loved one in your arms as they take their last breath; usually
followed by the customary screams and wailing from those left behind- including
you?
Or does one simply become numb from
witnessing so many persons- friends, siblings, parents and even lovers detach
from an enfeebled, no longer capable-of-life body? Would it be presumptuous to
say that one never gets over the shock of seeing a once virile body lying
immobile, bloated and smelling on the tarmac?
This is certainly not a pretty sight on
a Monday morning; after a sweat filled intercourse with Lagos traffic from
before dawn steals upon this part of earth. But one cannot choose what sights
they will be accosted with as they traverse these plains.
I found myself thinking; that was
someone’s son, brother, friend, lover, and maybe even someone’s father. I have
a thick skin and a strong stomach but that sight did things to me that I
thought I was incapable of.
As I crossed over, careful to keep my gaze away from the body, I remembered MB, a cleaner who had been assigned to work on my floor
last year. Hemp smoke wafting in from the strong currents that accentuated
the marina’s peaceful ambience often remind me of him, but this Monday
morning as I deliberately decided to walk a street behind where I normally
would pass, I could not help remembering how he had been when he lost his head
to unsavoury mixtures in the name of finding an acceptable high.
Slow to speak and even slower to anger,
I learnt as the months passed that MB had been taking ‘smoke’. There were times he
would disappear from sight for as long as four hours and then return with a
glassy, distant look in his eyes. After
series of complaints to his supervisor he was moved to the bottom floors that
housed the car lifts and car parks; the work was meant to be more tedious there
and he would have more supervision.
It was on one of those floors that he
stood, legs apart and hands clutching the walls of the car lift, defying six
hefty men as they tried to lift him away and make way for an occupant who
wished to park his vehicle on the next floor. He was strong like one possessed
by demons; they said.
I had resumed the next morning, only to be regaled with tales of his
misadventures. It turned out I had not missed too much; the sequel was to be
sweeter than the prelude.
Stall owners in the neighbouring buildings
shooed him away after they realized that the many cans of energy drink he had
gulped in the hours before the offices opened for business would not be paid
for. Security had to bundle him out of
the building when he sauntered in at about eight am barefoot, his shirt and
trousers gone on holiday. The poor thing reeked of booze, hemp smoke and other
strange smells that seemed to lend weight to his bony form as he moved about in
sagging boxers and mismatched slippers. That was when the marina’s cool breeze
called out to him again.
The area boys on the Marina said that shortly
after dawn he had suddenly risen off the concrete slab by the waterside, where
they all congregated in allegiance to the god of weed, and without much ado, he
had thrown his clothes into the water. One of the older men said what
pained him most was the boots he threw into the water. Just the night before he
had tried to buy it off him for a handsome fee, but the stupid ‘Amugbo’ had
refused to sell! If not for God, he said, he would have dived first to save the
shoes before thinking of saving poor MB.
We sought a male relative to come fetch
him and take him away from the allure of the Marina’s depths and the many
spirits that converged on her docile banks, but at the mention of going home,
his eyes took on the look of a wounded lion and his voice became a guttural
assemblage of sounds so strange it made saliva cake on my tongue and brought
goose bumps to my skin.
They said he had refused food from the
night before, preferring instead to sup on gin and cigarettes all night and
morning, yet when his family came for him at the waterside, he nearly pushed
two of the area boys into the water. In the twinkling of an eye, a sturdy rope
had materialized and he was being tied up for the long commute to his home.
Kicking and thrashing wildly, they bounded him up eventually, but not before
giving his mouth a cut and splashing some lacerations on his arm and legs. As he
stretched in defiance, I feared that his spine would snap from the sheer effort of bending backwards in several attempts to avoid
his hands getting tied behind his back.
Four months in a rehabilitation center
and I hear MB is still unable to recall how he got to that place.
As I struggle to keep the bloated corpse
out of my mind, I hope that MB no longer remembers the attraction of mixed
hemp, laced with crushed D-10 and Toluene. Maybe he will remember; but the
choice to keep away from them is his. In a hollow place in my heart I say a
prayer for the soul that once inhabited the body on the road; what choices he
forfeited in his short life we will never know, just as we will never know if
it was a mistake or an irresistible propensity that consumed him and left his
remains on the roadside.
