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My flight from
Paris
arrived
Lagos
very early that Saturday morning. Ade, my friend from our days at the
Lagos
State
University
, picked me up from the airport. It had been ten years since I had seen him. But he and our mutual friends, Jumbo and Kenny, had kept in touch with me by telephone. I looked forward to reminiscing about the old days.
Today, at the airport, Ade had three beautiful young girls with him. But our other mutual friends, Jumbo and Kenny were not there. When I asked the whereabouts of Jumbo and Kenny, Ade hushed me and told me point blank that they were dead. I felt cold all over me. He said that the airport was not the proper place and time to tell me how they died.
We drove straight to his residence, in his new, shinny, red, Cadillac Escalade jeep, with glitzy customized chrome wheels, which sparkled out of the airport, through the glory of admiring eyes, through the scoffs of jealous stares, through the glares of drivers of rickety cars, and through the gleaming eyes of wishful-thinking omoge after omoge, to the palatial mansion at the far end of 23 Road, M Close, Festac Town.
As the gateman opened the huge gate, and me busy congratulating Ade on his mansion, a mad woman standing outside the entrance in her raggedy clothes stretched her hand in solicitation for alms. I offered her a dollar and, in my best Yoruba accent, asked her ki ni oruko ee? (what is your name?). Even before she completed her answer “Eliza”, Ade snatched the dollar away from her hand shaking his head at me in disapproval. After raining abuses on Ade, and quickly gathering her tattered clothes more tightly to her body, she ran like hell, limping. We both laughed and the girls giggled.
Early the next morning, Ade stunned me with the news that he was still an automobile mechanic, a job he did long before we met at LASU. Before I could say the word mechanic, he was already putting on his rags to go to work. Just as he did on the question about how Jumbo and Kenny died, he refused to tell me why he, a graduate, was still at his auto mechanic work. He insisted that there would be a better time to explain. Now I was really spooked and my antennae went up. For the three weeks that I was there, he would perform this routine of putting on his rags to go to work Monday through Saturday. But in the evenings, every evening, he would bring out the Cadillac and, dressed up, drive into town for fun with the same three girls.
As if on cue, every evening, as the Cadillac exited the palace, Eliza, the mad woman, would come out of the nearby bushes and start yabbing Ade. On that first evening that I noticed her routine, after the dollar incident, she was rather lucid for a mad woman: “Ehee! So you don wear your good clothes again to go drink beer for town; where ya rags dey? Rags dey make money, agbada dey enjoy…” And turning towards me, she asked Nibo lo ti wa? (where are you from?). Mo wa lati
America
(I am from
America
) I answered. She held her nose, looking me up and down.
“Se dandaa ni o? (How are you?)” I asked her. She completely ignored me and started dancing. She was not singing; I could not hear any music; but she was dancing. I assumed that some spirit was playing some silent music for her. As Ade, the girls, and I drove off, and with the passenger side window down, I could hear her shouting after Ade “E jowo, fun mi owo na (Abeg give me the money) E jowo, fun mi owo na. E jowo, fun mi owo na ” over and over until her voice slowly faded into the distance.
“Are you sure this woman is mad?” I asked Ade that first evening; “She sure makes a lot of sense for a mad person.”
“Don’t mind her”, Ade said, “If she were not crazy she’d have changed those rags she’s been wearing ever since she took up residence at the corner of my house two years ago. One of these days …” then he released a volley of curses and profanity towards Eliza, invoking Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder and lightening, on her head.
I would ordinarily not have focused on the irony of the rags that Ade wore to work in comparison to the festive formal evening clothes but for Eliza, the mad woman. I began to see how the rags endured suffocating dirt, oil, dust, wears and tears, while working hard with the mechanic to make money. The rags endured the unruly taunts and sneers of children who liken them to madmen’s uniform. Who did the mechanic take with him to enjoy the money? He took agbada or dashiki,
riga
, or tuxedo or a suit, none of which participated in making the money. The work rags were left on the ground near the front door of the house. I amused myself thinking about the irony.
For three weeks I left Ade’s house in the mornings to attend an international Wuruwuru Advanced Youths Organization (WAYO) conference downtown
Lagos
. In those three weeks I watched him leave the house with the girls as I came back from the conference in the evenings. At the end of the third week, I could not take it anymore. I had to ask Ade what he was hiding, about Jumbo and Kenny, about this mechanic job. My respect for his privacy was overcome by my fear and intense curiosity.
I cornered him early in the morning. “Omo, what did you say happened to Jumbo and Kenny? And second, why are you still doing this mechanic work which you were doing before we all got admission to LASU? How can you …”
He asked me to sit down. Then he made me promise to help him out of what he called his bondage. Then he told me a chilling tale. He asked me if I recalled that while we were at LASU that all four of us, he, Jumbo, Kenny, and I had gone to see a Babalawo. I told him that I recalled that event very well and that I also recalled that we ran away after the Babalawo had told us to make a wish for wealth. Ade told me that after leaving LASU he, Jumbo and Kenny had gone back to see the Babalawo. They had been told they could make one wish each and only one wish each. Their wishes would be granted but the Babalawo had warned them that, as a condition of granting their wishes, whatever job they held last must remain their permanent lifetime job or they would die. He said that all three became rich afterwards but Kenny and Jumbo, who had been magazine vendors, decided, upon becoming rich, to ignore the conditions and started working for insurance companies. They were both dead within a week of starting the new jobs.
I told Ade that the way our friends died might just be coincidental and unrelated to the condition. He would not hear of it. He did not want to die, he said, and could not take the risk of changing occupation. Besides, he said, he had gone back to the Babalawo to confirm what he suspected. Did I want him to die? I said no. Would I help him out of the bondage? Fearfully and hesitantly I nodded my head and asked him how, my heart pounding. He closed the door and whispered to me that I could use my own one wish to wish away the condition placed on him. He would give me the One Million Naira to pay the Babalawo… that made sense to me but what if I wanted to change my line of work afterwards. Ade told me that all I would need would be to get someone else to wish away the condition placed on me. I felt trapped. Why, I thought, did I promise to help my friend out of this bondage? Why? ....
That evening, we arrived at the makeshift shrine, opposite Oshodi Main Market, in Oshodi, where, as Ade had informed me, the Babalawo engaged in his usual divination.
“Baba, we greet you”, said Ade, prostrating and forcing me to do the same with a gentle nudge to my back. Frankly, I wanted to run out of there as soon as I stepped in. I thought I had lost my senses like Eliza the mad woman for agreeing to go there. I was in stupor. I was afraid.
“Come on in, have a seat. In the mighty name of Orunmila I greet the visitors. My, oh my, oh my, oh my, who is it that wants a wish?” he asked as he threw some divination seeds on a round wooden tray.
“My seeds tell me that the fat one has been here before at least twice… am I correct?”
Ade acknowledged that he had indeed been there three times.
“And the tall one seems to have seen me before but in another location some years ago? Am I correct?” Ade nudged me with his shoulders and I quickly answered that I had indeed seen him more than ten years earlier when I was a student. I was now wide-awake but still fearful.
“One of you has a wish. Yes, the tall one has a wish. Remember, in my house, you get only one wish. One wish! One wish! One wish! And you live with it forever doing the same work in the same profession in which you were before the wish. Do you understand? Do you understand? Do you understand?”
Ade answered that we both understood. Now I really wanted to run but my legs were numb. My God, what had I agreed to do!
“You may leave now or make your wish. Only one wish and it will be granted. The only condition, in my house, for granting your wish is that you will not change occupation for the rest of your life. If you change to another line of work, if you do, if you do ….ah, you will not last unless you get another man to come before me and use his own one wish to wish away the condition placed on you. You may leave now; otherwise, once you start, you can’t go back. Quick! Quick! What will it be?” He clapped his hands.
I started to get up and Ade gently pressed me down and pushed the bag containing the One Million Naira into my hands.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Baba,” I said, “ eem, eem I want to help my friend here with my one wish because...” I started to stammer and he finished my sentence for me.
“You want to wish away the condition placed on him. Very good, you have started on the road and you cannot go back now; but you have not shown me your payment. Where is the One Million Naira? That is my standard fee.”
I put the bag of money on the floor and pushed it towards him. He jumped up very fast.
“No, I will not take it; that is not your money! My seeds tell me that the money is not yours. You must use your own money. Orunmila will not accept it. Come back tomorrow at exactly 5:00 O’clock in the evening with your own money. Let your friend pay you back later but the initial payment to me must come from the person making the wish - you.” He pushed the bag of money back to me. He showed us the door and turned his back at us.
By now, I was shivering like jello. I was shivering like leaves of the cassava plant. I was shivering like a feverish child. I was shivering like those days, in high school, that the principal ordered me to his office. As we drove back to
Festac
Town
, Ade, apologetically asked me to forget the whole thing. He did not want any part of it anymore, he said.
Me? Forget the whole thing? Now that I was halfway into making a wish? Now that the Babalawo had said I had reached the point of no return? Now that Jumbo and Kenny had died because they did not heed the Babalawo’s warning? Me, forget the whole thing? No way. I pleaded with Ade to let me complete the process. I did not want to die. Besides, I had more than Five Million Naira which I had intended to invest as a deposit on a house that Ade and I had discussed by phone before I arrived
Lagos
. Ade relented and promised to give me back the money.
I could not wait for 5:00 O’clock the next day. Because Ade would not go with me, I took my wallet and my passport, caught a taxi to Oshodi, my heart pounding, carrying a bag of my own One Million Naira. When I got there, the Babalawo made me wait for two hours for some unknown reason while he kept talking on the phone behind a cardboard demarcation.
Eventually, he came out and made me say three times “I wish the condition placed on my friend Ade after his wish would be released”. I said it three times. He took my money, shook my hands, and waved me goodbye. I was relieved and felt better.
I caught another taxi back to
Festac
Town
.
When I arrived, the front gate was open. I walked in. Ade, the gate man, and the Cadillac were gone! Even the mad woman was gone! The lights were out. The whole palace was empty. As I walked back out I saw a man that I had never seen before walking out of the boys quarters approach me and ask me what I wanted. I told him that I was looking for the owner of the house and my suitcase.
“You can leave now, sir,” he said, politely. “This is rental property owned by a corporation. If you’re looking for the last person who rented this house, the man who drove the Cadillac jeep, he moved out about two hours ago. The house is empty… please leave so I can lock the gate…”
My head was now spinning like hell. Thinking fast, I caught another taxi back to Oshodi to confront the Babalawo. When I got there I could see that the makeshift shrine was empty; as I stepped out of the taxi, I was stunned to see the Cadillac of my friend Ade speeding off with Ade in the drivers seat; with the assistance of the street lights I could recognize, inside the Cadillac, the faces of the Babalawo, the alleged mad woman, the gate man, the three girls, and my old friends Jumbo and Kenny all laughing and waving at me.
As a wayo dude myself, I, instinctively, and with profound respect, raised my hat to them in admiration as they sped off …
WayoGuy@aol.com
A
Washington
,
D.C.
attorney
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Posted by Robot| 08.03.2007 07:33